Are Women Really Treated Equally?

Architecture isn't hard science.



"Look at the engineers..."

My own girlfriend is a better engineering student than me. Better grade point average, better GPA, better everything. She's no "exceptional" woman. I bet there are hundreds of thousands like her.



You're begging the question. I told you to provide me evidence that equal ability is "PC bullshit" and you provide me with a long rant, the crux of which is that there are more men in hard sciences, therefore men must be more capable in the field. Really? Is that it? There are far more women in home economics. Does that mean men can't sew and cook as well as women? If women are so bad at science and if feminists were so wrong all along, then please explain to me why the percentage of female engineers and doctors has drastically increased and continues to increase from what it used to be. Why hasn't it remained the same as say, the 1940s, when there were few feminists and the separated gender roles you advocate were in full flourish? How about Victorian times? How about the Medieval era?



You make a lot of assertions but provide no facts to back up those assertions.



I have already explained to you why women's sports are separate - it's scientifically demonstrable that the large majority of women have lower muscle strength than men and therefore, they are at a distinct disadvantage. Nothing of the sort can be said of scientific ability, of legal competence, of artistic merit and in general, of any skill-based field.



In any case, the women's category in sports is hardly "equal" to the men's category, either in terms of profile or cashflows.



Do you know what is irrational? When you take one fact and try to make a generalized claim by extrapolating it to everything else, that is irrational. Yes, women are physically weaker (in general). No, that does not mean that many of them cannot meet the military's required standards of fitness. That doesn't mean they can't make good lawyers. That doesn't mean that female directors are rubbish. And it certainly doesn't mean that most of us would hesitate to trust a neurosurgeon with our lives just because she happens to have an extra X chromosome.

@fourier ... You, like most others, have fallen for the feminist PC claptrap that passes for intelectual enlightenment ... Put away your PC rulebook and shelve your desire that everyone is equal ... That is a socialist utopian dream, not based in reality. Look at the engineers, physicists, mathmaticians, architects ... Males dominate the "Hard" science degrees and careers. That is not to say there are no exceptional women ... but .logical evidence has to be disgarded or at least painted over by PC paint to deny the truth. Milions of people fell for the femininist lie that boys and girls are equal, and only the discriminitaory way patriarchal society raised girls and boys differently accounted for the difference in the mindsets of the genders. Yes they exclaimed ... give boys dolls and tea sets, and giver girls toy trucks and baseball bats and toy guns, and females would be the dominate gender and males the submissive gender... Millions of liberal parents fell for it ... and gave ther children gender "neutral" toys ... and despite their efforts .. just couldn't change the differences we were natuarally born with. The femininists were shown to be SO wrong ... and yet their voices are still given credibility in our Liberal halls of higher learning. It is BUNK .. Women could not handle equality .. Let's do away with WOMEN"S sports .. why must women be protected from male competition? Why do we even have a woman winner in a marathn race where she is directly competing with men ... yet when the first woman crosses the finish line after 20 men have finished ahead of her .. she is declared a winner? How is it equality when only females are given the option of when and where they get to compete, and when and where they get to exclude male competition? How is that equal? How can anyone give credence to those who claim women must be protected from male competition on the tennis court, but then claim women can compete with men on the battlefield? It is irrational.

@missjulie

That's a straw man, all right.

No one's saying men and women have to be equal in each and every respect. They should be equal in places where they both have equal capabilities.



It's a recognized fact that men tend to have greater muscular strength than women. If you can prove that men make better lawyers and movie directors, then your argument would have some substance.

In my neck of the woods, sadly, we're several decades away from achieving even this much.



I come from a society where a significant percentage of marriages are still based on the fact that the woman can cook well, clean better, and is basically content being a glorified maid.



Patriarchy cannot be eliminated overnight. It takes time, effort and will. Talking about gender inequality is not just political correctness either. Sexism is not a salary difference. Sexism is an attitude. Most countries have effective laws which protect women from discrimination at the workplace. But you cannot legislate against an attitude. You cannot legislate against parents who instill these attitudes in their daughters and sons. Even in the liberal West, sexist attitudes are hardly uncommon and are, in many circles, considered quite acceptable.



I personally believe in what Mahatma Gandhi once said - "men and women should be seen as equal, but not identical". There is no point in pretending that men and women are identical, because they simply aren't. There are physical differences, possibly psychological differences. That's a fact. The discrimination starts when one starts using this fact to make broad generalizations and then acts based on these generalizations. People need to be considered on a case-to-case basis, not on the basis of their gender or ethnicity or whatever. If a particular person fits the profile for a job and has the required skills/abilities, I fail to see why the gender should be considered relevant. The average woman is physically weaker than the average man but that doesn't mean that the woman sitting in front of you HAS to be unfit for any kind of physically demanding job. An average is an average - it's not an all encompassing, blanket figure that describes every single person in the group.

