Is Obama the first woman president? No.
Unless there is something he’s hiding from the public, President Obama is a biological male. Which means he has a Y chromosome, among other male-only physical features. While race is increasingly difficult to fence in with easy definitions, sex still has mostly rigid boundaries. This is perhaps why Toni Morrison was able to call Bill Clinton the first black president. In her 1998 New Yorker article she described him as such by highlighting certain tropes of blackness that he displayed: “single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.” But unlike race, sex is not defined by cultural signals. It can be played with, but that usually means changing from one side to the other. While race can be mixed, self-defined, sex is still mainly a binary. And Obama is squarely on one side.
But this is not an issue of biology and sex; it’s about gender and associated characteristics. Obama is the first female president not because people think he has a vagina, but because they think he is feminine. This, by definition, means that some people believe that there are specific traits that are fundamentally womanly. Martin Linsky of Newsweek has “five important ways” Obama displays his womanness: “inclusiveness in problem solving, deep optimism, modesty about knowing the answers, the courage to deliver uncomfortable news, not taking on all the work alone, and a willingness to air dirty linen.” This woman sounds an awful lot like Pollyanna. But it gets worse. Ralph Alter of The American Thinker has other reasons : “Obama is filled with sensitivity…, he would rather talk than fight, is highly…compassionate and to top it all off, he has a finely tuned sense of fashion.” Beyond the fact that Alter’s goal here is to claim that the “Obama administration fights like a girl” in order to discredit it (he must have missed Joan of Arc and Annie Oakley), these men are talking about gender definitions. Kathleen Parker, the latest to join in the meme, tries to dance around the issue much more delicately. She points out that she personally doesn’t think his “doing things a woman’s way” is a deficiency, yet feels our “cultural expectations” of what a leader should be do not include “coalition building” and talking it out. (Or really, talking at all--Obama is such a “chatterbox”!)
Inclusiveness, optimism, sensitivity, communication. (I will just ignore his sense of fashion.) These are very similar to the traits ascribed to female executives, regulators, and politicians when arguments are made that women in high places bring better results than men. But both claims boil us down to stereotypes by asserting that women share certain traits. It assumes that half the world’s population possesses a set of defining characteristics, a certain femininity that can be labeled. Is a pessimistic woman manly? Must I be sensitive to truly be female? Women differ from each other, not just from men. And it’s okay that we do.
The notion that Obama is feminine doesn't only do a disservice to women. It offends men as well. The authors feel men don’t (or shouldn’t) possess certain female-associated characteristics. A sensitive man? How homosexual. An optimistic man? How naïve. Are men really all that negative, unwilling to talk it out, so clueless when it comes to fashion? Is the U.S. really unable to handle a president who builds coalitions instead of being The Decider? Parker has a hard time believing her own assertion that these womanly traits are “an evolutionary achievement” (she spends the rest of her article attacking him for his desire to talk it out). But isn’t it possible that a more “evolved” man--or one could say modern, or well-adapted--is one that is able to pull from the playbooks of femininity and masculinity? And still know that he is a man?
Hilary Clinton didn’t get the party nomination because she’s too manly. Obama is losing popularity because he’s too female. These are assessments made by talking heads, but is it really what the American people think? Are we really unable to recognize that these two are men and women, no matter how they act? -Bryce Covert
Bryce Covert is a journalist and blogger who writes on feminism, politics, and the energy industry. She has a B.A. in literature from Brown University and you can find her at www.brycecovert.com and www.twitter.com/brycecovert.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Planting mangoes to curb bride burning and female feticide in India
In addition to packing a hefty antioxidant punch, the mango - a superfruit if there ever was one - is now proven to fend off poverty, global warming, and sexism.
According to an article in the BBC News, residents of the Dharhara village in the Bhagalpur district of northwestern India have engaged in a social experiment using mangoes to up the value of their daughters. In many parts of India, girls are seen as less desirable than boys. Families want a male heir, and a son is seen as an extra source of income for the family. Female feticide - in which doctors illegally abort unborn baby girls on the basis of their sex alone - is rampant throughout India, with 50 million girls missing, according to UNICEF. Female feticide has created a shortage of eligible brides in India, with males in some urban regions traveling to rural areas to secure a wife. But girls who aren't aborted are often subject to extreme domestic violence later in life. Bride burning, in which men set fire to their wives for lack of a sufficient dowry, occurs in parts of India.
