I get very tired of people talking about how the pay gap is unfair. My students were surprised last night to discover I drive a car without power steering. One of them couldn't understand how I could possibly even manage that. The fact is that men and women are different, and things will be different. Changing pay to close a gap is neither fair nor equal, and the data show that.
Consider the politicians who clamour for equal pay and their hypocrisy. The data show that Obama's White House pays women 91% of what men make. Similarly, many of the Democrats behind yesterday's law that was blocked by the GOP follow Obama's example. Warner pays 72%, and Bagich pays the lowest at 71%, meaning that Democrats must hate women. Like usual they project their faults on others. In other words "whoever smelt it dealt it".
My own organization is the same. I prepared the following graph which shows that not only do we employ more women than men, but that the women outearn all of the men. Only one of the women has a PhD, and she is the only woman who has an advanced degree in science. The woman who has an advanced degree besides her has an MBA. They are paid, not on equal work, but dependent on time in service to the state. In other words, we are not paid equally at all. In fact, the paperwork will show that in the last two years two female coworkers received raises, and one of them had a reduction in work performance standards whereas I had an increase in my workload with ZERO pay raise.
I am not grousing; I am educating. Facts are stubborn things, and the fact of the matter is that women are not paid less because they are women. In fact, if anything the data shows that some women earn more than they deserve. It does not make it fair to give someone a raise due to a perceived injustice or because they are part of a particular demographic. Personally, I don't care who you are, what you believe, or from whence you come if you are the best choice. I was originally awarded my position because my former boss believed I was the best candidate, and many of my coworkers agree. However in my group, it appears that I have risen to the level of my incompetency by never rising at all. That is after all the rumor- that people are promoted because they are nincompoops.
Ironically enough, they only have to make a gesture. Some people already received 20% pay adjustments, but because I am officially a state employee, my additional compensation is exactly zero at this point with no prospects. If you are going to give some people raises for time in service, then you should do it for everyone. Either the rule applies or it doesn't, and if the rules are subject to change without notice and always in your favor, that's tyranny.
Rather than talk about fairness, I think we need more talk about justice. The powermongers in our world are so eager to expand their power by doling out exigent mercy in the form of special privileges for some that they rob justice. It is a miscarriage of justice to ignore a qualified contributor because that person meets a demographic that is considered privileged and buoy up another person regardless of disparate performance so as to meet quotas. In the end, it does the greatest injustice to the students when they refuse to hire the best person for a position in favor of someone less qualified but who makes the organization appear more diverse. That's not fair to anyone, and it's not just to anyone either.
You keep using these words that do not mean what you think they mean. Justice and equality mean different things from how they appear when politicians parlay. People commit many injustices against some in order to be "fair" to the rest. I find this completely contradictory. If you consider the family of man, that we are all God's children, then how we treat one another reflects on how we feel about ourselves. If all men are brothers, then harming one to help another is no better than leaving things alone. First do no harm. Every time we cheat, ignore, injure, or mistreat any of our fellow men, it is the same as if we did that to our own kin. Even worse, we commit those crimes against our Maker, because they are His children. Mercy cannot rob justice, and in the end, what's truly fair finds its way to be, and if you robbed justice for personal gain, especially at the abject cost to someone else, be prepared to pay. That's only fair. Those who demand an eye for an eye need to be prepared to lose their own if they take one unjustly.
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