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TechnoratiThe New Equality in Unemployment
Let me begin by raising a glass of champagne to the official closing of the math gap. It turns out that girls do not lack the math gene. Nor are they math-phobic. Nor is there any "intrinsic" difference - thank you, Larry Summers - between the abilities of girls and boys to succeed in the numbers business. There's no reason at all for inequality. In fact, there's no longer inequality.
A new study of the math scores of 7 million students in 10 states shows that girls are now on a par with boys. How many years has it been since protesters stuck a sock in Barbie's mouth for complaining that "math class is tough"? Girls have gotten to parity the new-fashioned way. By taking more math classes.
This comes just in time for our young math whizzes to figure out a harder puzzle. There is another gender gap closing, this time in the workplace. After decades spent pursuing equality in wages and work, women have finally achieved it - ta da - in job loss.
A report shepherded through Congress by Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York shows that since the 2001 recession, women have lost jobs and withdrawn from the workplace at the same rate as men. More to the point, they've remained out for the same reasons as men: layoffs, downsizing, outsourcing, and wage stagnation.
Needless to say, this is not the sort of equality we were looking for. But if there is any good news, it's that this report may finally debunk the idea that droves of women are "opting out" of the workplace for a very different reason: full-time motherhood.
The "opt-out revolution" has been one of the most tenacious story lines of the new century. It arrived full-born with the New York Times Magazine article of 2003 declaring: "Why don't women run the world? Maybe it's because they don't want to." The idea was that the best and brightest daughters of the women's movement were choosing home and hearth over "having it all."
Since then, economists ran the numbers that ran down the myth. There's no actual proof that motherhood causes women to drop out. On the contrary. Sociologists went to talk with opt-outers, who gave a far more complex picture of the day that work push came to child pull. But the little engine of the story kept chugging along on lifestyle pages and in conservative think tanks.
Mathematically speaking, it divided women, especially mothers, and turned the sisterhood into a circular firing squad.
This narrative didn't just survive because it fit traditional views about a woman's "real" place. It reflected the inner struggle of many mothers trying to balance work and home, boss and child, in the 24/7 work world. It even credited the second shift of caregiving as valuable work.
In hard times too it was easier to say that you'd opted out than been pushed out. It framed the debate in the language of choice.
The downside, the subtraction lesson, if you will, is that the "choice" frame makes it far too easy to reduce the problems of work and family to the lowest common denominator of one: one woman, one family, one personal decision. "If it's true that women don't want to work," says one economist, "think of all the problems that disappear overnight. We don't have to think about family leave or after-school or the day-to-day grind or the tough challenges of work and family."
Now along comes the congressional report on the equality we didn't want. "When we saw women starting to drop out in the early part of this decade, we thought it was the motherhood movement, women staying home to raise their kids," said congressional economist Heather Boushey. "We did not think it was the economy, but when we looked into it, we realized that it was." That's what math does to you.
We are getting a fuller picture of the real troubles women and families face these days in what we aren't supposed to call a recession. When men are downsized, outsourced, and discouraged, we say they're unemployed. But when women get pushed out of the economy, we like to say they "opted out."
But now we know that women too have the math gene. And this just doesn't add up.
In 1980, Ellen Goodman received the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary. Goodman has had several books published including five collections of her columns. She has been writing for the Globe since 1967.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
18 Comments so far
Show Allmarc melchiori: thank you for the vote of encouragement and support! Those kind of jobs often require one sell one's soul and that I am unwilling to do just yet.
You've made some good points, iwarrior. I've observed a lot of the same things you have. However, I've always been good at math.
When I was in school, there were very few women in those math and engineering classes. I do not believe that women were somehow systematically excluded by the "Dominant Establishment". I believe that they excluded themselves. Maybe it was because of subtle societal messages about male and female roles, or maybe women just weren't interested in being in a classroom full of techie-nerd types. I don't know.
I agree with you, iwarrior, in that I did not know there was some kind of "opting-out" trend going on with women. It seems to me that women continue to leave their homes and pour into the workplace. It's what I call, "the extended middle class." I heard a report recently that said what I already knew: Single-person households are struggling the most in this economy. Duh, no kidding. I'd say that the overwhelming majority of people that are living a comfortable lifestyle these days are from two-income households.
In my neighborhood, I still see women in jogging suits on the sidewalks while I'm fighting my way through rush-hour traffic. Obviously, they must be housewives supported by men with fancy jobs (and those women's "job" is to look good in order to keep that well-paid husband). What's the percentage of women like that? I don't know. I'm sure it varies a lot from one neighborhood to another.
A clarification for Joni Rose: If my memory serves me correctly, the magazine editorial writer was Asa Baber who wrote that piece in an issue of Utne Reader some years ago. I don't think he was implying that all of those choices are all equally available for all women. I believe he was merely pointing out that those choices are all socially acceptable for women.
