Open marriages

[Valka D'Ur]

Yea, the working with kids thing is sad. I'm probably lucky only one woman called the cops on me as I was substitute teaching for my local elementary school after college. That was a weird segment of an otherwise wonderful day.

She'd never heard of male elementary teachers?

I had male teachers in Grade 5 and 6. One taught science, and the other taught math, art, and phys.ed. (okay, for Grade 6 girls, it would be more appropriate to have a female teacher for phys. ed., but oh well...).

 

[Borachio]

Sadly, I think the involvement of men with small children is only getting more problematic, at the moment.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

She'd never heard of male elementary teachers?

I had male teachers in Grade 5 and 6. One taught science, and the other taught math, art, and phys.ed. (okay, for Grade 6 girls, it would be more appropriate to have a female teacher for phys. ed., but oh well...).

It's getting very rare and in some schools non-existent for men to teach young children. Male teachers don't start to become common until high school in a lot of places in the US. And I really can't stress enough that To Catch A Predator stoked some nasty fears in the public imagination. You show one guy who teaches 2nd grade and leads a youth group at church trying to seduce a 13 year old into having sex with him on TV and everyone freaks the hell out because if something is shown to happen on TV then it must happen all the time.

 

[aelf]

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?

This is quite off topic, so I will zoom in on the crux of the argument.

Modern economic theory says that expectations play a huge role in things like setting prices. That's why you have a jobless recovery. If production is increasing, it makes no sense that jobs are not created to keep pace and wages are not increasing, until you realise that producers are cautious and expect that the growth could come to a quick end.

Unless there is actual data to prove it wrong, I don't see any reason to believe that this is not the case for women's wages. Like in the scenario of a man working in daycare who is presupposed to be a pedophile, statistics matter little to individuals who are discriminated against based on what people expect them to do on average. My contention, based on observation, is that all along a woman has not been paid less only after she has taken time off work to raise a family - she is paid less even before that because of the expectation that she will take time off work to raise a family. And of course, the presumption that men don't need to take time off work to raise a family is part of the issue and should not be atomistically separated.

So once all the externalities are factored in and properly accounted for, there is almost no wage gap at all between men and women for doing the exact same job. But I know this won't change your mind because you are already dead-set on believing that women are just treated soooo horribly in our society.

Err, these "externalities" are precisely what I'm trying to debate?

From what perspective would a pro men's rights issue be non-extremist in your eyes? You always seem to go back to "MRA"s - aka extremists. I didn't even bring them up here - so why would you?

Hmm? I never once mentioned extremism.

 

[Farm Boy]

She'd never heard of male elementary teachers?

I had male teachers in Grade 5 and 6. One taught science, and the other taught math, art, and phys.ed. (okay, for Grade 6 girls, it would be more appropriate to have a female teacher for phys. ed., but oh well...).

Well, I said it was a nice day, but really it had been a nice week. The grade school's physical education teacher was out for a week and I filled in for 5 days. The weather had been gorgeous, so I was outside all week getting paid to essentially play kickball and do jumping jacks(I was more fit 10 years ago). It was great. On either Thursday or Friday of the week, after having been outside in plain view for probably at least around 30 hours I took my lunch and ate the same place I always ate that week. Just outside of view from the kids so I could smoke a cigarette. Don't want to be a bad influence now. I also stopped to talk with an elderly gentleman that went to my church that I was very fond of. However, this woman, new to the town, decided I was stalking children. She didn't stop to talk to her neighbor whom I had been talking with. She didn't look outside at any point to realize I was just down the street leading kickball yet again. She just called the cops. Who then obviously had to show up to check me out as a young male suspected of stalking children.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Oh crap, you smoked withing 50 feet of children and you were a young man?

Obviously a pedo. The only thing you were missing was a polar bear cub on a leash.

That does suck though, I mean I believe it happened it's just so rediculous. How did the cops treat you?

 

[Farm Boy]

The cop(it's a small town) was reasonable. He stopped to talk with the fella from my church that I had actually been conversing with. Then he talked with the principle of the grade school. Then decided good enough and left. But that still means that the dispatchers and cops within the County can look up my name and they will find it as the subject of that call. Which is just effing lovely, suspected childstalker, but w/e. Too late now.

The part that torques me the most about it is the fact that my parents had just moved within 6 months at that point. The location I was smoking and talking with my neighbor at was a 30 second walk from my driveway for 20 years. Hell, I now live 10 years later another 60 second walk in the other direction.

 

[warpus]

Can it be a good thing for young boys to not have any good male role models teaching them? I mean, I have nothing against female teachers, but surely these boys are going to be missing out on something if the only role model males they encounter in the first 12 (or whatever) years of their life are their dad, deadbeat uncle, and gangsta rappers on TV.

 

[Commodore]

Err, these "externalities" are precisely what I'm trying to debate?

Okay, but what is there to debate really? The data clearly shows there is no wage disparity between men and women so there is no problem (at least in this particular issue) to correct and, thus, nothing to debate.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Can it be a good thing for young boys to not have any good male role models teaching them? I mean, I have nothing against female teachers, but surely these boys are going to be missing out on something if the only role model males they encounter in the first 12 (or whatever) years of their life are their dad, deadbeat uncle, and gangsta rappers on TV.

