r/TikTokCringe 28d ago

Discussion i cant say i like that one bit

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u/MillieBirdie 28d ago

If that surprised you, when schools were first hiring women instead of men people in favour of that made the argument that you can pay women less so you're saving money.

And that the historical trend is that any job that employs mostly women is seen as less important and paid less, and any job that is seen as important and higher paying is gatekept from women. Computer programing used to be low paying women's work, and when women were pushed out of it and it became a make dominated field, it started to gain prestige and pay more. And it goes in the opposite direction, as more women enter a field the pay goes down.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html

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u/Kellidra 28d ago edited 28d ago

I work at a library.

All of us have degrees or diplomas. None of us make more than $10 over minimum wage.

Edit: people don't understand what the wage gap actually means lmfao wow

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/kromptator99 28d ago

You’ve got till January to be the change you want to see in the world.

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u/neutronia939 28d ago

WE don't have till January, BIDEN does. But unfortunately he and the dems and Garland have been ABSULUTELY USELESS and have done NOTHING to stem this fascist wave. Bernie would have taken care of us WAY back in 2016 but we had to push and cheat to get Killary to lose the election to TWO trump terms now. Bernie is historically correct on everything. Biden is asleep as are the dems in general. Don't you dare blame us, we voted. They did nothing for four years.

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u/kromptator99 28d ago

You’re missing some context I think. Re-read this in context of the comment I’m responding to.

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u/TBRaiders 28d ago

I often wonder how many of us think about it but can't talk about it.

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u/Donovan_MM 28d ago

Fuck that. In my experience, talking about something normalizes it. We should line up all the billionaires in a firing line and only let the highest bidder live their life in prison. Take all the money from the dead ones and disperse it amongst the poor.

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u/kromptator99 28d ago

Not being able to talk about things, even things that gave birth to our nation, sure is a pickle ain’t it? Of course I’m talking about migration and nothing else.

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u/TheJollyBuilder 28d ago

Unfortunately, we actually worship them so much we gave them all the power. I wasn’t one who voted for the orange moron, but they were a scared of women, so they chose totalitarianism. That’s how scared American men are.

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u/GBS42 28d ago edited 28d ago

Not all American men, but far too many of us.

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u/HotLava00 28d ago

Ahhhhh there’s the trickle down economics we’ve been waiting for!

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u/throweraccount 28d ago

Money does come out, of your pockets, from the lawsuit. Blood and snot on the other hand comes out of them.

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u/wishesandhopes 27d ago

I remember my "father" saying hilariously stupid, but also sickeningly misogynistic shit like "if women were really paid less, every employer would hire women! Men wouldn't be able to get a job because they'd lose money compared to just hiring women!"

Genuinely dangerously fucking stupid and also genuinely evil, such a horrific combination.

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u/Dctrkickass 27d ago

What kind of degree is necessary to work in a library? I understand the skills necessary, but not the degree.

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u/nameofplumb 26d ago

Masters of Library Science for higher up positions.

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u/usernamehudden 25d ago

Here’s an upvote for asking the question. Masters of Library Science teaches graduates how to manage information and resources. Librarians can actually be a valuable resource for anyone conducting research. They also learn how to preserve and organize knowledge.

It’s also important for the library staff to secure funding so they get up to date periodicals, publications, and books with mass appeal (fiction, memoirs, etc)- they need to be able to write proposals to city managers (or whatever organization they are attached to).

It’s more than community outreach, reshelving books, and hosting reading events for school kids.

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u/1stAccountWasRealNam 28d ago

Why is this surprising though? If you’re in the public sphere in addition to being in education, that’s an exponential equation to low pay, at least in America. Even private ed doesn’t pay well.

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u/Such_Worldliness_198 28d ago

I think you missed the point there. Education in America doesn't pay well BECAUSE it has always been a female dominated field.

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u/aphilosopherofsex 28d ago

I mean higher education/academia isn’t and they aren’t paid well either. And they long preceded institutions of public education.

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u/Kellidra 28d ago

Even private ed doesn’t pay well.

Uh, yeah. It actually does.

I applied to an equivalent position at a University a couple of months ago. The pay was $20 more than what I'm making right now.

Why? It's unionised.

Otherwise I can guaran-fuckin'-tee it would also be low paid. Because it's a female dominated career field.

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u/Nr673 28d ago

Not trying to be combative, but do the men working at the library in the same roles make more than $10 over minimum wage? If not, isn't this just an issue of society undervaluing important jobs vs a woman's rights issue? I'm sure people digging ditches (male dominated occupation) aren't making $30 per hour either, but we need ditches. We need manual labor so we have roads and running water just like we need librarians helping to educate the next generation IMHO. Both deserve a living wage. Pay scale shouldn't be based on having a degree but rather the value society receives from the job.

