Wage gap?

[Cressida]

Is there scientific consensus that physiological differences does not lead to behavioral differences?

https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2013/oct/06/male-brain-versus-female-brain

Subtle observable differences exist between male and female brains, but how exactly these relate to differences in behaviour is unknown.

"Unknown" is not the same as "does not exist."

I didn't say that a relationship between one's sex and one's behavior does not exist. I said that it hasn't been proven to exist, and therefore there's no reason to assume it exists.

[Samuel]

You guys are getting kind of worked up over a pretty mild position I've taken. I'm saying this: If gendered expectations went away, then any differences in men's and women's behavior would be attributable to the physiological differences between them. Since there's no scientific consensus reliably linking physiological differences to differences in behavior, I conclude that there's no reason to expect men's and women's behavior to be different once gendered expectations are removed.

If the scientific consensus changes, then my position will change as well.

Humans are animals, and gender differentiated behavior in animals is nearly universal. It seems more reasonable to assume that if you could neatly remove cultural gendered expectations there would still be some level of baseline differentiation. It's true that humans have remarkably less gender differentiated brains than even our nearest biological relatives (which prompts interesting questions about what would have caused such a long term convergence...presumably language and culture?) but to assume we've reached perfect uniformity seems like an unreasonable assumption.

It's clear that cultural expectations shape individual choices in subtle and not subtle ways and that is a factor in occupational sex segregation and gender wage gaps. But to assume that because the science is not yet settled cultural expectations account for all of the difference is a pretty big leap of faith.

[NotJen]

You are ignoring Cressida's stated belief, which is that the only reason there is any difference between male and female behaviors is society's gendered expectations.  For that to be true, that would mean that if we could successfully remove society's gendered expectations, male and females would be equally likely to choose a male spouse.  Cressida's argument is that the only reason ~95-97% of men prefer a female spouse (or sexual companion since not everybody wants a spouse at all) is that society has trained them to.  I think people are understandably skeptical of that argument, even if they would concede that societal expectations do have enough influence to move the needle some.

If sex/procreation were removed from the equation and marriage was about choosing your "best friend for life who you will enter into a default legal/financial contract with", yes, I think it's possible that 50% of women would choose to marry men, and 50% of men would choose to marry men, conforming to Cressida's stated belief*.

You are ignoring sexual orientation.  I'm not sure why.  That's something that isn't gendered and happens among the entire population and influences the marriage/companionship decision.  That's like saying of the four available hair colors, women and men MUST choose to dye their hair 25% blonde, 25% red, 25% black, and 25% brown or else all arguments about equality fall apart...

Otherwise, I believe that procreation is a large driver in marriage/sexual companionship decisions (and will be even without societal expectations), and if that is equally important to men and women, we would see equal numbers of women who want opposite-sex partners and men who want opposite-sex partners, since that is what is required for procreation.  This does not ignore Cressida's stated belief.

* I wanted to clarify that I don't think Cressida was implying what I wrote.  I meant "Cressida's belief as interpreted by Jrr85".

[maizefolk]

No poutine! I never meant to use it as an excuse to pay women less, I don't think that's right!

This is a very important disclaimer to make. It's been my observation whenever these sorts of topics come up that a lot of people will leap to the conclusion that anyone talking about evidence to support the idea that the average man and the average woman may have somewhat difference preferences is therefore arguing that it's okay to discriminate against women.* That's part of why my responses on this thread have tended to be even more wordy and full of disclaimers than my normal writing style, which is not crystal clear to begin with.

So it's helpful all around to explicitly state and reiteration that society should treat all men and all women equally and fairly,** regardless of any differences in average traits between those groups that may exist. Edit: It may feel like it should go without saying, but the unfortunate fact is that it doesn't for many people (particularly because there are some folks in the world or on the internet who would argue in favor of discrimination).

*And let's be fair, there is in fact a long history of people using arguments for biological differences as an excuse to treat women differently, so you can see where that reaction comes from.

**Of course also remembering that "fair" will mean different things to different people, so we can still argue on implementation even if we're all (hopefully) in agreement on the fundamental principal.

[GuitarStv]

I quote the paper itself:
"When looking at the individual questions as well as the student ratings index, there are no significant differences between the ratings of the actual male and female instructor." pg 298

In fact, the only rating that was "significantly" (that is suspect also) below the mean was the perceived female TA, if it were truly purely gender-based bias, we would expect BOTH perceived and real female TA to receive poor scores. That did not happen. What about the fact that female instructor consistently scored better than the male instructor, which suggested the male instructor was a weaker instructor overall, and partially bears the blame for the perceived female TA's low scores?

"Students in the two groups that perceived their assistantinstructor to be male rated their instructor significantly higher than did the students in thetwo groups that perceived their assistant instructor to be female, regardless of the actual genderof the assistant instructor.

It's possible that the male instructor was worse than the female instructor.  That doesn't really change the findings though.  As mentioned on pg. 298:

"Students in the two groups that perceived their assistant instructor to be male rated their instructor significantly higher than did the students in the two groups that perceived their instructor to be female, regardless of the actual gender of the instructor."

You would have an argument if the male instructor perceived as male got lower ratings, but that didn't happen.

Morning GuitarStv,
I am slightly confused.

"Students in the two groups that perceived their assistant instructor to be male rated their instructor significantly higher than did the students in the two groups that perceived their instructor to be female, regardless of the actual gender of the instructor."

When we look at the actual scores and histogram, we see there really is only one outlier (perceived female), with only four groups, perhaps the word outlier is an overreach. The other three were roughly on par, with the perceived male and actual female (same person) both scoring higher than actual male. ie, The female TA scored consistently higher regardless of identities.

I don't follow your reading of the histogram.

When the real sex of the instructor is known, there was a 3.8% ratings difference between the two of them with the guy being lower.

The girls rating increases by 4.2% when the students thought she was a guy.
The guy's rating decreases by 5.9% when the students thought he was a girl.

If it were truly gender biased, wouldn't we expect both the actual and perceived female TA to score lower than the male identities? Am I missing something?

If there was no bias, you would expect the perceived female to decrease by about 1.9% and the percieved male to increase by about 1.9%.  That would mirror the initial instructor assessments for the two when sex was known.  This did not happen.  The ratings quite clearly changed for both of them opposite to expected results, suggesting that there is indeed evidence of gender bias.

[boarder42]

@MDM are you being deliberately obtuse or do you truly believe that homosexuality in men=heterosexuality in women?

you need to go back to the original post he's trying to debunk cressidia's stance that if there were no social norms/pressures men and women would make the exact same decisions on avg meaning for everyman that chose to become a doctor there would be one woman.  So taking it to the relationship level for everyman that chose to marry a woman there would be one woman who chose to marry a woman.  He in fact does not believe it to be the case thats why he presented it as opposition to the theory. 