Just based on feedback from my wife and her coworkers (she's a teacher), male teachers in elementary schools are tremendously positive for the children for the reasons listed above. Also, the novelty of a male teacher has a pretty big impact on the behavior of children - they are more apt to listen and so as they are told. Though I'm sure this would not be such a thing if the ratio of male to female teachers were more close to 50/50.

 

[aelf]

Okay, but what is there to debate really? The data clearly shows there is no wage disparity between men and women so there is no problem (at least in this particular issue) to correct and, thus, nothing to debate.

Read the rest of the post.

 

[Yeekim]

My contention, based on observation, is that all along a woman has not been paid less only after she has taken time off work to raise a family - she is paid less even before that because of the expectation that she will take time off work to raise a family.

That should then be easily demonstrable by checking statistics for young singles only?

I recall a study being mentioned here on CFC that showed something else, though. A quick Google found me this:
http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html

According to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. In two cities, Atlanta and Memphis, those women are making about 20% more. This squares with earlier research from Queens College, New York, that had suggested that this was happening in major metropolises. But the new study suggests that the gap is bigger than previously thought, with young women in New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego making 17%, 12% and 15% more than their male peers, respectively. And it also holds true even in reasonably small areas like the Raleigh-Durham region and Charlotte in North Carolina (both 14% more), and Jacksonville, Fla. (6%). Here's the slightly deflating caveat: this reverse gender gap, as it's known, applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities.

 

[aelf]

Good for the women in those large American cities, I guess?

But why restrict it to unmarried women?

 

[Goodfella]

My contention, based on observation, is that all along a woman has not been paid less only after she has taken time off work to raise a family - she is paid less even before that because of the expectation that she will take time off work to raise a family.

I don't really have a horse in this race but you did say this.

 

[classical_hero]

Just based on feedback from my wife and her coworkers (she's a teacher), male teachers in elementary schools are tremendously positive for the children for the reasons listed above. Also, the novelty of a male teacher has a pretty big impact on the behavior of children - they are more apt to listen and so as they are told. Though I'm sure this would not be such a thing if the ratio of male to female teachers were more close to 50/50.

The problem is that male teachers are demonised so much that many men aren't willing to risk trying to teach young children and now we are starting to see the bad effects of not having men teach young children. I wonder how DT feels about this since he was once a teacher to young children.

 

[aelf]

I don't really have a horse in this race but you did say this.

Uh huh. That's based on my observation. And, incidentally, that article doesn't really have any bearing on my observation.

And, oh, by Googling, I also found this:

Conservatives were not at all happy when President Obama issued executive orders to close the gender pay gap earlier this month. And they were particularly angry that Obama justified the change by arguing, famously, “[T]he average full-time working woman earns just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.”

The figure, according to conservatives, is bunk. And to make their point, they cited an unpredictable source: Claudia Goldin, a highly respected Harvard economist whose research on inequalities facing women in the economy has been widely cited by feminist causes... But while Goldin's research says many things, it doesn't say the wage gap is phony. Just ask Goldin herself.

There's room for honest disagreement over the precise role that different factors play in causing the gender gap. But, Goldin says, discrimination is clearly part of the story. "There's no question that there is" discrimination, she said.

There’s also research that points to discrimination as a factor in that 23 percent difference between men’s and women’s earnings. When economists examine the gap and control for all measurable factors, there remains a residual portion they can’t explain. For the Government Accountability Office, that portion was 20 percent. For economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn, it was 41 percent. It’s in this unexplainable portion where discrimination may be leaving its mark.

 

[bhavv]

The solution, as a male, is to just 100% avoid anything to do with children. If you see a child seriously injured calling out for help on the street, you completely ignore it and get as far away as possible otherwise you're a pedo.

 

[sophie]

The problem is that male teachers are demonised so much that many men aren't willing to risk trying to teach young children and now we are starting to see the bad effects of not having men teach young children. I wonder how DT feels about this since he was once a teacher to young children.

Those bad effects being...?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I would suppose a lack of potential male role models and behavioral problems would be the main bad effects.

That said, as I alluded to before, I think the behavioral problems would still exist if male teachers were more common. Right now, because men in schools are so rare, when a kid acts out consistently and uncontrollably, it's common for female teachers to go and grab a male colleague to deal with the kid. And the kids usually respond to the male very well and settles down. I think this is mostly due to the novelty of being confronted by a non-father male. But if men were more common in schools, the novelty wears off so it's less effective and therefore less of an actual solution to the problem of bad behavior (which will exist with or without male teachers).

As for lack of role models, well that one is pretty subjective and I suppose it's debatable as to how much of a problem it really is.

I don't mean to put words in CH's mouth but the whole behavioral issue was something I brought up myself earlier and I thought I should expand on it.

 

[Farm Boy]

When you're dealing with hormonal teenagers changing the gender of the instructor in the room sometimes totally resets the dynamic. Which can be useful when the dynamic is temporarily off the rails. Worked often enough to be useful when I did study hall/tutoring for alternative high school students. "Hard day? <silence> Have a seat. I'll check to see if you want to work on math later." Worked surprisingly often.