Okay! a can of worms this one is right?
The U.S supreme court ruled a few days ago to (essentially) legalise same sex marriage, something gay/lesbian activists have been advocating (“fighting” if you will) for for decades.
I have thoughts, feelings and opinions on the issue, it’s my right to.
Many people may not like my thoughts feelings and opinions and that is ok, they don’t have to, but this IS my blog and so it’s my place to add my opinion to the internet discussion.
With that said, I’d ask that if anyone is actually inclined to investigate my opinions (and hey! it could happen), then before people condemn me for them (if they reflexively disagree on an emotional level), that they truly read and consider everything I’m trying to say here.
The first thing I want to say is that I believe all love is and should be treated equal. I respect any human's right to love whomever they choose, regardless of race, sex appearance or any other factor what-so-ever.
Everyone needs love, both to give and receive it.
With that said, I don’t think marriage is solely about recognising to people's love for one and other.
Marriage is NOT just a piece of “paper” and NOT just a concept supported by various religions and churches.
Marriage is very much a legal concept that is tied heavily in with socio-economics.
Marriage affords things like tax and financial benefits.
SO! with that in mind, I think one must broaden their view of social “equality” (for every human, including heterosexuals and females) before same-sex marriage and its repercussions can be fully understood.
I watched a video on youtube last night in which a gay man stated that “no-one looses as a result of this ruling” (I gather by “looses” he meant: suffers a disadvantage of some form in life).
I think only time will tell, but! my personal suspicion is that the female sex and anyone who is in a heterosexual union will (probably without realising it to begin with) suffer in the long term, from a socio-economic stand point.
Why?
Because females aren’t “equal” to males in a socio-economic sense and by many, also aren't considered "equal" on a societal level . most of us don’t (and can’t) do equal work, and most of us don’t get equal pay, and males cannot have babies, and therefore do not get or need the supposed concessions females are generally afforded (most of which are the REASONS females aren’t treated equally)
SO! a legal union with all the economic benefits marriage affords, with none of the financial and economic disadvantages that come with (at least one partner) being female, will afford a married all male couple a clear financial and economic advantage over any couple or legal union where (at least) one partner is female.
Thus, women "loose" overall, and gay marriage actually moves society closer towards inequality.
So some will say: “ok, just pay females equally, and give them equality”.
To do that in the manner most would need for it to be officially recognised, would mean trying to circumvent our biological reality as a species.
I own a business of my own. If I’m to employ someone to do a particular job, I have to pay them out of the money my business makes from the labour the employee provides me, combined with the resources and labour I provide by myself.
If I employ a female, the I have to budget from that same amount of income, to continue to pay her if she needs maternity leave to have a child, yet I’m NOT able to sell her labour in order to make that income, so I also need to pay someone else to provide that labour in her stead. I don’t have to consider that if I employ a male.
It is simply more expensive to employ females than it is males and there is NOT endless money in the world and I do not make endless profit (no business does, although some seem to go close).
Biological reality means that females simply cannot perform equal work to males, I wish it wasn’t the truth but it is, that’s NOT my fault, that is nature.
SO! to pay females (seemingly) equally to males means that males need to do (even) MORE of the hard work and earn LESS money for doing it
Here’s a newsflash! males (statistically speaking, most of whom are heterosexual) already do the most and the hardest of the work in the world.
I’m not talking about business men, or white collar workers here, I’m talking about men like my boyfriend. I’ talking about the blue collar workers, plumbers, mechanics, electricians, truck drivers, the hard PHYSICAL work (including the stuff that is most detrimental to a persons health)
Those guys already work the hardest, and they already are underpaid for what they do, If you make their socio-economic position worse by reducing the worth (socially) of what they earn from the hard work they do, then soon enough they’ll have nothing to loose in life. they’ll revolt, and they’ll take back the balance of power (socially) that they had/have, and they WON’T do it using a legal system that betrayed them, they’ll do it by force, because that is what nature gifted them.
And then nature and biology will show “society” exactly who IS in charge.
And that will NOT be a very “fun” time to be female or homosexual.
I’m all for equality, I think that until now, with the recognition same-sex marriage, we’ve been pretty close to as “equal” as we’re able to get.
That doesn’t mean we’re all treated “the same” in the world (but then we aren’t all the same are we? do you truly want to be the same as everyone else?).
And that comes from a woman who most people believe (or would argue) is actually just a gay man who went "to far". If I end up married, then the legal recognition of gay marriage can only help protect my marriage if people try to question it's legitimacy.
I STILL don't think the time was right for it.
