Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site h-sc1.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!think!harvard!h-sc1!desjardins
From: desjardins@h-sc1.UUCP (marie desjardins)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics,net.social
Subject: Re: Discrimination against women and statistics
Message-ID: <405@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Jun-85 14:10:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: h-sc1.405
Posted: Fri Jun 28 14:10:54 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Jul-85 07:42:24 EDT
References: <482@ttidcc.UUCP> <8203@ucbvax.ARPA>, <8204@ucbvax.ARPA> <581@mtung.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
Lines: 18
Xref: watmath net.women:6174 net.politics:9668 net.social:761

For a Women's Studies course I took last semester, we read Michael
Gold's "Dialogue on Comparable Worth."  The book is in the form of
a debate between an advocate and critic of comparable worth (the 
arguments are very interesting, and although I don't think comparable
worth is practical as a way to determine salaries, I think that job
evaluation may be a useful tool for examining fairness of current 
salary scales).  What really bothered me is that the critic used
the same argument I use here -- that women choose to work in low-
paying jobs.  Why?  Well, a main reason is that these jobs have
higher mobility.  Mobility matters because your husband (working,
naturally, in a high-paying job) may have to relocate and you need
to follow him.  So why shouldn't the man follow his wife?  Well,
because he has a higher-paying job, naturally.  This is the kind of
circular reasoning that really makes me angry (in the past semester,
I've become much more militant about feminism just from seeing 
discrimination justified on the basis of discrimination like this).

	marie