Good day fellow Vizzed members. Its been a while since I made a thread, and I think this is an interesting topic to talk about. So I'm sure some of you know or don't know that women in the United States (and most likely around the world as well) make far less money compared to men. If I remember correctly, the statistics show that for every 1 dollar a man makes, women only make between .70-.80 cents. While .20 difference doesn't seem that big of a deal, if you were to apply the difference to a salary of 45,000; a woman would only earn 31,500-36,000. So there is a huge difference.



Now I'm sure that all of you would agree that women should be given equal pay and make the same amount compared to man, but there is an underlying problem that most people don't seem to recognize.



Let us assume that we are defining "equality" as women earning the same amount of money compared to men in the same professional field (we can debate what Equality means, and I will be posting a question about it). Now I'm sure that a fair amount of people would say that under this definition women's pay should increase to the levels that men make. But, if we are defining "equality" as women earning the same amount of money compared to men in the same professional field; wouldn't you agree that reducing men's pay to the levels that women make also fit our definition of equality?



Given that the business field (which is most likely were the highest wage-gap exists) cares very little for its employee's (to a degree) and its primary objective is to maximize profits; it would appear the reducing men's pay to the levels that women make is the more rational outcome if the Government says that men's and women's pay must be the same. The companies would do this because they get to increase their profits by paying men less (which if you apply the figures I mentioned before, they save about 10,000 dollars a year) and yet they would be okay under the Government's law because both men and women make the same amount (although the way this was achieved, was not the desired way).



Basically, if we are defining "Equality" in that both sides have equal share of something, people would say that the suppressed people should have their rights/wages increased to the levels that the "privileged" (I say this loosely). However I would argue that the same results would be achieved by reducing the rights of the "privileged" to the levels of the rights/wages of the suppressed.



So here are some questions for this debate.



1. Should Women earn the same amount of money compared to men in the same field (assume hypothetically that men and women have the same amount of experience, work ethic, etc).



2. How should we define Equality? How does today's society define equality?



3. Can equality be achieved by suppressing the rights of the privileged to the levels of those who are not privileged?



4. How do we achieve equal pay for women?

Edit: Okay there has been some issue with regards to what I mean by privileged. By privileged I mean that by suppressing the rights of those who have rights, you achieve equality in the fact that everybody is equal because they all don't have rights. For example, LGBT community wants to have the right to marry that heterosexuals do. So instead of LGBT community getting their rights increased, you just suppress the right to marriage that heterosexual couples have and that way both the LGBT and heterosexual couples are equal in that nobody has the right to marry. I know that this is a terrible example in practice, but this is a good example in turns by what I mean by question 3.

Oldschool41 :

1. Yes. Pay should relate to employee loyalty (how long have you been with the company), quantity of work completed, and quality of work completed. Gender should not be a factor.

2. Equality is "equal to equals and unequal to unequals". If I do nearly no work on the job, I should be paid less (unequal) than my coworkers. My work is unequal to the others. If my work is equal, I should be paid equal for the work. If I've only been at the company for 2 years, I am not equal to the guy who has been there 20 years. Society, however, defines equality as "the same/similar". A woman generally cannot lift as much as a man. This means a woman teamster would generally be comparatively unequal. According to my definition, because the woman does not do the same amount of work, she would be paid differently. According to society, she should be paid the same.

3. The question is too broad. In the job site, the "privileged" are the manager and their friends. The only way to combat that is for the public to boycott. If we're talking about large scale (WalMart), then the "privileged" are the stock holders, upper executives, and their friends. Public boycott is impractical at this stage, so taxes/fines would be necessary to curb any sort of injustice done by the company.

4. Time. Right now is economic depression. Companies attempt to make the largest profit possible, so they hire workers for the lowest price possible. Women get paid less because companies can do it. Women in the work force is a relatively new thing, so with time the market will balance and all workers will be paid the least possible, regardless of gender.

I feel the discriminatory minimum wage is a more pressing issue.
In the uk there are 4 wage levels.
Apprentice, under 18, under 21 and over 21.
This effects far more people and is completely wrong.
The only just factor in wage calculation, full stop, is experience.

firstly im going to assume you are referring to America with these figures you placed. now, ive worked in this country for about 12 or so years, and i can say without a doubt, that there is damn good reason for women being payed less than men. 


while not ALL woman are inferior workers, i have noticed that most female employees spend the majority of their time standing around doing nothing, laughing and joking with other female (and desperate for female attention, male) co workers, disrespecting customers/clients, assuming that they deserve the same pay as anyone with a penis just because "herp da derp equal pay", trying to start fights with female employees who get more attention than them, and treating any employee whos actually there to do their job, not make friends or find a new life partner, like some kind of leper.

pay should be based ENTIRELY on your work performance. your experience in other jobs, your time at a company, etc. should not even be considered. none of those things have anything to do with your actual performance.

equality is something that cannot be achieved. everyone is different, everyone performs differently, and when someones a douche at work, they dont deserve equal treatment nor pay. as such humans, being natural douches, cannot obtain equality unless they are willing to overlook everything wrong that everybody does.

what exactly are the "privileged" in your opinion? people with lots of money? people with a better job than you? people with more and better skills than you? all of them have a "privilege" over you, but its your own fault in each case.

by NOT letting women think they can just do whatever they want and get away with it because they are women. which is how America works. women can do no wrong, and every man is satan. so basically, pay them based on work quality and attitude at work and attendance(fire anyone who has poor attendance), and STOP paying them the same because they said "im a woman! equal pay! rawr! feminism! you cant hit me im a girl! equal rights!"

TetraDigm : By "privileged" I mean those who have more rights/benefits then others. So in this example, men are "privileged" because they earn more money than women. But I mostly used "privileged" to say that a certain group has more rights/benefits than other groups. Another example could be how LBGT community wants the same rights to marry like heterosexuals do. So instead of expanding the rights of LBGTs, you can suppress the marriage rights of heterosexuals so that everybody is equal in that nobody can get married (this is a terrible example as the odds of such a thing happening are mathematically insufficient, but this might help explain my privileged comment".

My economics teacher touched upon this subject and made a few arguments for the companies not paying women the same amount as men. I can only think of 2 at the moment, but they were:

1) Women are more likely to take extended time off work. This is primarily because they are the most likely to take a maternity leave. With that being the case, it doesn't make much sense for a company's perspective to pay someone who is more likely to spend less time at work equal to someone who is not as likely. 

2) Another reason for the pay difference can be found in the labor category of work. Whether you like it or not, men are biologically stronger than women. With this in mind, a women in construction or moving field is going to be paid less, due to the fact that she can't lift as much or lift as long as a guy (most likely). A smart company recognizes this and decides to pay someone that can do the job better more than someone who can't. 

   Obviously this is not true in all cases. Not all women will have a baby, and some men might take time off work to be with their child. There are certainly women who are stronger than men in the world also, but we are talking about a gender, and not individuals. 

To answer your questions (assuming this is for what is best for the company):

1) Depends on the field and whether the women plans on having a child/children

2) Payment Equity (because that is what we are really talking about) is based off the quality and rate of work from the employed individuals

3) This question is based on the assumption that equity is equal payment for all. So based off my answer, no, due to the very fact that suppressing someone's payment to be equal to another is not a fair representation of the quality and rate of the worker.
 
4)  It's difficult to answer this, as my definition of "equal" is different than others. I also don't know how productive the women are compared to men, so I'm afraid I can't honestly answer this. The only thing I can think of without knowing all the facts is to prevent sexism...that's really all I can think of