It is against this grisly backdrop that the residents of Dharhara have decided to make their daughters more valuable in Indian society. For every girl born, the family plants at least 10 mango trees in the village. The mangoes provide a source of income for the parents, allowing them to save enough money for a dowry upon their daughter's marriage - thus avoiding the violence that accompanies a scanty marriage settlement. One mango orchard yields about $4,245 worth of mangoes each season, enough to supplement the familial income, with leftover money going in a bank account for the child's dowry.
"We heard about it from our fathers and they from their fathers. It has been in the family and the village from ages," Subhendu Kumar Singh, a school teacher, told the BBC. "This is our way of meeting the challenges of dowry, global warming and female foeticide. There has not been a single incident yet of female foeticide or dowry death in our village."
While the Dharhara tradition shelters the village's girls from the misogyny in greater India, the fact that mango trees alone can make a girl more valuable speaks volumes of the undervaluing of women in the first place. Preferable, of course, is a major cultural shift, one in which women - mango trees or not - are treasured from birth like men. But barring that, the Dharhara mango project is a model worth emulating. -Naomi Zeveloff
Image: Mickey_boy[L]
Naomi Zeveloff is an editor at The Lady Finger. This post originally appeared in EcoSalon, where she writes a weekly column about environmentalism and feminism.
New York's nannies, housekeepers, and eldercare givers get a break
Women nationwide have reason to celebrate this month. Thanks to tireless organizing and lobbying for the past several years by domestic workers organizations, New York is poised to become the first state to recognize the rights of domestic workers outlined in “Domestic Worker Bill of Rights” passed last month by the state Senate and scheduled to be signed into law this week.
The state’s 200,000 nannies, housekeepers and other workers--largely women of color and immigrant women--will be granted rights including mandatory overtime pay, vacation and sick days, once the state Assembly and House reconcile their bills and Gov. David Paterson signs off on the measure as expected. Domestic Workers United and other groups have been pushing for such rights, as unbelievably, current federal and state labor laws do not apply to domestic workers. In effect, they’ve been legally forbidden from the rights to self-organize, to form or join labor organizations, or to bargain collectively for improved wages or working conditions. Without these legal protections, employers have routinely denied their workers pay, refused sick and vacation days, fired workers without notice, and in some cases, enslaved them.
Barbara Young, a Barbadian nanny in New York, told BBC News, "We're on the streets, in the parks, the libraries and the after-school programs, yet people don't notice these are workers. We need a change in this industry."
Why has it taken so long? The lack of legal protection reflects society’s racist and classist tendency to overlook, or downplay, the contributions and rights of certain people--in this case, women of color, low-income women and immigrants who make up the broad majority of domestic workers. Of more than 400 domestic workers surveyed by the Domestic Workers United and DataCenter (based in New York City), about 99 percent were foreign-born, 99 percent were women of color (non-Hispanic white), 76 percent were non-U.S. citizens and 93 percent were female, according to U.N. Human Rights Committee Report. Employers are more likely to assert control over them, understanding they have few tools to defend themselves. Indeed, these women risk losing their jobs, their income, and their safety if they speak out against abuse and other issues.
Of course, domestic work--care of children and the home--is still largely performed by women and considered “women’s work,” even as more women than ever work paid jobs and are primary breadwinners in two-thirds of families.
The bill then not only protects workers from unjust and inhumane treatment, guaranteeing them basic rights, but forces employers and society to recognize domestic work as hard, meaningful work deserving of respect and compensation. The "second shift" has emerged further from the shadows of homes and public spaces, and we owe it to domestic workers and their demand to be noticed. -Jean Stevens
Jean Stevens is a freelance journalist, blogger, promoter, event planner, and novice photographer whose work focuses on issues relating to gender, race, class, sexual identity, food culture, U.S. foreign policy, and feminism. You can learn more about Jean at www.jeanmstevens.com.
Monday, June 14, 2010
A tale of two feminist victories
Feminists, rejoice! We can stop what we’re doing, for Ross Douthat has decided that the time has come to “officially consolidate [our] gains” from the women’s movement of the 1970s. After all, look at the success of Sarah Palin! Not to mention last Tuesday’s primaries, where “all the major female candidates won” – never mind that they were conservatives. In fact, the fact that they are conservatives is even more proof that our work is done. Conservative women’s “rise is a testament to the overall triumph of the women’s movement,” because “America is now a country where social conservatives are as comfortable as liberals with the idea of women in high office.”