To nato84:



You are the exact reason why webpages like this are published. Reread what you have written and tell me you were not just assuming that women have jobs like being secretary and complain to their husbands. Umm, that would be stereotyping buddy . You are trying to argue against this page when you are actually proving it correct.



The following does not regard nato84:



Being a high school student, I do see a lot of this: when ever a girl shows the slightest sign of promiscuity, she is automaticaly labled as a "*****" or a "****", even by her fellow females. But, when a guy does this, he is praised by other males and girls act as though there is nothing wrong with this. Equality? I think not. See, female discrimination presents itself even in the most insignificant ways. Just had to say that

It is PC nonsense .... Are women capable of being equal or not? Why is it women are given the option of when and where they can compete? What the hell is that? ... If women think they can compete with men ... then drop all barriers to male competition... if you can't or won't drop barriers to male competiton ... then just drop the pretense that women and men are equal .... Stop the lies.

Women are and have been their own worst enemy! They just want things as they want them to happen magically. Magic own seems to work at Hogwarts. They do a lot gripping but can't come together with one voice and present their demands. That's so so sad!

I agree with giggelets. That is a good portion of why dressing fem (for a male) is considered demeaning. Bias in many forms still exists. And it is often unspoken (but just as real). Some strides have been made ,but equality is still not prevelant. Although it was many years ago,my step-sister ,although a brilliant chemist could not progress as far a male in her career. Sadly,it drove her to kill herself. Sadly like civil rights,it has gone underground. Still exists ,but not admitted. We have a long way to go to treat others (as scripture states) to treating everyone equaly,fairly and without bias or self-interest. But the fight to correct this must go on.

My daughters constantly play the salary difference card, but when I ask them to identify by SPECIFIC corporations for example, P&G, General Electric, Wal-Mart, Halliburton, American Fidelity Assurance, Balfour Beaty Construction, American Express, Perkins Coie, Intel, Four Seasons Hotels, CHG Healthcare Services, Goldman Sachs, and the list goes on and on, they produce no factual evidence beyond hear say, that any of these corporation's pay their male employees more than they pay their female employees working side by side.



No one seems willing to publicly identify the offending corporations and back up their claim with factual evidence. Likewise, where are these unhappy women in our courts demanding justice?



I personally cannot identify any school district in the nation, (not including colleges, don't have any experiences with them), that has two separate pay scales for male and female teachers, nor can I identify any governmental agencies supplying social services such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, human services, city services, governmental offices, etcetera that has 2 different pay scales.



Certainly there are pockets of small corporations and service operations where there might be a two gender pay system, but I'm doubtful that it is common place.



Also, your story reads great but is lacking on serious documentation supporting the figures you supplied. We all know how numbers can be manipulated to satisfy a personal agenda. Politicians do it all the time.



My argument is that to seek laws that guarantee equality, one needs hard proof that the injustice actually exists in serious numbers. If for example, there is serious documentation that P&G operates on a deliberate 2 pay scale system, then they can be publicly exposed and in many cases, legal actions taken.



If I may be so bold, it wasn't men who defeated Hillary, but women, this traces back to so many females running for serious public office in prior elections.



Sadly women can't come together and speak with one voice.



It's also my opinion that women shot themselves in the foot by deciding that male "trousers" instead of dresses is the symbol of strength, power, and wisdom. Women caved into on that one big-time, admitting that if one wears "trousers" they are strong, smart, capable, and that wearing dresses is "sissy", weak, and less than male.

Simple ... women should drop all barriers to male competiton if they think they are equal. Why should women be protected from male competiton? Why do we even have women's tennis ... women's track and field? ... If you think you can run and jump and comptete with men ... then stop this nonsense of protecting yourself from male competition. They won't ... because they can't ... it is all BS ... end of story.

