Catching up
Well, it's been a while since I did daily posting--but I want to try to get back into that habit, because we finally got a computer at home and might be getting broadband access soon. Woot. :)
I have a bunch of links saved up, which I'm wading through at the moment. I think I'll kick this off with the ones relating to sex/gender.
First, we definitely need to eliminate the wage gap between women and men. I don't care who didn't ask for what or who worked for what before. Men and women should be getting equal pay for equal/equivalent work.
"But aren't women at fault for not negotiating? Babcock concluded that women are essentially trained not to and penalized by employers when they do. Rigid gender-based stereotypes and behavioral norms urge women to behave modestly and wait to be given what they deserve rather than negotiate for it. The economist also has shown that negotiating can sometimes hurt a female job candidate. In research she co-published last year, she found that female candidates who ask for higher salaries before receiving a formal job offer are often not hired at all. Not surprisingly, males who negotiate do not face similar negative consequences. This empirical evidence supports what many women already know from experience: When they ask for what they deserve, employers often view them as overly aggressive, pushy or too "difficult" to hire.
Given the tremendous ramifications of this pervasive discrimination, it's high time for courts to stop accepting excuses based on women's failure to negotiate, and instead put the burden of pay discrimination where it belongs: on employers. It's the employers who should be obligated to carefully evaluate their pay structures to ensure that female ap-plicants [sic] are paid what the position is worth -- and what similarly situated male applicants would be paid."
Also, the media needs to stop telling us about the outfits of women they profile. Quick, what's one of the first things you think of in relation to Jackie O.? Most women will say, "Her fashion." Or any President's wife, really. It's ridiculous and needs to be stopped. As the author of this piece says, what a woman wears does not relate to her capabilities.
And, while I don't usually say we need to go back to the old way of doing things, in this case, I think we do. Single moms on welfare have it really hard, and the newest regulations--such as not allowing necessary things to be counted as work-related activities--make receiving TANF for single moms unnecessarily difficult.
"Under the new Department of Health and Human Services regulations postsecondary education leading to a bachelor's degree and English as a Second Language programs may no longer qualify as core work activities under the new regulations.
That means any welfare participant wanting to gain a university degree will need to do so on top of the 20 or so hours of core work activities that meet the narrower federal definition. Advocates say this will add additional transportation and child care expenses and pinch off time to spend with their families.
Some states counted job searches, readiness programs and vocational education as work experience to get around a six-week limit on job searches. Doctor-mandated, third-trimester pregnancy bed rest, domestic violence counseling, caring for ill or disabled relatives, and study time were among the activities states had leeway to include as work-related activities.
Now none of those activities can meet the weekly work-hour requirement, and states can no longer tailor work activities to meet the needs of individual families." Contrary to popular opinion, welfare recipients are not, for the most part, mooching off the state and the taxpayers. Some do, yes, but most do not and most want out of that kind of lifestyle. Giving them more restrictions makes their efforts that much closer to being futile.
And, on that note, we need to make things easier for *all* working moms.
"Heather Boushey, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. found that the drop in women's work participation rates between 2001 and 2005 was largely due to a weak labor market, and further, men's labor rates also dropped at this time. Joan Williams, the director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings, recently reported that 86 percent of those women who did leave their jobs did so because of inflexible office policy, not Martha Stewart fantasies."
Why does this matter? It's not just an issue of "those silly feminists" as some people think:
"For example, only 1 in 7 American workers get paid childcare leave -- a policy that has proven to reduce infant mortality, improve children's learning and reduce juvenile delinquency. That is to say, it has real consequences on more than 'only' the women involved.
So, what's at stake right now? Well, it looks like some of our more prominent Democratic leaders have a few things to do, which I think fit nicely with Nancy Pelosi's 100-hours commitment: to have fair wages, good childcare, etc. And if you need more evidence for fair wages, check this out.
And, if you have questions or think that women in power goes against nature, please read this. It makes sense that women and men would work together to procure things like food and shelter, no matter the time period. And, as this article points out, early humans and early Neanderthals wouldn't have spent a lot of time in one place--animals migrate, and so anything hunting those animals would have migrated, too. It just makes good sense, even moreso when one realizes that Neanderthals and homo sapiens would have had to have moved for gathering purposes, too.
And then, of course, we have the creation of WikiChix, in response to perceived sexism in the Wikipedia world. I have to say that I agree with the statement given by the WikiChix site in this article--that it is nice to not have to defend one's self and one's ideas just because one is a woman, but rather to get to the crux of whatever matter is at hand without those delays.
