By dint
of being a classical liberal, hence an individualist, I am a feminist, married
to a very individualistic classical
liberal, career feminist. I advocate for the individualist ethic of classical
liberalism because only in that will the free (and prosperous) society be
founded. The enemy of that freedom is the unbounded statism that has overthrown
the West, ironically via the emoting booth, funded by the tax surveillance
state. One of the bastions of statism has become identity politick feminism, also
called Marxist feminism, and thus my regular - reflecting now regular MSM
reportage - attacks against that
tyrannical liturgy foundered too often on falsehoods. On the current course we
are not many years from state enforced public (certainly) and private sector
gender work place quotas. The following Twitter feed is but one example of how
you must always dig deeper into assumptions and statistics.
Note I
don’t cite the below Twitter timeline to ‘get at’ respondent Marianne. She’s
great, albeit unfollowing me on this. [I will defend my principles until proven
wrong by reality; unlike Progressives, sadly – and this is part of the problem
– who too soon disengage when their mantras are questioned, either leaving the
fray, as Marianne did, or much worse, goose-stepping off to advocate the ban
and the boycott, or trotting out that offensive word which overuse has rendered
useless; misogynist.] I post the
following only because it explicates the theme of this post, being what I think
is the massaged wonk behind the statistics being used in the current gender pay
gap debate, and, as with the climate change debate, the wholesale unthinking,
uncritical buy-in to the agenda of the identity politick by those who are
intelligent enough to know better. This post is also, as will become plain, a
request for anecdotal information please.
This is
the first part of the timeline:
NZ has lowest gender wage gap in the
OECD
https://t.co/Do0Zzaf1ql
—
David Farrar (@dpfdpf) April
15, 2015
@dpfdpf Are these
stats across all industries or within industries? Eg, does it measure a male
and female in same job at same grade? #OECD
—
Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) April
15, 2015
@MarkHubbard33
It is comparing median wages within a whole country.
— David
Farrar (@dpfdpf) April
15, 2015
@dpfdpf Then
that's nonsense as not taking into account many women might choose
lower wage industries (for whatever reason.)
— Mark Hubbard
(@MarkHubbard33) April
15, 2015
@dpfdpf
There's only a gender wage gap, politically, if male & female
doing same job are being paid unequally.
— Mark Hubbard
(@MarkHubbard33) April
15, 2015
@MarkHubbard33
Sadly even if adjusting for industry and seniority there is still a egnder wgae
gap.
— David Farrar (@dpfdpf) April
15, 2015
@dpfdpf Sorry, but
I'm sceptical in these stats having the detail to capture reality. Coz
this http://t.co/tl5fbVphhW and
this is 1/2
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) April
15, 2015
@dpfdpf ... important
because the agenda is state enforced quotas #FreeSociety
—
Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) April
15, 2015
Before
moving on that link is important, although there is now a better source here. Senior Fellow in Political
Economy and editor at large of The
Independent Review, Robert Higgs’s piece is worth quoting directly, my
highlighting:
The quality of
economic journalism in the United States is terrible. Day after day,
journalists write about the causes and consequences of economic conditions and
events without understanding the underlying economics of the situation, and
their articles are, as a rule, simply bunk. Here is an example.
I have not
examined the actual report whose findings are described in the article, but I
am familiar with many studies of the same question that economists have
conducted over the years. Moreover, I
myself have made many applied econometric studies in a variety of areas, and I
know how delicate the findings of such studies are to a variety of
details—sample period, sample size, sampling method, data collection details,
model specification, estimation methods, and so forth. I know, too, that the
best studies—those with the best data, most sensible model specification, and
most exhaustive set of controls—have found virtually no difference in the
amounts that men and women are paid for doing the same work. The key is
“doing the same work,” which is another way of saying “providing equally
valuable services to the employer” in the sense of adding equally to the
employer’s net income.
[Snip.]
In sum, the
so-called gender gap is almost certainly a myth, a persistent misapprehension
kept alive by leftists—feminist ideologues and politicians posturing as special
friends of women—who wish to use the power of government to benefit members of
their political constituency. If employers
truly discriminate between equally value-productive male and female employees,
however, they do so only in cases that are few and transitory, because the
systematic, persistent conduct of such discrimination is inconsistent with
everything we know about how people make decisions in labor markets and about
what we presume business owners in general are trying to do, namely, make
profits.
