Woman-Man wage gap. Is that still a thing?

Women have come a long way from a harsh culturally imposed inequality among men. And it is known that women in many fields do not get paid as much as a male counterpart performing the same service. Though over the years we have seen many positive changes. This would have to be in part due to the large-scale public awareness of the issue and the efforts put in place. We have the Equal pay act, set forth in 1963 and the U.S. Government Accountability Office to enforce it. Countless organizations, scholarships, and campaigns tasked with empowering women have sprouted over the years, and that is amazing! Such initiative is a great thing for women. Karl Marx says in his writing Capital, “The equivalent form of a commodity does not imply the determination of the magnitude of its value”. What I believe he is saying here, is that if we have two similar commodities, that is not enough to determine the value of one based on the other. There may be other factors to consider such as, the items condition, location (do I need to transport this commodity or can I buy it somewhere else?), etc. If we exchange the “commodity” here with “service”, and consider the service offered by a woman relative to a man in the same career. The same idea may apply in the sense that pre-conceived ideas and biases have been coming into play when it came down for someone to determine a woman's wage.

Such ideas seem to be dieing out due to all the initiative being taken. But, it is possible to take it too far. I’m not saying we are at that point now, just that we should be aware of it. Specifically, aware of the media that has a tendency to exaggerate their content in order to excite it audience. The most recent study of the wage difference between men and woman was done in 2009 by the Bureau of labor and statistics and shows that in 2009, on average women earned 80% of a mans income.

While in 2009, the bureau reported that the ratio of women to men in in STEM fields was significantly unproportional.

The BLS report continues with “ Women with STEM jobs earned 33 percent more than comparable women in non-STEM jobs — considerably higher than the STEM premium for men”, “ Women hold a disproportionately low share of STEM undergraduate degrees, particularly in engineering”, and “ Women with a STEM degree are less likely than their male counterparts to work in a STEM occupation; they are more likely to work in education or healthcare”.

With such data, it seems that a direct comparison of male-female earnings is extremely difficult. I am not trying to justify such inequalities, just bringing up the logical possibility that not all wage differences come from some negative bias towards women.

On a related note, the black lives matter community is angry, and for good reason. But now they are seeking equality, in such an aggressive way; that a white police officer today would be much more uncomfortable dealing with someone of dark skin. Police are being deeply scrutinized, and as a result they are afraid for their own job and safety when dealing specifically with African Americans, in a way that they would not feel towards a white person. Black lives matter is pursuing equality in a way that has led to more inequality. But who knows? Maybe you need to stand out before you get what you want.

This is the path that we need to avoid. When it comes down to it, we should focus much more on the positive on less on the negatives. It is very difficult to find a recent article talking of positive achievement by women, but articles full of complaints and stretched truths are beyond plentiful. We need to continue pushing our women towards STEM fields and all other fields that are disproportionately occupied. We are moving in a positive direction, and their is no need to dwell on past mentalities, let them die.