OTHER WAGE GAPS?
The following appeared as a letter to the editor in the Nov/Dec 2004 Transitions newsletter.

Regarding the so-called "wage gap" between men and women: one thing that is not taken into account is the income that women receive from men as a result of exploiting their sexuality. Consider the value of the following:

1) Men paying for dating women: look at all the money transferred to women via men providing free dinners, movie tickets, jewelry, vacation trips, and so forth. Go to any bar or dance club, and you will inevitably find women cozying up to men for the sole purpose of getting guys to pay for their drinks, and then dumping them (the guys, not the drinks).

2) Women marrying "up": women gain substantially from male incomes when they marry professionals with six figure salaries, or celebrities with seven-plus figure incomes. At the same time, how many women marry men who make less than they do, thereby redistributing income downwards towards men? The "balance of payments" overwhelmingly favors women over men.

3) Alimony, child support and "sexual harassment" settlements: again, large transfers of income from men to women, even when women make a fraudulent paternity claim, or turn otherwise trivial male activities into major court cases.

4) Income disposal: while a man might make more money than his wife, how much of that money is actually spent by the wife? For example, does she spend more of his income on shopping sprees at fashionable stores than he does on his own hobbies? And what of the value of wealth which men bestow upon women via inheritances, annuities and other financial instruments?

5) Sex work: I have known 20-ish women who make $500 a night as strippers. And other 20-ish women who make circa $150/hour as non-sexual escorts. How many young men with no college degree can make this kind of money? And this does not even begin to cover what women can make via illegal sex work, i.e., often up to $500/hour as escorts when sex is thrown into the bargain.

The statement that women make only "X" percent of men's income has become an article of faith among feminists beyond any rational discussion of the matter. On more than one occasion I have asked feminists what is the basis for this statistic, i.e., are they including the fact that men work longer/harder hours than women, or if the figures are not skewed by the fact that there are a small number of men who make multi-billion dollar incomes (e.g., Bill Gates). I have yet to gain a rational response from feminists when I ask them the sources for this statement.

Instead, they tell me (I kid you not): "You want to put women back in the kitchen", or "You just don't understand", or "Your arguments may work with those skinny girls you date, but not with real women", (try and figure the logic of that!). Like too much of feminism, the declaration that women are paid less than men is a slogan, a mantra, an ideological dogma set in concrete which justifies a feminist inspired program of government intervention in the marketplace, as well as more feminist dominated government commissions. i.e., it is a rationalizations for a feminist power-grab.

On a more practical level, if women are being paid less than men, then why are women sitting on their butts? I was discussing this point with another woman I know, a corporate lawyer who is making six figures right out of law school. She complained to me that since she was a woman, feminists have told her that she must be making 60% of what men earn in her firm. I recommended that if this were the case, she and her "sisters" ought to go on strike. After all, that is how downtrodden workers have gotten higher wages in the past. If all the female lawyers were to go on strike, the corporate power structure would be shut down in two hours and those men with allegedly "all the power" would have to concede to their demands. I even recommended that she and her fellow female lawyers form a contingent in the burgeoning protest demonstrations against globalization and the corporate power structure which are sweeping this land. Solidarity and all that sort of thing.

Needless to say, she was horrified at the thought that she might actually have to take action herself. Instead, the feminist approved solution is for women to do what they have always done: run crying to men, induce guilt with claims that men are paid higher salaries than women, and then let men "fix the problem" in the same way that a gal's boyfriend fixes her flat tire. For all the talk about equality, feminism has degenerated into the traditional female role of manipulating men via emotional arguments into doing the dirty work.

What men need to do is tell women if they really want equality, it is time for them to fight their own battles. And to pay for their own dinners.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS