Equal Pay Debate

[cosmic mouse]

This is demonstrably untrue.

Jennifer Lawrence, as one example, is wildly popular and has starred in incredibly successful movies. She's a widely known actress and has broad appeal (regardless of your or anyone here's personal opinion of her or her acting.) And while she is a highly compensated actress, she has gotten paid less than her male co-stars and had less of a share of profits than those male costars in the same film and with a roughly equitable share of screentime. If even the most highly compensated actresses are getting shortchanged compared to their male costars, infer the extent of the problem lower on the ladder with actresses who have even less bargaining power than Jennifer Lawrence. Come on.

It's funny that you mentioned Lawrence. As I was typing my last post, I was specifically thinking of that film she was in a few years ago with Bradley Cooper that won or got nominated for an Oscar. If memory serves, at the time, she was a bigger a name due to the Hunger Games hooplah that immediately preceded whatever the name of that film is...

 

[Balok's Decoy]

It's funny that you mentioned Lawrence. As I was typing my last post, I was specifically thinking of that film she was in a few years ago with Bradley Cooper that won or got nominated for an Oscar. If memory serves, at the time, she was a bigger a name due to the Hunger Games hooplah that immediately preceded whatever the name of that film is...

Yep, and she got 7% of Silver Linings Playbook's profits vs Bradley Cooper's 9%. And by the time they worked on that movie together, Lawrence had been nominated for an Oscar for Winter's Bone -- Cooper had not yet had that distinction. And Lawrence, as you said, was fresh off 2 films in a superbly popular and financially successful movie franchise, Hunger Games.

So I think anyone who says a pay gap like this is anything other than the fact that Lawrence is a woman and Cooper is a man is being disingenuous at best.

 

[Tenacity]

So I think anyone who says a pay gap like this is anything other than the fact that Lawrence is a woman and Cooper is a man is being disingenuous at best.

Who's name was above the other's in the credits?

 

[UssGlenn]

Cooper is listed first on the poster. It's not like there is a public pay scale for movie stars. She negotiated and agreed to 7%, and Cooper to 9%. The producers aren't going to pay her more just to be nice. If she wanted 9% she should have either held out for that or not done the movie.

 

[Spot261]

The new Doctor is getting paid the same as Capaldi despite been less than half his age and therefore less experience, a nice PR stunt by the BBC based purely on what's between her legs.

Did you seriously type these words?

 

[Balok's Decoy]

Cooper is listed first on the poster. It's not like there is a public pay scale for movie stars. She negotiated and agreed to 7%, and Cooper to 9%. The producers aren't going to pay her more just to be nice. If she wanted 9% she should have either held out for that or not done the movie.

Actresses do not have equal bargaining power as actors. You're essentially making the same argument as "if you don't like earning minimum wage, just get a CEO job!" It does not work that way. Systemic sexism in the entertainment industry, and just about every industry, handicaps women's bargaining power. Saying "why not just ask for more" completely disregards the reality of women's lesser bargaining power as a symptom of systemic sexism.

Also, as far as I know, we're all a bunch of men talking about this and that is itself also a problem. Women are really the voices that need to be heard in this discussion, not ours. Men don't know a single fucking thing about this problem firsthand. We need to listen to women's voices on this. So, to that end, I'm going to step back and wait for a woman to make her voice heard on this issue. We are part of the problem, so we need to stop talking and start listening.

 

[Spot261]

So far to my knowledge four females have posted in this thread, out of thirteen people. Happily you seem pretty in tune with them....

 

[cosmic mouse]

Yeah, female chiming in (again)...

At my current job where I've been employed for the last ten years I was originally hired into a training coordinator position and then three years later promoted to management. Part of my job duties as manager is to supervise a group of 6 other people, with varying, but similar experience and skill levels. All of these individuals, with one exception, had been with the company for roughly the same amount of time: 15 years. All of them have less formal education and training than I possess.
So, all 6 people under my helm are essentially less qualified than I am, both on an education level, skill level, and (in all but one case) time worked in this specific field that I work in.

One of these people is a man; the rest are women. The man has no higher formal education, fewer skills than I do, and if that's not enough he's also had two sexual harassment suits thrown at him from other females in the workplace over the last 5 years and he consistently has a poor attitude, and a poor attendance record. He's the only person out of the 6 that I manage that has a higher salary than I do. And it's substantially higher.

This might not be because of his gender since the person who hired him originally left the company 4 years ago. But I can't think of another reason why his salary is as high and when I posed the question to HR they couldn't give me an answer either. He was, however, disciplined pretty severely for the aforementioned stuff (by me), but unions have a way of protecting people that makes it almost impossible to fire anyone anymore. At least where I work.

And that's not even the same personal anecdote that I alluded to earlier. (I have two, lucky me!)

