Women are like men, only cheaper

[EBearhug]

Women are like men, only cheaper, according to an Australian speaker at a conference for tech start-ups.

Actually, women often need to be a lot better than men, not just like them. (Which he sort of acknowledges, because it seems he had a lot more women working for him when he started his company than was average, and he acknowledges they were good, and he could give them more responsibility - but that still doesn't make it acceptable to pay them less.)

Mothers are even cheaper
And mothers who want to work part-time are utterly remarkable value.

Depressing isn't it.

The fact that I have come around to is that because men are valued more in society, quite simply people are prepared to pay them more than women. It's just, a thing, probably not even conscious thought most of the time.

This feeds into the fact that taller people get paid more as well.

Subconsciously we (society) puts values on people and pay follows accordingly, more often than we might hope.

For people being valued differently you just need to look at the papers, sadly, and even the people who can see how awful the media are, are likely to consume these messages to some extent.

Just thinking out loud there.

And you know the worst thing? I'm thinking well at least he's giving them jobs, and senior ones, which is better than not giving them jobs at all. Crumbs from the table, no less.

I suppose stereotype as well.

V interesting article I read by a man of asian appearance saying he got a leg up in science/maths/IT type stuff because people simply assumed he was brilliant at it.

Mothers are women, aren't they?

Seven, that's Philip Guo, I think on technical privilege. This article.

Err this sort of shit coming from an Australian man does not surprise me in the least (I live in Australia, and am Australian). Australia is still proudly sexist, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and more recently Islamophobic. I despair for this society, I really do, and with Abbott in charge of the country, it has really gone to the dogs . For the first time in the last 30 years, I have seriously considered leaving this country for a more evolved and developed social consciousness. I know some Aussie will be here soon enough with a taunt of "if you don't like it here leave", to them I say - You are exactly the reason why I am thinking of leaving in the first place.

YY but the scale changes

Women = cheaper
Mothers = even cheaper
Part time mothers = cheapest

I have seen time and time again women doing jobs they are way over-qualified for, for much less money than they used to command, due to time out for mat leave getting them off the "career ladder" and especially if wanting part-time work.

It's rather depressing.

The employers get a fantastic deal and the women feel grateful that anyone is prepared to employ them after a couple of years at home / the hours they want so don't ask/look for any more.

That's the article! It's really good.

Australia may be worse, especially under Abbott, (part of my department is in Australia, which can be interesting for departmental meetings, but anyway) - but I think it's an attitude which is pretty widespread across tech, even if it's not as easy to talk about it openly in Europe and the USA.

Yup, Seven. You see it a lot in retail. Women with degrees doing 20 hours a week on a fucking checkout because there are few or no part time opportunities in their field, or they left it too long to be able to go back. And then you have a manager who is about 12 and has no life experience whatsoever telling them how to breathe.

And yes, Zazzles. I loved living in Australia, but the racism and sexism was beyond ridiculous. I lived in NT, which was bad, but not as bad as WA and Qld!

Women = cheaper
Mothers = even cheaper
Part time mothers = cheapest

I have had the misfortune of being out of work for a while due to ill health, and had to rebuild my CV with some recent work experience. In order to get something on my CV, I volunteered - I would add another line on the bottom of that list:

Volunteers (who are mostly female) = free

There are very, very few male volunteers, because guess what, men's contribution to employment is considered more valuable and worth paying for, whereas women, well why pay for something if you can put it out as a volunteer position and get the labour for free? A sad and sorry state of affairs .

I should add, the above applies mainly to charities and the like. Of course in a business/government it would be an "internship". Still amounts to the same thing.

Zazzles yes very true.

Doing voluntary work to get "back" into employment also obviously is advice given to women who have been out of work due to kids even if for a shortish time. So disproportionate there too.

Not sure if in the retired age groups it evens out, but among "working age" population I'm sure you're right.

So many things are running on the unpaid labour of women, if it all stopped suddenly the world would fall over.

So many things are running on the unpaid labour of women, if it all stopped suddenly the world would fall over.

Absolutely. I was reading a report on equality in salaries, which looked at about 20 or so countries, including the US, US, and Australia and NZ. The report looked at how increasing the wages of women to that of parity with men would affect the GDP of the country. Even in first-world, well-developed countries, this one change would have the affect of improving GDP by 9-10%, just this one intervention!!! Of course in less well developed countries, the change was even bigger - I think it was something like a 60% increase in GDP. Again, it showed me that we have so, so far to go on an individual, country and global scale when it come to many aspects of feminism.

It's true. I am relentlessly pushing up women's pay in our very small company. Actually, small companies get massive womenskillz on the cheap.

The biggest bugbear I have in my current sphere is wives doing the admin for their husband's business for fuck all pay. I go into all sorts of rages about that.

I'm hiding this thread and so am not having this argument but I'm sick of a certain type of Australian who comes on threads to say how terrible all Australians are, except them, of course. You're just like those women who say how all women are bitchy and stupid so they're friends with men, because they're such special women, not like all the rest.

For the record, I live mostly in Perth (West Australia) but have relations in both the US and England, so have stayed for extended periods in both countries, and the racism, sexism and homophobia levels are not appreciably different in the three places. Most people here are not racist, sexist or homophobic.

