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From: robinson@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jim Robinson)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: egg/chicken chicken/egg chigg/eckin
Message-ID: <1127@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Jun-85 19:19:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.1127
Posted: Wed Jun 26 19:19:33 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Jun-85 09:13:07 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP> <2102@watcgl.UUCP>
Reply-To: robinson@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jim Robinson)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 64
Summary: 

In article <2102@watcgl.UUCP> jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) writes:
>  Women : aprroximately 50% of the population.  Probably close to that
>          percentage of the work force.  Average wage: 63% of the average
>          male wage.  If we assume women are not inherently inferior
>          to men then we save approx. 25% of the labour cost component
>          of goods (since we don't give that 50% of the people a 50%
>          raise) directly by discriminating and suppressing this
>	  particular group of people.

I do not see how direct discrimination and suppression results in this
wage gap. The way I see it women have the same choices that exist for
for men, e.g. finish high school, get a university degree in medicine,
engineering, or whatever. That a significant percentage of women tend
to gravitate towards traditionally female careers (e.g. nursing) is
*not* because someone is denying them access to the type of training
or education that will result in high paying jobs. I suspect it is
due to the fact that only recently have women either wanted or had
to have well paying jobs (previously  women were expected to marry
and, for the most part, be supported by their husbands). Since
this is a relatively new phenomenon it will take some time before 
a new steady state is reached in which women make up 50% of
all engineering, medicine, plumbing, etc classes and hence 50% of
those professions, resulting in the average woman making 100% of what
the average male makes.

> Who is talking about communism??????? Isn't that a little paranoid?
> Does a system where everyone is given equal opportunity (and not
> just lip service to the idea) mean communism?  If a system does not

The key phrase in the above is equal opportunity. As I said above
that exists for women now. It also exists, to a large extent, for 
any and every group in *this* country. Because a particular group 
has not  taken advantage of the opportunities that exist is no 
reason to raise the bogeyman of discrimination. Consider immigrants
from some mythical country. It is quite possible that in their
homeland job training and/or higher education were not given
much importance. Thus, once in Canada, they find themselves in a
country where the "old ways" just don't cut it anymore and their 
present economic situation would reflect this. At this point
some would say that these people are being discriminated against.
I would totally disagree. They have the  same access to 
training and educational programs as everyone else and if they refuse
to recognise the need to be trained and/or educated then even though
this is a regrettable state of affairs it is by no means discrimination.

In conclusion the question should not be why does group A earn X%
of what group B does. The question should be *first* is group A doing
everything that it can to take advantage of the opportunities that 
exist? If this is indeed the case, *then* the matter of disparate earnings
should be looked at, and if necessary some kind of AA policies instituted
so that group A is properly represented in the various professions and
job areas.

J.B. Robinson

P.S. As necessitated by my view of Utopia I support easy access to
job training and *retraining* programs and to post-secondary school
opportunities in general. I believe that tuition fees for such
schemes should be very modest (almost, but not quite zero) and that
loans (and maybe grants) be readily available. This is the Jim
Robinson theory of helping people to help themselves. It is also a
good step towards ensuring equality of opportunity and a good way of
combatting the general notion held by many (who will remain nameless)
that equality of *result* is the target that we should be shooting for.