Sexism Pays? Studying It Certainly Seems To
When I first noticed this study yesterday, I laughed it off. But now that it's getting a lot of media attention, I've got to join the chorus.
"Men with egalitarian attitudes about the role of women in society earn significantly less on average than men who hold more traditional views about women's place in the world, according to a study being reported today," the Washington Post reports.
That's the bad news for us egalitarian types. Over-testosteroned, burly, high-powered corporate men earn big money, and sensitive Birkenstockers with long hair and tattered jeans who treat their women as partners, rather than servants, earn considerably less. At least that's how the results of the study hit me.
And then the next question I asked myself was, who cares? And why would anyone waste their time and money to produce a study that, on one level at least, reinforces the obvious? Good ol' boys earn more money because they're, well, good ol' boys. They form their own corporate and social networks and hire each other because they are like each other.
The Post continues:
The study, published in the September issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, is based on information collected by a federal government survey over a quarter-century. The Labor Department's National Longitudinal Survey of Youth began tracking 12,000 people in 1979 when they were 14 to 22 years old. The survey participants are now 43 to 51 years old.
Because many participants in the survey were children when it started, incomes for men and women changed dramatically over the 25 years that Livingston and co-author Timothy Judge studied. Averaged over the quarter-century, salaries ranged from $34,725 for working men with traditional attitudes to $20,321 for working women with traditional attitudes. Working men with egalitarian attitudes made $22,795 on average, while working women with egalitarian attitudes made $21,373.
Remember Sen. William Proxmire and his Golden Fleece Awards? The Wisconsin Democrat made a career, and a colorful one at that, providing monthly examples of ridiculous government spending programs.
The authors of this study work at the University of Florida, and the Post piece does not explain whence the funding for the study came. One of the coauthors posited the study's rationale as follows: "It is the first time social scientists have produced evidence that large numbers of men might be victims of gender-related income disparities."
Tags: gender bias | sexism
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Reader Comments
Scientific Priesthood
How dare a mere mortal ask questions of SCIENCE! Science is a pure pursuit requiring long trainning in arcane lore and right thought. No one who has not dedicated their lives can possibly understand what the priesthood of science has dicovered. The layman's only part in life is to pay for science's endeavor and be amused by the simple toys we reveal to them. They should never ask questions of things they could not possibly understand. To do so would be much the same as Nancy Pelosi suggesting he understands the teachings of the Catholic Church better than the leadership of that Church.
Squishy?
I'm an I/O psychologist (like the authors of this article) and let me express how uninformed it is to say that my (and their, assuredly) approximately 10 years of formal statistical and substantive training has resulted in our inability to produce anything other than "squishy" results or "a waste of money". When the popular press cherry picks findings from our literature when it sees fit, and critiques them as though we have simply written them on a cocktail napkin after a few too many beers it is entirely unfair, inaccurate, and eventually quite infuriating. Simply because you have lay theories about human nature does not mean that they are correct, and simply because you can go and read the article does not mean you can thoroughly understand the statistical methodology and theoretical background behind it. Of course all scientific articles have weaknesses, and the authors of this one describe them in detail in the article itself. The problem is when uninformed individuals with an agenda use these weaknesses to discount, rather than to contextualize and interpret, the findings.
What Kind of Work?
I looked at the report of the study too, but was left with a couple of questions.
1) What kind of work did these people go into?
2) What part of the country did they grow up in and where do they work now?
From my own experience men who go into construction are (a) payed better than most and (b) are more traditional in their mindset (if you doubt this and are a vaguely pretty woman, walk by a New York construction site -- though to be honest, my Dad who was an union ironworker foreman, would have thrown the whistlers off the building for goofing off). This holds true for transportation workers (truck drivers, rail roadworkers, seamen, and aviation types.
Psychology and Sociology are squishy sciences. I'd like to look at the numbers and protocols before I put much stock in it.
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