Will the gender wage gap ever close?

[BainsBane]

4. Sweden is NOT the same as the US.

http://www.weforum.org/news/increased-political-participation-helps-narrow-global-gender-gap-2013

Your point about Sweden is demonstrably false. The gender gap is not the same. Sweden ranks number 4 on the gender gap index and the US 23rd. Political participation is a different category from economic participation. Some countries rank more highly in some categories than others. Neither the US nor Sweden ranks highly in wage equality, 75 for Sweden and 64 for the US, but that means there are 63 countries that rank better than the US on wage equality. http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2013/#=

I see this post as an attempt to point to Sweden to insist there is something inevitable about inequality. Arguing that structural inequality is somehow natural or inevitable is really the worst sort of sexism, so it's not surprising that the article refers to the Obama administration's having the audacity to concern itself with ending discrimination in pay as "demagoguery." The Gender Gap Index by the World Economic Forum shows that the discrepancy is not as bad in many other countries. The excuses sited are in fact manifestations of sexism. Jobs that women predominate in are paid poorly, and as more women enter a profession the wages decline. The other factors listed are also examples of ways in which women are penalized for being women. That women give birth to children is a biological fact. That women disproportionately are responsible for the care of those children is a result of sexism.

The fact is there are a few invested in the oppression of the many, and that includes women. That commitment to keeping women subservient is evident in the argument that--even in the face of this kind of rampant structural inequality--feminists are responsible for fighting for the rights of men rather than women. Their sense of entitlement is so profound, they deny any legitimacy in women's activism on their own behalf. The argument that feminists fail in not fighting for the rights of men shows that they see women as duty bound to serve men.

Some are so committed to male dominance, as soon as a historically oppressed group starts to do well, like girls in schools, they insist something is wrong. Boys should do better simply by virtue of being male. That boys and men don't outperform girls on an even playing field is, for these reactionaries, the fault of feminists. Yet if MRAs really cared about boys' falling behind academically, they could set up volunteer tutoring programs, afterschool homework groups, etc. Instead, MRAs are more concerned with blaming feminism, and they really don't give a rats ass about academic achievement, least of all their own.