Our media is truly terrible, and many disengaged people believed what they were told and voted Abbott in. But he is not representative of the Australians I know. No one I know agrees with him. I know many, Australians who feel strongly about making our country a better place. Unlike the posters on this thread, however, they don't do this by making unpleasant comments about how awful we all are on international forums, but by trying to ensure that the views of the majority of decent people get heard above the parapet of a conservative media and a consequently backward Parliament.

Apologies, OP, for the derail.

You're just like those women who say how all women are bitchy and stupid so they're friends with men, because they're such special women, not like all the rest.

Actually, no one on this thread or indeed FWR has said that. So it is an unfounded conclusion that you have come to all on your own. I happen to have lots of lovely female friends who all recognise the things we have been discussing. And there are many FWR posters who have all posted similar things about their own countries. You choose to get offended because you have low self esteem, and cannot separate the comments about Australians and Australia from your own ego. You take these comments on as personal indictments of your own self, rather than going "Oh well, yes I can see these things as well, but it doesn't pertain to me."

And unless you have hung around FWR for at least a few weeks and have gotten to know the individuals in FWR, how do you know that we are not (in our individual ways) trying to make a difference in our own lives? Again, you do not know, because you have no idea about the individuals on this thread or forum, and so it just shows that you have jumped to another yet unfounded conclusion. Please stop doing that it really doesn't show you in a good light.

Most people here are not racist, sexist or homophobic.

I don't agree with you there. You are most likely a white female, the only possible thing you could know about is sexism, and only if you choose to see it. You may have consciously or unconsciously chosen not to see the entrenched sexism and misogyny that is so, so prevalent in Australian society. I am very aware of the sexism/misogyny in Australia, and sometimes I am surprised at how it passes me by without my notice until some time later. Unless you are a gay person of colour, you have very little idea about the discrimination these people go through.

But he is not representative of the Australians I know.

Actually I disagree with this as well. If he is not representative of Australia and Australians, how did he get voted in? People are notoriously bad on voting on actual policies, they tend to vote for the person they 'like' the most, and so end up voting for the person they think is most like them, not the one who is least like them. Please come back and explain this.

Yes Buffy, now that you have pointed it out, I believe it was. Some ridiculous misogyny aimed at us from what appears to be a female because we dared comment about Australia and Australians.

Oh Seven - I am currently that bargain - working part-time from home for a bargain rate because it fits in with looking after the kids but also keeps my brain and CV alive.

And you know, I'd happily employ more like me if I ran a business, in fact, if there were more people willing to employ us skilled at-home part-timers then perhaps it would help companies realise that full-time isn't the only way, so DP could do it too and we could finally get a balanced home life.

Zazzles I was reading a report on equality in salaries, which looked at about 20 or so countries

• Do you have a link for that report at all?

I agree that Abbott's role is to represent Australia, but then we have Cameron, so we aren't much better. Also, I was quite taken about by the racism and sexism I saw in Australia, but that's hardly a comprehensive survey.

Anyway - regardless of how sexist individual countries are, I am pretty sure that whichever country you have most experience of, it's still likely to be true that women are seen as cheaper labour than men.

In one of our European offices, nearly everyone (not quite everyone, but probably about 80%) of the longer term workers do 4 day weeks. They apparently agreed on that several years ago, rather than have anyone made redundant. That's good flexible thinking, to my mind, and if there were more of that sort of thing happening, then there would probably be more acceptance of part time working and other flexibility, and it would just be a different way of working, rather than a lesser way of working, especially if more men were doing it. Mind you, it does seem to be the only location that works that way - no one's ever picked it up elsewhere. I don't know if that's down to different redundancy/employment rules in other countries, or just a lack of thinking. But I do think more flexible working for everyone will help women in particular.

I guess it's to do with what sort of society you are in / what the prevailing approach to things is. Pulling together vs I alright jack.

The keeping everyone on at 80% meant that some people who probably knew they would have been retained had to take a 20% drop.

I have heard of similar happening here I think it tends to happen more in factories and things where have a large number of people doing the same sort of role so it makes it harder to guess who will stay and who will go IYSWIM.

Course when jobs are harder to find it has historically been women who were given the boot anyway on a matter of "common sense" and principle to make jobs available for men.

Certainly the latest recession hit women harder from what I have read in the papers.

I recall vaguely (I only ever recall anything vaguely) reading years ago a letter in a newspaper that may or may not have been the DM by that ghastly old bat Barbara Cartland, saying that where there is a choice an employer should always give the job to a man because they have families to keep, whereas women don't really need their own income. My response was not published.

I would have thought (but haven't checked figures) that there would be more women who are resident single parents than men are.

I'm single and have no children. My parents are both dead. If I'm not supporting myself, the state would have to, or I should starve. I do need an income. But of course I'm also better value than most of my male colleagues. (There is a part of me that is slightly bitter that I've always survived "At Risk" processes - colleagues who got nice redundancy payments are generally far better off than me these days, because they could then afford to buy a house and so on. This isn't so much a gender issue directly, as I have seen quite a few women being made redundant from technical departments, and I think it wasn't always that their performance was worse, just that they were less supported, and weren't really "one of us," and their performance was judged accordingly."

There have always been women in this position, particularly after WW1, when there just weren't as many men to go round and support families. The average Victorian marriage lasted something like 12 years - death in childbirth, infections, viruses, industrial accidents, starvation, etc, etc - there have always been people who aren't supported by anyone else, especially not a Man.