A Study of AUNT

[Beef Oven!]

I much prefer a good goose anyway,

Can you keep this sort of thing to PMs please?

[ahinton]

Can you keep this sort of thing to PMs please?

(pour)Quoi?...

[scottycelt]

We're not really since it's only in some cases that there is an exact equivalent between what individuals do. The bigger picture is shown in the mean statistics, men getting better jobs, unfettered by child-bearing and rearing.'Benefit' is a classic 'weasel word' here. The woman stays at home missing out on career opportunities and enhanced pay scales to look after the joint child. You could just as well call that 'benefit' the non-monetary 'compensation' for the imposed 'choice'.

Carrying on, unhindered, up his career ladder ... while he leaves his wife at home to look after his child. Perhaps paternity leave should be extended to enable the woman to go back to work so as not to inconvenience her employer too much?

The world of employment you paint is certainly not one I remember and that the birth of a child in a normal relationship is somehow no responsibility of the woman. The notion that all women work in menial jobs while men automatically scale up the lucrative pay ladder is a figment of feminist imagination and has little basis in fact. Also, whilst I wouldn't dare speak for mothers, I would have thought it's a natural instinct for most of them to opt to care for their child in a maternal manner. Fathers are quite unable to breast-feed, for example.

We shall just have to agree to differ on this so-called 'equality'. I'm tempted to mention 'dictionary definitions' again but that will only provoke the usual scorn from some members.

However, I just have done!

[french frank]

I'm tempted to mention 'dictionary definitions' again but that will only provoke the usual scorn from some members.

However, I just have done!

You might check up the definitions and differences between 'to understand', 'to be understanding'. Quite revealing.

I don't recognise your response as being related to what I said. Who said anything about "all" women working in menial jobs? You've invented that. Who said anything about the birth of a child being "no reponsibility of the woman". You've made that up too. And don't you yourself give one reason why women might actually need longer maternity leave than men need paternity leave? Nothing to do with them getting an unequal 'benefit'. The old and the disabled need benefits not available to the young and healthy: that isn't 'inequality': it's levelling up the playing field.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

As far as I can see the ONS stats for 2012 showed the mean hourly rate (basic, no overtime) was £14.05 for women, £16.50 for men. Of course, women may be doing more menial work, rather than the same work. This is interesting, given that an extremely detailed study concludes: "Females are nowadays on average more successful than males at all levels of the education system ..."

http://www.earlhamsociologypages.co....eedachiev.html

In the case of higher education I'm not so surprised at this given that many of the traditional, male-dominated (by which I mean numbers, not proven skills) areas of study (science and engineering) now carry far fewer students (both men and women) than before. Why has that happened?

Well, perhaps it's earlier education? There's a sub-reference in your link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8085011.stm

which contains this:
"A science test taken by 11 and 12-year-olds in the mid-1970s had been successfully passed by 54% of boys and 27% of girls.

When the same test was taken in 2003, the scores for both boys and girls had fallen to 17% - a much more rapid decline for boys. "

So what's gone wrong there?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10616/Is-school-biased-boys.html

(well, people are quoting the Guardian, so why not The Mail?)

[ahinton]

In the case of higher education I'm not so surprised at this given that many of the traditional, male-dominated (by which I mean numbers, not proven skills) areas of study (science and engineering) now carry far fewer students (both men and women) than before. Why has that happened?

Well, perhaps it's earlier education? There's a sub-reference in your link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8085011.stm

which contains this:
"A science test taken by 11 and 12-year-olds in the mid-1970s had been successfully passed by 54% of boys and 27% of girls.

When the same test was taken in 2003, the scores for both boys and girls had fallen to 17% - a much more rapid decline for boys. "

So what's gone wrong there?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10616/Is-school-biased-boys.html

(well, people are quoting the Guardian, so why not The Mail?)

I can think of plenty of reasons, but let's let that pass on this occasion! Interesting data; it's certainly an important issue but by no means a simple one.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

I can think of plenty of reasons, but let's let that pass on this occasion!

Since when have you been in charge?

[french frank]

(well, people are quoting the Guardian, so why not The Mail?)

:-)

One thing that the article did find was not only differences between men and women, but very profound changes. (One might have added the finding that, relatively speaking, older people now do better against young people than once was the case.

Two obvious things to investigate would be schools/teaching methods but also social changes, social media, the amount of time that young people spend now 'relating' in some fashion with their peers for purely recreational reasons.

I don't have a great deal of experience of young (18s and under) people nowadays, but my feeling is that 'in our young day' girls and boys had a greater variety of 'hobbies' which were, in one way or another, gently educational rather than recreational (stamp collecting, bird-watching, bark rubbing!!!!! Ho! ho!). Or was it just that we lived in the country and there weren't many young people to distract us?

As for the gender difference, it does appear that there was a certain amount of openly 'negative discrimination' at one time against girls. Once swept away, that would account (don't want to exaggerate this) for a rapid improvement in girls' results.

[amateur51]

Since when have you been in charge?

Quelle délicatesse!

[ahinton]

Since when have you been in charge?

"In charge" of what? You wrote the question "well, people are quoting the Guardian, so why not The Mail?" and I answered it from what was quite unequivocally my personal viewpoint, no more, no less; how is merely doing that indicative of my "being in charge" of anything?

