DADvocate

DrHelen posted an "Are You a Feminist?" link today. I scored a 91%, a little surprising. But the gist of the quiz was primarily based on equality. Well, I'm all for equality. But I think that for many women equality is not the desired outcome. The one item that slightly surprised me was "A woman should be able to marry and have kids with anyone she wants - including another woman."

When and why did homosexuality get to be a feminist issue? Don't believe it is, check out this page at NOW.org. At times NOW seems to care more about gay issues than women's issues. Not that NOW shouldn't care about the civil rights of others but they are certainly selective in their concerns. Why do they care more about gay rights than racial discrimination? (I make this judgment based on the amount of words dedicated to each.)

You Are 91% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

NOW also plays the selective statistics trick. "In 1994, women still were paid only 74¢ for every dollar paid to men." NOW cites a general link to The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 1994 that does not go to a specific report. Why 1994? There are more recent reports (2006). Women are still behind but they're gaining, up to about 81 cents for every dollar a man earns.

NOW also ignores inconvenient truths such as women take off to have and raise children, most likely work schedules that put a higher priority on family vs. career, are minimally represented in many higher paying engineering and technical fields (see linked chart), and women are also grossly underrepresented in construction trades and as mechanics, etc which are generally well paying jobs. At this point there is no reason that women are not entering these fields in greater numbers except that they choose not to.

In my observations at work, in a company in which the majority of employees are female, women are more likely to work part-time, quit to be with the children, work a special schedule to be with the children, retire early (especially when their older husband retires), etc. The women leaving are most often replaced by fresh college graduates starting out at starting salary. (Imagine that!)

None of this is conducive to building the longevity needed to improve the average wage at the same rate as someone who works full-time without breaks and only quits to accept a better, higher paying position elsewhere. Does NOW expect women who have worked fewer years, fewer contiguous years, etc. to be paid as much as those who have put in consistent work time over many years?

Is it equal opportunity or equal outcome? Equal opportunity is an achievable and worthy goal. Equal outcome should not be guaranteed. To begin with, there are too many variables that go into determining what is equal outcome, education, profession, effort, intelligence, possibly physical strength, risk taking, interpersonal skills, personal choice of professions, etc.

Using outcomes to measure opportunity is misleading and inaccurate. Everyone in my son's school has the opportunity to play football. Yes, even the girls and they've had a few on occasion. But the outcomes favor the bigger, stronger, faster kids who tend to be male. The outcomes also tend to favor the people who put in the most consistent effort over the years, as do most activities, including jobs.

This is where NOW and many other feminist types are off base. If you want to do a more in depth thorough analysis, please do. But please don't play the pick and choose statistics game.