Anna Spysz of the Krakow Post has a nice post on her blog about embracing “equalism” over feminism, because, as she puts it, “to me it signifies in the simplest, most elegant way, the goal of the movement: complete gender equality.”
Equalism, of course, has had various waves of popularity over the years: as a more inclusive way of proclaiming feminist ideals; as a term without the baggage that the f-word carries; as a way of including not just gender but racial equality as well. But Spysz’s own take is that, for a generation removed from those early feminist battles, “equalism” is a term much easier to relate to. She writes:
Growing up in the 90s in the U.S., I took it for granted that I could do anything a boy could do, could grow up to be anything a man could be. Those initial battles had already been fought for me, and I couldn’t imagine that the gains would ever be taken away. In essence, equalism is just post-feminism, for those who never really experienced feminism in its initial struggles.
So, equalism: Any better than feminism?
We came across an interesting interview with the author of “Influence,” about how women will transform business in the 21st century. Some highlighted factoids to impress your friends:
- Over the last two decades, womens’ increased employment has contributed more to the growth of the global economy than either China or India, or even global technology. Says the author: “We’re at a tipping point: a critical mass of women have had an explosive rise in education and earning power which has opened the door for them to exert their influence.”
- Adding women to the corporate board of directors increases a company’s return on equity.
- Developing countries have found that when you educate young girls and women, you increase GDP. Those women also reinvest 90 percent of their income in family and community, compared to just 30-70 percent among men.
- Women start businesses at twice the national average
Yup, “Potty Parity” is the real name of real legislation that Congress hopes will provide much-needed relief to the bladders of women and children everywhere. (Er, at least those of us who visit new federal buildings.)
The average American uses a toilet more than half a dozen times a day, nearly 3,000 times a year, and, all told, will spend up to two years of an entire life in the restroom, reports ABC News. The “Potty Parity Bill” would require an equal number of toilets for each gender.
Experts say fewer toilets for women today largely reflect a previous era when women weren’t as prominent in the workforce. It’s a lingering reminder, [one expert] said, of a “subtle yet powerful form of gender discrimination.”
“Holding it in can take its toll,” Kathryn Anthony, an architecture professor at the University of Illinois told a House panel considering the bill. “Emergencies happen,” she said.
The other option, of course, is to try out the Go-Girl: “Because life’s greatest adventure shouldn’t be finding a bathroom.”
(Thanks to the one-and-only Brian Braiker for passing this along.)
We were intrigued last week by the headlines about a new study showing that college students are more likely to act out in classes headed by female professors. We’ll certainly be the first to say that sounds about right, but on this particular study, we’re going to call BS. Based entirely on an online survey, the researchers asked faculty members from nine different colleges to remember how often they’d encountered “incivility” (anything from sleeping in class to texting to talking back) and describe its impact on them. Women reported rudeness with more frequency than men.
The flaw, of course, is that there’s no way to backup that claim, or to know whether the men are simply more oblivious than the women to students acting out (given the research on confidence levels, that scenario wouldn’t be surprising). Which is to say, couldn’t the female professors simply be more sensitive to bad behavior? Time to head back to the research lab.
Yup, that’s really the title, of a real book, published in 1980, by Casey Miller and Kate Swift. “It sometimes takes a well-turned ear to make appropriate choices from among the everyday words,” the authors write. And so, they offer practical examples, and advice, to solve the subliminal messages of words. They trace the evolution of “man,” advise on the propriety of girl v. gal, question whether housewives should be referred to as “working women” (“What are housewives, if not working women?”), and examine the double standard of describing women by appearance. It’s a copy editor’s wet dream. A few interesting tidbits:
- What standard English usage says about males is that they are the species. What it says about females is that they are a subspecies. From these two assertions flow a thousand other enhancing and degrading messages, all encoded in the language we in the English-speaking countries begin to learn almost as soon as we are born.
- In old english, the word “man” meant person, or human being, and was applicable to either sex. For example: Ercongota, the daughter of a sevent-century English king, is described in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as “a wonderful man.”
- Nonparallel terminology is common in side-by-side reference to the sexes, and it always seems to work one way: at women’s expense. When a radio newscaster reported that “Three Stanford students—two girls and a man—were abducted from a research station in Africa” the implication was that the “girls” were less mature than the “man.”
- Emphasis on the physical characteristics of women is offensive in contexts where men are described in terms of business or other achievements, like this newspaper ad: “Engaged: Lee Radziwill, 46, fine-boned younger sister of Jacqueline Onassis, and Newton Cope, 56, San Francisco hotel and real estate millionaire…”
Today the Feminist Peace Network points us to a story in the Corvallis, Ore. Gazzette Times, about a conference featuring Nobel laureate Jody Williams. The headline is harmless enough—“Nobel laureate shares her views on peace”—but instead of beginning the story with what those views might be, the newspaper chose a different approach:
Nobel laureate Jody Williams sat on the stage, wearing a T-shirt, jeans and black cowboy boots with teal stitching. She dangled one leg over the edge, swinging her foot as she spoke to an audience that packed the Memorial Union Ballroom.
