Oracle Systematically Underpaid Thousands of Women, Lawsuit Says (theguardian.com) 394
Thousands of women were systematically underpaid at Oracle, one of Silicon Valley's largest corporations, according to a new motion in a class-action complaint that details claims of pervasive wage discrimination. From a report: A motion filed in California on Friday said attorneys seek to represent more than 4,200 women and alleged that female employees were paid on average $13,000 less per year than men doing similar work. An analysis of payroll data found disparities with an "extraordinarily high degree of statistical significance," the complaint said. Women made 3.8% less in base salaries on average than men in the same job categories, 13.2% less in bonuses, and 33.1% less in stock value, it alleges.
The civil rights suit comes as the tech industries faces increased scrutiny of gender and racial discrimination, including sexual misconduct, unequal pay and biased workplaces. The case against Oracle, which is headquartered in Redwood Shores and provides cloud computing services to companies across the globe, resembles high-profile litigation against Google, which has also faced repeated claims of systematic wage discrimination.
The civil rights suit comes as the tech industries faces increased scrutiny of gender and racial discrimination, including sexual misconduct, unequal pay and biased workplaces. The case against Oracle, which is headquartered in Redwood Shores and provides cloud computing services to companies across the globe, resembles high-profile litigation against Google, which has also faced repeated claims of systematic wage discrimination.
Equal opportunity (Score:2, Insightful)
Equal opportunity doesn't mean equal results. There are tons of explanations that could account for the statistical difference that are not discrimination.
I recall reading about a company who's salary decisions were completely made by computer, which never knew anything about gender, and there was still a gender pay-gap. So the computer was "fired" (discontinued, same thing) for being sexist.
That said, it's still possible that there is discrimination going on that should be investigated, but it shouldn't
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The computer is only as good as it's programming. Dig deep enough and you will find some sort of proxy for gender that the software was using as part of the determination.
Devil's adocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Salary is not simply a function of the job. It also depends on your resume and experience. Seems completely possible to me that a 4% difference could simply be explained by the opportunity cost of maternity leave.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Devil's adocate
Wow, just wow.
Up until today, if Oracle were accused of doing evil thing X, everyone piled in saying "yeah it's Oracle, so probably they did", or "that's nothing, Oracle fucked me over with evil thing Y and that's worse, so fuck Oracle".
There's pretty much nothing people would defend Oracle for and everyone was prepared to assume the worse based on a long and storied history of incredibly shitty behaviour. Basically on one here would give Oracle the benefit of the doubt because they thoroughl
Re:Devil's adocate (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll believe that Oracle will try to fuck over anyone they can, but I'd have to ask why they aren't also fucking over their male employees?
We all get they're evil, but are they the kind of chaotic evil such that they have intentionally chosen to fuck over men slightly less than they otherwise could just for shits and giggles? Do they get more evil utility out of stirring the pot to piss off feminists or something like that?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the takeaway that even though people believe Oracle is evil, they're simply more skeptical about wage gap bull crap.
I'm pretty sure those people would be more skeptical of a story about a wage gap than a story accusing Larry Ellison's lawyers of eating babies. Personally, I think there's only about a 10 percent chance of the latter and anyway they were only drinking the blood.
Re: (Score:2)
People are skeptical about wage gap stories because it has been illegal to pay women less since 1963.
Oh well it doesn't happen then because nothing illegal does. That's why America has no one in prison.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because people shit on Oracle usually, and not now, does not mean this is valid.
Google is dicks too, MS too, Amazon too. Everything they do, is for their own profit bottom line aka "they're dicks".
You should've been rated "offtopic", because them being dicks have nothing to do with most probably false lawsuits.
Wage gap because of gender exclusively is a myth. Wage gap do exist of course, but th
Re: (Score:2)
They are all dicks, but Oracle is at another level. Their marketing and licencing in particular.
The exceptionally evil part of Oracle is marketing. Which I will bet has more than its share of females. Boobies and blowjobs being good for sales and all.
Not as good as a future 'no show job' for the decider at 10x pay though. All those massively overpaid no show jobs have to distort the stats. I'll bet they aren't classified as tech, rather marketing.
