workplace

Blogger and career guru (and newly married friend!) Marci Alboher just posted about my Recessionwire column, Love in the Time of Layoff, over at Yahoo’s Shine.  Her piece is titled “When Your Man or Woman Gets Laid Off.” Writes Marci (and oh how I heart her for so many reasons):

The column is so readable because it talks stuff few people are talking about. Like what happens to a heterosexual relationship when a woman suddenly becomes the sole breadwinner, what happens when someone who’s used to office culture suddenly gets used to the rhythms of home life, how two people (one of whom is pregnant with twins) can avoid driving each other batty when suddenly confined to a 650 square foot apartment.

Like any good serial narrative, Love in the Time of Layoffs had a major plot twist this month: Marco is back to work, albeit in a freelance gig. Questions abound for interested readers. Will he keep the job? Will the couple inch back into their former patterns again? What will happen once the babies arrive …..?

Good question.  Time (like, gulp, hopefully 4 more weeks) shall tell….!

My latest Love in the Time of Layoff column is now up at Recessionwire.com. It’s titled “Back to Work”. Marco is freelancing again! Househusband, interrupted indeed. I’m happy, but I’m mixed…

Donna Bobbitt-Zeher, a sociologist at Ohio State University, set the world a buzz when word got out of her research on the wage gap over a twenty year span:

The good news for women is that during the time period studied, their average salary increased from 78 cents for every male dollar earned to 83 cents. But when Bobbitt-Zeher controlled for various factors, she found that the share of that gap attributable to selection of major had increased…When controlling for all available factors, [she] found that the choice of major explained 19 percent of the income gap between college-educated men and women for the high school class of 1999, nearly twice as much of an impact as could be documented for the class that graduated 20 years earlier. (emphasis mine)

This wasn’t a shock to me as it was something that many of us who work to increase the number of women in science and engineering already suspected. So when Kate Harding from Salon Broadsheet emailed me for a response I wanted to make sure that people know that it’s not just as simple as English versus Chemistry.  “Harder,” male-dominated science and engineering fields, such as computer science, are paid more than female-dominated biological sciences, a “softer” science.

The real question that this wage gap research leads us to is whether or not the increase of women in a career leads to lower wages or not. In 2006, Paula England et al appear (I admit, I only read the abstract) to prove that there is no direct correlation between the increase in women entering a field and the lowering of that field’s wages. But a gendered wage gap is there. England showed it and now Bobbitt-Zeher shows it.

The AAUW also showed this wage gap difference based on major earned 2005 in their “Public Perceptions of the Pay Gap” report, but with a twist:

Ironically, the biggest wage gap is in science and engineering! But even with a 24% gap, women are still earning more than almost any other career field. *shaking head*

So what does this all mean?

There isn’t one reason for the wage gap. We can’t wave it away with one explanation (women’s choices) or correct it with one solution, even comparable work legislation.

For me there is an economic justice reason for women to look to science and engineering for a career. Wage gap or not, they will be earning more money. For women who have a gift for math and science and find joy in the work, go for it. But I would never say do it for the money.

Is it gender? Is it how much society respects the vocation? Is it unionization (teachers have smallest gap)?

Again, further research is needed. But whatever it is, women are getting the short end of the pay stick and all of these numbers are about the average man compared to the average woman. I can only imagine what the gap looks like for people of color!

This month, The Man Files brings you Jessica Pauline — a writer and feminist with experience working in some of the dicey-er Los Angeles strip clubs. Lots of ink has been spilled on the sex worker debates. Are women oppressed by sex work? Liberated? Both? How is trafficking distinct from, say, dancing one’s way through law school? In this entry, Jessica leaves those debates for another day and instead turns a keen eye to her observations of the men who make it rain. (—verb: to throw wads of cash in the air for dancers to retrieve as tips.)

Like Jane Goodall and her chimps, I spent a good deal of time during my tenure as a stripper in some of L.A.’s seediest nightclubs observing the behavior of the primates. Not the dancers, mind you — the men who came to watch them.

