Can someone explain to me (in the simplest way possible haha) about the wage gap - is it a myth? I get that people say it’s a myth because women tend to and historically have gone for lower income jobs, jobs with more flexible hours for childcare etc so does that mean that people like Lawrence Fox (vomit) are right, that it doesn’t exist really?
Wasnt the wage gap in Birmingham partially to blame for it going bankrupt? Birmingham blames its position on a £760m bill for equal pay claims, What went wrong at Birmingham city council and what happens next? | Birmingham | The Guardian
I think the councils issue was around things like bin men/refuse collectors historically being paid much more than school cleaners and carers, and the council was found to have discriminated in how much they paid men and women on a hourly rate! With the male staff being paid much more than the women. Both sets of jobs were found to have been equally demanding, but not paid at anywhere near the same rate! The female staff took the council to court, and won, thereby winning £760m in damages!
I don't know exactly how this works now in 2023, but there have been recent fairly high profile cases of actresses being extremely upset to find that their male co stars are paid more than they are.
And there is also indirect inbalance. Men tend to be promoted faster than women, This may be as simple as men being more confident and encouraged to stretch themselves further in jobs, whereas women will tend to want to feel capable before they apply? For instance in primary schools, whilst doing supply across quite a few different schools, I noticed an inbalance between male and female teachers, with the male teachers being the ones who seemed to move up the responsibility ladder much faster. The head teacher would often be a younger man surrounded by female staff. Whereas female heads would tend to be older!
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@ItsDatCuw made a brilliant point on the celeb gossip thread, started from a discussion about the how someone as beautiful as Zoë Kravitz or Jennifer Lawrence feels the need to change her face.
(This is her quote)
“
It’s like mass hysteria: there’s this expectation that when a woman is 30, she “has” to start having procedures to stay looking youthful (even though I know women in their seventies who still look naturally youthful). 
The obvious irony is that by having these procedures, people end up looking much older…and removing buccal fat is just bizarre because isn’t it facial fat that generally gives a person a more youthful look? There’s no doubt that all this has a misogynistic origin. 
”
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AndI definitely think this has a misogynistic origin, yes.
It’s about keeping women down. Some straight men don’t really care about what women look like, to be crude for a second, they’d
duck anything, and I mean even inanimate objects.
My point is, 1,
duck the make gaze
and 2, if you’re a straight woman, please don’t hold yourself up to male standards. They don’t really care anyway. And of course it’s meaningless.
This is a source of bemusement between women of different ages. As I am just in my sixties, I was brought up with enough feminist ideas to completely understand and embrace the idea of ''
duck the male gaze'' eg dress comfortably to please yourself and don't wear clothing that is designed to be sexually provocative, primarily intended to get attention from men. I'm also aware that most men don't want women to be too thin and don't care overmuch about appearances.
My daughters are in their 30s, and at least one of them has been taught by her peers and social media that its her right to dress however she wants and that includes the right to wear sexually provocative clothing, spend hundreds of pounds on hair and make up, to watch and enjoy porn, and to admire the stars of only fans etc etc because they are making a lot of money, for doing virtually nothing.
The main reason she hasn't had botox and lip fillers and a boob job, is that she cant realistically afford to do so! She is also constantly disappointed in her appearance and lacks confidence in how she looks.
But she would say she is a feminist, and that she isn't dressing just for the male gaze, she is dressing for herself to feel good and to validate herself.
Sadly I don't think that she is that different from a lot of her friends and peers, who do seem to be obsessed by their appearances. The whole reality show, or instagram or social media and shows like Married at first sight, rely heavily on appearance, make up and clothes. And that what the guys who go on these shows also seem to focus on.
My other daughter thankfully is nothing like this, and is a lot more like me, and will wear clothes that she likes and that are comfortable and thinks a lot of the other stuff is a waste of time and money!
But I fear there is a huge chasm between different women and different ages of women, with expectations and beliefs.
) as well as the actual implementation seemingly not being thought out (e.g. what constitutes an adult site? How can content on catch-all sites - e.g. social media, photo hosting sites, message boards - be monitored for adult material? How can you confirm an individual user is old enough if the household has adults with access? etc)
Unfortunately I'll believe it when we actually see it.
”. Bearing in mind that he drunkenly admitted that he’d never been in a relationship, and that he was caught looking at BDSM websites at work - the tone of which were non-consensual and contained horrible acts of degradation towards women. He also wrote his own extreme BDSM fiction crap that he left on a USB at work. While working there, he randomly said the following:
), and would also critique the appearance of every woman he’d see on the news, magazines, etc., declaring that she was “plain” or “attractive enough but not great”. 
i said this on the true crime thread when we were having this discussion, but i live very close to a comprehensive/sixth form, the lane behind my house is a popular walk home for the kids and i hear them talking all the time as they head past.