At the end of the day Cressidia is arguing that its all nurture and no nature in the nature v nurture debate - and trying to prove its all or nothing its next to impossible in the scientific community - i mean gravity and evolution are still theories til someone comes along and changes the way science thinks and proves its different.  resulting in a new theory. 

[MDM]

@MDM are you being deliberately obtuse or do you truly believe that homosexuality in men=heterosexuality in women?

Good question.  No, I don't believe that homosexuality in men=heterosexuality in women.  Seems you also don't believe that, so we agree.

Let's go back to the original issue: "...the working assumption that men's and women's behavior would not be reliably different if gendered norms ceased to exist."

I believe that assumption is incorrect, and use the choice of a marriage partner's sex as a counterexample. 

Others have said, in so many words, "the behavior is the same because men and women both tend to choose the opposite sex as a marriage partner."  I don't believe that "opposite = same".  Perhaps that makes me obtuse.  I don't think so, but...?

If "choosing the opposite" falls under the definition of "behavior would not be reliably different," then does that mean "choosing different career paths" is also "behavior [that is not] reliably different"?

[MrMoogle]

No poutine! I never meant to use it as an excuse to pay women less, I don't think that's right!

This is a very important disclaimer to make. It's been my observation whenever these sorts of topics come up that a lot of people will leap to the conclusion that anyone talking about evidence to support the idea that the average man and the average woman may have somewhat difference preferences is therefore arguing that it's okay to discriminate against women.* That's part of why my responses on this thread have tended to be even more wordy and full of disclaimers than my normal writing style, which is not crystal clear to begin with.

So it's helpful all around to explicitly state and reiteration that society should treat all men and all women equally and fairly,** regardless of any differences in average traits between those groups that may exist. Edit: It may feel like it should go without saying, but the unfortunate fact is that it doesn't for many people (particularly because there are some folks in the world or on the internet who would argue in favor of discrimination).

*And let's be fair, there is in fact a long history of people using arguments for biological differences as an excuse to treat women differently, so you can see where that reaction comes from.

**Of course also remembering that "fair" will mean different things to different people, so we can still argue on implementation even if we're all (hopefully) in agreement on the fundamental principal.

I think most here agree with this. 

This debate seems to be more about whether the status quo is fair or not.  It is not obvious either way to me.

[NotJen]

At the end of the day Cressidia is arguing that its all nurture and no nature in the nature v nurture debate - and trying to prove its all or nothing its next to impossible in the scientific community - i mean gravity and evolution are still theories til someone comes along and changes the way science thinks and proves its different.  resulting in a new theory.

I don't believe Cressida is arguing this  - there IS nature that is possible, it's just not gendered nature.  We are born with a sexual orientation.  Nature.  That sexual orientation does not depend on gender - there exist homosexual males and homosexual females and heterosexual males and heterosexual females.  I'm not sure why some people are ignoring this.


Which makes this statement

So taking it to the relationship level for every man that chose to marry a woman there would be one woman who chose to marry a woman.

Not equivalent to this statement

meaning for every man that chose to become a doctor there would be one woman

However, saying "for every homosexual man there is a homosexual woman" makes much more sense as an equivalent statement.

Let's go back to the original issue: "...the working assumption that men's and women's behavior would not be reliably different if gendered norms ceased to exist."

Why do you think that sexual orientation is a gendered norm?

[anisotropy]

Hey GuitarStv,
 
I struggled to reject the null hypothesis of each category with the raw data for like an hour..... I was checking if I made a typo then I saw footnote 4 from the paper:
"We have used a significance level of .10 for some tests where: 1) the results support the hypothesis and we are consequently more willing to reject the null hypothesis of no difference; 2) our hypothesis is strongly supported theoretically and by empirical results in other studies that use lower significance levels; 3) our small n may be obscuring large differences; and 4) the gravity of an increased risk of Type I error is diminished in light of the benefit of decreasing the risk of a Type II error. " p.288

err what? I don't buy the reasons especially when they used 0.05 for some scores and 0.10 for others. That's like saying we will lower our "significance" standard if it agrees with our hypothesis and if it agrees with other studies that we like. Given how small the n already is, this arbitrary decision to use 0.10 instead of .05 for some scores really make the whole study much weaker.

Then I found this: The paper states perceived male vs female reaches the 0.05 threshold (pg. 298), but in the actual histogram it reverts back to only 0.10. (pg.299) WHAT?

Using 0.05 threshold, as is common to pretty much all studies, in my effort to identify an outlier (in the aggregate), I found none. Namely, no instructor bias and no gender bias.....

To reiterate, the difference only shows when we compare ONLY perceived female vs perceived male (at 0.10), but disappears when we compare Actual male vs Actual female, or when we compare perceived female vs aggregate.

If it were truly gender based bias, we would expect the female identities to consistently score lower in all
1. Actual female vs Actual male         
2. Actual female vs perceived male
3. Perceived female vs perceived male (the paper concedes it does not reach 0.05, pg.299)

Which are all absent, in conclusion, the author's conclusion is quite weak in my opinion.

On the other hand, the Female TA got an avg score of 4.16 (0.98) while the Male TA got 3.82 (1.11), which, is not significant at 0.05, but if we choose to use their 0.10 threshold, actually is significant, lol.

ps. sorry Guitar I missed your post, yes the scores changed, but we have to remember the change could be due to different groups of students making the ratings or random variation since N is so small to being with. In fact, these changes you noted, are not significant enough to pass the 0.05 null test.

Regarding:
If there was no bias, you would expect the perceived female to decrease by about 1.9% and the percieved male to increase by about 1.9%.  That would mirror the initial instructor assessments for the two when sex was known

I don't understand, can you elaborate please. Why would the score of perceived female decrease and score of perceived male increase? I am saying there is a bias, and the bias is actually against the instructor (quality of work), not gender. Provided that we lower our standard to using the 0.10 threshold.

[MDM]

Otherwise, I believe that procreation is a large driver in marriage/sexual companionship decisions (and will be even without societal expectations), and if that is equally important to men and women, we would see equal numbers of women who want opposite-sex partners and men who want opposite-sex partners, since that is what is required for procreation.  This does not ignore Cressida's stated belief.

At the end of the day Cressidia is arguing that its all nurture and no nature in the nature v nurture debate - and trying to prove its all or nothing its next to impossible in the scientific community

FWIW, both of the above seem reasonable.

[PoutineLover]

@MDM are you being deliberately obtuse or do you truly believe that homosexuality in men=heterosexuality in women?

you need to go back to the original post he's trying to debunk cressidia's stance that if there were no social norms/pressures men and women would make the exact same decisions on avg meaning for everyman that chose to become a doctor there would be one woman.  So taking it to the relationship level for everyman that chose to marry a woman there would be one woman who chose to marry a woman.  He in fact does not believe it to be the case thats why he presented it as opposition to the theory. 