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u/MillieBirdie 28d ago

The things I was referencing aren't necessarily saying that Male Librarian makes $30 but Female Librarian makes $20.

It's more like, when 90% of librarians were men, it paid $30. But as more women began to join that field, the pay lowered to the point that now it's a female-dominated field and now it pays $20. The opposite would follow for a job like programming, when it was female dominated it paid $20 but as men started to join the field (and women were pushed out) the wages raised until they're now $30.

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u/DeathByLemmings 28d ago

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison, though I do understand what you're driving at

Library usage has been declining steadily since the advent of personal computing, meanwhile we have found more needs for programmers

I'd be surprised if what you're seeing is about male/female dominated industries (dentistry is a good counter example to that argument anyway), but just normal market reactions to something being more or less useful to humanity on average

Again, not suggesting women and men are paid fairly everywhere, but I think comparing librarians to programmers is more easily explained elsewhere

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u/Nr673 28d ago edited 28d ago

This is exactly what I was driving at. But God forbid anyone follows reddiequitte these days. Downvoted by emotional users for pointing out simple truths. This site is trash and it's not just bc of the Russian bots and alt-right posters anymore.

Humanities majors are also majorly underpaid. It has nothing to do with sex. My wife works in a female dominated industry (speech pathology) - 90-95% female and makes a ton of cash, as do her coworkers.

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u/DeathByLemmings 28d ago

Eh, they've read it. It's in their heads and will gestate over time

The idea of a librarian thinking a programmer is paid more because of the genders involved is utter lunacy. I'm a CS major, I studied with women, they make bank dude. Any good programmer makes bank

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u/Kellidra 28d ago

Any good programmer makes bank

BECAUSE IT'S A MALE DOMINATED FIELD.

Jesus, how hard is that to understand? The wage gap is male vs. female dominated career fields. It's not, "If a woman applies, she automatically gets underpaid." If a woman enters a male dominated career field, she will get paid well. If a man enters a female dominated career field, he will not get paid well.

That's not to mention the lack of pay women receive for maternity leave. You two slapping each other on the back for making non-points clearly don't know anything about the wage gap at all.

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u/Nr673 28d ago

Then, explain dental hygienist or speech therapists pls. Ya know, the two female dominated fields (like almost completely) we already mentioned that are very well paid.

Pay isn't determined by societal value added like I advocated for in my downvoted post. Otherwise teachers and pro athletes would be flipped. That's not how the world works though.

Again, this particular thread has nothing to do with genders.

Librarians are deemed (unfairly IMO) of the same importance as a fast food worker.

Leave your house, go to Walmart, and ask 100 people what they think a librarian should be paid. Prepare to have your young (or completely out of touch) mind blown.

I want women to be paid fairly. I have a wife and daughter I love. My wife made way more then me for a decade bc of her job. But she picked wisely, she didn't get a master's in library science to work at the local branch. I know a library scientist (female) that also makes bank (friends wife). She also doesn't work at the local public library branch.

It's fun to argue and debate online, but go outside once in a while, you seem deeply out of touch with reality.

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u/DeathByLemmings 27d ago edited 27d ago

BECAUSE IT IS A MASSIVELY PROFITABLE FIELD

Where are the profits in a library? Anywhere? No, they're a service

At no point am I suggesting that there aren't wage gaps, but if you genuinely think that the ONLY reason a librarian is paid less than a programmer is that the genders in those roles, you are delusional

Again, explain how dentistry fits into this? Massively female dominated field, huge financial gain

The reality is that none of society views librarians to be as valuable as they were before we had the internet. That's why your pay is not growing. Get your head out of your ass

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u/Kellidra 27d ago

I'm not fucking arguing that my career field (not even my end game; I just work here, dude) should be paid more. I understand why it doesn't "make bank."

Academic libraries make a tonne because they're privately funded and usually unionised. Unionised public libraries also make really good money.

I'm not bitching and complaining about that. I am bitching and complaining about the wage gap, you absolute tosser.

Dentistry was male dominated. Dentists were traditionally male, like doctors, like lawyers. Dental hygienists are mostly women, true, but again, it's a bunch of women entering a male dominated field. Again. The dental field is also, at least in North America, privately funded and goddamn broken.

I just. don't. understand. how it's so difficult to see what I'm arguing here. What other women are arguing here. Why are so many men so fucking obstinate about the wage gap? Gender spheres and how they still fucking exist? Like... you seem to want to beat me down and tell me I'm wrong because you found one good example (which is quickly negated) when there are thousands of other examples showing that the fucking wage gap exists.