Re: (Score:2)
Oracle has a true, visceral hatred of their customers (even worse than Sony) not to mention the poor bastards who then actually have to use their stinking, shitty products.
I remember when they brought in Oracle to work their magic where I was last. What was supposed to take three months ended up taking three years, with the clock running the whole time. Then if you want to leave, sorry, you have been assimilated, and resistance is futile.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Devil's adocate (Score:5, Interesting)
Up until today, if Oracle were accused of doing evil thing X, everyone piled in saying "yeah it's Oracle, so probably they did"
If Oracle are accused of doing evil thing X *that benefits them*, then most Slashdotters will agree that they probably did it.
But this case doesn't make sense. Why would they pay men extra, if they could hire women at a lower rate to do the same work?
On the other hand, feminists have also earned themselves a poor reputation - and a spurious lawsuit like his would be entirely consistent with their history. Of the two evils, Oracle is probably, for once, the innocent party here.
Re: (Score:2)
This is Oracle. They're dicks. About everything. Fuck them they're most likely guilty of this.
Statistically, they could have better profit if they fucked over the males, and paid the women more to avoid an expensive lawsuit. Probably a Ferengi Law of acquisition number there somewhere.
Re: (Score:2)
Oracle is not inherently evil, it is just a company that loves money more than its public image.
And for a company that loves money so much, overpaying men just because they are men seems weird.
Yes, I say overpay men, not underpay women. Because if women do the same job for less, then one should expect a greedy company like Oracle to hire more women and fire these unprofitable men or cut their pay.
Re: (Score:2)
So if Oracle fucks everyone then it follows that Oracle is fucking the males too.
Well sure! Here's the interesting point... when was the last time you read an article about how men were being "fucked" by a company? Do you think this is because it doesn't happen or it's so common it's not worth commenting about?
If it's not a special category (minority religion / gender / ableness?) it doesn't even hit the radar.
Re: (Score:2)
Well sure! Here's the interesting point... when was the last time you read an article about how men were being "fucked" by a company?
You mean like offshoring, long hours, the massive abuse that goes on in the games industry? Regularly as it happens. Why?
Re: (Score:2)
You mean like offshoring, long hours, the massive abuse that goes on in the games industry?
In the interest of factual honesty, in this case you should probably differentiate between all the personnel in an industry, and what I explicitly said (and you replied to): "about how men were being fucked...".
It's an important distinction.
Or did you mean to make the point there are no women working in the games industry?
Re: (Score:2)
There was such an article, written by James Damore at Google. There are other articles: the moderate ones written with attention to testable or well documented fact don't gather near the attention of an outrage filled complaint.
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Case not as strong as you might think (Score:4, Interesting)
I think Oracle knows exactly what it's doing, and from the perspective of a newly hired employee putting in extra work appears to be a really good idea.
Re: (Score:3)
Extra facetime. Never forget burnout. Expect hours over 50 to have negative productivity in all but the very short term. For 'brain work', 'bullshit and stoop work' is different.
Producing more working code is not going to translate into more pay, because the idiot's metrics are _broken_. They got the middle manager position by kissing ass and putting in facetime. That's exactly what they will manage for.
There is an iron law of management: 'You get what you incentivise.' Not what you ask for, leading by
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're basically wrong. You negotiate a salary knowing what's expected, at least after the first year you do, even if your a kid.
Nobody does 40 hours of 'actual work', and you can exercise some control. Skip the useless meeting and get some work done in peace or zone out while the 3 letter dweeb pontificates (careful: don't snore). Pretty much everybody has had weeks where zero fucks are given and zero productive work gets done, don't kid yourself. Usually means your already looking hard, if you aren't y
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect the important issue though is what should be done about it?
Do we try to change the culture or do we simply fix the problem by mandating that women are artificially advantaged to reach parity regardless of qualifications?
In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
Single women without dependents make 8% more than their male counterparts with same education and experience across the US, in large cities like Atlanta the pay gap is 21%
Women are 50% more likely to graduate from college.
Politifact rates it Mostly True solely because they can't find more recent statistics that disprove their narrative.
