It was International Women's Day a few days ago, and I am always interested to see what comes up in the media, as it is generally an opportunity for "man-bashing", especially around the concept of income. I saw there was one bot on Twitter that was trained on a hashtag and UK companies to broadcast the pay gap between men and women within the company.
Something like this:
Are you to tell me that a UK company has that large of a difference? Not only that, a Lingerie company? Seems interesting!! So, I had a dig and found something interesting on their front page.
This is the report.
Highlights:
96% female. In the upper quartile, it is only 15% men.
Seems the men stopped working.
You see the problem?
No?
Okay. Out of 4000 employees, only 160 of them are male. As this is a retail store specializing in women's underwear, in which parts of the business do you think the majority of men are going to work? Fitting rooms? Obviously not, which means that the men are not hired for sales floor positions, where the majority of employees likely are, and are more likely to be hired in office and management positions, which are specialized and therefore, higher paid. It is also likely that there can be investors in that group too. Should this company be called out for problems with gender inequality? Perhaps, as after all, only 4% of the employees are men.
But, this is the problem with using "the mean" as a reference point, as it doesn't take into consideration the roles, nor the demographics of the group itself. Essentially, 160 specialized positions are male filled, but even though this is a 15% minority in the upper quartile, when the 85% of women's roles are averaged out across 3840 women's salaries where they are predominantly retail staff - it is going to look pretty ugly.
It is is like a bus of 99 people who each have 100 dollars to their name having an average wealth of 100 dollars - and then a billionaire getting on the bus and us saying that on average, they are all millionaires and worth at least 10M each. Do the 99% feel wealthy?
Don't get me wrong here - I don't think that there should be any pay disparity, as I see salary from a role-based perspective - if the job is worth X amount, the person performing the role gets paid X amount, no matter who they are. Of course, there also has to be some leeway for the spectrum of "how well" they do the job, but with decent hiring practices, this shouldn't be too hard to accomplish.
But, does anyone really want hiring practices that put the best person in the position? What if 50% of the people giving advice and fitting bras in the lingerie stores were male? Same skills, same pay. Would customers feel comfortable? It is an interesting question, as there is no reason that this couldn't happen, except for the bias that people would have toward men doing that kind of role. Can't men be professionals in lingerie?
Personally, I am brilliant and picking underwear and clothing in general for women and can can look at a person and choose styles that will suit them and get the sizes right. And, my taste is great too. Shouldn't I have the same unbiased opportunity to do the job? For the women reading this, would you let a male fit you for clothing? Unlikely.
Having said this though, I am glad that the conversations about salary do come up, because it means working out processes that can remove the bias going forward. However, swinging the bias to the other side isn't parity, it is retribution. I am male, not a supporter of some "patriarchy" looking to keep women down. If anything and based on my own views about freedom and values of people, I am someone who is actually looking for systems to offer equality, but this doesn't mean at the expense of others.
No one wants equality because at the end of the day, a lot of people are going to be left out of activities. Imagine the non-gendered Olympics, everyone free to compete against everyone else. With 8 people in the finals of each event, how many women are going to be there in track and field finals? This would solve the issues with trans athletes though, wouldn't it?
Touchy subjects?
Perhaps. But it is because they are emotive that they need to be talked about to take the emotion out of it, to think clearly and logically - without bias. But, we are human, we are all biased across a whole spectrum of issues because we each have a unique set of experiences and preferences as to what we like and dislike, which makes finding a "common rule" that makes everyone happy, impossible.
People like jumping on bandwagons - but how many read the headline and how many dig a little deeper? I know that I don't have time to dig into every bit of information that crosses my awareness and no time for what influences me unconsciously, so what am I meant to do, but take a lot of it at face value? The funny thing is, for most of the headline content, there is nothing below the face, the face is the only value it has and, it is misleading - like the cover of a book.
We are all subjected to bias daily and yes, some more than others. But hyper-focusing on it doesn't make it go away, it amplifies and polarizes, creating more division and disconnection. It does the opposite of what it is intended to do, it disempowers and creates victims, not empowers and creates world-changers.
There are many aspects in this world that are not fair, as nature itself is ultimately unbiased, but doesn't care about results of individuals. And, there are many factors that influence something like pay disparity, income and investment outcomes. I have a daughter and when she is older, I hope she has a mindset that can cut through this crap and instead of spend her time on what she can't control, better understand and expand what she can influence.
She can't do everything - but I hope she learns to do what she can, as well as she can.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]