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Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

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Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#471
post #126
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "bottle vs breast" is about the actual milk being fed, not the delivery method. that's a very descartesian view, and from my experience and study also very unfounded. all you need to do is observe a baby while it's brestfed vs. bottlefed. would you say that you feel the same after eating off the floor (very clean of course) vs. in a nice setting? after all, it's just about the nutrients, right?

>that's a very descartesian view No, it's a summation of the debate behind the phrase "bottle vs breast". From a few links when Googling: - "Deciding whether to breastfeed or use formula for your newborn?" - "Breast vs. bottle - breast milk is the perfect food for baby, with numerous advantages over infant formula" - "Here's help deciding if you should breastfeed your baby or bottle feed with formula." Pretty much ev…

Newborns like their mothers.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea of "mandatory paternity leave", to make up for the biological asymmetry. Even if you have a stereotypical breadwinner/housewife relationship, you are legally mandated to take time off, even if you don't want to. That way you avoid the "you're allowed to take paternal leave, but real go-getters don't!" game altogether. edit: The way I see it, the responses just prove my point. "This would just make peo…

How do you know when a man in the office becomes a father? If you institute "mandatory paternity leave" then he just won't tell you. It's already illegal to ask about marital status during a job interview. Are you suggesting we change that, too? Then you risk further reducing the number of marriages in society. The whole problem with paternity leave is that there's a financial disincentive for companies to offer it a…

> How do you know when a man in the office becomes a father?

How do you know when a woman in the office is actually pregnant?

Going to go feel the bump up yourself?

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#473
post #15

This is fairly consistent with other studies. The "77%" number is arrived at by comparing the median wage of full-time male & female employees. It doesn't account for differences in industry, job title, experience, etc. It's super broad. That doesn't mean we should ignore it, but it means we need more granularity. Coming out of uni/grad school, male and female salaries are equal in comparable fields. They depart a fe…

I am sorry, foisted? Most women have a much higher nurturing instinct and most men have a much higher competitive instinct. Just observe little kids at play for a while. Biology is what it is regardless of the zeitgeist.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#474
post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every study on hormones from the last 40 years has shown conclusive evidence that hormone levels within natural occurring levels has very minimal effect on behavior, emotion and life choices. If you want to find differences between gender, look at chromosomes and their effect. The purpose of hormone is to primarily regulate the reproductive system.

Untrue, but rather than link to a few of the many studies that do show an effect, let me ask: If not hormonal, how do you explain the emotional changes in post-partum depression, menopause, pregnancy, 'roid rage, sympathetic pregancy...?

natural occurring levels. A person who injects steroids to create hormone levels with order of magnitude above normal levels is not natural occurring.

If you take a number of people with different aggressiveness (or as most studies do, look at chimps with picking orders), and you find no correlation with hormone. Add 5% more hormone, and you don't get 5% behavior. Pump in larger amount of hormone, and you see exaggeration of existing behavior. Remove all hormone, and you see a decrease behavior, but the behavior doesn't go away. Its regulative.

post-partum depression, menopause, and pregnancy all cause major changes in a person. Hormone levels, since its regulative, also change with those changes. There were for example a study at women with abnormal amount of testosterone (but within the limit of naturally occurring in humans). The first studies from 1970 showed how there was increased crime, increase aggressiveness, changes in sexuality, emotions, and the ability to keep maintain a job. When people tried to reproduce those studies, everything was shown to be false.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This stereotype of women being more emotional only fits if you do not count anger as an emotion. Interestingly, anger is the emotion most associated with dominance.

I disagree with your assessment and have nothing to say about the gender comparison. However, I would posit that it's aggression, and not anger, that is associated with dominance. Aggression is often subtle and cunning and is often considered a characteristic instead of a transient emotion. Anger, however, when it is felt is typically directly on display. I can see how, in a societal setting, the ease with which some…

No, actually, it is the direct expression of anger (raised voices, threatening gestures, intrusion into personal space, increased vascularization of face and extremities) that is associated with dominance. See for example L. Z. Tiedens, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80, among many others. People also attribute greater competence to persons willing to express anger. Passive-aggressiveness and manipulation are generally female-coded and not as high-status. I would hypothesize that once anger and its expressions (including extreme cases like 'crimes of passion') are included, the emotion gap between men and women shrinks significantly (but does not entirely disappear).

