19 Practical Steps You Can Take to Making Your Workplace Better for Women

Inspired by 35 Practical Steps Men Can Take to Support Feminism, here are some practical steps men and women can take (and are taking) to make the workplace better for women that go beyond the obvious of don't touch, harass, or sexually harass them.

Even if some of these seem bizarre or outlandish, I am including them because I've witnessed them occur several times and/or heard stories from other women about these things happening perpetually.

1.  Listen to women when they speak.

People have a habit of ignoring what women say, or assuming that they don't know what they are talking about.  Sometimes it seem like men in a meeting are just waiting for women to shut up so they can talk.  Women will also undersell how good their ideas are.  But women can offer just as much to a conversation as a man.   Listen to what they are saying.  Especially if they are talking about sexism.

2.  When you praise women, praise them for things other than "feminine" behavior.

There is nothing more defeating than working really hard at your job, only to ever get praise for being "nurturing" and "making people smile" and attending to the needs of others.  Praise women for being actually good at their jobs and praise them for the things that make them assets to your team/company.  Don't praise them for performing gender roles and for generic qualities that have nothing to do with their job.

3.  Don't make jokes about your female coworkers being pregnant.  Especially around clients or guests!

While there is nothing wrong with a woman being pregnant--- whether she's single, in a relationship, or married--- women still face a lot of stigma about their sexuality.  Making jokes about a woman being pregnant (especially if she is unmarried) can imply that she is careless, unfit for work, promiscuous, and possibly sexually available in ways that she isn't.  People who are not familiar with the woman (clients and guests) will not understand the nuances of the joke and may draw unfair, harmful conclusions about your female coworker.  It may also imply to the woman that her coworkers spend their time thinking about her sexually rather than professionally, and that they are ok advertising this.  This can make the workplace uncomfortable for her.

Do What You Love?

I was planning to write a long piece about contraception as a vehicle for economic opportunity, but found the recent vitriol swirling around this topic too depressing.  Instead, I will leave you with a thought provoking article I came across this morning.

"In the Name of Love" challenges our current "do what you love" mantra regarding work, arguing that a) this privileged perspective dehumanizes the vast majority of people who do our necessary but generally unlovable work, and b) enables the capitalist system to exploit workers by leveraging the passion-means-more-than-compensation ethos.  The author also notes how this dynamic particularly harms women:

"Yet another damaging consequence of DWYL is how ruthlessly it works to extract female labor for little or no compensation. Women comprise the majority of the low-wage or unpaid workforce; as care workers, adjunct faculty, and unpaid interns, they outnumber men. What unites all of this work, whether performed by GEDs or PhDs, is the belief that wages shouldn’t be the primary motivation for doing it. Women are supposed to do work because they are natural nurturers and are eager to please; after all they’ve been doing uncompensated childcare, elder care, and housework since time immemorial. And talking money is unladylike anyway."

I will admit to being shocked by this revelation at first.  I guess I'd bought into the Do What You Love thing just like everyone else.  My next reaction was rage.  A system of oppression exploiting mankind's hope for self-fulfillment as a sort of Trojan Horse?!  Finally, I sink back into depression.  Has there ever been a self-help movement that wasn't exploitative or exploited to benefit the privileged?

Be vigilant my friends.

Hunter/gatherer and gender equality: pervasive patriarchy?

            During a discussion today about women’s issues, I came across a question regarding the equality of men and women in our hunter/gatherer history.  Is the predominant story of pervasive patriarchy an accurate description of our anthropological history?  Were women always frail and submissive to their stronger, hunting counterparts?  This time period seems ideal to investigate the “real” issue of male/female equality as it would be relatively free of societal construct and influence.  By investigating this issue, we can truly get to the basis of what “human nature” and gender equality is really like.  Thankfully, I stumbled upon this great review written by Dr. Ernestine Friedl who uses her anthropological expertise to explore this issue.  According to her research, male dominance is directly related to gender control over food distribution, a relationship subject to tribal structure and the physical environment.  Thus, a variety of patriarchal and egalitarian structures existed (and still exist) and this relationship is still applicable to gender equality in modern society.

