NS May 20th, 2009

Further to yesterday’s post, I’m offering up my thoughts on part two of The Trouble With Working Women, which aired last night on BBC2. Entitled “Why can’t a woman earn as much as a man?” it tried to find an explanation for the pay gap (currently at 17% in the UK) by interviewing various people and exploring various theories about the “choices” that women make that result in lower status and earnings in the workplace.

Ah, yes. Choices. Women and all of their darn, conflated CHOICES. If I was to drink a shot of alcohol every time that word was bandied about in this type of discussion I’d be doing a Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas right about now, wandering around the supermarket in a drunken haze, slurring and hiccuping while piling dozens of bottles of Russian vodka into my trolley with merry abandonment.

“What about choices,” you ask? Oh, wherever shall I start? How about with the economist, Dr. Shackleton, who says towards the end of the program that, really, women have made the choice to take lower-level jobs and gone into traditionally female-dominated fields like teaching, nursing and the public sector (which are badly paid) because they get a greater sense of satisfaction out of those roles or because they provide women with the most flexibility. Thefore, according to his astonishingly arrogant and illogical theory, we have effectively made the choice to receive less pay than men.

Clank, clank went my vodka bottle.

After he and the male presenter smugly patted themselves on the back for discovering this phenomenon and solving all our lady angst, they trotted out the arguments always used to defend unequal pay: “But men work more hours than women and don’t take ‘breaks’ to raise children and so they have more experience and are more valuable than women as a whole and (insert more inane myth-spouting here), etc..” Yeah, let me tell you something about those two hours a week that women aren’t in the office when men are. They spend it picking up and dropping off kids, attending appointments and meetings associated with their care or education, doing the shopping, cooking, cleaning and helping with homework. In all, women do about 20 hours of unpaid work for domestic and childcare-related duties each week; men do fewer than 10 on average. 20-10 = 10 hours difference in time spent on household chores, minus 2 hours less at the office, which still equals 8 hours more work per week than men, and unpaid to boot. The fact is, women are doing more work than men, not less. It’s just that domestic labour is not considered “real work” and therefore not taken into account. And as for the patronising drivel that women actively choose roles that pay less because they are more “fulfilling”….well, I think you can see why my vodka bottle was raised again.

Let’s go back a bit now while I digest this potent potato juice.

Towards the beginning of the show we met some of the female machinists at Ford in Dagenham who went on strike in 1968 over pay inequalities between them and male machinists doing similarly skilled work. Even though production at the plant was severely affected and upper management held many ‘talks’ with these ladies in which they promised to increase their pay, it took 16 years and another major strike before they got it. Shameful.

Even more shameful is the present-day situation at Bolton Council, amongst others. Dozens of women who are or were employed by the council are banding together in a class action lawsuit, demanding compensation and redress of the pay discrepancies between them and men of the same skill level. Apparently, what the council had been doing was hiring them in on the same pay but then giving the men “bonuses” that were anywhere between 50-120% of their salary. Clever move on the part of the council, I must say. They thought they’d found a loophole so they could keep screwing women over without getting caught. And now that they have been caught and were told to pay back wages to all its female employees, they’re claiming that there’s just not enough money in their coffers to do so and that it wouldn’t be “fair” to the taxpaying citizens to raise the funds through tax increases. Fair?! FAIR?!! What part of FAIR is screwing women and their families out of hundreds of thousands of pounds over a woman’s working life? £369,000 to be exact. Because that’s how much a woman who works full time can expect to lose out on over the course of her career, due simply to being female. It’s absolutely outrageous and nothing a pompous economist can say will make me think it’s okay or fair, or somehow our own CHOICE.

And…swig. This drinking game is intense!

Another possible explanation we see given in the program is that men are just better at negotiating salary and payrises than women. This might be true in some cases, certainly, because women are taught to be grateful and ‘nice’ as opposed to assertive and selfish (in the good sense of the word — looking out for oneself over others), but it doesn’t account for such huge wage differences as 17%. Besides which, even if women weren’t demanding higher salaries, why is it still okay for businesses to screw them over — just because they can? Why is the onus on women to demand better ethical behaviour from the companies and catch them out instead of on businesses to treat woman as human beings when hiring and paying them?