Based on my humble observations, I came to discover that certain behaviors are both predictable and categorical, and that most hetero men, when confronted with a pair of boobs in a semi-public setting, fall into a few choice archetypes.

Let’s start with what I imagine to be the most common breed of American strip club patron: white, middle-aged men who golf and vote Republican. They swagger in to the club with an air of ownership, their masculinity stuffed into their wallets and tucked neatly into their pressed khaki pants. Observing the dancers with the same level of detached interest that one might imagine they’d use in selecting a prime rib-eye, they pick a girl, begin to talk to her in their most sensual voice while rubbing her back and her leg, and shortly thereafter are ushered back to the VIP room with very little to-do. This is the kind of easy sell around which strip clubs were designed, and for that reason, we’ll call this breed Strip Club Men (SCM).

Now, strip clubs have been around long enough for a type of strip club rebellion to brew amongst men. So imagine, if you will, if the SCM had a son. This son desires nothing more than to be the antithesis to his stuffy, conservative father, and so he becomes sensitive, wears ironic t-shirts to demonstrate the fact that he doesn’t take himself too seriously, and quite possibly sports artistic, sentimental facial hair. Let’s call this breed Feminist Men (FM).

When forced into a strip club, maybe because of a bachelor party, or maybe in search of a place to talk quietly on a Tuesday night, the FM immediately seeks to set himself apart. Rather than sexualize the dancers, he opens with a nice conversation, carefully keeping his eyes above the neck. But as the FM gets less and less guarded, a strange thing begins to happen. He becomes more willing to let his eyes wander down. His friendly conversation becomes more imbued with sexual innuendo. And finally, often after spending copious amounts of money on what he has come to believe is a “real connection,” he tries to get the dancer to go on a date with him. (This, as an aside, is both insulting and never going to happen.)

The final subcategory of men falls deeper into FM territory, and warrants mention simply because of the unique validation that they seek. They’re easy to recognize, because no sooner does some indie chick start swaying her hips to Tom Waits, the King of Melancholy himself, then the Tom Waits Man (TWM) begins nodding in recognition. Before long, he’s dug a crumpled dollar bill out of his pocket and walked up to the stage where he will deposit it, but not until he’s made sure that the dancer sees him so he can compliment her taste to her face and thereby secure his place as profound, mysterious and, of course, different.

Maybe you’ll read this and think that I oversimplify. But since the most honest interaction in sex work is based on a respectful, fun partaking of the service provided, it can’t hurt for men to examine their own behavior with at least as much gusto as I examined it (don’t worry, I took some long, hard looks at myself, too). Without that, gentlemen, you are really just entertainment.

Jessica Pauline is a freelance writer in Los Angeles. An NYU graduate with a degree in music, her writing appears regularly on LAist.com, and has appeared in $pread Magazine, The Printed Blog, the Ventura County Star, and a number of other websites and local papers. She is currently working on a book about her experiences as a feminist stripper, and lives in Silver Lake with her fiance and their dog, Molly.

A new book has caught my eye, covering some of my favorite themes: Gender Equality: Transforming Family Divisions of Labor (The Real Utopias Project), by Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers et al.

In a nutshell, the book proposes a set of policies-paid family leave provisions, working time regulations, and early childhood education and care-designed to foster more egalitarian family divisions of labor by strengthening men’s ties at home and women’s attachment to paid work. Its policy proposal is followed by a series of commentaries–both critical and supportive–from a group of distinguished scholars, and a concluding essay in which Gornick and Meyers respond to the debate over how best to promote egalitarian policies.

Contributors include heavy hitters like Barbara Bergmann, Johanna Brenner, Harry Brighouse & Erik Olin Wright, Scott Coltrane, Rosemary Crompton, Myra Marx Ferree, Nancy Folbre, Heidi Hartmann & Vicky Lovell, Shireen Hassim, Lane Kenworthy, Cameron Macdonald, Peter McDonald, Ruth Milkman, Kimberly Morgan, Ann Orloff, Michael Shalev, and Kathrin Zippel.

(Thanks to CCF for the heads up!)

