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The Forum > Article Comments > Made in Dagenham > Comments

Made in Dagenham : Comments

By John Töns, published 29/10/2010

How far has wage equality really come?

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There is no magic, legislative or otherwise, that can change the value of a person's work. If the best someone can do is make forty-eight pins a day, and pins sell for a penny each, then the absolute maximum that person can earn is four shillings. If they are to be paid more then it has to come out of someone else's pocket. And if the price of pins drops to a halfpenny then the amount that person is worth as a worker will drop proportionately.

People who work as, say, hairdressers, get a relatively low wage because the if a hairdresser puts up their price there are plenty of other hairdressers who will provide the same service more cheaply. People who work as miners get a relatively higher wage because far fewer people are willing and able to do what they do. It's called supply and demand. Miners also work shifts, take risks and commit themselves to long-term employment. Hairdressers usually don't.

I have no problem with people choosing a career path which is relatively easy, flexible and accommodates itself to your out-of-work interests, whether those are having children or building a boat: but it is not realistic to expect a career of this sort to pay as well as one which requires twelve-hour-days, weekend work and heavy responsibility for the welfare of dozens or hundreds of people.
Posted by Jon J, Friday, 29 October 2010 6:01:47 AM
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Jon J, got it in one. Any sector with low barriers to entry will be low paid and highly competitive. As soon as it becomes more difficult to enter the field to practise, prices go up. The barrier could be qualifications, capital, compliance with regulation, or even simply knowing the right people.

Gender doesn't affect that reality.
Posted by Antiseptic, Friday, 29 October 2010 6:35:56 AM
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Of course unequal pay for equal work was disgusting. However it reflected the social pressure on men to hand much of this over to women, which was equally unfair, but never gets discussed.
Posted by benk, Friday, 29 October 2010 6:57:18 AM
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Benk, lol ;)

There is a bit of research that actually shows that this debate about women earning less is a bit of a furphy.

The main reason apart from career path, is the number of actual hours in paid employment.

A typical example is that male General Practioners will out earn females, by the mere fact that they spend more hours working.

It is interesting how Johh Tons has constructed his arguement. By begining with historical examples and then about employment choices made by the genders, thus creates inequality.

Sorry John not interested in being manipulated.
Posted by JamesH, Friday, 29 October 2010 7:49:15 AM
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@James H it is far from a furphy. Presumably both males and females are engaged in productive work that is of value to the community. If we avoid attaching a specific label to the work done but simply acknowledge that all work be it house work, gardening, painting the house or in the paid workforce is of value to the community then it does not matter a jot who does that work.
In a society where there is an equal distribution across the genders in unpaid work and paid work one would expect that the overall income patterns between males and females would not vary greatly.
Secondly we also have evidence that when a particular occupational area is feminized it loses ground with respect to income. The main example here is teaching. Once upon a time it was a predominantly male preserve thus if you compare the base rates for teachers and other occupations in 1968 with those prevailing today you will note that there has been a decline in teacher incomes, a decline that reflects the feminization of the profession. Equal pay has been achieved thus males who work in areas that are regarded as the preserve of women will, like their female colleagues, be on lower pay rates, simply because occupational areas that are dominated by women are seen as areas where people can be paid less.
It is by no means a simple problem but we can say that our society continues to place a lesser value on the contribution that women make to our society
Posted by BAYGON, Friday, 29 October 2010 8:27:50 AM
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Baygon, "What a load of bullocks".

All you are writing is following the typical gender oppression script thats main aim is to be inflammatory.

There other influences other than a profession becoming feminized as to why wages may not have increased as they should have.

Typically state and federal governments will often limit wage increases in order that they can move the money to other areas, such as giving their mates special deals and pork barrelling.

Politicans also have to fund their taxpayer funded superannuation some how.

One only needs to look at the level of neglect that has been experience by public schools and hospitals across australia to recognise that our politicans have not been putting very much of the public money from the public purse into public services.

If it is really true about women earning less, than why aren't employers (apart from the public service) employing more women and putting more men out on the dole?

After all most business is about the bottom line and they don't really care who does the work.
Posted by JamesH, Friday, 29 October 2010 11:09:16 AM
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'a point that I had forgotten about is that there were also two levels of male wage.

There was the single mans wage and a married mans wage, that I assume recognised that once a man married his living expenses increased.

<It is by no means a simple problem but we can say that our society continues to place a lesser value on the contribution that women make to our society>

Totally wrong! Who gets to decide if teachers wages go up?

It is our politicans!

So to claim that society puts lessor value is spurious.

More correctly it is our politicans who perhaps are placing a lessor value, not society.
Posted by JamesH, Friday, 29 October 2010 11:42:21 AM
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Our politicians may be making the decision, but it's clearly not broadly opposed on society, or it would be a bigger issue than it is currently. By and large, 'nurturing' roles are seen as lower-value than 'productive' roles.

I fear you're also committing the sin of seeing this image too close-up to get a good view. Sure, women frequently work less, or in roles that are generally paid less, regardless of gender... but that in itself points to a further problem. Each time you zoom out from micro to macro, you get an added layer of complexity. Unfortunately, there's no point at which you can stop and say 'everything in this sphere is relevant, everything outside of it is not'.
Posted by James Carman, Friday, 29 October 2010 11:58:09 AM
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Coupla points, Mr Töns.

The first, of course, is that economic reality being what it is, in 2002 Ford stopped producing cars in Dagenham, bacause it was more expensive than both Spain and Germany.

How surprising.

