reasonandempathy

[reasonandempathy]

i am legit crying here

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WHAT THE ENTIRE FUCK

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On an evolutionary level having a pet fall asleep on you is pretty crazy, there’s so much trust there it’s like, “hey little animal don’t you know I’m an apex predator? thousands of years of domestication to make you take a nap on me” but also there’s a lot of stupidity there too, like if I play on the computer too long my cat decides to draw first blood on my feet

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“What? Like, a disabled protagonist? How would that even work? How could someone with a disability be the hero in an action show?” local anime trash boy wonders while sitting next to his box sets of Full Metal Alchemist, showing no hint of irony or self awareness. 

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The human brain has a powerful CPU and GPU, a lot of RAM and Memory. But it has a horrible File Explorer.

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Part 2

Also available on my instagram: sisestitch

Submitted by  siseja

[reasonandempathy]

So, it’s hardly a secret that economic issues are largely what I care the most about. They’re quantifiable, research-able easily, and their value is understood by just about everyone. Everyone knows what it’s like to be ripped off, whether they’re unemployed, fully employed, retired, or as rich as the Walton Family. “This is mine; this is what I work for, and fuck you for trying to come along and take it.” It’s the foundation of our resentment of paying taxes, paying tips, and hiring professionals to do work for us (“I don’t need an electrician, I can figure it out.”)

Which is why I love unions as much as I do, frankly. It’s why I have, on multiple accounts, pushed for people to understand what the wage gap is in reality, because it isn’t as simple as “women make 77 cents for every dollar a man would make”. It’s somewhere between 93 and 96 cents for every dollar, which is still indefensible. And it’s why, functionally, you need to watch this video.

This is about a very basic and very fundamental economic right you have with your paycheck, a right that literally was fought for and people died over. If you want to make any claim about how people these days are giving up the rights previous generations fought over (against segregation, against racism, for the first amendment, to break up monopolies, for democracy), this is one on equal footing that people have given up so completely that it is the American culture to not even believe you have the right.

This video is light-hearted (or attempts to be), so it’s easy to swallow. It’s also sourced, verifiable, and entirely honest.

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Most of the “meat” of this post is the White House’s statement and research on the Pay Gap.  But I’ll point out the basics of it:

In 2013, the “Earned Pay Gap” was 78%

49% of this gap can be eliminated by controlling for Job and Industry.

“Blau and Kahn decomposed the pay gap and concluded that differences in occupation and industry explain about 49 percent of the wage gap, but 41 percent of the wage gap is not explained by differences in educational attainment, experience, demographic characteristics, job type, or union status, using the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics.”

The wage gap closes for women by 9% for every year they put off childbirth

Research has shown that delaying child birth for one year can increase a woman’s total career earnings and experience by 9 percent.

The shrinkage of the Pay Gap is largely accredited to the massive increase in women getting equal, or superior, education and work experience when compared to men over the past few decades.

“Much of the decline in the pay gap that occurred in recent decades has been because women have closed education and experience gaps. In fact, since women have increasingly become our most skilled workers, after accounting for education, even more of the pay gap is unexplained.

This isn’t a sentiment of “they’re looking for a problem!”, but rather a matter of “education isn’t the problem, so what is?”

Paid Maternity leave (of substance) seems to be an invaluable part of keeping the Pay Gap to insignificant (statistically) levels.

“Research shows that when women have access to paid maternity leave, a year later they work more and have commensurately higher earnings. A lack of access to leave or affordable quality childcare prevents some women who would like to work from doing so.”

“Research examining both maternity leave programs in other countries and in California concludes that paid leave can help new mothers maintain a connection to the labor force, and increase the likelihood they return to their employer.”

The Pay Gap grows over time, even among people in the same industry with the same educational level.

Although a small and insignificant pay gap opened after 5 years, it was similar among people with the same level of experience and working the same hours. After 15 years, however, male lawyers earned 55 percent more than female lawyers, and even after accounting for time out of work and job tenure, a 13 percent gap remained.

