Equal Pay

I recently met another person who had a good time challenging my subversive views on women's roles. This time, it was on equal pay for women.

Here are the arguments for why women should not be paid as much as men. Some are common ones I hear all the time and others were found on the Internet among a slew of anti-feminist websites.

1. Women get pregnant and go on maternity leave.

2. Women call off work to stay home and care for sick children and relatives.

3. Women don't stay late or work weekends

4. Women don't ask for raises or negotiate salaries

5. Women are not as competitive as men

6. Women don't care about job status as much as men

7. Women don't want the upper-level management jobs, so they should not be paid as much in the lower ranked positions

Here is why those arguments are total bullshit.

Women get pregnant and go on maternity leave.

Obviously not all women get pregnant, so let's focus on why women who choose to be mothers and take time off to bond with their infant should be paid the same as their male peers. Close your eyes and imagine this. A male employee has a heart attack and needs heart surgery. He takes a month or so off to recover. Should this employee be paid less now because he took an extended amount of time off work? "Well,"you say, " he didn't choose to have a heart attack. Women choose to have babies." OK, how about this. All overweight men should be paid less because they will have a heart attack and need to take an extended amount of time off. Should companies take preventative measures against any person who looks like they may need to use their short term disability and not pay them fairly? Sound ridiculous? So does this argument against equal pay.

Women call off work to stay home and care for sick children and relatives.

How about men who call off to care for sick kids and relatives? It happens often enough at my office. Should people with families not make as much as people who don't have families? I think this argument is deeply rooted in sexist logic. Why do schools call the mother when the kid is sick? Fathers are capable of caring for their offspring as well. To be fair, fathers should also be discriminated against. Or, to make things right, no one should be discriminated against.

Women don't stay late or work weekends.

This one really pisses me off. Overtime is mandatory at my company. And you know who works all the voluntary overtime? The women. This includes Saturdays. The hardest working employees at my company who work 8 hour shifts on Saturdays voluntarily are all women. The men are the ones pissing and moaning all the time about having to work Saturday mornings and less men choose to work the voluntary overtime. This does not only happen at my place of employment. And you know why all these women are volunteering to work the overtime? Because they get paid less and need the extra money!

Women don't ask for raises or negotiate salaries.

Unfortunately, statistics show that this is true. However, women who ask for raises are more likely than men to not get as much as they ask for. Interestingly, women have discovered pay discrepancies when they asked for a raise. Just ask Lilly Ledbetter.

Women are not as competitive as men.

What a load of crap. Women will do just as much to get a position working on a special project as their male counterparts. Women's efforts are often ignored because of sexism in the corporate world. From my observations and research, men don't want women in upper level management positions because it threatens the patriarchal structure of how businesses are run. Even though the movie wasn't that great, Anchorman did a great job of illustrating sexism in the workplace. Even though the plot took place a few decades back, things have not changed for women seeking to advance.

Women don't care about their job status as much as men.

I'm not sure why people think this. Everyone, both female and male, wants to be the supervisor. No, not everyone women wants to be Dwight Shrute with an army of subordinates, but women do care about the positions and rank they hold at work. If anyone can share with the world why they think women don't care about their job status, I would be very interested in hearing what you have to say. And then I will tell you why you are a dumb ass.

Women don't want the upper-level management jobs.

Yes, this could be true. Not all women want to be the CEO. But some do!!!! Not all men want upper-level management positions and we don't pay them less! Check out this woman CEO. Or this one. Fortune 500 lists 10 more women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. I guarantee all of these women want their jobs.

My point is that there are no logical argument for not paying women equal wages. Companies are hiding behind their misogynist values and are pulling excuses out of their rectums for justifying pay discrimination.

Here is why companies won't pay women equal wages.

1. They are cheap bastards

2. They think female employees are expendable

3. They can use excuses like maternity leave to not pay women equally because it's not socially acceptable for mothers to work outside the home.

4. They think women are stupid

5. They think no one will notice

6. No one is forcing them to

7. They are depending on women to not care