Re: A Preponderance of Females

["Cheverie, Paul [Cont]" <paul -dot- cheverie -at- GPO -dot- CANADA -dot- CDEV -dot- COM>]

Fellow Techwhirlers:
 ----------
Matt Danda writes:

>I heard someone say (not me, someone else) that wages for technical =
writers<
>have been declining as a result of more women in the profession.<
>Sarah Lee Bilmayer writes:
I've not found that to be true in my own experience...however, it does =
seem
that wages are declining.  I can't help but notice that the high demand =
for
writers has affected personnel requirements for so-called "senior" and
"managerial" positions--the qualifications sought seem to be decreasing
steadily.  <

     Trying to ascribe the rising or falling of wages to the level of
participation in the trade to a particular sex, religion or race is just a
little ridiculous in this day and age. Let me point out the painfully
obvious to those who've missed it.
The logic (or lack of logic) in the argument to this point is:
     1 - There are more women in this trade now than there were before.
     2 - Wages have decreased.....Therefore, women are the reason we're
being paid less. Which is analogous to:
     1- All dogs have four feet.
     2- My cat has four feet....Therefore my cat is a dog.

     There are also some annoying assumptions made in this argument that are
being taken as gospel truth:
     - All employers pay all women all situations less than their male
counterparts.
     - Women degrade the pay rates in occupations by their participation.
Neither of these assumptions is true.

     One last thing I would like to point out: This whole thread was started
by some pin-head using a forged address and name. The entire argument has
been manufactured for this person's amusement and we have fallen in with his
little joke without realizing that we are the ones he(or she) is laughing
at.

     I think that the wage decreases we've been hearing about on this list
are strictly regional and probably have more to do with how many available
and qualified technical writers are in any particular place or market. When
the supply exceeds the demand for technical writers, the wages paid will go
down.  The flipside of that is that when there is a level of demand that
can't be satisfied by the available supply of technical writers the wages
paid go up.

Paul C
paul -dot- cheverie -at- gpo -dot- canada -dot- cdev -dot- com