[scottycelt]

You might check up the definitions and differences between 'to understand', 'to be understanding'. Quite revealing.

I don't recognise your response as being related to what I said. Who said anything about "all" women working in menial jobs? You've invented that. Who said anything about the birth of a child being "no reponsibility of the woman". You've made that up too. And don't you yourself give one reason why women might actually need longer maternity leave than men need paternity leave? Nothing to do with them getting an unequal 'benefit'. The old and the disabled need benefits not available to the young and healthy: that isn't 'inequality': it's levelling up the playing field.

You appeared to at least "suggest" those things that you now claim I've invented! What other conclusion can one draw from your posts on the subject? Never at any time do you even acknowledge the point about how there are plenty of women in modern society who are paid much more than plenty of men and also that fathers are quite enable do certain baby-things like breast-feed. So it's both natural and practical that it's the mother who performs that role which is hardly any fault of the father!

However, at least it's now clear that it's not really 'equality' we are talking about but 'special treatment' for women in the workplace. Personally, I have no huge antipathy to that idea. Any arrangement which makes it easier for a woman to combine work and family life, if that is what she wants, can only be welcomed.

But it has absolutely nothing to do with 'equality', as if there currently exists some huge conspiracy on the part of employers (all-male, of course) preventing women from attaining the top jobs and being 'equal' at work with men. That may well have been the case in the past but hardly these days.

You must know I introduced inferior Paternity Leave merely to highlight the illogicality of the 'equality' nonsense and you acknowledge that, of course, I understand why it's the mother who gets the greater "benefit" (which it is). Frankly, I think we could easily scrap Paternity Leave altogether but then again I'm not a young father in today's society which has changed so much, and in many ways for the better.

[amateur51]

You appeared to at least "suggest" those things that you now claim I've invented! What other conclusion can one draw from your posts on the subject? Never at any time do you even acknowledge the point about how there are plenty of women in modern society who are paid much more than plenty of men and also that fathers are quite enable do certain baby-things like breast-feed. So it's both natural and practical that it's the mother who performs that role which is hardly any fault of the father!

However, at least it's now clear that it's not really 'equality' we are talking about but 'special treatment' for women in the workplace. Personally, I have no huge antipathy to that idea. Any arrangement which makes it easier for a woman to combine work and family life, if that is what she wants, can only be welcomed.

But it has absolutely nothing to do with 'equality', as if there currently exists some huge conspiracy on the part of employers (all-male, of course) preventing women from attaining the top jobs and being 'equal' at work with men. That may well have been the case in the past but hardly these days.

You must know I introduced inferior Paternity Leave merely to highlight the illogicality of the 'equality' nonsense and you acknowledge that, of course, I understand why it's the mother who gets the greater "benefit" (which it is). Frankly, I think we could easily scrap Paternity Leave altogether but then again I'm not a young father in today's society which has changed so much, and in many ways for the better.

Moan, whinge, blather, moan. Fess up, you hate the fact that women's needs as mothers are getting met by employers, and that men's priority is slipping downwards (tho' it still has a long way to go, according to the evidence that The Fawcett Society that I have cited)). Both french frank & I have used the term 'level playingfield' but you insist on banging on about equality which gets us nowhere.

[french frank]

You appeared to at least "suggest" those things that you now claim I've invented! What other conclusion can one draw from your posts on the subject?

All right, you grossly exaggerate.

You said "The notion that all women work in menial jobs while men automatically scale up the lucrative pay ladder is a figment of feminist imagination and has little basis in fact."

I said Msg 41 , "Of course, women may be doing more menial work, rather than the same work." That was simply to suggest why the stats show women as earning less (the educational attainment then poses more questions). If women are at home looking after young children they don't have a lot of opportunity during that time to improve their career prospects.

You said: "The world of employment you paint is certainly not one I remember and that the birth of a child in a normal relationship is somehow no responsibility of the woman."

Where did anyone suggest that? It was the opposite: that, as far possible men, should shoulder an equal share, not the whole of it.

You say: "Never at any time do you even acknowledge the point about how there are plenty of women in modern society who are paid much more than plenty of men ."

That suggests innumeracy. If one quotes 'mean' hourly earnings for men and women, it signifies just that (as I made clear in Msg 49): that some men may earn less than some women, and some men may earn less than some men, and some women may earn less than some women, but the M-E-A-N shows that on average women earn less.

You say: "However, at least it's now clear that it's not really 'equality' we are talking about but 'special treatment' for women in the workplace."

What is the 'special treatment' that anyone is advocating? No one is advocating longer maternity leave than paternity leave. They are advocating equal pay.

[Mr Pee]

Both french frank & I have used the term 'level playingfield' but you insist on banging on about equality which gets us nowhere.

Isn't that what all this is about?

Make your mind up, for heaven's sake!

[ahinton]

Isn't that what all this is about?

Make your mind up, for heaven's sake!

About precisely what do you claim to perceive neither FF nor am51 to have made up their respective minds?

New entry in Uxbridge English Dictionary:
Peerage; intemperacy arising from challenges to a false belief that having nothing to hide means having nothing to fear.