Secondly, the movie "Made in Dagenham" that you cite in your opening sentence, has been described by "Easy Living" magazine as:

"A thoroughly British comedy that'll make you roar with laughter"

Of course, you have to understand both the character of Harold Wilson, and Barbara Castle's hairdo (scroll down the link below), to understand why it is so hilarious.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1183602/Strike-Bob-Hoskins-Miranda-Richardson-bring-tale-equal-pay-fight-Dagenham-big-screen.html

The third is that, according to feminists, there were 850 striking machinists, not the paltry 185 that you noted. Or the 300 reported in the Daily Mail.

http://womensgrid.freecharity.org.uk/?p=89

History is so... malleable, is it not.

As for this gem:

"We would like to believe that because we have a female Prime Minister, that we have some women in powerful jobs that somehow we have created a fair society"

Not only do we have a female Prime Minister, but also a female Governor General.

As well, in my state of NSW, we have a female Governor, and a female Premier. My local government is headed by a female mayor.

I ask you, when nearly 50% of the population is male - is that indicative of a "fair society"?

"The ultimate test of a fair society is whether or not accidents of birth make a significant different to one's life chances."

No, that's the ultimate test of a Utopian society, Mr Töns, not a fair one.

To see how an accident of birth makes "a significant different to one's life chances", drop into one of CP Australia's facilities, why don't you.

"One way to test that proposition is to simply count. Look at the distribution of the prison population..."

And 50% of those should be women too?

Look, I am 100% in favour of equal pay for equal work. But this jumble of factoids doesn't make that case, I'm afraid.

Much like the movie, it is a "thoroughly silly article that made me roar with laughter"
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 29 October 2010 12:24:57 PM
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Oh James H... I'm so glad you saw that 'script' that Baygon is following:

"All you are writing is following the typical gender oppression script thats main aim is to be inflammatory."

I was thinking the same thing.

But what seems to have escaped everyone but Pericles (who has somehow found 'religion' on this Dagenham issue at last) the simple fact is that all these 'workers rights/womens rights/equality' issues did was to cause Ford Dagenham to CLOSE DOWN..and virtually ALLLLL except 2000 left at the engine plant our of 40,000 plus have lost.. repeat LOST their jobs.

How is that for 'equality' ? ? ?

It simply boggles the mind how the 'socialist' mentality just does not see that their system does not work.

OH wait.. I know why now...and..believe or not it's GENETIC :)

Liberals/Socialists are.. wait for it.. 'gene challenged'

Ap­pear­ing in the cur­rent edi­tion of The Jour­nal of Pol­i­tics, the re­search fo­cused on 2,000 sub­jects from The Na­tional Lon­gi­tu­di­nal Study of Ad­o­les­cent Health, a fed­er­ally funded U.S. proj­ect that sur­veyed health in rela­t­ion to a range of be­hav­iors. By match­ing ge­net­ic in­forma­t­ion with maps of the sub­jects’ so­cial net­works, the re­search­ers found that peo­ple with a spe­cif­ic var­i­ant of DRD4 were more likely to be lib­er­al as adults, but only if they had an ac­tive so­cial life in ad­o­les­cence.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/101028_liberal

So.. we can now replace our previous contempt and irritation with the likes of Baygon, Squeers and others of their Ilk (even CJ MORGAN) and now embrace a more compassionate and pity based approach because now we know they have no choice in the matter...their genes are making them do it.
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Friday, 29 October 2010 4:14:50 PM
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Using baygons spurious arguement, when married and single men were paid different wages, it looks like 'society' didn't value single men very much!

Pericles, good point on history, it is very malleable, some people seem to only hear what they want too hear, and ignore anything that does not follow their script.

If I can be bothered I try and find the links, to how certain working and employment laws applied only to women and children, such as the number of hours they could work. If I recall correctly it benefited women, not men, as such it would appear that women were/are valued by society more than working man.
Posted by JamesH, Saturday, 30 October 2010 4:51:53 AM
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A very relevant comment from a piece by Adele Horin in the fairfax press: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/executive-style/executive-women/female-execs-struggle-with-mother-load-20101029-177i7.html relating to a book about women in senior management.

"Dr Ross-Smith said women who reached senior management were just as ambitious and devoted to their careers as men.

But the stark choice that faced talented women 40 years ago - career or children - no longer applied. While some women still regarded children as "death to their career", and the decision to have a child was still difficult, most wanted to have it all.

Dr Ross-Smith said it was only later some realised it was too hard, and opted out."

Ms Horin mentions a woman who took time off to have a child, then discovers that combining the 2 is simply too much, so her sympathetic boss decides she only need work 4 days a week.

Wonderful for her - she gets to work less and even gets promoted and has another kid along the way - I'm sure she's very happy.

I'm a little confused though: I was told back in 2003 by the CSA that I wasn't working hard enough and that I had a "Capacity to Earn" that I wasn't exercising, so to give me an incentive to exercise that capacity, I was going to have to pay child support based on an income 25% more than I actually took home. They didn't seem too concerned that this might make it hard for me to manage child care responsibilities, although I was caring for my children nearly 50% of the time and Mum didn't work at all...

If women require expensive subsidisation of their participation in the workforce, then they should be entitled to less pay or simply not take on the jobs. Achievement often requires genuine commitment and sacrifice and that may include making a decision that children are not compatible with a high-powered career, rather than popping out a couple of fashion accessories and handing them off to a nanny for years, then whuingeing and demanding that someone else must pay the bill for your choice.
Posted by Antiseptic, Saturday, 30 October 2010 6:39:58 AM
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Dear Al,

You are a veritable fountain of information...in the genes, eh.
Fancy there being a "socialist gene".
I presume I would qualify as coming under your banner of "others of their ilk".
I'm sure your contempt and irritation of our views is tempered, not only by your new found compassion, but also by the knowledge that obviously we represent conclusive evidence of the forward nature of evolution.
Posted by Poirot, Saturday, 30 October 2010 8:21:49 AM
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Aaaaah dear Poirot :) Hi 5!

