printThe following is an excerpt from “Barack Against The Boys,” my new, WND.com column:
“…Barack’s latest Brownian motion promises to unleash on struggling American businesses armies of strong-arming (and buff-armed, no doubt) Girls Gone Wild, eager for their pound of flesh.
“Another of Obama’s economic prescriptions for a deepening depression was to sign a pay equity act, during which he carped that women still earn just ’78 cents for every dollar men earn—women of color even less.'”
“Such false assertions rely on comparisons of ‘the average wage of all women working fulltime with the average wage of all men working full time.’ Scholarly reams have been written disputing this phony calculus, as it omits vital variables: How long the woman has been in the work force, her age, experience and education; or whether her career has been put on hold to marry and mother.”
“Just as women are more likely than men to have had an interrupted career trajectory, so too are they more inclined to enter lower-paying professions: education instead of engineering, for example.”
“Nonetheless, allow me to dispel distaff America’s claims of disadvantage with a decisive argument:
If women with the same skills as men were getting only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, men would have long-since priced themselves out of the market.
The fact that the wily entrepreneur doesn’t ditch men in favor of women suggests that different abilities and experience are at work, rather than a conspiracy to suppress women. …”
Read the entire column, “Barack Against The Boys,” on WND.com.
Update I (March 13): “Unemployment: Men Getting Whacked Way More Than Women”:
Such is the word from University of Michigan Professor Mark J.
In the last 12 months, more than 8 of every 10 pink slips have gone to men, he writes.According to Perry’s blog, Carpe Diem, the lousy economy has idled 1.9 million men, more than four times the number of women let go, 430,000.
The firings have been so gender-lopsided that the male unemployment rate is more than a percentage point higher than that of women.
Previously, women were slightly less likely to have a job.
Perry found suggestions of a cause from a May issue of BusinessWeek. It blamed male dominance in construction work and factory floors, two sectors hardest hit by the credit crunch.
Wall Street also is heavily male and square in the sites of the job-destroying credit crunch.
Update II (March 14): I’m glad Professor Haym B. posted his thoughts in the Comments Section, hereunder. There is a certain comfort in the elegance of immutable logic. At least to this bookish broad.
I just happened to log on to your site after e-mailing the head of a small business who started out in the parasitical (government defense work) and has since gone mostly into commercial (oil exploration) sector – and that person is …. a WOMAN! She has a masters in Physics but from Cal State – not as prestigious as Obama and Meghan McCain’s Columbia. Women are 60% of college grads – they can also start their own businesses and not bellyache about getting stiffed. This “comparable worth” hooey, of course, is just a socialistic excuse for universal castration with Messiah Obama and his minions controlling who gets hired and at what “equitable” pay scale. There are no de jure barriers to women and minorities in the US nowadays and there is no underground Klan taking away people’s rights either – e.g. no excuses for career oriented women and minorities in 2009 (other than governmental spending and regulations are wrecking up the overall economy for all genders and races) other than a yearning for more governmental control. {P.S.: My previous boss was a diminutive former Israeli Army Sergeant and SHE was plenty tough enough without needing a pair of government-issued testicles}.
Can the government bureaucrats really be this stupid? Have they ever bothered to look back at previous attempts to control wages and prices? Can they cite a single instance where such a policy didn’t backfire?
What will this latest ploy accomplish? My guess is that employers who are actually hiring (few and far between in today’s economic environment) will think twice about hiring women, when they might otherwise select them over men at the lower wage.
It all comes down to marginal productivity. If hiring the additional person results in additional revenue for the firm, they’ll extend the offer. By depriving women of offering their labor at a lower wage, they’ll be hired in lower numbers than they otherwise would. This isn’t rocket science, but to the bumbling bureaucrats in Washington, it’s all about perception.
Ilana, I love this article
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http://www.henrymakow.com
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Mrs. Mercer, I normally don’t agree with your columns and your thought processes. However, your thoughts on “Barack against the Boys” dated 13Mar WND.com was spot on. You have seen the relentless attack on boys to make them something they were never intended to be: girls. Just wanted to say thanks and I will continue to read your column even if I disagree with what you say. Sincerely, Father of 2 boys and a girl.
[What about “Manly On the Hudson?“]
hey, I just read your article on WND.com. That was a very gutsy article. amen. As an almost 31 year old man I’ve noticed the feminization of America for a long time. The male bashing in America is totally out of control. I’m a recovering government school graduate myself and I hated school. At the time I really didn’t notice it but looking back school was totally focused on the girls and as a guy if you didn’t fit into their feminized male model you were looked on as a failure. I predicted a long time ago that this feminization of America would eventually affect sports. It’s a natural target since sports are so male-dominated. You can’t even hit the quarterback anymore in the NFL without getting a penalty or a fine. Same thing in the NBA. You can’t play tough physical defense without fouling out or getting a flagrant foul and fine. Now they’ve set their sights on one of the most violent and best sports of all time MMA(mixed-martial arts). You should check out a book called Why men hate going to church by david murrow. That book brings attention to the fact that churches are very soft and wimpy and the guys are staying away in droves. I’m a born again christian, I got saved when I was 14, and I find the average church to be very repulsive for this very reason and the fundamental churches are just as bad. I really have a lot respect for you for speaking up for men. That took a lot of courage. I’ve never heard of you but you’re making a lot of sense and that’s a rarity in America. America is becoming a nation of pussies and I’m glad you brought attention to that fact.
Check out what President Obama paid women staffers vs. John McCain during the campaign
Not to put a stink in here, but what kind of unreasonable mind wouldn’t agree with the majority of what Ilana says?
I think that so long one is reasonable, you will find that reasonable people agree with him (in this case, her).
The only way someone wouldn’t agree with the majority of what Ilana said is if they were a) socialist democrat, b) feminist, or c) dumb.
No offense, but she really is pretty reasonable.
[So simply and honestly stated; I was wondering about the very same thing.–IM]
Dear Ilana – maybe all men should get sex-change operations?
As far as the eye can see all societal slopes are negative, and the only hope is that things evolve nonlinearly and therefore unpredictably (for the better) beyond the horizon.
What I mean by this is that everything looks bleak now. We have a President and a government that are truly incompetent. The world has major problems all over – economic, political, and military. Europe is being transformed into a different culture. If we extrapolate this in a linear way, then there is very little hope. However, the future has a way of not being an extrapolation of the present. Current events draw in unanticipated forces – good and bad – so that we cannot predict too far into the future. That is our only hope – that good unanticipated forces come into play negating our downward spiral. I’m still thinking about what those positive forces might be.
Thank you so much for standing up for boys and speaking the truth. It is heartbreaking to see the President of the United States act in such a foolish and uninformed manner. He is reminding me of a dysfunctional parent who blatantly and repeatedly favors one child over the other. Many thanks too for the links to others who have taken a stand on this issue.
If you are interested here is a link to an excellent youtube on men’s issues:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57EWApOypIQ