Equal pay in 1896: The trail-blazing women of Kew Gardens | Hacker News Reader

Equal pay in 1896: The trail-blazing women of Kew Gardens

bbc.com

21 pointssohkamyung30 comments

Why do comments here suggesting that there are compelling arguments concluding that adjusted wages are nearly identical get flagged and down-voted? There is certainly a debate to be had, silencing the other side suggests weakness of one's own position. I have never seen a good rebuttal against the adjusted wages are very nearly equal position. Things always get shut down, shouted down or otherwise silenced in some way. I would love to see direct claim-rebuttal positions taken with opposing reasoning and data.

As far as I can see, the comments did not (just) assert that adjusted wages were nearly identical. They asserted:

1) That this is not a serious issue and 0 economists study it.

2) That at no point in history was the adjusted wage different between men and women. (This was asserted and not argued for.)

Comments which just asserted that adjusted wages might be nearly identical can still be seen. I agree that this might be debated. The other two opinions appear more extrem and much less plausible, as far as I am concerned.

I still feel that silencing someone is unhelpful. Why not let their claim stand? if outrageous - let it be handily refuted with logic and data and them made to look foolish. This is far more effective then silencing someone who then becomes a martyr. I also find it interesting that people on the far opposing side, those who come in with raw pay gap numbers whilst shouting "discrimination", they seem to always get a pass? Pay inequality has been well known since WW1, but all except a tiny portion of actual discrimination has been repeatedly dis-proven since the 1980s. Still huge numbers of people still parade the societal discrimination mantra proudly. People and parties run elections on it. Classes in prominent universities are taught preaching it (based on a few personal accounts, court cases and raw un-ajusted statistics). It is almost a religions justice objective for many to fix the unprovable wrongs of a system. Those are the people I often see shouting down the logical thinkers and data analysts.

The best part is how _you_ are being silenced as well.

I guess HN is one-sided. Certain opinions are now allowed.

What a cess pit of bigoted bullshit the comments are.

HN is the only place I have encountered in the modern world that still tries to argue against gender equality along with weak justifications for disparity. Arguments I haven't heard expressed at all in the UK since the 1970s or 80s. No one still asserts in good faith that the world is flat, pay inequality is not a serious issue, or reinvents the timeline of actual history or even thinks that there is still debate to be had. It's basically a settled issue, and I see no evidence that any UK or European men are pushing against it.

America on the other hand, and I assume it's mostly the US nature of HN that causes this, seems to be still firmly stuck with the views of the 1950s. Still resenting the unfairness 60 years after equal pay laws? get real.

FWIW I managed to read the article with interest, without a single thought it was a myth. Or screaming unfair from my wealthy white male, privileged perspective.

Who has argued against gender equality..?

People aren't arguing that women and men should be paid differently on the basis of their sex. The argument is simply that it doesn't make any sense to look at two disparate figures and assume they differ primarily due to discrimination.

The pushback so far has actually proven that this is sensible, as the more confounding variables are accounted for, the more the gap decreases. You'll notice that up until a few years ago, and sometimes to this day, pundits, professors, politicians, presidents and the public at large were completely comfortable stating that "women make 77 cents on a man's dollar." People were prepared to legislate for "equality" on the basis of this fact alone. But some people correctly stop and say, "Wait, but why? You're prepared to legislate, but you're just assuming that they're paid differently because of sexism you're attempting to correct."

Well, it turns out that the 77 cents on a dollar was arrived at by literally just comparing what women at large make vs men at large. But do men and women do the same jobs? Do they even work in the same fields? Depending on profession, the answer is a resounding no. So then the question becomes "do women doctors at this hospital who see the same amount of patients and work the same amount of hours and have the same track record and went to the same school and have the same seniority etc etc make less than the respective men." The more that is controlled for, the more the gap disappears.

What you are saying is that you can't believe sexist Americans stuck in the 1950s aren't prepared to legislate to remedy this issue, and that the pushback offered in this thread is evidence of people uninterested in gender equality. That's just not even close to the conversation that's being had, and I'm personally glad, whatever the topic, to have as much nuance brought forward as possible. Nobody is arguing against equality, it's just that you're mistaken in your assumption that this is what _you_ are arguing for.

Also, regarding the UK, please note Carl Benjamin, Paul Joseph Watson, Nigel Farage, Helen Pluckrose, among others, if you insist on the assertion that pushback is limited to those outside your country.

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