Why the Gender Pay Gap May Never Go Away

We have been told for years now that the gender pay gap between women and men is at about 77 cents on the dollar. However, what is more disturbing than this discrepancy itself is the fact that there has been relatively little change in this wage gap within the last decade (Blau and Kahn 8). The gender pay gap, which measures the average salary of male workers against the average salary of female workers, has existed forever. In a nation where women are now legally as free as men to work in whichever industry they choose, it is unclear as to why this discrepancy continues to exist. Of course, there are numerous variables to take into account when trying to understand the differences between men’s and women’s salaries, particularly within the same industries. The problem is that when you control for most, if not all, of these factors, researches have still found a difference that cannot be accounted for; it is likely that these differences are a result of gender stereotyping that causes both self-discrimination and gender discrimination.

Gender wage discrimination was not only legal in the US until 1963, but it was also not even considered an issue because parents and husbands were expected to shoulder the financial responsibilities of their daughters and wives (Perry and Gundersen 2). Right before World War II began, in 1940, women earned a meager “59 cents for every dollar earned by men,” (Perry and Gundersen 2). However, once the war began, many industries became saturated with women workers who replaced the men who had gone off to war. With many families now dependent on these women for income, “the National War Labor Board urged employers in 1942 to voluntarily make ‘adjustments to equalize wage rates paid to females and males for comparable quality and quantity of work,’ (Perry and Gundersen 2). Aside from this informal encouragement, not much else was done at the federal level concerning gender wage equality until 1963, when the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, which mandated that women and men be paid equally for comparable work (“The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap” 20). The following year, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act outlawed employment discrimination based off of gender and other protected classes (“The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap” 20). In order to enforce and regulate these laws, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) were created and currently still investigate and bring litigation against employment and wage discrimination. More recently, in 2009, the government passed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which strengthened the rights of employees who experience gender discrimination at work (“The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap” 20). This legislation has no doubt helped women close the wage gap by eliminating blatant gender discrimination, but less obvious forms of gender discrimination have continued to persist and affect the wage gap.

There are numerous theories for why this gap still exists, but researchers have attributed it mostly to overcrowding, human capital theory, and occupational segregation. Interestingly, they have found that when the wage gap is adjusted for these contributing factors, it narrows to less than 10 cents (Corbett and Hill 21).

The overcrowding theory is purely economically based and asserts that “an excess supply of women in ‘female’ jobs depresses wages for otherwise equally productive workers (Solberg 129). In other words, because there is a greater supply of female laborers than demand for this labor in historically “female” occupations, the wage rate for these jobs is pushed down below where it would be if demand and supply for female labor were in equilibrium. While this has been considered a contributing factor to the wage gap, studies have found that it is not the “sole explanation of the gender pay gap,” (Solberg 139).

Rather, researchers see a much higher correlation between the wage gap and human capital theory, which states that:

Men and women provide differential returns to productivity. Women are paid less because they are less productive throughout their working lives than men due to differences in lifestyle factors (Strober 1990), including through having discontinuous work experience and part-time employment (Tharenou 200).

Human capital thus points out the disappointing truth that because many women must take time out of the labor force or work fewer hours to have children, they are paid less. Whether or not women are actually as productive as men after their return to the labor force, they are penalized for the simple biological truth that they are the only ones who can bear children. Of course, while it may be politically incorrect, the fact of the matter is that it is less risky to hire a man who an employer knows will never have to take time off to have a child than a woman who may or may not have to do this (Perry and Gundersen 5). Furthermore, from an economic perspective, it makes sense to invest in employees who can commit to working longer hours without interruption, and this helps to explain why we often see such few women in top leadership roles that take years of continuous commitment to reach. This theory is supported by a plethora of data. In 2010, the US Census Bureau found that the wage gap for women with children was 73.6 cents for every dollar men earn, lower than the average 77 cents for all working women (Perry and Gundersen 5). In fact, “the more likely a woman is to have dependent children and be married the more likely she is to be a low earner and have fewer hours in the labor market,” (Perry and Gundersen 5). The disturbing reality of this is that it does not seem plausible that this discrepancy will ever go away, since it is essentially impossible that there will ever be a time when women are not the ones who must take time out of the workforce to bear children.

Similar to human capital, occupational segregation also contributes to the gender wage gap in that women often choose occupations that are lower paying because these jobs either allow for more flexible hours, part-time work, or other benefits that allow these women to balance their professional and family lives. Many of these occupations are often denoted as “pink collar” jobs because female workers have historically dominated these industries. In other words, this phenomenon takes into account the fact that the gender wage gap is not only the result of economic realities but also the individual choices of women as a whole.

