Do Women Troll Corporate America?

Greetings,

This is an open letter that I am writing to the women of America, as well as other managers/C.E.O.s of companies across America. This letter is meant to discuss pregnancy in the work place as well as pose possible solutions. 

I am the manager of a large firm. I recruit the best and brightest students from elite colleges around the nation every year. As a manager, I screen these students through various methods such as grade-point averages, resumes, and interviews. Jane Doe, a female who was the top of her class at Harvard law has everything I look for in an employee accept for fertility. Ms. Doe has the ability to become pregnant, which is her worst quality. Even though pregnancy is a natural process, maternity leave is a very complicated issue; I will have a difficult decision to make regarding the hiring of Ms. Doe.

At this point, despite her shining resume and flawless interview, I am extremely skeptical of Ms. Doe. How do I know that after she gets pregnant, she won’t quit her job to care for her new born? How can I efficiently find employees to fill her job while she is on maternity leave? Despite my skepticisms, however, The Pregnancy Disclaimer Act of 1978 mandates that my decision of whether to hire Ms. Doe cannot be based on the fact that she may become pregnant; if I were to make such a decision, it would be discrimination. As an employer, this is extremely discouraging because there is a possibility that Ms. Doe may take a maternity leave and possibly quit her job, but there is no way for me to mitigate the situation.

So, I end up hiring Jane Doe. Over the first few months, she proves herself to be a star employee. Then about a year down the line, she knocks on my door and tells me she is pregnant; my worst nightmares have suddenly come true. I grin, congratulating her, “Jane! You is it a boy or a girl? I’m so excited for you.” Three minutes after she leaves, I throw my coffee mug at the wall, yelling every expletive I can think of. My star employee is gone, and there is nothing I can do about it. According to law, “[Her] pregnancy must be treated like any other employee disability ormedical condition,”. Jane has the right, under the Family andMedical Leave Act  to “twelve workweeks of leave in a 12-month period to care for her child.” But that’s not all, however. This leaves me as an employer in a tough position because Ms. Doe was a leading employee in the firm. How will I replace her for twelve workweeks without losing efficiency?

Let’s say the scenario plays out differently, however. Say Ms. Doe attempts to prove stereotypes wrong. She decides that she does not want to be known as a woman who takes her maternity leave, and then disappears from the workforce. Under laws, “[She] can’t beforced to take leave as long as [she] can do [her] job.” For the period of time leading up to her pregnancy, she waddles around the office doing a horrible job due to cramps, increased fatigue, and mood swings. In addition, there is now the distinct chance that her water may end up breaking in the office, ruining the very expensive carpets that line the floors. Despite her inefficiency over the past months, I cannot fire her, which ends up losing me money.

Don’t get me wrong; I think that pregnancy is a beautiful thing. However, pregnancy loses money, and as a boss, making money is my first priority. How do we solve this situation for myself and other bosses? I propose a “pregnancy clause.” This clause mandates that

before being pregnant, each female employee must work for a certain period of time, depending on how valuable they are to the firm. I think that its only fair seeing that when women get pregnant business is compromised. Let me know what your views on my proposed policy are. Is it too invasive? Are there other alternatives? I would like to have your feedback, especially female feedback that way if there is a solution out there, we can find it.

Sincerely,

The C.E.O.

Too Few Femillennials: Exploring Feminism's Role in Millennials' Lives

Millennials: the screwed generation, the entitled generation, and the subjects of relentless scrutiny and criticism.  As millennials are repeatedly assessed based on the changing economic circumstances, the social context of their lifetimes is often overlooked (at least more than it should be).  Feminism is one major part of social context that helps explain millennials’ behavior now.  Not only that, but the acceptance (or dismissal) of feminist values among millennials could play a large role in their futures.

In her article “The Wanted Generation,” Amanda Marcotte explores the impact of feminism on millennials’ attitudes and financial situations.  She argues that feminist strides during Generation X have had a huge and highly underestimated impact on the generation.  She explains a few of the key implications of the feminist revolution, especially noting its influence on millennials’ values and family life.

       

These influences stem from the fact that millennials’ mothers are more likely to be older and more educated, traits that changed their parenting approaches.  Also, during the time, women were experiencing a far more equal environment in terms of the workplace.  Another factor was higher access to contraception; this means that millennials are likely to have been “wanted,” meaning their births were planned.  Marcotte draws a causal link between these factors and millennials’ liberalism, higher university attendance, optimistic personalities, likelihood of family stability, high self-esteem and fiscal responsibility, all of which she sees as positive traits.

