WAGE GAP INITIATIVE REPORT: GAP WIDENS AGAIN

"N.B.’s 3rd progress report about its 5-yr plan to eliminate wage inequality shows the wage gap increased in 2008, with men earning 14.1% more than women, up from 12.6% in 2007. "I'd like to see that we be able to bring it back down to where we started in 2006 within the next couple of years,” said Mary Schryer, minister for the status of women. Schryer said one reason the wage disparity continues to grow is because so much government stimulus money is going to the construction industry... Critics say the widening pay gap is a sign the government should legislate pay equity in the private sector. Schryer said it would be expensive to monitor. The Liberal government passed a law for public-sector employees… Former Tory minister Margaret-Ann Blaney, who launched the 5-yr action plan, opposed legislating pay equity when she was in government but has changed her view… Blaney said legislating pay equity is her personal view, not party policy."

Excerpts, N.B. wage gap, 18 Aug 2009, CBC News via NBWomen's News - August 24, 2009 a service of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women

Non-feminist ‘more hostile’ towards men than feminists, study finds

"...some researchers at the University of Houston decided to investigate whether it’s really true that feminists hate men. They interviewed just under 500 undergraduates, using something called the ‘Ambivalence Toward Men Inventory’.

What they found was that feminists reported less hostility towards men than non-feminists. In effect, not only does this suggest the stereotype is not true, it’s actually the reverse."

"Our work finds that, indeed, non-feminists believe in traditional gender roles such as men being breadwinners and women being caregivers. At the same time, these non-feminists actually appear to resent the confines of the traditional roles they advocate, which presents a paradox for women and men in traditional heterosexual relationships."

Read the entire entry here: the f word

Joyce Arthur: Facts and fictions about sex trafficking and Vancouver's 2010 Olympics

With the 2010 Winter Olympic Games only seven months away, there is growing speculation that trafficking in women will increase significantly in Vancouver. A major new report lays these fears to rest by debunking the alleged link between a boom in sex trafficking and large sporting events.

Download: Human Trafficking, Sex Work Safety and the 2010 Games

The 150-page report, Human Trafficking, Sex Work Safety and the 2010 Games, was commissioned by Vancouver's Sex Industry Worker Safety Action Group (SIWSAG). Warning that ill-informed assumptions about 2010 and trafficking may actually endanger sex workers, its recommendations focus on the real concern: that Games-related street closures and the planned security regime risks displacing sex workers into more dangerous and isolated areas. The report also notes community fears that street-level sex workers may be moved in an effort to "clean up the streets".

The report echoes the 2009 Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women report on sex trafficking and the 2010 Olympics, which found that "an increase of trafficking in persons into forced prostitution does not occur around sporting events". Further, the RCMP has stated that there is no evidence to suggest an increase in human trafficking during the Games (Vancouver Sun, January 7).

In the moral crusade against prostitution, trafficking is often wrongly conflated with sex work, a position first argued by the Bush Republicans who refused American funding aid to sex-worker and anti-trafficking organizations that support the decriminalization of sex work. However, trafficking in persons involves the coerced movement of a person into a situation of forced labour, while sex work is the consensual exchange of sexual services for money.

The great majority of sex workers are not trafficked or controlled by "pimps". Most are in business for themselves or work through an agency, and most work indoors, not on the street where it's far more dangerous. Conflating trafficking with sex work is wrong and, worse, can mask the real issues of violence and exploitation that occur within both trafficking and sex work. For example, trafficking victims in other economic sectors, such as construction or farm work, are ignored in the moral panic over sex trafficking.

Sex trafficking is a serious crime, but a wide range of factors makes it difficult to prevent or detect. Global estimates of trafficking victims are often no better than "guesstimates" and can be grossly over-inflated, especially prior to large sporting events. An estimated 40,000 forced prostitutes were expected in Germany for the 2006 World Cup, but they failed to show up. About 20,000 forced prostitutes were anticipated for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, but only 181 trafficked persons were actually reported in Greece for all of 2004.