The icing on the cake was the two presenters at the end discussing their findings and mulling over what it all means, to the strains of violins and laughing children in the background. Sophie, the female presenter, asked some good questions but in the end she just nodded and smiled when jerkface Justin told her that despite all of these pesky pay issues, women lead “richer lives” for being given so many CHOICES (dear god, make it stop!) and for being more involved with their children. Yes, Justin, tell that to the single mother raising three kids and struggling to make ends meet who finds out she’s been getting screwed out of a substantially better paycheque for doing the same work as her male colleagues over the years. I’m sure she’ll just smile and look wistfully into the distance while she muses over how very RICH her life is because of the CHOICE she made to get paid less because she has a uterus.

Unsurprisingly, I say to him: FUCK YOU.

The most sensible and intelligent comment came, not surprisingly, from Minister for Women and Equality, Harriet Harman. She said there is one (and only one) explanation for the disparity between men and women’s wages and it is this: institutional discrimination. You can dress it up in bows, make it into a jigsaw puzzle, a maze, a juggling act, a glass ceiling or any other silly euphemism but the plain and ugly truth is that discrimination against women is so deeply ingrained in so many areas of society and by so many people that all of the documentaries and focus groups and angry blog posts (I’m pretty sure this would count) in the world won’t change working women’s plight.

Until we stop asking that stupid question: “Can women have it all?” and instead start asking “Why do women have to do it all?” we’re infinitely, indefinitely screwed. And I will be drinking vodka for a long, long time to come.

• Activism , Feminist Fury , In The News , Parenting 101 , Reviews and Recommendations
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NS May 19th, 2009

If you didn’t catch it last night on BBC2 (or you’re not in the UK), I highly recommend watching the first in a series for a new documentary called The Trouble With Working Women. Presented by Sophie Raworth and Justin Rowlatt, the first program was entitled “Why can’t a woman succeed like a man?” and explored the issues preventing women from really breaking through the glass ceiling in the professional realm. So many important issues were touched upon, including: maternity leave, sexist attitudes in the workplace, unequal pay, nature vs nuture with regards to gender differences, the effects of gender conditioning in children, how hormones affect the way male and female brains perform different tasks, the public’s attitudes towards women in the workforce, the ‘bottom line’ for businesses vs women’s desire for more flexible working hours and family-friendly practices, working mothers’ guilt, the research into what effects childcare has on children’s brains, and how second wave feminism didn’t really foresee the new set of challenges that mothers would face once they broke into the workplace.

I’ll get into my critique of what they did say in a moment, but first I’d like to address the area I felt was sorely lacking in the documentary. As usual, the fathers’ roles in all of this was hardly mentioned. Yes, there were a couple brief allusions to paternity leave needing to be increased and of men being given the option of more flexible working hours like some women have been, but it was framed in more of a “Ooh, look at the women with their long maternity leaves and four day weeks. It’s practically a vacation! See, men are really the ones getting a raw deal!” kind of frivolous way instead of realising that men’s lack of involvement in the discussion in any meaningful way is a huge factor in working women’s problems. There was no in-depth analysis of how men being willing and able to participate in family life and taking on more domestic responsibilities is extremely crucial to women achieving equality. The fact that there was no mention of the social phenomenon explored in the book of the same name, The Second Shift and how that is one of the leading (if not the most important) factors in why women haven’t been able to fully integrate into the professional world just shows how we still put all of the onus for finding “balance” between family life and career onto women while, for men, things remain largely the same. There is no such term as “working fathers’ guilt” and until there is (or we just eradicate the guilt altogether by taking equal responsibility for children), this discussion is going nowhere.

That said, I was happy to see some more complex issues tackled instead of the usual childcare and maternity leave agenda that only goes in circles and which has been covered a thousand times. Looking at how many of our gender differences are biological and which are a result of our environments was interesting because even when there are small biological differences in how our brains work, the presenters wondered if the only reason these differences are noteworthy is because our society has historically favoured men. My opinion? Hell yes! The very definitions of “success” and “business” and “power” are based on male imperatives. So not only are women struggling against false perceptions of their intelligence and capabilities, but a world that was designed for and by men, with few concessions to women’s strengths. Instead, to be truly successful, one must be like a man to some extent. Women who “think like men” are praised for shrugging off traditional stereotypes of feminine behaviour (because these are associated with weakness), but at the same time are prevented from joining the upper ranks because people tend to personally dislike women who exhibit masculine traits like aggression, direction and focus. Add to this that powerful women are threatening to many men, even the ones who heap praise on her for being “one of the boys” and it’s an extremely frustrating catch-22, one that I was glad to see the documentary touch upon.