A simply-must-read over at American Prospect, “When Opting Out Isn’t an Option”, offers a four-part look at the under-explored side of the current recession:  How is recession affecting women who have to balance caregiving with wage-earning, and who make up an immense but largely invisible workforce, including nannies, maids and retail clerks?

Contributors include Heather Boushey, Ann Friedman, Dana Goldstein, Janet C. Gornick, Harriet B. Presser, Caroline Batzdorf and Elissa Strauss. Need I say more?

(Thanks to CCF for the heads up)

My latest, up at Recessionwire.com today!  Today’s post questions whether laid off men’s (ok, Marco’s) values are changing, now that they’re spending more time at home.  Hint: It’s all about the eggs. I’d love your comments!

Why do some men support gender diversity in leadership while others REALLY DON’T? Catalyst asks this question through a new body of research evaluating men’s involvement with gender diversity in a report released today titled, Engaging Men In Gender Initiatives: What Change Agents Need To Know. The study tells us a lot about men’s advocacy for gender equality at work.

Straight from the release:

Bringing men into the conversation of diversity is in a company’s best interest and is paramount to creating equality in business leadership. “The preponderance of men in leadership means their efforts are necessary to advance change in the workplace,” said Ilene H. Lang, President & CEO of Catalyst. “Research continues to show that diversity well-managed yields more innovation and is tied to enhanced financial performance − factors good for all employees.”

When asked about what keeps men from supporting gender initiatives, some men who were interviewed for the study pointed to a “zero-sum” mentality – a belief that gains for women necessarily mean losses for men. Companies may inadvertently encourage this line of thinking by instituting practices that increase competition between employees and put the focus on the individual first above the organization as a whole. A shift away from this “win or lose” mentality to a recognition that everybody benefits from gender equality can lead men to become greater advocates of change.

What are some characteristics that make men advocates for gender equality? The report finds that men who are seen as champions of diversity have a strong sense of fairness. Men who were committed to the ideal of fairness were found to have more personal concerns about issues of equality in general and were more aware of gender bias in the workplace and likely to take action.

Men identified as taking action on gender diversity indicated factors that may work as roadblocks to becoming champions of equality. These obstacles included two barriers to men’s engagement: fear of losing status or of being seen as part of the problem, and apathy – a sense that issues of gender do not concern men. Organizations can take steps to help remove these barriers and engage men in initiatives to promote gender equality by appealing to men’s sense of fairness, providing men with women mentors, exposing men to male leaders who champion inclusion, and inviting men into the discussion through male-only and male/female groups. In addition, research shows that men gain significant personal benefits such as better health, freedom to be themselves, and the ability to share financial responsibilities with a spouse or partner when working in a place free of gender bias.

Amen to all that, I say.  You can download a pdf version of study here.

I just hung up the phone with a new author who has a book project that I’m very excited about. I can’t tell you much about her project just yet—I’m trying to keep it on the down low for as long as possible—but I’ll say this: it kicks some serious bottom, and I can’t wait to work with her on it in the next handful of months.

I was telling her exactly this when she asked me The Question. “So,” she asked, “are you my editor?”

I don’t like this question. It makes me feel stuck somewhere between Kierkegaard’s Who am I?! and that PD Eastman book where the bird falls out of the tree and thinks the bulldozer is his mother.

I also don’t like the question because I tend not to handle the answering of it very well. I usually say something like, “Well, yes and no … ” Sometimes I say, “Well, no and yes …” Because that can be true, too.

Being a writer and all, I know my author can handle irony. But she didn’t seem too happy with me. So I did what I often do when I get asked The Question: I launched into an excessively detailed exegesis of the variations on Editor, and I’ll share it with you now so you never have to suffer the way my poor author did today.

As an author, you will likely have many editors. Some of them will edit your manuscript—that is, they will actually read what you have written and make suggestions for improvements to the language, pace, tone, and scope of your writing. Other editors will not edit your manuscript, but they will still be your editors.