At the end of the day Cressidia is arguing that its all nurture and no nature in the nature v nurture debate - and trying to prove its all or nothing its next to impossible in the scientific community - i mean gravity and evolution are still theories til someone comes along and changes the way science thinks and proves its different.  resulting in a new theory. 

No, I got that, I just think that argument doesn't make sense.

It's true that you can't prove anything absolutely, but that's not how science is supposed to work. A theory is proposed, data and observations are collected, experiments are devised, hypothesis are tested, and you try to find an explanation that best describes the observations. Sure, gravity is a theory, but it is the theory that best explains an observed phenomenon, so unless you can disprove it, gravity exists. It's an iterative process, and as our knowledge grows, we are able to find explanations for more phenomena.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

@MDM are you being deliberately obtuse or do you truly believe that homosexuality in men=heterosexuality in women?

Good question.  No, I don't believe that homosexuality in men=heterosexuality in women.  Seems you also don't believe that, so we agree.

Let's go back to the original issue: "...the working assumption that men's and women's behavior would not be reliably different if gendered norms ceased to exist."

I believe that assumption is incorrect, and use the choice of a marriage partner's sex as a counterexample. 

Others have said, in so many words, "the behavior is the same because men and women both tend to choose the opposite sex as a marriage partner."  I don't believe that "opposite = same".  Perhaps that makes me obtuse.  I don't think so, but...?

If "choosing the opposite" falls under the definition of "behavior would not be reliably different," then does that mean "choosing different career paths" is also "behavior [that is not] reliably different"?

I do believe that absent societal pressures, similar proportions of men and women would choose any given career. As it stands, we have assigned "male" to some careers, and "female" to others, based on assumed characteristics or aptitudes of each gender. These standards haven't always remained constant, which makes me believe that societal pressure does have more to do with it than inherent biological differences.
Nurse=female
Doctor=male
Teacher=female
Professor=male
Secretary=female
CEO=male
The majority of those jobs could be done by anyone, but in a patriarchal society the higher status jobs tend to be attributed to men, while the lower status jobs are for women. This is the system of expectations that should change to achieve equality. If there's a physical reason why some people are suited to some jobs, that's fine, but just because on average men are larger/stronger than women doesn't mean that we shouldn't consider the individual profile of the person applying for the job.
If a small weak guy and a tall strong woman apply for a physical job, she is probably better suited to it, even though on average men are stronger.
So it stands to reason that despite the average stereotypes of men and women, individual candidates should be considered on their own merits, and not the average characteristics of their gender. And then those people should be paid based on objective measures of skill and performance, not according to gender biases.

[shenlong55]

The issue of motherhood does not directly relate the carrying of said child to the lower pay - its the choices made post child to work less and spend more time as a care giver that were shown to decrease the pay for a woman in a similar line of work to a man who chose to work longer hours and put child raising more on the side of the woman in his relationship.

Okay @boarder42, I went back and read through all the links posted in this thread.  I did not find any support for your position above.  Some of the articles talk about how "time away from/breaks from work" are likely one cause of the wage gap but none of them differentiated "time away from/breaks from work" during pregnancy from "time away from/breaks from work" after pregnancy.  In fact, the Vox article that was linked included this little tidbit...

"And even before having children, just the act of becoming pregnant will mean more doctor appointments and actually delivering a baby — all things harder to do in jobs with rigid schedules."

It's not just the time off for the sick kid it's choosing to work typical hours rather than consistently work extra hours and put in more time. If you're not going to read any of it then I'm not gonna spoon feed it all to ya

Oh, so you mean it's not a single incident that women are penalized for it's more of a pattern of prioritizing family over work more often than a man would?  Can you explain why you think that pattern doesn't start until after the actual birth of the child?

so why dont you quit your job and stay home with the kids and let your wife work so you can help skew the statistics the other way? if you're doing the opposite or your wife is carrying more of the burden of your childcare then you're just adding to the disproportionality.  If you truly want to fix it you personally have the power to change part of the statistics.  I can't believe you have this stance that it should be less disproportionate yet are clearly not doing everything you could to skew the collective statistics.  which would be becoming a full time stay at home dad and letting your wife work full time ridiculously long hours to climb the corporate ladder.  Or is that not what you two are choosing to do?

remember you're looking at big data that includes all people and the choices many couples like yourself not individuals are necessarily making - and if you're making anything that tends towards the gender biased numbers you're not helping change those numbers - though you'd like to see them change.  Its like saying i want to save more money b/c i'd like to retire earlier - but i will not get rid of cable b/c i just cant - and it happens to be the only legitimate area you have left to cut - and you will not earn more money - you're just contributing to the problem that you'd like to change thru not cutting the last thing you could cut to accomplish what you're acclaimed goal is.

Just having a job as a male is hurting the overall statistics - which you could change.  You're likely blaming society here from something you're actually contributing to the skewed statistics for - i dont think there is much of anything to change here - other than in general rewarding performance vs time spent at a desk in the corporate world - which is a completely different topic.

I'm going to ignore most of this post because it's nonsense, but the bolded part is more or less what I think will help this particular issue.  Pushing companies to reward performance rather than the perception of productivity and to provide more schedule flexibility through legislation and/or social pressure.

the data in the study that shows the lower pay for female workers in siimilar jobs to their male couterparts falling when they stop working or cut back on work directly shows that the inverse of this is likely true - and if you wanted to complete your social experiment however small it is you could swap roles with your wife to see what happened with your pay and help the statistics out b/c she would continue to get high marks and working more was directly related to womens pay increasing the those studies posted earlier.  You also dont have to dig too far to find the study that shows that the people regardless of sex who spend more time in office are typically promoted and get larger pay raises.  again you believe its discrimination but cant prove it and dont plan to put your money where your mouth is on it so ... ambivolence ... I dont enjoy talking about things til we find what we think the issue is and then not acting on it.  unless you dont truly believe what you're saying - engineers find the problem and fix it - you should have been in HR's office after the first pay raise bias and every year after that asking for the difference.

So, is that because they are more productive?  If they are not more productive, then why should they get promoted and get larger pay raises?  Because they happen to be male and therefore are more willing to sacrifice family time in order to appear more productive?

And this is all in addition to the fact that women don't actually have to make the choice to prioritize family over work in order to be penalized for it.  This is shown by the study that was looking at resumes with or without a PTA association where women with the PTA association were half as likely to get a callback.  Those fake women hadn't actually made any choices about how much time to spend at work, they were penalized simply because there was the perception that a mother would not be as dedicated to work as a father.

[MDM]

Let's go back to the original issue: "...the working assumption that men's and women's behavior would not be reliably different if gendered norms ceased to exist."

