Those of you who are tired of diaries ranting about how it’s taking humankind entirely too long to collectively realize that “human” includes “women” on equal terms with “men,” please move along–nothing to see here.
A pair of stories today on msnbc.com have me seething. First there’s this report about a study by Britain’s Institute for Social and Economic Research:
But that wage premium disappears if wives go out to work themselves or don’t do most of the housework.
So why didn’t they also examine whether married women earned more if their husbands stayed home and did the chores? Why does the front-page link to this story read “Men, want to earn more? Keep wife at home”? Why doesn’t it read instead “People who have someone else do their housework earn more money–Well, duh!”
One reason for the discrepancy may be that it’s easier for men who have stay-at-home wives to convince their bosses to pony up a raise. If the little woman is working (tsk tsk), the boss has an excuse to turn down the raise because the family doesn’t “need” the money. It’s the same excuse women in the workplace have always encountered–Joe gets the promotion because he has a family to support.
Plus, it’s a lousy three percent difference (Compared to the ongoing gender gap in pay). But hey, it’s another way for the media to pander to sexism–and they don’t miss many of those opportunities.
The other “just shoot me now” story is this one:
Last week when asked about Patrick, Ecclestone caused a media stir by saying women “should be all dressed in white like all of the other domestic appliances.”
But he apparently outdid himself when he called Patrick and repeated the same line.
Yeah, yeah, auto racing is as good-ol’-boy sexist as it gets. But do you think for a minute that this man would still have his job if he referred to a Mexican driver as a wetback? Anyone remember the late Al Campanis, who was fired after blurting on “Nightline” that African-Americans lacked the “necessaries” to be baseball managers and executives?
I am so everlastingly tired of this shit. I’m tired of hearing it from men and I’m tired of hearing it from women–the most sexist boss I’ve ever encountered was female.
I was tired of it when I watched the ERA die at the Illinois State Capitol almost 30 years ago.
I was tired of it during college when a journalism professor suggested it might be easier for me to get a job if I put my picture on my resume. Yes, I was a little cutie then.
I was tired of it in high school when my mother expected me to take courses in typing and office machines so I could always “fall back on” being a secretary if (i.e., when) I couldn’t find work as a reporter.
Yep, I’m tired. But no, I won’t go take a nap. I think I’d rather open up a can of whoop-ass and start taking names.
Good diary. This is why I have absolutely no qualms calling myself a feminist and wonder why I still have to explain to so many younger women that we do not yet have the equality we’ve been working so long and hard for. We’ve made progress, but there’s so much left to do. Anyone who’s paying attention ought to know that. And they really, really need to stop characterizing feminists as some old, washed-up, bra-burning crowd whose time has past. Lead. Follow. Or get out of the way.
Compliment appreciated–especially from such an eloquent diarist. 🙂
The offensive headline regarding the first story has been removed from msnbc.com’s front page, but I remain appalled that anyone would have written such a thing in the first place.
I think I was pretty much born a feminist, but the fires had been burning a bit low until recently. Lately there’s been fuel for the flames–such as these articles.
Nor does believing in equal rights and status for women prevent me from also lending my support to gay/lesbian equality or racial equality or equality of human beings in general. I’ve always despised injustice, no matter what form it takes.
But geez, how long must we have to fight the most basic battles? Having to go back and cover the same damned ground is what wears me out.
There would be if we continued making progress – I see us slipping backwards in many ways and there’s plenty to do just to maintain the status quo!
That’s as sloppy an assessment of research as I’ve ever seen. One could just as easily assume that men whose wives stay home are under greater pressure to earn, and therefore earn more. Or, that a wife, given the opportunity to stay home do to her husband’s earning capability will choose to do so. Stats simply don’t tell you everything, and without some kind of anecdotal research, one cannot draw conclusions about why stats fall out the way they do.
Domestic appliances?
AAAUUURGH!
Can’t say I’m very impressed with Danica’s response either though….
If you don’t mid telling a stay at home mom who just ripped out and replaced the bathroom drywall.
