A Brunswick cafe called Handsome Her has caused a stir in Australian media in recent days, with the following photo uploaded to social media:
Lefties from all over Melbourne have flocked to support the cafe, which has been packed since. Naturally, there have even been plenty of beta male orbiters prepared to bulk up the numbers and reinforce the narrative that males prefer their chains.
The issues raised have already been thoroughly debated in social media, so we only need to concern ourselves with one; the gender pay-gap myth. The myth was so easily dismissed in The XYZ courtesy of Bob Page’s It’s not a gender ‘pay gap’, it’s an earnings difference – and it’s not an issue that we have barely mentioned it since. The following is a cut & paste of the most important points:
“The average Australian man earns $1602.80 a week, while the average Australian woman earns $1325.10. This 17.3% difference in earnings (not pay) is mostly because of the different fields in which men and women work.
“For example, men are more likely to do dangerous jobs (95% of all workplace fatalities are men), and as a consequence, are paid more than people with safer jobs. Women predominantly occupy lower-paying fields like healthcare and office administration. These fields are not low paid because women occupy them, but because the supply of workers for them is relatively high due to the few barriers to entry.”
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“Apart from the choices women make, there are further explanations for the gender earnings difference. Research organisation Glassdoor concedes that much of the 17.3% difference poses no problem and brings the figure down to 3.9%. Even though this number measures men and women with the same job title, much of it can be attributed to the different amount of hours men and women work per week. As far back as the statistics go, men have worked a greater average number of hours per week than women. More hours mean more pay, at least for jobs paid by the hour.”
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Adjusted again for resolved cases of discrimination, the difference is so small that it could easily be attributed to statistical error. Using different studies could produce figures showing men earning a percentage point less than women.
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The bigger the lie, the more often it is repeated…you know the rest. In short, men work more dangerous and stressful jobs, and work longer hours. If we really lived in a patriarchy, this earnings difference would be celebrated.