When adjusting for these three different theories, research has found that the wage gap then narrows to about a 7-cent difference between men’s and women’s wages (Corbett and Hill 21). In other words, we only understand about 16 cents worth of the wage gap between men and women. Just because we understand it though, does not mean that it is any less concerning than the 7 cents unaccounted for, particularly in respects to the fact that the effects we understand are still gender-linked and all interact with one another. Take overcrowding together with occupational segregation, and it is clear that many jobs historically associated with women are valued less than those associated with men when a number of these jobs arguably require similar skills or educational levels. Furthermore, when taking human capital into consideration, it is difficult to foresee women ever completely closing the gap when we are penalized for our ability to give birth. As a woman, it is truly frustrating to see that free-market capitalism and biological difference, both completely out of our control, cause us to be paid less than men. Even more frustrating is the fact that this implies that because of these unavoidable differences, women may never completely close the wage gap.

Of course, the unexplained portion of the gender pay gap is also of great concern because we cannot make progress toward closing the gap if we do not completely understand all the factors that cause it. While research in this area is still quite incomplete, researchers are primarily in agreement that gender discrimination makes up some component of this unexplained gender pay difference (Tharenou 202). We see evidence of this in the fact that there still continue to be court cases concerning employment discrimination based off of gender (Blau and Kahn 14).  The Lily Ledbetter case, which led to the passage of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, is a great example of this. Large corporations like Wal-Mart have also been accused of “systematic pay and promotion discrimination” when it comes to their women employees (“The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap” 18).

While most of us acknowledge that gender discrimination still exists in employment practices, there are still disputes as to the extent to which this discrimination causes the unexplained gap in pay. Furthermore, it is unclear and probably unlikely that gender discrimination alone causes the entire 7-cent gap currently unaccounted for. What is clear is that the entire 23-cent pay gap is very closely linked to gender in one way or another. Therefore, it is logical to speculate that both the portions of the gender pay disparity that we understand and the portion that is still a mystery are rooted in a similar source.

Phyllis Tharenou and Hilary Lips make a very interesting argument to explain both the understood and misunderstood aspects of the gender pay gap: social psychological influences (Tharenou 202). There is no denying that our society is largely built upon the ideas and beliefs of men, so it is not a far stretch to conclude that societal influences and socialization have caused differences in valuing men’s work over women’s work. Except for a minority of men in America, it is unreasonable to believe that they all have a conspiracy to keep women down. However, we cannot discount the effect that living in a patriarchal society has had on the way women view themselves and view the world.

Lips argues that gender stereotypes about norms and expectations cause people to not only discriminate against women but cause women to discriminate against themselves (Tharenou 202). It is important to realize that both men and women discriminate against and stereotype women (Tharenou 202). In turn, Lips and Tharenou believe that this leads society to “uphold and maintain gender-linked social roles,” which then manifest themselves in the decisions that men and women make about their lives, and in this case, their occupations (Tharenou 203). Take occupational segregation or overcrowding, for example, which theorize that women are paid less because they choose to work in industries that are lower paying and often considered “women’s work.” Here we can see the direct link between Lips and Tharenou’s theory that stereotyping leads to wage discrimination. It seems almost intuitive that women would flock to occupations that have historically been filled by their sex because this is what they grew up understanding as work that women did, and after all, many of the women working in these “pink collar” jobs were the women who raised us. Furthermore, it is a stereotype in and of itself to say that there are occupations that are more suitable for women or that jobs that have historically been filled by women must be women’s work, when all of these perceived roles have been socially constructed over thousands of years. We can see how Lips and Tharenou’s theory may also affect human capital theory in the way that women often choose to take time off, leave the labor force, or work part-time in order to take care of their families. The stereotype that women are responsible for child-rearing and housework has persisted forever, and even now, many women still feel that these tasks are their responsibilities, despite the fact that they have the freedom to choose not to take on these roles. The bottom line is, to some extent, the way women choose to live their lives and the way their occupational worth is valued are all affected by pervasive gender stereotypes.

Tharenou points out that even if the effects of these stereotypes start off relatively small, they can compound over many years (Tharenou 204). For instance, numerous studies have shown that women are less assertive when it comes to negotiating their salaries, particularly their first salary out of school (Corbett and Hill 3). This is because women who show aggression, or any other “masculine” traits for that matter, “are evaluated more harshly than men especially when seeking, or when they are employed in, leadership roles,” (Tharenou 202). Here we have an example of first, how women are socialized to be less assertive, and second, how right from the get go they may not be receiving the salary they deserve. While this may start out as a relatively small discrepancy, it only gets larger over time as a woman’s salary compounds from this initial lower value, as she takes time off to have children, and so on. Essentially from the start, these women are dooming themselves to never be able to catch up to their male counterparts. In other words, while the effects of gender stereotypes and discrimination might be subtle at first, they have cumulative effects over the decades of one’s working life and thus end up increasing the wage gap between men and women as they age. There is data supporting this cumulative effect, which shows that from ages 20-24, the post-college years, the average female’s salary is about 93% of the average male’s salary, but by 55-64 years of age, the gap increases to only 75% (“The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap” 12). While there is no direct evidence proving that this is a result of gender stereotypes and discrimination affecting gender wage inequality, this is a very plausible explanation for why we still cannot explain a portion of the gap, especially since it is extremely difficult to quantitatively measure the effects of stereotyping and discrimination in its more subtle forms.

