@Pacopoolio:
Thanks for the response. I have little time to actually post anymore. When you first responded, it was Thanksgiving, and I had to head over to the in-law's house for Thanksgiving dinner... err, I mean ... since my FIL is an elder, it wasn't really that. Don't worry, we had ham instead of turkey, so no need to call the elders... the other elders, that is. :)
Now for your responses:
This shows a complete lack of understanding of social conditioning.
I don't think it shows any lack of understanding. First, notice my response had nothing to do with social conditioning. It was purely underscoring a statistical falacy that has been repeated over and over ad-nauseam in order to justify more legislation - legislation that will not work and has never worked. It was Designs that stated "Women in the private professional sectors earning 30% less than a man doing equal work..." This was stated after a plethora of comments trying to underscore all the social and economic inequalities in the world, in a thread about MB, after repeated attempts by some other posters to get him/her to just state the point in a clear fashion. It is not hard to see what Designs was pushing for.
There is no -one reason-. This is just basic, basic, basic sociology; first level classes.
Go back and read my comment again. The very idea of my comment was to underscore the very same idea you make above, except it had more of an economic slant than a sociological one. The statistic of "women make 30% less than men for equal work" is calculated by taking women as an aggregate, and then attributing "equal work" and the average wage to the entire group. In other words, it is a falacious generalization, most likely created to prop up more government intervention into a "failed" market. However, when you realize that the income gap comes directly from some of the free choices made by women, then this horrible moral injustice vanishes. In other words, there are other causes, there is no "-one reason-" for this, and more importantly, none of the reasons for the income gap has anything to do with an effort by society to hold women down. Because women have choices, and because they have the babies (biological fact), women tend to leave and enter the work force with huge gaps in between jobs. Also, they tend to choose vocations that will work well with a family, or they get part time work, which would of couse pay less. Or choose benfits over wages. It has been shown that if you take men vs. women, in the same job, with the same number of years, no gaps, similar accomplishments, no kids, etc., the gap goes away and sometimes women make more. I'll post one source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_pQ7KXv0o0.
But now onto your sociological comments:
AGAIN, there are a huge mix of conditions that create conditions like the wage disparity. A HUGE condition, that you completely seem to have missed, even though it's pretty obvious, is that, from a young age, girls are conditioned to be more meek and unassertive than males, combined with a double standard of women that act assertive as compared to males, that makes them less likely to demand higher pay and career advancement.
I am not sure if I accept your generalization about little girls being taught to be meek. But suppose I do, and suppose we change "meek" to "submissive" (because meekness doesn't necessaily imply being a push-over), I don't think it would be a "HUGE" condition, like you state. After all, if you can remove this huge income gap by considering other factors (it depends more on a family, marriage, kids, etc), then this type of behavior can't be statistically significant. Therefore I would change your "HUGE" to a "really tiny". Further, it is not the case that wage increases come from "asking for a raise" alone. Most of the time it is because another employer will bid up your wage and draw you off. This market force has very little to do with meekness.
This isn't high level stuff - it's just like people just completely ignore the conditioning and brain development that creates the adult, that happens from 0-16, and think that everyone shares the same privilege as themselves. This doesn't take college to understand, it's just dropping the ego, and realizing that what made you, you, is based on a combination of factors from the outside that hit you throughout your life, the most important, being in childhood.
Earlier in this and other threads, you have people making assertions like, "They were given horrible diets as children, stifling their brain development and screwing with their decision making, but why didn't they make the same choices as middle class white male, they had all the opportunities in the world!"
Who says I do not understand this? It is completely obvious that there are differences among people. Some people will have good upbringing, some will not. Some will have good childhood conditions, some poor. Some will be born physically fit, and some will be born deformed. This is life, and nobody, seems to be denying this.
But - so what? Would you say that because a child like MB may have grown up in a poor neighborhood, laws should not apply equally in his case? Should they be "relaxed" for him? Are we supposed to say, "Well, he didn't eat right as a child, and look! - his parents weren't that great, therefore we need to give him some chances when it comes to theft and assult."? If you are really saying this, and I hope you are not, then think of the incentives this will create among the community.
Just like women get paid less (on aggregate) because of their life choices, MB was shot because of his choices. It is not right to say, "MB made poor choices because of XYZ, THEREFORE, if he attacks an officer, threathens the officer's life, it is unlawful or even improper to shoot MB." I simply don't think your sociolocal argument matters - you attack a police officer and threaten his (or her) life, you can be lawfully shot. Actually, I would say this about anymore, police officer or not. You attack someone with clear intent of hurting/killing that person, and that person has a gun, and you are shot dead - that is a consequence of your choice. We learned this with TVM.
MMM
