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Comment by hacknat | Hacker News Reader

Personally I think the biggest caveat avoided "when job differences are accounted for" is the care of children. Women, by-and-large, really get hosed with the negative externalities of having children (time off, career halting, etc). Most Western countries are not generous or equitable by half, and the USA is downright savage.

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Sure, women who take time off to raise kids will take a hit to income. In a married family, the husband compensates. If the woman is unmarried, she gets child support/alimony to make up the difference. So, either you're arguing that child support/alimony is too low, or that married couples get hosed with the externality of having children. This is recognized in law, and people with children get tax deductions, and if they don't earn enough, they get government provided healthcare, food stamps, WIC, housing assistance, etc. On the other hand, the married couple gets the joy of raising children, the satisfaction of contributing to the next generation, and hopefully someone to look after them when they're old. You can argue that this isn't an equal trade between society and parents, but it's not an issue of male/female discrimination.

The giant issue with this argument is that the state of being married/single/having children/etc. is not a fixed state. If a woman who is married takes a hit to her income (and thus all future income) when she has children and is later divorced, has her spouse pass away, or other life event that changes her status, the burden of that inequality is again placed on her. Child support is difficult to collect, social safety nets are not an answer to the quality of life gained by earning a certain amount.

I don't have answers to these questions, but the long term economic burden of children will more often than not fall to a greater degree on the woman should there be any deviation from the social norm of a nuclear family.

I feel for you getting down-voted. Clearly a logical cogent reply.

Certain truths have to be told with a throwaway...

Hacker news is an absolute shithole full of liberal pinheads, with a few libertarians thrown in. It's amazing that you can be capable of programming and not be able to see the forest for the trees.

> Sure, women who take time off to raise kids will take a hit to income.

There's a lot more to it than just that. If there was only a one-time hit to income, everything you said afterwards would hold true, but that's not the only issue, and you're quite naive for thinking so.

Also it shows poor faith in the community to hide behind a throwaway. I wouldn't down vote you for stating the opinion you just stated, but I will take the argument you just made less seriously because your making it in a cowardly fashion.

I take downvoting someone very seriously and will only do so if I think they are harming the community with their speech.

That's a fair point. However, alimony can most certainly extend beyond the age of majority for the kids, and marital property is usually divided in such a way as to compensate a woman for taking time off to raise kids. Social Security also allows divorced women to partially receive benefits based on their ex-husband's income, even income earned after the end of the marriage.

Regarding my lack of faith in the HN community, I like your attitude, and I also take downvoting seriously. Unfortunately empirically the comment was downvoted, so obviously not everyone agrees with us. It's become politically (both here and elsewhere) unacceptable to have a belief that perhaps being a woman in America isn't so bad. I think it's worthwhile to have this discussion, but I'm not interested in having my head put on a pike for it.

I think it's true that being a woman in America isn't all that bad if you're in a privileged group, but under-served populations tend to get the shaft (in more ways then one), and especially women.

While the wage gap between men and women is close when you adjust for "job differences", I think the strong reaction against that caveat is "adjusting for job differences" equates strongly with "behaving like a man".

Fair point on the community our regard for being politically correct is obnoxious, and I definitely don't think you should have been down voted for expressing an intellectually earnest opinion, c'est la vie.

I also really whished for the childless women to be part of the comparison.

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