Why do you think that sexual orientation is a gendered norm?

Because for many years society has "expected" that men would marry women and women would marry men.  Do you disagree?

[J Boogie]

So to sum it up, in the absence of proof, we can only speculate whether men and women would behave differently if the slate were wiped clean and there were no cultural norms regarding gender differences.

There are studies and examples we can point to that might support our speculations, but we don't really know.

I'm all for making strong arguments in favor of viewpoints. I think what's getting tiresome here is that certain studies and examples are being trotted out as conclusive proof rather than evidence that could reasonably be interpreted to support a viewpoint.

Hi Boogie,
The "proof" are in the studies, we just have to discover them, no one (unless it comes with a massive dose of narrative) will spoon feed it to us.

If you don't like a particular interpretation you can certainly look at the studies and critique them to discover their shortcomings, much like some had done here. Just because the studies show conflicting answers doesn't mean the answer is unknowable, the studies are not created equal.

If some studies' conclusions remain unchallenged, wouldn't you think those studies have a stronger inclination to be closer to how things actually work?
(I am referring to the two day baby and monkeys studies, which so far have had no critique)

Yes, I agree that the unchallenged conclusions of various studies have a stronger inclination to be closer to reality.

However, in discourse, we often take the conclusions of the studies and build upon them to support our arguments which often introduce many new variables. The validity of these studies is not necessarily called into question by someone who disagrees with you - they are most likely disagreeing with the additional claims you are making based on the studies.

So yes, we can determine monkeys do X, Y, and Z in environment W, but we can only conjecture humans do similarly with our own set of variables.

This is not to say that an argument cannot be overwhelmingly compelling. I find many of Jordan Peterson's arguments on this topic compelling, but it is far from certain knowledge that we have regarding the pay gap by gender.  It's a very plausible and nuanced theory, and one that takes discrimination into account - but we can only take an estimated guess at how much of this pay gap is caused by discrimination.

[MDM]

I do believe that absent societal pressures, similar proportions of men and women would choose any given career. As it stands, we have assigned "male" to some careers, and "female" to others, based on assumed characteristics or aptitudes of each gender. These standards haven't always remained constant, which makes me believe that societal pressure does have more to do with it than inherent biological differences.
Nurse=female
Doctor=male
Teacher=female
Professor=male
Secretary=female
CEO=male
The majority of those jobs could be done by anyone, but in a patriarchal society the higher status jobs tend to be attributed to men, while the lower status jobs are for women. This is the system of expectations that should change to achieve equality. If there's a physical reason why some people are suited to some jobs, that's fine, but just because on average men are larger/stronger than women doesn't mean that we shouldn't consider the individual profile of the person applying for the job.
If a small weak guy and a tall strong woman apply for a physical job, she is probably better suited to it, even though on average men are stronger.
So it stands to reason that despite the average stereotypes of men and women, individual candidates should be considered on their own merits, and not the average characteristics of their gender. And then those people should be paid based on objective measures of skill and performance, not according to gender biases.

And on all that, I agree with you 100%.  If you knew my family, that would be clear.... :)

[NotJen]

Let's go back to the original issue: "...the working assumption that men's and women's behavior would not be reliably different if gendered norms ceased to exist."

Why do you think that sexual orientation is a gendered norm?

Because for many years society has "expected" that men would marry women and women would marry men.  Do you disagree?

That is not sexual orientation.

Removing that particular societal norm does not change the distribution of sexual orientation.  It will change the percentages of who decides to marrying who, but will not make it that for every woman who marries a man, a man will marry a man, because other factors are involved in that decision (sexual orientation and desire to procreate).

[MDM]

Let's go back to the original issue: "...the working assumption that men's and women's behavior would not be reliably different if gendered norms ceased to exist."

Why do you think that sexual orientation is a gendered norm?

Because for many years society has "expected" that men would marry women and women would marry men.  Do you disagree?

That is not sexual orientation.

Removing that particular societal norm does not change the distribution of sexual orientation.  It will change the percentages of who decides to marrying who, but will not make it that for every woman who marries a man, a man will marry a man, because other factors are involved in that decision (sexual orientation and desire to procreate).

I think we are talking past each other.

[anisotropy]

[quote author=NotJen link=topic=88995.msg1933261#msg1933261 date=1521052530

Removing that particular societal norm does not change the distribution of sexual orientation.


Because sexual orientations are what we are born with right? Or do you think we can make gay people straight and vice versa?

[GuitarStv]

If it were truly gender based bias, we would expect the female identities to consistently score lower in all
1. Actual female vs Actual male

Not necessarily.  You require the assumption that the female and male instructors are identical in ability for this to hold true.  This will be difficult to replicate in a study.  Indeed, the test is structured so that this assumption does not need to be made.  The data gathered shows that the female TA is better reviewed than the male TA, therefore this assumption is proven invalid anyway.

2. Actual female vs perceived male

The result of the study indicated that evidence for this outcome was found.

3. Perceived female vs perceived male

The result of the study indicated that evidence for this outcome was found.

Which are all absent, in conclusion, the author's conclusion is quite weak in my opinion.

Well . . . yeah.  It's a weak study.  It's a small sample size.  It only applied to written comments in an online discussion.  There's a lot of stuff that can be done better so that we could refer to it with higher confidence.  However, taken as it is the results of the study suggests that some degree of gender imbalance may be going on.

[boarder42]

The issue of motherhood does not directly relate the carrying of said child to the lower pay - its the choices made post child to work less and spend more time as a care giver that were shown to decrease the pay for a woman in a similar line of work to a man who chose to work longer hours and put child raising more on the side of the woman in his relationship.

Okay @boarder42, I went back and read through all the links posted in this thread.  I did not find any support for your position above.  Some of the articles talk about how "time away from/breaks from work" are likely one cause of the wage gap but none of them differentiated "time away from/breaks from work" during pregnancy from "time away from/breaks from work" after pregnancy.  In fact, the Vox article that was linked included this little tidbit...

"And even before having children, just the act of becoming pregnant will mean more doctor appointments and actually delivering a baby — all things harder to do in jobs with rigid schedules."