And that comes from a woman who most people believe (or would argue) is actually just a gay man who went "to far". If I end up married, then the legal recognition of gay marriage can only help protect my marriage if people try to question it's legitimacy.
I STILL don't think the time was right for it.
You make some excellent and interesting points but the reason many of the "advantages" or "disadvantages" exist is NOT usually based on actual ability or cost but rather perceived ability or cost, or the lack thereof. We can look at the firefighter profession in the US-despite their insistence that women are not as capable of fighting fire and saving their comrades, greater than 100 firefighters die each year-rarely are there women among them; almost never was there a woman in charge of the incident. Almost always, the deaths are a result of someone not following SOPs and has nothing to do with brute strength or superior leadership. In fact, most deaths are the result of colossal errors in judgement. As long as the world continues to measure ability by brute strength as a means of assessing greater ability, there will continue to be inequity. The same quality that makes men perhaps more physically capable may also make them prone to making unwise decisions in dangerous situations. Here in the US, the notion that women "cost" businesses more because of maternity leave is not as applicable as it once was: first of all, it is unlawful to charge women more for their insurance. Secondly, in this day and age of telecommuting, were more companies to provide that for pregnant women, or men recovering from less serious surgeries even, the companies would incur far less losses, if they in fact incur any. Most companies I've worked for simply make the remaining employees pick up the alleged "slack" that the sick employee, or employee on maternity leave has allegedly created.
ReplyDelete(part 2) I think your points are incredibly interesting because yes, gay male couples will come out on top financially because men ALWAYS make more than women, regardless of profession or education in the US, with one notable exception: American women of Asian descent with a Bachelor's degree will make more than an American man of African descent. Otherwise, ALL men in ALL jobs and ALL levels of education will make more than ALL women with the same job, education, and experience. You would think that as more and more American families require two incomes to be secure that men would be pissed off that their wives make 80% of what an equally qualified man will make. If we removed names and genders from everything-resumes, applications, loans, promotional processes, women would be far more ahead and marriage would have a greater potential for financial equality regardless of the genders, or races, of the persons involved.
ReplyDeleteHere's some recent stats I just found:
Mothers Participation in the Labor Force
The labor force participation rate of mothers with children under 18 years of age was 69.9 percent in 2013, 74.7 percent for mothers with children 6-17 years of age, and 63.9 percent for mothers with children under 6 years of age, 61.1 percent for mothers with children under 3 years of age, and 57.3 percent for mother of infants (2013 annual averages).
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.toc.htm (Tables 5 and 6), 2013 annual averages.
The labor force participation rate for single mothers with children under 18 years of age was 74.2% in 2013, and 67.8% for married mothers –spouse present -with children under 18.
Note: Single mothers include never married; married, spouse absent; divorced; separated; and widowed persons. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.toc.htm (Tables 5 and 6), 2013 annual averages.
In 2014, 92.8 percent of all fathers with children under age 18
participated in the labor force. The rate for married fathers with a
spouse present (93.7 percent) continued to be higher than the
participation rate for fathers with other marital statuses (87.1
percent). Married fathers had a lower unemployment rate (3.2 percent)
than fathers with other marital statuses (8.7 percent). (See table 5.)
Retrieved from: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.nr0.htm
She pointed out that while some rising women leaders in Corporate America could and did outsource their child care to a live-in au-pair or nanny, it was not a realistic option for most other female employees: "It is hard to GET to executive management if you can't put in the same kind of hours as your male colleague. The patriarchal corporate structure will have to collapse upon itself and re-build from the ground up before it is truly a working mom- friendly atmosphere!"
• Ask Yourself "Does Your Company Have a Baby Penalty?" A new baby in the house can significantly alter the family's work dynamic. As parents we need to have a Plan B or even Plan C in place to deal with our kids' emergencies. So, if female employees are leaving work promptly at 5pm to pick up their kids or taking days off to deal with a sick child, ask yourself if you are penalizing them for having kids. Consider the option to let them have more flexible work hours that can lead to a big productivity boost from their end.
Jeffery Tobias Halter is the country's leading male expert on engaging men in women's leadership issues. He is the author of two books, WHY WOMEN, The Leadership Imperative to Advancing Women and Engaging Men and Selling to Men, Selling to Women.
Read more on his website: www.ywomen.biz
Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffery-tobias-halter/women-in-the-workplace-th_b_7557312.html
(he had some good and viable solutions too)
WOW!
DeleteGirl, that's quite an in depth response!! (thank you).
