Tag Archives: Equity Feminism

Commentary

Carrie Lukas does the math on the male-female pay gap

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Carrie Lukas
Carrie Lukas

A popular article by Carrie Lukas, writing in the Wall Street Journal. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

The unemployment rate is consistently higher among men than among women. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 9.3% of men over the age of 16 are currently out of work. The figure for women is 8.3%. Unemployment fell for both sexes over the past year, but labor force participation (the percentage of working age people employed) also dropped. The participation rate fell more among men (to 70.4% today from 71.4% in March 2010) than women (to 58.3% from 58.8%). That means much of the improvement in unemployment numbers comes from discouraged workers—particularly male ones—giving up their job searches entirely.

Men have been hit harder by this recession because they tend to work in fields like construction, manufacturing and trucking, which are disproportionately affected by bad economic conditions. Women cluster in more insulated occupations, such as teaching, health care and service industries.

[…]The Department of Labor’s Time Use survey shows that full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men. One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more. This one fact alone accounts for more than a third of the wage gap.

Choice of occupation also plays an important role in earnings. While feminists suggest that women are coerced into lower-paying job sectors, most women know that something else is often at work. Women gravitate toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility. Simply put, many women—not all, but enough to have a big impact on the statistics—are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics.

Men, by contrast, often take on jobs that involve physical labor, outdoor work, overnight shifts and dangerous conditions (which is also why men suffer the overwhelming majority of injuries and deaths at the workplace). They put up with these unpleasant factors so that they can earn more.

Recent studies have shown that the wage gap shrinks—or even reverses—when relevant factors are taken into account and comparisons are made between men and women in similar circumstances. In a 2010 study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30, the research firm Reach Advisors found that women earned an average of 8% more than their male counterparts. Given that women are outpacing men in educational attainment, and that our economy is increasingly geared toward knowledge-based jobs, it makes sense that women’s earnings are going up compared to men’s.

My favorite book on feminism, economics and marriage is Carrie Lukas’ “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism“. If you don’t have the book, then please go out and buy one for you, and one for a young, unmarried woman in your life. Books like this one are for women who are serious about making their marriages last. And men can read them, too – so that we’ll know what to look for in women. There is nothing more attractive to a marriage-minded man than a fiscally conservative woman.

Here’s an interview of Carrie Lukas conducted by famous men’s rights activist Bernard Chapin. The next time you see men reading the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, take a closer look. On the inside of that magazine we are often concealing a copy of Carrie Lukas’ book. When Carrie Lukas talks about economics and policy, men think about marriage.

News

Who is really responsible for the abolition of marriage? Men or feminists?

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Consider this analysis of the roots of feminism by a moderate pro-abortion equity feminist named Wendy McElroy. In her article, she explains two views of marriage by the old-style “equity” feminists, who wanted equal opportunity, and the “gender” feminists, who want men and women to be identical in every way. The gender feminist view is the view that dominates law, policy and culture today.

So let’s look at the history of gender feminism.

Excerpt:

In the ’70s, [Germaine] Greer… declared a guerrilla war against dependency on men.

Greer called for the revolutionary breakdown of sex roles. She encouraged women to be promiscuous and otherwise sexually adventurous. She claimed that women have no idea of how much men hate them. Greer recounted stories of gang rape and brutality, and seemed to consider such violence to be the norm between men and women. Her solution: women should refuse to marry. If they do marry, they should refuse be monogamous or to accept the ‘trappings’ of marriage such as the husband’s last name, a shared tax return, a wedding ring….

[…]The truly radical assault on the family began with Kate Millett’s book Sexual Politics (1970). Although Millett’s views were extreme, she presented them in a dispassionate and well researched manner that lent her credibility. In dealing with male/female relations (‘sexual politics’), Millett dwelt almost obsessively on pornography and sado-masochistic literature, rather than on love, motherhood or successful marriages. To her, pornography seemed to epitomize the male/female relationship. And in attacking sexual politics, Millett attacked the entire structure of power in society; that is, patriarchy. Marriage was the agency that maintained the traditional pattern of man’s power over woman.

The article also mentions other widespread myths that cause women to hate and mistrust men, such as the myths about domestic violence. (She might also have brought up inflated rape statistics). But the main idea is that gender feminists wanted women to be sexually liberated, to work full-time outside the home, and to stop modesty, chastity and courtship. They wanted to destroy marriage because they believed that marriage oppressed women.

And the plan of the feminists worked. We now have a 40% out-of-wedlock birthrate, and a total breakdown of the family. Young women have problems from being raised without fathers, causing young women (and men) enormous damage. Somehow, the widespread adoption of feminist ideology caused men not to want to marry, either. Why did that happen? Well, men are not marrying because marriage is a terrible deal for men – men are not getting what they want from marriage.

Why do men marry anyway?

Men want to have the main role of protector and provider – it’s one of the main reasons why men marry. And men are more likely to want to marry if women are modest and chaste. Men want to have a special role in the home that is unique to them, and they want to be needed and valued. Men don’t want to be disarmed and have to call 911 when their home is invaded, and they want criminals and terrorists punished, too. Men want to have the freedom to teach the children right and wrong. Men don’t want to be taken to court by their wives for grounding misbehaving daughters, as in the Quebec case. Men want to keep most of what they earn, and to not pay sales tax on what they buy. Men want to choose schools for their children, and choose the amount of health care they need. Men don’t want to be forced to pay for other people – having one family is expensive enough. And men want to get respect from society for their decision to marry, to be faithful, and to raise children. And so on.

We need to get to the point where women understand exactly why men don’t want to be husbands and fathers anymore. Women need to ask themselves how to give men what they need in order to marry. Women need to investigate whether the anti-male myths that feminists want them to believe about men are really true in reality. Women need to fix their beliefs about men and study to understand men and to love men. Women need to take responsibility for their role in destroying marriage. Women need to take the initiative reverse feminism and repair the institution of marriage.

The feminist notion of marriage is that women can do anything they want at any time, and dismiss their obligations to meet the needs of their husbands and children. Men know that and that’s why they freely choose not to marry. Most women today are just not suitable for marriage and parenting because they have been too influenced by feminist ideology which is opposed to marriage. Women have to change themselves, by renewing their minds through study. Men aren’t afraid of marriage, we just don’t want to marry women who don’t understand what marriage is and aren’t ready to commit properly.