That was an excellent comeback.

Perhaps another one would be to look up the other side of the research coin and see that there is supposed to be a "conservative" gene !

The presense of 7R variant of the DRD4 in Liberals, is also testimony to the ABSENCE of such a gene in conservatives eh.

But to make things clear.. I only get irritated when rationality is thrown off the Westgate by liberals who appear unable to detect a fact even if it was as plain as a feather after a pillow is hurled into an industrial fan.

There are a number of simple examples.

"ISLAM"

-Liberal view "It is a religion of peace"
-Conservative view "It is a fascist ideology aimed at world domination through fair means or foul"

"CHRISTIANITY"

Liberal view:" It is a misogynistic, homophobic, patriarchal, racist, violent ideology"

Conservative Christian view "It is a wonderful experience where racism, sexism and male 'dominance' are 'bitch-slapped' out of the male female equation and gives clear guidance regarding human behavior"

"SOCIALISM"

Liberal view: "everyone is equal, compassion for all, inclusive, tolerant and utopian... money will never run out"

Conservitive view: "Intolerant, invalid,unworkable, tyrannical, Christ-phobic,anti God, morphs into 'state capitalism' where the 'party' members live in inbridled luxury while they spout 'people power' slogans to the poverty stricken proletariat who now have no further political choice in the matter.

The history industrial relations at the FORD plant in Dagenham is clear tesimony to the correctness of the Convervative view :)

Original workforce = Approx 50,000
Industrial action 1968-71
Final Workforce = 2000 (engine plant)

but GUESS WHO is living the high life ? :) aaaah the good old UNION BOSSES....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/9040082.stm

Bob Crow.. p$140,000 /year.. members ? ooops.. maybe $12-20,000

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5960724/Trade-union-leaders-receive-huge-pay-rises-despite-redundancies-and-salary-cuts-among-members.html

I hereby declare the 'conservative' view correct and the liberal view 'gene disabled' :)
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Saturday, 30 October 2010 10:22:02 AM
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They didn't seem too concerned that this might make it hard for me to manage child care responsibilities, ..
Antiseptic,
Would I be far off the mark in coming to the conclusion that Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan & Anna Bligh did their training with CSA ?
Posted by individual, Saturday, 30 October 2010 10:35:08 AM
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What a load of feminist lies and cliches...

Want to know why women earn less than men?

Firstly the reasons are AVERAGE, TYPICAL, TREND, DEMOGRAPHIC things... of course there are many exceptions... but the AVERAGE is that women earn less for two reasons...

1: Men do all the dirty, dangerous and low status jobs (and remote ones - think offshore oil rigs, mining) Most cleaners now are men. Last time I was up at three am I was rather merry, but the only people I saw working were cops, security, barmen, cab drivers, long-distance truckies, and prostitutes. In effect they are all prostitutes, putting their bodies on the line for cash... and except for some of the 'prostitutes', all men. Why do men do this work? Because it pays better (and it needs to)

2: Women don't work long... To get to be CEO, or anybody else top in their field, you have to put in long years of long hours. TYPICALLY Women are working average hours in their 20's, but once they have a child, they never work seriously (for money) again. The idea that women are working more full-time is feminist myth. More part-time perhaps, but not full-time. 40 years ago 30% of women worked full time, and so also 30 years ago and 10 years ago...

It's all there in the meticulously researched "Why Men Earn More" by Dr Warren Farrell. If you disagree with me, read the book. It is good to read books you disagree with.

Parttimeparent@pobox.com
Posted by partTimeParent, Saturday, 30 October 2010 11:39:33 AM
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Women who set out for a lengthy career can do very well out of affirmative action policies though. Relatively few women choose the life of a wage slave but those who do face little competition from other women for the many plum positions that are made available to women through the (wrong) assumption that a 50:50 gender 'balance' is essential to prove the existence of equality in the workplace. I have promoted women over and over again to middle and senior management positions only to lose them because they can call the shots and few will stay for the complete cycle of tasks for their role. This is why for example, that women such as Sallyanne Atkinson can end up chairing a major company (the failed ABC Learning) without ever realising that senior managers and particularly the CEO have fiduciary responsibilities such as their financial accountabilities that cannot be left to an underling.

So many women in organisations want a highly paid position solely to 'manage staff' which, judging by their lack of interest in the nature of the work they are involved in, must mean shedding their own accountabilities to their over-worked, long-suffering subordinates. Frankly it doesn't take many like that through a position of responsibility to create wastage below that is seemingly impossible to counteract and the loss of the soldiers who are the creators and 'guardians' of essential operating systems.

