But why do they choose other professions? Do people pressure them into not choosing better paid jobs? Isn't that a symptom.

Most feminists don't "blame men", but "blame gender roles". It's just most gender roles significantly benefit a lot of men (and harm a small amount of other men).

I don't know if people have to be pressured into having more time for their family, though. I think it is more having the option vs not having the option. I'd love to have the option as a man, but in general it is a privilege of women or rich people (not having to work).

Income is just one measurement, health and life satisfactions are others. Are men really so well off if you consider those?

Also, don't know about the US, but in my country women automatically get half of what their husbands earn. So they can go to Yoga class every day and still have a good income. Are they really so bad off? (edit: yoga class sounds snarky, what I mean is: women live longer than men, priorizing health over income might play a part).

Also, if you say "pressured into bad jobs", what is the punishment for not choosing a bad job?

It wasn't an oppressive culture or dongle jokes that kept her out of programming, it was just the assumption by everyone around her that girls generally are not interested in computers.

I don't want to make too many assumptions about someone I've never met, but from here it seems likely that it wasn't an oppressive culture that kept her out, it was the lack of enough innate interest to kick over into actively learning more about it.

Not offering someone a potential carrer path just because of their gender seems a bit opressive to me.

Sexualised content at tech events just reenforced the idea that "programming isn't for women". Imagine a woman at a tech event where ther'es a lot of straight male locaker room jokes, and the organisers do nothing ans say there's nothing wrong going on, she'll come out of it thinking tech is for men.

I don't know that having all that societal pressure to make money is really a benefit for men. Women have far more options with career paths these days, and very rarely have to worry about money. It's totally socially acceptable to let their family or boyfriend support their existence. This is why you can easily find "professional artists" who write in their little blog that they "make their living" off of etsy when you can easily see they've made a total of a whopping $150 from their shop this month.

I don't think it's fair at all to blame men for women making less money than men. Most women have the luxury of being able to afford not making much (or any) money and still do whatever they feel like/not have to worry about starving/housing/etc.

> Women have far more options with career paths these days, and very rarely have to worry about money.

That's some first class trolling there.

So any man choosing higher discomfort for more pay isn't just getting more money he's also improving his chance of finding a mate.

Meanwhile women have a smaller incentive to take discomfort since they will not get the compensation of enhanced attractiveness.

So your theory doesn't match reality.

Women do not in my experience value pay as highly and consider the (non-monetary) costs more carefully than men.

If the 77% discussion makes more women reflect and choose professions with higher pay, fine. I just reject the notion of female victimhood and male oppression.

However, it might really be a bit complicated. For example to get a degree costs the same no matter if you are going to work part time or full time. So investing into higher education already is a bigger gamble for women, if they expect they might have kids at some point. I suspect women are not stupid but chose their jobs smartly.

"People just don't understand how hard it is to be a white male!"

Says the guy who resorts to name-calling.

White male is the most privileged thing to be

No, being an upper middle-class white male is the most privileged thing to be.

not some down trodden, exploited minority

Think positive, maybe one day a minority might become president.

Notice I said being an idiot. Name calling would be saying that he was an idiot as a state of being. I didn't say that, nor do I believe it.

>No, being an upper middle-class white male is the most privileged thing to be.

If you have to be poor or middle class you want to be white male. Do you honestly think you'd be better off being poor and black or poor and a woman? Maybe some day we'll get there but we're not there today.

>Think positive, maybe one day a minority might become president.

Yes, one half-black person getting elected president means there is absolutely no racism of any sort (never mind all the racial motivated attacks Obama has had to deal with since before getting elected...).

Seems to me more interesting is the risk of being poor. I think you'll find that there are a lot more poor men than poor women. I guess this is the case because 90% of homeless are male, and men tend to be more prominent on the extremes (more rich men and also more poor men than rich/poor women). Feel free to research the actual data, though.

I only learned about /r/mensrights yesterday, checked it out but didn't like their attitudes at all. I think it is important to counter misguided feminism, though.

But that doesn't excuse making a post that could have been word-for-word copied out of mensrights about how downtrodden we are, complete with quotes to claim the wage gap doesn't exist. I'm all for countering misguided extremists from any side.

By the way, you're quoting articles from Rupert Murdoch's WSJ to support your point? Didn't they have an article that claimed that the WHO and Berkley reports were wrong and the US (pre Obama care) had the greatest health care in the world? Yea, not believing anything from WSJ.

And I argue against misinterpreting a statistic here, not particular feminists.

I wonder why you are so emotionally invested in the belief that women are being oppressed? And what is absurd about men wanting rights?

One issue I have with the "discrimination causes the wage gap" theory is that it prevents looking into the real causes. WSJ was just something that came up yesterday. I am not from the US so don't know their history (similar wage gap in my country, though). Using common sense, too - and researching more.

Pretty much everyone who studies the issue concludes that there is a gap. It is likely that if anyone is misinterpreting a statistic it would be a laymen like you or I, not experts in the respective fields.

>I wonder why you are so emotionally invested in the belief that women are being oppressed?

I'm not emotionally invested in anything but the truth.

>And what is absurd about men wanting rights?

Obviously nothing. But /r/mensrights is a well known group of women-haters [1] who love to spout off one-off anecdotes to show how men are "actually the exploited group" and other such nonsense. There are cases where men get a raw deal (divorce court in the US comes to mind) but they are by far the minority.

[1] 2 seconds of searching: http://manboobz.com/2013/01/28/the-mens-rights-subreddit-a-n...

As for /r/mensrights I really can't comment. I do think men have a problem, though.

Divorce court: aren't divorces rather common?

BTW, your post reads like a tour of logical fallacies. You can do better I'm sure.