Many who question the validity of the gender pay gap issue point to the idea that if we know that much of it results from women’s own personal choices, is the wage gap measurement actually relevant? Of course, all women should be free to choose whatever occupation makes them happy, whether that means one with less hours or one that pays less. The discussion of the gender wage gap should not in any way insinuate that these are invalid life decisions. However, not all women make professional choices based off of what makes them happy, but rather, most of them make decisions based off of economic necessity. Many women, especially single mothers, do not wish to work less hours or for less pay because they necessarily like their jobs, but they must in order to raise their children at the same time. Less time working and lower wages translate directly to what these women can provide for their children, and single women are the largest group below the poverty line in the United States (Cawthorne 1). It is therefore childish to flippantly dismiss the gender pay gap as an illegitimate concern. When one particular segment of the population is inherently more likely to live in poverty just because of their gender, there is clearly a disconnect within our society.

Women may be penalized in the workforce for factors beyond their control, but for those that we can control, we should be doing all we can to remedy them. First, women should push for compensation transparency, specifically in the private sector. If employers were forced to disclose compensation for all employees, there would be fewer disputes over gender wage inequality within the industries. Furthermore, legislation needs to be rewritten to place the burden of evidence less on the defendants in gender wage discrimination cases and more on the plaintiffs, for the laws as they stand make it very difficult for women to successfully litigate against workplace discrimination. Another innovative idea used in Minnesota is using “audits to monitor and address gender pay differences,” (“The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap” 20). The state requires its public-sector employers to conduct studies every few years to “eliminate pay disparities between female-dominated and male-dominated jobs that require comparable levels of expertise,” (“The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap” 20). More evaluations like these would also help states and employers figure out where the largest pay disparities lie and thus allow them to address these specific issues. Lastly, further research must be done to investigate the direct effects of social psychological influences on the gender pay disparity (Tharenou 202). Until we can fully understand all of the causes of the wage gap, we will not be able to fully overcome it.

On a broader scale, we need a societal shift in perceived gender roles and discrimination. Until we get to a point were certain family roles and occupations are no longer associated with a single sex, we will not have pay equity amongst the sexes. We must not continue to perpetuate gender stereotypes as a society, but more specifically, women must take it upon themselves to defy these stereotypes. Truthfully, the complete closure of the gap may never come to fruition because of the biological differences between men and women, but there is certainly still room to improve. Once there is more equitable sharing of family and professional responsibilities between men and women, there will be further progress toward lessening the wage gap between them as well. However, when the majority of women continue to compromise their own lives with less compromise from their male counterparts, women’s wages will continue to be compromised as well.

  Works Cited

Blau, Francine D., and Lawrence M. Kahn. “The Gender Pay Gap: Have Women Gone as Far as They Can?” Academy of Management Perspectives 21.1 (2007): 7-23. Print.

Cawthorne, Alexandra. The Straight Facts on Women in Poverty. Rep. N.p.: Center for American Progress, 2008. Print.

Corbett, Christianne, and Catherine Hill. Graduating to a Pay Gap: The Earnings of Women and Men One Year After College Graduation. Rep. no. 978-1-879922-43-3. Washington D.C.: American Association of University Women, 2012. Print.

Perry, Jennifer, and David Gundersen. “American Women and the Gender Pay Gap: A Changing Demographic or the Same Old Song.” Advancing Women in Leadership 31 (2011): 153-59. ProQuest. Web.

The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap. Rep. Fall 2013 ed. N.p.: American Association of University Women, 2013. Print.

Solberg, Eric. “The Gender Pay Gap by Occupation: A Test of the Crowding Hypothesis.” Contemporary Economic Policy 23 (2005): 129-48. ProQuest. Web.

Tharenou, Phyllis. “The Work of Feminists Is Not Yet Done: The Gender Pay Gap—a Stubborn Anachronism.” Sex Roles 68.3-4 (2013): 198-206. Print.

United States of America. US Department of Labor. An Analysis of the Reasons for the

Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women. Pittsburgh: CONSAD Research Corporation, 2009. Print. 

Hillary Clinton: Can’t Live With Her, Can’t Live Without Her

 

Today, the National Archives and Records Administration released thousands of pages from the previously confidential Clinton presidential library. With Hillary Clinton still considering a presidential run in 2016, reporters are speculating that these newly released documents could either round out her image “as an active first lady who was a powerful policy and political advisor to her husband,” or they could provide the Republican opposition with just the ammo they need to take Hillary out.

