Is Rachel Maddow sincere?

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46. well i think there's direct discrimination and indirect discrimination

by direct discrimination i mean an employer deciding on a woman's pay and, consciously or not, lowering it from what it otherwise would be because she's a woman or does things that may be irrelevant to job performance but are stereotypically female.

by indirect discrimination i mean the workplace collectively paying women less because they have less experience due to previous discrimination or the discrimination of others. an employer may not be discriminating directly, but may be taking advantage of the discrimination of others.

so i would argue that the 23% could be divided into 3 parts; the 5% that's due to direct sex discimination, another part that's due to indirect sex discrimination, and a third part that's due to factors having nothing to do with discrimination at all (such as work/life decisions actually made by the employee rather than guessed or imposed by the employer, or the rare job where physiological differences actually matter).


the main point is that the 23% figure is not wrong, it depends on how it is characterized.