It’s
worth reading the whole piece, but I bet that goes against the perceived
reality most readers will have on the gender pay gap. Noting I view Higgs as
authoritative. From this, to the second part of the Twitter timeline, and my request
for anecdotal information please:
@MArchibald
That's not what I meant, again, here http://t.co/tl5fbVphhW
@dpfdpf
—
Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) April
15, 2015
@MarkHubbard33
@dpfdpf
it's true that more women have more lower paid positions but also that
women earn less in same positions as men.
— Marianne
Archibald (@MArchibald) April
15, 2015
@MArchibald Can
you cite a known example of the latter? Again I refer you to my Cafe Hayek link
re properly scoped statistics. @dpfdpf
—
Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) April
15, 2015
@MArchibald If a
male & female earn their employer same net income then market dictates
they are paid same. Why not? @dpfdpf
—
Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) April
15, 2015
@MArchibald Again,
are you aware of a single, actual, example of male/female same job, same
employer, different income? Anyone? @dpfdpf
—
Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) April
15, 2015
@MArchibald @dpfdpf I personally
can't cite a single such case.
— Mark Hubbard
(@MarkHubbard33) April
15, 2015
@MArchibald
@dpfdpf Throwing
this to Twitter. The Press gallery at Parl. seems at least 50/50 m/f - are the
female reporters on less money?
— Mark Hubbard
(@MarkHubbard33) April
15, 2015
Marianne
never did confirm she knew of a single case of a female employee receiving less
in the same job, same employer. Nor did David Farrar. I repeat I know of no
case. And more than that, I professionally have a lot of farming clients;
especially when a young farming couple are starting out, off-farm wages are
often required. In every case I can think of it’s the female spouse who does
the off-farm work, not for any type of sexist reason, but because the female is
indubitably better qualified, and can command a higher wage off-farm than the
male spouse could.
So,
comments are open, I don’t moderate or edit in any way, a respect you won’t see
on many statist blogs. Can anyone cite actual New Zealand examples of what
would be a true gender pay gap, please: male/female in same job, same employer,
paid unequally.
***
While on
this topic, Rodney Hide’s Herald piece from this weekend weighing into
(New Zealand's) Equal Employment Opportunities Dr Jackie Blue’s decision to
publicly scold breakfast TV broadcaster Paul Henry on his Hilliary Clinton
comments was spot on. Dr Blue is a tax payer funded identity politick agent
shoved down the necks of those of us who know better and are forced to pay for
her commissariat. Henry’s remarks were not sexism – judge for yourself:
Henry had said in regard to Hillary Clinton's run for the White House:
"Why, if feminism has come so far, does she feel the need to highlight the
fact that she's a woman?
"Shouldn't she be selling herself on the fact that she's the best
person, the right person, for the job, no matter what her sex?"
Henry also noted other high-profile females had "fallen into the
same trap", including Helen Clark in her bid to become Secretary-General
of the United Nations.
I’ve
written what I think of this tactic so shamelessly being used by Clinton here: let’s not mistake criticism with
persecution. Hide
makes an exemplary point (my inserted comment in orange):
Henry has a good point. The feminist complaint was "jobs for the
boys". The argument was women
shouldn't be excluded because they're women. But the argument has become that
women must be selected because they are women. [Unless, it’s worthy of note, those
women are Margaret Thatcher or Sarah Palin, apparently - and that because this is a Progressive agenda, there being the rub.] Clinton and Clark have replaced sexism with
reverse sexism.
Blue declared Henry wrong. "Feminism hasn't come further than
Hillary Clinton and Helen Clark, feminism will only ever go as far as they and
other women go."
I have wrapped my head in a wet towel, meditated for two days, and still
don't know what she is saying.
Of course
Hide was castigated on Twitter for mansplaining, but as I’ve always found,
those who toss that term around so liberally do so because they don’t have the
wherewithal to debate content (after they've normally dropped context). Retorting
with ‘mansplaining’ is that Progressive tactic of soft censorship they try on
first, able to rely on null-think from the neophytes, before they then go to
the full ban and boycott approach and the fist of government, that is, mandatory quotas. Pfui!
I have no
clue what Blue is on about in that ‘feminism
hasn’t come further than Hillary Clinton and Helen Clark’ sentence either, given Helen Clark was Prime Minister of New Zealand for nine years; perhaps a radfem
could inane-splain it to me, but as for my tax money being used so Nanny Blue
can monitor breakfast television for thought crimes, bugger off with that, I'll take a refund please.
Hi Mark,
ReplyDeleteI just came across this: http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=hire_women
Cheers
Paul
Interesting link. Cheers.
DeleteAnd still waiting for a single anecdotal example. My mind is starting to firmly move to the position of agenderised distorted stats on this one (also).