This will help these girls close the wage gap infinitely more than any "graduate program" in the liberal arts. I'm amazed a public education institution though offered such a thing.
For every split-tail that climbs into a rig or heavy equipment there's a man with a family standing around wondering what he's going to do now. In addition the guy who's job she just took put 15 years on the business end of a shovel before they allowed him the soft job. Is she going to earn her spot? Hell no she won't.
The easiest way to tell is the hiring policies of companies. If it really were possible to lower your wages paid by 15-20% and have exactly the same amount of work done just by hiring the other demographic.... Then businesses would be fools not to do it. Their competitors would have them put out of business in a matter of weeks.
A business generally is very discriminatory. But it is the color green that they base the discrimination on. If they can boost profits/undercut competition/ corner the market they absolutely will. If women made 15-20% less than men, then the workforce would be comprised of mainly women, with a few men on the side.
The "Wage gap" is a fiction based more on the choices of the people involved. The types of jobs they go into, their experience/time on the job, etc etc.
It's not so much about women going into heavy equipment, it's that the workplace has to take a totally different tack in dealing with them, and the effort to push women into these places is a bit of politically correct folderol. If a woman wants to do that job, fine - but working construction isn't really pulling levers, except maybe occasionally; even heavy equipment operators have to do some very heavy duty maintenance, or they are a drag on the business. Some women can do it on their own, and that's wonderful; most can't, and that's no slur on women, it's just a consequence of physical sex differences.
It's the same problem I saw in the Army - we could ask a couple female troops to go drag a few track sections up the length of the motor pool. One section = 240 pounds. We could detail one male soldier to do it - he'd get a rope, tie the sections together, lift, then be dragging 480 pounds (total) of track up the tarmac to the tracked vehicles. We'd have to detail at least 4 women (if we'd had that many) to do it and make sure they had a vehicle to get it up the hill. Yeah, women could 'do the job,' sort of, as long as we were clear that there were some things in the line of business where we couldn't expect any help from them. It was like being 2-3 soldiers down in staffing sometimes. It's great that some women can pull the trigger fine; but that doesn't help a lot with digging up limestone dirt to make fighting positions or bunkers or to fill sandbags, or to carry a heavy machine gun around inside an emplacement, or to hump extra ammo cans or mortar rounds. So we pretend the real job is just trigger pulling, and let some men carry the extra load...
If you ever watch Ice Road Truckers, the trucking companies have been over backwards to give women a break and get them on the road. Yet it's still a huge challenge for the women to do physical tasks that are routine for the men. Repairs men are expected to do on the road mean a (costly and time consuming) shop visit for the women. Nobody is supposed to notice this or say anything about it... One wonders how long the polite little fictions will survive our economic free fall. I suppose "right up to the bitter end" for the true believers but a lot of the rest of us are shaking our heads.
"For every split-tail that climbs into a rig or heavy equipment there's a man with a family standing around wondering what he's going to do now."
That's a really stupid theory of employment. Jobs are not a finite resource. Never have been. Never will be.
It used to be that half of the population of the US was involved in agriculture. Now it's less than 2%, thanks to mechanization and advances in agricultural techniques. Somehow we don't have 48% unemployment.
It's not a theory, it's a fact...of some sort. In any case I'm not trying to be clever I just wanted to use the "split-tail" derogatory. Feminism must be crushed.
I read your book. It's what I needed to hear. I would lay awake at night and constantly think about what major would be meaningful to society. I didn't realize that the worthless degrees were fooling me this whole time. After reading your book, I decided that I wanted an engineering degree, but my dad was against it because I am female. My father, who is an engineer himself said that construction workers, business partners, etc., won't take a woman seriously, thus crippling my potential earnings. He claims engineering is a MAN's job. Is this true regarding my possible future earnings? Can the wage gap for engineers ever be closed? Is there truth to what my dad thinks?
For every split-tail that climbs into a rig or heavy equipment there's a man with a family standing around wondering what he's going to do now. In addition the guy who's job she just took put 15 years on the business end of a shovel before they allowed him the soft job. Is she going to earn her spot? Hell no she won't.
