Martha Burk wants Congress to pass the Fair Pay Act which would create tangles of red tape, (and court cases), over what constitutes equal “skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions even if the actual work is dissimilar.” Burk wrote, “women working full time, year round still make only 76 cents for every dollar that a man makes.” Has it ever occurred to Burk that women make the choice to earn less because they have priorities other than salary such as interesting work, pleasant working conditions and more time to be home with their children? The women who earn lower salaries aren’t the ones complaining about it.

Feminists see such women as not living up to their potential. Men may see them as slackers. As a woman, I’m tired of feeling I should apologize for not earning “enough.”

I’m one of those “slacker” women: I like my job, but probably could earn more if I took a job I liked less. I pay income and property taxes and use no social services, (not even public libraries). I purchase disability insurance, so I won’t be a burden to the taxpayers if something happens to me. I also have a 401K and an IRA so I shouldn’t be a burden to the taxpayers when I get old. So how is my earning a so-so salary hurting anyone? How is my salary, or any other woman’s, Burk’s business? Salaries and benefits should be negotiated by employees and their employers, not by legislation or feminists.

Many women make less than males in the same jobs because they left the workforce for several years to have children and care for them rather than leaving that to nannies or day care providers. No matter how high the quality of care these workers provide, no one has as much vested interest in a child’s well being as that child’s parents. In What Women Really Want, Celinda Lake and Kellyanne Conway found that 70% of women said they would stay home with their kids if they could afford it. As stay at home moms, they will not earn paychecks. Does that make these women less valuable to society? If feminists cared about women, they would accept their choices rather than bashing them for making less than men do. Linda Hirshman accused women who leave the workforce to stay home with their kids of undermining the status of women and “letting down the team.” Most women feel a far greater responsibility to their families than to other women who should be able to take care of themselves. What is more important to the future: Bringing up the next generation or earning a large salary at a job someone else is willing to do? Stay-at-home moms and stay-at home dads owe no one any apologies for valuing parenting over more income.

Many mothers do work outside the home. Most of them prefer to take lower incomes in exchange for shorter working hours, flexible hours or jobs that allow them to do some work at home. Larry Summers was correct when he suggested that fewer mothers than fathers are willing to spend 80 hours a week away from their kids. That may because society hasn’t traditionally given men the choice of having more time with family. It could also be that women have a stronger psychological need to be near their children or it could be because women still tend to be the primary caregivers despite the feminists’ attempts to “restructure” the family.

Warren Farrell, the author of Why Men Earn more: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap – and What Women Can Do About It, points out that women choose “psychically fulfilling” jobs that attract enough applicants that high salaries aren’t needed as incentives. Is it wrong for someone to accept a low salary in exchange for work she finds interesting and enjoyable? My own father chose work he loved, military history, over other fields that may have paid higher salaries. In those days, being middle class was acceptable, so he was seen for the interesting, learned man he was. Now, it seems society judges peoples’ worth strictly on the basis of salary.

Farrell also writes that women are less likely to work at hazardous jobs even though the salaries are higher. Is it possible that females are psychologically more risk averse than males? If one observes children and teens, boys seem more adventurous than girls. Women are also less likely to seek jobs involving hard physical labor than men are. Women are pushed to be like men, but they remain women. Most women do not have the upper body strength needed to perform such work as easily as men do.

Richard Haier of the University of California at Irvine performed an MRI study of male and female brains. He found that men have 6 times more gray matter, which controls information processing, than women have. Haier also found that women have 10 times the amount of white matter, which controls integrating and assimilating information, that men do. It is reasonable to conclude that men and women process information differently. Is it unreasonable to surmise that men and women also have different aptitudes and priorities?

Women are tired of being expected to put their families last and/or give up job satisfaction to earn the same pay men earn. Most women also appreciate men for working at jobs that are difficult, hazardous, repetitive and/or require long hours. We recognize that those men provide vital services to society and deserve to larger salaries more for more or harder work.

Copyright Eva Ellsworth, 04/30/06, all rights reserved