But there are a couple of problems here. The first is that Douthat’s victory lap is celebrating the achievement of simply putting more women in higher office. As Ariel Levy noted (and as I also noted), sticking more women into higher positions isn’t really feminism. It’s what Levy calls the “politics of identity,” instead of a “politics of liberation” – women become interchangeable cogs, and the game is simply to overtake more of the machine. It ignores the values that they may hold. It also ignores whether or not this does anything to make the lives of the rest of us more equal or free. (And equal pay and family planning don’t appear on Sarah Palin’s agenda.)
Because the truth is, American women are not more equal. Only three percent of Fortune 500 companies have a woman as CEO. Women account for 17 of 100 Senators and 75 of 435 Representatives. Why don’t women have access to all the jobs men do? The answer comes down to parental leave and childcare.
Women enjoy far more equality in Sweden--and experience far less misogyny, it would seem. Sweden made itself a test case for increased parental leave, subsidized preschools, and better care for the elderly. Before the incentives of “daddy leave” were introduced in 1995, the country already had the preschools and elderly care in place, as well as a full year’s salary for a parent who took leave, a guaranteed job when he or she got back, and the ability to work six-hour days until the kids were in school. As the New York Times notes, “Female employment rates and birth rates had surged to be among the highest in the developed world.” Then came daddy leave, which meant that a family lost one month of subsidies if the father didn’t take some time off, as well as the addition of a second nontransferable father month. Now 85 percent of fathers take leave. But more importantly than that, a mother’s future earnings increase 7 percent on average for every month the father takes off. As the Times notes, “Companies have come to expect employees to take leave irrespective of gender, and not to penalize fathers at promotion time. Women’s paychecks are benefiting and the shift in fathers’ roles is perceived as playing a part in lower divorce rates and increasing joint custody of children.” On top of all of that, “a new definition of masculinity is emerging” – one in which a manly man takes time off to be with his newborn child.
This is what the game is about: making more choices available for women at every level, as well as equal pay and promotions for the choices they make. This can’t be achieved without highly subsidized childcare and parental leave. Otherwise women are forced to choose between being a mother and being successful at her job. Just take the story of Alexandria Wallace, recently profiled in the Times, who ended up reverting to welfare checks because the childcare for her daughter was no longer funded by the state. As Womenstake notes, Congress needs to invest in childcare subsidies to prevent more stories like Alexandria’s, and to “avoid further economic decline.” It is literally what stands between many women and their desired job. But it is also what holds down pay and promotions, when women take time off for pregnancy.
A feminist victory is not about gaining a few placeholders in office. It’s not about making conservatives comfortable with that idea, either. Rather, it’s about constructing a society where women have the most possible choices. Women in the U.S., sadly, don’t. -Bryce Covert
Bryce Covert is a journalist and blogger who writes on feminism, politics and the energy industry. She has a B.A. in literature from Brown University and you can find her at www.brycecovert.com and www.twitter.com/brycecovert.
But there are a couple of problems here. The first is that Douthat’s victory lap is celebrating the achievement of simply putting more women in higher office. As Ariel Levy noted (and as I also noted), sticking more women into higher positions isn’t really feminism. It’s what Levy calls the “politics of identity,” instead of a “politics of liberation” – women become interchangeable cogs, and the game is simply to overtake more of the machine. It ignores the values that they may hold. It also ignores whether or not this does anything to make the lives of the rest of us more equal or free. (And equal pay and family planning don’t appear on Sarah Palin’s agenda.)
Because the truth is, American women are not more equal. Only three percent of Fortune 500 companies have a woman as CEO. Women account for 17 of 100 Senators and 75 of 435 Representatives. Why don’t women have access to all the jobs men do? The answer comes down to parental leave and childcare.
