Journal ShadowBot's Journal: Another Study finds male-female pay gap... 3
Thier conclusion? Sexual discrimination!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070423/ap_on_bi_ge/pay_gap_1
How about we replace one politically correct postulate with two more widely proven theories;
1.)More aggresive negotiators earn more money, becuase they negotiate better prices.
2.)There exists a Male-Female aggressiveness gap, with men tending to be more aggressive than women.
I must confess I'm quite tired of hearing this old tune played over and over again. It's not at all that I doubt the validity of the research. It's the continual eagerness to jump to the conclusion that women are the recurrent victims! Constantly having to live in a harsh, unforgiving, male dominated world. It is repeated so often that even the meekest, most self-effacing of men begin to believe themselves evil chauvinistic demons!
As for the theories; I considered trying to prove the truth of each but I really doubt anyone with even a minimal amount of experience from in business and daily life, would realistically challenge thier validity.
So all that remains is the conclusion:
If aggressive people tend to make more money, and men tend to be more aggresive than women, it follows that men will tend to make more money than women.
Again, I doubt many people will have trouble following the logic. Still for some reason, I feel I should defend this point a bit more.
How about if I share personal experience:
I've always had the philosophy that if you don't like you current job (for whatever reason), get a new one. In addition I've found that the best way to raise your salary, especially if you're a contractor and/or are getting significantly below market rate, is to switch to an employer willing to pay more.
So when people complain to me about thier jobs that's the advice I give. The responses tend to fall into three categories.
1.)"I can't right now"
2.)"I shouldn't have to"
3.)"I'm already looking"/"I'll start looking soon"
--There's also the "Nah, it's not really that bad"/"I really like my job" response, but they are usually just complaining about normal seasonal stresses, so I'm ignoring them for these purposes.--
Interestingly, I have always found an extremely strong gender divide between these responses.
Response 1. tends to be very rare and relatively equally gender balanced when you take the personal circumstances into account. Meanwhile, response 2. is almost exclusively a female response! I honestly do not remember a single man, who complained about his job, giving me this response. Yet I can, off the top of my head, name many women who have said this with deep conviction. Response 3., on the other hand, tends to be extremely, but not purely, a male response (roughly 80/20).
Also, when talking about asking for/demanding a raise, women tend to be extremely reluctant to confront thier bosses. Even when thier pay packages are bordering on ridiculous! (For those of you who don't know, many managers apply a "Don't ask, don't get policy" as a way to keep employee costs down.)
If you decide that my personal experience doesn't count for much (Afterall, it's not as if I've met every working man or woman in the world).
The original postulates remain true.
More aggresive negotiators earn more money
Men tend to be more agressive than women
Corrected link (Score:1)
Easy solution (Score:1)