Over time, women (as a statistic) make different choices and prefer life over work. They tend to work less hours, take less overtime, are happier, live longer lives and don't die from work-related accidents or diseases (as in >1 percent of work-related deaths are female), they also make only 1-3% less over their lifetime than males (a statistic that reverses when you account for education and single motherhood) but that 3% makes all the difference as this wealth disparity is pretty much concentrated in the top 1%.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The important thing to take away here is that increasing equality benefits everyone. Pay should be unrelated to demographics, as should educational opportunities.
Men should be encouraged to stick with education and get those well paid, skilled jobs, and then not burn out in them with excessive hours and stress. Women should not be penalized for getting older or having families.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The unintended consequences are being seen in my example above of the County Commissioner's crusade to hire almost all female to balance a perceived gender-inequality.
Here's where real-world reality meets the gender-equality feelz. In this locality the county commissioner gets to appoint 8 Direcotrs of various departments. Within one year of being hired, after barely getting their heads wrapped around their new jobs, 3 of those 8 left on their family medical leave for months. 2 waited until the last day
Re: (Score:2)
The "different choices" argument is often made, but it's not really fair to claim that all these things are choices. For example I'm sure many mothers would be happy if their partners took an equal amount of leave and did an equal amount of the parenting chores. And in reality they tend to get penalized anyway, e.g. when men become fathers they tend to get a small overall increase in income (thought to be because they are seen as more mature) where as mothers get a significant decrease (because they are per
Re: (Score:2)
The "different choices" argument is often made, but it's not really fair to claim that all these things are choices.
Are there laws mandating any of these things? I wasn't aware. They're still very much choices.
It also doesn't matter that many women would like it if their husbands took time off. The point is that if you took a large sample of individuals who were the ones primarily in charge of care of young children, you'd probably find more women than men who would prefer to be doing it. That doesn't mean that there aren't some men who would prefer to do. It's the same as sampling anything else where sex plays a role
Re: (Score:2)
A choice between not having kids and having kids but having to do more of the work or take a hit on your career isn't much of a choice.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree and I don't think anyone is discouraging men or women to follow their dreams, but every choice does have a real consequence, this is not a penalty. You have to look across more than just one dimension and not just a single dimension across the intersectional group identity though.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
No need to be a disingenuous dick about it. Everyone knows that it means equality of opportunity.
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on your partner, if you have a partner with that kind of ethos, then go ahead; they'll be hard to find, but you're looking for a leader in the field. It's not many, but I know a few people that do this, stay-at-home dad isn't uncommon anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
That is interesting. Does "male counterparts" here mean "single males without dependents," or "all males"?
Re: (Score:2)
Single males without dependents. Generally, unlike CNN, when the government is comparing statistics, they use the same baseline.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Cherry picking statistics can show anything.
Cherry picked statistics are the basis of the lawsuit.
Re: (Score:2)
You go argue with the US Department of Labor then.
Re: (Score:2)
That is one of the explanations but these men would, over time, make themselves more attractive if that were the single identifier of success (either in career or dating) because single people have more opportunities to drive up their salaries.
Oracle (Score:2)
This is very far from the worse that Oracle has done of course.
In any case, it is certain I'll see those "women are bad at negotiating salaries" comments, from people who have zero understanding of how, well, anything works. If salary negotiation was haggling, women would be fine, they are fine hagglers. But when you apply for a job, the potential employer already has formed his opinion on how much you are worth to them and the job offer will be relative to that. There is some wiggle room, but not enough to
Re: (Score:2)
> If salary negotiation was haggling, women would be fine, they are fine hagglers.
What makes you think this? A casual search for verifiable research is flooded with poor quality claims. This article seems insightful about the differences:
https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/whe... [hbs.edu]
Re: (Score:2)
However if the valuations are significantly wrong, you should be able to make a lot of money by splitting the difference and hiring a bunch of women.
Another explanation is that women in general are valuing non-wage factors differently than men when considering employment offers, job-seeking and maintainance of current employment.
Possible consequence - equal work hours (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Hiring more workers is cheaper than chronic overtime.
Unless they are paid by salary.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I hope so too, but it's worth asking why this culture exists in some places and not others. For example it's extremely rare in most of Europe to be working really excessive hours, and in fact the law puts on a hard limit of 48 hours/week and certain mandatory break periods and days off.
What is it that puts pressure on men to do this in the United States, for example?
