Wow: Linda Hirshman on the wage gap
Wow, I am not sure exactly where to start with her analysis, other than yet again, the fault for gender discrimination, according to her, is laid at women's feet.
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You're Not Earning as Much as the Guys? Here's Why.
By Linda Hirshman Sunday, June 3, 2007; Page B01
Ah, graduation -- that time of optimism, of looking to the future and its ( Read more... )
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You're Not Earning as Much as the Guys? Here's Why.
By Linda Hirshman Sunday, June 3, 2007; Page B01
Ah, graduation -- that time of optimism, of looking to the future and its ( Read more... )
I completely agree that it's reductionist to say that earning potential should be the only criterion on which career decisions are made and success is judged, but at the same time, if we've got a cultural meme where men are going for the money, power and status, and women are going for the personal fulfilment, altruism and family-flexibility, that's got to be worth talking about. Either you're saying that the paygap doesn't matter, or else you've got to talk about the reasons men and women are making these choices, and what the structural aspects of those choices are.
And if it's then the case that we've got a large number of women whose middle-class lifestyles and fulfilling careers are effectively being subsidised by their husbands' more fiscally-motivated choices, who's going to be motivated to change that? Both sexes are getting benefits there, but they're also going to be reducing other people's abilities to choose, because no-one's challenging the model of a male breadwinner and a female carer.
Declaring my personal interest: I'm just completing a PhD in English and intending to go into academia in the next year or so. Of the professional careers I could have trained for, I'm probably in one of the least financially rewarding: if I'd been thinking about earning potential back when I applied to university, I would have trained as a lawyer or taken a degree in maths or engineering (both would have been extremely valid choices according to my abilities, but I opted away from science at the age of fourteen and maths at seventeen.) I'm now not completely sure I made the right decisions. I was encouraged to make my career choices based on what I wanted to do. The idea that if I wanted a family I should choose something that would ensure financial security for my kids never, ever occurred to me, and I think part of that was because there was an unconscious assumption that I would have a male partner who thought about that.
As it turns out, I've got a female partner who is a couple of years older than me but who is going into exactly the same career as me at the same time. We're 28 and 31, and have no mortgage, no pensions, and no savings (also no debt, thanks to both coming from fairly well-off backgrounds). Neither of us want to find ourselves in a heterosexual model family - where one bears children and the other bears responsibility for financial security - and I'm getting more and more obsessed with finding academic women who have given birth to one or more children without it having had a deleterious effect on their career standing and earning potential. It looks bloody difficult from here, and I'm certainly wondering whether it would look easier if I'd made more money-motivated decisions ten years ago.
Of course, the level of security I want to provide for my children - having job security, owning our own home, having pensions and savings - is thoroughly informed by my middle-class background. I fully recognise that. But at the same time, if my choices come down to not having children or sacrificing middle-class status to have children because I'm not heterosexual and don't want to embrace a heterosexual family model - that's not exactly a fun choice. We will probably manage to get most of the things on the checklist within the next five years, depending on whereabouts we get jobs and the housing market, but the timeline will be pretty tight, and there certainly won't be much room for manoeuvre. Would this be easier if, instead of looking at law and wondering whether I'd "like" it, I'd looked at law and got £££ signs in front of my eyes? I suspect it might be.
If men and women do have different priorities when it comes to career choices, I don't know how you address that, but I'm certainly interested in talking about it.
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Yes, I think a huge part of our gender biases is that most men are raised with "how are you going to support a family on that" vs women are raised with "how are you going to mix that with kids". There is an implicit assumption that women's salaries, once they "settle down and have a family" will be top ups to the "real" income. I know that I have been guilty of assuming this - and it drives my husband nuts when I do.
I read somewhere (cannot find it now), that in most middle class families, parents more regularly and at higher rates support post collegiate unmarried daughters directly or indirectly until she has a partner (married or co-habitating) than they do sons. I think this also shows this bias - girls are often not expected to fully support themselves, ever, so why bother training them to?
And you raise a very important question - what happens when our decisions and assumptions are predicated on a family model not available to us - either non-heterosexual/nuclear family or partnerless parenting? I doubt many people, especially women, plan for those situations.
The problem is when we make long-term decisions (including education choices - majors aside, I think grad school decisions are much more important in the long term - mainly because the cost is huge) that don't reflect the realities we are going to face down the road. It may mean huge grad school loans or a work/life balance completely out of wack or an enormous mortgage, or a lack of employment opportunities (many PhDs in Humanities in the US face that reality once they start job hunting and realize there aren't that many tenure track positions open any more).