Her response wasn’t an especially distinguished one:
Mainly, she was stunned that anyone would have the nerve to say such a thing to her face. Welcome to the real world, Danica.
Also, I sincerely apologize if you read this diary as expressing any opposition to women choosing to work only in the home rather than both in and outside the home. Not at all the case–my only rant in that regard is the low esteem in which “women’s work” is held, along with the idea that household work and child care should only be done by women and have no economic value. And, of course, I do not believe that women should be “kept” at home by men when the women themselves would not choose that course.
In fact, one interpretation of that dubious study referenced in the diary would be that men are earning a premium based on the unpaid work of women that rightfully belongs to the women.
She must have been stunned by his idiocy.
I completely understood your points, and didn’t mean to make you think I was hurt. Just a poor attempt at snark…
Good diary!
In fact, one interpretation of that dubious study referenced in the diary would be that men are earning a premium based on the unpaid work of women that rightfully belongs to the women.
And, that is factual and demonstrable. I can’t remember the name of the case, but there was a divorce settlement, in which the wife’s attorney actually calculated the market value of her domestic duties. Not only the housework, but the party planning (large component of corporate wifery), chauffering, child-care, etc. It was a landmark case. That “woman’s work” is pretty damned hard, and the hours are long. Yet, many wives get the shaft, in divorces, because they haven’t earned the actual salary, that their behind the scene’s labor made possible.
From personal experience I can tell you that bosses will fight harder to give a man a bigger raise if that boss knows the man is the only “breadwinner” (I have heard a boss in charge of requesting raises actually make remarks to this effect).
literally?
Yes!
I love rocks and construction. I especially love doing both, such as putting in my new rock patio. What I dislike is sunshine, so I only get to work on it for limited times!
Nice catch!
Kind of a problem in Colorado, eh? We get a ton of it. I all but bathed in sunscreen on Saturday and still got singed.
I also loathe sunshine. Night is my time of day!
My sympathies, though: it’s hard to be a mom and live for the night, I imagine. But I’m happy they don’t seem to get in the way of all your wonderful rock and construction projects.
In our house, it’s my wife who’s the handy one. We recently went through a round of home improvements, mostly putting in new flooring in the kitchen and painting a bunch of cabinets. More than once, the division of labor involved her doing the home improvements and me watching small children to be sure they didn’t get in the way.
A couple of weeks ago, we invited someone over to give us an estimate for a basement finishing job. At one point, he turned to me and asked if I was handy…
Can’t say I’m very impressed with Danica’s response either though…
LOL. So much for the stereotype that women are more articulate than men!
But in all fairness, she drives a whole lot better than she talks, and that’s what matters for her in the long run.
My take on the 3% difference is that if there is someone at home taking care of the house and kids, then the employed spouse both can work longer hours and not have to take time off during the work day because there stay-at-home spouse takes care of all the household and kiddy problems. For hourly workers, this directly adds up to more pay and for salaried workers it probably shows up as better raises.
The idiot part of headline is, of course, that the family’s income is likely to be a lot higher than that 3% advantage if both spouses work.
My opinion on both stories is that 1) assholes will always be with us and 2) there probably is no bigger asshole than an anxious, insecure male.
Assholes are rewarded. Keep your wife at home and refuse to help with the housework, and you’ll make more money. Go ahead and spout sexist garbage–the bra-burners may bitch, but at the end of the day you’ll still be running a major business.
If I were a more accomplished witch, I’d be working on turning Mr. Formula One into a toaster. Or a dishwasher.
Mmm. Irony. And iron.
Ugh. Yes, I think that comes up in every jack-welch-tells-us-what-a-genius-he-is type book.
Is there a school we can send you to so you can get the needed training? And will you share the knowledge when you get it?
And while we’re getting people to training, perhaps we should send Ms. Patrick to a Fran Lebowitz training session in snappy comebacks.
I think for heavy duty stuff like that, you have to go to ceremonial magicK. Read crowley, or consult your local OTO chapter.
snork
it’s so lame when you consider that the guy making the money gets a 3% increase in his salary, so therefore it’s okay for the wifey to quit her 40K or 50K job to work at home so the hubby can get 3K more in his salary!