Truthfully, the release of these documents will probably have very little effect on whether or not Hillary chooses to run. Hillary has been a controversial figure for decades, and it is unlikely that her ability to succeed as a presidential candidate will be drastically altered by anything at this point.

Let us take a walk down memory lane. In 1996, Hillary was subpoenaed and forced to testify before a federal grand jury as a result of the Whitewater controversy. She chose to stay with her philandering husband after the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998. She essentially only moved to New York State to run for a Senate position in 2000. As a Democrat, she supported military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and in 2012 was credited with the disaster of the Benghazi attack that resulted in the deaths of a number of American diplomats. Today, she tours the country as a guest speaker and lecturer, heavily compensated for her appearances.

This is all public knowledge, and while these may all be blots on her personal and professional record, Hillary is still considered the top contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2016 election. The entire party eagerly awaits her declaration before making any other moves. So is it really plausible to think that anything else we may find out about Hillary will honestly ruin her chances at the presidency?

Hillary is the first real chance women have had at occupying the Oval Office. Despite her questionable past, she has been involved in politics since she was a teenager in the 1960s. She may not be loveable, but there is no doubt that she is intelligent and qualified for political office. Therefore, not only is there nothing that will stop her from running for president, if that is what she so chooses, but no one should try to stop her.

America needs smart, ambitious, female political leaders, and we need them now. Women are grossly underrepresented in our nation’s elected offices, and unlike nearly all other modern countries, we have yet to have a female leader in our highest political office. Truthfully, you would be hard-pressed to find a woman with more involvement in the political process than Hillary Clinton. So stop nitpicking through her life to find the moments where she faltered. After all, she is only a human being just like the rest of us, and whether you want to admit it or not, we need women like Hillary a lot more than they need our judgment.

The Problem with Love These Days

Why is finding love so hard?

As a single woman in my twenties, this is a struggle close to my heart. I have always been a hopeless romantic, and you can either blame it on my sick obsession with romantic comedies or the fact that my parents have been together since they were fifteen years old. Either way, love is all I have ever wanted, and as someone who has been fortunate enough to have some really wonderful relationships, it is an issue I feel confident discussing.

People used to want to be in committed relationships because marriage used to be the end goal. This is not the case today. It is not that none of us want to find love anymore. The real problem is that while we all want to be loved, young Americans today love themselves more than anyone else.

Take a look at the way relationships, particularly committed relationships, are portrayed in the media today. The media makes it seem as if being in a committed relationship with someone is some sort of trap. Marriages are shown as the worst and ultimate loss of all freedom. There are always running jokes in popular culture where the husbands complain about not being able to do what they want because of their wives and hiding and sneaking around just to have any shred of dignity. For one, this negatively stereotypes women and wives as being overbearing and unreasonable and stereotypes men and husbands as being unhappy and resentful. Want an example? Check out this scene from This is 40, about a married couple’s struggles at the age of forty:

With a generation more plugged into media than ever before, it is no wonder that we do not want to settle down with anyone when this is the image presented to us. We are a generation with more freedoms than any before us, particularly for females, and when relationships are viewed as constricting this independence, of course we feel as if we must shy away from them.

American society today also has an obsession with perpetual youth.  For some reason, young adults these days are encouraged to extend their youth as long as possible. Many of the parents responsible for raising my generation were encouraged to let their kids be kids for as long as possible. While that is all fun and games, at what point do you give your children a wake up call? At what point do we stop letting our kids be kids and actually prepare them properly for the real, cruel world that they will one day be independently a part of?

Whereas people used to have real jobs and families in their twenties, today college is essentially a daycare center for 18-22 year old young adults, and after college it is totally acceptable to just move back in with your parents, spend a few years finding yourself, and then maybe get some sort of real job and living situation. We are encouraged to focus on ourselves and our careers first, especially before we put any focus on finding someone worth giving up all our independence for. While there is certainly value in all this, it seems that we have made the mistake of not realizing that there is a difference between being forever youthful and being forever a youth.

Of course, while all this soul-searching and personal building is going on, we also now live in a society where the “hook-up culture” dominates young adult relationships, particularly in the college years. Especially now that contraceptives are so widespread and accessible, young women along with young men are exploring their sexuality much more casually than ever before. As someone who has experienced this first hand, I can assure you that I know more people whose relationships arose out of a consistent “hook-up” rather than from “dating.” Going along with that, while I have no official statistics, I can also assure you that the majority of the young men and women I know are not in committed relationships, and many of them see such commitments as either a relic of the past or something to strive for in the future, but certainly not now, in their prime.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not only young men that think like this. Women too are now full, accepted, participating members of this “hook-up culture.” The New York Times came out with an article last summer that specifically discussed how, “those who studied the rise of hookup culture had generally assumed that it was driven by men…but there is an increasing realization that young women are propelling it, too.” The article notes that because smart, young women today are more focused on themselves, their ambitions, and their resumes, it makes no sense for them to expend the time and energy it takes to maintain a healthy, committed relationship. Instead, like their male counterparts have done for centuries, women are now taking charge of their lives on their own terms and pushing off relationships in turn for their own personal growth.

