The Gender Wage Gap is a Myth

Liberals are once again repeating the women earn only 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, so once again we turn to the brilliant Christina Hoff Sommers, AEI resident scholar, to set the record straight in under 2.5 minutes:

Sommers: Masculinity More than a Mask

"Are school shooters and mass murderers born out of an aggressive emphasis on masculinity in our society?" asks Christina Hoff Sommers. "The trailer for filmmaker and feminist activist Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s new documentary, The Mask You Live In, would have us think so."

Sommers rejects the "males-are-toxic ideology" expressed in the trailer and suggests 5 ways in which the final documentary, due out later this year, could be improved to more accurately reflect "masculinity" and "how boys' nature can be distinctly good."  Here are her suggestions (although we urge readers to read her full Time article or watch her 3-minute video below):

1. Recognize that masculinity is more than a "mask" — much of the typical boy behavior, such as rough-and-tumble play, risk taking and fascination with gadgets rather than dolls, appears to have a basis in biology. 

Are You a Feminist?

Most American women don't want to be associated with the term or the movement, says Christina Hoff Sommers. She offered background, insight and data that will surprise many women during her May Conservative Women's Network luncheon presentation in Washington DC. Her full speech can be viewed on YouTube (http://youtu.be/VRzrT0H-T-4). 

Sommers: Quick Fix for Gender Wage Gap

"If today’s young women want to close the wage gap, they should change their college majors," writes Christina Hoff Sommers at AEI-Ideas. Women earned 58% of college degrees this year, but too many of them are choosing majors that pay less. She explains:

Here is a list of the ten most remunerative majors compiled by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Note that men overwhelmingly outnumber women in all but one major.

1. Petroleum Engineering: 87% Male
2. Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration: 48% Male
3. Mathematics and Computer Science: 67% Male
4. Aerospace Engineering: 88% Male
5. Chemical Engineering: 72% Male
6. Electrical Engineering: 89% Male
7. Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering: 97% Male
8. Mechanical Engineering: 90% Male
9. Metallurgical Engineering: 83% Male
10. Mining and Mineral Engineering: 90% Male

And here are the 10 least remunerative majors. This time it is women who prevail in nine out of ten majors.

1. Counseling Psychology: 74% Female
2. Early Childhood Education: 97% Female
3. Theology and Religious Vocations: 34% Female
4. Human Services and Community Organization: 81% Female
5. Social Work: 88% Female
6. Drama and Theater Arts: 60% Female
7. Studio Arts: 66% Female
8. Communication Disorders Sciences and Services: 94% Female
9. Visual and Performing Arts: 77% Female
10. Health and Medical Preparatory Programs: 55% Female

Sommers argues that the gender wage gap is a consequence of women's choices — "beginning with their college majors."

UPDATE: Ms. Sommers spoke at the Conservative Women's Network on May 31, 2013. You can watch the video here.

Not Such a Feminist Paradise

"Sweden seems to be an egalitarian, feminist utopia. So why are American women so far ahead of their Swedish counterparts in breaking through the glass ceiling?" asks Christina Hoff Sommers in a well-documented article in AEI's The American this month.

Sweden has the kind of very generous 'family friendly' policies that American liberals dream of, including:

• a 16-month leave policy for new parents — male and female; and
• a parental right to work only part-time (at a reduced salary) until his or her child is 8 years old.

But it turns out that even in the feminist paradise state, women take advantage of the policies (the mommy track) while men stay focused on the career track. In 2012, Swedish officials reported 1 in 3 women (33%) took the part-time parental work option, compared to only 1 in 10 men (10%). Not surprising, women hold fewer high-level jobs than men, too.

Sommers cites the following findings of two major recent studies on the impact of 'family friendly' work policies on women: 

• Swedish-style 'family friendly' work policies "make employers wary of hiring women for full-time positions at all."
• European "broad-based welfare state policies impede women's representation in elite competitive positions."

With fewer welfare-state work policies than Europe, the United States is a better environment for women who want to break the glass ceiling. Writes Sommers:

Did Feminism Really Free Women?

“Women are from Venus, men are from Hell” – these were the words used by Christina Hoff Sommers, moderating a Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute panel, to describe the sort of ‘textbooks’ she was required to teach from as a college philosophy professor. A self-confessed former liberal, Sommers began the conversion to more conservative ideas after being “excommunicated” from the feminist movement for attempting to balance the coursework in her classes. By offering her students some alternatives to radical feminism, Sommers put herself squarely in the cross hairs of the single-minded mentality of the Left. This is an all-too-familiar experience for conservative students speaking out on their college campuses but, according to Sommers, the tide is changing. The veil is being lifted on the liberal feminist lies and conservative women are leading the fight.

Sommers was joined by Hudson Institute senior fellow economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth, healthcare expert and Galen Institute president Grace-Marie Turner, and National Review Online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez, whose recent article inspired this panel entitled “Freedom from Feminism.”