Sex workers have the same right to travel and migrate as anyone else, but when they are wrongly labeled as trafficking victims, it leads to extreme human rights violations. In many countries-including Canada-this means violent raids of brothels, and the harassment, criminalization, detention, and deportation of sex workers, most of whom are voluntary workers. A huge concern is that misguided enforcement campaigns take place with no input from affected groups, including sex-worker groups, trafficked persons, migrant workers, unions, and relevant labour sectors.

The tendency to focus on international trafficking also means that domestic trafficking is given short shrift. But forced migration from rural areas of Canada to the cities is an enormous problem for aboriginal women and girls, who live with a devastating legacy from colonialism and forced assimilation. According to the Native Women's Association of Canada, many "are driven into domestic trafficking as a result by poverty and conditions on the reserve, sometimes by conditions of abuse".

The RCMP estimates that "600 women and children are trafficked into Canada each year for the purpose of sexual exploitation" (SIWSAG report). Anti-trafficking initiatives are critically important, but grossly inflating the level of trafficking and treating all female sex workers as trafficked victims does nothing to improve their safety-it only exacerbates their stigma and marginalization.

We must involve affected stakeholders and apply an evidence-based approach to prevent trafficking, rather than misrepresent the issues with scare-mongering, sexist rhetoric. Most importantly, our focus must be on ensuring the safety and full human rights of sex workers before, during, and after the 2010 Games.


Joyce Arthur is a cofounder of FIRST, a feminist group advocating for the rights of sex workers and for the decriminalization of prostitution.

Men Outearn Women in Almost All Occupations

From the Institute for Women's Policy Research:

A new analysis released by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) today on Equal Pay Day shows that men out-earn women in nearly every occupation for which data are available.

Of the more than 500 occupational categories for which sufficient data are provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in only 5 occupations do women earn the same or more than men.

Men earn more than women even in jobs that are most common among women, such as

- Administrative assistants: women earn only 83.4 cents for a man's dollar
- Elementary and middle school teachers: women earn 87.6 cents for a man's dollar
- Registered nurses: women earn 87.4 cents for a man's dollar

Men and women still tend to be concentrated in very different jobs, with the most common jobs among women paying less than the most common jobs held by men. For example, the highest paying of the ten most common occupations for women, 'Registered Nurses,' pays $1,011 in median weekly earnings, whereas the highest paying of men's top ten most common jobs is 'Managers, all other,' which pays $1,359 per week. The lowest paying of the most common
jobs for women is 'Cashier' at $349 per week, whereas the lowest paying most common job for men is 'Cook' at $404 per week.

Ariane Hegewisch, Study Director at the Institute for Women's Policy Research, says, "Women tend to be in the minority of workers in the occupations with the highest earnings. We need to ensure that women are fully informed about the earnings potential of an occupation before they
choose their careers."

The analysis uses data from the Bureau of Labor statistics from 2008.

IWPR Director of Research Dr. Barbara Gault notes, "The data paint a clear picture of a workforce that remains strongly divided on the basis of sex -- with women landing in the worst jobs our labor market has to offer, and earning less than men even in the exact same jobs. Our economy can only thrive when opportunities are equally available regardless of gender or race."

FACT SHEET

Interesting Twitter Study Findings

"Researchers followed a random sample of more than 300,000 Twitter users in May 2009 to find out how people are using the service...

The study ... looked at who follows whom on the network. It found the average man was almost twice as likely to follow another man than a woman, while the average woman was 25 per cent more likely to follow a man than a woman.

"These results are stunning, given what previous research has found in the context of online social networks," the study said.

On a typical network, most of the activity is focused around women, with men following content produced by women they do and do not know and women following content produced by women they know. Generally, men get comparatively little attention from other men or from women, the study said.

Researchers said one explanation for men finding the content produced by women less compelling may be the lack of photo sharing, biographies and similar material found on other social networks."