 

[Spot's Meow]

Also, as far as I know, we're all a bunch of men talking about this and that is itself also a problem. Women are really the voices that need to be heard in this discussion, not ours. Men don't know a single fucking thing about this problem firsthand. We need to listen to women's voices on this. So, to that end, I'm going to step back and wait for a woman to make her voice heard on this issue. We are part of the problem, so we need to stop talking and start listening.

I'm a woman, and I responded on the first page with what I believe is one of the main answers to why this problem exists. I also pointed to some great resources that I still highly suggest others take a listen to. They explain things much more eloquently than I could.

 

[UncleRogi]

This is demonstrably untrue.

If even the most highly compensated actresses are getting shortchanged compared to their male costars, infer the extent of the problem lower on the ladder with actresses who have even less bargaining power than Jennifer Lawrence. Come on.

EDIT: Also consider the systemic sexual harassment and assault that women experience in the entertainment industry and think about how that throws a fucking wrench into their financial bargaining strategy.

This applies in any workplace, which in IMO is unconscionable.
A man that feels threatened in the workplace by a woman of equal competence is WHINING
Do a better job, asshole. Or else get the fuck on

 

[UncleRogi]

I'm a woman, and I responded on the first page with what I believe is one of the main answers to why this problem exists. I also pointed to some great resources that I still highly suggest others take a listen to. They explain things much more eloquently than I could.

I did go read , and I agree

Conclusion: What will these so called rich assholes be swimming in when
the computer holding their "worth" crashes...

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Women cost more to employ:

1) Maternity pay, if you want to remove this as a factor give men the exact same rights.

2) The expect all kinds of perks, like fexitime etc so they can pick up kids. When they do this others have to pick up their slack, costing you money and annoying other members of staff. Again, give the same rights to men if you want to get rid of this, the men would never get away with leaving as often as the women do.

3) They constantly want the heating on, even in summer.

4) Yak Yak Yak much more than their male counterparts, especially the younger ones.

The new Doctor is getting paid the same as Capaldi despite been less than half his age and therefore less experience, a nice PR stunt by the BBC based purely on what's between her legs.

This crosses over from simply expressing your opinion to being blatantly sexist. If you posted a bunch of stereotypes about black people that wouldn't be tolerated, but for some reason you thought this would be okay. Well, it's not.

Infraction for trolling. Comments to PM.

 

[UncleRogi]

Amen

 

[Nakita Akita]

Actually, in the UK, 39 weeks for women - and it is not full pay. The company also gets to reclaim a good portion of it too.

We used to have flexitime at our office (Not quite as good as it was anymore) and it applied to everyone. Now, we have a set number of hours per week, but you can shift them around some as long as you are in between 10 and 3. It did apply to everyone.

With regards the heating, all but one of the people in our office who prefer the temperature at 25c or warmer happen to be all men.

We can get flex time sort of.
Has to be 40 hours per week between the work hours of 6am-6pm I think.
You have to also take a non paid 30 minute lunch break.
You can't work more than 12 hours in a day.
It might be 7 pm the latest though. I'm not sure.

 

[WraithDukat]

I perhaps could've put my points across better, I will say a few more things and leave it there.

Thew new doctor is getting paid the same as Capaldi despite a huge age/experience gap, she wouldn't be getting paid that if she was a male of the same age, Smith got much less. She is getting it because she's female and it's a PR stunt on the BBCs side. Granted that's hardly her fault though.

This article from the Guardian backs up what I was saying about flexitime (what comes after the URL are quotes I find useful):

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...men-succeed-but-makes-men-unhappy-study-finds

Men were also twice as likely as women to have their request for flexible working arrangements rejected.

“My boss told me I wouldn’t be able to get promoted working part-time,” one man who responded to the survey said.

Another said: “The [flexible] arrangements worked as agreed, but I have felt judgment for using them.”

Just as women had to explode the myth they’re less ambitious, men are now experiencing judgments that need to be dispelled,” Hellicar said.

However, only 48% of organisations had a formal flexible work policy, she said. The experience of women proved that flexible working could increase feelings of loyalty to a company and productivity, she said. “We just need to encourage senior support for men who want similar arrangements,” she said.

 

[Jax]

Who knew Jacob Rees-Mogg posted on Trek BBS.

 

[auntiehill]

Matt Smith was largely unknown. Jodie Whittaker (she does actually have a name) is fairly well known from movies like "Venus" and "Attack the Block," and especially her three seasons of Broadchurch. She should get paid more than Smith, because she already has an established, fairly successful career--roughly equivalent to Capaldi. So it seems fairly logical that she should be offered the same salary.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Thew new doctor is getting paid the same as Capaldi despite a huge age/experience gap, she wouldn't be getting paid that if she was a male of the same age, Smith got much less. She is getting it because she's female and it's a PR stunt on the BBCs side. Granted that's hardly her fault though.