This is all just a side show, a distraction (Score:5, Insightful)
Men and Women are now fighting among ourselves over 1-3% (a percentage that might just be due to men not taking time off for child rearing) while the ruling class is laughing all the way to the bank with that 20%.
This has been modus operandi for centuries: wedge issues. You find something to divide the working class into manageable chunks. Race, creed, sex. Hell, when the Japanese couldn't do it with race because they were all Japanese they made up classes [wikipedia.org] based on jobs and kept books of them by name.
Don't fall for it. Demand better pay for all workers. Support the push for higher minimum wage [shrm.org]. Vote in your primary for pro-Union, pro-worker candidates who refuse corporate PAC money [justicedemocrats.com]. Demand all workers get healthcare that isn't tied to your job [berniesanders.com] so you can switch jobs at will.
We've got bigger fish to fry than this. Don't get into the trenches with your fellow workers fighting while the rich laugh at you [google.com]
Re:This is all just a side show, a distraction (Score:4, Interesting)
Not so for her. Ledesma graduated from college four years ago. After moving through a series of jobs, she now earns $18,000 making pizza at Classic Slice in Milwaukee, shares a two-bedroom apartment with her boyfriend and has $33,000 in student debt.
Her mother Cheryl Romanowski, 55, was making about $10,000 a year at her age working at a bank without a college education. In today's dollars, that income would be equal to roughly $19,500.
So, her mother was making about the same amount of money, but just didn't have the added debt. I don't know what Ms. Ledesma chose to major in while she was in college, but I'd bet money it was some useless degree. She should be thankful that the price of that education has only come out to $33,000 as there are plenty of people who've accumulated six figure debts that they realistically have no hope of ever paying off.
The article also points out that the 20% figure only applies to white millennials, whereas black millennials are about break even (-1.4%) but latino millennials are actually better off (+29%) than their parents were. Although they're a small part of the population, I'd bet the Asian Americans are also up, possibly even more than 29%. People who buy into the notion of white privilege should be happy as it appears that's worth a lot less than it used to be. Otherwise it just looks like economic osmosis.
Given what example solutions you posted, I don't expect you to agree with this, but I did notice that anything about preventing or curtailing illegal immigration. What do you think happens to wages and the value of unskilled labor when the supply of it increases? I don't want to come off as disparaging these immigrants, as they're often hard workers and not really all that much different in most ways than the majority of our own ancestors who at some point came to this country in hopes of a better life, but most estimates put the number of people who are here illegally at around 10 million, though some are much higher. I don't think it's in any way feasible to even try to "round up" or deport everyone who's here illegally, but I suspect that it would have more of an affect on wages for low or unskilled labor than any of the suggestions that you're proposed.
So my question is do you care about this particular problem, or are you just using this particular problem as a vehicle to shove your agenda?
Re: (Score:2)
The article also points out that the 20% figure only applies to white millennials, whereas black millennials are about break even (-1.4%) but latino millennials are actually better off (+29%) than their parents were. Although they're a small part of the population, I'd bet the Asian Americans are also up, possibly even more than 29%. People who buy into the notion of white privilege should be happy as it appears that's worth a lot less than it used to be. Otherwise it just looks like economic osmosis.
The extremely obvious reason for this is that they started off in a worse position, and as they gained more equality of opportunity their wages rose significantly faster. Of course that doesn't mean they have caught up necessarily either.
Sure enough, if you look at average earnings by demographic, that's what you see.
I'm not rooting for those people (Score:3)
Yes, there are some rubes on the left who have fell for the equal pay garbage. Even Bernie Sanders gets into it. People on my side can be wrong. You'll note that Bernie doesn't bang on about it much. It gets a passing mention. His main goal right now is and has been Medicare for All and a livin
Perspective (Score:2)
I despise fake outrage over alleged sexism accusations coming from people who don't understand statistics. I also despise Oracle. So...
