My Opinion of the Little Ladies Day Event

[MoroMurasaki]

The reason people are saying those things is you are tone deaf. You are choosing to complain about an event in a game that celebrates women while elsewhere in the world real women have to deal with things like income inequality which are much bigger deals. Instead you are choosing to come here to complain about an in-game event that ultimately doesn't matter.

And yes, you are entitled to your opinion. But calling it your opinion doesn't change the fact that its a weird point of view lacking perspective.

Can we not try to use the (completely false) wage gap to try to downplay someone's valid opinion? This guy took to a forum about a video game to discuss his frustrations with that video game and you think because of (again, an entirely false issue) the wage gap he should just sit back and not be bothered by the disparity between make and female character treatment in this game?

I agree - this isn't a huge issue. I also believe it comes from a purely business-minded standpoint from SE. Most people irrespective of their gender irl play female characters, cater to your largest demographic first. It isn't rocket science.

See, there's an actual rebuttal instead of alluding to some dark, nebulous "bigger deals" that women have to deal with irl which apparently have to take presedence.

I can say from first hand experience being a woman is pretty awesome. I don't think we need more holidays and glams in a video game to pay us back for perceived slights irl. We certainly don't need to take away from the credibility of someone's entirely understandable (if not poorly worded) complaint about an entirely unrelated topic.

Geez, and you thought the OP lacked perspective.

[VanilleFang]

snip

I wish I could like your post more than once.

[Sesera]

Most people irrespective of their gender irl play female characters

Sorry but how playing a female over a male or a male over a female makes you irrespective of your gender?

[Krotoan]

Sorry but how playing a female over a male or a male over a female makes you irrespective of your gender?

ir·re·spec·tive
ˌi(r)rəˈspektiv/
adjective
adjective: irrespective

not taking (something) into account; regardless of.

As in, it doesn't matter what people actually are, most of them play female characters. This has nothing to do with "respecting" people.

Can you explain to me why 'Boy's Day' specifically is problematic?

Personally? NO reason. Society wise we seem to have a problem with it. Ask the people who decided my elementary/middle/high school wouldn't have boys days anymore why. I have theories but I'm not the one making decisions. If I had sons I'd be flying the carp flags and gifting them little samurai dolls and giving them treats... just like if I had daughters they'd get little kimono dolls and goodies on Girls day. It's cute and makes for a fun day for little ones.

[Sesera]

ir·re·spec·tive
ˌi(r)rəˈspektiv/
adjective
adjective: irrespective

not taking (something) into account; regardless of.

As in, it doesn't matter what people actually are, most of them play female characters. This has nothing to do with "respecting" people.

Thanks for the clarification.
Tho I feel a bit dumb now.

[Krotoan]

Thanks for the clarification.
Tho I feel a bit dumb now.

no need to feel dumb, I apologize if that felt harsh. I just wanted you to know it wasn't about discriminating or withholding respect.

[Sesera]

no need to feel dumb, I apologize if that felt harsh. I just wanted you to know it wasn't about discriminating or withholding respect.

No, I felt dumb for thinking she was saying something "mean" when I had just a bad understanding of the word. I'm really grateful for your comment and your explanation.

/hug Krotoan.

[Tridus]

Because we're not off topic enough...

Can we not try to use the (completely false) wage gap

The wage gap is entirely real. It's well documented and has mountains of statistical evidence. What that actually means, what (if anything) should be done about it, and if it's a problem that should be focused on over things like wealth inequality are all interesting and highly complicated discussions, but by the basic definition the wage gap absolutely exists.

The simplest example is parental leave. More women take that than men, and taking it has adverse effects on long term income. If you adjust for that, the wage gap goes away, which is lovely, but doesn't really address the issue that having children is significantly more taxing on women than men for a whole host of reasons (one of them being that pregnancy is hard work). That can be solved by not having kids, which again makes the problem go away, but then raises some other problems, namely that a society that doesn't have kids is one that will have a pretty huge problem in 50 years of having lots of old people and nobody to take care of them or earn the income (and pay the taxes) necessary to fund their retirements.

