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From: lmf@druca.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Fear and Loathing in ...
Message-ID: <857@druca.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 16-May-84 15:25:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: druca.857
Posted: Wed May 16 15:25:49 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 17-May-84 03:36:23 EDT
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<>
I am responding to the question of how much of pay inequality is caused
by women being in jobs "below their abilities".  True there are many
women who are underemployed.  Another important consideration is that many
women are underPAID.  I don't consider women who work as nurses, teachers,
childcare providers, etc. underemployed, they are however underpaid.
In general, in the USA, work that has traditionally been done by women does not
pay well.  This does not have anything to do with how challenging or valuable
the work is.

This became even more obvious to me when I had a roommate who was working in
a daycare center. She had a degree in elementary education and was spending
her days working with 10 or more two year olds.  She was making, you guessed 
it, minimum wage.  As far as I'm concerned she had a much more challenging,
important job than I had as a computer programmer.  I also would not have
traded her even if I could keep my salary.  I become catatonic after 15 
minutes with that many 2 year olds.  

There are lots of challenging, important, valuable, necessary occupations that 
don't pay and a disproportionate number of them are primarily done by women.
That's why pay equity and comparable worth are such important issues.

				Lori Fuller