I'm very curious about the validity of the claims, which unfortunately the fine article doesn't not elaborate on. It's not even possible for a 33.1% discrepancy in stock value to be a result of bias, unless they actually mean something else. A 13.2% difference in bonuses could be more interesting - it's very easy to see a discrepancy due to, for example, differences in w
Re: (Score:3)
Funny, I'm white, male, all that. And being mostly the best engineer I'd ever met, the rate of my pay and promotions always seemed unfair to me - had I been one of those other - person of color, wrong sex, whatever - I'd have been sure there was discrimination. And no reasoning would have convinced me otherwise. This observation is to me, quite eye-o
Re: (Score:2)
Women have to push for what they want (Score:4, Insightful)
From the article: "I just couldn’t believe it. I was angry,” Marilyn Clark, one of the Oracle plaintiffs, told the Guardian. The complaint alleged that she discovered the wage gap when she saw a pay stub a male colleague had left in a common area. “I felt like I had been punched in the gut.” Clark, 66, who has since retired from Oracle, said it was particularly painful because she had even trained the male employee, who was making roughly $20,000 more than she was, amounting to a 22% higher salary. Clark, 66, who has since retired from Oracle, said it was particularly painful because she had even trained the male employee, who was making roughly $20,000 more than she was, amounting to a 22% higher salary."
The reality is this is her own fault. This is not a union job with fixed pay scales.
People make more because they ask for more and create a perception of value.
From my experience, when taking a new job:
Women undervalue themselves and they ask for the comp they think they deserve or is the most the employer is willing to pay
Men ask for what they want, not what they think they deserve, and don't care about the employers problems
When annual comp happens, raises and bonuses can very often be crappy
Women will be unhappy but will not change jobs to get what they want.
Men change jobs aggressively.
In fact, from a management standpoint knowing you will eat shit and not change jobs just provides evidence they are paying you appropriately.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Even though I get paid by a direct deposit, I still get a paper pay stub.
Re: (Score:2)
Thing is the law says you can't discriminate based on gender, and just saying "one gender doesn't negotiate pay as well as the other" doesn't actually mean you didn't discriminate by taking advantage of that fact.
In other words employers are required to not rely on the individual's ability to negotiate pay, they are required to pay a fair amount even if they don't push hard for it. Same with increases, bonuses and promotions.
Re:Women have to push for what they want (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What's more likely... (Score:2)
.... a company actively wanting to pay women less, or women not asking aggressively for raises because they're more agreeable?
If it's the second option, whose fault is it?
Let me get this right.... (Score:2)
"Oracle" underpaid the market rate. So these women could have quit and been hired elsewhere at the market rate? Isn't that a choice? If they could not have made more money then then they are paid the market rate.
You have all these supposedly underpaid people... sounds like a business opportunity to me. Any business person that likes to make money will jump at the chance to hire them at slightly more money. They would be stupid not to and must hate women more than money.
Where are all the business women creat
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Should be easy to defend (Score:3, Insightful)
Correlation is not causation. There is no proof that the pay difference is caused by gender discrimination as opposed to performance.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There is no proof that the pay difference is caused by gender discrimination as opposed to performance.
The plaintiffs don't need "proof". This is a civil suit. The outcome is based on the preponderance of the evidence.
If the disparity is really as wide as the summary claims, Oracle will have a hard time showing it is a statistical fluke.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Could it possible be that women in general, are not as good at negotiating their own salaries as men?
Irrelevant. It is illegal to pay men and women systematically differently based on any other criteria but job performance. Unless they are salespeople or professional negotiators, paying them differently based on "ability to negotiate" is illegal.
Perhaps they aren't as aggressive when asking for raises, etc once they are employed?
Again, willingness to ask for a raise is not a valid criteria for discrimination. Women are less aggressive at asking for raises. So are black people, often because they feel less secure in their job. That doesn't justifiy discrimination.
That's not the companies' fault....
Yes it is.
Re: Should be easy to defend (Score:5, Informative)
Well, how do you propose it works then?
I mean, I don't really know of any company, that pays everyone with same job title exactly the same.
Employee 1 comes in, and negotiates to work for the company for $50K a year.
Employee 2 comes in and negotiates to work for the company for $45K a year.
Employee 3 comes in and negotiates to work for the company for $55K a year.
All employees are hired one with the salary they agreed to....
That's how it works.
So all 3 employees work for years there, each getting a 5% raise each year.
Alll things being equal, the person that negotiated the best salary, will always be paid the most.