It's not just the time off for the sick kid it's choosing to work typical hours rather than consistently work extra hours and put in more time. If you're not going to read any of it then I'm not gonna spoon feed it all to ya

Oh, so you mean it's not a single incident that women are penalized for it's more of a pattern of prioritizing family over work more often than a man would?  Can you explain why you think that pattern doesn't start until after the actual birth of the child?

so why dont you quit your job and stay home with the kids and let your wife work so you can help skew the statistics the other way? if you're doing the opposite or your wife is carrying more of the burden of your childcare then you're just adding to the disproportionality.  If you truly want to fix it you personally have the power to change part of the statistics.  I can't believe you have this stance that it should be less disproportionate yet are clearly not doing everything you could to skew the collective statistics.  which would be becoming a full time stay at home dad and letting your wife work full time ridiculously long hours to climb the corporate ladder.  Or is that not what you two are choosing to do?

remember you're looking at big data that includes all people and the choices many couples like yourself not individuals are necessarily making - and if you're making anything that tends towards the gender biased numbers you're not helping change those numbers - though you'd like to see them change.  Its like saying i want to save more money b/c i'd like to retire earlier - but i will not get rid of cable b/c i just cant - and it happens to be the only legitimate area you have left to cut - and you will not earn more money - you're just contributing to the problem that you'd like to change thru not cutting the last thing you could cut to accomplish what you're acclaimed goal is.

Just having a job as a male is hurting the overall statistics - which you could change.  You're likely blaming society here from something you're actually contributing to the skewed statistics for - i dont think there is much of anything to change here - other than in general rewarding performance vs time spent at a desk in the corporate world - which is a completely different topic.

I'm going to ignore most of this post because it's nonsense, but the bolded part is more or less what I think will help this particular issue.  Pushing companies to reward performance rather than the perception of productivity and to provide more schedule flexibility through legislation and/or social pressure.

the data in the study that shows the lower pay for female workers in siimilar jobs to their male couterparts falling when they stop working or cut back on work directly shows that the inverse of this is likely true - and if you wanted to complete your social experiment however small it is you could swap roles with your wife to see what happened with your pay and help the statistics out b/c she would continue to get high marks and working more was directly related to womens pay increasing the those studies posted earlier.  You also dont have to dig too far to find the study that shows that the people regardless of sex who spend more time in office are typically promoted and get larger pay raises.  again you believe its discrimination but cant prove it and dont plan to put your money where your mouth is on it so ... ambivolence ... I dont enjoy talking about things til we find what we think the issue is and then not acting on it.  unless you dont truly believe what you're saying - engineers find the problem and fix it - you should have been in HR's office after the first pay raise bias and every year after that asking for the difference.

So, is that because they are more productive?  If they are not more productive, then why should they get promoted and get larger pay raises?  Because they happen to be male and therefore are more willing to sacrifice family time in order to appear more productive?

And this is all in addition to the fact that women don't actually have to make the choice to prioritize family over work in order to be penalized for it.  This is shown by the study that was looking at resumes with or without a PTA association where women with the PTA association were half as likely to get a callback.  Those fake women hadn't actually made any choices about how much time to spend at work, they were penalized simply because there was the perception that a mother would not be as dedicated to work as a father.

you ignored most of my post that suggested you could change something that you're against thats great! Thats why the stastics are what they are you and guitar steve both have a chance to change the stats - but choose not to- a choice you're making in fatherhood.  b/c its mathmatically better but since you've chosen those paths you're further skewing the statistics - which i dont think is a problem - and no instituting laws to award performance over time is a terrible idea - society should take care of it self in this area.   

statistically the time spent pre birth vs post birth are very large orders of magnitudes in difference - do any of the studies specifically isolate them no- but you didnt read them prior to your terrible comment I cant carry the child the studies isolated that it was due to time spent out of the workplace for event around motherhood. - the appt's at the doctor are quite easily made up - shit i even attend these with my wife its not going to affect pay significantly  - the events around birth with maternity leave are significant depending on the amount of time chosen to take off.  but its a small blip in time - and if for the next 18 years while the children are at home the mother skews to choose family time over working this is a large amount of time that was addressed in the study - in one they specifically asked about time they were dedicating to work vs their children which is mostly a post birth question. 

again if you're so adamant about change you have the power to change it ... bitching about it doesnt make a proactive step towards change. 

[Jrr85]

Cressida's argument is that the only reason ~95-97% of men prefer a female spouse (or sexual companion since not everybody wants a spouse at all) is that society has trained them to.

That's not my argument, and the record shows that it's not.

I apologize.  Looking at your subsequent posts, your actual argument is there is no reason to assume that 95-97% because of anything other than gendered expectation.  Correct?

[NotJen]

Removing that particular societal norm does not change the distribution of sexual orientation.

Because sexual orientations are what we are born with right? Or do you think we can make gay people straight and vice versa?

Yes, my point is that sexual orientation is something we are born with and is not a gendered norm.  It is not something that makes men/women unequal in any way.  That's why I don't understand why it is being ignored in order to prove a point.

[GuitarStv]

you ignored most of my post that suggested you could change something that you're against thats great! Thats why the stastics are what they are you and guitar steve both have a chance to change the stats - but choose not to- a choice you're making in fatherhood.  b/c its mathmatically better

I've already explained that doing the same job as my wife, I've made more money every year.  This was well before we had a child.  Now you're telling me that I should give up the extra money we get because I'm a guy and work less to take care of our kid because you believe that it will 'change the stats'.

Why do you believe that the 12 years of my wife making less money doing the same job will be superseded by four or five years of me working a reduced work week to look after our son?

[anisotropy]

If it were truly gender based bias, we would expect the female identities to consistently score lower in all
1. Actual female vs Actual male

Not necessarily.  You require the assumption that the female and male instructors are identical in ability for this to hold true.  This will be difficult to replicate in a study.  Indeed, the test is structured so that this assumption does not need to be made.  The data gathered shows that the female TA is better reviewed than the male TA, therefore this assumption is proven invalid anyway.

2. Actual female vs perceived male

The result of the study indicated that evidence for this outcome was found.

3. Perceived female vs perceived male

The result of the study indicated that evidence for this outcome was found.

Which are all absent, in conclusion, the author's conclusion is quite weak in my opinion.

Well . . . yeah.  It's a weak study.  It's a small sample size.  It only applied to written comments in an online discussion.  There's a lot of stuff that can be done better so that we could refer to it with higher confidence.  However, taken as it is the results of the study suggests that some degree of gender imbalance may be going on.

Regarding the three points.

1. I think this is a necessary condition to declare a systematic gender based bias from this study.  Recall the paper's hypothesis is to expose a systematic gender bias, therefore, we should observe all male identities to consistently score significantly better than all female identities in all cases, if their abilities are identical. What we observed is if you switch out the variable in question (gender identities vs ability of instructor) at the 0.05 level there is no difference for either , and at 0.10 level there are differences for both. NOTE: the paper initial claims p <=0.05, but changed to story to 0.10 on pg.299.

2. There is no statistically significant (p 0.05)difference (for the tiny sample lol), I think you are looking at the final mean score and ignoring the standard deviations associated.

3. Again, there is no statistically significant (p 0.05) difference, I think you are looking at the only the final mean score and ignoring the standard deviations.

I am actually quite peeved the authors did a slight of hand to tweak the confidence interval level.

