In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Category: Business

Law Firm Encourages Female Employees to “Embrace Their Femininity”

Top British legal firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has hired image consultants to give their employees advice on how to dress more appropriately for the workplace. Their guidelines for women are mainly to stop being so damn masculine — oh, and slutty, too.

Female lawyers at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have been advised to team their stilettos with skirts rather than trousers to ’embrace their femininity’.

But they can’t embrace it too much.

Necklaces, they have been warned, should be avoided as they could draw undue attention to the bustline.

That’s right, ladies! Enough with the comfort, already.  Be prettier and more womanly for us — but not too pretty.  No one likes a skank.  What, is this advice straight out of the 40s?

But hey, before you get that nice new skirt of yours all in a twist (those things can be hard to untangle in the stilettos you’re undoubtedly now wearing), be aware that while the men haven’t been admonished to dress more masculine, they have also been warned against being too sexual:

And in a bid to keep everything above board, male employees have been told not to allow their ties to hang below their belts for fear of drawing unwanted attention to their nether regions.

Uh, right.  What?

I know that I ought to be more annoyed that amused.  And I’m working hard at it.  Luckily, Sociological Images brings it back down to earth for us with an astute analysis:

A spokesman for the company doling out this advice says that it’s about being “professional.”  This is a great term to take apart.  What do we really mean when we say “professional”?

How much of it has to do with proper gender display or even, in masculinized workplaces, simply masculine display?

How much of it has to do with whiteness?  Are afros and corn rows unprofessional?   Is speaking Spanish?  Why or why not?

How much of it has to do with appearing attractive, heterosexual, monogamous, and, you know, not one of those “unAmerican” religions?

For that matter, how much of it has to do with pretending like your work is your life, you are devoted to the employer, and your co-workers are like family (anyone play Secret Santa at work this year)?

Indeed.  While this may initially seem like just yet another bit of obnoxiously run of the mill sexism, it begs an important question.  Who gets to decide what is and is not professional?  And how many layers of oppression get all wrapped up in that decision?

Thanks to Kristen for the tip.

“Dirty Driving”

HBO usually has a variety of great documentaries every month, and this month the one that caught my eye just happened to take place in Anderson, Indiana, a very blue collar area within an hour of my home. Anderson, like many manufacturing towns in the Midwest, is steadily heading towards the likes of Flint, Michigan: struggling, dying, devastated. But like many Midwestern areas, if you ask Anderson’s residents, they’re struggling but on the up-and-up, aiming to be positive despite the loss of jobs, staying afloat by focusing on family and other interests.

“Dirty Driving: Thundercars of Indiana” is about the struggling Midwestern middle class and the hobbies that take the place of work and career when industry dies, in this case the individual innovation that is a forefront in Indiana’s racing culture. When the auto manufacturing plants that pumped small towns full of money up and left, they also left behind the driving culture that so infects the workers that once populated their lines. In “Dirty Driving,” laid-off workers and their car-fanatic families remove all their ambitions from job and career and put all their knowledge and passion for the industry into their junk cars to race at the Anderson Speedway, talking shit and fighting over their victories and losses as the cameras roll.

Read More…Read More…

We shouldn’t bail out Detroit the Big Three*

My initial post here was just my preliminary thoughts on the auto bail-out. I’m still not sure where I stand, but I’ve taken the post down because the more I read and actually focus on the issues involved, the more I can’t stand by what I wrote, and the more I feel that the initial post was doing unnecessary harm to this community. Apologies. Feel free to continue the discussion.

An Honest McCain Campaign Slogan: Unequal Pay for Equal Work

James Surowiecki takes on equal pay in the New Yorker — and the article is well worth a read. He recounts the Ledbetter case, wherein Lily Ledbetter worked for Goodyear Tire for years, and in the mid-nineties received an anonymous note telling her that all the men at Goodyear were being paid more than she was, for doing the same work. The case went up to the Supreme Court, and the Court held that the statute of limitations on pay discrimination runs upon receipt of the first paycheck — meaning that you’d better figure out you’re being paid unequally within 180 days of being paid the first time, or you’re out of luck. But the Court did leave the door open for Congress to change the statute of limitations to make the window to sue more reasonable. Congress tried to do just that.

Republicans fillibustered until the bill was dead. John McCain also opposed the bill. In the last debate, McCain argued that the bill would have been a trial lawyer’s dream, because it would mean that they get to file more lawsuits. Well, yeah — that’s kind of the point. If people are being discriminated against, they deserve a fair amount of time to figure that out and take action. 180 days doesn’t cut it. What McCain and other Republicans did was intentionally set up roadblocks to curing pay discrimination.