We're seeing other ideas on how to solve it now, including a new plan up here in Canada to offer another set of parental leave that can only be used by the father and is incentivized (if you don't use it within a certain time period, you lose access to it). The goal being to provide a nudge to more men to use that leave and shift some of that burden more evenly, thus also addressing the wage gap issue by splitting the time away from work that currently more strongly impacts mothers.

There's also aspects of it where women have disadvantaged themselves, like being less willing to negotiate pay offers or leave a job strictly on pay, and men also tend to be more willing to follow the money career wise. From what I've seen, millennial women are stronger in those areas and in that age bracket, some data now shows women out earning men. That trend would reflect the trend in higher education where women outnumber and on average out-achieve men.

And on top of that, people conflate the issue by confusing it with "pay equity", which is a similar sounding but very different thing politically, especially since "pay equity" itself means different things depending on who you're asking and what agenda is being pushed: "equal pay for equal work" (which is the law up here, and fairly straightforward to understand) and "equal pay for work of equal value" (which is a nebulous concept whereby someone decides that two totally unrelated jobs are equal value and thus tries to impose regulation to make them pay equivalent, completely ignoring free market forces in the labour market). IMO, only one of these is a good idea.

[VanilleFang]

snip

All very true. I think Moro was discrediting the myth that women get paid less for the same job, after working the same amount if hours. Your explanation explains in detail where an "imbalance" may be perceived, but in reality men and women are different.

Canada can try to encourage men to take paternity leave but that's not to say they will. Trying to equal out personal choice is only going to be accomplished by force, which is a terrible idea. Women, in general, are far more likely to take paternity leave because family is, again in general, more important to women. And like you said women are far less likely to ask for raises or negotiate wages who h also plays into personal choice and pay difference. Men are also more likely to work longer hours, and more hours.

[Tridus]

Canada can try to encourage men to take paternity leave but that's not to say they will. Trying to equal out personal choice is only going to be accomplished by force, which is a terrible idea. Women, in general, are far more likely to take paternity leave because family is, again in general, more important to women.

Well, the program is based on a successful one in Quebec. Quebec is different, but it's not that different. The main thing going for this program is that parental leave under EI is a single pool. As a recent parent, I went through this process:
1. Maternity leave is given to the mother starting before birth, and for 15 weeks. This can only be taken by the mother (because pregnancy is hard work).
2. Parental leave is 35 weeks at 55% pay (and longer at a reduced rate). Either parent can take this, but it's a single pool. That is, only *one* parent can take it at any given point in time. Since as you say, women are generally more likely to use this for a variety of reasons, they use the overwhelming majority of it, resulting in the effects of being out of the workforce being more heavily factored into one gender.

The rumored proposal in the budget is to add a third pool on that that is only available to the father (or whoever didn't take maternity leave, for same sex couples, I'd expect). That isn't forcing anyone to do anything, but saying "you can take 5 weeks off to be with your child without impacting the leave available to the mother" is a pretty tempting offer for a lot of men these days, who are more open than past generations were to that sort of thing. I can also say from first hand experience that it's difficult for many new mothers to want to "give up" their time to anyone, including a new father (which makes an additional benefit for said father much more attractive).

Obviously it's not going to change things overnight. But it's a nudge to encourage more men to take some time by offering up an extra benefit if they do by not taking time away from the mother. It also fills a bit of a gap because at least around here, most daycares won't take children until they're 1 year old. I noticed pretty quickly that 15+35 doesn't add up to a year, especially if you take maternity leave during the final month of pregnancy instead of after birth.

A beneficial side effect is that with more men taking more parental leave, it becomes more normalized in the workplace instead of "a woman thing". Can't quantify the benefit of that on office culture, but it's there.

Men are also more likely to work longer hours, and more hours.

Absolutely. We're seeing this a ton in the medical field. Older, male doctors worked tons of hours on average and made tons of money out of it. When one of them retires, it takes more than one (and in some cases two outright) new doctors to replace them, who are far more likely to be female and far less likely to want to work 90 hour weeks for ten years. More power to them if they want a better work life balance, but it has been interesting for people in the system to adjust their expectations of how many doctors are required and what the standard client load of a family practice looks like.

Great discussion, btw.