Friday, April 11, 2014

The Week of Whining Womin

By Ilana Mercer

The logic is as simple as it is foolproof. An "air-tight free-market argument," according to WND: "If women with the same skills as men were getting only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, men as a group would have long-since priced themselves out of the market. That entrepreneurs don't ditch men en masse for women suggests that different abilities and experience are at work, rather than a conspiracy to suppress women."

The logic is not, however, female proof.

It's been the week of the weaker sex: filled with
baseless whining. The Week of the Womin culminated with Facebook billionaire Sheryl Sandberg grumbling to Fox News millionaire Megyn Kelly: "I think it's good that the president took some steps on equal pay, but it's not enough."

About women’s work Sandberg holds humdrum feminist views. She learned the hard way, having dared, at first, to share the aggregate reality she had encountered in the workplace: Men were wont to be as driven as demons. Women needed to be driven. For that observation, the Pussy Riot Sisterhood threatened to sandbag Sandberg. Facebook's chief operating officer quickly corrected course. Ms. Sandberg started mouthing the only acceptable meme: Saddle “society” and the “patriarchy” for any and all female failures and preferences.

As her politically pleasing, mainstream opinion currently has it, society and the patriarchy have conditioned women to be nurturing and to apologize for any male-like, go-getter ambitions they harbor. While men will attribute their success to their own core skills; women “attribute their success to luck and help from other people,” carps Sandberg. The girls are too nice. They don’t take credit for their greatness. They don’t raise their hand enough. They don’t “Lean In”—the trite title of Sandberg’s serialized book. Yes, there's a follow up for advanced nudniks.

While she should seldom be taken seriously, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was perfectly serious when she too, in 2012, inveighed against the same debunked myth of "income disparity between men and women" that Democrat Sandberg is perpetuating.

For their part, Republicans will seldom deploy economic logic to dispel distaff America's claims of disadvantage. To counter Pelosi, Republicans called on a teletart who is front-and-center on GOP TV because in possession of what TV takes: Big hair, big boobs and Chiclets for teeth—a pretty package that more than compensates for a lack of cerebral agility or originality. (Yes, why is it that nobody dares to comment on the overwhelming, overweening dominance the fair sex has in the anchor's chair? Does anyone imagine that this advantage is bestowed at Fox Business, because "Kennedy" is more brilliant than Judge Andrew Napolitano? The reader doesn't need me to spell out the profit-generating advantages women hold in visual media.)

Although this column did not name her at the time, one Michelle Fields, I believe, "pioneered" the tit-for-tat, rudderless case the Republicans excel at making on wage parity. Incapable of argument, Fields thus condemned Pelosi—not for her bogus theory of pay inequality, but for her hypocrisy. Pelosi, it was revealed, had been silent about Democratic senators who were paying women staffers less than male staffers.

The lesson is equally applicable to the revelation, this week, that women working in the "executive mansion" are also getting paid less, on average, than their male counterparts. As this column advised in 2012 (well before Chuckie Krauthammer cottoned on), the T & A Republican TV contingent ought to have responded as follows:

"We're glad that Barack Obama has finally understood that the length of time a woman has been in the workplace, her age, experience, education; whether she has put her career on hold to marry and mother—all factor into the wage equation. Good for you, Mr. President, for showing in practice that you comprehend that women are more likely than men to have had an interrupted career trajectory and to opt for part-time and lower-paying professions—education instead of engineering, for example."

Now, Mr. President, please put down your pay-parity executive order and step away from that pen, slowly.

Ilana Mercer is author of Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa. She blogs at BarleyABlog.

20 comments:

  1. the decade of whining billionaires...............

    Atlanta Stadium for Billionaire’s Falcons Prompts Bond Fight

    Home Depot Inc. co-founder Arthur Blank, having bought the Atlanta Falcons, is getting help from the city to build a $1.2 billion football stadium to replace a venue that a skeptic noted is barely older than Miley Cyrus.

    The billionaire said his ambition to bring another Super Bowl to town rides on replacing the Georgia Dome, which opened in 1992, with funds including $200 million in taxpayer money. Neighborhood critics say a city-adopted plan unfairly burdens residents of two predominantly black neighborhoods. Vine City and English Avenue are areas steeped in the city’s civil rights history, and where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. brought his family to live in 1967.

