This argument has been made popular within the last year or so, and I haven't really done a lot of research into it this time around, but in the past when I saw this brought up, the data had ignored that men just tend to do jobs that are valued more by the market, and it wasn't necessarily an issue of sexism.
What I mean is that men do things like construction, crab fishing, trucking, plumbing, etc., things that women simply choose not to do. This can be because of social norms, but there's probably some biology to it, such as men generally being physically stronger than women and strength being something that's valuable when it comes to, say, lifting heavy shit? Fuck if I know. Anyway, women just don't do these jobs or go for them. Instead, they choose cushy office jobs, and many of them choose to be homemakers whereas fewer men choose cushy office jobs and being homemakers and teachers and shit.
So I'm wondering if this same counterargument applies today. When we talk about women making $0.77 for every $1 a man makes, is it for the same job? Does the study control for other variables?
Just to be clear, here, I completely agree that sexism is a very real problem in our culture, including the workplace. When women are assertive, they're called "bitchy" or "bossy" whereas men are "confident" or "possess leadership qualities" and so forth. I read about one study that showed biases in hiring managers, and even when they were made aware of their biases, they still fail to properly compensate for it. I agree that we live in a culture that blames rape victims for being raped. Etc. It's not much of a stretch for me to buy into this argument about how much women make vs how much men make. But I know that there have been problems with the argument in the past, and I wanna see someone back it up with real data.
