by The gender pay gap Julian Jessop has a point when he says these gaps might not reflect overt discrimination by employees. They might instead be due to women sorting into lower-wage jobs. Airlines, for example, have big gender pay gaps because women tend to be low-paid cabin crew whilst men are higher-paid pilots. Such gender-based preferences, however, are NOT the end of the story. For one thing, as Sarah O’Connor says, employers might perhaps do more to accommodate such preferences for example by not penalizing women who want to work part-time so much. But there’s another point here that is grossly under-appreciated. It’s that preferences are not natural and given. As Simone de Beauvoir said, “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Women’s
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The gender pay gap
Julian Jessop has a point when he says these gaps might not reflect overt discrimination by employees. They might instead be due to women sorting into lower-wage jobs. Airlines, for example, have big gender pay gaps because women tend to be low-paid cabin crew whilst men are higher-paid pilots.
Such gender-based preferences, however, are NOT the end of the story. For one thing, as Sarah O’Connor says, employers might perhaps do more to accommodate such preferences for example by not penalizing women who want to work part-time so much.
But there’s another point here that is grossly under-appreciated. It’s that preferences are not natural and given. As Simone de Beauvoir said, “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Women’s relative lack of pushiness or ambition, or their preference for less well-paid work, might be due instead to the way they are socialized …
It might be that the gender pay gap is not due to employers discriminating against women. But nevertheless it might also be true that women are the victims of sexism because of (among other things) how they are socialized …
The point here is a simple one. Inequalities are not necessarily due to bad people deliberately doing bad things. They can instead be the result of impersonal mechanisms.