Obama woos white women with pay promise

Well, Nr. Obama, you can kiss off all male voters, and especially working-class male voters. Here is reality: -----http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20071118/COMMENTARY/111180005/1012 FORUM: Gender pay gap myths and 2008 November 18, 2007 A headline by Reuters on Nov. 7 was startling and certainly newsworthy: "Female U.S. corporate directors out-earn men: study." The Reuters report stands in stark contrast to the politically correct — but empirically incorrect — Associated Press story that blanketed the nation on April 23, 2007. The AP story was based on the advocacy press release of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) that claimed after one year out of college women earned 20 percent less than men and that the gap widened 10 years later to 31 percent. The AP did not tell the nation that statistical analyses accompanying the press release reduced the two purported gaps to 5 percent and 12 percent respectively. This comparison leads us to four important questions. First, can we have confidence in Associated Press stories? The answer is no. Second, is there really a gender pay gap? This answer here also appears to be no based on research published in America's most prestigious peer-reviewed Economics journal. Economist June O'Neill, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, wrote an article titled "The gender gap in wages, circa 2000" in the May 2003 issue of the American Economic Review. By factoring in some of the many work-related differences between men and women such as hours worked per week, danger and travel requirements of the job, years of education, years in the field, and many other characteristics, she found the purported pay gap virtually vanished. Third, is there really a boy and man crisis in education? Here the answer is an unqualified yes: Boys perform less well in school at all levels than do girls and have higher school drop-out rates. In higher education, men at best constitute 40 percent of the undergraduate student population and university graduates, 25 percent of psychology graduate students, and 20 percent of veterinary medicine students and etc. Fourth, what does this all mean for the 2008 elections? America does not need candidates who seek the "women's vote" by promoting the now discredited myths that women are yet again victimized in pay and education. What America needs are credible candidates who can face empirical research reality and take action that is fair both to males and females. Critically, the boy and man crisis in education unequivocally portends an overwhelming gender wage gap favoring women in the immediate and continuing future. If candidates want the "male vote" — as well as the votes of females who wish to have men intimately involved in their lives — they will ignore P.C. Ideology, face squarely empirical research reality, and propose solutions favoring gender equality. GORDON E. FINLEY, Ph.D.