However the women who do not rely on a work career do need recognition of the transitions they move through in life and of their vital role in essential work such as raising families, volunteering, caring for elders and other vulnerable people, being the glue of society through linking people and so on. The women's movement is focussed on work and career and has missed and probably abetted the loss of social security and other aged benefits (many lost through user pays) that could sustain women into their old age. It is unrealistic to expect that all or even most women will be able to amass the sort of superannuation that will keep them later.
Posted by Cornflower, Saturday, 30 October 2010 12:32:23 PM
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its interesting..to note how the debait...is flowing..between...male/femail..wage-rates

totally unmentioned..is todays bbc report..of board-members..
voting them-selves..55 percent..increase..on their renumerations
over the past year..

it failed to mention the true cause...
members..boys-club..sitting on multiple boards

they collectivly do so little..all they can talk about
is what they did...on the..'other'..boards..ie increas their pay

board-members..should be paying..much more tax
the tax...they pay should be more..than the tax..the workers pay
[by a factor of 50 times]...just as their..'wage'..[renumeration]..is

[pro-rata...according to..the minutes..they sit...on the bored]
doubled for each...extra board...doubled again..for duel-cityzenry[duel pass-port holders]

and lets not forget death-duties...on corperations
[payable every 30/40 years or so]

and lets get rid of super..for public-servants
and especially..elected govt members

one base pension..should suit..the darn lot-of/em

be they a judge or a cop..or a pen-pusher..on the water..board[or elect-icity-board..or the darling river catchment board..or the wheat board...abc/bored..

no end to their nose..in my trough

im bored..does that qualify..me to sit
[on a board]..with a nail in it?
Posted by one under god, Saturday, 30 October 2010 12:34:22 PM
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under one God, "it failed to mention the true cause...
members..boys-club..sitting on multiple boards"

Boys Club?! What absolute nonsense, the greed of some who assume senior roles is not gender based and there is no 'club' although the few might cooperate for time but for their own individual benefit. It doesn't take very long especially for the narcissists who are common in senior positions to forget that they are there to serve the organisation and begin to think that the organisation is there for their personal benefit.

Any shareholder who doesn't take a vital interest in the operation of company's internal audit and audit committee is destined to lose his/her money one day and probably sooner than later. Do you ever see reports and recommendations of the internal audit team? Do the recommendations seem simple, hard-nosed and practical? Are the recommendations being implemented? If not, why not on all of the above. Regular audit ensures transparency and accountability in management decision-making.
Posted by Cornflower, Saturday, 30 October 2010 12:54:48 PM
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@cornflower your response highlights the nub of the problem as a society we simply do not recognize by way of remuneration a host of essential tasks that need to be done for society to function. As a result the men and women who undertake these tasks can find themselves in financially precarious positions. Equality is not merely about doing a head count but ensuring that our political and social institutions are designed with principles of fairness in mind.
The reality is that our systems are structurally unfair and those who simply reduce this to a debate of us versus them miss that point. Social justice is about giving everyone equality of opportunity to implement their rational plans of life. Equality of opportunity means that you ensure that there are no artificially generated obstacles - if people then choose to ignore those opportunities that becomes an other question entirely.
The other point that people have made is that the result of the Dagenham event was that Ford moved off shore.
Whether Ford moved because of the equal pay position is contentious but it is a credible claim; it is a reflection of our unjust global system for it means that multinationals will be in attracted to countries with the weakest industrial & environmental laws.
However, the solution is not to tolerate injustice domestically the solution should be to boycott the products of those multinationals that employ child and slave labour, do not pay fair wages and destroy the environment - were we to do that the Chinese economic miracle would be nipped in the bud and that creates another problem for the USA is keeping its head above water thanks to Chinese investment.
Posted by BAYGON, Saturday, 30 October 2010 1:06:39 PM
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The problem with the women in the Ford Dagenham strike (and with unionism generally), and with the author's article, and with the respondents' posts is that the context is treated like holy writ. The context first of all of a nationalism that doesn't obtain in the real world, and ergo an equality that also doesn't exist in the real world. Women have the power to change the world, but all they can think about is attaining parity with the gormless men in the second context that doesn't have to be, capitalism; nothing but a reified economic abstraction--which just happens to have 6 billion devout worshippers.
Even putting aside this undignified scramble for an evenly gendered share, why don't the assholes earning the mega-bucks (mostly men on a million to 200 million $ per annum salaries. On the radio this morning it was announced that these jokers just voted themselves a 54% pay-rise) have to demean themselves in the streets over the crusts?
Really, we deserve to be screwed like this. As long as we treat this insane dispensation like it's the natural order of things, or God-given, we're no better than baa-lambs.
Posted by Squeers, Saturday, 30 October 2010 3:53:00 PM
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Sorry OUG, just read your post. For once we find ourselves in perfect agreement.
Posted by Squeers, Saturday, 30 October 2010 4:11:32 PM
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one base pension..should suit..the darn lot-of/em
UOG,
As much as I would like to see that, I think the chances of achieving that are on par with flat Tax. Yes, equality is indeed one of the most difficult things to balance in a democracy.
Posted by individual, Saturday, 30 October 2010 6:22:21 PM
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Squeers... the fat cats you refer to should be hung out to dry...I agree.

But the problem is.. US... 'we' the greedy shareholders (though I don't have any) don't have the balls or selflessness to bring it about.

I'm thinking of changing my electricity supplier to the one where the CEO has the LOWEST salary... there is one..COUNTRY ENERGY..unfortunately they don't cover my part of the land.

I'd also hang out to dry the scumbag UNION bosses who are more insidious because they get their dosh from DESTROYING the country rather than building wealth or adding value.

THIS...is hilarious:

//Democrats, on the other hand, believe that when more products are made in America, more families will be able to Make It In America. That's why Democrats are pursuing the Make It In America agenda, a plan to create middle-class jobs by rebuilding our manufacturing sector.//

Hmmmmm...now WHO runs the Democrats ? is it not the scumbag UNIONS who kept on demanding ever increasing wages and benefits and pensions which were the very THING that cause America to be UNcompetitive!

