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Comment by tuna-piano | Hacker News Reader

The article doesn't answer the question they pose. If the Women could get paid more at a different firm, presumably they would switch. Presumably, if a $300k Woman provides as much value as a $1M man, a different greedy firm will offer a price between $300k and $1M, and pocket the savings.

Are they suggesting there is collusion between firms to drive Womens salaries down?

If the women do as good of a job at 1/3 the price, why don't they setup a cut-rate shop that does the work for 2/3 the price, doubling their compensation and providing customers a discount?

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A recent study showed that people stick to their biases even if it costs them monetarily (don't have a link right now). You don't need collusion when there is widespread bias.

Was the study experimental and awarded participants millions of dollars for acting rationally (i.e. against their biases)?

It sounds like every study shows this from this article, but this might be the most recent one. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2146124-we-ignore-what-...

http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jou...

Apart from the incendiariness, this is a garbage argument for a number reasons, the main culprit being the major assumption that money made has anything to do with value provided. I've dealt with this argument before on HN a few times, and the easiest counter-argument is a bank robber: someone that walks away with thousands and provides negative value.

More examples: the bankers of the 2008 crash, Marissa Mayer, just about anyone that got their job due to nepotism.

While there may be very good counter arguments, I dont buy your bank robber argument. If I were putting together an ocean's 11 team, I would try to attract better bank robbers by offering them a greater cut. Sure this is negative value for the bank, but positive value to me and my team.

I think you're extrapolating a bit too much. This is what I meant: an idiot with a ski mask walks into a bank, waves around a shotgun and yells "Give me all your money!"

I would argue it provides negative value because not only does the bank get hurt, but, more importantly, his fellow citizens do -- after all, he's stealing my money and your money. If someone gets physically hurt (e.g. shot), even more so.

I think I could beat your Ocean's 11 caper argument, too, but it would have to involve more discussion about what "value" is. For example, there's probably more "value" in being a doctor than in being a stock broker (even though one makes more money than the other). Similarly, being an art thief, let's say a world-class one, (weirdly) provides more value than being a run-of-the-mill bank robber, but it's still negative. It seems plausible that this kind of argument could work, but I'd have to think about it more.

PS: This discussion reminds me a bit of Peter Geach's Good and Evil[1] (1956).

[1] http://fair-use.org/peter-t-geach/good-and-evil

Mmmm, I guess I don't see how value to society-at-large is a central factor in determining a person's value to a private company, where the primary goal is to maximize profits.

My simple assumption is that gross earnings are maximized by employing the most talented group of individuals possible, while profits are maximized via some function relating each person's talent (roughly translated as their propensity to foster earnings for the company) vs. each person's cost (salary).

If Woman-A, Woman-B, Man-A, and Man-B are all attorneys of similar cost (require same salary to recruit), the most pragmatic move is to hire the most talented among them. If this isn't happening, there is some underlying inefficiency lurking; and it could very well be gender bias.

Now, as for a metaphor, I think the bank robber thing is far too abstract; instead how about this... Say there is a law firm specializing in criminal law. Specifically they defend people charged with murder. Consider that innocent people charged with a murder are, on average, easier to defend than people who actually did commit murder. This means that... the better this lawfirm is at their job, the more actual murderers they will successfully defend.

I think it's safe to assume that absolving actual murderers has a net negative value to society. As a law firm, I don't give a single shit about that. OJs of the world are simply not interested in paying thousands of dollars to law firms concerned with whether their acquittal will have a net positive value to society-at-large.

There's a few issues with this hard-line utilitarian POV, mainly what's called the "utility monster", first discussed by Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia[1] (1967). This is getting pretty complicated (and I could very well be wrong), but I think that "value" is probably some kind of combination of what you do for the firm (e.g. how much money you bring in) with what the firm does for society.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-State-Utopia-Robert-Nozick/dp...

> I think that "value" is probably some kind of combination of what you do for the firm (e.g. how much money you bring in) with what the firm does for society.

If a female lawyer successfully defends an actual murderer, does that provide more societal value than when a male lawyer successfully defends an actual murderer?

There's a lot more to sexism (and other bigotry) than simple economics.

Presumably, we have all had coworkers who weren't great workers, weren't very bright, etc., but managed to get ahead by schmoozing and playing politics. Their brighter and harder-working colleagues who didn't play that game didn't progress up the ladder as quickly. Bigotry presents a similar issue, but on an even larger scale.

Women lawyers can get together and start their own law firms. The same goes for any lawyer who is convinced he/she is unfairly underpaid.

You clearly don't have experience in law firms. White shoe Wall Street lawyers, for example, generally can't just hang their own shingle and do corporate M&A as a solo practitioner.

Law firms get started somehow. None spontaneously appeared. Besides, what better way to prove one's worth than start a competitor and kick the former employer's behind?

Thanks for confirming that you don't have experience in law firms.

Maybe they think Better Call Saul is a documentary.

Doesn't seem impossible to me:

http://info.legalzoom.com/can-lawyer-sole-proprietorship-248...

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/gpsolo/resources/solosez/...

That last link is the American Bar Association explaining how to do it.

(Experience in law firms may actually work against you there. In big companies I've worked for, none of the people working there had any idea how to start their own business, and would try to convince others it was impossible.)

I don't have a strong view about the particular case of women attorneys, but this argument that discrimination can't be real because the free market would stamp it out is tired and obviously wrong. Do people who forward this line of thought believe that job discrimination (against women, racial minorities etc.) never existed anywhere?

This comment makes a good argument, yet it is downvoted without any explanations–as is the similar argument by delazeur.

Here's the famous "blind orchestra audition" study: http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/01/0212/7b.shtml. It showed that women are 50% (!) more likely to be hired when auditioning behind a curtain.

Surely this couldn't happen in reality, because some other orchestra would use the chance to hire all these highly qualified women, right?

> This comment makes a good argument, yet it is downvoted without any explanations–as is the similar argument by delazeur.

Because the residents of this forum are drowning in unexamined ideology.

It's actually comical just how blinkered and warped the thinking can get around here.

From the article she switched to the firm specifically with the understanding that her compensation would be much higher, and then they ended up reneging on the agreement as she understood it.

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