The first editor an author meets is almost always the acquisitions editor. This is the person who is responsible for making a contractual offer for your project and negotiating the terms of the contract until it’s agreed upon by the publisher and the author. Some acquisitions editors only acquire, while others do other kinds of editing as well. Therefore, your acquisitions editor may or may not also be your …

Developmental editor. The developmental editor is the person who works with you to shape your project into a final and complete manuscript. A DE might make comments such as, “Have you ever thought about adding directions for a knitting project to the end of each chapter? Knitting is very in” or, “Chapter 12: more sex.” This is the most intensive/creative edit your book will get, though not all books even require a developmental edit. If yours does, your DE may or may not also be your …

Project editor. The project editor—also called your “in house” editor, or your shepherding editor, or your championing editor, or more often than anything else, generically “your editor”—may or may not actually do any editing of your book. She will, however, be the publisher’s point person for your project and, hopefully, an advocate for you and your book. She’ll discuss with you such things as cover design, deadlines, and your pub date, and she’ll convey any feedback the other staffers may have about your book (i.e., “Marketing says that Eat, Pray, Schlep isn’t really working for them as a title.”) Your project editor will likely oversee the descriptive copy that’s written about your book for publicity and catalog purposes to ensure it’s in line with what your manuscript will be delivering. Your project editor is most likely not also your …

Copyeditor. The copyeditor reads your manuscript and makes edits in accordance with such wonkiness as house style, grammar, and consistency. She may also ask you questions such as, “Re Charlotte Sometimes reference on page 233: Is this a reference to the time-travel YA novel by Penelope Farmer or the B side of The Cure’s Splintered in Her Head? Please clarify.” The copyeditors are actually the most underappreciated of the bunch—they are the unsung heroes of the editorial team, often a freelancer who polishes your manuscript until it shines and then disappears into the night. A tip: Ask your project editor if you can write a brief memo to the copyeditor before she begins her pass. That way you can flag any special words (“please stet spelling of golldangit”) or styles (“I prefer to refer to characters by a single capitalized letter and a long dash, as in ‘M—’, even though critics will likely find me affected for doing so. Please stet.”)

One more editor who will get her hands dirty on your book is the proofreader, who will review your book for accuracy after it’s been laid out. (Another tip: Ask your editor—you’ll know which one to ask when the time comes—if you can see the pages after the proofreader has taken her pass. Your editor may hate you for it, but it’s the only way you’ll see the absolutely final pages before they’re printed. She may say no—there often isn’t time for this extra step—but if you ask very, very nicely and promise to return with edits within, say, 24 hours, you might just get a yes.)

And now you know why The Question is so stressful. Why yes and no is accurate, as is no and yes. My recommendation: offer each so-called editor at your publisher a checklist and ask them to check all that apply.

Can someone puh-lease get all the Wall Street shills like this one off my t.v.? As the economic horizons look darker and darker, economists at Janet Gornick and Pam Stone’s awesome work/family mini-conference at the Eastern Sociological Society meeting in Baltimore this weekend presented, by way of contrast, really nice work.

At the concluding panel, “Public Policy and Working Families: Providing, Supporting, and Equalizing Access,” Heather Boushey (Center for American Progress), Chai Feldblum (Workplace Flexibility 2010), Heidi Hartmann (Institute for Women’s Policy Research) and John Schmitt (Center for Economic and Policy Research) discussed horizons for work and family policy. And they really took Obama adviser Rahm Emanuel’s advice to “never waste a perfectly good crisis” to heart. All four demonstrated that the particulars of the current downturn plus key demographic trends will help us to move work/family policy issues higher up on Obama’s and Congress’s priorities list, even in these hard times.

Here are some key points:

*Four out of five jobs lost since December 2007 are men’s. This means that women are increasingly sole breadwinners in partnered families as well as in single-mom families. As Heather Boushey argued in a recent paper for CAP, this shift in family relations and the workplace makes work/family issues more salient as the economic crisis deepens. Boushey encourages us to focus on the implications of a “woman, making 78 cents on the dollar, now supporting her family.” More than ever, we gotta have pay equity. And here’s the crisis-as-opportunity piece:
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