Why did the jobs goto China ? Because Americans are PAID SO MUCH and Chinese are PAID SO LITTLE.

There are 2 chances of 'restoring manufacturing' in America .. buckleys and none.

The Democrats and Union bosses like Stern and Trumka don't care squat about restoring manufacturing..they only care about 'SOUNDING' relevant, so their other agenda can continue!
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Saturday, 30 October 2010 8:48:01 PM
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Antiseptic, interesting point about the capacity to earn.

Firstly if you were still married, nobody would give two hoots about your capacity to earn, so you could work as hard or as little as you like. But the minute you become a payer this is a different story.

As you already know one of the guiding principles, is that the children theoretically should not experience a fall in the standard of living following separation, so by default the custodial parent will also benefit.

It was Melaine Phillips who pointed out that the best interests of the child, is used to transfer wealth for those who work to earn it, to the custodial parent.
Posted by JamesH, Sunday, 31 October 2010 6:42:39 AM
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Well hi there Baygon. You are actually beginning to sound 'debatable' rather than dogmatic.

This from you:

1/ Whether Ford moved because of the equal pay position is contentious but it is a credible claim;

COMMENT
No...it wasn't that, it was the rise of more competitive manufacturing in other countries including Spain and Europe.
Plain and simple. 'competitiveness'. The straw which broke Fords back in Dagenham was the industrial turmoil.. strike after strike after strike. Simply untenable.

2/ it is a reflection of our unjust global system for it means that multinationals will be in attracted to countries with the weakest industrial & environmental laws.

COMMENT Holy Moley...'the world is unjust' ? now THAT comes as a surpise! Err..not. Humanity is inherently 'selfish' just ask any idiot worker who simply swallows the latest Union blabber about 'better pay and conditions' only to find the company shuts down within months and moves off shore.

3/However, the solution is not to tolerate injustice domestically the solution should be to boycott the products of those multinationals that employ child and slave labour, do not pay fair wages and destroy the environment - were we to do that the Chinese economic miracle would be nipped in the bud

COMMENT
Boycott ? ? ? ur kidding right? don't you recall.. 'humanity is GREEDY and SELFish'... and asking some person on limited income to pay $100 for some widget "made in Aus" that he/she can buy for $20 made in China... is rather optimistic.

Take ME for example. I needed a decent belt. Goto the local menswear outlet $50...or.. goto the Chinese $2.00 shop and pay $4.00

Sorry.. boycotts of your type simply won't work.

You should tell us your 'real' agenda "Global Socialism"...but that won't work either for the same reaons "us". Read Romans chapter 1.
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Sunday, 31 October 2010 7:12:16 AM
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Yes James, the Capacity to Earn and its latter day incarnation Capacity to Pay are designed specifically as a means of making payers pay more than their taxable income would suggest they should. They are at the heart of most of the ombudsman's critiques of the CSA and have been since at least 2001.

The most egregious aspect of the Capacity to Pay is that it removes any capacity to choose from the payer. If I decide to take a job which pays less than my current one I may be held responsible for the same level of child support, simply because I once earnt it. The fact that I may have chosen fewer hours to enable me to spend more time with my children is not recognised as a valid reason for doing so, unless the extra time involves the kids spending more nights at my place.

The double standard is breathtaking.
Posted by Antiseptic, Sunday, 31 October 2010 7:24:35 AM
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Cornflower: "So many women in organisations want a highly paid position solely to 'manage staff' which, judging by their lack of interest in the nature of the work they are involved in, must mean shedding their own accountabilities"

Another feminist myth is that women are better managers. Truth is they are better lower-level managers, because they are better at multitasking and juggling.

But what it takes to get to senior management is getting results - single-mindedness, not letting yourself get distracted by the little things.

In evolutionary terms this is the difference between the "gatherer" (who is always looking around for side-issues such as berries on the side of the path) and the hunter, who ignores the little things sunch as a few berries or a small injury... to make sure he and his team of hunters get the mammoth.

Predator focus, it's called.

That and the fact that women rarely work long hours after the age of 35, as they choose to have a lovely work-life balance. Meanwhile men typically INCREASE their working hours when they become dads. No work-life balance for them
Posted by partTimeParent, Sunday, 31 October 2010 1:57:48 PM
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partTimeParent,

I saw a documentary some years ago about some women in an African village who became so fed up at the men-folk not contributing to the community that they went off and built themselves another village - just them and the children.
Their village thrived, but the men left at the other village just sat around doing nothing (just like they used to) - their lives stagnated.
I'm sure they all got back together eventually...but I thought it was an interesting example of the women demonstrating that, as far as the practicalities of daily life were concerned, they were more than capable of organising themselves.
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 31 October 2010 2:10:22 PM
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Loved your story Poirot :)
I have often thought of doing that myself!

All the ranting and raving by the usual 'good old boys club' contributors like Antiseptic, Partimeparent, JamesH, and AGIR about all the terrible women in the nasty feminist world out there, does not negate the fact that some women ARE still paid less than men for an equal days work, in some jobs.

We aren't talking about the number of hours or days worked or the sorts of jobs involved, we are talking about dollars paid per hour of work.
If a man and a woman work at exactly the same job- say as an aged care worker- then they should expect the same pay rate per hour- yes?

The fact that women may work less hours during childbirth years, or may not work in so-called 'dirty' or some 'physically demanding' jobs is beside the point really.

