I loathe conspiracy theories, whether it's from Donald Trump on election fraud to explain his defeat (never mind he never achieved a 50+ approval rating his whole term and he was running for reelection in a year where we had a pandemic in which millions had lost jobs and/or retirement savings and thousand s had died) or the 77-centers (as I call them), where economics-challenged feminists argue a misogynist systematic bias against "fair pay" for women. I'm not going to revisit that latter argument again, when we adjust for things like voluntary overtime, choice of occupation, experience, etc. To quote Cato Institute:
The figures ... in the study break down as follows. The “raw” gender pay gap between all men and women is 28.6 percent. This falls to 9.3 percent once one controls for people being in the same level job. This falls further to 2.6 percent for the same level job at the same company, and to just 0.8 percent for the same level job at the same company with the same function....there is little to no evidence of overt company discrimination once one controls for observable factors (and beyond those here, things such as educational attainment, or years of continuous work experience).
I personally had a cartoonishly evil jerk of a male supervisor, BB ("my 17 years of IT experience"), back in the 1980's, who was seeking to exploit an alleged pay gap, not by paying female computer programmers more but by reaping the profit from lowered costs. (We were a branch of a now defunct APL timesharing industry, sort of an archetype of today's cloud computing market (Software As a Service).) This narcissist decided to move the branch office from inside the Houston loop to near his home in the NW suburbs so he didn't have to commute; the new office would have a large room for his own female programmer operation. He bought some cheap office furniture at some auction and replaced my own office chair for some piece of junk with a broken caster. He caught me retrieving my old chair from his vacant programmer suite and fired me on the spot. To this day, I've never heard of someone else fired over office furniture. (There's more to the story but it's beyond the scope of this post.)
I personally experienced the paranoia of the wage gap conspiracy. KK, an associate (tenured) professor at UWM with an office immediately next to mine. I don't remember seeing her during my campus visit, but I knew her, above my other senior colleagues, because I had reviewed her research articles in my MIS doctoral seminars and for my major comprehensive qualifying exam. So I had considerable respect for her as a scholar before I ever met her in person.
I think she, an older single woman, took a personal interest in me, which was not mutual There are various reasons why I thought it was personal. One incident particularly stands out as odd. I had to register for some account online at UWM, and for some odd reason, instead of giving me directions, etc., she sat at my office computer, saying she herself would do it for me. I had no idea why she was motivated to do this. At some point the protocol asked for my date of birth. At this point I was uncomfortable with the conversation; it was none of her business. At the same time I didn't want to escalate an issue with a senior colleague, so I reluctantly told her. She looked at me and said, "Well, Ron, you're just a pup, aren't you?" First time I ever heard that; I took it as a reference to my being a young man. There were other things. including a time she called me to bring something from her office to her condo. I really didn't think that was a legitimate request for a colleague; I asked her to get in touch with the business school staff, but she wouldn't take no for an answer. So I channeled my inner UPS worker and dropped it off quickly.
There are other parts of the story. I was caught in the middle between 2 pairs of area (we weren't a separate department) senior profs. But the main point of bringing up KK in this essay was one day she demanded to know my salary. I have always considered compensation a privileged matter with my employer and do not discuss it with others. I suspect she was worried that in an MIS job seeker market at the time, UWM may have offered me more than she made. To be honest, I never discussed salary with any recruiter. After a stipend of a few hundred dollars a month as a graduate student fellow, I knew my standard of living would improve as a professor. I suspect I made somewhat below market (mostly from others telling me, unasked, what they were making), but that was based on anecdotal data.
KK was incensed I wouldn't respond to her "right to know", that I was "stonewalling" her. Some time later she stormed into my office, triumphantly told me what I was making, noting as a Wisconsin-paid public employee, my salary was a matter of public record. I gather she was satisfied she was making more than "the pup".
/So what sparked this rant? My old Navy buddy Bill published the following apples and oranges meme, later justifying it as as "interesting". I see it as part of the "Politics of Envy". Be clear I am nor a LeBron James fan and in fact differ with him on political issues. But he's the most talented player on the planet. He has been the NBA Finals MVP with 3 different teams. He's been a league all-star every year of his career and has played in the finals for more than half of his career years. Pay is not a measure of "fairness"; James draws paying fans to stadiums and draws eyeballs to televised events.
Megan Rapinoe, a soccer player, has made similar unequal pay pitches, and I'll let the guys at "Good Morning Liberty" debunk her nonsense. Personally I prefer watching paint dry than watching most women's sports. I can barely tolerate women's tennis. And the last time I checked, women's championships require 2 set wind while men's require 3, but women think it's only "fair" to get paid the same for a match win.
Now that's fine. Just because I won't pay to attend a women's game or watch it on TV doesn't matter. What about the rest of the American audience? The last time I checked far more fans watched an American men's team not to make a World Cup final than watch the women's team win the championship. What is Rapinoe going to do? Complain TV viewers are "sexist"?
I heard reality TV star Kylie Jenner is worth over a billion dollars. Is this 'fair"? Do I think I should make more than I've recently been paid? Yes, just like I'm convinced I was the best professor I've ever seen. But the market didn't think so because I got no offers at the time in a tough market. Yet other professors, not nearly as good or productive, kept their jobs. Am I envious or bitter? No. The market decides; I don't always agree with the market, but I don't let it determine my self-worth.
