There is a Reason They Don't Call 'Em Brains Contests

Poor Marissa Powell, Miss Utah 2013, who followed Miss South Carolina 2007's lead
when asked an obviously falsely based "think a deep thought" question under hot lights of the 2013 Miss USA beauty pageant in the only possible way, by uttering some incomprehensible gibberish.

By way of Stacy McCain: If We ‘Create Education Better,’ People Might Learn the Wage Gap Is a Myth

Everybody is laughing at Miss Utah, Marissa Powell, for her stumbling answer to a Miss USA pageant question, but no one seems to have pointed out that the question, asked by reality-TV personality NeNe Leakes, was based on a persistent feminist fallacy:

“A recent report shows that in 40 percent of American families with children, women are the primary earners, yet they continue to earn less than men. What does it say about society?”

Well, yes, anyone with an ounce of brains or bit of experience in the real world understands the problems with such off the top of the head statistics, but they are so commonplace that the average low information voter can be forgiven for believing them, if not for being a low information voter in the first place.  Even the POTUS, prompted no doubt by TOTUS, seems to still put stock in that notion, at least when it's useful to pander to the distaff side's discontent.

Well, for that matter, I “continue to earn less than” reality-TV stars, but the claim that this says anything “about society” — i.e., the feminist myth that the so-called “wage gap” is a product of sexist discrimination — falls apart under critical scrutiny. In fact, when you control for such factors as time on the job and educational background, so that you’re comparing apples to apples, practically the entire earning differential between men and women disappears. As economist Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute observed last year, “common perceptions of the gender pay gap” are ” vastly exaggerated”:

A more accurate description would be "full of shit", but I guess an economist with the AEI probably can't say that publically, at least not very often.

The fault lies mainly with the press, who irresponsibly assert massive gender pay discrimination that doesn’t truly exist.

As for the now famous answer by Marissa Powell:

You haters can go “create education better” if you want. We’re just going to look at Miss Utah in her bikini.

Really, I have a lot of sympathy for Miss Powell.   I don't do well speaking publicly, and I'm sure being under hot lights and wearing minimal and uncomfortable clothing would probably have me spouting nonsense too.

And since it's a beauty pageant and not a brains pageant, more pictures of the beautiful Miss Powell below the fold.

Wombat-Socho at The Other McCain checks in with his weekly compendium of  the original Rule 5 series "Rule 5 Monday" in a plain brown wrapper.