Kinja reply list

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RosieRivDoug Barry
1/12/14 3:09pm
I'm sorry, what? I watched Maria Shriver on Meet the Press this morning. She had all sorts of interesting and important things to say. But no, let's all focus on what Beyonce says about it. Great. Beyonce.
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  KilcommonsRosieRiv
  1/12/14 3:16pm
  Yeah, I just looked at the sneak preview of the report and there are tons of fascinating articles written by a host of intriguing people. However, I couldn't read the whole thing because the free download is for Kindle. The irony of a report on poverty being only fully available via Kindle — and not just being available to read on the plain ol' Internet — kind of astounds me. Maybe I'm missing something?
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  recidiviciousKilcommons
  1/12/14 3:43pm
  You can still read it on a computer if you don't own a Kindle. You do need an Amazon account, though.
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anomalopotamusDoug Barry
1/12/14 3:25pm
I am not at all disputing the statistic that the average woman makes 77% of what the average man makes. I think it's a bad, bad thing and the gap should be completely closed asap. But whenever I see this stat, which is often, I can't help but wonder what the gap looks like when eliminating the super rich.

We all know that the richest rich people are mostly men, and there are various reasons for that. The super rich are so rich these days that including them in discussions of what most other people earn doesn't even seem relevant to my life. They are like some unattainable mythical fantasy class of people I read about but will never see or interact with in my entire life, and therefore they exist only to skew the numbers and make me feel bad. So I'm just curious what the gap look likes when that whole 1% class of super rich are eliminated in the calculation, which is something I never really see a stat for. Or is this sort of thing already accounted for and I'm just misunderstanding?
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  Kilcommonsanomalopotamus
  1/12/14 3:42pm
  You make a good point, but I think that the gap is still going to exist in quite a real way even if one were to remove the super-rich from the equation. Here's an example. I'm a teacher and, even though this is a profession largely populated by women, the administrative jobs are dominated by men and they are much more highly paid than the classroom teacher. In fact, their pay is almost twice that of a classroom teacher which is probably a much bigger gap than that between mid-level management and white-collar workers in most companies.
  
  Moreover, the stipends you can earn as a teacher are subtly (or not so subtly!) rigged to favor male roles. For example, the football coach earns almost $2,000 more per year for his extra-curricular activity than any other coach. Of course, there is no girls football coach. The basketball coach makes less than the football coach — even though he plays twice as many games — because he has a female equivalent. They can't pay the two basketball coaches differently, so they pay them both less than the football coach.
  
  Often both the boys and girls athletic coaches are males. Needless to say, the boys coaches are almost never women. Since coaching is a way to increase a teaching salary this whole set up makes it easier for male teachers to make more money.
  
  It would be interesting to see a more in-depth breakdown of all these kinds of contributory factors in a variety of jobs. Of course, it would also be hard to start sorting them out and pinning them down.
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  MMMBOPanomalopotamus
  1/12/14 3:44pm
  I'm super derpy on statistics so don't quote me on this. But I think they usually do some math magic to come up with a median number, which is usually a more accurate reading on what the middle people are earning and how they stack up. I'm not sure if this statistic is the median number though.
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Sea AnemoneDoug Barry
1/12/14 2:59pm
Beyoncé insists that it's time to stop pretending that we've achieved gender equality:

It's practically de riguer for female artists to sexualize themselves to succeed, while male artists become successful wearing street clothes.

I mean, a rad fem can dream, right?
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HermioneStrangerDoug Barry
1/12/14 4:51pm

The average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes.

Not really, though. The national average is that women, as a group, make 77 cents to the dollar that men, as a group earn. But it represents very few women, when you start dividing women up into different groups based on race, class, education, major, field, etc. White women make a little bit more (80 cents), black women make less (69 cents), Hispanic women make a lot less (59 cents). Men of color make less than our "77 cents", with black men making 74.5 cents (up from their 74.3 cents in 1972!), and Hispanic men making 69 cents (down from the 72 cents they were making in 1972.)

And then, you start looking at majors. A year out from college graduation, women with education majors earned 95 cents, while women with mathematics majors earned only 76 cents.

So, yeah, it's important to remember that statistics has its own definition of "average".
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JENROByouDoug Barry
1/12/14 4:17pm
maybe it's cool that Beyonce said something about the Shriver report because everyone in the fucking world knows who Beyonce is and now everyone in the fucking world will know the Shriver report exists.
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  DontBeSuchaBoobPunchTinaJENROByou
  1/12/14 7:07pm
  Fair point. I wish it had been something a little more attention-getting than a statistic that most of the free world surely already knows, but she did give the Shriver Report some good publicity, there.
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daenarysqueenoftheyumyumsDoug Barry
1/12/14 5:50pm
If you're that disgusted by things, Bey, then use your voice and power to do something about it.
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  Scoochiedaenarysqueenoftheyumyums
  1/13/14 5:04pm
  Um. She is. Have you not heard her new album? It's all about feminism, start to finish.
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  daenarysqueenoftheyumyumsScoochie
  1/13/14 5:14pm
  Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot:
  
  Beyonce can't do any fucking wrong whatsoever and therefore anyone who dislikes her music is an awful human being who's racist and sexist.
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brightersideoflifeDoug Barry
1/12/14 2:41pm
I'm confused as to why this wasn't part of the article from earlier.
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Joan__WilderDoug Barry
1/12/14 3:13pm
Why the fuck would I want to hear Beyonce's take on this? Fuck you Beyonce.
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  JENROByouJoan__Wilder
  1/12/14 11:58pm
  watch your fucking mouth.
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  Joan__WilderJENROByou
  1/13/14 8:27am
  Ummm YOU can watch my mouth as I tell you to fuck off.
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pollyannacowgirl 2.0Doug Barry
1/12/14 4:50pm
Beyoncé gives with one hand and takes away with the other. Sorry, I don't think she contributes anything to women's liberation. Nothing.

Shut up and look at your bank statements, you greedy idiot.
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pollyannacowgirl 2.0Doug Barry
1/12/14 4:50pm
Beyoncé gives with one hand and takes away with the other. Sorry, I don't think she contributes anything to women's liberation. Nothing.

Shut up and look at your bank statements, you greedy idiot.
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