Questioning the gender gap
Recent data has shown that the gap between men’s and women’s median incomes in Utah is the largest of any state in the US. This phenomenon, commonly called the “gender gap”, has caused outspoken criticism across the beehive state as well as nationwide.
Donna McAleer, a 2014 candidate for US Congress from Utah’s 1st Congressional District, called it an “embarrassment.” Kara Luke, an unemployed USU graduate with three bachelors degrees, went even further on Tuesday as she protested outside the Taggart Student Center, voicing her belief that Utah “hates women.”
Personally, I don’t believe that the gender gap is a valid issue.
While I do not doubt the reliability of the results, the validity of the conclusions drawn from them must be questioned. Yes, men make more than women. But can anyone out there prove that it’s not due to a simple difference in career choice? I’d argue that this is more than just a possibility; it’s nearly definite.
Think about it. We live in a society where women flock toward majors such as elementary education, nursing and communications, while men gravitate toward business and engineering. Could you reasonably expect the gender gap to not be this large? It’s only logical that men would make more. The careers that they’ve traditionally chosen, for one reason or another, are higher paying.
Additionally, how many women out there work part time in order to be home when their children return from school? Surely this difference in hours worked also plays a role. Nonetheless, these explanations are only two among many.
Take notice that I don’t believe women are incapable of being CEO’s, engineers, or any other occupation typically taken by men — I fully believe they are. My argument is only that they don’t choose to with as high a frequency.
Sometimes, as McAleer ironically cited in the Huffington Post, women choose to not even attend college. The motives for these choices, whether to forgo college or elect a lower-paying major, are highly varied. Culture, religion and personal preference all play a part. The bottom line is that it’s a matter of choice. In Utah, it just so happens that the cultural and religious tendencies influencing these choices are particularly widespread.
The question we should ask ourselves is why highly educated women such as McAleer and Duke can’t see this. To me, it’s so obvious I nearly didn’t write this column; I’m sure many of you feel the same. Honestly, I believe that they do understand, but recognizing this wouldn’t satisfy their personal agendas.
Feminists and lovers of equality everywhere should be offended that some people would damage the credibility of valid issues, like workplace discrimination and equal pay for equal work, in the name of a misconstrued and misinterpreted ploy like the “gender gap.”
Levi Henrie is a sophomore majoring in economics and international studies from St. George, Utah. He can be contacted at levi.henrie@aggiemail.usu.edu.
Good point. Here are some of my thoughts:
The studies done on the “Gender Gap” are poorly designed. Sure there may be a “Gender Gap”, but is that necessarily a sexist thing?
Employers pay more for experience and education – something that these women may not have as much as men. For example, if an employer has two employees for the same position, one a man and one a woman. The man has 2 years more experience than the woman, and is therefore paid more for his skills.
I believe this situation is more evident in Utah, where many women likely do not have the same experience and education as men. A “Gender Gap” should be a natural result. It is not Sexist, it is simply common sense.
The moral of the story – watch your statistics and studies, kids.
Okay so clearly you don’t understand the meaning of the Gender Gap because the amount of time and the job that women work is despite the point. The Gender Gap is when men are making more money working the same job for the same amount of time as women do. The Gender Gap wouldn’t compare a first grade teacher to the CEO of Google. Obviously the latter would make more money, despite gender. The argument of the Gender Gap is saying is that if you compare two of the same position, say a corporate research analyst, where a male and female work the EXACT same job, the Man will most likely be getting paid much more than the woman for gender related reasons. Obviously this is sexual discrimination and it’s a big issue, and I don’t really appreciate this column just brushing it off and blaming women for their unequal pay. I know you try to argue that there are cultural reasons for this pay gap but you can’t place all women in this typical Utah culture bubble, not all women want the same thing and many do choose those higher paying career paths. Getting paid less for the same job as a man is definitely not a choice…I don’t even want to know your opinions on marriage equality or abortion, you’d probably gather incorrect information on those topics as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/upshot/the-pay-gap-is-because-of-gender-not-jobs.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0
I think you need to do more research. You are citing averages across all jobs and differences in job types. When comparing wages for the same job, women earn less than men. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/upshot/the-pay-gap-is-because-of-gender-not-jobs.html
KingJay here’s how McAleer defined the gender gap http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donna-mcaleer/utah-gender-pay-gap_b_4725592.html
I think that’s what the editorial was responding too. The feminists themselves defined it this way of comparing whatever jobs to each other (Herman). If there really were cases of doing the exact same job of course it would be an issue. But that’s a problem in and of itself because…
Even when there are studies cited saying that men and women in the same jobs are compared do these studies take into account things like tenure? Or doing the EXACT same job? Maybe they compare an orthopedic surgeon vs. a neurosurgeon. There are a million flaws with the different studies people always want to think of as gospel