I’m just old enough to remember the 60s, when feminism was young.
We made a lot of progress back in the 70s and early 80s. We’re going backwards now. I can see it, I can feel it. Women’s issues are being pushed to the back burner, while folk remain blissfully unaware that they’re turning their backs on more than half of the registered, active voters in this country.
If that fruitcake had made a comment like that to Janet Guthrie, she’d have knocked his face in. It should be interesting to see if Danica Patrick’s popularity seeps into NASCAR, and what the backlash will be if women start becoming more prominent there. I don’t see it being a positive experience.
Overall, though, we’re going backwards. Women are losing ground, so many of us don’t want to be labeled feminist for the negative press, for the damage the theocons have done to the very word “feminist”.. it enrages me.
I’ve spent way too much time in the past couple of days enraged, between stuff like this and the weak manslaughter conviction of Killen… we’re going backwards, backwards, backwards.
How do we stop it? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
I’m an old hand myself.
Remember all the women who stepped up and told the stories of their illegal abortion ?
Maybe we need some history lessons.
How about a series of “Remember When…” diaries ?
For instance, I remember when, as a wife, my income didn’t count toward qualifying for a home mortgage loan. Things were getting “better” when I was allowed to bring a note to the bank from my OBGYN certifying that I was taking birth control pills. We got the loan.
My ex-husband once told me about the arrangement he had with his first wife. They were married during the ’70s. He thought it was entirely fair and equitable that she did all the cooking and cleaning–even though she worked full-time–because she made less money than he did.
Hoo boy!
I told him to set aside, for a moment, the fact that she would have made less than he did even if they had both been working at the same freaking job.
Instead, I pointed out that he had moved from place to place in pursuit of his career, requiring her each time to quit her job and find a new one. He had even insisted that she work the same hours that he did, which meant that she had to find a new job when he was promoted from the night shift to the day shift. So how in crap could she possibly have been expected to make as much money as he did? And how could he justify further punishing her by refusing to help with the housework?
To his credit, he actually took the lecture to heart and realized that he had been a shit.
And while he and I were married, the house pretty much stayed a mess.
Boy, does THAT sound familiar. When we think of the “good of the family”, and how can we not, especially when our children are a factor, women continue to sacrifice our own personal security. Marriage is still an enormous gamble. So many women I’ve known made an unwritten, unspoken, unacknowledged contract to move, quit, stay home, work part time, work from home, etc, whatever it took to benefit the family as a whole to their own detriment, only to find themselves poor and alone with no hope of earnings comparable the their husbands.
I did a Feminist Story Hour diary that had some good stories in the comments but it didn’t stay up that long.
But maybe if one the long-timers put a similar diary, it would get more attention.
I didn’t see it when it was “new” – but I’ve read part of it now, and am going back for more. Great diary!!
Thanks. I would be happy to see someone else take up the idea because I really do think it is important for younger women (and men) to understand how short a time anything approaching gender equality has actually been around.
I just went over and read it. Excellent diary!
I can’t imagine what hell it was for your mother to lose her husband and then be told that she wasn’t legally her children’s guardian.
Most of the archaic women-as-property laws may be off the books, but we’re having a much harder time repealing the attitude.
I’ll look for it. Thanks, AndiF !
When we could not get credit cards or maintain a credit rating in our own name?
I think younger women suppose these stories come from the really really oooold days. It wasn’t that long ago, and we may get back to them sooner than some think.
You’re right. My daughter is 32. She is constantly amazed that the young women with whom she works have NO IDEA what life was like before, or that “Family Values” is code for a return to the bad old days.
She says they don’t know even the most basic things, like school policies that kept girls out of shop and boy out of home ec, or that girls were routinely dropped from math and science classes when high enrollment would have forced opening another session.
of seeing no fault divorce rip families apart, seeing the rate of marriages decline to a point lower than the Great Depression, and seeing our fertility decline to below replacement. Since I don’t give a damn about abortion I hesitate to include it, but it must be included to complete the picture. People are tired of “liberated” women using abortion as birth control.
