Pay equality

Posted by Lizzie on Sep-5-2008

There’s a lot of talk about women’s issues this election cycle. Thanks to Hillary Clinton, and now Sarah Palin, we’re back in the spotlight. In that vein, Congress is pressing for a revote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which failed to pass previously. McCain has come out again it:

“I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what’s being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems,” the expected GOP presidential nominee told reporters. “This is government playing a much, much greater role in the business of a private enterprise system.”

I’ve recently engaged in a half-hearted IT job search - in anticipation of my eventual graduation from the Tech program. There seems to be a little available, but I’ve heard that women are not treated favorably in the IT industry. It would please me, and thousands of other women, tremendously if this actually became law. Would I know that my male counterparts were making more than me? Probably not. But this act would give me recourse should I find out about a pay discrepancy after the fact. As a woman hoping to work in a male-dominated field, I would feel just a little better knowing I had a safety net.

There was some talk that this law isn’t necessary. I beg to differ. I worked with a company (unrelated to the tech field) that cut me a mystery check. When I inquired to what the purpose of the check was, I was told that it was to make up for a pay difference between me and my male counterparts. I had no idea that the men were making that much more per hour than I was, but there was a lawsuit and the settlement agreement was that this company would pay the hourly difference to each female for whatever period of time they agreed to (I think it was 3 months, even though I’d been there for over a year at that point). I left that company not long afterward, but my eyes had been opened. The reasoning for the lower pay was that women are mothers and so are prone to miss work because of their sick children. Men, on the other hand, are more reliable and should be rewarded. Really?

At a time when a major political party has nominated a self-proclaimed “hockey mom” to be vice president, there should be no more “she should get less because she’s a mom”. This woman is seeking a job while parenting 5 children (and potentially helping parent a grandchild) so the reason listed above would apply to her and her pay should be cut significantly. Right? No. Wrong. Her husband will be able to tend to the children while she runs for office and he can tend to the children while she continues to govern Alaska (except that he’s got a full-time job plus an extra job on the side in the summer, but that’s not this issue). It’s only fair that the rest of American women enjoy the same equality in pay as the women who govern them.

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Posted in Featured, irritations

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Hit By the Big Handed Google?

Posted by Lizzie

Updated Below

Apparently Google’s out smacking the hell out of blogs again (warning: that link goes to a really long forum thread). Everyone in that thread got smacked down to a PR 0. So did I. Woot! I’ve looked around and noticed that not everyone was effected this time. There’s a huge uproar in the PayPerPost forums. People are wondering what they should do, what will Google’s next move be, where’s the money going to come from now? Of course, those hurt the worst were those that needed that little bit of extra income the most. Ah, isn’t that nice?

I’ve only just started paid blogging. I don’t spend a whole lot of time at it and only do it when the opp seems too good to pass up. Back when I was a PR 2 (hahaha!!!) I did a couple of higher priced ones, but generally I was too slow to get to them simply because everyone who had been slapped down was grabbing at them too. I’ve been keeping my options open and continued to do my own thing. I’m by no means rich from those couple of opps, but it’s nice to have that extra little bit of money in my account. That little bit of money goes up and down, but overall I’m still not wealthy. So I’m still going to take paid opportunities if they suit my fancy as well as doing other things.

I’m definitely not going to start letting Google give me fits now, after all this time of not knowing or caring about PageRank. I’m not going to boycott Google or ban them or give a damned about them anymore. I’ll change only so much as going back to 3 months ago when I had no idea what was so special about PR.

I do see some people taking action to ease their PR woes, like removing paid links or adding nofollow. Some are even removing links to their own sites from signatures. It’s sad to see Google have that kind of effect on honest people just trying to make an honest buck. Go after the scrapers and the real splogs. Lord knows enough of them have trackbacked to this site since I joined the Do Follow movement. Yet there they are, full of adsense ads and other people’s content. Gah! They don’t care about PR and they’re getting Google’s money. Go figure.

There’s one bright spot to all of this. Costa at Blog Gigs has a really funny post up called “If Your PR Hasn’t Been Demoted, You Are a Square“. It’ll make you smile even if you’re crying. Way to lighten the mood, Costa. Thanks.

Update:

Please visit this post for an up-to-date opinion on this whole flippin’ matter.

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Posted in SEO, irritations, meta

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Oct
24

Google’s at it again

Posted by Lizzie

Looks like Google’s laying some more smack down and causing a certain amount of panic among paid bloggers. In the forums of one site some bloggers are advising that we should all strip our links to other bloggers, reinstate no-follow, and pretend we don’t know anything at all about getting paid to blog. Other bloggers are suggesting all out boycotts of Google to get it across to them that THEY DON’T OWN US!

Word.

I’m not in the camp of laying down at the feet of Google and doing all they ask. I can see how some bloggers feel that they should conform, though. Still, it’s a little much to ask, isn’t it? Blogging India suggests:

Try and utilize the time to try and firefight. Remove the links, or bargain with the advertisers to have No-Follow tags inserted. STOP all viral blog chains, like Technorati Faves and stuff. Put your efforts into blogging quality content. And have patience. Google can’t do this for ever.

I’ve only just started seeing these Technorati Faves campaigns, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t work. Technorati brings more traffic to any of my blogs than Google. That tells me that more readers frequent Technorati for content. This is wrong? Google probably doesn’t like it and that’s fine. But I’m not going to stop living my life to benefit Google. I do agree that quality content is important and have been questioning my decision to begin doing paid blogging. Still, I have some short-term goals and I need money to meet those goals. What to do? I’m certainly not going to stop linking. That just goes against everything blogging was born to be. Shoot, that goes against everything the WEB is about! We see a site that interests us, we link. We don’t put a "no-follow" in the link because we want the support the sites we like. That makes no sense to me. I like Beth’s (AFrogToKiss.net) idea a little better. She says:

Do as I did-stop using anything Google. Un-install Google Earth, Google Desktop, don’t use Google Reader, DO NOT for any reason use Google as your search engine. Do not use Adsense- we all know very few make money from it anyway, except for those who kiss Google’s ass and, well, Google. If you visit a blog or website using Adsense and you see a product you’re interested in- DO NOT CLICK THE LINK. Not only is the owner of the site making money, but Google as well. Back away, go to Yahoo, Ask.com, MSN, and do a search. Most of the “deals” on Adsense aren’t really deals and I can guarantee if it’s something you buy, you can find it cheaper someplace else.

Stop kissing Google’s ass. Don’t give Google the power. Google is feeling a pinch in it’s pocketbook from all the link adverts. And it’s completely understandable that they want to protect that bottom line, which means sucking juice away from sites that aren’t giving them the money. They’re a business and they need to profit. But they don’t need to control the Web and force website owners/bloggers to lay down and take it for them. They shouldn’t have that power. So, that means quit writing for Google! Don’t worry about Google. Another search engine is going to see a profit potential from what Google is doing and come in to reap the rewards. There’s big money to be made here and the people shelling out the money know this. They’re not going to let Google stop them. Why should we? I can’t stop using my GMail, though. I’m sorry, Beth. It’s way better than Yahoo! and MSN, so I’m stuck with that. I have already stopped using Google search and have never used BlogSearch (Technorati still rocks my socks for blogsearching). I don’t want to give my personal power to Google, but I don’t want to see them go completely away. Just, maybe, go down a couple of pegs. Because they don’t own the Web- we do.

Update:

Funny thing I just noticed. My political site is up from a PR 0 to a PR 3 since yesterday. That’s funny to me because until recently PR never mattered to me and the traffic I get there is minimal. It’s a deeply political blog that would never pass muster with some people, but I guess Google’s kind of fond of it.