Monday, September 11, 2017

The feminist art of victimhood

Kasey Edwards is a Melbourne feminist who has published yet another newspaper column complaining about the pay gap between men and women. She blames the focus on merit for the gap:



Her column is written in the usual spirit of grievance that seems to animate all of her output. Ordinarily I would take the trouble to carefully answer her claims about the "injustice" of female pay and if readers are interested they can click on the labels beneath the post or else read a brief statement on the issue here.

But in this case there is a better way to answer Kasey Edwards' claims. Back in 2009 Kasey Edwards had a book published titled Thirty Something & Over It. In the book she details how privileged she was when it came to her pay:
In my second year in the workforce, I was earning as much as my mother, who is a schoolteacher. In my fourth year, I was earning more than my parents combined. My dad is a teacher-in-charge of a school. People raise whole families on what I get as a bonus payment....

And what did she do with all this money? Did she use it to support a family of her own? Well, no:
I eat out all the time. It isn't unusual for me to eat out all three meals in a day...I've stopped looking at the prices on the menu, too...Each year, Emma and I go on a tropical holiday together...my friends are just the same. I recently went shopping with a friend who bought five handbags on impulse, which came to a grand total of $4000.

So what happened? Kasey Edwards felt unfulfilled in corporate life and wanted to do something more creative, so she opted out of the "fast track". She was curious as to why the women she knew shared her dissatisfaction but the men seemed to cheerfully soldier on. So she asked a male colleague about it:
I decide to speak to one of my male friends and colleagues to get his perspective on whether men are over it too. Jame is also a management consultant, working in the IT industry. He's driven, enthusiastic and committed. I envy the way he seems to wholeheartedly throw himself ito work. He seems to care about it and enjoy it. I want to know his secret.

Over a glass of wine, I casually enquire, "Jamie, do you ever feel like you don't want to work anymore?" He looks at me bemused and, to my complete surprise, says, "All the time, mate."

He says he only works because he has to pay the mortgage and support his family. He doesn't get the same buzz from climbing the corporate ladder that he did in his twenties, but he views working as a necessary part of life and therefore has resolved to make the best of it. There is no point in me moaning about having to go to work and making it miserable for myself and the people around me," he says. "So I make the most of it while I'm there, and get fulfilment from other aspects of my life."

The difference between Jamie and me, and many of the women I've spoken to, is that Jamie seems resigned to his fate of corporate drudgery and is just getting on with it. On the other hand, my sisters and I are not so willing to accept unfulfilling work as our lot in life. We are resisting it, resenting it and dreaming about alternatives."

Kasey Edwards knows why male earnings eventually outpace those of women. It is a perfectly just reason. Nor is it one that disadvantages women - Jamie's wife and daughters, after all, are the beneficiaries of his willingness to submit to the breadwinning role.

But Kasey, no matter what privileges come her way, is determined to play the role of victim, her creative output made grey with resentment.

3 comments:

  1. You can see from this discussion how gullible many women are, and what the motivations of their imagination really are:

    'Equality' is a demand for attention and to assuage envy by social coercion instead of accomplishment. Whenever you hear 'Everyone is equal', understand what it really means: NO ONE is better than ME. Period. And Government better ensure it.

    Working to them is just another way to gain attention and show off.

    Nothing more. If and when it becomes 'unglamorous', 'unfun' and not ego gratifying they cease to be interested, and lose whatever motivation there was.

    Its absurd to watch. No man wants a 'career'.

    You're alive, you want to build something, you want to live, you need prosperity?? Then you get to work whatever that is.

    Feminist Women?? Let's have careers where we admire how awesome we are!!! The naivety of most females is shocking. This woman writes a column about her career life (and there are many like it across the West).

    There has never been a column for the career man. No need to wonder why, its obvious.

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  2. She is right though - as long as people are paid on merit, according to their contributions, men will be paid more than women. Moving to "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" is necessary to eliminate pay inequality. In fact women would probably get paid more, men may do more but women seem to need more stuff.

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  3. So much time, energy and talent being used to come up with new and unique ways to be perceive oneself as a victim. The West used to praise our heroes, now we trash our heroes and praise fake victim groups.

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