I'm going to try NOT no go off on too much of a tangent here, the post was simply about the issue of gay marriage, my observations, and why I wasn't for it as yet, it wasn't my intention to bring up female equality on such a scale and go all "feminista" on the interweb's big ol' ass.
However, I read (most of) your comment, I'm coming off a 17 hour shift at work right now, and am up to 65 hours work for my week so far, so please forgive me if I miss any relevant points you've made.
Firstly I want to address this:
You make some excellent and interesting points but the reason many of the "advantages" or "disadvantages" exist is NOT usually based on actual ability or cost but rather perceived ability or cost, or the lack thereof.
Ok, I’m not about to say that this isn’t true in many cases, however, the impression I get from what you’ve written (perhaps it is how it is worded) is that you believe it is a statement of indisputable FACT, and that prejudice based on sex is most always the dominant factor?
Here’s the deal for me (and this is the standpoint from which I wrote what is written in this post):
I believe myself to be female. (for the purposes of what I’m about to write, no, I can’t have babies, I know that, but most people don’t know that, and yes, I am self-employed, so please keep this in context)
Most people in my daily life believe the same of me (that I’m female).
I work daily in male dominated industries, I am “hands on”, and I do EVERYTHING, I fix equipment, I operate equipment, I allocate work-load and manage fatigue, I do our administration, I handle safety compliance and more, you name it, I’m “it” . I am the director of “our” (my boyfriend and I) company, and in the two years we’ve been operating, we’ve been pretty successful relative to others, to the point where not only I, but also my boyfriend, get quite a lot of harassment from others (his/our “peers”) about me, a great many men don’t like to see a woman capable and doing well in “their” industry, it makes them feel quite threatened, and that’s just the men that will acknowledge that I actually play some part in the fact that we’re doing as well as we are, many don’t even acknowledge me at all and attribute our success entirely to my BF.
So believe me, I “get” the whole prejudice based on sex thing that you’re talking about.
HOWEVER! I have no prejudice (personally) against females as employees. If I can do the things I do, why can’t other women? I believe with all my heart that they can, otherwise, in order to get to sleep at night I’d need to “act” incapable, I absolutely loathe and detest hypocrisy.
So when I used the example I did in my post (above) about how I’d have to budget additional money to employ a female over a male, I was simply being “matter of fact” about it, I’m not from your country, where I’m from, maternity leave is non-negotiable and remuneration is the responsibility of the employer.
DeleteNow, whilst I’m addressing your first comment, the other issue I have is the “telecommuting” you suggest as an example.
Telecommuting is all very good provided it can be applied to the type of work being performed.
you used firefighters as an example, how exactly does a pregnant woman fight fires over the phone? is that an issue I (as an employer) am more or less likely to have should I employ a male? (hard to say definitively, but I’m pretty sure if I had to bet my house on it…..)
Right, so where am I headed?
The key to financial and meritorious equity is awareness of bias, which will lend itself readily to educational opportunities to ameliorate bias. Until such time, women will be correct in believing they’ve come a long way, but not long enough.
Personally, I would say that the key to financial and meritorious equity is to actually perform equally in the labour force (not just segments of it).
The big problem with that (and this comes from personal experience) is that to be perceived (at least initially, until “perceptions” start to change) as performing “equally” women actually need to perform at a higher level (than males), so that males cannot ignore us.
Lastly, I have a personal question for you to ruminate on:
Do you believe that every woman or almost every woman should conceive and give birth to one or more children, should it be EVERY woman’s “right” to breed?
Not every man gets to breed in his lifetime, but I’d guarantee you that most women do.
rather than expecting the world to make life easier for women who (at least in most cases) make a choice of their own free will to have children, do you think that there might be some merit in changing the way we raise our daughters, and starting to encourage them that to choose NOT to have babies, is a valid and noble choice?
Does the planet need it’s population increased that badly and that constantly? (it struggles to support our species as things are now)
How would you feel about the idea of couples having to “apply” to governing bodies for approval to conceive a child and have that approval based on“means” testing?
Re: the telecommuting, women fighting fires over the phone: public safety jobs certainly require that people be physically capable of doing the job. However, the public safety area is comprised of all kinds of office jobs that must support those who are doing the physical work. When men get injured or sick, they are usually given "light duty" jobs without question. When women become pregnant, they are told that such "light duty" jobs don't exist. This is happening in the county I live in and the neighboring county-I worked in both counties and watched women work in the field into their 7 month of pregnancy. Personally, I think employers should accommodate the realities of biology; but I recognize that not everyone feels that way. BUT, if you offer light duty for work and non work-related injuries and illnesses for one group, you must offer it for all groups. Some will say that women don't HAVE to get pregnant, and that is certainly true. But men who engage in activities that get them hurt or sick, off duty didn't HAVE to do that either. My issue is the discrepancy.
