Christina Hoff Sommers Debunks the Gender Wage Gap

Below is a good companion video to my piece dealing with The Myth of the Gender Pay Gap.

Christina Hoff Sommers debunks the common myths of a gender wage gap that is being peddled by feminists and liberal activists.



Sommers ends the video with a plea to reform feminism which I disagree with.  You don't repair rotten wood by repainting it.  Like the case of feminism, the wood must be torn down.

Activists, interest groups and watch dogs can start out with some pretty noble goals and objectives.  But none of these organizations really plan for an exit strategy.  In other words, What are we going to do when we've achieved our goals?

By the time this question rears it's head, the organization has already become a bloated bureaucracy with revenue streams in the form of donations and public funding that has employed administrators, lobbyists, press secretaries. consultants, etc, etc.  One would think that, after achieving equality between the sexes in society, we all pat ourselves on the back and disband the organization and move on to something else.

But this isn't what happens.  Nobody wants to kill that golden goose.  Such an organization tries to justify it's existence (along with the revenue streams and guaranteed job security) by raising concerns about a backslide--the idea that all the reforms and legislation that was passed for women's rights would get rolled back if they left the scene. 

For the record, I see this as a legitimate concern.  But I would also argue that it would take a lot less money, personnel and resources to stand sentry and safeguard what you have achieved than what you needed to pass these reforms to fundamentally transform a society. 

Also,  I would argue that as time passes, the need to safeguard these reforms would be a lot less pressing.  It's been over a century since slavery ended.  Yet, if an organization such as the NAACP were to disband tomorrow, I doubt we'd see people rolling back the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments and putting black people back in chains.  Likewise, my experience in the workforce has seen women working in many different positions, including supervisory and management rolls and being compensated quite well for them.  None of it seems odd to me.  If NOW were to disband tomorrow, I doubt that we would see many women laid off or demoted as a result.

In the case of feminist organizations, this isn't what happens.  Sommers paints a picture of feminism begrudgingly accepting that some achievements have been made for equality between the sexes but there's still more work to be done (so keep those donations coming!).  They'll start to conjure up conspiracy theories such as The PatriarchyⓇ .  They'll invent and coin new concepts such as male privilege , microaggressions and internalized oppression that we must wage a righteous struggle against.

This would normally be so ridiculous on it's face that nobody would take it seriously.  It's one reason why I think that fewer women than ever are considering themselves as feminists and feminism organizations are trying to launch a public awareness campaign to clean up their image (which requires money so don't you dare stop donating!).  But Sommers describes millions of female students graduating from our top universities indoctrinated to believe in myths like the gender pay gap.  This rotten system must be torn down.