        

When evaluating how millennials diverge from previous generations, we seem to focus heavily on the economic context, placing huge importance on rising student debt, the recession, and the labor market, all of which undoubtedly play a significant role.  However, the impact of feminism was enormous on both millennials’ personalities and life choices and is something that must be considered when comparing generations.

             

Interestingly enough, despite all of the benefits feminism has caused for millennials, many millennials are reluctant to identify themselves as feminists.  Because of the progress of the feminists before them, millennials may have a sense that equality has been achieved.  In class, we’re looking at stories of educated mothers who choose to be stay-at-home moms, wives who still tend to do more domestic tasks than their husbands, and many other instances of women taking on more traditional gender roles.  Although it’s important that women are able to make these life choices, it’s still problematic; lack of representation in the workforce, reinforcement of gender stereotypes, and fewer contributions from women in certain fields (like science, medicine, and so on) are all negative upshots of this.

From "Where Are All the Millennial Feminists?" by Hannah Weinberger, CNN.

It seems like there’s a tension between the strong influence of the feminist revolution on millennial behavior and the tendency for millennials to distance themselves from the feminist label.  After all of the progress, is it possible that millennials take the feminist movement for granted?  In my experience, this seems to be true. After so many advances, most family members and friends I know see little need for modern day feminism.

Looking at the positive changes the feminist movement has created in the past, is it reasonable to say that there is a need for a new feminist movement?  Do you think that it’d be a good solution to the complicated problems with stay-at-home moms?

Guilty? Trapped? Brainwashed?

Should I feel guilty expecting to want to focus on a family later in life as a college-educated woman? I feel like that’s the essential question the readings for today have caused me to consider.

My mom had a well-paying job and when she and my dad planned for their first child, she quit her job and was a stay-at-home mom until I was a teenager. When I was thirteen and my little brother was eleven, she went back to work at a job for which she was overqualified, but which had conditions and hours that were perfect for how she wanted her work-life to shake out. My dad has worked his way up the engineering ladder since graduating State with a masters and now manages a team for RDS Engineering in Battle Creek. We’ve always had enough as far as money went—solidly middle class, though we always had to save up for vacations, my brother and I were not given cell phones until college, and we’ve had to take out loans for school.

Photo from Rants from Mommyland

Despite the budget, none of us would trade having my mom at home for anything. She was and still is superwoman. My dad always split the cooking with her since he loves to cook and handled all “fix-its,” but she was always the one cleaning, driving us places and picking us up, and doing the grocery and clothes shopping. And I guess she has served as my model of the right kind of American mother. Always there for her kids, always on time, a good cook, an avid reader, an excellent player of card games. I’ve been educated up the wazoo, I identify as liberal, but being liberal doesn’t mean I would ever look down on someone who might have foregone a professional career, but who has instead given her all to her kids and works very hard to make all aspects of her family’s life run smoothly. 

Of course, as Megan McArdle argues in The DailyBeast, “There are also costs to the old-style Mom's-home-Dad-works marriage arrangements, which have been well-enumerated by the feminist movement over the years.” A possible lack of opportunities to self-actualize, for example. This generation seems to believe, however, that despite those costs, staying at home is worth it, according to the U.S. Census Bureau: “In a 2005 study, the U.S. Census Bureau reported an estimated 5.6 million stay-at-home moms. That is a 22% increase from 1994” (Dulce Zamora). 

Photo from Generations

Granted, work rates have decreased for men as well, given the economy, but only 2.7%. Is there a squeeze on women to stay home or have attitudes shifted over a generation?—that is, are women being pushed into these decisions or are they choosing it? Or do they believe they are making a free choice when in reality society has already predisposed them? The picture Miller and Belkin paint is of a generation of women who are ‘opting out’. I think Belkin put it well when she said, “It’s not that women aren’t competitive; it’s just that they don’t want to compete along lines that are not compatible with their other goals.” If their priorities have raising a family over career goals, that is their choice. The important thing is for a woman to have the same choices a man does when it comes to their work-life balance.

But “having the same choices a man does” seems literally impossible. Women do not have the same choices men do from the moment they are born and given pink balloons. To see gender socialization in action on children only 3 or 4 years old, here’s a YouTube video. 1:40 on is particularly poignant.

Personally, the decision for me to stay home at least for five or six years to raise children would be in my mind a positive choice, not an unwilling reaction, based on my emotional priorities, but I still wonder if my seemingly free decision is based on socialized gender expectations and values.