    The project calls for demolishing the city’s first black Baptist church, and turning the street named after King into a dead-end for stadium VIP parking.
    Economically Obsolete

    Georgia law requires court approval before government general-obligation revenue bonds can be issued. The judge will weigh whether the bonds, backed by hotel taxes, are valid.

    “It’s not too hard to be skeptical about this, when you have a stadium only two months older than Miley Cyrus being declared economically obsolete,” said Victor Matheson, a professor and sports economist with the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Massachusetts, referring to the 21-year-old singer. “This is the youngest stadium to be abandoned that I can think of in recent memory.”


    Blank’s wealth is an estimated $1.8 billion, according to Forbes magazine’s list of the richest Americans. He bought the Falcons in February 2002 for $545 million and owns the Georgia Force, an Arena Football League team.

    The stadium bonds would be issued by the Atlanta Development Authority and repaid through the hotel tax. The City Council also agreed to dedicate hotel tax revenue beyond the bond payments to operating the new publicly owned stadium.

    That might generate an additional $900 million over 30 years, the neighborhood challengers said in court documents citing the bond filing. Although the stadium will be state-owned through the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, the Falcons will operate it and keep stadium revenue under a licensing agreement that requires the team to pay an annual rent of $2.5 million.

    U.S. cities are on the hook for at least $10 billion of sports stadium bonds, with at least one-fourth for the NFL, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-10/atlanta-stadium-for-billionaire-s-falcons-prompts-bond-fight.html

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  2. The non-normalized statistical income inequality can be easily corrected by one profession that does not require long continuous experience or dedication: prostitution. If the government legalizes prostitution, where women make on average 2000% of minimum wage per hour whereas men average near-zero, income for women would instantly be higher than men. With such an industry bidding up female wages, the general female wage in other industries would also rise rapidly over male wages. The gender "inequality" is due to government banning one industry where women massively out earn men. If they are too pushy footed to go all the way and legalize prostitution, legalizing work place promotion by sleeping with the boss will also help whichever gender is statistically "oppressed" (until the businesses are taken over by a gay or lesbian mafia).

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  3. Playing devils advocate here but why do these progressives stop with women? Intelligence is determined the same way a persons gender is acquired. Intelligence is definitely linked to income and there is a tremendous income "GAP" between high IQ and lower IQ individuals. How about athletic or artistic abilities? Again, these are acquired the same way as a persons gender. If these lefties were really concerned about equal pay why not just establish one wage for all?

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  4. It's interesting that during this "Week of Whining Womin" and the gender gap pay controversy, I watched the remake of the 'Thomas Crown Affair' at Netflix. What stuck out to me is that the insurance investigator, Catherine Banning played by Rene Russo, who was trying to recover the stolen painting was compensated 5 percent of its value upon recovery. Everybody knows Banacek, another famous TV insurance investigator from the Seventies was compensated ten.

    But more interesting is the difference of the impact of the Federal Reserve on the Dollar. Back in the day, when Banacek was solving heists on television, big crimes that netted big pay days amounted to $500,000, $1 million or even $1.5 million. In the 'Thomas Crown Affair,' the investigator was chasing a painting worth $200 million. Now that's inflation!

    I suppose that's why an ounce of gold will always be an ounce of gold, but a dollar won't always be a dollar.

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    1. What you really need to do is watch the original "Thomas Crown Affair" versus the remake. The remake is a terrible politically correct spin. It occurs at many points, but notice especially the difference in the endings.

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  5. The "air-tight free-market argument" is a circular argument. You assume that employers are acting rationally which means they are not discriminating. Discrimination is irrational behavior. The argument appears "air tight" because you are assuming your conclusion.

    Learn to think. This article is garbage.

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    1. "Learn to think. This article is garbage."

      Troll should follow their own advice. I've had to tell a few morons that already.

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    2. Jerry, the argument is that "govt action is not necessary to address this problem. further, if the very premise for the govt action is false, it will have the unintended consequence of causing increased unemployment for women".