In essence, they made it clear that they support unequal pay for equal work.

Does the Ledbetter bill matter? It’s true that active discrimination is rarer these days than it once was. But, contrary to what much economic work would predict, racial and sex discrimination is still a powerful force in the job market. Decades ago, the economist Gary Becker showed that “taste-based” discrimination (pure prejudice) could not survive in a truly competitive talent market, because unprejudiced companies would outperform prejudiced ones by hiring smart women and minorities. Yet the introduction of blind auditions at major symphony orchestras, starting in the seventies, has increased by fifty per cent the likelihood of female performers’ advancing—a clear sign that, for decades, orchestras had made bad talent decisions because of their prejudice without being punished. More striking, recent work by Kerwin Charles and Jonathan Guryan, of the University of Chicago, shows that, under certain reasonable conditions, market competition will not necessarily eradicate discrimination. That may be why, they suggest, the gap between black and white wages is widest in the most prejudiced parts of the U.S.—precisely what you’d expect if businessmen could discriminate and get away with it.

Of course, just because the market can’t prevent discrimination doesn’t mean the government should. And so there is a principled argument against the Ledbetter bill: namely, that Lilly Ledbetter was an adult; that if she didn’t think she was being paid fairly she was free to ask for more money or to leave; and that government interference with the idea of what constitutes fair pay is likely to cause more problems than it’s worth. Unlike the current opposition to the bill, this is an honest position to take. But it’s also, for good reasons, a profoundly unpopular one, which is why few Republicans have voiced it. Instead, opponents of the bill have acted like McCain, proclaiming their support for fair pay while doing their best to insure that workers have a hard time getting it. Maybe it’s time for them to give Americans some straight talk and unveil a new slogan: “Unequal pay for equal work.” It may not be catchy, but at least it’s honest.

Another thing to keep in mind when you go to the polls in two weeks.

House Approves the Bail-Out

Let’s hope this works.

I’m really conflicted on the bail-out scheme — asking taxpayers to patch up Wall Street’s greed is not a fair deal. The lack of oversight, and in particular the lack of regulations and controls that would prevent this from happening again, is a big problem. It means that we threw Wall Street a life raft, but we’re not doing anything to stop them from sinking it. It also strikes me as the worst aspects of socialism coupled with the worst aspects of capitalism — nationalization of private industry (along with all of its attendant inefficiencies), with taxpayers footing the bill to keep the private sector afloat.

But the plan that passed is far better than the original, and since I’m not coming up with better ideas, I’m trying not to be too critical. Of course, it’s worth noting that there are other ideas out there, and I — perhaps shockingly — agree with Larry Summers that a multi-pronged approach is the way to go. Brookings also has some interesting thoughts.

This plan is not a win for anyone, but something had to be done, and it had to be done quickly. I know there are those out there who think the government should have just let Wall Street clean up its own mess, and that’s a position that I’m theoretically sympathetic too — but not in the real world. The fact is that if Wall Street totally tanks, we’re screwed. Really, really screwed. And yes, I realize that Middle America has been getting screwed for a long time, but I’m talking more screwed. I’m talking screwed Great-Depression-style. There are levels of screwage, and the whole country is going to be taken to a whole new one if nothing is done.

But I sure don’t envy Congresspeople right now. These are uncharted waters, and this plan could be wildly successful or a massive failure; chances are it’ll be somewhere in between. But to have to make the call on something this important… I wouldn’t want to be in those shoes (which is why I’m extremely skeptical of anyone who thinks that this plan is 100% a great idea, or 100% a terrible one).

All we can do now is cross our fingers (and personally, I’m hoping that when Congress has more time to process and discuss — and when they’re not in crisis mode — they’ll patch up some of the holes in the plan, starting with regulations and oversight). And we can do our homework, because if you’re like me, you don’t know nearly as much about this stuff as you should. The Money Meltdown is a really good starting point to learn about what exactly is going on.

Opt Out, Push Out, and Pink Collar Paths

In ”The Other Home Equity Crisis”, Judity Warner claims there’s no real “Opt Out” trend, that instead:

“Women left the workforce when the cost of child care ate up their entire after-tax salaries, or when family-unfriendly workplaces pushed them out. Or when, like women without children or men with and without children, they were laid off in a bad economy.”

She quotes a congressional report that says:

“Women may be more susceptible to the impact of the business cycle than they were when they were more highly concentrated in a smaller number of non-cyclical occupations, like teaching and nursing”.

She also mentions that because women who leave jobs are viewed as deciding to be “moms” and men are viewed as “unemployed,” the latter are more likely to get benefits.