Who cares about the age or experience difference? It's the same role, so why shouldn't she receive the same pay? Did the role suddenly become less difficult or less time consuming after Capaldi left?

Smith predated Capaldi and the pay for the role was negotiated upwards accordingly, as happens frequently. Whittaker is simply asking to be paid at the new higher established amount, so she didn't even ask for more like Capaldi did, just for parity. And yet you're criticizing that for some bizarre reason.

The BBC is a broadcasting service, so of course it's a "publicity stunt", just like everything they do is a publicity stunt of one kind or another. Hiring Capaldi was a publicity stunt. That doesn't take anything away from Whittaker except for people with a bias against a woman in the role.

Speaking of publicity stunts though, by saying that her hiring was one, you're unwittingly making an argument for why she should get equal if not higher pay than her predecessor, given the enormous amount of interest the casting of the first female Doctor would generate.

Ultimately, Whittaker demanded equal pay because a) she deserves it for playing the same role, and b) the BBC had just been criticized for having a drastic disparity in pay between male and female performers:
__________________

The latest Time Lord is saying time’s up on the gender pay gap. According to Digital Spy, new Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker confirmed at Tuesday night’s National Television Awards in London that she made sure she was paid the same for starring in the long-running time science fiction show as her male predecessor, Peter Capaldi.

“It’s an incredibly important time and the notion [of equal pay] should be supported,” said the actress, whose show Broadchurch won best Crime Drama at the event. “It’s a bit of a shock that it’s a surprise to everyone that it should be supported!”

The subject of equal pay has become a controversial one over the past year for the show’s parent company, the BBC. In July, it was revealed that two-thirds of its on-air talent earning more than 150,000 pounds sterling were men and that its top seven highest-earners were all male.

http://ew.com/tv/2018/01/24/doctor-who-jodie-whittaker-peter-capaldi-equal-pay/


But all of this talk about TV and movie pay is rather tangential to the discussion of the gender pay gap in more normal jobs. Most people don't have agents negotiating individual contracts for them.

 

[STR]

over the course of their career this means that they are slowly falling behind as they have less time to gain the experience that men are getting.

I've seen this theory, often pitched by the same people who argue for The "rational marker hypothesis" in the face of all evidence that humans are irrational beings prone to fantasy and panic.

Human beings also don't level up in skill in a linear manner. Beyond a couple of years, ability (and willingness to learn) far exceed tenure as markers of competency. I'll take an eager mother of 3 over a coasting single man 100/100 times. He might be in the office all weekend, but the mom is going to get stuff done (or ask questions) because she ain't got time to dick around.

But here's the rub: the job market isn't any more rational than the stock market. Mere tenure (or a degree) are easy to prove, and as such are held up as key qualifications. So those types of people get the jobs and tenure in those jobs qualify those people for even better jobs.

Meanwhile, taking a break from the workforce to raise your kids sends you back to retail hell when you try to come back, because your advanced degree and years of experience suddenly doesn't count for anything because apparently the whole world changes over 3 years.

It's not explicitly sexist. Most people don't actively discriminate. It's just a bunch easy, lazy or arbitrary decisions that pile on top of each other into vicious and virtuous cycles. Hanlon's Razor carves systematic sexism.

Who cares about the age or experience difference? It's the same role, so why shouldn't she receive the same pay? Did the role suddenly become less difficult or less time consuming after Capaldi left?

Difficulty is irrelevant. Salaries are like any other negotiable good: the price is always what the market will bear, and what the market bears depends on the number of options available. If Capaldi has more options than Whitaker, he can leverage that into a higher salary and vice versa.

TBH, I can't give a shit about whether or not Celebrity A gets paid more than Celebrity B. No matter who wins it doesn't change the greater labor market, which is where the problem is, not to mention my own interest. I get more leverage to earn more when the guy greeting me at Walmart does, not when a millionaire gets more millions. Holding all else equal, at least.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Difficulty is irrelevant. Salaries are like any other negotiable good: the price is always what the market will bear, and what the market bears depends on the number of options available. If Capaldi has more options than Whitaker, he can leverage that into a higher salary and vice versa.

TBH, I can't give a shit about whether or not Celebrity A gets paid more than Celebrity B. No matter who wins it doesn't change the greater labor market, which is where the problem is, not to mention my own interest. I get more leverage to earn more when the guy greeting me at Walmart does, not when a millionaire gets more millions. Holding all else equal, at least.

Well that's all just peachy, but sort of misses the point that was specifically addressing the issues raised by ArcherNX01 and not whatever random conversation you're having.

I'm pretty sure I acknowledge both that she can independently negotiate her own salary and that celebrity contract negotiations don't really relate well to normal business salary discussions, so I'm not sure what the point of your rebuttal was.