This was illustrated perfectly by the female business owner who said she was back at work four days after having a baby because the market just doesn’t allow for any time off, even when that “break” is to give birth to another human, not go for a golfing trip somewhere warm with one’s buddies. More than just history, our capitalistic society is based on male biology. The inclusion of pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and the demands of caring for small children into a normative and widespread economic structure has remained virtually nonexistent, despite small allowances like a statutory maternity leave and it being illegal to fire a woman due to pregnancy (though the latter still happens frequently). Praising women for being dedicated to their careers by returning to work literally days after giving birth (denying the realities of female biology) but at the same time judging them as substandard mothers who should be at home with their babies is the pinnacle of ridiculousness in the working mothers debate.

Equally ridiculous was the interview with the lady (I can’t remember her name) who set up the first women’s refuges in the UK. Her opinion was that feminism had “gone too far” because now, instead of having a choice in whether to work or stay at home, she felt most women had no choice but to work, that motherhood had been devalued, and that family life as a whole had suffered irreperably. While I can see her point (to a degree) because I agree that too many women’s choices have gone the opposite direction in regards to whether they feel able to choose equally between work or childrearing, and I do think that motherhood and household management have been devalued, I wholly disagree that this is somehow the fault of feminism, or second wave feminists. Again, where is the discussion on changing the entire structure of business to accomodate women, and the serious lack of initiative on men’s part to form a fathers’ movement for equal access to and responsibility for their children? The only time we see fathers publicly fighting for the right to their children is when they’re entirely taken away from them as a result of divorce (Fathers4Justice, anyone?).

But why does it take them being completely removed before they put up a fight? Where are the outspoken denouncements of men pressured to work increasingly long hours to increase their employers’ profits, taking time away from their domestic duties and quality time with their kids and decreasing the likelihood that their partners will be successful and fulfilled in their careers? Where is the outrage over media portrayals of women as long-suffering carers who act as the glue holding the family together and men as inadequate, inept and hopelessly selfish when it comes to raising children? Why are feminists expected to tackle all of these issues, and more, while many men are happy to just sit back and wait for others to bring about change that they are perhaps not even socially invested in? Could it be that they don’t want things to change? I mean, it would mean more sweeping, shopping and nappy-changing, after all, and that’s women’s stuff. A lot of men, no matter how much they love their children and respect their partners, still subconsciously think of these things as Not Their Problem. The number of times I’ve seen or heard males purporting to be feminists or feminist-supporters bemoan the way THEY are treated and marginalised on the domestic front but instead of doing something about it expect women to, once again, do the dirty work….well, let’s just say I’d be stinking rich if I got a pound in each instance. Talk about a second shift! Women are expected to work all day and then come home and run the household and fight for social change for women and then for men too. In our spare time, of course.

Step up, brothers! It’s time to be fathers. Step up, husbands! It’s time to be partners.

Until the discourse on ‘working mothers’ is changed at a fundamental level, making it a discussion on working parents that holds men just as accountable as women for how they will balance their professional and personal lives, documentaries like this, although interesting and thoughtful, will continue to create more questions than they answer and put the burden squarely on women’s already laden shoulders.

Part Two, entitled “Why can’t a woman earn as much as a man?” will air tonight at 9pm on BBC2. More commentary to come tomorrow.

• Feminist Fury , In The News , Parenting 101 , Reviews and Recommendations
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NS May 13th, 2009

Have you ever been the only one in the room?

Not alone in a room, no. I mean the only (fill in the blank) in a room full of people. If you haven’t you should. Not much else has a way of humbling, frightening and enlightening like this simple act does. Being the only _______ in a room has the ability to highlight socioeconomic or cultural divisions that you might not have otherwise noticed. Being the only ______ in a room has the ability to force us outside of our comfort zones, thereby acknowledging our privileges or questioning our Otherness.

As a white, straight, able-bodied, educated, English-speaking, partnered, middle class woman living in an influential, Christian-centric, industrialized nation, I have many layers of privilege that pad my life and protect me from the hardships of reality that the majority of people in the world experience on a daily basis. I have the luxury to pick and choose which causes I will campaign for or against, which charities I will donate to and which issues I will hold close to my heart. I have the ability to be amongst my peers 99% of the time. Even when I was the only ____ in a room, it was almost always a choice, sometimes even one I had to seek out.

