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[Reelya]

So you don't agree that dads should be encouraged to spend more time with the kids, and that this would reduce the burden on women, thus improving their pay and promotions relative to men?

It kind of seems like a no-brainer to support, since it's the single policy most likely to pummel the wage gap into submission.

Unless people actually like the wage gap for political reasons, there's no reason to object to looking more closely and targeting policies at the factors that add the most to the wage gap.

[origamiscienceguy]

Women also have alot more babies then men for some reason. That contributes to the wage gap.

[SirQuiamus]

...dads should be encouraged to spend more time with the kids...

you can't do that because that would be literally sweden and utter collapse

[penguinofhonor]

* penguinofhonor bows

[Reelya]

All in all, I think almost all legislation will do very little for the wage gap. Sweden has some of the most progressive and well thought out policies on this issue, yet they still have a large wage gap:

http://www.thelocal.se/20121107/44276

I mean, if Sweden can't make this work, then it's definitely time to start looking at the problem from different angles. The regular proposed fixes really aren't going to work, they're just dawdling behind countries that have already implemented Democrat Policies++

And we certainly should be very wary about implementing any policy which is correlated with a higher wage gap in general. It's hard enough to reduce the wage gap without introducing other policies which create further wage-gap pressure.

Right, there's a trade off between parental leave programs (which have the general effect of helping women to take time off with the kids) and the wage gap (which is exacerbated by women taking time off with the kids). It's not anti-feminist to point out that these two goals are in opposition. Only a policy that breaks this cycle can move onto the next stage. And that policy goal should be that dads spend 50% of the time in childcare. Now this is better, because it's a measurable goal, with a roadmap of how to get there, and you can measure how far along you are. Which is a damn sight better than stumbling in the dark hoping random policies will make things better than they do worse.

Sure, breaking down the wage gap detracts from the "being angry about everything" thing. But what's more important: keeping angry or actually fixing the issue?

[mainiac]

Breaking news from 538:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-polls-missed-bernie-sanders-michigan-upset/

TL;DR a bunch of boring politics and there is a pollster named BERNIE PORN
this is a good universe, people.

[nenjin]

What maniac? Suddenly you don't have a "real" response to the guy actually trying to engage your political viewpoint, and you just leave off with a one-liner that likens his proposals to roadkill?

Man, isn't this just like a feminist?

[mainiac]

You can't win them all.  And on the internet you can't win any.  Although I do appreciate your attempt to compliment me.

[nenjin]

Mmmhmm. The fruit not low-hanging enough for you?

[mainiac]

I just dont really think there's anything else to say.  He accused the equal wages movement of ignoring a point.  I showed where the point was being considered.  He then repeated the accusation.  What will repeating the point or repeating the process on a new topic accomplish?  I'm a mainiac not a maisochist.

[penguinofhonor]

How dare you back out of an internet argument, mainiac. It's just inconceivable that a person would do something like that. You must be called out and shamed.

[nenjin]

Indeed.

Your one unsourced line that doesn't actually even address the question (and seems way more like a pitch to small business owners than anyone else so they'll vote for Hilary) really nailed your point.

[SirQuiamus]

Breaking news from 538:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-polls-missed-bernie-sanders-michigan-upset/

TL;DR a bunch of boring politics and there is a pollster named BERNIE PORN
this is a good universe, people.

Some Clinton supporters chose to vote in the Republican primary.
We know 7 percent of voters in the Republican primary identified themselves as Democrats to exit pollsters, compared with just 4 percent of voters in the Democratic primary who said they were Republicans. “Those 7 percent of Dems were likely mostly Hillary voters who thought she had an easy win and they could do their part trying to stop [Donald] Trump,” said Bernie Porn of pollster EPIC-MRA. The exit-poll samples are too small, though, to check that.

EPIC MRA BERNIE PORN

My life is complete.

[mainiac]

Your one unsourced line

Ooooooh, maybe I was lying about well publicized details of the campaign platforms of two major presidential candidates.  You should check their websites and find out if I was!

[Reelya]

He accused the equal wages movement of ignoring a point.  I showed where the point was being considered.

No, you showed where they are actually making the problem worse. More paid leave is always disproportionately taken by women. Sure, you can argue that taking time off for kids shouldn't hurt people's future earnings. But that doesn't change the fact that it does. Even in Sweden.

So we have two main proposals, the revamped equal pay act and the increased paid leave (which will almost all be utilized by women).

The first one is not proven to be able to achieve anything that the existing Equal Pay Act 1963 doesn't already address - it's already illegal to pay a woman less for the exact same role. Even if it's 100% successful in rooting out the direct paycheck-to-paycheck discrepancies that have slipped past the Equal Pay Act for the last 50 years, these only represent a tiny fraction of the gender pay gap.

The second one actually increases the amount of time off that women will take from work. And taking time off from work is by far the largest chunk of why the gap exists. Additionally, no matter who pays for the leave, it has negative economic effects on your employer. This means a company with lots of people taking leave sees lower profits, which in the long run reduces the pay raises for everyone in the company. So, if you have an industry with a lot of women, and the government entices more of them to take time off, then everyone in the industry is going to see reduced wages in the long run, regardless of whether they have kids themselves or not. This plays a part in reducing relative pay in industries dominated by women.

So, you have one policy which attacks the most minute possible part of the wage gap, and make that better, and we're supposed to swallow the line that this is sufficiently addressing the wage gap issue, somehow. On the other hand, you have a policy which directly fuels the single thing that adds the most to the wage gap. Which one is going to win out?