[martyconlonontherun]

2 of my ten closest female friends were young senior auditors who on paper had promising careers at a big four firm. They married other auditors and quit for no other reason then they would rather be a stay at home mom than work at the firm.

This happens all the time yet the firms get blamed despite offering pretty good maternity and paternity leave despite grueling hours for both men and women. But it's a personal choice they made that they should stay home versus the husband in a similar job.

[boarder42]

2 of my ten closest female friends were young senior auditors who on paper had promising careers at a big four firm. They married other auditors and quit for no other reason then they would rather be a stay at home mom than work at the firm.

This happens all the time yet the firms get blamed despite offering pretty good maternity and paternity leave despite grueling hours for both men and women. But it's a personal choice they made that they should stay home versus the husband in a similar job.

that pretty much sums up most of the gender based pay gap on a macro scale.  coupled with women typically taking or being interested in jobs that pay less.

[A Definite Beta Guy]

Removing that particular societal norm does not change the distribution of sexual orientation.

Because sexual orientations are what we are born with right? Or do you think we can make gay people straight and vice versa?

Yes, my point is that sexual orientation is something we are born with and is not a gendered norm.  It is not something that makes men/women unequal in any way.  That's why I don't understand why it is being ignored in order to prove a point.

That's an assertion. If someone disagrees with your assertion, they will look at the data and see nothing but discrimination, and be bewildered that you don't see the same thing.

Also, strictly speaking, if most men like women and most women like men, that should....ahhhh...make things different, if not "unequal"

[MrMoogle]

So, is that because they are more productive?  If they are not more productive, then why should they get promoted and get larger pay raises?  Because they happen to be male and therefore are more willing to sacrifice family time in order to appear more productive?

And this is all in addition to the fact that women don't actually have to make the choice to prioritize family over work in order to be penalized for it.  This is shown by the study that was looking at resumes with or without a PTA association where women with the PTA association were half as likely to get a callback.  Those fake women hadn't actually made any choices about how much time to spend at work, they were penalized simply because there was the perception that a mother would not be as dedicated to work as a father.

Mostly it's because they are perceived as more productive, rather than actually being more productive.  There's also some actual benefit, but it's probably very little.  Along the lines of:  We had a problem at 6pm and everyone else was already gone, it's such a good thing this guy works so much and stays so late.  Usually getting in at 6am is less recognized because it could just be handled at 7 or 8 when others get in.

And the problem with paying for productivity instead of hours is in many jobs it is hard to measure productivity.  I definitely can't come up with a way to measure it to differentiate me with my coworkers.  Most of my tasks are ambiguous and hard to predict.  Usually you can ballpark it, but should it take 2 hours or 4 hours, it just depends on what you find when you start working it.

[Jrr85]

Removing that particular societal norm does not change the distribution of sexual orientation.

Because sexual orientations are what we are born with right? Or do you think we can make gay people straight and vice versa?

Yes, my point is that sexual orientation is something we are born with and is not a gendered norm.  It is not something that makes men/women unequal in any way.  That's why I don't understand why it is being ignored in order to prove a point.

It's not being ignored, it is the point.  It is as iron clad a proof as you are going to get that certain behavioral traits are distributed differently between male and female populations.  Most men don't prefer women because of gendered expectations, but because biologically, having XY chromosome means it's very likely you are going to be attracted to people with XX chromosome.  Even if there both men and women are found all over the spectrum regarding attraction, there are population level differences in the distribution of such behavioral traits. 

[anisotropy]

Removing that particular societal norm does not change the distribution of sexual orientation.

Because sexual orientations are what we are born with right? Or do you think we can make gay people straight and vice versa?

Yes, my point is that sexual orientation is something we are born with and is not a gendered norm.  It is not something that makes men/women unequal in any way.  That's why I don't understand why it is being ignored in order to prove a point.

It's not being ignored, it is the point.  It is as iron clad a proof as you are going to get that certain behavioral traits are distributed differently between male and female populations.  Most men don't prefer women because of gendered expectations, but because biologically, having XY chromosome means it's very likely you are going to be attracted to people with XX chromosome.  Even if there both men and women are found all over the spectrum regarding attraction, there are population level differences in the distribution of such behavioral traits.

Some people might assert that men prefer women and women prefer men are the same thing, ie, heterosexuality. To me, that's twisting arms by quite a bit.

[Cressida]

Cressida's argument is that the only reason ~95-97% of men prefer a female spouse (or sexual companion since not everybody wants a spouse at all) is that society has trained them to.

That's not my argument, and the record shows that it's not.

I apologize.  Looking at your subsequent posts, your actual argument is there is no reason to assume that 95-97% because of anything other than gendered expectation.  Correct?

No. I request that you stop saying I said things I didn't say.

[NotJen]

Removing that particular societal norm does not change the distribution of sexual orientation.

Because sexual orientations are what we are born with right? Or do you think we can make gay people straight and vice versa?

Yes, my point is that sexual orientation is something we are born with and is not a gendered norm.  It is not something that makes men/women unequal in any way.  That's why I don't understand why it is being ignored in order to prove a point.

That's an assertion. If someone disagrees with your assertion, they will look at the data and see nothing but discrimination, and be bewildered that you don't see the same thing.

Also, strictly speaking, if most men like women and most women like men, that should....ahhhh...make things different, if not "unequal"

Yes, I think I addressed that point here:  https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/wage-gap/msg1933153/#msg1933153

If sexual orientation and desire to procreate are things that can be removed from the decision (because they are nurture and get thrown out with cultural/societal/gender norms), then I absolutely think that for every woman who chooses a man, a man will also choose a man.  Therefore Cressida's assertion is intact.  If I believe (like MDM appears to) that sexual orientation is something that can't be changed, and the choice won't be equal (man chooses man for every woman chooses man is not true), then Cressida's assertion is still intact because the decision involves nature and not cultural/societal/gender norms.

My point is this is a bad example to disprove Cressida's stated belief.

[Jrr85]

Cressida's argument is that the only reason ~95-97% of men prefer a female spouse (or sexual companion since not everybody wants a spouse at all) is that society has trained them to.

That's not my argument, and the record shows that it's not.

I apologize.  Looking at your subsequent posts, your actual argument is there is no reason to assume that 95-97% because of anything other than gendered expectation.  Correct?

No. I request that you stop saying I said things I didn't say.

I apparently deleted a section of my last comment before I hit post and didn't proof, so that may not have been entirely clear, but, you said:

I didn't say that a relationship between one's sex and one's behavior does not exist. I said that it hasn't been proven to exist, and therefore there's no reason to assume it exists.

So it is fair, correct, to say your position is that if more men than women prefer their sexual partners to be women, there is no reason to assume that it's actually because of their sex as opposed to gendered expectations or some other factor. 