            To begin, I would like to define three main terms that will be useful for understanding her discussion.  First, a patriarchy is defined as a system of society in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.  Conversely, a matriarchy is a system of society ruled by women.  Finally and intermediately, an egalitarian society is one characterized by belief in the equality of all people, especially in political, economic, or social life.  Using these definitions, Dr. Friedl’s investigation points to a range of patriarchal and egalitarian societies present in our history, but truly matriarchal structures were absent from her findings.  The incidence of patriarchy was found to be in relation to the amount of dominion men had over the distribution of food.  Groups heavily dependent on meat and the hunt (example: Eskimos) are presented as strictly patriarchal.  Women in these groups are “treated almost exclusively as objects to be used, abused, and traded by men.”  On the opposite end, Washo Indians of southern California relied much less frequently on long hunts and more on communal hunting and gathering.  Women had the opportunity to lead and otherwise there was “relatively little difference in male and female rights.”  Dr. Friedl provides other examples of less egalitarian structures where men have dominion, but women do have the ability to exert influence.  Ultimately, dominion and status is awarded to the group who controls the distribution of resources, a process dictated by physical environment and biological constraints and usually, but not always, associated with the male gender.

            Dr. Friedl does address the division of hunters vs. gatherers into the respective male vs. female groups and attributes the division to the specialization required for these actions and the reproductive capacity of women.  As in economics, it is more effective for two individuals to separately specialize in tasks rather than for the individuals to perform averagely in both tasks.  Conceptually, men could specialize in gathering and women could specialize in hunting.  However, hunting would be made inefficient with the presence of a small child on your back.  The possibility of carrying and gathering is really what has solidified the “woman as gatherer” idea beyond the temporary constraints of pregnancy.  Interestingly, this perspective provides no comparison of male vs. female intelligence, superiority or submission.  It is simply most cost effective to design a method of food production where the males specialize in the more taxing, randomized pattern of hunting while women gather resources, bear, and raise children.

            The power of this article lies in its ability to contradict the patriarchy-as-inherent/historical-truth story.  We are certainly familiar with the story of the powerful hunter returning to dominion over his wife and family.  Although this was certainly the case in some instances, it is not the case for all.  Tribes existed with the promotion of egalitarian values and power relative to the distribution of labor.  There is no reason to accept patriarchy as the default human pathway as it simply is not true.  

            While reviewing the points of her article, Dr. Friedl relates this relationship of resources/status to contemporary society.  Modern day Eskimo women might be relatable to the middle class housewife, devoid of contribution to the family resources and subject to her husband’s dominion.  Dr. Friedl states “only as controllers of valued resources can women achieve prestige, power, and equality” (Handmaid’s Tale anyone?).  Currently, women are reducing the number of/closeness in age of their children and gaining more influence and power in the workforce.  She concludes with a powerful statement: 

In many countries where women no longer devote most of their productive years to childbearing, they are beginning to demand a change in the societal relationship of the sexes.  As women gain access to positions that control the exchange of resources, male dominance may become archaic, and industrial societies may one day become as egalitarian as the Washo.

Feminism, after all, is about equality.

Decline in American Masculinity, Blame Women or the Economy?

A couple weeks ago Jezebel did an article covering a recent piece by Rachel Burger for Forbes that argued that feminism should not be blamed for the decline in the achieve-ability of American Masculinity (aka the 'feminization' of America) but rather we should look to the recent American capitalist economy and its effects on the male labor market.

It is a fresh and interesting angle to take on the issue.  I've often studied how the economy affects and is affect by women's labor (affective and unpaid labor included) and therefore the development of women's social and cultural identities and positions.  Reading about Burger's ideas reminds me that just as womanhood is affect by the economy, so is manhood.  It seems silly to have to spell it out like that--- after thinking about womanhood and economics, how could I not remember that such a relationship exits between manhood and economics?  But I think that when we talk about the Economy affecting the country and Americans, we are not often explicitly genderizing what effects we are talking about--- although often we ARE talking about things that might uniquely affect men,  we tend to talk about those problems as if they are universal phenomenon that everyone experience and/or shoulders responsibility for.

