Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site kontron.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!pesnta!pertec!kontron!cramer From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) Newsgroups: net.women,net.social Subject: Re: "pleasant" work vs. "dangerous" work Message-ID: <309@kontron.UUCP> Date: Mon, 1-Jul-85 13:33:03 EDT Article-I.D.: kontron.309 Posted: Mon Jul 1 13:33:03 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 4-Jul-85 00:26:32 EDT References: <826@oddjob.UUCP> Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA Lines: 230 Xref: watmath net.women:6216 net.social:776 > >> >In articlefagin@ucbvax.UUCP (Barry Steven Fagin) writes: > >> >>From Jennifer Roback, an economist at Yale, commenting on the "59c" > >> >> > >> >>"Actually, many of the factors that contribute to the earnings gap are the > >> >>result of personal choices made by women themselves, not decisions thrust > >> >>on them by bosses. The most important example is marriage." > >> > > >> >One other factor is that women tend to choose occupations with greater > >> >nonmonetary benefits which may compensate for the lower pay scales. That is, > >> >women more often choose occupations which center around helping other people > >> >and cooperating with them (teacher, nurse, secretary, social worker). > >> >The direct gratitude from the helpee satisfies some of the woman's social needs > >> > >> O.K. This tells me that "things are the way they are because that's the way > >> it is". Has it ever occurred to any of you that maybe one of the reasons > >> some women get married in the first place is that it's been made clear to > >> them that they'll be isolated and ridiculed if they take a "man's job" > >> or, if they choose a "women's job" be expected to "be nice" to juvenile > >> delinquents (as a teacher), vomitting old ladies (as a nurse), leering idiot > >> junior executives (as a secretary), or drug-addict welfare fathers (as a > >> social worker). Plenty of women get stuck in jobs like these for a lot > >> less money than what a man makes peacefully pounding nails eight hours a day. > >> > >You missed the point, Cheryl. It isn't "things are the way they are", > >but rather, comparing two jobs without comparing relative risks and > >the pleasantness of the work compares apples and oranges. There are awful > >parts of being a nurse or a teacher, but there are also very rewarding > >aspects to those jobs because of the personal contact --- someone who lays > >tar on roads for a living doesn't get the same gratification from his or > >her (usually his) job, and it is not surprising that men have traditionally > >gravitated to awful jobs that pay well because they are awful, since men > >have traditionally been the primary wage-earner, and women in the past have > >usually *not* been the primary wage-earner. > > > No I did NOT miss the point, Cramer. I think that the assumption that > men have different social and financial needs than women is patently > absurd. Why don't divorced men with no children to support become secretaries > (they can afford to take a "pleasant" low-paying job) while divorced women > with several children to support (i.e. they ARE the primary wage-earners) > join the electrician's union? (And before you tell me that girls are too > wimpy to be electricians, just think of how little REAL physical exertion goes > into it. Humping cinder block, now that's a different story.) Men and women through most of recent history had different social and financial needs because for the most part, marriages didn't break up. I'm not going to argue that the marriages were particularly happy, but because families stayed together, the requirements were different. Also, until very recently, divorced fathers seldom were given custody of the kids (I'm not sure that they usually wanted them, either). This is why men ended up primary breadwinner jobs. (Also, a lot of employers perceived that the man's job was essential to put bread on the table, and a woman's job was not. The reasoning was that a single woman didn't have kids to support (largely true, until the last few years), and a married woman was supported by her husband (largely untrue, but a lot of people believed it because they wanted things to be this way). Employers were excessively concerned with "social good" in this respect.) > > Most unions of skilled laborers offer apprenticeship programs (where they learn > things like how to convert feet to meters) which pay a substantial fraction > of the union wage to the apprentice. Up until very, very recently, these > APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMS WERE OFFICIALLY CLOSED TO WOMEN. My dad's union, > Steamfitter's Local 638 ("We heat New York") just graduated its first > card-carrying female steamfitter a couple years ago. Without AA, they never > would have had to open their doors to women (or blacks or Puerto