Now, what if employee 2, valued themselves the least starting out...who's fault is that?
If that was a woman, she'll always be paid less than 1 an 3.
Let's say 1 and 3 are both men.
Well, #3 will always be paid more than #1.....
So, where's the discrimination there? There is none.
The company wants to get as much work out of you for the least amount of money, that's how it works, and it is up to YOU as the individual to negotiate to get the best deal you can for yourself and to know your self worth, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean, I don't really know of any company, that pays everyone with same job title exactly the same.
That's fine. There is no requirement to "pay everyone the same". There is also no general law against discrimination based on hair length, nose rings, or shoe size. But there are laws against systematic discrimination based on gender, race, and religion.
If that was a woman, she'll always be paid less than 1 an 3.
That's fine. 1 out of 3 is not enough to show any sort of systematic discrimination.
But if you have 100 female engineers, and 300 male engineers, and the females are paid less despite equal performance reviews, you aren't going to get out of a lawsuit by
Re: (Score:2)
Characterizing it as discrimination, with the implication of active bias, is not helpful.
Discrimination against a protected class [wikipedia.org] is illegal whether it is "active" or not.
Most discrimination is passive, and unintentional. That doesn't make it legal.
People identify with and tend to socialize with people like themselves. So if management is full of white guys, they will mentor and promote other white guys. The company should have an active process to ensure this is not discriminatory. If they don't, they're gonna wind up in court, and a class action lawyer will get a big check.
Re: (Score:3)
Was "negotiating skills" listed in the job advertisement? Is it part of the written job description? Is it a criteria in performance reviews? Do those performance reviews document that women are indeed worse at their jobs?
If not, you are going to have a hard time convincing a judge that you have a valid excuse for paying men more.
Re: (Score:3)
Could it possible be that women in general, are not as good at negotiating their own salaries as men?
Perhaps they aren't as aggressive when asking for raises, etc once they are employed?
That's not the companies' fault....
Funny, but as I was saying in a post above, I was listneing to a woman who did a study that was claiming just that. Men are more aggressive in the negotiations in general. I know I was damn assertive in my reviews and raise expectations.
The interesting part I noted to her was that women are claimed to be better communicators than men.
Anyhow, before the apologists jump on me like alligators on a wildebeest, this woman was performing a study to show that managers should take that into account, and give
Re: (Score:2)
That's not the companies' fault....
Yes it is, according to the law.
Ability to negotiate a salary has no bearing on a programmer's performance, therefore if there's a systematic bias it is absolutely the company's fault. The law is crystal clear in this regard.
Re: (Score:3)
It is not...there are also MEN that get paid more and less than other men too.
See my example above.
If all things are equal, and 3 employees all negotiate their starting salary, and they are all different.
If all things are equal during their stay and they all get 5% raises annuall
Re:Should be easy to defend (Score:5, Interesting)
Correlation is not causation. There is no proof that the inclination is caused by biology, nor the degree of productivity.
I don't know anything about productivity, this is the first time I've heard someone mention it. But the inclination, oh boy.
https://www.thejournal.ie/gend... [thejournal.ie]
There's even a wiki page on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
As always, I wouldn't trust the wiki page, but the sources might be interesting.
Oh, and here's a documentary from the Norwegian state channel. Don't worry, it's subbed in English. It's a good watch, quite explanatory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
So yes, it seems to be heavily influenced by biology, even more so than findings from not-so-equal countries might suggest.
Re: (Score:2)
Correlation is not causation. There is no proof that the inclination is caused by biology, nor the degree of productivity.
These studies though, are either flawed, or the reporting is.
One of the very first things that is needed is to define what constitutes equal pay. Equal pay by productivity, or equal pay by job description, or equal pay for everyone regardless of job/career.
Might seem obvious, but that is how we come up with all of the wildly varying numbers of disparity in pay.
Now this doesn't mean that Oracle isn't discriminating against women pay wise, but if my University setting experience over 30 plus years has
Re: (Score:2)
Sticking your hand in a fire isn't correlation, it is direct observable cause
Re: (Score:2)
Except that you aren't literally observing it happening. You may be observing people who are women who have less inclination than men towards certain roles, but because you cannot actually *see* what causes a person's inclination, you cannot reasonably assume that the inclination which might be perceived happens to be biologically induced.
