So Much for Power, Strength, and Stamina
Squeezed January 6, 2007So I was reading the letters to the editor in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin yesterday morning and suddenly found myself in ’07—1907. This letter is short, so I’m going to quote it in its entirety:
It is God’s blessing that men are stronger, more powerful and free from time-consuming personal care. Therefore, our men’s tasks involve all of the above endowments and differ from women’s tasks.
Full-time or part-time makes no difference. Power, strength and stamina answer the requirement of a wage gap.
The ironic thing was, I was reading this while walking from Starbucks to my workplace, where men and women are assembled together, doing different duties, but pretty much doing the same thing physically: sitting on their glutei maximi and tapping on computer keyboards using nothing more than fingers and wrists.
So much for “power, strength, and stamina” as an argument defending a gender wage gap. Next?
January 6th, 2007 at 7:14 am
I noticed that letter, too.
Not to defend this creep, but there are other forms of power and strength beyond physical traits. Perhaps you’ve heard of patriarchy.
January 6th, 2007 at 7:29 am
I have, but I think patriarchy (the expectation of man as breadwinner) has nothing to do with whether one can do his/her job well, and thus has nothing to do with how much identically dutied men and women should make.
January 6th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
I read her letters in the past and she is a senior citizen who needs something to do – she has chosen writing letters to the editor. I am not sure if she knows what century she is in. One of my favorite letters from her is one complaining about crust at the bottom of TV Dinners!
January 7th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Well, I think thirty years hence I’ll probably do more or less the same thing, except I won’t write letters to the editor…I’ll just express them in whatever form blogs take then.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HSP/is_1_4/ai_66678566/print
http://www.krischel.org/2006/04/22/civil-rights-journal-the-myth-of-the-wage-gap/
I blogged a bit on this last year – I think in the end, much of the “gap” is choice, not ability.