When feminism comes up with answers to these byproducts of “progress”, maybe it will be a vital force again.
Only weak, insecure men have any use for a “submissive” wife. My motto has always been “Thinking for one is hard enough work – why would I want to have to think for two?” And your comments about the wages are dead accurate.
BTW, they probably serve whoop-ass over at the Froggy Bottom Cafe… LOL
…to be shocked. One would think, in this 45th or so year of the Second Wave of feminism that even the folks who don’t get it would at least be more covert in their sexism. Ecclestone’s comment is sooooo off the charts that it almost seems as if he is mocking sexist men. Alas, he’s for real.
LMAO,,great diary, and when you wake up in a …oh let’s say a few more hundred or so years, I’m sure there will be time travel available, soooooo,
come back and let us know who won ; )
reply to Mr Formula One Brain Cell:
‘Hey, not all household appliances are white,lots of ’em are flesh-colored, run on batteries, and are a hell of a lot more useful than you will ever be.’
I was married to an asshole that made five times what I made yet still thought we should split the bills fifty fifty. I said oh no, I don’t think so. He also thought he really pitched in around the house because he made our smoothies in the morning.The marriage lasted two years, needless to say.
“I married” in the active voice, rather than “I was married” which uses the passive voice? As in “I was standing at the bus stop and a piano fell on me” versus “I stood underneath the falling piano”… It makes a huge difference when allocating responsibility. People marry on a whim and divorce on a whim: good job.
of all this is that appliances haven’t been all-white since the early 1950s! Obviously Bernie E. hasn’t been paying much attention to anything that’s happened in the last 55 years!
Born in the 50’s, I keenly remember those pre-feminism, pre-Pill times.
My first lesson in the potential harshness of no-Pill, no-rights female reality began as an electricity project. At age 7 I rigged up a carbon microphone to a battery and some long wires and my radio headphones. I planted the mike in a flower pot on the porch.
When a Catholic Italian-American neighbor came to talk with Mom, I was horrified to hear her sobbing about being stuck pregnant with yet another baby, and how could she tell her husband, and how on earth would they ever manage to feed them all?
Fast forward 40 years. The fix we’re in today is indeed a set of fundamental problems of civilization.
Problem number 1 is that America is not a monoculture melting pot. Sexuality and sex-based expectations differ radically among our different populations. The harsh truth about the liberations of the 60’s & 70’s is that many of our populations never accepted them. A variety of circumstances that forced Americans to go along with Courts’ and our views in the past have changed, and many now feel safe to assert their restrictive practices on us.
Problem number 2 is that America isn’t the Enlightenment society that our system is premised on. We have a signficant fundamentalist population that has for some time been working on dismantling those social and governmental systems that are based on Enlightenment ideals and practices. We have various other economic and cultural forces that are opposed to anything that gives the comon people rights in the economy.
Problem number 3 is the Constitution, a system that’s become increasingly dangerous to the people as progress leaves its concepts era after era in the past. Its most immediate threat is in the mass media. Much of our most important social, economic and political activity occur there, but the Constitution not only gives no rights to individuals or society, but its simplistic notions of “speech” and “press” further multiply the owners’ powers which are already made vast by the technology itself.
In the case of womens’ rights, we have a significant population that’s against them whose elected representatives outnumber ours at every level, and meanwhile we’ve mostly lost the courts’ ability to protect or impose women’s (and many others’) rights. In Democracy there simply are no other lawful options.
I won’t presume to tell populations how they should advance their causes or prioritize their issues, but in this case it would seem to be that political options are limited until we can get a greater presence in government.
The civilization problem, having not really changed much in the first half of our lives, will not change much more any time soon. Boomers and Gen X will live out our lives in the primitive society we have today.
PRATHIBHA NANDAKUMAR (Translated by the poet) of the week at Poetry International
It is not even statistically significant. In fact, it suggests the exact opposite — families whose partners both work make much more money and that there is much less prestige in having a “traditional” family than there used to be given that bosses are so stingy with single-earner husbands. I suggest the boss may be non-receptive to the single-earner husband because he thinks the latter cares about his family more than the business.