Until women all over the world are paid the same money per hour of work for the same job, then there will continue to be gender inequality in the workplace.
Posted by suzeonline, Sunday, 31 October 2010 2:57:08 PM
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<Until women all over the world are paid the same money per hour of work for the same job, then there will continue to be gender inequality in the workplace.>

Suzieonline.

Does that mean it doesn't matter that for example a male teacher in another country is paid less than the Australian equivalent?

Mind you if every country paid to same rate, businesses would have no incentive to go off shore for cheaper wages or production costs.
Posted by JamesH, Sunday, 31 October 2010 4:01:01 PM
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Here is a link to a very good article on research, mind you it talks specifically about medical research. But if medical research can be so flawed, then what about other soft sciences. How flawed can they be?

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269

<To get funding and tenured positions, and often merely to stay afloat, researchers have to get their work published in well-regarded journals, where rejection rates can climb above 90 percent. Not surprisingly, the studies that tend to make the grade are those with eye-catching findings. But while coming up with eye-catching theories is relatively easy, getting reality to bear them out is another matter. The great majority collapse under the weight of contradictory data when studied rigorously.>
Posted by JamesH, Monday, 1 November 2010 6:12:55 AM
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Poirot, your story seems to have neglected to mention what the women did to reproduce...

Suzeonline, I note you haven't answered James's excellent question.

JamesH:"while coming up with eye-catching theories is relatively easy, getting reality to bear them out is another matter."

Too true. One has only to look at the output of Australian gender "research" to see as many examples as one wishes.

Medical research at least has to stand up to rigorous scrutiny by competitive and qualified peers. The esubstitute for such rigour in gender agenda research is "you go grrrl, you rock" and reproduction of the headline in as many places as possibl;e, while the actual "research" is quietly hidden away and no one mentions any flaws. After all, "her heart's in the right place"...
Posted by Antiseptic, Monday, 1 November 2010 6:30:16 AM
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"The ultimate test of a fair society is whether or not accidents of birth make a significant different to one's life chances. One way to test that proposition is to simply count. Look at the distribution of the prison population, look at the distribution of people on welfare, look at the incomes of people. Look at all the things that we can use as a metric of people's ability to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them. If these various sub-populations reflect the sort of distribution that we see in society at large then we know that society is probably as fair as it could be; at the very least we can say with some confidence that it is unlikely that accidents of birth make a significant difference.

But when we find for example that people from Aboriginal backgrounds dominate our prison populations but are a small segment of our total population then we have to ask questions about how fair our society is.

If we find that women's income remains below that of men then clearly gender still does make a difference."

Gee I wonder if anybody has ever done any research into gender differences in life expectancy, rate of imprisonment, suicide rates and any other stuff we can count which probably mean a lot more than the income received from paid employment?

Given that those issues don't seem to get on the radar for those writing about gender equality there must either be no research on those topics or the outcomes must be gender neutral.

Whilst paid income is an issue there are so many factors that can impact on it and mitigate it that it does not seem to be the key factor we should be using to look at social fairness.

Perhaps I should try Google sometime and see if there are any other countable factors which might give a better view of how the genders do.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 1 November 2010 7:26:47 AM
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@Robert You will be struggling to get much joy from google. The problem is that what we choose to count or not count is basically informed by public policy. For example you will get accurate figures about the number of skilled migrants recruited into Australia. What you will not get (apart from anecdotal evidence) is the numbers of skilled migrants who were employed in their area of expertise, who are currently unemployed and who returned to their country of origin. With respect to employment statistics the problem is identical - you know the numbers of people who are unemployed but you do not know how that can be broken down in terms of qualifications - the government policy is that if you are unemployed you must get a job, any job. This leads to the absurd situation of highly qualified middle managers competing for unskilled jobs - a situation which is fair to no-one.
Social fairness is not confined to gender but gender is but one indicator.
There will be those in thread who argue that it is impossible to create a perfectly fair society - however that is not the issue. It is a bit like an athlete wanting to improve their times - no athlete believes that it is possible to run the 100 meters in one second but every athlete wants to improve on whatever the current world record is. If we take that same attitude to fairness what we would be doing is setting a benchmark where all people regardless of the circumstances of their birth had the same life chances as everyone else once we have that as our benchmark we would be testing public policy to see how close it comes to meeting that benchmark.
Posted by BAYGON, Monday, 1 November 2010 9:03:05 AM
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I think Suzieonline's comment about who things would be equal if women all over the world were paid the same rate for the same work, is very telling.

She failed to mention the other 50% odd percent of the working population, who do get paid different rates all over the world.

Now either feminism is about equality or it isn't. Such comments show that it is not!

Western women are the most privileged women in history and still western feminists must look to third world countries to show how bad it is for all women.

Basically by saying that women in the third world are oppressed etc, and taking those examples, they then extrapolate that to their own privileged existance.

I think that they must make certain rationalizations in order to justify their own beliefs, when their own experiences do not match the experiences of women who actually do live in third world countries.

The only problem is that once missionaries destroy another cultures beliefs and cultural practises, they actually make things worse, instead of better.

Just look at our own aboriginal culture or that of the eskimos, the american indian.
Posted by JamesH, Monday, 1 November 2010 9:40:07 AM
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BAYGON, on the issues I mentioned I'd have a lot of success. Gender disparity on issues such as rates of imprisonment, life expectancy, suicide rates etc are fairly well publicised. I was being somewhat tongue in cheek.

Wages income on it's own is not a particularly good indicator of real access to money. Compared to a number of other factors it does not tell us a great deal about the important stuff.

I was having a dig at an author who appears to realise that rates of imprisonment amongst indigenous people compared to the broader population should raise some questions but who does not appear to see the need for similar questions because men are imprisoned at far higher rates than women.