ReplyDeleteThere really is no such thing as a "wage gap"
ReplyDeleteThe easiest way to tell is the hiring policies of companies. If it really were possible to lower your wages paid by 15-20% and have exactly the same amount of work done just by hiring the other demographic.... Then businesses would be fools not to do it. Their competitors would have them put out of business in a matter of weeks.
A business generally is very discriminatory. But it is the color green that they base the discrimination on. If they can boost profits/undercut competition/ corner the market they absolutely will. If women made 15-20% less than men, then the workforce would be comprised of mainly women, with a few men on the side.
The "Wage gap" is a fiction based more on the choices of the people involved. The types of jobs they go into, their experience/time on the job, etc etc.
Why yes, help girls in every way, in every field before those nasty boys steal their ambitions from them:
ReplyDeletehttp://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/why-women-have-an-advantage-in-technology/
"That's the beauty of reaching out to girls before they have hit high school and decided some jobs are just not for them, Foster said. "
http://www.good.is/post/girls-think-they-re-smarter-than-boys/
It's not so much about women going into heavy equipment, it's that the workplace has to take a totally different tack in dealing with them, and the effort to push women into these places is a bit of politically correct folderol. If a woman wants to do that job, fine - but working construction isn't really pulling levers, except maybe occasionally; even heavy equipment operators have to do some very heavy duty maintenance, or they are a drag on the business. Some women can do it on their own, and that's wonderful; most can't, and that's no slur on women, it's just a consequence of physical sex differences.
ReplyDeleteIt's the same problem I saw in the Army - we could ask a couple female troops to go drag a few track sections up the length of the motor pool. One section = 240 pounds. We could detail one male soldier to do it - he'd get a rope, tie the sections together, lift, then be dragging 480 pounds (total) of track up the tarmac to the tracked vehicles. We'd have to detail at least 4 women (if we'd had that many) to do it and make sure they had a vehicle to get it up the hill. Yeah, women could 'do the job,' sort of, as long as we were clear that there were some things in the line of business where we couldn't expect any help from them. It was like being 2-3 soldiers down in staffing sometimes. It's great that some women can pull the trigger fine; but that doesn't help a lot with digging up limestone dirt to make fighting positions or bunkers or to fill sandbags, or to carry a heavy machine gun around inside an emplacement, or to hump extra ammo cans or mortar rounds. So we pretend the real job is just trigger pulling, and let some men carry the extra load...
If you ever watch Ice Road Truckers, the trucking companies have been over backwards to give women a break and get them on the road. Yet it's still a huge challenge for the women to do physical tasks that are routine for the men. Repairs men are expected to do on the road mean a (costly and time consuming) shop visit for the women. Nobody is supposed to notice this or say anything about it... One wonders how long the polite little fictions will survive our economic free fall. I suppose "right up to the bitter end" for the true believers but a lot of the rest of us are shaking our heads.
"For every split-tail that climbs into a rig or heavy equipment there's a man with a family standing around wondering what he's going to do now."
ReplyDeleteThat's a really stupid theory of employment. Jobs are not a finite resource. Never have been. Never will be.
It used to be that half of the population of the US was involved in agriculture. Now it's less than 2%, thanks to mechanization and advances in agricultural techniques. Somehow we don't have 48% unemployment.
"That's a really stupid theory of employment."
ReplyDeleteIt's not a theory, it's a fact...of some sort. In any case I'm not trying to be clever I just wanted to use the "split-tail" derogatory. Feminism must be crushed.
I thought this was going to refer to that Sugar Daddy/ Sugar Baby article that's going around.
ReplyDeleteI read your book. It's what I needed to hear. I would lay awake at night and constantly think about what major would be meaningful to society. I didn't realize that the worthless degrees were fooling me this whole time. After reading your book, I decided that I wanted an engineering degree, but my dad was against it because I am female. My father, who is an engineer himself said that construction workers, business partners, etc., won't take a woman seriously, thus crippling my potential earnings. He claims engineering is a MAN's job. Is this true regarding my possible future earnings? Can the wage gap for engineers ever be closed? Is there truth to what my dad thinks?
ReplyDelete