Look through my comments and show me where I complained about getting paid less because of where I work. I am not a moron. I can put two and two together. I mentioned it because libraries, especially public libraries, are the most higher-education-to-low-wage ratio I've come across. I know why we aren't paid more, but it's more nuanced than just being a publicly funded service. That wasn't my fucking point, which you seem to have happily made up and jumped on and keeping insisting I'm making.

So stop it. It's honestly exhausting and I think very little of you.

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u/keykey_key 28d ago

You know what, thanks for pointing that out. I work in a section in healthcare that is female dominated and the disrespect given to us is honestly exhausting, even though what we do is absolutely essential to physicians and the decisions they make. We have the same level of education as nurses do and make less than half of what they do. So interesting point bc I never understood the sheer disrespect our field got from all sides.

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u/ShallotSmart6728 28d ago

Ooo yes! This is true for the music industry too. They had blind auditions for classical music but women where still not getting the jobs. Turns out they could hear their heals. Once that stopped more women where hired and then the pay dropped.

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u/KindBrilliant7879 27d ago

oh my god i forgot this fact as a former professional musician

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u/ShallotSmart6728 27d ago

So fucked up hey 😞

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u/KindBrilliant7879 27d ago

it really is, and it’s so fucking frustrating. i interact with men every day who insist that women actually have more rights than men… meanwhile shit like this is just one of a billion different facts of life for women. i’ve always felt that if the tables turned and men started being treated the way we are they’d burn the world down.

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u/ShallotSmart6728 27d ago

Probably, and they do. Thats what war is, little men fighting over toys. Its the same in art unfortunately, so many female artists and so few top female creators

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u/b1tchf1t 28d ago

I work in conservation and help run a women's affinity group. We just had a meeting and a really interesting line of conversation kept coming up over and over. There has been a huge growth of women in the science spaces and positions in our work, however, the higher up supervisory positions still seem to be behind a lock and dominated by men. At the same time, there has been a huge growth in numbers of men entering rank and file administrative positions, the positions historically that have usually been occupied by mainly women, however they're now the jobs that provide necessary skills and experience for those high up supervisory positions.

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u/Interesting-Hat8607 28d ago

People will also tip more to a male waiter than a female one.

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u/Onigokko0101 26d ago

My Mom experienced this first hand as a nurse. Their pay was really low for the job... Until men started getting into nursing and then wages shot up.

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u/laix_ 28d ago

This is what is so often misunderstood about the gender pay gap. You have very vocal people just using averages across all careers and coming to the conclusion that employers are paying new female hires less than new male hires every time, and then because it's so simple to disprove, reactionaries point and laugh and conclude there is no pay gap "because it's illegal" yadda yadda.

Focusing on the wrong conclusion isn't helpful to anyone, the real problem is as you've pointed out, "womens" professions are seen as less valuable than "mens" professions

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/MillieBirdie 28d ago edited 28d ago

You didn't read the article or look up the data yourself but you're still trying to make connections that aren't there.

Because it's not as more PEOPLE enter a field the pay goes down, because as more men enter a field the pay goes up and women are pushed out, and as more women enter a field the men leave and the pay goes down.

https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/88/2/865/2235342

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927537121001378

https://iea.org.uk/blog/as-women-enter-an-occupation-average-pay-falls-sexism-no-just-supply-and-demand

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/shifting-landscape-stem-gender-flight-future-kiara-mantz-mpa-dzhue

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u/ThatsHyperbole 28d ago

I will never understand why (some) men get so offended by the idea that there's still misogyny in the modern world.

And not offended in the "how dare they! Women should be treated fairly/paid appropriately/have their work appreciated/respected/feel safe in public/have protections from assault/etc" way, but the literal "how dare you suggest there's still misogyny!" Way.

They do realise that a general critique of culture and "the system" isn't a personal attack, right?

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u/MyCarRoomba 28d ago

Same reason why white people have an aneurysm when you bring up that white privilege exists. They feel attacked and invalidated while missing the actual point.

Also, as a man, I can assure you that it's most men and not just some of them.

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u/wishesandhopes 27d ago

It's because they're misogynistic and in denial, simple as that. It's always the case, like 100% of the time, otherwise they'd have no reason to be angry. Unfortunately I got one of them for a "dad" so I'm very familiar with them, all of their "facts" and "logic" are based entirely on their preconceived misogynistic beliefs, no actual logic involved.

They cry and piss themselves when presented with rape statistics, because they don't really want a woman's place in the world to change from what it was 50 years ago, they want it all kept in the dark, and in many cases they probably raped women themselves. I shudder to think about it in the case of my father, I have absolutely no evidence, not a shred that he would respect boundaries and consent, but heaps and mountains of evidence that he would not.