Or to repeat and clarify my previous post without the inadvertent deletion, your position would be that there is no reason to assume that 95-97% of men prefer a female spouse (or sexual partner) because men are more likely to prefer women as sexual partners than women are. 

Better?
 

[shenlong55]

you ignored most of my post that suggested you could change something that you're against thats great! Thats why the stastics are what they are you and guitar steve both have a chance to change the stats - but choose not to- a choice you're making in fatherhood.  b/c its mathmatically better but since you've chosen those paths you're further skewing the statistics - which i dont think is a problem - and no instituting laws to award performance over time is a terrible idea - society should take care of it self in this area.   

statistically the time spent pre birth vs post birth are very large orders of magnitudes in difference - do any of the studies specifically isolate them no- but you didnt read them prior to your terrible comment I cant carry the child the studies isolated that it was due to time spent out of the workplace for event around motherhood. - the appt's at the doctor are quite easily made up - shit i even attend these with my wife its not going to affect pay significantly  - the events around birth with maternity leave are significant depending on the amount of time chosen to take off.  but its a small blip in time - and if for the next 18 years while the children are at home the mother skews to choose family time over working this is a large amount of time that was addressed in the study - in one they specifically asked about time they were dedicating to work vs their children which is mostly a post birth question.

again if you're so adamant about change you have the power to change it ... bitching about it doesnt make a proactive step towards change.

Thank you for admitting that you're original criticism of my post was incorrect.  I know it's hard to admit when you're wrong, so I understand why you keep trying to change the subject.

[NotJen]

Some people might assert that men prefer women and women prefer men are the same thing, ie, heterosexuality. To me, that's twisting arms by quite a bit.

Yes, that is what I'm trying to ascertain.  If a person believes "female relationship choice due to being heterosexual" is not the same as "male relationship choice due to being heterosexual", then I will never understand their argument, and I will stop trying.

It is as iron clad a proof as you are going to get that certain behavioral traits are distributed differently between male and female populations.

Can you point me to this iron clad proof?

I do believe that this is true:
"Most men don't prefer women because of gendered expectations, but because biologically, having XY chromosome means it's very likely you are going to be attracted to people with XX chromosome."
and also this is true:
"Most women don't prefer men because of gendered expectations, but because biologically, having XX chromosome means it's very likely you are going to be attracted to people with XY chromosome."
and that this is an example of men and women behaving the same way, not an example of men and women behaving differently.

[Jrr85]

Removing that particular societal norm does not change the distribution of sexual orientation.

Because sexual orientations are what we are born with right? Or do you think we can make gay people straight and vice versa?

Yes, my point is that sexual orientation is something we are born with and is not a gendered norm.  It is not something that makes men/women unequal in any way.  That's why I don't understand why it is being ignored in order to prove a point.

That's an assertion. If someone disagrees with your assertion, they will look at the data and see nothing but discrimination, and be bewildered that you don't see the same thing.

Also, strictly speaking, if most men like women and most women like men, that should....ahhhh...make things different, if not "unequal"

Yes, I think I addressed that point here:  https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/wage-gap/msg1933153/#msg1933153

If sexual orientation and desire to procreate are things that can be removed from the decision (because they are nurture and get thrown out with cultural/societal/gender norms), then I absolutely think that for every woman who chooses a man, a man will also choose a man.  Therefore Cressida's assertion is intact.  If I believe (like MDM appears to) that sexual orientation is something that can't be changed, and the choice won't be equal (man chooses man for every woman chooses man is not true), then Cressida's assertion is still intact because the decision involves nature and not cultural/societal/gender norms.

My point is this is a bad example to disprove Cressida's stated belief.

You didn't address it.  You can't say, "taking sex out of it, men and women would have similar distributions of preference in sexual partner."  The entire point is that Cressida is saying there is no reason to assume men and women would have different distributions of preferences as to sexual partner without cultural/societal/gender norms/expectations.  If you think that without cultural/societal/gender norms/expectations, that the percentage of men who are sexually attracted to women would be higher than the percentage of women who are sexually attracted to women, then you don't agree with Cressida position (or I guess alternatively you agree with her but admit to having an assumption without any basis for believing it). 

[NotJen]

You didn't address it.  You can't say, "taking sex out of it, men and women would have similar distributions of preference in sexual partner."  The entire point is that Cressida is saying there is no reason to assume men and women would have different distributions of preferences as to sexual partner without cultural/societal/gender norms/expectations.  If you think that without cultural/societal/gender norms/expectations, that the percentage of men who are sexually attracted to women would be higher than the percentage of women who are sexually attracted to women, then you don't agree with Cressida position (or I guess alternatively you agree with her but admit to having an assumption without any basis for believing it).

Cressida did not address choice of sexual partner.  I do not believe Cressida ever said what you are asserting.  MDM is using choice of sexual/marriage partner to try to discredit Cressida's point, and I don't believe it is a good example to use for this purpose.  That is all.

[anisotropy]

You didn't address it.  You can't say, "taking sex out of it, men and women would have similar distributions of preference in sexual partner."  The entire point is that Cressida is saying there is no reason to assume men and women would have different distributions of preferences as to sexual partner without cultural/societal/gender norms/expectations.  If you think that without cultural/societal/gender norms/expectations, that the percentage of men who are sexually attracted to women would be higher than the percentage of women who are sexually attracted to women, then you don't agree with Cressida position (or I guess alternatively you agree with her but admit to having an assumption without any basis for believing it).

Cressida did not address choice of sexual partner.  I do not believe Cressida ever said what you are asserting.  MDM is using choice of sexual/marriage partner to try to discredit Cressida's point, and I don't believe it is a good example to use for this purpose.  That is all.

That is fine, I think most people (arguing with Cressida anyway) here have an issue with Cressida's logic process to refuse studies showing results contrary to their existing beliefs. Also when people try to understand their points better, Cressida displays classic "passive" responses, such as No, That's not what I said, My stance hasn't changed, without elaborating further. People might find these responses uncooperative, but the responses might be a second order phenomenon in being refusing to even look at the studies.

For example,

Cressida (C) maintains there is no prove or "consensus" in behavior sexual dimorphism in absence of social conditioning, that's fine. Then people show a bunch of studies that say otherwise, but instead of refuting the studies on their individual merit, C decided to maintain their belief without doing  investigations themselves, instead citing a book that somehow provided a universal refusal to all studies contrary to their preferred belief.

Side note, this book is good, by a fellow Oxbridge product, it's worth a read. No I don't get commissions.

C cites there is no proof, yet animal and human (yes animal too) behavior studies clearly show otherwise. People that brought this up were met with universal rejection without even a slightest intellectual interest/effort. Simply saying no doesn't make one right automatically, attack the studies, attack the data, attack the analysis, dont just say no. C's stance is incredibly shaky if we even apply an ounce of scientific rigor. This reminds me, didn't someone say they were going to bring a real biologist and provide some real biological insight into this? I am still waiting. Btw Poutine, I will provide a reply to the critique link soon, more studies exist than the two-day baby study.