DeleteThe US system is different than in other industrialized countries in the world. No offense, but I do not believe that even a blue-collar industry cannot find work for their pregnant, ill or injured employees to do to help run the business. Let's face it, most businesses are never caught up on paperwork, filing, training, organizing...you name it. Instead, most companies let those jobs fall to the wayside until they MUST be done. If you must pay your pregnant or postpartem employees, give them jobs they can do that will help your business. Be creative-let her come in after hours, bring the baby if she has to, to overhaul a filing system. Forward calls and emails to her to handle for when employees take lunch breaks, go on vacation, or are sick. Yes, you'll still have to fork out money to cover her absence, but you do that when men get hurt or can't work because they're sick. Business owners are always crying about issues like this when the bottom line is they simply aren't thinking outside of the box enough to address these issues. The fact of the matter is people get sick, injured, pregnant-if employers don't plan for this ahead of time, that's their poor management. But since owners/managers are at the top of the heap, they can afford to blame the employee because no one believes the employee. I'm a believer in true leadership and management-when I lead and manage, it's my job to ANTICIPATE such events and PLAN for them ahead of time so that my business is efficiently run.
DeleteAs far as the timing of allowing gay marriage-I am an avid believer in the Constitution. I think our Supreme Court has done a huge disservice in interpreting the Constitution by attempting to guess at what our country is "ready" for. There is no wording that says states may deny or abridge rights or privileges based on what the population is ready for. What the constitution SAYS nearly verbatim is that states MAY NOT pass laws that deny or abridge any citizen's rights or privileges (so whether you think marriage is a right, or not, it doesn't matter-states aren't supposed to deny any group of citizens rights or privileges that are permitted to another group of citizens). It's appalling to me that our Law of the Land, the Supreme Court, juxtaposes their personal views on it. Yes, my personal view things gay marriage should be legal, but that's because it fits with my other personal view regarding rights and privileges: is the person of legal age? Has the person consented without duress? Will the person's actions not hurt anyone directly? Is the person a law-abiding citizen, or here legally? If all answers are yes, then what is the freaking problem?
DeleteAnd your question about merit in raising our children to not have children-I will not advise my daughter of that unless I also advise my sons of that. I realize being the mother of 3 children will out me for the hypocritical statement I"m about to make, but back when I had babies, there was little talk of how dangerously high the world population was, yet, yes, I think humanity in general needs to slow down on the reproducing...and dramatically.
Regarding rights to breed-we all have rights that should always be juxtaposed against what will bring about the greatest good for the greatest number. So, yes, it's my body and thus my right to breed...but that doesn't mean I need to exercise that right 8 times...or at all. But no, I am not interested in having government in on my child-bearing choices where they can tell me "yes" or "no." However, if a government wanted to offer incentives, that's another story. But that would be something they would have to put out there a good 10+ years before implementation.
I'll admit you surprise me at your conservative views on equality, especially by gender. A lot of people think woman are most costly than men, but I wonder how many have actually crunched the numbers. And are those numbers then compared to productivity across the board? It's easy and convenient for employers to assume women cost more than men, as employees by chalking it up to the whole maternity thing...but I don't trust the personal experience of 1, 2 or 20 people. I trust numbers that have been crunched comparing thousands of apples with thousands of oranges. People skew things all the time...computers rarely do.
Perhaps you're right and I don't know my situation well enough P, perhaps my perceptions aren't reality and I lack foresight when it comes to planning.
DeletePerhaps I'm a homophobe, a bigot and maybe even a mysogynist, who knows right? I can't tell you what you should believe.
Perhaps I'm simply a young woman who desperately seeks to be a mother herself but can't get pregnant and perhaps I face a world that does nothing to help me and my partner become parents, and a society that uses our infertility to invalidate us as people and as "real" men and women at every possible opportunity.
And perhaps I take exception to the very same people who invalidate me as a female
(due to my inability to menstruate and get pregnant) then having the gall to turn around (whilst spitting in my face) and expect me to make it easy for them and pay for them to have the thing I so desperately want and cannot have.
Please re-read my comment to Andrea P, slower this time including (especially in fact) the part where I wrote that it should be just as valid and noble for a girl to CHOOSE not to have children.
I never said we should encourage our daughters to not have children, I suggested (rather) that maybe we could teach our daughters (and ok, sons too if you insist, but I'm confident most of the boys already understand this anyway) that children are a CHOICE (not an requirement) of womanhood.