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#476
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I assume men are more emotional, do I deseve the same backlash? Fuck PC culture. (Sorry, I am in a bad mood today. Irony unintended.)

We could perhaps say that men and women both experience strong emotions but that both the emotions and the way they've been socialized to express them are quite different.

Fair enough, but your posit breaks no ground... Nothing learned.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#477
post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Untrue, but rather than link to a few of the many studies that do show an effect, let me ask: If not hormonal, how do you explain the emotional changes in post-partum depression, menopause, pregnancy, 'roid rage, sympathetic pregancy...?

natural occurring levels . A person who injects steroids to create hormone levels with order of magnitude above normal levels is not natural occurring. If you take a number of people with different aggressiveness (or as most studies do, look at chimps with picking orders), and you find no correlation with hormone. Add 5% more hormone, and you don't get 5% behavior. Pump in larger amount of hormone, and you see exagge…

This could be a long debate.

To simplify, do you know of any scientific or medical sources that say "hormones (within natural occurring levels) have very minimal effect on emotion" as you claimed earlier?

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women are at a systematic disadvantage in this scenario. What? There is a strong systematic bias in favour of single women. A man who is expected to work 60 hour weeks is much less likely to get custody of his kids. A man who takes a significant pay cut so he can spend more time with his kids can also get charged by the courts for being a dead-beat dad etc.

> A man who is expected to work 60 hour weeks is much less likely to get custody of his kids. We're not comparing custody results, here. We're comparing a full custody woman against a full custody man, across all cultures, not whatever intuition you have about custody battles (in the US, seemingly)? After doing a bit of reading[1], it's not even clear that any of your statements are true. "In other words, 91 percent…

> "In other words, 91 percent of child custody after divorce is decided with no interference from the family court system. How can there be a bias toward mothers when fewer than 4 percent of custody decisions are made by the Family Court?

I live in the UK, so I can't comment on how things are in the US, but here it's so completely understood that men won't get the kids that it's relatively rare to try. The only person I know who did (who had a partner who was quite plainly unsuitable to be a parent) still lost out. In such an environment, why would it be surprising that men don't pursue custody?

Further, if the argument goes that mothers spend more time with their children, and therefore ought in general to be more likely to get custody, I don't necessarily argue against that. What I don't understand is why it's okay to say 'Mothers typically spend more time/attention on their children, therefore it's natural that they (on average) should get custody', but it's not okay to say 'Fathers typically spend more time/attention on their careers, therefore it's natural that they (on average) earn more money'.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#479
post #15

This is fairly consistent with other studies. The "77%" number is arrived at by comparing the median wage of full-time male & female employees. It doesn't account for differences in industry, job title, experience, etc. It's super broad. That doesn't mean we should ignore it, but it means we need more granularity. Coming out of uni/grad school, male and female salaries are equal in comparable fields. They depart a fe…

It is all about how you calculate it as to what number you arrive at.

Statistics New Zealand calculates the gender wage gap by comparing the hourly earnings, rather than weekly/yearly earnings. This helps to take into account the fact that women tend to work less hours (for various reasons, and is a completely different conversation). [0]

Interestingly, the gap when comparing the entire workforce with this measure is 10% in NZ, and comparing full time employment drops to 5.6% (the lowest in the OECD) [1].

One thing that needs to be considered when comparing the wage gap is that >90% of workplace fatalities are men [2], and that men tend to work much more physical jobs, causing of greater rate in workplace injuries and problems later in life, just think of how many older people you know with hearing loss from work, and how the vast majority of them are men.

[0]: http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/income-and-work/In...

[1]: http://women.govt.nz/our-work/utilising-womens-skills/income...

[2]: https://doe.state.wy.us/lmi/0305/a1.htm

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#480
Even if there is a gender gap, should the state really be intervening to "make it more fair"?

Personally I am against anti-discrimination laws. If I start a company, and I want to employ only men (or only women or only bald eagles), that's my business. Why shouldn't I be free to choose to be productive with whoever I wish?

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