I acknowledge there are different types of lawyers, for example, but this controlled for those differences by also controlling for credentials of the lawyers analyzed.  Different fields, obviously, have different credentials.

For those bad at math, an additional 43% of the pay gap may be attributed to time out of work and job tenure (55-12=43)

Negotiating for pay effectively may help with a large chunk of the remaining pay gap, but, like all negotiations, it can bite a person in the ass.  Especially women.

“In general, women, even highly-educated women, are less likely to negotiate their first job offer than men. But even when women do negotiate, if the norms of negotiation and salary expectations are not transparent, they are likely to receive less than men. While gaps in negotiated salaries are small in “low-ambiguity situations,” in “high-ambiguity situations”, women received about $10,000 less than similarly-qualified men”

Note: there is no comparison for the “$10,000″ figure.  Meaning, we don’t know from the report if that’s 30% or 4% of the jobs being referenced.  Doesn’t make the finding less accurate, but it affects relevance/importance.

The study gets a little bit wonky with its final estimation that 41% of the gap has no reason for existing beyond, largely, discrimination.  Considering 49% is from the fields and industries, significant portions (in the studies own words) are aided by maternity leave (and hence “family responsibilities”) and proper negotiating, I’m going to presume 41% is the total “it may be something else, or it may be discrimination”, which would encompass a large portion of the above named categories/factors.

I’m relatively dismissive of this broad categorization for the simple fact that 49% is easily explained as being attributed to fields and industries worked, and an additional 43% of it can be attributed to job tenure and time out of work.

43+49=92% of the pay gap potentially explained.  For those without handy dandy calculators, that means the existing pay gap is 79%, but rather 95.59%.

Which is still important.  It’s their money, damnit, and I’m damn sure if I was owed $1,000 a week and I got $960 I’d want my extra money.  That’s  $2,080 I’m missing.  Fuck that, I earned it.

[reasonandempathy]

Is the gender pay gap real? Saw Youtubers say that it isn’t especially Pewdiepie.

The Gender Pay Gap is a thing, but it's a nuanced thing.

The current number in the US, I believe, is something like "a straight white able bodied woman makes 84 cents for every straight white able bodied man's dollar."

There are more variables that change this number: race/ethnicity, dsability status, gender presentation, sexuality. For example, in California (after COVID) Latinas earn 42 cents for every dollar a white man earns. There's important nuance here, though, in that this goes for all jobs and all earners. A white male PhD Engineer is compared to a Latina waitress, so these numbers are to be considered in context. The above numbers can be representative of how people of [x] demographic are encouraged/discouraged from particular fields, and how that impacts their overall economic freedom. This is what is called the "Earnings Gap".

That said, even when you control for every variable (education, job title, experience, location, etc.) there is still a pay gap along gender/racial lines in almost every industry. It is almost never as significant as the numbers above, but it still exists. This is the "Wage Gap".

There is other writing on my page related to this, which you can read some of here, here, and here.

Here's an example using somewhat old Data from the UK:

You can see that with the same degree status, age, and experience, male business grads, for example, average 45.1k vs women business grads' average of 36k.

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Of course!

I tried looking up the rest of the story on your livejournal, but the link wasn't working.

I re-found your Teamwork story, a staple of my slightly-gay youth.

I'm glad you still use this, because I get to tell you again how lovely your writing for that was. Sincerely.

Thank you.

Aaaah thank you #^^# i had so much more story for that in my head and my hands were so slow trying to catch up... narusasusaku 4ever tho ;-;

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the extremely unrealistic transition goal of wanting to have a big fluffy tail

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The full thing for anyone who wants it!

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Unthinkable evil. Sending innocent people to a life sentence in a foreign concentration camp should have ended careers. Resignations.

Instead, white MAGA rejoice. You will never hear a negative peep from anyone. 100% complicity.

[reasonandempathy]

More proof that capitalism was never "freedom" or "small government".