It’s a common refrain—using adjectives to describe women in ways that would never be used to describe men; examining the length and color and crop of their clothing—when in reality, perhaps we ought to be paying attention to what this Nobel laureate is saying. Would a male Prize winner have been described in the same way? (We’d guess not.)
But now for the fun part. We dug up a 1970 article from Editor and Publisher, describing new rules mandated by the Washington Post and Washington Evening Star (now defunct) forbidding reporters and copy editors from using words like “pert,” “cute” or “dimpled” to describe women in their stories. The notice, posted by then-managing editors Ben Bradlee and Charles Seib, on the newspapers’ bulletin boards, included the following:
Words like divorcee, grandmother, blonde (or brunette) or housewife should be avoided in all stories where, if a man were involved, the words would be inapplicable.
Please avoid meaningless descriptions like ‘leggy blonde’ and ‘attractive brunette.’ They date back to the days when it was considered titillating to print even a hint that there were two sexes.
Stories involving the achievement of women are often implicitly condescending. They imply, ‘pretty good for a woman.’ [These] stories should be written without condescension.
We’ve come a long way, baby—but clearly not far enough.
Today’s Economix blog over at the New York Times asks, Do Nice Gals Finish Last? Nancy Folbre, an economist at UMass Amhurst, explains that social scientists have long observed how the aggressive “Machiavellian personality” more typical to men tends to improve economic success, increasing both efforts to demand higher pay and a propensity to lie, cheat and steal. Women, meanwhile, are more agreeable and altruistic than men—traits that are likely to increase productivity, but impair bargaining power.
Evidence is now mounting on the impact of non-cognitive traits such as personality on earnings.
Some personality traits — like conscientiousness — are likely to increase productivity. But other traits, including Machiavellianism and aggressiveness, can increase earnings via a more direct route.
In her new book, The Curse of the Good Girl, girl advocate Rachel Simmons explains how that pressure to be “nice” begins at adolescence. Young women, Simmons contends, force themselves to fit the mold of modest, selfless, rule-following “good girl” for fear of being labeled a “bitch.” But in the real world, as Folbre points out, it’s precisely those bitch-like (Machiavellian?) qualities that help people get ahead. Where this “curse” leaves women is with imbalanced salaries, lower titles, and shorter professional trajectories.
“This generation of young women has had it ingrained in them that they must thrive within a ‘yes, but’ framework: yes, be a go getter, but don’t come on too strong. Yes, accomplish, but don’t brag about it,” says Simmons. “The result is that young women are holding themselves back, saying, ‘I shouldn’t say this, ask for this, do this, it will make me unlikable, or a bitch, or an outcast.’”
What do you think: Is it possible to avoid the Good Girl curse?
A 30-year-old New York ad recruiter writes:
I was working for a creative ad agency and one of our clients (a now defunct cell phone provider) had us in their LA office for the week presenting ideas. The creative director presented a round of scripts, and the client’s response was: “The work is awful, I don’t know how you guys come up with this crap.” Then he pointed to me and said: “At least your tits look good today.” A few mouths dropped and I turned bright red, but it was never really discussed again.
Submit your own “Tales from the Frontlines”—and a special call to the women of the advertising world—here.
Three news stories of interest today—and stay tuned for highlights from last night’s “Young Women and Feminism” panel at the 92nd Street Y.
* Timothy Egan rips Nike a new asshole for standing by alleged serial-rapist Ben Roethlisberger in today’s New York Times. “Is there anything creepier than a big, beer-breathed celebrity athlete exposing himself in a night club and hitting on underage girls, all the while protected by an entourage of off-duty cops?” Egan writes. “Well, yes. It’s the big, corporate sponsor — Nike, in this case — that continues trying to sell product with the creep as their role model.”
* According to new Census data, women—already graduating from college in higher numbers than men—are now just as likely to have earned advanced degrees. “It won’t be long before women dominate higher education and every degree level up to Ph.D.,” said economist Mark Perry. (Of course, the data shows women lag behind significantly in fields like engineering and science.)
* In a meeting this week with top Senate members, Obama said his pick for justice of the Supreme Court must honor ‘women’s rights.’
Today, April 20, is Equal Pay Day—a yearly marker of how long women must work into the current year (at 77 cents per every male dollar) to earn what men earned in the year past. We’ll be updating throughout the day, but here are a few figures to get your morning started:
8 months of groceries
The amount a woman could buy for a family of four if she were paid equal to her male peers, according to data from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the USDA.
58 cents
The amount that Latina women make per every male dollar in the United States. The gap among African American women is 70 cents; women overall—the figure we most often hear—is 77 cents.
9 percent
The amount by which the United States’ GDP could increase if the gender gap were closed.
Find us over at NEWSWEEK for 9 more staggering statistics about women and work.