I will end with this:
"Why? There was too much data pointing to the biological basis of sex-based cognitive differences to ignore, Halpern says. For one thing, the animal-research findings resonated with sex-based differences ascribed to people. These findings continue to accrue. In a study of 34 rhesus monkeys, for example, males strongly preferred toys with wheels over plush toys, whereas females found plush toys likable. It would be tough to argue that the monkeys’ parents bought them sex-typed toys or that simian society encourages its male offspring to play more with trucks. A much more recent study established that boys and girls 9 to 17 months old — an age when children show few if any signs of recognizing either their own or other children’s sex — nonetheless show marked differences in their preference for stereotypically male versus stereotypically female toys."

https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html

Any real debate requires both sides to be open to change. I have done so throughout, thanks to posters who had helped me in taking the studies apart for further investigations. So far, from the "all nurture" camp, we are seeing no such thing.

[Cressida]

Cressida's argument is that the only reason ~95-97% of men prefer a female spouse (or sexual companion since not everybody wants a spouse at all) is that society has trained them to.

That's not my argument, and the record shows that it's not.

I apologize.  Looking at your subsequent posts, your actual argument is there is no reason to assume that 95-97% because of anything other than gendered expectation.  Correct?

No. I request that you stop saying I said things I didn't say.

I apparently deleted a section of my last comment before I hit post and didn't proof, so that may not have been entirely clear, but, you said:

I didn't say that a relationship between one's sex and one's behavior does not exist. I said that it hasn't been proven to exist, and therefore there's no reason to assume it exists.

So it is fair, correct, to say your position is that if more men than women prefer their sexual partners to be women, there is no reason to assume that it's actually because of their sex as opposed to gendered expectations or some other factor. 

Or to repeat and clarify my previous post without the inadvertent deletion, your position would be that there is no reason to assume that 95-97% of men prefer a female spouse (or sexual partner) because men are more likely to prefer women as sexual partners than women are. 

Better?

My response hasn't changed.

[Jrr85]

You didn't address it.  You can't say, "taking sex out of it, men and women would have similar distributions of preference in sexual partner."  The entire point is that Cressida is saying there is no reason to assume men and women would have different distributions of preferences as to sexual partner without cultural/societal/gender norms/expectations.  If you think that without cultural/societal/gender norms/expectations, that the percentage of men who are sexually attracted to women would be higher than the percentage of women who are sexually attracted to women, then you don't agree with Cressida position (or I guess alternatively you agree with her but admit to having an assumption without any basis for believing it).

Cressida did not address choice of sexual partner.  I do not believe Cressida ever said what you are asserting.  MDM is using choice of sexual/marriage partner to try to discredit Cressida's point, and I don't believe it is a good example to use for this purpose.  That is all.

Well, Cressida said:

I didn't say that a relationship between one's sex and one's behavior does not exist. I said that it hasn't been proven to exist, and therefore there's no reason to assume it exists.

I don't think most people would agree that there's no reason to assume that men are more likely to prefer women sexual partners than women are.  So even if it's not relevant to the wage gap, it's a pretty good starting point to show that it's probably wrong to think there are no behavioral differences related to sex. 

Granted, it's dangerous to rely simply on people's "gut" feeling with respect to something like that.  It's possible everybody is just wrong in what they "know".  But the value in the argument is not really what other people think, it's that very likely even people claiming there is no reason to think there are any behavioral differences related to sex don't really believe that men aren't more likely to prefer women sexual partners than women are.  That's a pretty stark difference in distribution of a behaviorial trait that most people believe is driven by biology. 

So once someone is forced to face that, they either have to go the cognitive dissonance route and convince themselves they don't understand the argument, or they have to acknowledge that their original position was incorrect (or at least they believe it's incorrect; again, it's possible we are just so strongly conditioned that we think we "know" something that isn't true).  So then if they are somewhat intellectually honest, they have to ask why they are so sure that there are zero other differences in distribution of behavioral traits across the sexes?  And once they ask that question, I think they are probably on the path to agnosticism with respect to whether there are any traits relevant to employment preferences that might impact salary data. 
 

[Cressida]

anisotropy:

I already explained why I'm unconvinced by your citation of those studies. I'm not going to do it again.

[NotJen]

Well, Cressida said:

I didn't say that a relationship between one's sex and one's behavior does not exist. I said that it hasn't been proven to exist, and therefore there's no reason to assume it exists.

I don't think most people would agree that there's no reason to assume that men are more likely to prefer women sexual partners than women are.  So even if it's not relevant to the wage gap, it's a pretty good starting point to show that it's probably wrong to think there are no behavioral differences related to sex. 

My last comment on this thread :
A woman chooses a male sexual partner because she is heterosexual (or bi or whatever), not because she is a woman.
A man chooses a female sexual partner because he is heterosexual (or bi or whatever), not because he is a man.

We have a different understanding and that is fine.

[shenlong55]

So, is that because they are more productive?  If they are not more productive, then why should they get promoted and get larger pay raises?  Because they happen to be male and therefore are more willing to sacrifice family time in order to appear more productive?

And this is all in addition to the fact that women don't actually have to make the choice to prioritize family over work in order to be penalized for it.  This is shown by the study that was looking at resumes with or without a PTA association where women with the PTA association were half as likely to get a callback.  Those fake women hadn't actually made any choices about how much time to spend at work, they were penalized simply because there was the perception that a mother would not be as dedicated to work as a father.

Mostly it's because they are perceived as more productive, rather than actually being more productive.  There's also some actual benefit, but it's probably very little.  Along the lines of:  We had a problem at 6pm and everyone else was already gone, it's such a good thing this guy works so much and stays so late.  Usually getting in at 6am is less recognized because it could just be handled at 7 or 8 when others get in.

And the problem with paying for productivity instead of hours is in many jobs it is hard to measure productivity.  I definitely can't come up with a way to measure it to differentiate me with my coworkers.  Most of my tasks are ambiguous and hard to predict.  Usually you can ballpark it, but should it take 2 hours or 4 hours, it just depends on what you find when you start working it.

So, if employers are paying more for a behavior that men are more likely to exhibit but that does not actually improve productivity is that not sexism?

I get that paying for productivity is difficult, but I think making flexibility the standard rather than the exception (whether through social pressure or legislation) would help to even things out a bit more.

[FrugalToque]

The topic has been locked due to way, way too much spinning around and moderation effort.

As much as I'd like to let this go around and around forever, it's not getting anywhere, and it's doing very little to contribute to our core purpose of facilitating early retirement.

Toque.