Welcome to another mailbag episode of the Factual Feminist. I'm going to continue to
respond to your perspicacious comments and questions.
Commenter Noneya Ratman ask: "Can you point to any industry that systematically discriminates against women? Is there any
proof of this discrimination? What I see in America are companies bending over backwards
to accommodate women." There is no evidence that I can see, of systematic discrimination
against women. As I explained in my first video, the famous 23-cent gender
pay gap is simply the difference between the average earnings of all men and women working
full-time. It does not take into account differences in occupations, positions, education, job
tenure, or hours worked per week. When competent economists look at all these variables, and
consider them, the wage gap narrows to the point of vanishing. Am I saying there is no
discrimination? There may be some, and there are some studies that are worth paying attention
to. For example, there was a gender bias study recently carried out by some Yale researchers.
They sent faculty at several leading universities a fictitious resume from a graduate student
asking for a job and they asked them to evaluate it. The very same resume was rated more highly
when a man's name was attached. What's more, the science faculty, and this include male
and female faculty, they were more likely to want to mentor the person if his name was
John rather than named Jennifer. And they offered a slightly hirer salary to John. Is
this proof of sex discrimination in the workplace? Maybe, but it's complicated because what people
do in imaginary cases doesn't necessarily reflect what they do in real life. In 2009
National Academy of Sciences (NAS) did a study entitled, "Gender Difference at Critical Transitions
in the Careers of Science, Engineering and Mathematics Faculty." It looked at what people
actually do in academic science. Not what they say they would do, but they really do.
What did they find? When it comes to getting hired, promoted, and tenured, in math, science
and engineering women fare as well or better than men. Issues like gender equity in the
workplace are complicated, they don't lend themselves to slogans, quick fixes, or sensational
headlines. I agree with the questioner, Noneya Ratman that there's no evidence of systematic
discrimination. At the same time I think there are probably work places where there is sexism,
other work places where women enjoy favoritism. The next couple of comments will only make
sense to you if you have watched my video on the new Feminist Biology program at the
University of Wisconsin. A commenter say: "Now my eyes are open! We need "feminist electrical
theory" to avoid the bias of "male" and "female" plugs in the electronics industry!" Well that's
a shocking idea, and don't tell it to the University of Wisconsin they may take you
up on it! Commenter named OgreMECH asks "If the egg is actively resisting the sperm, does
that mean procreative sex is rape on the cellular level?" No, the egg does not resist the sperm:
in fact it actively encourages it. It's more like mutual attraction or even love—at the
cellular level. Several critical commenters urged readers not to take me seriously because
I work at the "conservative American Enterprise Institute." First of all, not everyone at
AEI is conservative. Many, including myself, are political moderates, independents. I urge
everyone to visit the AEI website and look around and judge for themselves. But heres
the thing: if you don't trust my scholarship because of where I work, that is not a reason
to dismiss it, that is a reason to carefully review it. When I see a piece of research
that comes from a feminist center--I suspect that it may be biased--but I'm always careful
to read it, evaluate it, check on the facts. Sometimes, not often, sometimes I am pleasantly
surprised, and I learn something. So I think the same should go for my critics:, its fine
to approach what I say with skepticism--but you should also be open to the possibility
of being pleasantly surprised and learning something. That's the mailbag for this week.
Please keep your questions coming, subscribe to the channel for a new video every Monday.
Thank you for following the Factual Feminist.