Today in reader submitted stories, from a 20-something woman working in Congress:
I’m in my first real job after college… surrounded by capable and powerful women. [But] I’m still judged largely on my appearance by both men and women. I’m constantly worrying that my shirt is too tight or my skirt is too short, and that no one will ever take me seriously if they see an inch of leg. I end up dressing like a librarian. I find that female colleagues are often the harshest critics.
Sometimes, I smile too much, and people mistake my bubbliness for a lack of intelligence. My male coworkers like to make jokes about me being stupid, which is ironic considering they also ask me to edit their work. I have stood up for myself before, but it often comes off as a little abrasive or — goodness, no — bitchy.
Coming from [college], the real world is a slap in the face.
Submit your own “Tales from the Frontlines” here.
We posted recently on the piece written by NPR Ombuds(woman) Alicia Shepard, about how few women make it onto NPR’s airwaves. On Saturday, On the Media host Brooke Gladstone took the story one step further, asking, well, why is that? And then, in an acknowledged irony, she asked NYU professor Clay Shirky, the author of the much-debated “Rant About Women” (in which he said that “not enough women have what it takes to behave like arrogant, self-aggrandizing jerks”) to come on the show and help answer that question.
Our first reaction to this, of course, was: really, NPR? You couldn’t have at least asked one woman to come on during the 8-minute segment, along with Shirky? (We would have happily volunteered!) But we’ll let that point rest for a moment to acknowledge that Shirky makes good points. The highlights:
Shirky: Women are not being aggressive enough … I think the concern for what other people think about you is one of the sources of paralysis in the workforce for women. One of the big skills that you need [to succeed] is being able to do what you do without caring what other people think.
Gladstone: You have to acknowledge that when women put themselves out there, they’re called ‘bitches,’ they’re not called ‘leaders,’ they’re not called ‘strong;’ they’re called ‘strident’ and ‘a pain in the butt.’
Shirky: It’s true. The reason I think women should get better at behaving like arrogant, self-aggrandizing jerks when the situation calls for it isn’t that it will work as well as it will work for men… it’s that they will get more of the kind of success they imagined than if they don’t do it, even with those [negative labels].
So, where does all of this leave us? Well, towards the end of the program, Shirky notes that the consequence of having so many men on the radio as “experts”—and this goes for television and print as well—is that listeners (and viewers and readers) come to unconsciously associate expertise with a male voice. Shirky makes a relatively radical proposition: we should focus on equalizing the numbers first, at the expense of relying on the voices of more prominent “experts,” because otherwise, we’ll never stop equating expertise with maleness. It’s sort of an affirmative action program for the mainstream media. But an interesting idea. What do y’all think?
Though many people say that outright sexism is rare in the tech world these days, as the New York Times reports this weekend, in a really long feature that we are jealous we didn’t get to write, the reality for women in Silicon Valley would show otherwise. The highlights:
- A woman in tech, with degrees from Stanford and Harvard, will still be told her business cards should read “Mom,” get shown naked pictures by potential investors, and asked if her husband’s libido is affected by his biking hobby.
- Women may own 40 percent of the private businesses in the United States, but they create only 8 percent of the venture-backed tech start-ups. We also account for just 6 percent of the CEOS at the top 100 tech companies, and 22 percent of the software engineers at tech companies overall.
- Since an overwhelming majority of venture capitalists are men and have gotten to the firms via start-ups or business schools—both places where women are underrepresented—women have a harder time gaining access to the Valley’s boys club.
Man. All of that is depressing—especially, as the Times points out, at a time when women outnumber men at elite colleges, law schools, medical schools and in the overall workforce. And, as we’ve often pointed out, it’s more than just social equity that’s at stake. The Times writes:
Research indicates that investing in women as tech entrepreneurs is good for the bottom line. (Us: You don’t say!) Venture-backed start-ups run by women use, on average, 40 percent less capital than start-ups run by men and are increasingly involved in successful initial public offerings of stock.
So, in the last few weeks we’ve seen coverage on the dearth of women in media (both print and radio) and now technology. What’s next? Who’s going to take on law? Corporations? Academia? Cause we all know that when we scratch the surface in all these fields, we’ll find the same issues at play.
Equality Myth reader and new friend Jillian Weinberger, a freelance writer and Program Associate at Legal Momentum, unpacks a new book about “stereotype threat”—the idea that people who internalize negative stereotypes (women are bad at math, etc), in turn confirm them. She writes:
Until eighth grade, school was a breeze. I raced through math problems and reading assignments, turned in essays hurriedly scribbled the evening before, and aced tests with only a flimsy review of a chapter or two. My seventh grade math teacher selected me to take Algebra I a year early, in eighth grade. I accepted the challenge and faced the new school year confident that my flippant study habits would again carry me to success.
Instead, Algebra I hit me like a ton of bricks. Suddenly, solving math problems required more than a quick skim of the textbook and a casual half-hour of work in study hall. My once-pristine graded homework was returned to me as if from war, mangled from my eraser overuse and bloodied by my teacher’s red pen. C’s soon replaced the A’s that once graced the top of my tests, and I panicked.
Read more after the jump.