There is a lot to be said for this though, and it is frankly hard, especially as a woman, to say that this is not a positive progression. Because the average marriage age is now at 29 for men and 27 for women and the marriage rate is at its all-time low of 51% of adults over the age of 18, divorce rates too are at their lowest since the 1970s. The Pew Research Center attributes these statistics to the fact that people now take longer to get educated and settle their personal affairs before committing to long-term relationships.

However, there are also some less pleasant consequences. In 2008, studies found that while 75% of women gave birth between the ages of 20 and 34, a woman’s prime childbearing years, 14% of women gave birth after the age of 34. However, it is well-known that it not only becomes increasingly harder to conceive after the age of 35, but mothers and babies of older mothers are much more likely to experience complications. Furthermore, studies have also found that the likelihood of genetic disorders rises dramatically for babies of fathers over the age of 35.

This is not to say that people should get married younger or have children younger, nor is it to say that we should not spend time exploring who we are and developing our personal and professional lives before settling down. Truthfully, I have never been married and have never had children, so I cannot tell you that it won’t ruin your life or constrain your independence. However, if love is something that we are all looking for, why not make that a priority worth exploring as well? Because at the end of the day, if marriage and parenthood are as horrible as everyone makes it out to be, wouldn’t you at least rather spend it with someone you really, truly love? Even if those plans are not a part of your life trajectory, I assure you that there is no greater joy than finding someone to love. I also promise you it is a million times more fulfilling than only loving yourself.

Claire Underwood: The Modern American Woman

 

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, and like most single people in their twenties, I spent last night with some friends, Chipotle, Sprinkles cupcakes, a bottle of wine, and of course, the new season of “House of Cards.” The Netflix original series, which released its second season in full at midnight the morning of Valentine’s Day, features Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright as the most powerful political couple in Washington DC and has gained much hype since its release last February. However, despite the captivating political drama, what is truly special about the show is its presence of a uniquely strong, female lead.

Claire Underwood (Robin Wright), the wife of politician Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey), rules the screen with a short pixie-cut and elegant, fitted dresses. Claire defies female stereotypes, especially those of political wives, by being just as vicious and heartless as the men around her, but she does it all in heels and a dress. She chooses not to be a mother and instead runs her own nonprofit, takes charge of her sexual life, and does what she wants despite the expectations of the men in her life. Claire plays key roles in many of the most important decisions in the show, and she proves that a woman can be both strong and powerful yet still feminine. When qualities such as strength and power are still associated with masculinity, it is both rare and important for the media to get on board with the image of a woman who maintains these masculine qualities along with her own femininity.

It is also through women such as Claire that we can see that these characteristics are not inherently gendered ones. That being a woman means you can still be both sexy and smart, both powerful and pretty. When the media and much of popular culture still portrays women as sexual objects, weak and subordinate to men, it is extremely important to recognize women in media who defy these stereotypes. Characters such as Claire Underwood serve a purpose greater than moving along a storyline; they prove that the modern, American woman can be whoever she wants to be, and that whatever she chooses does not make her any less of a woman. 

Let’s Talk About Sex

A couple days ago, The New York Times Magazine ran an article called “Does a More Equal Marriage Mean Less Sex?” by Lori Gottlieb. The article has generated a number of responses within the last two days because it uses a few studies to argue that while heterosexual, American women undoubtedly prefer a more egalitarian marriage, where the husband and wife equally share all responsibilities, couples, and women in particular, have expressed less sexual desire in their marriages. The study that Gottlieb relies most heavily upon is the one from The American Sociological Review called “Egalitarianism, Housework and Sexual Frequency in Marriage.” Researches in the study found that couples where the husbands did more “feminine” chores, such as laundry or cooking, had sex 1.5 times less per month than those where the husbands did chores considered to be more “masculine.”

The article, admittedly written by an unmarried woman, goes on to discuss possible reasons for why couples that share such tasks have sex less frequently and how this can affect married couples. The problem is that Gottlieb seems to assume that this slight difference in sexual activity is of extreme significance to most married couples. Of course, sexual desire is an important component in a marriage, but does it really mean your marriage is unhealthy if you are having sex 1.5 times less per month? That essentially means that of all the times a couple has sex each month, those where husbands help with gendered chores are having sex one or two times less each month than a couple where the husband does not help out with such tasks. Is that really such a negative consequence, especially when there is probably not a single woman out there who wouldn’t love a man who helped out with these tasks?

