http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/fighting-the-wage-gap-sarah-silverman-gets-a-to-avoid-500000-tax/

Sadly this is a topic we all need to worry about...  The video gave great information, and I was laughing my a$$ off!  Love her... Him... You know what I mean... Maybe

So curious what this is all about. I can't load any of it on my dial-up. *sigh*

Quote from: Pikachu on October 08, 2014, 08:43:13 PM
So curious what this is all about. I can't load any of it on my dial-up. *sigh*

It is a hilarious take on the gap in employment pay between men and women.

I'll admit, I had a nice chuckle at the penis selection and the European one being "out of stock", but as a whole, I have to say that I find this clip very offensive.  Yeah, I'm going to be "that guy".  This just rubbed me the wrong way in general.....

that's just Sarah Silverman, I think she does it intentionally.

I found it funny and effective, but it is super disappointing to see the gender = genitals misconception perpetuated.

She's using the penis thing to drive her point of the absurdity that gender features are the only reason women earn less income. This is a very difficult issue to attack or deal with for a number of reasons. Most employers I've had force employees to contractually promise not to compare pay rates. Also, since there are many factors affecting pay, it's not easy to prove gender discrimination.

The best hope, I think, is the fact that with the number of female college graduates becoming the majority in the next years, more women will have to be ascending into management positions. With more women doing the hiring, pay rates will probably equalize.

I just hate that she has to put down one marginalized group (whether intentional or not), in order to advance her cause for another marginalized group.

Funny video in theory, but when you really get into the details, knowing what I do about gender dysphoria and the actual FtM transition process... not so much. Knowing that sticking a penis on a woman wouldn't make her be seen as male by anyone at all, she'd still just be a woman, because nobody can even see our genitals, that to really "pass" as male T would have to be involved, which would drive a cis woman completely insane, plus that SRS itself isn't simply as easy as picking out a penis and sticking it on (although I'm sure lots of you guys wish it could be that easy,) plus knowing that gender and social perception has such a deep-rooted personal psychological component to it, plus the whole thing about equating genitals = social sex, it's kinda hard to be so light-hearted about it.

I guess that's what really gets me, is just knowing all of the complexities involved in the real thing, and this is yet another piece of culture that completely ignores that, and continues to perpetuate the myth that changing sexes has nothing to do with the rest of your body or your mind, it's just people who arbitrarily decide to either graft a penis onto a completely female body and yet call themselves men, or someone with a completely male body turning their penis inside-out and yet calling themselves a woman. It continues to allow cis people to say that we're not really men/women, because it completely ignored the identity part and the social part and the hormones and that ACTUALLY permanently alter one's appearance to make them more or less look completely like a normal member of their identity gender, which have nothing to do with surgery, and aren't the least bit superficial.

This seems to be the #1 backlash against trans people, is the "you're not REALLY a woman, you're just a man with fake boobs, fake hips, and a fake vagina," or "you're not REALLY a man, you're just a woman who's had her breasts removed and a fake penis stuck on," which unfortunately is perpetuated here.

It's bulls*** like this which kept me from transitioning for so long, because I didn't know about hormones and what they do to you, and for so many years I thought my only options were either surgically-constructed femininity or no femininity at all.

It wasn't intended to be serious, it was to highlight the fact that men get paid more than women in a way everyone can understand. Neither Sarah or 99.99% of the viewers will know the details of a FTM transition, or even care to do so. This video was not aimed at the Transgender Community.

I don't think anyone is accusing it of being aimed at the transgender community nor that the collateral damage is intentional, but it is reinforcing negative perceptions of the trans community.

I disagree.

There's enough out there that can give people a bad impression of the transgender community without going and looking for it where it doesn't exist.

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/burglar-tries-on-panties_n_5966984.html
  
• http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/transgender-nicki-minaj-lookalike-spends-4203191
  
• http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/town-marshal-accused-of-stealing-womans-panties
  
• http://woodtv.com/2014/09/23/man-dressed-in-womens-clothing-assaults-employee/
  
• http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transgender-killer-bit-prison-officer-1-3565393
  

Any time we can get the transgender community out in non-jerry springer style, burgler stealing women's panties, etc way, it's a good thing for the community!

• http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a31907/mandy-and-eva-transgender-teens/
  
• http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/public-radio-series-explores-transgender-lives-and-sister-who-serves-them
  
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/06/who-we-come-transgender-documentary-_n_5941514.html
  
• http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/proposal-transgender-new-yorkers-change-birth-certificates-surgery-blog-entry-1.1965316
  
• http://www.ibtimes.com/transgender-people-wishing-change-birth-certificates-face-legal-challenges-nyc-bill-aims-1702854
  
• http://abc7.com/news/murder-of-transgender-woman-caught-on-camera/336551/
  

The portrayal of FTM in Sarah Silverman's video isn't that bad, and someone seeing this video might for the first time look up information on female to male transsexuals on the internet, find the transgender community that exists; and that gives us the chance to educate them and show them we are normal every day people.

I think too many people only see the negatives and never try to find the positives in a given situation, and this is one of those times. They just don't think it all the way though before deciding gee I don't like this.

I'm upset about this mythical 22% wage gap. I don't doubt that there is still some wage gap, but study after study has debunked this one. Dollar for dollar, across their lifetimes and across all occupations, women earn a lot less. But there are good reasons for it.

The lion's share of the disparity comes from many factors--women tend to work fewer hours, they tend to take more time off (all or mostly relating to family/childcare issues), they tend to seek more flexible hours and work situations (that often pay less), they traditionally go into lower-income professions on average, and one factor that I don't see addressed often enough, vastly more men than women are willing to, well, dicker about salary, both at the point of hire and at intervals throughout the life of the job. Most women--of my generation, anyway, and probably the subsequent ones--haven't been socialized to negotiate salary in the same way men do.

And it's not just salary. Workers can negotiate for career-enhancing opportunities, too, but women are just less likely to do that. I've seen it at one of my jobs; a female instructor was complaining about teaching opportunities afforded to some of the male instructors but not the women, and, guess what, the men had gone out of their way to REQUEST those courses and make a case for teaching them. I once heard a similar complaint about some conference opportunity--I have forgotten the exact circumstances--and the woman who was complaining simply hadn't bothered to ASK. She assumed that somebody would ask her, and it just didn't work that way. If you want it, you have to go for it. The opportunity doesn't automatically come to you.

Women with exactly the same education, qualifications, and experience do NOT receive 22% less than men for the same job. Unfortunately, that myth has been perpetuated until it's become accepted as fact, and it just isn't true.

I don't think it is that bad either, nor am I offended by it.  However, it is promoting the idea that genitals = gender instead of identity = gender.

Quote from: skin on October 10, 2014, 11:34:34 PM
it is promoting the idea that genitals = gender instead of identity = gender.

That's because for the vast majority of people that is the case, and you will never change that either no matter how much you try. Sometimes things can be changed, other times things must simply be accepted. Wisdom is knowing which is which.

Why can't that change?  Just because it is true for a majority of people doesn't mean knowledge can't be spread so that a good portion of people realize that isn't the case for everyone.  I think that idea is already spreading across the general population.  If I gave up the idea that people could accept that a penis doesn't make someone a man, then geez, my outlook would be so bleak that I would have given up on living already.