Women Wrong to Think Workplace Unfair

So argues Naomi Schaefer Riley:

No matter how well women are doing relative to men, it doesn’t matter. They’re still the victims of discrimination — or so they think.

This, when women today earn more college degrees and advanced degrees than men, and have lower rates of unemployment. How are the decks are still stacked against them?

The new Pew Social Trends survey reports that “Millennial women . . . are just as likely as older generations to believe that women face an uphill climb in terms of being treated equally by society and by employers.” Indeed, “Fully three-quarters of Millennial women compared with 57 percent of Millennial men say the country needs to do more in order to bring about workplace equality.”

On the other hand, Pew found that among workers between the ages of 25 and 34, women’s hourly wages are 93 percent of men’s. And Kay Hymowitz, author of “Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys,” says that she suspects that gap would disappear completely were the data disaggregated between women who had children and women who did not. In fact, a 2010 study by Reach Advisors found that young, single, childless women earned more than their male counterparts in most metro US areas.

Having children clearly makes all the difference. Hymowitz says the “whole way the conversation is framed is wrong.” Feminists and policy makers, she notes, say that they want “absolute parity and that anything less represents real discrimination and injustice.” In fact, though, the lack of parity is largely the result of the choices so many women make for the sake of the next generation — working part time, taking time off to raise kids, asking for less demanding assignments, etc.

For instance, 34 percent of Millennial women told Pew they’re not interested in becoming a boss or a top manager, compared to only 25 percent of men. The reason seems obvious: Some of the Millennial women may already be parents, and many of the rest are still thinking about how to balance these issues down the line. [snip]

Maybe, but it’s the constant media drumbeat about supposed unfairness that’s making women think the decks are stacked against them at all. Consider, even though many women seem to believe the playing field isn’t level when it comes to wages and hiring, Pew finds that “relatively few working adults report these types of gender biases at their own workplace.”

In other words, the impression isn’t driven by what we actually experience, but by what we’re constantly told by others.

Read her full article, Women Think the Workplace is Unfair ... This is Why They're Wrong."