So what do we make of this?

Well, it’s critical for workplaces to become more family friendly. Single parents, poor parents, don’t have the option for one parent not to work. And for women and men to have equal access to unemployment benefits.

But it’s also critical for this “family friendly” path not to become a pink collar ghetto. I think the percentages of women and men who avail themselves of these options should ideally be more equal, to the extent we have power over that.

Read More…Read More…

Lessons from the Magic Carpet

Is sex work a feminist act? Not in itself, no, IMO. Any job is feminist in the limited sense that women working and supporting ourselves is feminist. But unless a type of work actively promotes women’s equality, I don’t think it’s affirmatively feminist. It’s not antifeminist either, though, unless it involves coercion of unwilling participants or marketing a typically very temporary career to those who otherwise might choose options offering longer-term security.

But hey – there are still plenty of feminist lessons to be learned.

The club I worked at in Vegas in ’99-2000 is called the Magic Carpet. Or, that’s what I call it in the various “stripper stories” I have at my blog. If you’re a Vegas aficionado, you can probably figure out which one I mean. Hint – we had male strippers on the second floor.

So without further ado, here are the Lessons:

Lesson #1:the Madison Ave/Vogue body ideal is not even the patriarchal culture ideal.

While pretty much every stripper had shaved legs, shaved armpits, makeup and stripper heels, and most appeared fit, there was substantially more variance in weight, height, race, and breast size than in mainstream magazines. While a strip club is not a mecca for body acceptance, women who are 30 pounds heavier than models of the same height do just fine. I’d have to put confidence and appearance equally tied as top indicators of success as a stripper, even in the most hoity toity of clubs.

Lesson #2: Many men with privilege or a high-level position enjoy being told what to do, and being in a thong while you’re doing it is only a small part of why.

Read More…Read More…

Higher Education

I spent much of my 4th of July weekend reading Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA by Peter Robinson. It’s a novelization of Mr. Robinson’s first year at Stanford Business School in 1988.

Chapter Twenty of the book is titled “Race and Gender”. The chapter is seven pages of a 286-page book about business school, so it’s clearly a thorough analysis of the issues. Mr. Robinson surmises that “at Stanford business school race just didn’t matter very much.” This is coming from a self-described conservative white Republican man who, before entering Stanford, wrote speeches for President Reagan. So grain of salt.

Mr. Robinson then notes that “Gender did matter”. His friend Jennifer “had started hoping she would meet someone at business school.”

“But you know what? The guys here just aren’t into it.” Business school men preferred to go out with undergraduates. Even when they did date business school women it was only that, dating. “What MBA men are in love with is their careers.”

“But, Jennifer,” [Peter] said, trying to make her feel better, “there are plenty of men in the world who aren’t MBAs.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t really think about it before I came here.” Jennifer said. “But now I think about it lot. All the women in business school do. It’s like there’s this rule. A woman is allowed to marry a man who has more education than she has. But no man wants to marry a woman who has more education than he has, especially not a woman who might make more money.” . . .

. . . Jennifer had another sip of beer. “Sometimes I think that when I graduate, the only guys who won’t feel threatened by my Stanford MBA with be Harvard MBAs.”

Read More…Read More…

Oh, I’ve noticed.

tiny food

America’s Shrinking Food Wraps, by Kate Pickert at Time.com, via Yahoo! News. I read this last week, but Frangela reminded me about this morning on the radio as they were filling in for Stephanie Miller.

. . . is it possible that the amount of food Americans are buying is, in fact… shrinking? Well, yes. Soaring commodity and fuel prices are driving up costs for manufacturers; faced with a choice between raising prices (which consumers would surely notice) or quietly putting fewer ounces in the bag, carton or cup (which they generally don’t) manufacturers are choosing the latter. This month, Kellogg’s started shipping Apple Jacks, Cocoa Krispies, Corn Pops, Froot Loops and Honey Smacks containing an average of 2.4 fewer ounces per box.

Similar reductions have recently happened or are on the horizon for many other products: Tropicana orange juice containers are shrinking from 96 ounces to 89; Wrigley’s is dropping its the 17-stick PlenTPak in favor of the 15-stick Slim Pack; Dial soap bars now weigh half an ounce less, and that’s even before they melt in the shower. Containers of Country Crock spread, Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Edy’s and Breyer’s ice cream have all slimmed down as well (although that may not necessarily be a bad thing).

“People are just more sensitive to changes in price than changes in quantity,” says Harvard Business School Professor John Gourville, who studies consumer decision-making. “Most people can tell you how much a box of cereal costs, but they have no clue how much is actually in it.”. . .

Read More…Read More…