Peace.
I have a bunch of links saved up, which I'm wading through at the moment. I think I'll kick this off with the ones relating to sex/gender.
First, we definitely need to eliminate the wage gap between women and men. I don't care who didn't ask for what or who worked for what before. Men and women should be getting equal pay for equal/equivalent work.
"But aren't women at fault for not negotiating? Babcock concluded that women are essentially trained not to and penalized by employers when they do. Rigid gender-based stereotypes and behavioral norms urge women to behave modestly and wait to be given what they deserve rather than negotiate for it. The economist also has shown that negotiating can sometimes hurt a female job candidate. In research she co-published last year, she found that female candidates who ask for higher salaries before receiving a formal job offer are often not hired at all. Not surprisingly, males who negotiate do not face similar negative consequences. This empirical evidence supports what many women already know from experience: When they ask for what they deserve, employers often view them as overly aggressive, pushy or too "difficult" to hire.
Given the tremendous ramifications of this pervasive discrimination, it's high time for courts to stop accepting excuses based on women's failure to negotiate, and instead put the burden of pay discrimination where it belongs: on employers. It's the employers who should be obligated to carefully evaluate their pay structures to ensure that female ap-plicants [sic] are paid what the position is worth -- and what similarly situated male applicants would be paid."
Also, the media needs to stop telling us about the outfits of women they profile. Quick, what's one of the first things you think of in relation to Jackie O.? Most women will say, "Her fashion." Or any President's wife, really. It's ridiculous and needs to be stopped. As the author of this piece says, what a woman wears does not relate to her capabilities.
And, while I don't usually say we need to go back to the old way of doing things, in this case, I think we do. Single moms on welfare have it really hard, and the newest regulations--such as not allowing necessary things to be counted as work-related activities--make receiving TANF for single moms unnecessarily difficult.
"Under the new Department of Health and Human Services regulations postsecondary education leading to a bachelor's degree and English as a Second Language programs may no longer qualify as core work activities under the new regulations.
That means any welfare participant wanting to gain a university degree will need to do so on top of the 20 or so hours of core work activities that meet the narrower federal definition. Advocates say this will add additional transportation and child care expenses and pinch off time to spend with their families.
Some states counted job searches, readiness programs and vocational education as work experience to get around a six-week limit on job searches. Doctor-mandated, third-trimester pregnancy bed rest, domestic violence counseling, caring for ill or disabled relatives, and study time were among the activities states had leeway to include as work-related activities.
Now none of those activities can meet the weekly work-hour requirement, and states can no longer tailor work activities to meet the needs of individual families." Contrary to popular opinion, welfare recipients are not, for the most part, mooching off the state and the taxpayers. Some do, yes, but most do not and most want out of that kind of lifestyle. Giving them more restrictions makes their efforts that much closer to being futile.
And, on that note, we need to make things easier for *all* working moms.
"Heather Boushey, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. found that the drop in women's work participation rates between 2001 and 2005 was largely due to a weak labor market, and further, men's labor rates also dropped at this time. Joan Williams, the director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings, recently reported that 86 percent of those women who did leave their jobs did so because of inflexible office policy, not Martha Stewart fantasies."
Why does this matter? It's not just an issue of "those silly feminists" as some people think:
"For example, only 1 in 7 American workers get paid childcare leave -- a policy that has proven to reduce infant mortality, improve children's learning and reduce juvenile delinquency. That is to say, it has real consequences on more than 'only' the women involved.
So, what's at stake right now? Well, it looks like some of our more prominent Democratic leaders have a few things to do, which I think fit nicely with Nancy Pelosi's 100-hours commitment: to have fair wages, good childcare, etc. And if you need more evidence for fair wages, check this out.
And, if you have questions or think that women in power goes against nature, please read this. It makes sense that women and men would work together to procure things like food and shelter, no matter the time period. And, as this article points out, early humans and early Neanderthals wouldn't have spent a lot of time in one place--animals migrate, and so anything hunting those animals would have migrated, too. It just makes good sense, even moreso when one realizes that Neanderthals and homo sapiens would have had to have moved for gathering purposes, too.
And then, of course, we have the creation of WikiChix, in response to perceived sexism in the Wikipedia world. I have to say that I agree with the statement given by the WikiChix site in this article--that it is nice to not have to defend one's self and one's ideas just because one is a woman, but rather to get to the crux of whatever matter is at hand without those delays.
Peace.
Labels: discrimination, feminism, sexism, wages
posted by A-muse-ing at 8:43 AM
0 comments