Wages are a factor but I think that there are a lot of other factors which might give a more telling perspective on how the genders are travelling when it comes to equality. The same factors used to identify disadvantaged groups are a good starting place.

BTW that does make it all a feminist conspiracy or the fault of women. Rather it points to some stuff we may be doing wrong as a society.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 1 November 2010 5:51:06 PM
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correction "BTW that does not make it all a feminist conspiracy or the fault of women."

I wish we had an edit facility here.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 1 November 2010 6:22:37 PM
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@robert I keep forgetting that people do not identify Baygon with John T - we are both one and the same persons.
With respect to imprisonment when I said you would be struggling to get accurate figures I was speaking from experience - for example apart from gender very little detail is recorded about the prison population - I did some research on this about 15 years ago and was told that they did not record ethnic background, socio economic status or level of schooling - this may have changed but to the best of my knowledge there is a reluctance to gather such data.
This also creates a problem in assessing the reasons for disparity in incomes between females and males - all we can say with any confidence that both the average and mean incomes of males are higher to those of females.
The question that I was raising both in the article and in subsequent posts as baygon is that if our social and political institutions are weighted so as to give some people a better chance in life then those institutions are unfair and need to reformed or abolished.
I certainly did not want to create the impression that I believed that all men are advantaged by the current system.
I used to ask my students to look at the problem this way: imagine you are about to be born and you are invited to choose your gender and the sort of family you are born into and the country of your birth what would you choose. Little surprise that most chose to be born as males in a white upper middle class family in most instances they were happy to be born in Australia although some chose to the USA. If our institutions were truly just they would have argued that it really did not make much difference; it was far more important to be able to select one's skills and abilities but as one of my student observed - it much better to be a rich moron that a poor mensa member.
Posted by BAYGON, Monday, 1 November 2010 6:35:51 PM
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John thank's for clearing up the identity issue, I've probably seen it before but did not pick up on it.

You are correct that often the stats don't give the right detail to be able to do the analysis. There are so many variables around the impact of wages income and gender that for it to have any meaning a whole lot of other factors would need to come into it.

Perhaps the value of the home a person lives in (and their share of the ownership).
The discretionary spending available to a person.
The likelihood that they can partner upwards financially.
The weight we give to spending time doing something you like vs income eg someone who really want's kids and does not participate much in the paid workforce is getting something that most wage slaves don't get even if the wage slaves earn more. I don't know how you quantify that but it is significant.

My impression is that most of the remaining income disparity in our society comes down to individual choice, I'm not convinced that women currently get the short straw on that either (or that they are to blame for men's choices).

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 1 November 2010 6:56:34 PM
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@ Suz

You said: (about we old ranters)

"all the terrible women in the nasty feminist world out there, does not negate the fact that some women ARE still paid less than men for an equal days work, in some jobs."

Firstly, I'm not aware of jobs which pay women less than blokes. Enlighten me please.
I know that if my male son applies for a job in a hospitality role, he is paid exactly the same as a girl applicant.

My POINT.....just in case you missed it..which you appear to have,...was that the industralian unrest killed jobs for about 48000 people (of both genders) in Dagenham.

The Union was not in the slightest bit interested in 'equality of pay'....though they use such issues for their own political agenda..no.. they were more interested in destroying capitalism than getting equal pay for women.

So...after all this 'pseudo' campaigning for 'equality' we end up with the real outcome NO jobs for 48,000 people. (but there are heaps of people in Asia and Eastern Europe who now have their jobs and much lower rates of pay... woop de doo...

Can you see a 'winner' in the 48,000 jobless brits from this?
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Tuesday, 2 November 2010 6:37:29 AM
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BAYGON, you make some good points about the way in which official policies can prevent valuable data being collected. It gets worse when there is an arbitrary change in the data set which makes comparisons year on year fairly meaningless, or when those in charge of designing the research that provides the data have a special interest in achieving a particular finding and so limit the data reported to that which supports their pre-determined POV, or they cherry-pick their participants. Research around aspects of gender is especially prone to these problems, but it is treated by those who want to believe it as though it is indisputable fact and to question invites vilification.

The problem is that sociology has become dominated by the "social constructionalists", who hold to the not-unreasonable view that societioes are "constructs" which can be changed purposefully. It's not a long stride from there to the view that if that's the case, then it's OK to manipulate the process by producing advocacy "research" or by demanding that all uni students muct participate in a brainwashing unit called gender studies or some equivalent.

The outcome, as we are seeing, is that negative impacts of the preferred social construction are ignored and simply not studied, since that may inhibit the process. If one mentions the negatives, as has been seen here time after time, it is met with accusations that one is a "dinosaur", out of touch, bitter over personal experiences (but of course when she complains it needs research) and so on - and of course that means one need not be heard.

