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From: turpin@cs.utexas.EDU (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Job categories and pay scales.
Summary: Perhaps because the B's refuse to change light bulbs?
Message-ID: <18262@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Date: 20 Jun 89 06:06:54 GMT
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In article <18184@paris.ics.uci.edu>, md1y+@andrew.cmu.edu (Matthew William Daly) writes:
> A gets hired as a secretary, has a HS diploma and very little relevant
> job experience.  His starting salary is $4 an hour.
> 
> B gets hired to change light bulbs in traffic signals.  He has a HS
> diploma and little relevant job experience.  His starting salary is
> $5.75 an hour.
> 
> I can assure you that it takes no more effort or intelligence to hold
> either of these jobs, and yet B gets paid over 40% more!
> 
> The question before us is whether it is reasonable for pay equity to
> be introduced -- whether Person A should be paid $5.75 for the work he
> does.

There is, unfortunately, a large percentage of people who are
unwilling to change traffic light bulbs for $5.75/hr, but who are
quite willing to type for $4.00/hr.  Indeed, this is *why* an employer
does not need to pay $5.75/hr to hire sufficient typists, but must pay
$5.75/hr to hire sufficient people for traffic equipment maintenance.
(For the sake of argument, I am accepting the accuracy of the rates in
the example.)

To this group of people, the wage differential sends a loud message:
"If you want more money, become more flexible in the jobs you are
willing to take."  The whole reason this becomes a gender issue is
because, due to objectionable socialization, this group I have
carefully discussed in neutral terms is mostly female.

It remains the case that, as you sit in your car and observe people
working about you outside getting dirty -- working on the road,
painting buildings, changing traffic light bulbs, washing cars,
cleaning the street, pruning trees, laying pipe, patching tires,
roofing, mowing, et much cetera -- they are almost all men.  When the
average woman is just as willing to do these jobs as she is to type,
given the same pay, then, and only then, will typing have the same pay
and status as these other jobs.  As long as the average woman prefers
typing to such jobs as these requiring similar levels of skill,
typists (of both sexes) will pay for this preference in lower wage
rates.


Russell

PS: (Some people will suggest that the situation is more symmetrical
than I suggest, since men, after all, are unwilling to so such things
as typing.  This is untrue.  The day that typing pays $1/hr more than
manual labor, most of the former manual laborers who know how to type
will become typists.  The problem is that this flexibility is not now
a two-way street.  Fortunately, we raise our daughters differently
from the way our parents did, so things are changing.)