Something else I think you should know (for the sake of context) is that in my country, employers are under no obligation to accommodate employees who injure themselves whilst off duty (regardless of their sex)
Thank you for your thoughts, I hope you're well
P.S I'm all for "equality" in the long run, in truth I don't give a fuck who marries who, however (the point of the post) I don't see how women's lives will ever get easier by anything that will (in this case financially) empower males and in this case (especially) gay males, who typically don't have much use for females, except as incubators if they want a baby.
DeleteIf that makes me a bigot, then I'm a bigot! I'm not sorry, I'm honest, I call things as I see them.
Unemployment Rates
ReplyDeleteWomen’s unemployment rate in 2013 was 7.1 percent, compared to 7.6 percent for men.
The unemployment rate of White women was 6.2 percent, of Black or African American women 12.1 percent, of Asian women 4.8 percent, and 9.5 percent of women of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity.1,2
The unemployment rate of women 25 years of age and older with less than a high school diploma was 12.6 percent, 8.1 percent for those with a high school diploma, no college, 5.5 percent for those with an associate’s degree, and 3.8 percent for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher.3
Sources: Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics- Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey. 1http://bls.gov/cps/cpsaat03.htm; 2http://bls.gov/cps/cpsaat04.htm; 3http://bls.gov/cps/cpsaat07.htm (2013 annual averages)
Highlights
■ In 2012, there were 36.5 million hospital stays in the United States, with an average length of stay of 4.5 days and an average cost of $10,400 per stay.
■ The rate of hospitalization decreased by an average of 0.3 percent per year from 2003 to 2008 and by an average of 1.9 percent per year from 2008 to 2012. Between 2003 and 2012, average inflation-adjusted hospital costs increased by 1.8 percent per year.
■ About 56 percent of hospital stays in 2012 were medical, 21.8 percent were surgical, and 22.2 percent were maternal or neonatal.
■ Females had a higher rate of hospitalization in 2012 than did males, but males had a longer average length of stay and higher average cost per stay.
■ In 2012, patients residing in low income communities had a higher rate of hospitalization, a longer length of stay, and lower average hospital costs compared with patients in higher income communities.
■ The rate of hospital stays in 2012 was lower in the Pacific and Mountain divisions than in the other Census divisions. Patients hospitalized in the Northeast had the longest length of stay and patients in the West had the highest average hospital costs.
■ From 2003 to 2012, the share of hospital stays billed to private insurance decreased from 36.6 to 30.6 percent.
Retrieved from: http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb180-Hospitalizations-United-States-2012.pdf
If you're interested-here's a paper I wrote on a similar topic:
ReplyDeleteTo the Victor, the Spoils:
Gender bias in equitable pay and opportunity
American Public University System
Abstract
While the origin of the phrase, “To the victor go the spoils” is American (Freidel & Sidey, 2006), the practice has been in existence since antiquity (Ostenberg, 2009). The premise is that the empowered are entitled to all that was won from the conquered; the concept of fair play, however, is irrelevant. In terms of socially prescribed roles, the dynamic prevails, with the empowered enjoying the spoils in the form of top wages, leadership and promotional opportunities. Much of the continued lack of fair play can be traced to the longevity of prejudice. Sexism, and racism, for that matter, is a result of individuals’ inability or, refusal, to recognize the propensity in themselves; education of its reality, both in school and at work, can make persons more aware of their socialized biases and more likely to accept that prejudice is real, so that effective change can be realized. Bias, regardless of type, is a human experience. While racism and sexism share many similarities and outcomes, this paper will consider race, but will otherwise exclusively examine the underpinnings of the hegemony of gender, and its bi-product, gender bias and the economic effects of both on women in an effort to: first, document and substantiate the authenticity of gender bias through the citation of peer-reviewed materials and statistics that reveal the results of gender bias in the forms of lack of corporate upward mobility, and financial compensation, as well as the resultant dearth of women in traditionally male-dominated fields; next, compare and contrast implicit and explicit bias in an effort to explain the role of implicit bias as a perpetuator of inequity; and finally, consider the role education and training can play in raising awareness and reducing implicit bias so that women can acquire more equitable roles and paychecks in the business world.