The adolescent response would be yes. However, when people are now expected to live into their nineties, we need to be more realistic about the fact that we will not be having passionate, wild sexual experiences for the rest of our married lives. Marriage is supposed to be for life, and we do not spend the majority of our lives having sex. Therefore, instead of getting our panties in a twist over the one to two times less married couples are having sex each month, we should be celebrating the fact that women are experiencing happier, more fulfilling marriages rooted in equality.  While it is still true that about half of marriages end in divorce, Gottlieb admitted that studies have shown that “American couples who share breadwinning and household duties are less likely to divorce.” In a society where women are just as legally powerful as their male counterparts due to increased financial independence, this is an indicator that women are not staying in these marriages because they are trapped but because they are happier, even if that means they may not be having sex as frequently.

Sexual frequency is certainly not the only measure of a healthy relationship and should certainly not be the most important indicator. What is wrong about Gottlieb’s article is that she makes it seem as if it is. She cites a poll where women were asked “Would you make a long-term commitment to someone who had everything you were looking for but to whom you did not feel sexually attracted?” Because women over 60 were the least likely to respond “yes” to this question, Gottlieb concludes that, “At any age, companionship, it seems, is no longer enough of a draw on its own,” as if this is some sort of amazing revelation. Of course we want to have long-term relationships with men whom we are sexually attracted to, especially if we want to (or expect to) spend decades married to them. In modern America, where women are just as free as men to engage with different sexual partners and where we have been raised to believe that we can have whatever we want and be whoever we want, why would we choose to spend a prolonged period of time with someone who does not fulfill our sexual needs? Gottlieb simplifies the response to this question to insinuate that women are more concerned with sexual satisfaction in their relationships than with anything else, when in reality, answering “no” to this question simply means that sexual attractiveness is a component that is important to American women when choosing their life partners, not that this is the only important criteria.

Instead of focusing on the positive changes we now see in American marriages, where more wives operate on an equal playing field with their husbands, and where egalitarian couples are happier in their day-to-day lives than couples where there are disparities in their responsibilities, Gottlieb’s article harps on the small sexual disparity between married couples who share gendered responsibilities equally and those that do not. So let’s not take issue where there is none, because at the end of the day, does a woman really want to be married to a man who does not carry his weight in the relationship? The modern American woman would say absolutely not.

P.S. Here’s the music video that inspired this post’s title. Enjoy!

Christina Hoff Sommers: Fighting For and Against Feminism

Source: http://www.aei.org/scholar/christina-hoff-sommers/

I once told my father that I was not a feminist. He furrowed his eyebrows with a look of confusion and said something along the lines of, “That is a completely absurd thing to say.” He told me that whether or not I thought I was a feminist, I was one.

As a woman who certainly believes in gender equality, why does the term “feminist” hold such a negative connotation for women like myself?

Author, professor, and public intellectual Christina Hoff Sommers has spent a good portion of her career discussing this phenomenon. Sommers earned her B.A. from New York University in 1971 and her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Brandeis University in 1979. She immediately began teaching philosophy with an emphasis in ethics until the late 1990s, ending her teaching career at Clark University in 1999. Since then, Sommers has been “best known for her critique of late-twentieth-century feminism.” She currently works as a resident scholar for the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and writes for a number of different publications including Time Magazine, The Huffington Post, and The Atlantic, amongst others. Her work has also included critiques of the American education system, particularly its effects on boys, and “her textbook, Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life, a bestseller in college ethics, is currently in its ninth edition.” However, Sommers is most notable as the author of books such as Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women, The War Against Boys, One Nation Under Therapy, and The Science on Women and Science.

As a woman who has similarly experienced a reluctance to accept mainstream feminism, Sommers’ critiques on this subject are what really drew me to her writings. Recently, she published an article for The Atlantic, entitled “How to Get More Women (and Men) to Call Themselves Feminists,” on the reasons why there needs to be a shift in the discussion on feminism. She cites a Huffington Post/YouGov poll that found that only 23% of women and 16% of men classified themselves as “feminists.” This is an extremely low proportion of the population, especially for a nation that champions freedom and equality, so clearly we are not alone. She noted that “accomplished women as diverse as Taylor Swift, Sandra Day O’Connor, Marissa Mayer, and Beyonce” have also all been hesitant to publicly classify themselves as feminists. Why?

Sommers believes it has to do with the way feminism has been disseminated to the masses and particularly, the educated. There is a dogmatic, angry tone to what most people have come to consider as modern “feminism,” and much of this rhetoric simply does not appeal to the general population, even the female one.  In her book Who Stole Feminism?, Sommers recalls an experience she had at a feminist conference in New York in 1992 called “Out of the Academy and Into the World with Carolyn Heilbrun”:

“ Jane Marcus, of the City University of New York, called the afternoon ‘Anger Session’ to order, introducing herself as ‘an expert on anger’ and thanking Heilbrun for teaching her ‘to use my rage in my writing’…The women at the Heilbrun conference are the New Feminists: articulate, prone to self-dramatization, and chronically offended. Many of the women on the ‘Anger’ panel were tenured professors at prestigious universities. All had fine and expensive educations. Yet, listening to them one would never guess that they live in a country whose women are legally as free as the men and whose institutions of higher learning now have more female than male students,” (20-21).