Ricans) ever. > And without quotas, they could just throw women's applications in the garbage > can and tell the government that no women applied. It's been done before. You are right about unions --- most unions explicitly prohibited minorities until the 1950s, and a lot continued their prejudices even when the written prohibitions were removed. A lot of that is because the government removed the building trade unions from the free market with the Davis-Bacon Act. By requiring government building projects to be built by labor paid at union scale, non-union contractors had no cost advantage over union contractors. Unions were able to continue their discriminatory practices because non-union contractors were largely shut out of lucrative government building market. Labor unions, at least since the 1930s, have benefitted from government practices that give them a privileged position that other organizations are not allowed. The appropriate solution is repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act --- which would break the power of labor unions in the construction trade. > > And then people like you could sit back with your hands folded and make > rationalizations like "girls shouldn't get the same money boys do because > girls want wimpy jobs and boys are tough enough for rough jobs, nyaa-nyaa-nyaa." > I didn't say that. I said that trying to compare jobs is very difficult because there a lot of factors involved besides the tangibles in jobs. > Barry's point was that women *choose* easy, fun jobs. My counterpoint is that > women have been railroaded into these jobs, and kept out of better, albeit > harder jobs--by men. And that those "helpful, thrify, courteous, kind..." jobs > are *not at all* easy or fun or "socially gratifying". You wanna know what > I find "socially gratifying"? Winning arguments. It takes two to tango, but > only one to squirm. Society has certainly encouraged women to take certain jobs --- I think I would argue that the objective of this encouragement wasn't to deprive women of good jobs, but the society thought it was doing women a favor by discouraging them from dirty, hard, and dangerous work. If our social roles were the same as 1960, perhaps it would be a favor. The collapse of the traditional family has put a lot of single mothers in the position of needing high paying jobs because of divorce --- and many of these single mothers weren't trained for high paying jobs because both they, and the society, didn't forsee a need. > > >> Don't promote stereotypes of women holding "nice" jobs and men holding > >> "competitive, dangerous and dirty" jobs. I've seen too many women work > >> too hard for too little pay after making darned sure they had a good > >> education--only to realize that the men will make sure that another man > >> is "the right person in the right place at the right time" to get the > >> right training, the right wife, the right job, the right promotion, etc. > >> > >If by "good education" you mean a degree in English, or Art, or Urban > >Planning, then I'm not surprised. Men who get those degrees usually > >end of getting inferior jobs after college as well because those degrees > >are produced in numbers far in excess of the jobs that require those > >degrees. Unfortunately, women have tended to concentrate in studies that > >do not lead to high-paying jobs. > > > Oh, don't give me that crap. Men who get "those" degrees become bank presidents > stock-brokers, lawyers, Madison Avenue advertizing tycoons, insurance magnates, > architects, clergymen, and sometimes even computer programmers and engineers. Really? Most everyone I know (male and female) with those sort of degrees have miserable low paying jobs. Also, clergymen get paid very poorly --- a little below secretaries. (Fortunately, I don't have the handicap of a degree.) > Women who get "those" degrees are told that they don't have any useful skills-- > except typing of course. And women who do make sure to acquire higher-level > skills (programming, engineering, chemistry, physics) tend to be exploited > for those skills and those skills only--under the assumption that they're not > really planning of making a career out of it, that they'll be going to seed > soon anyway. Being exploited for those skills and those skills only means-- > you got it--writing subroutines instead of planning software, doing linear heat- > flow problems instead of nonlinear reaction-diffusion equations, working in an > chemical lab as a technician instead of being encouraged to go to graduate > school, working as an exploration geophysicist for an oil company rather than > being the theoretical physicist who formulates a consistent unified field > theory. There is nothing LESS satisfying than doing less than what you are > capable of--which is why so many women are unhappy with their "pleasant" work. What planet do you live on? All the women *I* know with technical degrees