For example, I took a Black Politics class at university, partly because it fulfilled a qualification for my degree but also because I wanted to put myself outside of my ‘comfort zone.’ Now, by that I don’t mean that I was uncomfortable around black folks beforehand but the truth is that I hadn’t ever been in a situation in which I was the racial minority. Growing up in Podunk, Midwest USA will do that. So I signed up for the class not only looking forward to learning more about the subject matter but also to acknowledge my privilege and be humbled by it. That I was the only white person who signed up for the class reinforced to me the division of race on campuses (and society as a whole) with anything outside the norm being made into a ‘special class’ to placate the few.

I didn’t want to intrude or feel like an interloper on what was sure to be an important and emotional subject to the black students in the room, but at the same time I wanted to experience that uncomfortable feeling of….guilt, perhaps? Shame? Regret?….when we discussed the Civil Rights Movement and the centuries of oppression their ancestors and they themselves had experienced. It doesn’t mean I felt personally responsible for these things but was able to admit that I had, in fact, had advantages in life as a result of the oppression of an entire race of people. As awkward as it felt at times, I’m glad I took that class. I learned a lot about respecting the emotional and public space of those with less privilege than me, and to keep my mouth shut and listen for a change. That I was able to choose to put myself in a position of minority only reinforced the extent of my privilege though. Very humbling indeed.

As it is, I have still never been:

At other times I have been the only:

and they were all very different experiences. Sometimes it was enlightening, at other times frustrating, or even frightening. Most of the time the differences between us didn’t even appear to be an issue, but they were always there, lurking. For all the common threads we have running between us, the ones that are missing make the social web we all share that little bit weaker. But does it have to be? What can we do to combat it? Can we really foster positive associations of one another without discussing the elephant in the room: Power?

I’m no expert on these issues so don’t take what I say as gospel by any means, but I think it’s important to step outside that ‘comfort zone’ from time to time, even if it means actively choosing to do so. Use that experience to examine your prejudices, misconceptions, strengths, weaknesses and, most of all, privilege. Listen to what others are saying instead of making it about how these issues make YOU, the more powerful part of the equation, feel. Respect the space and need of these groups to include or exclude you as they see fit. Forcing your way in, demanding a “better understanding” and that you all start “working together” makes it all about you again and should be avoided. In short, shut your trap and do some thinking while you have the opportunity to be put in a situation where you’re not automatically afforded better, more varied or numerous opportunities because of what’s between your legs, on your skin, your passport, or rolling off your tongue. I can assure you that you won’t regret it.

• Activism , Miscellaneous Missives , Public Service Announcements
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NS May 11th, 2009

Just for fun on a Monday. I challenge you to watch this and then not have the song stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

• Banal Breakdown , Life's Lyrics
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NS May 11th, 2009

I’ve just been browsing my stats page and have noticed that I have three times as many regular readers as I do subscribers. Does that mean that the majority of you just have my site bookmarked and visit on a daily basis? I am flattered by those who have committed to faithfully checking in every day but it does add a certain element of pressure to ‘perform’!

If you’d like to be notified when I’ve updated, all you need to do is subscribe, either in a reader (Google, Bloglines, Netvibes, Yahoo, etc..) or via email. You can do all of this by clicking on the buttons up there under Feed The Addiction. Here’s a quick guide on how they work if you’re new to the world of RSS. I resisted RSS at first but now, after using a reader to keep up-to-date on all the blogs I read, I couldn’t imagine going back. It makes blog reading much easier, quicker and simpler. You can always subscribe by e-mail as well, if you’re really just not into the idea of RSS.

You may have also noticed the ‘Share this’ and ‘Twit this’ buttons at the bottom of each post. Clicking on these allows you to automatically pass on something I’ve written to others, on Facebook, Technorati, Digg, StumbleUpon, et al. Even if you don’t use those sites to read blogs yourself, Id’ appreciate a click if you’ve enjoyed the post or found it useful in some way. And if you’re on Twitter, the Twit This button will allow you to share a post without having to shorten the URL yourself.

Thank you all for your loyalty, no matter how you get here. And if you’re new, welcome! I appreciate the time taken to read my musings and welcome feedback, even if it’s to disagree with me or tell me I spelled ‘occasionally’ wrong again (I have a strange mental block about spelling that word correctly). I hope you will continue to enjoy your thrice-weekly (or thereabouts) dose of Noble Savage. One shot of me has been known to cure the common cold and hair loss so I’m rather useful, really.

In short: don’t forget to tip your waitress!

• Banal Breakdown , Bloggy love
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