A Woman’s Lifetime Earnings Lost To Pay Gap Could Feed A Family Of Four For 37 Years

[HiPointDem]

73. and that's where i disagree with you, when you put wage differences in job categories down to

them being "traditionally male" or "traditionally female".

Schoolteacher/schoolmaster has always been a comparatively low-wage professional job, even when the majority of teachers were male. And post-war schoolteachers (mostly female) gained, from activism, retirement and health benefits unknown to their male predecessors.

Similarly, pastor/minister is a professional job where men have historically, and into the present day, predominated over women. Yet unless one gets an appointment in a "good" (i.e. wealthy) church, it doesn't pay well. In fact, it often pays abysmally.

The meat-packing industry is one where men were more likely to work than women, historically. And historically, it was a low-wage job. But wages and benefits improved dramatically because of the labor movement, and this was coincident with increased hiring of women.

However, wages and security in the meat-packing industry were destroyed around the time of the Reagan revolution. But this shit-wages industry is equal opportunity.

Nurses' aide has always been a poorly-paid job, even when hospitals were nearly exclusively staffed by men. Conversely, registered nurses, a predominately female profession for a long time, make a median wage of $31/hour ($66K a year), not too bad for a 4-year degree, half of which you can do at community college.

I just don't buy this simplistic "it's because they're traditionally male jobs" argument. There's some truth to it, but it's not the whole truth.