Maids have jobs that are often physically demanding, sometimes dangerous and no one can claim that cleaning other peoples toilets has status. Most maids are women....scrubbing that glass floor.

A few points:
Actually, when women enter a field, the salaries in that field decrease for everyone (i.e. it's not just an average decrease because the women earn only 70% of what the men earn; the men's salaries go down, as well)...Men, even in these "lowly" or physically demanding jobs have a stake in keeping women out of their field because evidence proves that the work itself will be devalued and salaries will decline when women are brought into the fold.
In many places a garbage collector still makes far more than a child care worker (a field which is almost exclusively staffed by women. While maybe not as "physically demanding" as heavy lifting, I for one would rather haul loads of garbage all day than look after a room full of screaming kids...so the "undesirable and taxing" nature of this work is debatable...
I don't think it's as simple as women seeing garbage and saying, "No thanks, I'm too good for that." According to The National Association of Women in Construction, women make up 10% of construction workers. That is roughly the same percentage of women in engineering or in physics.
Also, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/nontra2001.pdf) there are more female garbage collectors than female firefighters. Just because YOU don't see women doing these jobs doesn't mean that they don't do them OR that they don't want to do them. There are greater forces at work (e.g. socialization and institutional discrimination).

Karen coming with the stats! You go girl.

I should first state that it was, in fact, a question.

While I agree with most of what you say, I do take exception with a few of the words you use. You use the word "devalued" to describe the cause of the salary drop. Couldn't you just as easily attribute that to a “supply vs. demand” argument? Is it not fair to say that the lower salaries are the anticipated effect of larger pool of potential workers?

I also never meant to indicate that the women are the ones that are saying, "I'm too good for that." I would be more inclined to believe that their husbands would be saying, "No wife of mine (or other such drivel)..."

My point was only that I suspect that there are actually two forces at work, one at each end. In some ways *your* stat furthers that argument. The percentage of construction workers and the percentage of engineers are about equal.

It is not meant to be a "women choose their lots" type argument. My point was more that society tends to normalize women into a tighter band than they do men. This happens on both ends.

My views (and bluntness) are also shaped by the fact that I have married a strong, computer-science engineer that doesn't take guff! When I throw these arguments out, it is not meant to be anti-women.

p.s. I told you that the only reason that I hadn't pissed you off, is that you haven't read enough or my stuff! ;)

As for maids.. point taken with one possible exception; it is at least possible that we "tolerate"* maids because they are, for the most part, foreign. As a society we don't tend to "protect"** foreigners*** to the same degree that we "protect" "our own"****

_________
* used in a manner to describe the "no wife of mine effect"
** ibid
*** first generation americans or illegal aliens
**** integrated Americans

(and if *that* doesn't get people going, I don't know what will.... ;) )

Nah. I wasn't mad. Nor did I think you were coming at that from a place of "Stupid inferior women and their lazy good-for-nothing secretarial jobs!" The thing I had to jump on was the thing I have to jump on my students about which is, "This is what I see (or saw)...This is how things must be." I have had students tell me, for instance, that the only people they know who are on welfare are African-American, therefore everyone who is on welfare is African-American. Just making sure that none of your thoughts were based on this premise because all the garbagemen out that day were men (it is so in the State of Georgia because we use the prison population to do this work). It is the way of my people (the social scientists) to throw out some numbers and make sure everyone has the same facts to work with because we can't argue based on conflicting premises. Now that we agree that there is the same percentage of female construction workers as engineers, we can make our points: Mine was that in any male-dominated profession, men will seek to exclude women because it both lowers their salaries and devalues their work. For instance, bank tellers were once all men and that job was a prestigious job. Slowly as women entered that field, the salaries and the prestige dropped and men moved out of that field because they couldn't earn as much and it was increasingly seen as "women's work" (partly because the pay dropped so low that no man could support a family on the wages from those jobs)...ditto for teachers. Not that there aren't male bank tellers or teachers, but there is no denying that those jobs are primarily held by women and are underpaid in comparison to what they once were when they were male-dominated professions. If you are truly curious about this subject, I can ask my professors for some good articles on the feminization of the labor force. In all my years in sociology I've never once heard the term "glass floor" but that doesn't mean you should stop looking for it.
Actually, I'm lying. I've SEEN a glass floor. But it's in a Chinese restaurant in Columbus. It's so cool to watch the koi swim under your feet :)

There is a term in psychology (paraphrased of course) "correlation does not mean causation."

