No, Calfornia's Equal Pay Act will not help women(or Actress)

[Joel]

Fair enough, but specifically trying to encourage more women makes it seem like there are not enough of them. If so, what are the proper ratios?

I don't really agree with the idea of boosting a specific group. I think instead the goal should be on removing bias. Let everyone that wants to be an engineer get a good shot at instead of trying to get every woman into engineering. As awesome as I think the job is, some women don't agree, perhaps even the vast majority don't.

I don't know what the proper ratio should be. The reason I talk about encouraging is because I don't believe these gaps are the product of overt bias or discrimination from hiring managers. I think it starts a lot earlier in life where girls are dissuaded from physical work, considered to be worse at math, and are called "bossy" when they display what gets called persistence or leadership qualities in boys. The same thing affects men too, why is nursing a 90/10 split?

I think the same culture pushing women away from engineering and blue collar work pushes men away from fields like nursing.

 

[Imari]

There is a difference, a clear difference, between work ethics among what race you are, when each are put in the same place.

As much as I dislike it, it appears to be true. Stereotypical cliche that it is, an employer probably gets more value out of the average Asian employee than the average black employee, and so the statistics reflect that.

I wonder if the same might apply to men and women...

The same argument could be applied to the status quo. Is it natural that only ~5% of the CEO's of fortune 500/S&P 500 companies are women? That only a handful of heads of government are women? That only 11% of engineers are women? I also never said anything about a 50/50 split.

To be fair, most of those people who are CEOs and senior politicians now started working when it was much rarer for men and women to be treated equally. I imagine it's hard to find women that have the same experience and qualifications for that reason. It may be completely natural for there to be only 5%, until women have also had a chance to get 30+ years of experience under equal circumstances. I feel like there's definitely been an increase in the amount of women leaders in the last ten years or so, as what was probably the first wave of women who weren't blocked from certain professions started coming through. Maybe that's anecdotal, but it sure seems that way.


The engineering thing has always been weird, but then the opposite happens with biological and social sciences (albeit to a lesser degree). Nursing is probably the best opposite to the engineering thing, there are bugger all men in nursing.

Men and women are attracted to different things, whether by nature or by nurture. Maybe this is just one of those. Or maybe it's a profession that has such a strong image attached to it that it just drives people of the "wrong" sex away unless they have their heart absolutely set on it. Or maybe there are legitimately skills that are needed to be successful that are more common in one sex than the other.

Or maybe it's all an old boys club, and everyone goes around pinching asses and making ribald jokes.

 

[Exorcet]

I don't know what the proper ratio should be. The reason I talk about encouraging is because I don't believe these gaps are the product of overt bias or discrimination from hiring managers. I think it starts a lot earlier in life where girls are dissuaded from physical work, considered to be worse at math, and are called "bossy" when they display what gets called persistence or leadership qualities in boys. The same thing affects men too, why is nursing a 90/10 split?

I think the same culture pushing women away from engineering and blue collar work pushes men away from fields like nursing.

I agree that culture has some impact, and I think that getting rid of the things that dissuade would be professionals of certain demographics are what we need to focus on. Maybe I read too much into your wording, but encouraging women, etc, to go into engineering may lead to the opposite problem where we have an artificial pressure to get these people into jobs they don't want to do/won't do well.

Simply being objective when it comes to employee/career selection should go a long way to solving any problems there may be without getting caught up favoring a specific group or shooting for unrealistic goals. That is what I would like to see pushed instead of "More X in Y".

 

[Swagger897]

As much as I dislike it, it appears to be true. Stereotypical cliche that it is, an employer probably gets more value out of the average Asian employee than the average black employee, and so the statistics reflect that.

I wonder if the same might apply to men and women...

Not sure if that would apply, but I find things in the US at least, people want to associate themselves in their own cultural sphere and everything that entails to it...

Music is the best, yet worst example at the same time, as you identify yourself to genres, singers, and even particular songs that describe who you are/want to be. The worst part about it is everyone will pull the race card once you point it out.

To be fair, most of those people who are CEOs and senior politicians now started working when it was much rarer for men and women to be treated equally. I imagine it's hard to find women that have the same experience and qualifications for that reason. It may be completely natural for there to be only 5%, until women have also had a chance to get 30+ years of experience under equal circumstances. I feel like there's definitely been an increase in the amount of women leaders in the last ten years or so, as what was probably the first wave of women who weren't blocked from certain professions started coming through. Maybe that's anecdotal, but it sure seems that way.


The engineering thing has always been weird, but then the opposite happens with biological and social sciences (albeit to a lesser degree). Nursing is probably the best opposite to the engineering thing, there are bugger all men in nursing.

Men and women are attracted to different things, whether by nature or by nurture. Maybe this is just one of those. Or maybe it's a profession that has such a strong image attached to it that it just drives people of the "wrong" sex away unless they have their heart absolutely set on it. Or maybe there are legitimately skills that are needed to be successful that are more common in one sex than the other.

I agree to this as well. Look in the cockpit of your next flight, or if you haven't fallen asleep already, hear who is talking and whether or not there is a female captain/first officer. It's rare to see them in the field of aviation as primarily all the old soon-to-be retirees used to fly in the service, something women couldn't do until recently (within/around a decade).

Trying to fix the problem of wages won't work if you are trying to fix the entire work force. It's going to have to be done down to the basic field, and it will expand out from there further on.