Keywords: Sexism, pay inequity, bias, implicit bias, inequity, queuing theory, occupations
“You’ve come a long way, baby.” This slogan, used to market and sell a new brand of cigarettes designed for women, was a smashing success for its original purpose: to sell cigarettes to women (Horrigan, 2011). It also became a cultural icon in America as its introduction in 1968 coincided with the feminist movement of that decade. As the original advertisement did not include the word, “baby,” it was added over the years as the face of the campaign morphed to be more pro-feminist in its approach. Early ads depict women, always attractive, always slim, and nearly always Caucasian, as coming a long way from (usually depicted in black and white photos to denote the past) the drudgery and second class position in society associated with the female role, to the “new” opportunity of women to be autonomous and independent without sacrificing their femininity (Horrigan, 2011). The phrase continues to be utilized over forty years later in response to women still attempting to capture true equity in America. Rather than a phrase to congratulate women, it is often used as a means of silencing the women who point out that women still lag behind men considerably in a myriad of documentable ways.
The most obvious, oft-quoted and objective data that can be cited as evidence of inequity is the disparity in pay. While women have come a long way, it has not been a straightforward path in pay equity. For example, in 1951, women earned 63.9% of what men earned. However, by 1973, women only earned 56.6% of what men earned (U.S. Women’s Bureau and the National Committee on Pay Equity, n.d.). An additional eleven years passed before women’s earnings reached what they had been in 1951. Since 1984, women’s income has risen every year, with an occasional exception; today, women’s income is in the range of 80-82% of men’s income. The race of the man is the determining factor with women making 82% of what all men make, and 80% of what white men earn (Ashton, 2014).
ReplyDeleteThe argument has been made that the income disparity is not a result of sexism but rather is a result of the occupations men and women choose. There is some truth to that in that many traditional “female” occupations have lower pay scales, as a rule. Whether those occupations merit a lesser degree of financial compensation is beyond the scope of this paper. However, there are studies that compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, as it were, to denote that even in identical occupations with identical education, that men of all races will outpace women of nearly all races in median earnings.
The chart below demonstrates that the pay disparity increases with education. Women will outpace men in weekly earnings in one instance: Asian women with a bachelor’s degree will earn more than a Black man with the same degree.
Branin, the Director for the Center of Health and Aging, with a Masters in Health Administration (2009), notes that while women are holding top executive roles more frequently than ever before, there is still a significant wage disparity:
ReplyDeleteControlling for education and years of experience, female healthcare executives earn an average of 18 percent less than their male counterparts. This gender wage gap was comparable to prior studies in 1990, 1995, and 2000 when women with similar characteristics earned 18, 17, and 19 percent less respectively than men did. In 2005, women on average earned $107,800 and men earned on average $131,000, a difference of $23,200 or 18 percent.
In male dominated professions, unfortunately, the women in top levels of leadership are under-represented, as well. Without question, women comprise a far smaller percentage of employees in those professions, so it would be expected that women in positions of leadership and particularly top leadership would be quite few in comparison to their male counterparts. However, the number of women in leadership in male-dominated professions typically does not resemble the number of women in the profession. The U.S. military however is a notable exception where women comprise 16% of the military and 16% of military leadership (Germain, Herzog & Hamilton, 2012).
While pay disparities continue, the reasons for women not achieving leadership in male dominated professions differ from the rationales in female dominated professions in some ways. When considering the professions of firefighters, commercial airline pilots and other occupations of a more technical bent, while fewer women aspire to such positions, compared with men, more will drop out of these fields; simultaneously, the women that remain have far fewer opportunities for advancement. The reasons for both are similar. Many women in male dominated fields experience outright hostility and skepticism at the hands of their male counterparts. Male police officers “widely regard women as psychologically and emotionally ill-equipped to perform masculine police duties” (Jones, 1986) while male firefighters “are often skeptical about women’s competence as firefighters. They tend to distrust women’s motivation for becoming firefighters…The general perception is that women cannot do the job and are just being hired because of ‘affirmative action’” (i-woman.org, 2011; Germain, Herzog & Hamilton, 2012). Female commercial pilots face similar responses; subsequently, there are only 450 female airline captains in the world (Germain, Herzog & Hamilton, 2012).
Women in male-dominated professions report little support in their chosen profession, with female mentors nearly non-existent. Without the camaraderie that is characteristic of such fields, women are excluded from networking opportunities, as well as advancement opportunities. In an occupation riddled with skepticism over women enlisting in said occupation, the likelihood of attaining rank is less likely.
In male-dominated professions, the bias seems to be more explicit, rather than implicit, particularly at the entry-level. What both male-dominated and female-dominated professions have in common, however, seems to be implicit bias that, either knowingly or unknowingly, impedes women from upward mobility in a chosen profession. This perspective raises a number of questions: How prevalent is implicit bias; do most people recognize the likelihood of embodying implicit bias within themselves; what dynamics are at play that serve to inform implicit bias? And finally: how can personal awareness of implicit bias be encouraged? Will personal awareness of implicit bias make a positive difference?