For example, when we talk about reducing funds for welfare or social programs---- news corespondents and politicians tend to immediately talk to us about single mothers, children, or elderly--- usually because such sob stories grab our attention.  But when outsourcing is discussed, I see few politicians and news personalities discussing how outsourcing is often a bunch of male business executives choosing to move many traditionally male jobs out of the country.  Outsourcing is instead discussed in other contexts, and without its gendered implications, making it a problem only framed as an issues for Everyone.  I'm not saying that outsourcing is not an issue that affects everyone.  But what I guess I'm trying to get at is that if men (or Americans in general) want to fight for this identity and lifestyle, they need to own it and openly examine it . . . and thereby uncover the multifaceted factors that are leading this lifestyle/identity/labor to be under threat (and not just do knee-jerk blame-the-women because they can't be bothered to think of any other explanation after thousands of years of human civilization).  I guess, American masculinity is again assumed to be a standard that everyone desires and is concerned about, so the mainstream doesn't feel the need to examine it explicitly . . . even if that is a lost opportunity to save it or assist its evolution.

I have been thinking about this idea of American masculinity being under threat because even though big corporations are not supporting it economically, they are still trying to capitalize off of it through the advertising industry.  I see ads for cars, home maintenance, insurance, health care products, food etc. that target the American male adult still peddle this idea of a rugged modern cowboy punching out of the factory (where his performance has been enhanced by his allergy medication or cell phone) or putting his hammer back on his tool belt, driving home in his powerful car to enjoy his beer, meat, or cable service with his beautiful woman and his progeny, whom he has protected via a manly insurance plan and tough home security system.  It frustrates me that companies still try to exploit (and idealize) this dream and these criteria for masculinity, while undermining the economic components that make such a lifestyle possible.

The Jezebel article does critique Burger's ideas a bit, asking for a more nuanced consideration of the class components to both these economic phenomena and American masculinity.  The idea of what kind of labor our creative economy does value these days, and what gender implications that has is also discussed a bit. There is definitely a lot to think about!

More Work for Mother: Part 1

As a PhD student interested in technology and its role in society, professors are always suggesting interesting reading material.  Of course, I never read most of it, but this blog gave me a good excuse to finally read Ruth Schwartz Cowan’s seminal book More Work For Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave.

The book covers a lot of ground, so I’m going to get four posts out of it.  This “Part 1” will discuss Cowan’s basic thesis: industrialization eliminated “housework” for men and children but preserved “women’s work” and in some ways made it worse.

For most of human history, basic survival required a lot of work from every person in the household.  Men made leather goods, whittled tools, ground grain into meal (or hauled it to the mill), chopped and stacked wood, tended animals, and worked the fields.  Women cooked, tended children, made soap and candles, sewed, and wove.  Even children worked, tending smaller children, mending, stirring pots, and cleaning vegetables.  If the family needed help during the harvest/slaughtering season, or if someone was ill, they would hire help or foster a young family member.  In this dynamic, everyone had work to do and each person developed specialized skills to complete this work.

Then the industrial revolution changed the balance.  Children went to school and men’s work became industrialized: flour was milled commercially, tools and leather goods were made in factories, coal and gas replaced wood.  However, traditionally women’s work remained in the home and new technologies often created more work for married women.

• The production of industrial clothing reduced women’s sewing and weaving tasks, but now the family has more clothing that is expected to be washed more frequently.
• Coal and gas stoves meant that women didn’t tend the fire anymore, but they are expected to provide more diverse and more time consuming meals.
• Vacuum cleaners simplified carpet cleaning, but now women are expected to clean the carpets weekly rather than yearly.

In addition, with the boom in factory jobs, domestic workers could find better pay for less work outside the home, so married women are expected to do all of this by themselves.

This got me thinking.  Aren’t  there “labor-saving” devices today that only make more work for women?  Here are some examples I thought up and I’d love to hear others: 

• We now have McMansions where each kid has his/her own room with a bathroom and Dad has his man-cave, but now Mom needs to clean more rooms.
• How many kitchen devices promise to grill a stuffed pepper, infuse a steak, or puree something exotic?  Guess who usually makes all these specialized meals and then cleans the contraptions.
• How many laundry steaming and sanitizing machines are on the market, raising the sanitation standard yet again?