There’s a good article in Aftenposten today about how marriage and parenthood affect salary for women vs. men. It basically confirms my view that women cannot expect to receive equal pay, beause they don’t do equal work.

- Så lenge de fleste mødre tar ut nesten hele foreldrepermisjonen, ligger lønnsforskjellene nærmest nedfelt i permisjonsordningen, siden det å få barn medfører tap av arbeidserfaring og arbeidstilknytning for kvinner, mens den ikke gjør det for menn, sier Terje Høgsnes til forskning.no.

- Tida utenfor arbeidslivet gir mødrene dårligere vilkår i konkurransen om høyere stillinger og dermed høyere lønn, forklarer han.

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- Det er lite som tyder på at arbeidsgiverne diskriminerer, sier han.

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Ulikhetene i lønnsnivået har dermed mye å gjøre med hvem som får hvilke stillinger, og at flest menn blir ledere.

Roughly translated, so long as mothers take out their entire allotted maternity leave, differences in pay are practically inherent in the parental leave system, since having children results in a loss of work experience and networking for women, whereas this is not the case for men. “Time spent out of employment gives women worse conditions in the competition for higher positions and therefore higher salary,” says researcher Terje Høgsnes. Høgsnes goes on to say that there’s little evidence that employers are discriminating against mothers—that differences in compensation reflect differences in position, and that most managers are men.

This has always been my point in discussions on this subject. Men invest more time in their careers than women, so it’s only fair that they get compensated for it. You can only expect to benefit from a job you do. You benefit from parenthood in a number of ways when you do that job, but as parenthood takes time and attention away from your day job, you should expect that fact to be reflected in your salary as well as in the positions you get. I’d expect things to work the same way for anyone who took on more than one full-time job. Which is what parenting is.

…by Golden Boy and Miss Kittin is the best song EVAR.

The video is pretty cool, too.

Cyanide and Happiness is a hilarious webcomic I just found.

I just finished reading all six of the Fitz books by Robin Hobb, and am completely addicted. Which is a problem, because my supply has totally run out. I’ve read a lot of fantasy fiction in my life, but I have to say that this is probably the series that I’ve enjoyed most. The characterization is just amazing—incredibly rich—and the fact that the storyline covers the main characters’ lives from childhood through adulthood really makes you feel like you know them. And six books! I guess it’s not surprising that I got caught up in the story, reading them all in a row. I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever been this emotionally affected by…well…any sort of media. And I don’t think it’s my meds. I mean, I had to keep myself from blubbering on the plane back from Bergen when Nighteyes died.

Needless to say, now that I’m done reading the books, I miss the world and the characters. The Fool and Fitz especially, of course! Their relationship is just…indescribably romantic. Being frustrated by the way the books ended —Molly is nowhere near good enough for Fitz!— I went searching the web for more…only to find that Hobb doesn’t allow fanfic! She does allow fanart, however: check out the slashy and probably NSFW pic by Miarr that converted me to the joys of fanart. Christ almighty. I also recommend checking out Miarr’s other Farseer art.

I’ve started the Liveship Traders series now. It’s set in the same world, and also has The Fool in his alter-ego Amber. I guess I can look at this series my methadone. I just home that Hobb discovers more of Fitz and The Fool’s tale to tell.

New research results are out that suggest that vitamin D reduces cancer risk. I found out about this study because it was on the first page of Aftenposten.no: Solvitamin mot kreft.

It’s funny to read the Norwegian spin on the article. Dr. Johan Moan, the Norwegian researcher who analyzed these results for their relevance to the Norwegian population, says that if Norwegians spent twice as much time in the sun as they do now, the number of people dying from skin cancer would increase from 200 to 500 each year, but that the total number of deaths from cancer could possibly be reduced many times over. He suggests that if Norwegians would lay out in the sun regularly, while avoiding getting sunburned, the population might reap the benefits of increased vitamin D levels while avoiding the downsides of sun exposure. According to Moan, it’s actually medically irresponsible to recommend that people stay out of the sun, but he goes on to say that humans only need to be in the sun around “en tidel av en halvtime” in order to make enough of this vitamin—that’s three minutes a day! Somehow I cannot imagine that Norwegians get only 1.5 minutes of sun exposure on average per day–not in the summer, at least.

It’s fun to read the comments to the Norwegian article. Norwegians have absolutely no “solvett”—sense about how to behave in the sun. What with the dark winters, when summer comes around they just want to sit around in the sun the whole time. It’s considered crazy, bordering on immoral, if you don’t want to sit out in the sun. These people actually still lay out! They have the skin to show for it, too: Norway actually has the third-highest rate of skin cancer in the world, and very many people here have skin that looks like well-tanned and broken-in leather. There is absolutely no awareness of the fact that any color you get from sunning yourself is actually skin damage. The idea of getting a base tan as protection against sun exposure is common. Nobody here uses sunscreen—most are afraid that it causes cancer, and they consider SPF 10 to be high-factor protection. I’m quite sure that people are going to hear the “lay out in the sun twice as much” part of the message while tuning out the “three minutes daily” part of the article.

Yesterday the temperature here in Oslo got well over 90° F (32°C) and the sun was shining like holy hell. I had to be out of the house all day since the floor was being lacquered, and I couldn’t find anyplace to be that had AC. I had to go to the ceramics lab at 3 in the afternoon. Nobody was there, so the place had been closed up tight all day, and the kiln was on. Walking into the workshop there felt like walking into the kiln itself. My clay felt like the flesh of someone with a fever. There is no ventilation in the workshop, other than the little you can get from propping the front door open. I actually started getting the symptoms of heat stroke, and had to go sit outside in the shade and drink another half-liter water. When I was cleaning up the place before going home, I noticed that a small amount of water in a pitcher I’d left out on the table was warm to my touch—it felt like bathwater. So it had to have been well over 100°F (38°C) in there.

The floor sanders had kicked me out on Wednesday, too, so I took the dog with me to Johannes’s parents’ house. Being a bulldog, she did not tolerate the hot weather well. When she would collapse and need to take a little break from walking to sit down, people would stop and ask me if I had water for her. Duh! She didn’t calm down until I took her to the fountain outside Oslo S. She hadn’t been in that fountain before, but something tells me it’s going to become a favorite.

Norwegians love this weather. They were out in droves in the park after I left the ceramics lab yesterday. The air over the park was a blue haze of grill and pot smoke.

As for me, I missed the weather of a week ago, when it was 46°F (8°C) and rainy!