Kowtowing to Feminsists

Spring is here. Flowers are blooming. Bees are buzzing about. Tax season is over. And, I have my annual hankering for another feminist declaration of an unfair gap between male and female wages, and for federal legislation to “fix” it.

Like an oasis in the desert, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) appeared yesterday, new wage-gap study in hand, to proclaim today — April 24th — “Equal Pay Day.” Worry not: “Penis Envy Day” will be next, I predict.

Every newspaper, radio station, TV network, and news Website picked up this nonsense as if Moses had descended again from Mt. Sinai with something new. He didn’t. Not one logically and mathematically trained person reading the news release could have believed a word of it. But, who wanted to risk getting fired from a cushy media job for ignoring the feminists?

Earth to AAUW: There’s no wage gap between men and women, and, therefore, nothing to fix. Needless hysteria. The AAUW’s premise and findings are bogus, intellectually dishonest, and mathematically invalid. Alas, the eunuchs on Capitol Hill listen — kowtow — to these feminists. That’s why the rest of us, especially business owners, have to worry about the AAUW’s report.

The only way to accurately and meaningfully compare compensations is to find men and women:

• With identical educations and resumes
• With identical negotiating skills and personalities
• Performing in identical jobs, with identical workloads and requirements
• Working in identical industries AND identical companies
• Working in identical geographies
• Working the same hours for the same number of years
• Producing identical results.

Instead, the AAUW compared all men and all women, at all levels. Using terms such as “similar” and “comparable” doesn’t cut it. And, by the way, taking the arithmetic means of male and female salaries — without looking at categories, medians, and standard deviations — is meaningless. The AAUW also believes that men and women with the same degree should earn the same money. Really? That’s absurd.

Two men with the same degree don’t earn the same money. Besides, who decides what’s the “right” compensation? What is the right value of IBM stock or of your house? We live in a capitalistic country in which every person is being paid what he or she is worth, according to the deal he or she negotiated. If you don’t like your compensation, cut a better deal next round, or go work for a higher bidder.

Apples and Oranges

If we take the SKUs (shelf-keeping units) of Seven-Eleven, Safeway, and Whole Foods, and calculate an “average” price for each chain, what would those numbers mean? To someone facile with math, very little. Even a Whole Foods store in Pittsburgh won’t charge the same prices or stock all the same SKUs as the one in Los Angeles. To be cliche, we are comparing apples and oranges. Getting the picture?

One of the AAUW’s important conclusions is that more women should go into math, engineering, and the sciences. I totally agree. Not only would they earn more money, they could explain to the AAUW how to make sensible calculations.

The AAUW used data from the US Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics’ Baccalaureate and Beyond study. It covered graduating classes from 1993 and 2000 and included full- and part-time workers as well as some who had left the labor force. This is insane! Why not also include women who earn nothing while playing tennis all day at the clubs their husbands subsidize?

In reality, men and women do not work the same jobs — men are typically not dental hygienists and secretaries; women are typically not shipbuilders and Navy SEALs — and they don’t work the same hours or have the same financial pressures — men typically don’t take maternity leave, nor do women typically pay child support and alimony.

The NoNonsense Bottom Line

Because more women than men attend and graduate from college, they are changing the complexion, dynamics, and economics of the skilled workforce. Capitalism works well. Accordingly, businesses will be flexible when women leave to raise children and then want to return afterwards.

But, in exchange, women also must be flexible by accepting reduced pay for working fewer and more-erratic hours upon returning to their employers. To expect full salaries when not working at 100% capacity is ridiculous and arrogant — and unfair to the men and women who are working full-time.

If women appeal to Capitol Hill to force employers to pay them predetermined salaries, regardless of hours worked, they will find themselves mysteriously unemployed — employers will find every loophole possible not to hire them. And, if women object to this, they should start their own companies. When their female employees leave to start or raise families, they will understand the economic issues a lot better.

When all things are equal, men and women have the potential to earn the same compensation. That doesn’t mean they ever will or should. Are all things ever equal? No. Never. Anybody who consistently finds himself or herself earning less than his or her peers should take a negotiating course and work smarter and harder and faster.

If employers could, across the board, pay women less than their equally qualified male peers, many men would be unemployed. This is the same economic concept behind outsourcing — Indian engineers in Bangalore will work for 20 cents to the American engineer’s dollar and win a lot of contracts by doing so. I see no evidence of women displacing men in America because they’ll work for less money at the same level of competence.

Forget Capitol Hill. Anybody who tells women there is a wage gap and encourages them to protest for economic equality is doing them a huge disservice, teaching them how to become losers (read “A Girl’s Guide to Failure”). There are too many incredibly successful women in this country to believe in systematic, institutionalized wage disparities. Successful women earn; they don’t whine.

You want equality? Industry, smarts, savvy, speed, and effectiveness are the best equalizers of all.

About the Author

Marc H. Rudov is an internationally recognized author of 50+ articles and the books Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables™ (ISBN 9780974501727), and The Man’s No-Nonsense Guide to Women: How to Succeed in Romance on Planet Earth™ (ISBN 0974501719).

Rudov’s books, articles, blog, and podcasts are available at TheNoNonsenseMan.com.

Copyright © 2007 by Marc H. Rudov. All rights reserved.

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