Kate posts: “I’m not a mommy-track type, but I can see the appeal. If you want to earn more money, learn to demand it. Or negotiate, to use a nicer word. When I was a producer, I was, frankly, very aggressive about $$–and almost all male bosses paid up. Female bosses were somewhat surprised that we were discussing anything as icky as pay rates.”<\/p>\n
Kay Hymowitz writes<\/a>: Early this past spring, the White House Council on Women and Girls released a much-anticipated report called Women in America. One of its conclusions struck a familiar note: today, as President Obama said in describing the document, \u201cwomen still earn on average only about 75 cents for every dollar a man earns. That\u2019s a huge discrepancy.\u201d<\/p>\n It is a huge discrepancy. It\u2019s also an exquisite example of what journalist Charles Seife has dubbed \u201cproofiness.\u201d Proofiness is the use of misleading statistics to confirm what you already believe. Indeed, the 75-cent meme depends on a panoply of apple-to-orange comparisons that support a variety of feminist policy initiatives, from the Paycheck Fairness Act to universal child care, while telling us next to nothing about the well-being of women.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t to say that all is gender-equal in the labor market. It is not. It also isn\u2019t to imply that discrimination against women doesn\u2019t exist or that employers shouldn\u2019t get more creative in adapting to the large number of mothers in the workplace. It does and they should. But by severely overstating and sensationalizing what is a universal predicament (I\u2019m looking at you, Sweden and Iceland!), proofers encourage resentment-fueled demands that no government anywhere has ever fulfilled\u2014and that no government ever will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kate posts: “I’m not a mommy-track type, but I can see the appeal. If you want to earn more money, learn to demand it. Or negotiate, to use a nicer word. When I was a producer, I was, frankly, very … Continue reading