Poll: Is the 'gender pay gap' a real thing?

Should a woman with the same skill/experience doing the same role/hours be paid at the same rate as

  • Yes

    Votes: 127 66.1%

  • No

    Votes: 37 19.3%

  • I'm not sure

    Votes: 21 10.9%

  • No, but only because that answer suits me and not because it's right

    Votes: 7 3.6%
  • Total voters
    192
Gender Pay gap is a load of tripe... It's just another thing the feminazi's like to spout to validate their own privilege(s)

Lets discuss real gender gaps like: The justice gap... Male and get caught dealing drugs and you do 20% longer (case locally 500g each he was given 12months and she was given 10). What about family court where if you are male you are by default a child molesting raping domestic violence perpetrator who is hell bent on blowing **** up.

What about the life gap? What about discriminatory pension age retirements that were only abolished very recently? How come companies can get away with all female shortlists? What about the education gap? More women now go to Uni than men. What about the gender pay gap where women up to the age of 35 earn more than a man? What about the sports pay gap where female tennis players get the same pay for potentially 40% of the work? What about the voice language pay gap where dogs who are female are called bitches? What about the chicken language gap where boys are called cocks.... My god I hate this feminist egotistical junk... Seriously they want to check their privilege
 
Poll question and title of the thread are confusing.

As long as skills/ experience are comparable then there should not be any difference in pay. I don't think gender/ age/ years of service comes into this. I earn more than people that are older/ have more years of service yet we have same role/ job title.

Not everyone gets exposed to same projects over their careers. We had a bloke in my team who left recently. He had same job title, as many years of "experience" as me in the same role but he was nowhere near as skilled or capable at using the software and as such he was on 6k less then me.
 
Tunney said:
I'm hoping that the new shared parental leave rules will help couples share child raising responsibilities and thus reduce the gender pay gap.
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Except that won't apply to self-employed people and as such is a benefit that not all will get.

lurkio said:
Women leave the work place for years to have children , putting them out of the work force for a while.
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I think there's a notion that leaving the workforce to have children shouldn't penalise women, and that notion in itself is fair to me.

However, you would then have to discriminate against people (ie men) that didn't leave their careers for x years, which seems to be ok for feminists that I can't quite agree with.

Positive discrimination and all that.
 
Thompson_NCL said:
I think that the issue is more that we as a society don't give those women enough respect. We regard women who stay at home and take care of the house and kids as somehow inferior. That is the problem.
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The same should be true for fathers though. There shouldn't be an automatic assumption that it should be the mother who stays at home.
 
krooton said:
You're saying that a 2 year old girl has a natural desire to be a 'mother' and look after a 'baby'?
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How many times have you seen a little girl push round a pink mini buggy with a fake baby. Compare to a little boy doing so...

Its probably that little girls identify with their mothers and imitate them to an extent.

If it was the norm for men to stay at home and look after the kids as much as women and from such an early age, i am sure you will see more equal proportions.
 
There is a gender pay gap but the bias is towards men not women. Men have to do more work and live up to higher standards than women in many industries but get paid the same or less, when taking in to account work load and productivity.
 
krooton said:
You're saying that a 2 year old girl has a natural desire to be a 'mother' and look after a 'baby'?
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There was actually a quite interesting documentary about gender stereotypes and whether they were nature, nuture or a bit of both (think it was 'Horizon: Is Your Brain Male or Female?')

One experiment they looked at was giving monkeys childrens toys (some trucks and some baby dolls). Oddly even those these monkeys had never seen toys like these before the males tended to play with the trucks and females with the dolls.

EDIT: Here's the video:

However I'm of the opinion that society expectations and gender stereotypes have a fairly large influence on boys and girls. You only have to look at the number of girls vs boys doing STEM subjects at A-Level/University to see something odd is happening even though girls do well in these subjects at GCSE. Obviously this works worth ways and can be positive and negative, but don't underestimate (subtle) cultural influences.
 
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Surely the answer to the poll is an easy yes, I think a huge majority of people would say yes too.

The key point though is the same role and hours. If a man/woman takes time off for whatever lifestyle choice reason, then surely you would not expect them to be paid the same as someone who is a workaholic/has more experience due to working longer.

Like for like though, woman vs man, yes I would expect them to be paid the same. It would be illegal anyway to pay a woman less than a man in those circumstances.
 
Tunney said:
The same should be true for fathers though. There shouldn't be an automatic assumption that it should be the mother who stays at home.
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Well I don't think it's very masculine for a man to play the part of primary caregiver whilst the women acts as the provider. But I do support the right of people to have that sort of arrangement.

I don't subscribe to the idea of doing away with traditional sex roles. I think it's fundamentally flawed. But not everyone will fit the mould I suppose.
 
Okay so this has got some interesting responses. What I would say is that it's pretty clear that actual 'discrimination' against women in the workplace, although it does exist, is fairly rare and that the only other potential causes of the supposed gender pay gap are:

1. Socialisation. I.e., things that we learn in childhood about gender roles which lead to more women choosing to go into jobs such as nursing and teaching that are lower paid. And...

2. The pregnancy issue. I honestly don't know whether it is legitimate for an employer to discriminate against a female job candidate/employee because of pregnancy. On the one hand, maybe employers should give women maternity leave with full pay and refuse to hire a permanent replacement and provide flexible working after that. Maybe that would make it so that women over 30 keep their careers on track. But on the other hand how can you expect someone who's running a business to shoulder the costs of that (or the taxpayer if you fund it that way). It's hard enough to make a profit as it is. And it's also potentially unfair to male colleagues. Why shouldn't they get paid time off and flexible working too?

I think the one thing I'm definitely sure of is that quotas are a bad idea. Like others have said, it makes no sense for business to hire more expensive male employees if females can do the same job for cheaper, so I doubt very much that's happening. I also think it's simply unfair if a worse candidate takes a job from a better one just because they have a vagina :/
 
Gilly said:
No, really, it has. I know, because I wrote it.

The only difference was the title of the thread and the question on the poll. Neither has changed.
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Pretty silly way to word it especially with title. Leading to a poor poll. With huge error in it.
 
I would say its just as silly not reading the OP or poll details before voting.

I think the answers are a fairly accurate representation of a similar poll:

'Do you read the poll question before voting?'

-Yes
-No
-doesn't matter just want to take part
-troll
 
Probably best to delete the poll and start again. I can see people being upset if they voted "No" only to later notice that the poll is worded other way round
 
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