are treated better than men with technical degrees. > > >> >The fallacy of the equal-pay-for-equal-work idea is that it compares > >> >only the paychecks and level of skill and training required. If we do not > >> >also factor in the safety, pleasantness, and emotional effects of the job, > >> >then this plan is likely to create more unfairness than it rectifies. > >> > >> So women's work is "pleasant" is it? I'll tell you what. You give me > >> YOUR computer account, and YOU can take a few years off (I'll support you) > >> to whipe the baby's butt, and then when it's grown, maybe get you a > >> job typing memos for someone ten years younger than yourself. If the foo... > >> > >You missed the point again, Cheryl. Barry was discussing women's jobs in > >the workforce, not mothering. > > > > Are you confused, Clayton? If Barry wants to take a few years off to make > sure his offspring don't become JD's, then I think that it would be called-- > "fathering" not "mothering". > But if he still wants a job after his children are grown--that's fine with > me. As long as he's fulfilled his duty as a husband and a father by staying > home with the children while they're young...and as long as it's a safe, > pleasant job that won't upset him or make him cry. I really think that > his wife should LET him work, if that's what he really wants to do.... > and even if he wants to go back to school, I think his wife should let him > do that, too. But of course, if he finds that the big girls out there > in the real world play too rough for him, well, maybe it's better that > he occupy his time by joining the garden club, or do volunteer work -- > something that would gratify his social needs perhaps even better than a > job would. > What are you talking about? My wife is staying home raising our daughter because she wanted to. She was tired of working, thought raising a child a very important job, and decided it would be fun and fulfilling. Maybe I'm fortunate coming from a poor family --- the sort of foolishness you are describing above didn't, and couldn't, happen in our family, because it was all we could do to stay above water. The situation you are describing sounds like a wealthy family where the wife working isn't economic necessity. > >> athlete. My first day of work, the engineers at the plant assumed that I > >> was hired to put the little bows on the purfume bottles on the assembly line. > >> You got it--the line-loading job payed over 5 bucks an hour, and the "women's > >> work" payed minimum. Being young and reckless, I argued with them until they > >> went off to check their files only to find that I WAS hired to load the line. > >> If I had been trying to support myself at that time, I probably wouldn't have > >> the guts to argue with them--and plenty of young women at the plant were in > >> that position...AND physically capable of doing the "man's job". Anyway, > > > >You were able to do this physically demanding job --- a lot of women DO NOT > >have the strength for it (a fair number of men also don't have the strength > >for it). More important, a lot of women aren't interested in doing that > >kind of work (even though it would be better for them than putting bows on > >perfume bottles) because they would prefer to be thought of as "feminine" > >instead of capable. > > The point of the anecdote was that the plant engineers were trying to edge > me into the lower-paying job, when I was explicitly hired for the higher-paying > job. I was clearly physically capable of doing the job (at that time, I had > two, count them, two necks). The ONLY thing that made them think they could > get away with pushing me into the nice little girls' job was the fact that > I am female. Many of the women asked me how I got the job. And, Mr. Cramer, > NONE of them gave a *shit* about femininity. Their main concern was *cash* for > their families (think about it -- do you remember the recession in the late > 70's? I do.) and they were willing and able to lift 70# boxes to get it. > The *guys* who were automatically given the higher-paying job were generally > lazy, good-for-nothing idiots who needed the money to fuel their precious little > Camaros. I SAVED MINE FOR ENGINEERING SCHOOL! It could be the way you are describing it, or it could be well-intentioned but ignorant efforts to protect a "girl" from "awful work". A little education would have gone a long way. > So you've tried the ole boys trick of telling someone that they've missed the > point if they don't clearly agree with you. Nice try. You've even thrown my > name around in the process, Clayton Cramer. Well, two can play those games. > > Cheryl Stewart > -- I really think you did miss the point, Cheryl, because your original follow up didn't seem to match what you were commenting on. Your vicious tone suggests that you have a lot of anger to resolve, and are directing at me rather than whoever you are angry at.