The frustrating thing about Dr Hirshman's comments as well as Leslie Bennetts (her book about how choosing to be a SAHM is idiotic) is that the facts they discuss are relevant (though pretty class specific) but their analysis is, well, annoying. They completely miss WHY women make these choices (lack of childcare, poor satisfaction in many jobs, long hours/longer commutes, sense that their job is more about personal satisfaction than breadwinning) - and jump to telling women why their choices are wrong. Geez, this is behavior change 101, gals. First you gotta figure out why women are making the behavior you want to see changed.
We SHOULD be talking about the fact that if women are lead to assume their salaries are a top up to their eventual (male)partners, but with a high divorce rate (or two women together, etc), they are more likely than ever to be primary breadwinner for their kids for some period of their lives, that does need to inform their choices about about career choices, time off, savings, investments, etc.
Interestingly, in the African American community, it is rarely assumed that a woman will not be primary breadwinner at some point in her life. There are deep suspicions around black men's ability to support a family (with deep roots in racism in the US). Women do go to university (at much higher numbers than men, mind you) for long term income earning goals. But it hasn't so far actually improved their status, has it?
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I haven't read the book, but from what I've read about it, isn't that exactly what she's doing - arguing that women should assess the potential implications of taking a career break from the point of view of statistical probability? That she's focussing on a privileged few is a valid criticism, but to be honest, pretty much any mainstream feminist book is going to focus on a privileged group one way or another, and I'm unconvinced that it's a reason to discount the argument entirely.
I do agree that Hirshman's article assumes that not reaching one's "true potential" is a Bad Thing without examining the reasons why it might be a Bad Thing, and doesn't entertain any possibilities that there might be other value systems in play. But it's a short article. As far as I'm aware, that's precisely what Leslie Bennett is trying to do. I think it's really important to discuss the ways in which those other value systems - putting family first, putting job satisfaction first, putting social good first - might be contributing to women's lower earnings (and ultimately women's poverty), no matter how good and beneficial they may appear. I believe that pretty much every ideology should be examined regularly to see whether it is supporting or opposing patriarchal values, and there probably isn't a way of doing that that's guaranteed 100% inoffensive.
If Elementary Behaviour Change states that you don't get very far by berating your target group, it surely also states that you need to establish why the behaviour under discussion is potentially detrimental before it's even worth discussing why it's happening?
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Leslie Bennetts and Linda Hirshman both have the same problem - they are sharing relevant facts and issues but their tone and content of their analysis is "women, you are soooo STUPID! Look at your STUPID choices!"
I have not read either Bennetts nor Hirshman's books; however, I have read plenty of interviews of Bennetts, plus several of Hirshman's articles and some interviews with her. Both have said unequivocally that being a SAHM is not only a bad choice, PERIOD, but that being a SAHM is bad for women everywhere. Heck, they both even said going part time or going on the "mommy track" is always bad.
This is what I take issue with -the "blame the victim" approach that is far too often used (though usually not with such vitriol) in any discussion of why women are not running the world (yet).
If it isn't our management styles (not assertive enough!), or our networking inabilities (we sabatogue our juniors instead of grooming them!), it is our choices over which jobs to seek or how on earth we are possibly going to combine motherhood with working. And all this in a culture where sick leave is only available to 1/3rd of workers, quality childcare is exceedingly expensive and hard to come by, maternity leave is unpaid and often only lasts 6 weeks, and professionals are expected to work 50 - 60 hours a week, plus average commute of an hour a day.
The other issue that they both fail to address is that many women want more time with their kids. I know I do. I don't want to be a full time SAHM. But I also don't want to be away from my kids 60 - 70 hours a week. I want to be able to breastfeed my boys for as long as they like. I'd like to be around in their early years, and not feel overwhelmed and stressed because I feel like i don't have enough time nor energy to meet everyones needs.
But I feel that according to Bennetts and Hirshman, I am a bad feminist. Which is what pisses me off.
it surely also states that you need to establish why the behaviour under discussion is potentially detrimental before it's even worth discussing why it's happening?
Heh, you'd think that'd be self evident, though of course some of the behavior change stuff I have seen... yes, a thorough discussion has to happen on what the problem is before you can determine what you want to see changed. This also requires an analysis of what the positive outcome of that change should be and what are the potential negative repercussions of the change attempt. And identifying a problem isn't enough - you actually have to dig to see what concrete steps you want targeted individuals to make in order to address the problem.
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