Women enjoy far more equality in Sweden--and experience far less misogyny, it would seem. Sweden made itself a test case for increased parental leave, subsidized preschools, and better care for the elderly. Before the incentives of “daddy leave” were introduced in 1995, the country already had the preschools and elderly care in place, as well as a full year’s salary for a parent who took leave, a guaranteed job when he or she got back, and the ability to work six-hour days until the kids were in school. As the New York Times notes, “Female employment rates and birth rates had surged to be among the highest in the developed world.” Then came daddy leave, which meant that a family lost one month of subsidies if the father didn’t take some time off, as well as the addition of a second nontransferable father month. Now 85 percent of fathers take leave. But more importantly than that, a mother’s future earnings increase 7 percent on average for every month the father takes off. As the Times notes, “Companies have come to expect employees to take leave irrespective of gender, and not to penalize fathers at promotion time. Women’s paychecks are benefiting and the shift in fathers’ roles is perceived as playing a part in lower divorce rates and increasing joint custody of children.” On top of all of that, “a new definition of masculinity is emerging” – one in which a manly man takes time off to be with his newborn child.
This is what the game is about: making more choices available for women at every level, as well as equal pay and promotions for the choices they make. This can’t be achieved without highly subsidized childcare and parental leave. Otherwise women are forced to choose between being a mother and being successful at her job. Just take the story of Alexandria Wallace, recently profiled in the Times, who ended up reverting to welfare checks because the childcare for her daughter was no longer funded by the state. As Womenstake notes, Congress needs to invest in childcare subsidies to prevent more stories like Alexandria’s, and to “avoid further economic decline.” It is literally what stands between many women and their desired job. But it is also what holds down pay and promotions, when women take time off for pregnancy.
A feminist victory is not about gaining a few placeholders in office. It’s not about making conservatives comfortable with that idea, either. Rather, it’s about constructing a society where women have the most possible choices. Women in the U.S., sadly, don’t. -Bryce Covert
Bryce Covert is a journalist and blogger who writes on feminism, politics and the energy industry. She has a B.A. in literature from Brown University and you can find her at www.brycecovert.com and www.twitter.com/brycecovert.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
No, it's not the end of men
When talking about feminism with people who don't identify as feminists, the argument that "well, but men and women are different" inevitably comes up. Indeed, this simple observation was partly responsible for my own former reluctance to identify as a feminist--denying my own femininity seemed an unfair demand, and an unrewarding objective. My concept of feminism was largely limited to an explanation I had heard from an elementary school teacher years earlier: it's a movement for women who believe that their differences are unjust. So, they fight for things like easier physical fitness requirements in tests to become firefighters compensate for their relative physical weakness.
The message that to succeed women must adopt more masculine traits has guided the cultural narrative of successful, powerful women, while its corollary (in the grand tradition of double standards), is to "lament is the demise of masculinity," as Ann Friedman notes in The American Prospect. Indeed, who wants less brawny firefighters? Gender role stereotyping cuts both ways. In The Atlantic, Hanna Rosin's essay "The End of Men" argues that women's success comes at the expense of masculinity, and that men simply can't keep up with the contemporary world, and that "the economics of the new era are better suited to women," in a "postindustrial economy [that] is indifferent to men’s size and strength." At least we've finally moved past basic psycho-evolutionary dispositions to certain types of labor--phew.
An expanded take on the "he-cession" that has cost more men their jobs than women, Rosin projects a world with increasing numbers of women in management positions and with higher earning jobs. This should all be good news for all of us, but if it signals the decline of men into Judd Apatow, nobody comes out ahead. The goal of feminism has never been for women to succeed at the expense of men, nor are we quite there yet.
I don't mean to diminish the multitude of women's successes, for which I am personally deeply grateful, but the oppressive systems that feminism seeks to topple are still in plain sight. A record number of women are running for public office, but most of them in the GOP, a party whose platform actually encourages inequalities based on gender and other socioeconomic factors--and if elected, they will still enter a disproportionately male government. Rosin looks at the rise of historically female dominated careers--nursing, food service--and sees increased opportunity for women and a corresponding decrease in opportunity for men. It's partly a result of job disparity like this that the wage gap persists.
As Rosin points out, more and more women pursue higher education degrees--an accomplishment indeed worth celebrating. But according to the American Council on Education, which reports such information, the recent rise in the number of women attending college (they now outnumber men) comes mostly from a growing number of women of color who attend college, and a frightfully low number of men of color who do. While this is good news for these women, it is worth noting that the ratio of white men and women enrolled appears level. The wage gap hurts black and Latina women more than it does white women, positioning them to benefit the most of any group by pursuing wage-raising degrees. Because the most desperate people are working to improve their lot does not mean we've reached an equitable arrangement.
