On November 7th, the new gender pay gap statistics will be published by the Office of National Statistics.
As stated in previous posts (link) (link) (link) and (link), this gap is used annually by Britain's feminist fundamentalists* to call for more positive discrimination (which means negative discrimination for men) and to attack men who they portray as sexist and want women to be kept down or stay in the kitchen etc. This nonsense is then repeated ad nauseum on the BBC, The Guardian and other havens of the politically correct, with no dissenting voices.
This week, the feminists will misuse and treat the statistics in a way that would shame a GCSE statistics student. They will state that because there is a difference, it has to be caused by sexual discrimination. However, they will offer no proof because they have no proof and cannot find the proof. They make the attack based on their pre-ordained politically correct view that any difference between men and women has to be because of evil men and the evil system that men run. They would receive an Ungraded if they made this assumption in a statistics exam without any proof.
To be clear, there is a gap between women and men's pay but that is not down to sexual discrimination, it is down to lifestyle, choice and the innate difference between men and women.
Discrimination can only be proved if a woman earns less than a man working the same hours for the same company, in the same roles, with equal talent, equal experience and adds the same economic value. Any difference in these factors between any one man and any one woman is not sexual discrimination.
The difference between men and women's pay is due to:-
1. Women take time out from their careers to have children - Many women, in agreement with their male partners, choose to have children and choose to take time out from their careers to bring up their children in their early years or longer. It means they will not have income during those years. It means that men at work at the same company for example, will be earning money and when that woman goes back to work, the man will likely to be earning more because he has more experience having not had a career break. In addition, the woman's male partner will likely to be working longer hours and working hard to make up for the shortfall in family income. This is not sexism.
2. Women with children value flexibility rather than money - Many women when they have children value the flexibility of a job/career where they can drop off and pick up their children from school etc. It means they work less hours than an equivalent man and also know that there will be a trade-off economically. The effect of the feminists when they patronisingly call for more female-friendly hours is that they ignore the impact on the company and also the impact of men and childless women who have to cover and change their work patterns.
3. Men work longer hours, work in dangerous/dirty jobs and work unsocial hours - women do not and do not want to. A recent study (link) showed that women work (in employment) 175 minutes per day and men work 280 minutes and 61% in a BBC poll said that men work harder than women. In addition, men perform more dangerous and dirty jobs than women (building /maintenance trades, armed forces, engineering etc) and there is higher pay to compensate for this. In addition, more men work unsocial hours and again, they receive more pay because of this. It is not to say that women cannot do these jobs, it is just they choose not to.
4. More women work in the lower paid public sector than men and vice versa - Statistics show (link) that public sector employment is made up of 65% women and 35% men and for the private sector it is 59% men and 41% women. With pay generally being lower in the public sector than the private sector, then this will also contribute to the gap and will be nothing to do with sexual discrimination.
In conclusion, this week will be another opportunity for Britain's feminist fundamentalists to launch another unwarranted attack on men, employers and anyone who challenges their view that the gender pay gap is down to sexual discrimination. They will use the opportunity to attack men and call for more powers to be used to promote women, women-only management/training courses and undeserved promotions.
All this undermines equality of opportunity, will lead to men being discriminated against in the workplace (leapfrogged by less talented women to bump up the number of women in managerial positions because it makes the statistics looks better and denied access to extra courses/training) and of course, perpetuate the myths of Britain 's feminist fundamentalists. You have been warned.
*Minister for Women, Equal Opportunities Commission, Commision for Equality and Human Rights, The Fawcett Society, BBC, The Guardian etc
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