      If indeed there is discrimination, there is a legal market mechanism to eliminate it, and there is a powerful incentive to do so as well. This situation is not like slavery where the govt insists upon having slavery and the market cannot do much about it legally.

      You assume that the govt's premises are true, which is why your conclusions are unsound.

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    3. Jerry, what's the gender pay gap between government-paid or privately-paid trolls? Do you make more money for the same trolling than female paid trolls working for the same employer?

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    4. I.E. A potential employee walks through the door with a conviction for aggravated assault. An employer decides that he's not willing to RISK hiring the person for a basic administrative job. He exhibits clear discrimination and is an IRRATIONAL person as a result...

      You have to at least read Mises to understand how RATIONAL is used in an Austrian-economic sense. People choose ends and means for psychic, emotional, spiritual and physical reasons; their rationale tells them that their ends will bring them results that will make their future situation better than their present situation. They choose means to attain those ends. They may be right or they may be wrong but their decisions are based in rationale.

      In that sense, all actions are rational, which is what every statist from here to Mesopotamia is loathe to admit because that means that they would be responsible for their actions. It also puts a giant hole in the whole "animal spirits," people are just base automatons who need to be "nudged" by benign rulers.

      But, of course, you don't come here to challenge ideas. You are a troll. Choosing as an end, perhaps, muddying the conversation of liberty; and choosing as a means, being a troll. Even JW is a rationale human; a base, lowly, scared-of-honest-to-god-truthful-debate, rational human.

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    5. Re: Jerry Wolfgang,
      -- You assume that employers are acting rationally which means they are not discriminating. --

      What would be the wrong assumption, for discrimination IS rational as it is purposeful action. I discriminated billions of women to marry the only one I wanted.

      -- Discrimination is irrational behavior. --

      Where did you get that idea? Discrimination is 100% rational; it requires CHOICE, and CHOICE is ALWAYS rational.

      Go back to school, Jerry.

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  6. "The logic is not, however, female proof."

    They just either choose to ignore it or don't have the ability to comprehend it. Debating them is even far pointless than the idiot men.

    "It's been the week of the weaker sex: filled with baseless whining."

    It's been several decades of baseless whining.

    "...society and the patriarchy have conditioned women to be nurturing and to apologize for any male-like, go-getter ambitions they harbor. While men will attribute their success to their own core skills; women “attribute their success to luck and help from other people,” carps Sandberg. The girls are too nice. They don’t take credit for their greatness."

    Lol, this hasn't been my experience.

    As for the "patriarchy", this silly myth belongs along side the other popular but paranoid conspiracy theories of "The Vatican", "The Jews", "the Freemasons" or "The shape-shifting lizard men from outer space" conspiracy theory BS. It's a complete myth.

    It amazes me how blind people can be. They just ignore biology and their own eyes and ears when it comes to the sexes. It has to be one of the most ridiculous and idiotic attempts at self-deception I've ever seen.

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  7. Wrong again and I don't think you understand what a circular argument is. Profits/losses tend to correct a systematic under/overpricing of the factors of production. Profits don't care what kind of parts you have in your underwear. Jerry, why are you turning down huge profits? Why don't you start a women only business and you'll make giant profits because your labor will be cheaper? Since of course everyone else in the world is irrational, only you can see that women have the exact same productivity as men. In fact, your worldview automatically excludes the possibility of differences between the sexes for some unexplained reason. So rational!

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  8. "Learn to think"

    LOL. Anyone else see the irony?!

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    1. Yup. That's why I responded. It was just too funny to pass up.

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  9. I don't like how most engineering schools are dominated by men. Or rather most technical fields (everything but biomedical engineering, everything but biology, etc) are composed mostly of men. Forget wages for a moment, which may well be a natural result of the free market- I feel like the reason most females are avoiding these fields is precisely because the schools they looked at are mostly composed of men. It just doesn't sit well with me.

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    1. That's because you think everything is supposed to be "equal". It actually makes a lot of sense. I guess some people don't have any.

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  10. If it's true that women in general are equally productive as men for only about 3/4 of the wages, then I'm going to set up a business employing only women. I will undercut my competition which employs overpriced men, grow a huge business and make a ton of money. As an added bonus, I will hire only gorgeous, sexy women and thus have a reason to look forward to going to work every day.

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