“We just put the biggest crack in the glass ceiling,” gushed Hillary Clinton, the first female head of a major political party. The media was ecstatic.
It was a history-making event, pronounced the press. Something like a terrestrial replay of Neil Armstrong's first words on the Moon: That's one small step for Hillary; one giant leap for equality.
But when the whoop-la waned, some saw more histrionics than history in this female-first celebration.
The glass ceiling is a metaphor coined by feminist Gloria Steinem in 1971. It refers to the invisible barrier that keeps women from rising to the highest echelon in the corporate hierarchy.
For instance. Last year the number of Fortune 500 corporations headed by women hit a record high of 4.8 percent. Put another way, for every top female executive; there are 20 men.
The glass ceiling also caps a woman's earning from rising to a man's salary. From high school dropouts to PhDs, men consistently out-earn women by 25 percent.
Prima facie evidence, say the feminists, of a pervasive prejudice of men against women. These facts argue for an equal-pay-for-equal-work civil rights law.
Surprisingly, that law already exists. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 requires that men and women be given equal pay for equal work.
Yet, 50 years after the Act was passed, the divide remains.
However, in many cases the sex differences in compensation do not exist; while in others, women make more than men. But, in general, there is a pay gap. For every $1 earned by a man, a woman makes $0.78.
Why?
According to free-market principles, women should be earning more than men. For example, let's take an ordinary job. An equally qualified man and woman apply for the same position. But the man wants $0.25 more/hour than the woman. An employer will always choose what is best for his business. He should pick the woman. But on average, he selects the man.
Clearly, there are other factors involved in the equal pay mantra.
Consider the differences between men and women. They are so profound and all-encompassing that they escape our conscious attention. It is said that like attracts like. Based on this adage, men and women should be repelled by each other.
Instead, they are powerfully drawn by the deficiencies in one sex that is satisfied by the sufficiencies in the opposite sex. Nature degrees inequality.
The physical differences between the sexes merely hint at the psychological disparities. Men and women have distinct and separate drives. Underlying both is obedience to nature's dictum: reproduce.
And reproduce we will.
Marriage for a woman is the beginning of a new life of wife, mother, child rearer, and homemaker.
For a woman who wants or who must work outside the home, she will gravitate to part-time employment. If she chooses a full-time job, she will not be able to compete with a pay incentive to work longer hours, stay overtime, or work at inconvenient night-time hours. Moreover, pregnancy and childbirth compel many women to leave the workforce for months.
All are counterproductive to equal pay.
If she chooses an upscale career, she can forget about a 40-hour, five-day workweek. Perhaps she decides to climb the corporate ladder, but the tyranny of time is unrelenting. Her chance for motherhood fades; the career is the uncheered winner.
For those reasons and more, there will never be dollar-for-dollar equality.
Granted, the wage gap has narrowed in some fields.
Returning to the Fortune 500, feminists cite progress in females at the helm. Top women CEOs increased from 12 in 2011 to 24 in 2015. But this gain is due less to corporate enlightenment than to proactive hiring to prevent pricey sex-discrimination lawsuits.
But there is an equitable solution to the male/female wage gap.
(1) Scrap the Civil Rights Acts of 1963 and 1964. They are unconstitutional. These Acts have been effective only in spawning a blizzard of lawsuits, nullifying freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, promoting social unrest, creating labor discord, and increasing racial strife.
(2) Get the federal government out of our lives, out of our wallets, and out of trying to force its brand of equality in the marketplace.
(3) Recompense should be an agreement between the employer and the employee (or their representatives)---and no one else. This would preclude a government, third-party-mandated minimum wage.
(4) It is the marketplace alone that should be the final arbiter in salary negotiations, not the tool of a pandering government or a vocal minority group.
Sincerely,
Bob Scroggins
New Milford, PA