Sommers’ point here is that these angry women are the current voices of feminism and continue to perpetuate this anger-based feminism through academia. These are the types of women who teach in our universities and “educate” women about feminism. Because of this, what women learn about feminism becomes associated with the unhappy, negative feelings that their educators foster. These “gender feminists,” as Sommers names them, almost discredit themselves because of their focus on anger rather than women or gender equality. It is no surprise that many women shy away from this resentful tone.

Because “most American women subscribe philosophically to that older “First Wave” kind of feminism whose main goal is equity,” it is also no wonder that the majority of American women do not consider themselves feminists (22). This is especially relevant when “current feminist notables…adhere to a new, more radical, “Second Wave” doctrine: that women, even modern American women, are in thrall to a ‘system of male dominance,’” (22). This is a significant realization that Sommers points out, for if there is any group of women who do not want to believe that anyone can constrain them, it is today’s American women. The modern American woman believes she can do whatever her heart desires, so it is no surprise that these powerful women do not want to subscribe to an ideology that asserts otherwise.

Most importantly, Sommers’ discussion of this ideology raises some deeper issues that the majority of American females find unnerving and probably untrue. The idea “that American women are not the free creatures we think we are,” is an extremely dubious notion (16). It discredits nearly all achievements we have made in the last 300 years or so, and essentially insinuates that American women are unable to make freethinking decisions apart from the male social structure. This is a slippery slope, and brought to its extreme, implies that women are still subordinate to men, since the epitome of being an independent, sovereign human being is the ability to think freely. Furthermore, this idea implies that the intellectual works of both the gender feminists and the equity or freedom feminists, the category under which Sommers classifies herself, are also an effect of patriarchy and not truly free ideas.

While this is essentially what modern feminists have come to believe, Sommers challenges these preconceptions. She instead insists that “women should be free to defect from stereotypes of femininity if they so choose,” but that people, and women in particular, should respect “the choices of free and self-determining women when they choose to embrace conventional feminine roles.” Sommers argues that when 61% of mothers today claim to prefer part-time work so as to have time for their families and are still more likely to choose “pink-collar” careers such as teaching, child care, social work, or pediatrics, that women should accept these as free, independent decisions. While this should be the case, Sommers does seem to disregard the fact that many women probably care more about making time for their families and choosing careers that fit this type of lifestyle because of centuries of female subordination. Up until relatively recently, men have historically always worked outside of the home, so it is thus more understandable that they still feel that this is their place in the world whereas women feel that they must balance their careers and families. However, Sommers is correct in that despite these socially constructed gender roles, a woman’s choice in modern America, where she is legally as free as a man, should be considered as free of a choice as a man’s. The consequences of thinking otherwise only hurt the cause for gender equality.

Sommers not only critiques current feminist views, but she also proposes viable reforms to the feminist movement. She champions what she calls “freedom feminism,” which “stands for the moral, social, and legal equality of the sexes – and the freedom of women to employ their equal status to pursue happiness in their own distinctive ways.” It is important to note that while Sommers believes in the freedom of American women, she does not deny or belittle the residual effects of centuries of male-dominated society. She points to the prevalence of misogyny in American pop-culture as well as the fact that more single women are affected by poverty than any other group of Americans. However, she provides solutions to these issues through her freedom feminism. Rather than simply blaming men for our problems, freedom feminists would lobby to work on the “root cause of poverty in America: missing fathers.” The freedom feminists’ “primary focus would be on combating male-averse educational and social policies that have helped create a dysfunctional culture of fatherlessness.” This is extremely important, for there can be no true progress for gender equality if we ignore the other gender. Women alone cannot combat issues such as misogyny, poverty, rape, or what have you without getting men on board. These issues concern both genders, and thus need the support of men to bring about change. When mainstream feminism continually blames men and their conspiracy against women, it helps absolutely no one, especially women. As Sommers eloquently puts it, “Who needs feminism? We do. The world does.” It is not an isolated issue, and it must include men in the conversation, not as perpetrators of patriarchy but as allies for equality.

However, what truly solidifies Sommers’ status as a public intellectual is her call to include more women in a movement meant for women. Not only does she ask the feminists of today to include more moderate and conservative women in the cause, but she also calls for American women to use the equal rights that they have earned to “make common cause with women across the globe who are struggling for their basic freedoms.” As Professor Stephen Mack of the University of Southern California states:

“Trained to it or not, all participants in self-government are duty-bound to prod, poke, and pester the powerful institutions that would shape their lives. And so if public intellectuals have any role to play in a democracy—and they do—it’s simply to keep the pot boiling.”