ReplyDeleteThe study of racism offers interesting and applicable tenets to the consideration of sexism. Both share many commonalities including pay disparity, as well as lesser opportunities for advancement in many given fields (Swim, Aikin, Hall, & Hunter, 1995). A theory that attempts to explain the common disparities that are a result of racism, or sexism, or both, is referred to as:
Queuing theory (which) sees both as part of the ranking and sorting process, although employers’ preferences are seen as much more powerful than those of employees…queuing theory can be used to explain the ranking and sorting processes that result in the standing of groups of workers in the labor market and the standing of jobs among workers (Spalter-Roth & Deitch, 1999).
In considering the effects of queuing theory, particularly as it affects women, despite the fact that is applies to both women and persons of color, one aspect of implicit sexism is explained. Queuing theory stipulates that employers tend to hire new employees who are similar to currently favored employees. The new employees tend to be identified “through networks that favor the race, ethnicity, or gender of those already employed through ‘business-as-usual’ hiring practices…(which) traditionally gave white men, especially white married men, preference for most jobs, especially what are perceived as good jobs” (Spalter-Roth & Deitch, 1999).
Another means of implicit bias is often a byproduct of the avoidance of explicit bias. With legislation barring discrimination based on sex and race, explicit bias is no longer a culturally accepted norm; “given general social norms that prohibit discrimination and outgroup derogation…(when) white group members want to say something negative about minorities, they will tend to use denials, disclaimers or other forms that are intended to avoid a negative impression with their listeners or their readers” (van Dijk, 1992). Denials and disclaimers commonly utilized include defensive rhetoric such as, “Not that I’m sexist, but…” or, “Just because I said that doesn’t mean I’m sexist.” Conversely, the rhetoric may be displaced to others, instead, such as: “I have nothing against women in the fire department, but most of the guys I supervise won’t go in a structure fire with a female firefighter.” The problem is “denials debilitate resistance” (van Dijk, 1992), in that denial of sexism reduces the perceived need for further action against sexism.
Also and perhaps surprisingly, there is evidence of what some researchers refer to as “benevolent sexism” (King, et al, 2012). While the notion of women’s innate inferiority to men still exists, and is obviously detrimental to women’s ability to advance in their chosen professions, there is also the very real experience of women being “protected and revered (i.e., benevolence)” (King, et al, 2012); while being good-intentioned, such ideals, nonetheless, are obstructive in nature. The perspective is that despite the notions of wanting to protect and defend women being seemingly benevolent, they nonetheless require viewing women as being in inferior positions requiring protection, and thus, in effect, “reward women for being subservient and dependent” (King, et al, 2012). When any person aims to defend or protect another, it is because the defender believes the defendant is incapable of doing so independently. Therein lies the problem. In the workplace, this translates to superiors protecting women from frustrations, failures, and struggles that are inherent and part and parcel of the challenging work that inevitably leads to promotion and advancement (King, et al, 2012).
ReplyDeleteThe challenge of rehabilitating a person who is overtly prejudiced, and is simultaneously hostile in his treatment of those he believes are undeserving of opportunity, equality and advancement in the workplace is beyond the scope of this paper. However, there is evidence to support the notion that education is effective by accomplishing the following: 1) raising awareness of the existence of personal implicit biases and 2) providing education and training to help mitigate implicit bias.
For example, Roche Diagnostics and the Royal Bank of Canada have taken the issue of diversity in the workplace quite seriously. So much so, that Roche has begun offering seminars to managers to highlight the existence of implicit bias, and has begun a new mentor program in an effort to help women break into and past the middle management level. The Royal Bank of Canada offers training and taking tests, which identify personal biases, to its employees (Olson, 2015).
Additionally, some researchers have begun to examine the effectiveness of these and other programs. Lebrecht, Pierce, Tarr and Tanaka, researchers in the Department of Psychology at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia note:
Many human attitudes arise automatically and without
conscious control. Such attitudes, termed ‘‘implicit biases,” manifest in a variety of social domains. For example, people prefer the young to the old, and pair women with the home more often than they pair women with the laboratory. People show a negative implicit association with members of a racial group other than their own. Critically, this sort of implicit bias does not correlate with explicit judgments of race – what we say we believe (2009).