As I've said before, it's simply dishonesty and that is never something to be proud of.
Posted by Antiseptic, Tuesday, 2 November 2010 7:27:12 AM
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Here's a lovely example of the type from this morning's paper. While it's not research, it nicely demonstrates the way in which things are skewed by deishonestly-applied selectivity. It's hardly surprising the Guardian was involved.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/stephen-fry-gets-panned-for-saying-women-cant-enjoy-sex-20101101-17aeq.html

From the piece:"''Stephen Fry wasn't making any judgment about that, or saying it was a good or a bad thing, he was just pondering why that may be. It sounds harsh taken out of a long interview in which he talked about a multitude of other things.""
Posted by Antiseptic, Tuesday, 2 November 2010 7:32:06 AM
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Anti, Fry did raise or pose some interesting questions which of course, would mean he gets shot down in flames or made to rationalize the statements he made.
Posted by JamesH, Tuesday, 2 November 2010 7:38:53 AM
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@antiseptic there is nothing wrong with the idea of society being a social construct, nor is there anything wrong with attempting to change that construct.
The problem arises that there is insufficient brain pain exercised in determining the sort of principles we should be guided by.
If you look at the work of the like of Habermas and Rawls you will hopefully come to the view that the problem is that the people who are shaping our social and political institutions have only a superficial understanding of the sort of principles that will lead to a fair society. It may also be that they lack a sense of humour which is illustrated by the Fry link
Posted by BAYGON, Tuesday, 2 November 2010 8:32:23 AM
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Baygon, I think we're in agreement on this, although I disagree that the current situation is merely an emergent feature due to a lack of understanding. It is my view that there has been a widespread bias in the research supported by uni sociology departments with the intent of bringing about a very much UNequal social structure, with women at the top and men doing the dirty work. Dishonesty and selectivity are standard fare in research around gender.

The claim that feminism as it has been done in the West is egalitarian is simply not sustainable. It cannot be that way, because there is no mechanism to regulate the constructionalism. There has been no serious organised opposition to the feminist construction and little funding available to produce research that contradicts the feminist dogma.

Our social policy is perforce based on the research that is put forward by academics as the best available, so the absence of a competing view is a very serious problem. I once listed the organisations that receive funding from the Office for the Status of Women and it runs into dozens, many of which are purely networking or advocacy groups.

The question is really how we go about fixing that to make it genuinely egalitarian. Should we encourage the funding of a "men's studies" unit within sociology departmnents, with a remit to examine disadvantage suffered by men?
Posted by Antiseptic, Tuesday, 2 November 2010 10:06:29 AM
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BAYGON, I don't know if you're still monitoring this thread, but I wanted to thank you for drawing my attention to Habermas particularly. I'd not read any of his stuff, but he seems to have anticipated much of my own thinking on the subject of public discourse and the ways in which it is coopted. I will read more I think.

I'd heard of Rawls, or at least his "veil of ignorance". It's a thought experiment that is at odds with elitism and so highly unlikely to be embraced by those seeking to form elites.
Posted by Antiseptic, Thursday, 4 November 2010 9:48:15 AM
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Habermas has indeed been a fertile intellect for many years, but his work is now commonly considered a conservative revision of the critical theory tradition. His "colonised" "public sphere" is no more effective than champagne socialism for addressing society's ills imho. Though of course he's still well worth reading. Many thinkers (and I agree) have come back to the conclusion that our social problems have to be addressed at the economic base, rather than the superstructure or Habermas's rarefied Lifeworld.
Posted by Squeers, Thursday, 4 November 2010 10:13:44 AM
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Squeers, so far he makes some sense to me, ill-educated as I am in the finer points of philosophy and forced to rely on my own poor wits to try to compensate. I'd not call myself a conservative though, given that many of the people on OLO seem to disagree with much of what I say on social issues...

It seems undoubtedly true to say that procedurality is becoming an end in itself and that our institutionalised way of doing government means that there is little room for really useful public discourse outside the bounds of the debate set by those institutions. Thus we have politicised media, academia, business, bureaucracies, workers, feminists, etc, etc, etc and the individual or marginalised group has to struggle to be heard.

Anyway, I'll read a bit more of what the man has had to say for himself before I make up my mind.
Posted by Antiseptic, Thursday, 4 November 2010 12:38:47 PM
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Antiseptic,
I hope I didn't seem condescending. I consider myself a lightweight in the "thinker" stakes, and formal education has been a novel and not particularly positive experience for me. There is far more (too much) PC disseminated these days, in so-called places of higher education, than good sense, or anything of practical value.
Your posts usually make good sense to me, so whatever your bias is, and we all have them, you 'can't' be a conservative :-)

I would put Habermas on par with Chomsky as one of the great and most prolific thinkers of "twentieth" century. Whatever the formula (if there is one) that breaks humanity's current malaise, Habermas will probably deserve some of the credit.
Posted by Squeers, Thursday, 4 November 2010 1:27:29 PM
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Squeers, I was trying for self-deprecation because I am genuinely poorly schooled in philosophy, having been more of a hard science/engineering type for most of my life. At 47 I'm not entirely sure that a better choice might not have been a career in the humanities. If I were to try today, it would probably be brief and followed by a long prison term...
Posted by Antiseptic, Thursday, 4 November 2010 2:02:14 PM
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@squeers and antiseptic serendipity brought me back to this thread a good book you both might like to look at is Todd Hedrick's Rawls and Habermas: Reason, Pluralism and the claims of Political Philosophy. Hedrick prefers Habermas to Rawls but does a good job of critically analyzing both their views. Squeers has already alluded in one of his posts (either here or elsewhere) to Foucault again someone who seems to provide a good analysis of the human condition. Michael Taylor's book: Community, Anarchy and Liberty is now somewhat dated but I think still gives a very good analysis of the sort of world that is possible.
Posted by BAYGON, Thursday, 4 November 2010 2:39:15 PM
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Thanks for the references, John, I'll look them up.

I'm not a huge fan of Foucault as I understand his thoughts, although once again I can't claim any particularly good knowledge of the man's work, merely a skimming over the years. It might be interesting to look more closely at what he had to say.
Posted by Antiseptic, Friday, 5 November 2010 4:27:06 AM
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