The glib argument that men are lagging is to set back the goals of feminism. Delighting in a reversal of gender roles is not the intent of a movement designed to eliminate traditional boundaries and increase equity. To make professional fields besides nursing and child care unfriendly to men does not benefit anybody, nor are we even near the cusp of a gender role reversal in the home--and that's not the goal, anyway. Success at the expense of somebody else's oppression is not where we've ever been headed. Just because many women have risen to the occasion, balancing their traditional "women's work" with careers, doesn't mean that men are insignificant, but if ideas about masculinity softened enough to make professions like teaching and nursing appealing to more men, that would be a step in the right direction. -Sara Rubin
Sara Rubin is an editor at The Lady Finger.
The message that to succeed women must adopt more masculine traits has guided the cultural narrative of successful, powerful women, while its corollary (in the grand tradition of double standards), is to "lament is the demise of masculinity," as Ann Friedman notes in The American Prospect. Indeed, who wants less brawny firefighters? Gender role stereotyping cuts both ways. In The Atlantic, Hanna Rosin's essay "The End of Men" argues that women's success comes at the expense of masculinity, and that men simply can't keep up with the contemporary world, and that "the economics of the new era are better suited to women," in a "postindustrial economy [that] is indifferent to men’s size and strength." At least we've finally moved past basic psycho-evolutionary dispositions to certain types of labor--phew.
An expanded take on the "he-cession" that has cost more men their jobs than women, Rosin projects a world with increasing numbers of women in management positions and with higher earning jobs. This should all be good news for all of us, but if it signals the decline of men into Judd Apatow, nobody comes out ahead. The goal of feminism has never been for women to succeed at the expense of men, nor are we quite there yet.
I don't mean to diminish the multitude of women's successes, for which I am personally deeply grateful, but the oppressive systems that feminism seeks to topple are still in plain sight. A record number of women are running for public office, but most of them in the GOP, a party whose platform actually encourages inequalities based on gender and other socioeconomic factors--and if elected, they will still enter a disproportionately male government. Rosin looks at the rise of historically female dominated careers--nursing, food service--and sees increased opportunity for women and a corresponding decrease in opportunity for men. It's partly a result of job disparity like this that the wage gap persists.
As Rosin points out, more and more women pursue higher education degrees--an accomplishment indeed worth celebrating. But according to the American Council on Education, which reports such information, the recent rise in the number of women attending college (they now outnumber men) comes mostly from a growing number of women of color who attend college, and a frightfully low number of men of color who do. While this is good news for these women, it is worth noting that the ratio of white men and women enrolled appears level. The wage gap hurts black and Latina women more than it does white women, positioning them to benefit the most of any group by pursuing wage-raising degrees. Because the most desperate people are working to improve their lot does not mean we've reached an equitable arrangement.
The glib argument that men are lagging is to set back the goals of feminism. Delighting in a reversal of gender roles is not the intent of a movement designed to eliminate traditional boundaries and increase equity. To make professional fields besides nursing and child care unfriendly to men does not benefit anybody, nor are we even near the cusp of a gender role reversal in the home--and that's not the goal, anyway. Success at the expense of somebody else's oppression is not where we've ever been headed. Just because many women have risen to the occasion, balancing their traditional "women's work" with careers, doesn't mean that men are insignificant, but if ideas about masculinity softened enough to make professions like teaching and nursing appealing to more men, that would be a step in the right direction. -Sara Rubin
Sara Rubin is an editor at The Lady Finger.
Monday, June 7, 2010
To be, or not to be...a feminist?
In a stirring production of Hamlet at the Folger Shakespeare Library, so much careful attention was granted to these two women and their repeated objectification and destruction as collateral, that I saw, for the first time ever, a feminist glimmer within the brilliant play. (To be fair, it was also the first time I saw Hamlet performed live.)
The scene of Ophelia's madness was gripping and revolting all at once, as she sings incongruous bits of song and weaves flowers together. In this production, great weight is given to the forces of men around her, to which she routinely acquiesces. Her brother, Laertes, has a heart-to-heart before he departs for study abroad, and his acting here emphasized the absurdity of a brother giving graphically sexual advice (against sex, of course). Keep not "your chaste treasure open," he warns. He even pronounced "country" as "cunt-ry," a reminder that so much honor is invested in the virginal condition of a woman's genitalia that she must guard her body. "Safety lies in fear," he advises, telling Ophelia to fear men who claim affection.