These priority differences could be almost entirely due to the differences between male and female socialization and internalized gender roles, expectations, and mentalities. Both genders lose a little in this societal equation—men get less time raising their kids, women get less time in the work force. But even if my priorities are a product of socialization from my infancy, that does not change those priorities. I will still only be happy if I can devote the majority of my time to raising my children. In our “Two Income Trap” world, I may still have to work some of that time. I may even end up trapped, having to work in order to have means and therefore have to sacrifice time for my kids.

Hopefully I will be secure enough to at least be able achieve a balance which will give me the opportunity to advance my own causes and accomplish my personal goals as well as care of a family. Inevitably, however, my definition of success is not measurable by how many years I spent teaching or whether or not I ever got published. Success to me is measured in much the same way as the rest of the woman who are part of this so-called “opt-out revolution.” The mechanisms influencing those priories are less certain.

The Cooperative University: A Radical Shift of the Higher Education Model

 Universities have become unaffordable, inaccessible, and out of touch with what society actually needs.  There have been many potential solutions to these problems, with online education being the most plausible, in my opinion; however, I believe these ideas fail to get to the root of the problems of our current educational system.  What is needed is a radical shift in how we conceive of higher education.

 Students do not have autonomy over their educational experience.  Students are passive actors within a system that has allowed tuition rates to skyrocket, syllabi and teaching models to become out of sync with reality, and budgets and institutional investments to fail to meet students’ ethos.  I propose a cooperative model for higher education.  A cooperative university would address many of my complaints of our current higher education model. 

According to the International CooperativeAlliance, 

“A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.” 

Is this not what college should be?  

 

The cooperative university, informed by the cooperative movement, would be founded in the RochdalePrinciples:

1. Democratic Member Control

Every member gets one vote and an equal voice.  University policies and budgets are determined by voting members rather than a Board of Regents.   Students, then, are active participants in shaping their educational experience.  Students, faculty, and staff come together to democratically decide the governance of the university.  Those representing the university in positions of governance are held directly responsible to its voting members. 

2. Voluntary and Open Membership

Acceptance into the university will be open to people from all backgrounds and identities.  The membership system will be established in a way so as not to perpetuate the knowledge-based oppression of people of lower socio-economic classes.

3. Member Economic Participation

A cooperative university is an investment; everyone has a share of ownership.  There is not tuition, but member charges.   Any surplus resources are reallocated back to student and faculty development, and the development of the university.  All funds, including faculty salaries, student scholarships, etc., are approved by the membership. Members are required to contribute “work hours,” which could range from sitting on operational or budgetary committees, to attending or teaching classes, to contributing to course projects.  These contributions develop a sense of ownership and community, help to keep costs lower, and offer students marketable experience. 

4. Autonomy and Independence

The curriculum and learning format are decided by all members.  Because decisions are made on a “one member, one vote” basis, students have just as much say as professors in determining their education.  During the first week of classes, the students and instructors decide together what will be included in the course.  Students will have a say in what they learn and decide what is relevant to their lives outside of the classroom.  In this model, if it works correctly, those with the most experience tend to be acknowledged; if an instructor has experience in his or her field, they will be able to propose what is being talked about and studied in the field, and that will hold some weight.  Students can then take that information to make informed decisions on what they’re learning, and alternative opinions or dissensions can be more easily addressed.  Furthermore, students have the power to determine the requirements for graduation, the direction of their education, and the ability to create their own majors. 

5. Education, Training and Information

Because students are active participants in the operational activities of the university, they will gain concrete, real world experience to prepare them for the job market while they are in school.  Students will graduate with knowledge in business management, financial literacy, and the ability to work with others. 

6. Co-operation among Co-operatives

Alongside cooperative education, students will live in cooperative housing.  Analogous to dorm life, co-op housing will supplement students’ education with the social aspect of college.  Co-op housing can provide an intellectual community to extend classroom discussion, provide networking opportunities, and also foster friendships and a social life for students.  Furthermore, members of the university would be encouraged to utilize cooperative banks, food markets, etc. 

7. Concern for Community

The cooperative university will maintain a commitment to progressive, social justice activities and the development of the greater community through policy and direct action.  It will be a place for diversity of identity and thought.  Furthermore, while upholding high standards for its members, it would be open to anyone with an interest in the cooperative movement and a desire to learn.

Do you think a cooperative university would work?  How could we incorporate some of these principles into the current system?  Are there any elements of this model that would not work?  Please leave a comment with your thoughts.

Disclaimer: a conversation with my friend, +Ryan Dougherty, largely inspired the ideas presented in this post.