[thechat] outburst

[Judah McAuley]

deacon wrote:
> On 20 Jan 2005 at 18:49, Tara Cleveland wrote:
> 
> 
>>I don't see any correlation between putting up with stuff and good pay 
>>here. I'm not sure which one is worse - the men's jobs or the women's. 
>>They all have to "put-up" with shit - although Nurses and orderlies and 
>>Elementary Teachers probably put up with more actual excrement than 
>>others.
> 
> 
> I said you get paid more for heavy, dirty, dangerous, and unpleasant 
> work.
> 
> Of the female jobs, how many of them require constant heavy 
> exertion? None of them. (Nursing requires turning a body once in a 
> while, but not constantly.)
 >
> Of the female jobs, how many leave you clean enough to go to a 
> restaurant with tablecloths after work? All of them. 

Well, lets see..I can think of my mother and my girlfriend here. They 
both work in typically "female" jobs...you know, the ones that require 
nurturing, kindness, etc. My mother spent most of her adult life working 
with the mentally retarded and developmentally disabled. First with with 
the most terribly physically disabled as a caregiver in a government-run 
facility. Then later leading a crew that did landscaping projects. In 
both cases, she made barely above minimum wage and she physically 
wrecked her body in the process. She was unable to hold any weight with 
her arm above her shoulder and had extensive nerve and muscle damage. 
She also was responsible for feeding, clothing and caring for two 
children as well as being the sole income provider.  Suffice to say, she 
had to do dirty, difficult, physically and emotionally draining work 
every single day. And no, she couldn't go out to a restaurant with 
tableclothes after work, even if we'd had the money.

My girlfriend is an infant and toddler teacher. She is currently waiting 
on results of an MRI for nerve damage in her lower back. She is also in 
physical therapy. Her job has trashed her body. She comes home from work 
completely exhausted every single day. And usually covered in various 
detritus such as spitup, vomit, feces, blood and who knows whose lunch. 
And this is often after changing clothes at work at least once. No, we 
don't get to go out until she's showered and changed. And often times 
not even then because she is in too much pain.

I, on the other hand, work in IT. I get to sit at a desk and type in a 
comfortable chair. I make almost exactly twice what my girlfriend does 
when I've been at my job for 4 months and she's been at hers for 6 
years. We even both have bachelors degrees. Go figure.

You can't even justify your conclusions when you use a false premise. 
And your premise is quite flawed. If you ask a random person on the 
street what are the professions that make the most money, you'll 
probably hear "Doctor, Lawyer, CEO", etc. Are these physically 
dangerous, heavy exertion professions? I think not. Specialized 
knowledge and experience is what draws big salaries, not degree of 
nastiness. Society values lawyers and pays them quite a bit because they 
have very specialized, esoteric knowledge.

And going back to the original issue (women in specialized fields such 
as math, science and technology), affirmative action programs are 
designed to get women into these areas they have been shut out of. The 
high paying fields that value specialized knowledge and experience 
rather than ability to do grunt work. Women and men both have nasty 
entry level jobs. We are going to see a lot more social equality if we 
can remove the glass ceiling and help women into the higher paying 
specialized jobs.

Everything else I have to say is a bit of a rant and involves attacks 
bordering on the personal, so I shall leave it here. I hope you rethink 
your attitudes towards women Deacon, you seem quite hostile. Time to 
step back and take a deep breath. Women are not the enemy.

Judah