[MUD-Dev] The Price of Being Male

[Sasha Hart]

[Marian Griffith]

> The various alternative explanations of course should be examined
> to see if, and by how much, they contribute to the price
> difference but the opportunity to study valuation of male and
> female labour in a situation that is free of factual differences
> in ability is quite important.

But that's not what this is.

  - This is not a lower price for a product sold by a female seller.
  Nor a lower price for the time spent by a female seller. Rather,
  it is a lower price for a commodity labeled 'female,' much as the
  same might also be labeled 'elf cleric.' Suppose that elf clerics
  sell for less than any-race barbarians, even though they turn out
  to be exactly the same for all purposes but graphics and labels
  (and whatever exact differences these create in how other players
  treat the player using the barbarian/elf cleric). Should we also
  suppose that this gives us the opportunity to study devaluation of
  clerics' labor, or even the broader category of discrimination
  against elf clerics? Yet I don't see the distinction being drawn
  anywhere. It is in the interest of the thesis for this distinction
  to remain as obscure as possible.

  - Even if we pretended that the whole thing was obviously about
  differences in the seller's gender, it's not devaluation in the
  sense required to make it unfair. That would show up as
  discrimination in pay due to negative attitudes and stereotypes
  about women, due to belief that women don't deserve as much, or
  due to to beliefs that the quality of an hour of a woman's work is
  lower.

I'm well convinced (by looking at GSS data) that - at least in the
US - the wage gap exists, is quite large, and is something which
should be fixed. Yet I don't buy this stuff for a moment - so how is
it going to be of any help convincing the reactionaries, or driving
the point home generally? I would even say that the comparison gives
a misrepresentation of the seriousness and robustness of the real
wage gap.
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