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From: bch@unc.UUCP (Byron Howes )
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Equal Work
Message-ID: <5906@unc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Sep-83 09:57:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.5906
Posted: Thu Sep 22 09:57:37 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Sep-83 03:55:54 EDT
References: cca.5750
Lines: 40

I seem to be getting a great deal of flak for my statment so...

The statistic is very clear.  On average, women doing the same work
as men earn $0.59 for every $1.00 men earn.  This is not "essentially
similar" work, but the *same* work, by proportion of time spent at
various tasks.  If you don't believe the statistic, then you are
probably as shocked about it as I was when I first heard it.  It is,
however, a valid statistic.

There are whole bunches of people in his world who do the same work.
Salespersons, clerks, garbage collectors, even programmers.  While
your work experience may not verify this, that only indicates that
high-tech industries (certainly an overrepresented subsector of
society on this network) have a much greater degree of specialization
and division of labor than the rest of the working world.  We are,
however, a small minority.  The majority of people in this country
work in occupational categories which include large numbers of people,
having the same duties and performing the same tasks.  These are
the people we are talking about.

Education, experience, or whatever are attributes of people, not
of jobs.  If I hire a person to frob widgets I am going to pay
that person the same as any other person I would hire to frob widgets,
whether they have only a third-grade education or a Ph.D. from
Cal Tech.  Where personal attributes *will* influence me is if I
need to hire a supervisor of widget-frobbers, in which case I will
hire (or promote) the person best qualified to fill the job.  That,
however, is *different* work.

The excuse that a person is less experienced, less educated, is less
likely to be a long-term employee or whatever, used to pay a person
less than another person doing the same work is an old technique of
overt discrimination.  As I said, I saw it 20 years ago and I still
see it today.  To me, the mentality that supports it is the same
mentality that wants to "protect" women by limiting their rights and
freedoms in today's society.

					Byron Howes
					UNC - Chapel Hill
					duke!unc!bch