Their thesis is that bias is comprised of two parts: social and perceptual. The social aspect is comprised of a person having a tendency to have negative connotations regarding any race that is different from his own. The perceptual aspect indicates that people tend to view people of other races as uniformly similar looking, i.e., “They all look the same to me’ known as the ‘Other-Race Effect (ORE).’
The researchers’ theory is that the more exposure one has to faces of other races, the greater likelihood that bias secondary to the ORE will decrease (Lebrecht, Pierce, Tarr, & Tanaka, 2009). On testing Caucasian subjects utilizing the “Affective Lexical Priming Score (ALPS)” which is “sensitive to purely implicit biases” (Lebrecht, Pierce, Tarr, & Tanaka, 2009) commonplace biases toward Black persons was noted. The same group then took part in perceptual expertise training, which paired visual images of black people with positive words. In retesting, the subjects all showed improvement in bias mitigation.
ReplyDeleteAnother group of researchers attempted a similar study; the subjects of their study, however, were adolescents. Researchers Diemer, Kauffman, Koenig, Trahan and Hsieh from Michigan State University attempted to demonstrate a correlation between adolescents having support in avoiding bias by increasing critical consciousness and an increased likelihood of acting on their environment in a socially just manner.
While this study, unlike others, was unable to demonstrate that increasing social consciousness would lead to an increased likelihood of subjects acting on their environment in a sociopolitical manner, it did demonstrate that people important in adolescents’ lives provided “the most support for challenging racism, then social injustice, and the least support for challenging sexism” (Diemer, Kauffman, Koenig, Trahan and Hsieh, 2009). The researchers speculated that the lack of increased action in the sociopolitical realm may have been a result of the age of the subjects. Nonetheless, the researchers stipulate that their study supported their theory, which claimed that providing support to adolescents in challenging racism, sexism and social injustice is effective in making adolescents more aware. However, the subjects received the least amount of support for challenging sexism, which serves to support the original premise of this paper, that sexism, though implicit, continues to exist and its existence continues to be denied.
Despite the Diemer, et al study results pertaining to lesser support of challenging sexism, the University of Victoria study suggests a means of educating, or training persons to reduce sexism. The “Affective Lexical Priming Score (ALPS)” test could theoretically be revised to assess for gender bias. Following this, subjects can undergo the behavioral training as outlined in the University of Victoria study. This training, which was noted to be effective, albeit to varying degrees, for all subjects, consisted of five 45-minute training sessions.
ReplyDeleteFurther, sociological problems in America should become a priority to the extent that it is a required topic for graduation at both the secondary and post-secondary levels. Ideally, if the topic were addressed in the upper grades of primary school, much like drug abstinence programs, the possibility of teaching children to think critically about social issues could possibly offset the prejudice that many may witness in their personal lives outside of school.
Finally, addressing implicit and explicit bias in the workplace must encompass more than simple sexual harassment awareness. Hiring and promotional processes can and should be conducted utilizing random numbers in lieu of names and gender identification, and should exclude mention of race or ethnicity, as well. When candidates are hired without regard to gender, the playing field between newly hired men and women will more likely be leveled, an oft-cited origin of pay disparity
More employers might consider utilizing a method of evaluating employee performance by considering the employee’s evaluation of herself in tandem with the supervisor’s evaluation of the employee. If there is a large measure of disagreement in scores, human resources’ involvement should be mandatory.
Human resources can and should play a pivotal role in assisting employees in identifying bias within themselves, and in offering training to mitigate bias. Furthermore, that department can be integral in spearheading mentoring programs, and leadership programs that are open to candidates, regardless of rank, within a company, which adheres to company codes of ethics that is inclusive of anti-bias rhetoric.
Measures such as these outlined are necessary. Despite the fact that women have been active in the workforce for decades, and despite the fact that the wage gap is narrowing, women remain at a distinctive and substantial disadvantage both in pay and in promotional opportunities in the realm of employment. This paper cannot address the myriad of other significant issues that arise out of sexism, among them increased violence at the hands of strangers and significant others, lesser healthcare compared to males, or the double jeopardy of being female and of color. However, as the scope of this paper is primarily to address the financial losses women incur simply by virtue of being female, it might be notable to mention that women are not the only persons affected by the results of sexism in the workplace. As more American families require two paychecks to maintain a comfortable standard of living, it becomes imperative not just for the financial well-being of the female employee, but also for her family, that she be paid at the rate of her male peers and be permitted every opportunity for advancement as her male peers. The key to financial and meritorious equity is awareness of bias, which will lend itself readily to educational opportunities to ameliorate bias. Until such time, women will be correct in believing they’ve come a long way, but not long enough.