Gear grinding and such

You know what I've been wondering about lately? (The following is going to sound sexist, most likely, but I have no control over that). Wage discrepancies based on gender. At first I figured what the majority of people figured: this doesn't make any sense and it shouldn't be going on. Then I went to the bars and bought girls drinks. And food (and this is NY I'm talking about, where I regularly pay more for a beer than I made in an hour back in college). And they... um... batted their eyelashes maybe? Okay, maybe thats an exaggeration. I'm sure they put a couple of bucks into the jukebox at some point.

Anyway, this is obviously not a universal situation. There are plenty of women out there that pay for their own drinks or don't accept drinks from strangers or even buy next round when it gets to be their turn, but in a society in which the norm is for the male to make that first move, shouldn't we get compensated for that? Especially after constantly hearing my female friends talk about how they "get guys to buy them drinks all night then give them a fake number, tee hee!" Dangnabbit that just ain't right.

Now there are going to be exceptions to this argument; say, homosexual couples, plutonic pairings, etc. but even in the case of plutonicity (I think I made that word up) I've seen the male pick up more drinks for the female than vice versa, regardless of their current income levels (I regularly take a notebook with me when I go out and record stats. I have spreadsheets of this stuff, I swear. Wait, I take back that swear, that's all a lie. But I do have a pretty good memory).

I have more gears to grind, but its almost 10pm and I have to go home now from my second job. (Which I mainly have so I can afford to buy someone a $10 vodka-cranberry because they won't drink beer).


P.S. - I really do love the ladies...