Ophelia's father, Polonius, gives similar, albeit less sexually vivid advice. He tells her that she is not good enough for Prince Hamlet, and then advices here to no longer "give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet." ("I shall obey," she says--and her refusal to accept Hamlet's letters grates on his already emotionally strained anxiety.)
In this production, Hamlet's madness isn't questionable for a moment as real. It's part of a connivance to revenge Claudius. But as Gertrude, Claudius, and Polonius debate Hamlet's descent into presumed insanity, they are quick to blame Ophelia for unrequited love resulting in Hamlet's sorrow, when in fact, she is just following her father's orders--against her own judgment.
It is not until Polonius dies that Ophelia goes mad, but the confrontations between she and Hamlet are gut-wrenchingly sad. Hamlet, due to his stature (and his gender) is permitted to condescend, while she obsequiously calls him "my lord" and pretends not to love him.
Although the play stayed true to the original 400-year-old script, Ophelia's horrible position of being subjected to a double standard as victim--both forbidden to express her love for Hamlet, and then blamed for causing his madness as a result--served as a prominent character element of this production, bringing deserved attention to the absurdity of treating women as disposable and symbolic. Indeed, in Hamlet Gertrude and Ophelia are stand-ins symbols for whatever is convenient: family honor, loss of male control, uncontrolled sexual desire, guardians, or trophies. But to take not in a self-aware sense, with details like the "cunt-ry" pronunciation, director Joseph Haj gave due attention to gender, bringing it to the troubling center of the play. -Sara Rubin
Sara Rubin is an editor at The Lady Finger.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Are quotas for women a good idea for business?
Does the US need a quota requirement for the number of women executives in businesses? The financial crisis, as many are coming to realize (including Timothy Geithner himself), was mostly the handiwork of men. The CEOs of all the financial firms that brought the economy down were men. The top regulators who missed the bubble’s signs—Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, etc.—were men. A majority of the traders themselves, at every level of crafting the mortgage-backed securities, were men. And it appears women are the ones now stepping in to clean up the mess. Time Magazine just ran a cover story on the “New Sheriffs of Wall Street”: Elizabeth Warren, a vocal supporter of a consumer protection agency and chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel investigating the TARP program, Sheila Bair, the chair of the FDIC, who was one of the first regulators to raise concerns about a deflating bubble, and Mary Shapiro, chair of the SEC, who cast the deciding vote to go after Goldman Sachs.
It isn’t shocking that the US has dismal numbers to report on the female percentage of executives and board members. Only three percent of Fortune 500 companies have a woman as CEO and about 15% of those companies’ board members are women. Meanwhile, Norway has enacted a law requiring that 40% of all company board members be women. There, more than 25% of board seats at the 65 largest privately held companies are occupied by women. The percentage of female directors overall is above 40%. Back in 2002, when the law was enacted, women held less than seven percent of private-sector board seats.
These two facts taken together must point to a strong argument for quotas—more women will serve in high-level positions, and the world will be better of for it. Everyone wins. Except that the story is more complicated than that.
The issue skirts the question of whether or not the premise itself, that men were in charge of the financial meltdown, is sexist. Dana Goldstein and Ann Friedman, two editors at The American Prospect, tackle this question in their “Ask a feminist” video series. They conclude that while it is sexist to say that men caused the financial crisis, it is not sexist to say that the “hyper-masculine culture of Wall Street” was a factor.
But they make a passing remark that raises something even more troubling. They point to Erin Callan and Zoe Cruz , two high-ranking executives at Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley, respectively, as women who “saw their careers end because they were not skeptical enough of the mortgage crisis.” In other words, exceptions—women who were involved in the financial crisis alongside men. But in reality, both of these women are widely assumed to have served as scapegoats for their (male) bosses as the market began to recede--they were pushed off the “glass cliff.” Their firings only serve to enhance the sense that Wall Street is a good old boy’s club and a male-dominated realm. If hiring women can be used as an easy cover, why would a quota system change that motive for promoting them?
The story in Norway is similar to Callan and Cruz’s. The women who were named to boards to fill the quota were overall younger and more inexperienced. The pool from which to pick was less robust than the pool of men—likely because of the long-standing practice of excluding women from the roles that precede the promotions. Theoretically, over time this would change. But in the meantime, it may pose a hurdle for these women. “When you suddenly replace 30 percent to 40 percent of your board with inexperienced people, it is easier for those new members to be manipulated—that’s just common sense,” said Ruilf Rustad, a professional investor who has been chairman of at least 20 listed companies over the past 10 years.