If you would like to come work out on the railway, live in motels traveling from town to town, swinging a sledge hammer all day for 12 hours in the boiling heat, or the pouring rain, covered in grease and grime, working around large machinery that could kill you any day, and travel another couple of hours everyday to get back to this motel. Be my guest....i'm sure you will really enjoy your big pay cheque then, when you are asleep most of the time that you are not at work, because of extreme fatigue.I will then go work as a secretary instead and earn much less artificial bits of paper, but find a husband that does this hard work instead, then bleed him dry, and complain how men get more money. And how my life is so hard... Give me a break... stop playing the victim... there are many different reasons why, women earn less money. And yes some of that is because of prejudice. Have a look at all the lazy women who are unwilling to work hard and you will find your real answer for this prejudice. Stop hiding behind equality and falsely believing you are a victim and assuming no one else, is, and stop applying your own disguised prejudice

Not meaning to offend, but men and women are different after all. Can you say a woman coal miner? There's just roughly 4.5 percent of women workers in coal mining industry(http://women-minorities-business.findthebest.com/directory/d/Coal-Mining), with most of them probably in office postion or something like that, cause I really doubt a woman would go into a mine herself (If a woman who is a coal miner is reading this, I'm sorry if I offended you, it was just a mere example and I meant no offence). That's a "Man's job" simply because men are more suited to jobs like that.



Therefore, saying a woman earns only 77 cents per dollar without looking to context might distort the view. I bet that a coal miner, welder, construction worker etc. earns more than a till worker at a shopping center or a receptionist not because one is male and the other is female, but simply because male part of the population tend to do the more dangerous job that are also higher paying. Plus, an equal share of male population might go for "coal miner" and "shopping center" jobs, while women would probably prefer the "shopping center" over "coal miner", thus providing an increased supply of workers in one area, allowing employers to pay less. (No offence meant with the examples, they're just to illustrate my point). Expand the coal miner/till worker example to the economy, where the first represents more physically demanding/more dangerous jobs, while second one shows the rest. WIth a 50/50 share of male workers in both sectors and 5/95 share of female workers, it is rather natural that the second group would probably get lower wages. (Well, that's an oversimplified theory with random numbers off my head)



Now, I do agree with your point about women in sciences though, this are might need more improvement, but still, women are slowly gaining respect in these areas and it is improving compared to past.



As for stereotypes, this is a very double edged sword. It's easy for women to shout "Stereotyping!" on all these occasions, but if you are demanding for equality, you should get rid of the stereotypes you have for men. Allow me to give you example:

-Fathers are worse parents than mothers.

-Men always stereotype women and treat them worse.

-Men only want one thing from a woman

-Men are dirty pigs

etc etc etc.



Well, these are just some of my points. I'm not against women being treated equally, I'm just saying that equal treatment should go both ways.

Equality for women is hundreds of years away. The bias is so deeply ingrained into society that, as you notice, most people (some including women themselves) cannot even see it.

There is no equality between men and women. I lived in a family like this and it hurts alot.

I agree.. Need to see more progress here for Women. I reckon that symbolically Michelle's Obama's raised the consciousness of black women about their potential.

This is a great post, and I totally agree that women should be treated more fairly. However, some of the points you mentioned have the potential to be based on personal decisions rather than discrimination. Women may be underrepresented in certain careers such as CEO's and professors, but that doesn't mean that women CAN'T be CEO's or professors. Maybe they just choose not to be.



Also, while I question this theory, there was an interesting idea brought up in my social psychology class by my (female) professor about the salary gap between men and women. She said that it's possible that women get paid less than men statistically because women are statistically less likely to ask for a raise or promotion from their boss. I don't know if there's any research supporting that, but it is an interesting theory.

I don't really have much knowledge on this topic so this is a somewhat limited perspective. I've taken a women's study class in college and learned that as far as descriminition goes it's as follows:



White Men

White Women

Minority Men

Minority Women



So it may be innacurate to assume that all women have it worse off than men. As far as women in the workplace, I think that motherhood can skew the statistics. In many cases highly educated/affluent women choose to become stay-at-home moms, take extended period of time off following child birth, or sacrafice career advancement in favor of having more time to spend with children. I'm not saying that this is always true, but I think that this should be considered when looking at the statistics that you posted. And in response to the your initial question, "Are men and women equal", No, I dont think that we've got there yet.

i believe that this is a load of BULLSHIT !

Women are just as good as men but men have a more physical advantage

If women are not still devalued, openly and/or subliminaly, why is it, that there is still a stigma attached to boys who want to be girls, and males who prefer to be expressive as feminine? Think about it !?

'women are still underpaid.'



my mom charges 75.00 for a full set of fingernails....thats far from underpaid. to me thats a bit ridiculous, but she has a full clientele more than willing to pay for her skill. i would also like to add, most of my moms female clients are high paid lawyers, doctors, realestate agents, financial advisors, etc, etc.



'women are poorer'



i dont know all the statistics...but i can say statistics are not always accurate. real people lie, cheat, and steal....those actions affect an annual census. i'm not saying you're wrong though, just sharing my point of view.