Without question, Sommers does just this. She challenges feminism, spins it on its head, and gives women another option to declare themselves as feminists. Not in the typical, angry, leftist sense that scares most of us away from the label, but in a universal acceptance of one another. She calls for women to stop resenting both men and themselves and instead to focus on ensuring that all women are free to choose whatever life makes them happiest.  Sommers pushes us to realize that not only is feminism important, but also that we need to change it to make it effective. What is most sobering, however, is how she shifts the self-centered, self-indulgent nature of the current American feminist movement and calls feminists out to work toward actually securing the equal rights we as American women enjoy today for other women around the world who are not as lucky.

Now, that is the type of feminism that I can get behind.

 

Works Cited:

“Christina Hoff Sommers – Resident Scholar.” AEI. American Enterprise Institute, n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2014.

Mack, Stephen. “The New Democratic Review: The “Decline” of the Public Intellectual (?).” The New Democratic Review: The “Decline” of the Public Intellectual (?). N.p., 15 Jan. 2014. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. 

Sommers, Christina Hoff. “How to Get More Women (and Men) to Call Themselves Feminists.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 25 June 2013. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. 

Sommers, Christina Hoff. Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Print.

Beyonce

Beyonce.

The woman, the artist, the legend, and of course, the album.

If you can’t tell from the title of this blog, I love Beyonce (for those of you sad souls who don’t get the connection here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmMU_iwe6U).

Her voice is incredible, and whether it makes you want to dance or cry, her music has a truly visceral effect. Without question, Beyonce is also one of the most stunningly attractive women I have ever seen. However, one of the main reasons I love her is because she is able to intimately portray the complexities of womanhood and criticize the factors that complicate what it means to be a woman. Her newest, self-titled album has many great examples of this. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian feminist, is even featured in one of the songs (“***Flawless”) discussing the meaning of feminism. “Pretty Hurts,” another song on the new album, also does just this. The first verse of the song reads:

“Mama said, ‘You’re a pretty girl.

What’s in your head, it doesn’t matter

Brush your hair, fix your teeth.

What you wear is all that matters.’”

The song goes on to criticize the way society “shine[s] the light on whatever’s worst,” and asserts that it is our souls and our society that “needs the surgery,” not our imperfect bodies.

While I wholeheartedly support this message and do believe that the way our society defines “beauty” has detrimental effects on the self-image of women, in terms of what men supposedly find sexually attractive, Beyonce does not seem to realize that she not only plays into the stereotypical definition of beauty but also perpetuates the objectification of women as sexual objects of men.

Watch every single one of the seventeen videos in her new visual album and tell me how many times you see Beyonce half-naked. She is scantily clad in nearly every single scene of every single one of those videos. In “Partition,” “***Flawless,” and “Rocket” her entire bottom is essentially exposed. “Rocket,” in particular, is literally made up of entire sequences of close-ups of Beyonce’s body, which in all honestly is nearly the paragon of what our society finds to be beautiful. Without a doubt, Beyonce is trying to explain and criticize, in songs such as “Pretty Hurts,” the struggle she must feel to maintain such an exquisite physical appearance, and I do understand that part of why people want to buy and watch her videos is for the sex appeal. However, it just seems slightly hypocritical to depend on sex appeal to sell her work while at the same time criticizing the objectification of women. Certainly, there is some cognitive dissonance there.

Others had similar reactions to Beyonce’s new album. Anna Holmes, the founder of the female website Jezebel, was quoted saying, “We don’t often see women in bodysuits writhing around on cars except when – I don’t know, it’s Maxim magazine, so it does feel like a performance for the benefit of men.” Tanya Steele, a female, African-American filmmaker, similarly felt that Beyonce’s album was “just another tired example of a woman performing for men.”

This was not the only reaction from feminists. Many, like Professor Brittany Cooper, a specialist in African-American feminism, felt that Beyonce’s album empowers women by showing that they can express their sexuality on their “own terms.” But do videos like Beyonce’s really express her sexuality on her own terms? From what it look likes, her sexuality is still being expressed in terms of what men find to be sexually attractive. There are numerous scenes in Beyonce’s videos where she is even seen dancing half-naked in front of her husband, which clearly exhibits that this is meant to appeal to men and not just for herself. She may believe that this is her own, personal expression of her sexuality, but when men have defined female sexuality since the inception of civilization, it is questionable as to whether a woman can truly express her sexuality independently of male perception and influence.

Regardless, such a task is a truly lofty one, and I applaud Beyonce for her efforts. With a society that is the way it is, sometimes a girl’s just gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

Sources:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/12/19/255527290/feminists-everywhere-react-to-beyonc-s-latest

http://variety.com/2013/music/reviews/album-review-beyonce-beyonce-1200966324/

BEYONCE by Beyonce, 2013 Columbia Records, a Division of Sony Music Entertainment