And while all of this is going on, the number of female executives has not risen along with the number of women in boardrooms. A recent study also found that gender quotas for women in government don’t result in more women being politically engaged. While researchers expected that more women representatives would lead to greater involvement, not much has changed. This, at least for now, discounts the idea that a rising tide lifts all ships. The domino effect may not happen automatically.
Women are also often the first to speak up against wrong doing because they are outsiders. Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002 were three women (in a similar pose on the cover as the New Sheriffs): Cynthia Cooper of Worldcom, Colleen Rowley of the FBI, and Sherron Watkins of Enron. Three women who spoke up; three women on the outside looking in at the wrongdoings. It is likely that women are risk-adverse also because they are outsiders: if it took more for you to get your job than your male counterpart, you are less inclined to risk losing it. They often play by the rules because their jobs are more tenuous. But if more women become executives, or insiders, do these effects remain?
In a New York Times op-ed, French Minister of Economic Affairs, Industry and Employment Christine Lagarde joined in to point out that women were not at the helm of the financial crisis. Perhaps they should be, she says; after all, “When women are called to action in times of turbulence, it is often on account of their composure, sense of responsibility and great pragmatism in delicate situations.” But the picture Lagarde paints here smacks of women that are fresh from finishing school. Is it because women are more “composed” that they would have done a better job? She attributes her own personal success to stronger characteristics: discipline, the meaning of hard work, willpower. But many men have these traits as well. Just what it is about women that would have made us better able to avoid the financial crisis? Answering that question leads us dangerously close to boiling women down to essential traits.
Quotas also make feminism what Ariel Levy at The New Yorker calls a “politics of identity,” instead of a “politics of liberation.” The game changes from promoting certain values–and along with them, women who espouse them into higher office–to simply putting more women in more positions of power, no matter what values they hold. “You could have, for example…Sarah Palin.” Levy admits, as do I, that it matters that there are more women in powerful roles than there were in prior years. But to be preoccupied with a game of getting “a bigger slice of the resources” doesn’t serve a larger feminist agenda. Women become interchangeable.
There is something to be said for the fact that having more women in high positions probably means that they will both make their colleagues more comfortable with the idea and create an easier path for women who come after them. Diversity is important, if nothing else for the sake of bringing diverse ideas to the table. And it is highly likely that the more women in a firm, over more time, the less they will experience the glass cliff. Would a strict quota bring them in too quickly? It’s possible. And it’s also possible that too many women will then be promoted for the wrong reasons. And either way, it is hard to avoid characterizing all women in certain essential ways when arguing that they are necessary for business. Saying that having women in charge means better performance begs the question, why? And that question has yet to be answered.
Levy has a different solution: federal assurance that all women have access to affordable childcare. Rather than require companies to hire a certain number of women, give them an affordable place to leave their kids. This way the choice between a career and having a family disappears. And if you don’t have to interrupt your career path for bearing children, perhaps you can advance at the same pace, and in the same positions, as men. -Bryce Covert
Bryce Covert is a journalist and blogger who writes on feminism, politics and the energy industry. She has a B.A. in literature from Brown University and you can find her at www.brycecovert.com and www.twitter.com/brycecovert .
It isn’t shocking that the US has dismal numbers to report on the female percentage of executives and board members. Only three percent of Fortune 500 companies have a woman as CEO and about 15% of those companies’ board members are women. Meanwhile, Norway has enacted a law requiring that 40% of all company board members be women. There, more than 25% of board seats at the 65 largest privately held companies are occupied by women. The percentage of female directors overall is above 40%. Back in 2002, when the law was enacted, women held less than seven percent of private-sector board seats.
These two facts taken together must point to a strong argument for quotas—more women will serve in high-level positions, and the world will be better of for it. Everyone wins. Except that the story is more complicated than that.
The issue skirts the question of whether or not the premise itself, that men were in charge of the financial meltdown, is sexist. Dana Goldstein and Ann Friedman, two editors at The American Prospect, tackle this question in their “Ask a feminist” video series. They conclude that while it is sexist to say that men caused the financial crisis, it is not sexist to say that the “hyper-masculine culture of Wall Street” was a factor.