In fact, it is far more likely that to the extent that it does occur, such a leaning is the result of possibly unfair pressures that are placed on us as children to con
Re: (Score:2)
Sadly, even successful lawsuits can be "spun". This lawsuit seems ripe for political abuse: objecting to the lawsuit can be seen by the most ardent of political feminists as attacks on politically correct thought, as misogyny, or as confirmation of the bias. Failure of the lawsuit can be seen by some as confirmation that female work is, indeed, less valuable than male work. And the "discovery" in a lawsuit is not normally about scientific fact, but rather about what evidence can be compelled from the opposi
Does not logically follow (Score:5, Insightful)
Study after study has shown that women are biologically less inclined in technology and obviously they would be less productive in a high-tech company
Sorry but that does not logically follow at all. Just because it is rarer for women to be interested in technology it does not mean that those individual women who are interested are any less skilled it just means that there are fewer of them. Your point could explain why Oracle hires more men than women but not why it pays them less.
Re: (Score:2)
Study after study has shown that women are biologically less inclined in technology and obviously they would be less productive in a high-tech company
Sorry but that does not logically follow at all. Just because it is rarer for women to be interested in technology it does not mean that those individual women who are interested are any less skilled it just means that there are fewer of them. Your point could explain why Oracle hires more men than women but not why it pays them less.
A woman who wants to do technology work tends to be as good as a male. That's the important part. The lady engineers and scientists I worked with were a joy to work with for the most part. Strange that I became friends with so many, but I did feel sorry for them as they took a lot of abuse from other women, and I was willing to listen. There are also subdivisions regarding productivity, dedication which might have some interesting issues.
Regardless, I would love to see the entire study. We probably won't
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
At some point the left is going to have to come to the same conclusion that anyone with brains has come to,
Most everything you wrote makes sense. But!:
You conflate the entire not right wing world as somehow being Social Justice Warriors. This is not true, any more than saying all Republicans are active Klan members and White Supremacists. The no difference infinite gender crowd are just kooks, like the White supremacists are kooks.
Y'all oughta stop that. There are a whole lot of us who aren't what you might call in your camp who agree that in general, there are differences between men and women in both physiq
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
This of course is why we have trials. You select a jury who has the fewest or at least the most minimally entrenched preconceptions and have at it.
It's not clear to me at all that this would be an easy suit to defend against; nor is it clear to me that it's an easy suit to win. It depends on specifics, doesn't it? Even if you believe that its a consequence of nature that women are on average paid less than men, that doesn't mean some sufficiently idiotic management might not discriminate against individu
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You flunk statistics.
IF those studies are valid, they would show that you might find fewer women at a given level of inclination, but those you did find would be just as good as their male counterparts.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless of course hiring managers gave affirmative action-style preferences to female candidates. Then on average, the female candidates actually hired wouldn't be as good as their male counterparts, because lower quality female candidates could get hired right along with the better ones (which do exist).
How likely is it that a company which has their executives openly publish blog posts like this [oracle.com], who spend a bunch of money every year promoting Oracle Women’s Leadership’s [oracle.com], who have special progr [oracle.com]
Re: (Score:2)
You can't even go to the nudie bar at lunch with coworkers without some bitch getting her panties into a bunch.
When the women finally figured out what 'free lunch'* ment, there was hell to pay.
* nudie bar promotion, nobody ate it. But did lead to conversations like 'Free lunch? Can't, ball and chain is watching my funds. You poor bastard!'
Re: (Score:2)
>> (BTW, I am male, married, and have offspring.)
Then just know that if you haven't done your equal share of getting up in the middle of the night to change a diaper, you suck as a father and partner.
Re: (Score:2)
Non straw man Slahsdot user here :
Market good, let market figure it out. All discrimination between private citizens should be 100% legal, because proof based on statistics and poorly founded assumptions of some fucking academics will never be anything but biased bullshit. The civil rights act was a gigantic mistake.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So as long as you can bamboozle someone, it's all moral!
Re: put a sock in it (Score:2)
Re:put a sock in it (Score:4, Informative)
Re: So, basically women less good at negotiating (Score:2)