Let’s take the bank teller example. There could be a couple of reasons that bank teller jobs were seen as less prestigious and lower skilled. Computers (and before that calculators) took some of the skill out of it. ATMs have caused them to be a secondary means of extracting money from one’s account. Loans have become more of a commodity business. I’m not saying that you’re wrong, but I will caution you to avoid the very common trap that “your people” fall into (again and again and again). The bottom line is that you can’t compare yesterday’s pay for bank tellers to today’s pay for bank tellers.

You also suffer from the same logic when it comes to modern day teachers. However, it is for a slightly different reason (but still supply and demand of sorts). The quality of today’s teachers is much worse than yesterday’s teachers. Why? Because women entered the workforce! “What?” you ask. Historically, there were very few careers that women were permitted. One of these was that of a teacher. The bright, educated women of the past often became teachers. Those same women today might find themselves in a plethora of other jobs/careers. This has led to a degradation of the “teacher stock.” That is not to say that there aren’t quality teachers out there. My sister is one of them. The problem is that individuals rarely affect said markets.

Are we to pay today’s teachers that of their smart, educated sisters?

Perhaps I am reading more into it than I should. However, “devalue” is a loaded term when used with “women’s work.” You seem to want to just throw out the supply/demand issues.

The real question (and potentially interesting research) would be to see if there are similar rates of a glass ceiling/glass floor. You mentioned that garbage and engineer rates are similar. What about ten years ago? What about twenty years ago? Is there a good way to statistically look at these in conjunction with one another over time?

If only we knew a good social scientist! =p

One more thing – PLEASE use paragraphs!

1. Correlation does not imply causation is not a phrase in psychology exclusively. It's just a fundamental truth of statistics and not terribly impressive when you trot is out like that.

2. I'm working on your opinion from a "good social scientist" since you can't take my word for it. If you need someone with letters after their name or if you want me to cite a journal article or two, they are but an e-mail away. Although, I gotta say this: When she reads your "correlation does not mean causation" declaration, she's going to wonder why I want her to bother with an amateur.

2. I did use a paragraph. One big one. And this is a numbered list. Resorting to the form of my writing and not its content is juvenile and defensive. I know how you like to judge that stuff, but we're having a real intellectual exchange here so stick to the facts.

Please don't ask Karen to use paragraphs. I think it would interrupt the stream-of-consciousness effect that her writing tends to possess. I, myself, find it quite charming, if not even a bit intimidating.

As for women in the workplace, I have no opinion. I'm far too busy pondering Britney Spears, George Bush's latent homophobia, and the sanctity of marriage at the moment...

Don't get defensive here!

I wasn't insulting the quality of your thought. I just find it difficult to read too many lines without a break.

Paragraphs help people quickly digest information. It allows me and others to quickly read.

As for the good social scientist, I WAS SPEAKING ABOUT YOU!

If you think that the idea is without merit and shouldn't be discussed, by all means say so. This was simply a way to occupy my mind while I got coffee. I would hardly be offended. I'm not a social scientist. I don't plan on being one.

I just thought that the idea of studying the glass ceiling in relationship to a glass floor would be interesting. It is at the very least a somewhat different way to study the normalization of women in the workforce.

You happen to have hit a pet peeve (or two) of mine. I HATE it when people throw out examples where there are alternative viable explanations. I agree; the term “correlation …” is trite. However, it is also the single biggest problem that psychologists/social scientists/etc. have.

For instance:

Couples that abstain from sex before marriage have a lower divorce rate. Ergo, sex before marriage is bad. Uh… could it be that people who don’t have sex before marriage are (more often than not) very religious? Could it be that they stay together for other reasons (namely religion)?

Again, I know that you know this, but when you use examples that clearly have other viable technological and societal explanations and you then build an argument upon them as if they were fact, you have to expect me to bring it up.

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