But they make a passing remark that raises something even more troubling. They point to Erin Callan and Zoe Cruz , two high-ranking executives at Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley, respectively, as women who “saw their careers end because they were not skeptical enough of the mortgage crisis.” In other words, exceptions—women who were involved in the financial crisis alongside men. But in reality, both of these women are widely assumed to have served as scapegoats for their (male) bosses as the market began to recede--they were pushed off the “glass cliff.” Their firings only serve to enhance the sense that Wall Street is a good old boy’s club and a male-dominated realm. If hiring women can be used as an easy cover, why would a quota system change that motive for promoting them?
The story in Norway is similar to Callan and Cruz’s. The women who were named to boards to fill the quota were overall younger and more inexperienced. The pool from which to pick was less robust than the pool of men—likely because of the long-standing practice of excluding women from the roles that precede the promotions. Theoretically, over time this would change. But in the meantime, it may pose a hurdle for these women. “When you suddenly replace 30 percent to 40 percent of your board with inexperienced people, it is easier for those new members to be manipulated—that’s just common sense,” said Ruilf Rustad, a professional investor who has been chairman of at least 20 listed companies over the past 10 years.
And while all of this is going on, the number of female executives has not risen along with the number of women in boardrooms. A recent study also found that gender quotas for women in government don’t result in more women being politically engaged. While researchers expected that more women representatives would lead to greater involvement, not much has changed. This, at least for now, discounts the idea that a rising tide lifts all ships. The domino effect may not happen automatically.
Women are also often the first to speak up against wrong doing because they are outsiders. Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002 were three women (in a similar pose on the cover as the New Sheriffs): Cynthia Cooper of Worldcom, Colleen Rowley of the FBI, and Sherron Watkins of Enron. Three women who spoke up; three women on the outside looking in at the wrongdoings. It is likely that women are risk-adverse also because they are outsiders: if it took more for you to get your job than your male counterpart, you are less inclined to risk losing it. They often play by the rules because their jobs are more tenuous. But if more women become executives, or insiders, do these effects remain?
In a New York Times op-ed, French Minister of Economic Affairs, Industry and Employment Christine Lagarde joined in to point out that women were not at the helm of the financial crisis. Perhaps they should be, she says; after all, “When women are called to action in times of turbulence, it is often on account of their composure, sense of responsibility and great pragmatism in delicate situations.” But the picture Lagarde paints here smacks of women that are fresh from finishing school. Is it because women are more “composed” that they would have done a better job? She attributes her own personal success to stronger characteristics: discipline, the meaning of hard work, willpower. But many men have these traits as well. Just what it is about women that would have made us better able to avoid the financial crisis? Answering that question leads us dangerously close to boiling women down to essential traits.
Quotas also make feminism what Ariel Levy at The New Yorker calls a “politics of identity,” instead of a “politics of liberation.” The game changes from promoting certain values–and along with them, women who espouse them into higher office–to simply putting more women in more positions of power, no matter what values they hold. “You could have, for example…Sarah Palin.” Levy admits, as do I, that it matters that there are more women in powerful roles than there were in prior years. But to be preoccupied with a game of getting “a bigger slice of the resources” doesn’t serve a larger feminist agenda. Women become interchangeable.
There is something to be said for the fact that having more women in high positions probably means that they will both make their colleagues more comfortable with the idea and create an easier path for women who come after them. Diversity is important, if nothing else for the sake of bringing diverse ideas to the table. And it is highly likely that the more women in a firm, over more time, the less they will experience the glass cliff. Would a strict quota bring them in too quickly? It’s possible. And it’s also possible that too many women will then be promoted for the wrong reasons. And either way, it is hard to avoid characterizing all women in certain essential ways when arguing that they are necessary for business. Saying that having women in charge means better performance begs the question, why? And that question has yet to be answered.
Levy has a different solution: federal assurance that all women have access to affordable childcare. Rather than require companies to hire a certain number of women, give them an affordable place to leave their kids. This way the choice between a career and having a family disappears. And if you don’t have to interrupt your career path for bearing children, perhaps you can advance at the same pace, and in the same positions, as men. -Bryce Covert
Bryce Covert is a journalist and blogger who writes on feminism, politics and the energy industry. She has a B.A. in literature from Brown University and you can find her at www.brycecovert.com and www.twitter.com/brycecovert .
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