By John Stossel
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Women make only 77 cents per each dollar made by males.
Outrageous! Sex discrimination!
So say advocates of government-enforced
"equality."
But they are wrong. Women today are rarely victims of
salary discrimination.
If they were, market competition would punish bosses who
discriminate. A company that hired women who were "underpaid" by
other companies would have a cost advantage, allowing them to lower prices, and
they'd quickly take business away from the "sexist" competition.
Since those female workers provide the same value for less, entrepreneurs who
hired only women would get rich!
Warren Farrell, author of "Why Men Earn More,"
dug deeper into reasons why women are paid less and found that it's women who
make discriminating choices. Women are more likely to choose a well-rounded
life than their workaholic male peers.
"Many women say, what do I want? Do I want to make
$200,000 a year, or do I want more personal time? Time with my children? More
spiritual time?"
He found that even female business owners are more likely
to favor flexibility and proximity to home. Men are more likely to chase higher
earnings by working longer hours, traveling farther and taking dangerous
assignments. They are paid accordingly, though they may not be happier.
In her recent book, "Lean In," the chief
operating officer of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, urged women to put in the extra
effort that enables workers to jockey for position in business.
She says: "At Facebook, we hosted a senior government
official, and he had these two women traveling with him who were pretty senior
in his department. And I said to them, sit at the table, come on, sit at the
table. (But) they sat on the side of the room."
Sandberg's been criticized by feminists for this
common-sense message. The critics claim she "blames the victim." But
most women are anything but victims. Making a different choice, choosing a less
career-driven life, may be why women have more friends and live longer.
Many women don't want "corporate success,"
though it's politically incorrect to admit it, says Sabrina Schaeffer,
executive director of the Independent Women's Forum.
"I don't think that most women want what Sheryl
Sandberg wants," Schaeffer told me. "In some recent studies, only 23
percent of women said that they would prefer to work full-time, let alone (have
the) sort of CEO quality of life that Sheryl Sandberg is living."
Regardless of what many women prefer, America now is
stuck with laws based on a feminist view that only discrimination accounts for
differences between women and men -- and that government must use regulation to
"correct" those differences: affirmative action, subsidies for
female-owned businesses, Title IX rules that require equal money for women's
college sports, etc.
Instead of trying to change sexist male institutions by
force, Sandberg's book suggests that women change voluntarily.
"Sandberg picks up on some very sensitive gender
differences," says Schaeffer. "She says, look, women don't negotiate
their salaries. I was one of those women. My brother told me he negotiated
every salary he had. The fact is, once you're aware of that, you can do
things."
If they do, women might very well overtake men in
business -- but they will have to give something up to do it.
Psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen, author of "The Power
of the Female Brain," conducted the biggest brain-scan study ever done --
46,000 scans -- and found that "female brains were dramatically more
active. Women are really wired for leadership. ... If it wasn't for this thing
called children that derails their careers ... they really make great
CEOs."
Amen says women are "better with things like empathy,
intuition, collaboration, self-control." Since leadership isn't all about
bellowing and frightening people, those are useful corporate skills.
They are also useful skills for managing a household full
of children and promoting family life. We should respect both choices.
Politicians and "equality" feminists should
respect reality: Differing choices come with differing rewards -- and different
salaries.
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