Well, my response would depend on what's your angle. Are you saying that in both cases it's an issue of discrimination? In which case, I agree.
No, I'm saying that if women are paid less on average because they take more time off work on average, then that isn't discrimination at all. It is simply people choosing to spend their time doing one thing instead of another. If I take 2 years off of work to backpack around Europe and Asia, I should not expect to be rewarded upon my return with a new promotion. If you want to argue that women taking time off of work for family instead of men is a societal pressure that should be changed, fine, I'd be inclined to agree with that even, but societal pressures needing to be changed is not the same things as workplace discrimination, those are two separate arguments.
However, if your angle is that it's somehow more justified to pay women less because they choose to have families (as if men don't), then I'd say what's deeply stupid is your position.
It is
absolutely justified to pay ANYONE who takes significant amounts of time off of work less. People cannot expect to earn raises or promotions when they are not actually working. People who do not like this can choose not to have kids. Or they can choose to adopt kids that are already old enough to not need constant parenting. Or they can choose to hire a nanny/daycare. People who want to have kids that are biologically theirs and want to stay at home to raise them themselves cannot expect to be able to do that and still advance their career at the same pace as people who choose to focus on work.
Do you think wages across the market are determined strictly on a case-by-case basis, or are there likely to be trends?
I think it's self evident that both things are likely to be true. Wages in fact are determined on a case by case basis, as anyone who has been in the workplace knows. Unless you are entry-level, you negotiate with employers over salary, over benefits, over time off, etc. Those who work harder are given bigger raises than those who aren't. But that doesn't mean there won't also be trends based on what society collectively has determined is valuable versus what isn't.
Women are presupposed by others to be homemakers and to have to take time off their careers. And even when they don't take "years off", taking a few months of maternity leave for the sake of their children, themselves and their husbands counts against them too.
Again two separate arguments. Women being presupposed to be the homemakers is again something that I agree should be talked about, and men being the primary homemakers needs to stop being heavily stigmatized. I would love to see more men taking on the active parent role. Where I disagree is your assumption that maternity leave counting against women is somehow unjust. Sorry, but that's just how biology works, women carry the children. Women who don't like that have options. They can, again, adopt, or they can find a surrogate. If they want to carry the child themselves, that is the opportunity cost they have chosen. And I frankly have no sympathy for the position. I had to lose 6 months of productive working time to have chemo when I got lymphoma. That wasn't even a choice the way pregnancy is, it just happened to me randomly, and nobody, including myself, are whining about the unjust nature of me having to miss 6 months of work for this. Biology blows sometimes.
I don't see this as any more fair than presupposing that there is higher risk in having men work in daycare.
The difference is that if you presuppose women will take more time off of work, but then they choose not to, their salaries can remain competitive as they stay in the job market the whole time without developing gaps in their resume. When you presuppose that men are more likely to abuse children, it stops them from entering the workforce at all, because if that presupposition becomes prevalent, who would even hire them?
Maybe. The fact of the matter doesn't really concern me. But I would trust what psychologists say a bit more than your rant.
My point is that you shouldn't trust what psychologists say OR my "rant" until studies have been done that provide real data to point to. There's a whole lot of scientifically undiscovered territory in this subject and until that territory is charted it's wrong to assume either gender are inherently more dangerous to children. Which you know full well, because if someone came along and said "there's no studies showing that black people are naturally more violent than other races, but it's commonly believed and that's good enough for me" or "there's no studies showing gay people are worse parents than straight people, but a lot of people think so so we should probably err on the side of caution" you'd be first in line to call that person out, and well you should, because they'd be just as wrong.
Maybe those studies have been done. If anyone has any information on that I'd love to hear it as, again, I only was able to do a quick search on my phone because I'm at work and not about to Google stats about pedophilia or child abuse on my work computer.