I'm male, and I was terrible at math. :D
One thing I have noticed amongst my generation is that people seem to be coupling more for convenience than anything. People shack up together because they need a place to live or two incomes or what have you.
I do think that a lot of women are still looking for some sort of provider be it due to internalized sexism, family expectations, or simply because they feel that they have to. I think a lot of women want to opt-out but can't because they can't find a guy with the right kind of money. Maybe it's just me, but it seems that a lot of women still want a man who they feel is superior to them, a guy who makes more money, has all of his ducks in a row, knows how to get out of any jam, etc. Big Daddy Superman is who they want, and I don't want to nor can I be that man.
If women are "opting out" I don't know how most of them can afford to. It's why I have always found the idea at least somewhat suspect. Anytime I have seen stories on this subject, the women who were supposedly choosing to stay home were upper-middle class women who were married to men who were wealthier than they were. These women could afford to just stay home.
While conservatives got all smug about it all saying, "Well see, these women want to stay at home after all. Who needs feminism?" The whole thing troubled me. I didn't want to believe the hype.
atheist says...
"We have a real problem when young women don't want to call themselves "feminists", would rather shop than read, and dress and act like prostitutes even on the job."
People would be surprised at how many women still treat the word "feminist" as a slur.
I think inequality plays a role in that kind of behavior. A lot of women feel that they need to be wantonly sexual in order to get what they want from life. It's what the media puts in their heads. I think that if we lived in a society with complete gender parity, we wouldn't see that sort of thing.
"There are many exceptions, of course, but my gut feeling is that women are doing it TO themselves."
I think it's a bit of both.
Rockerbabe - get a job that pays 6 figures - or use your figure to make 6 figures.
Must be nice to be able to "opt out". All I know, is that I don't have a husband, sugar daddy, trust fund, wealthy parents, a job that pays a 6-figure salary and I haven't won the lottery. As the saying goes, "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go".
Sadly, I was hoping that, if I ever got a chance to jump into one of these discussions early enough, I could be part of a lively exchange. I had no idea that the response would be pejorative name-calling.
Thank you, marc melchiori, for pointing out that not echoing "Politically Correct" prefabricated statements does not make one a racist. It's too bad that this term is now thrown around to slam opinions that don't happen to agree with our own worldview.
Let me tell you a few things about myself. I have been a member of a Unitarian Universalist Church for twenty years. Our congregation has requested extra police protection from possible Jim Adkisson copycats. Two years ago, our church received a bomb threat probably because of the banner on the front of the building that says: "Civil Marriage is a Civil Right." We did not press charges against the gay-hater, but the authorities did.
If I saw some punks dragging a black person (or anybody!) behind their pickup truck, I would ram them. If I saw some punks tying a gay person (or anybody!) to a fence, those punks would get a swift tire iron across their faces. When the Nazis marched through a neighboring town a few years ago, the minister strongly urged me NOT to go there and throw bricks at them. She said that totally ignoring them would be best. She was probably right.
When I heard that voting machines were tampered with and ballots were miscounted in primarily minority districts in recent elections, I was (still am) outraged. I won't be satisfied until everyone involved in this national disgrace (probably mostly white males) ends up chained together out in the hot sun, with picks and shovels, fixing the roads.
I'd still like to know what it was specifically in my first post that Thomas More disagreed with. Even though I was speaking from personal experience, it seems that he thinks he knows my own life story better than I do.
JONI ROSE: Good points. When my 2nd daughter was born I looked at what it would cost me to pay for childcare for 2 preschool children, minus taxes and just opted to stay home and freelance. I never went back. I could not detach from the babies, and elected to do without a fancy address, drive an old car, etc. Now I have the privilege of helping my oldest daughter stay home with her children while her husband finishes a 2nd degree. Since the value of the dollar is in question, giving these children their mother in their formative phase is something I consider priceless.
FIVE CORNERS: I feel I'm doing ad hoc sociology field work as I've been seeing a blue collar carpenter for the past year. I try to sand down (equivalent) his sexist & racist attitudes, those inherited from the baboon hierarchy that constitutes the vast majority of blue collar jobs he attends to in his union. A certain compassion has come from this communal enterprise in that I see what he's struggling against. He was court ordered (in NY) to pay $1200 a month child support, but here in Florida, a "right to work" state, he seldom makes union wages and is tethered to a production schedule that doesn't always leave him enough $ for low rent, food, and utility costs. He reminds me of a trapped animal. He has even been arrested in the past for NOT paying enough child support. (My X sure got away with not paying often enough!)
As you probably know the corporate takeover of Washington has resulted in laws and policies that are actively directing wealth to aggregate upwards, so that fewer and fewer (privileged) persons OWN more and more. The vast majority is left to bicker over the crumbs. "Divide to conquer" is a very robust and time-tested theme still being utilized. Instead of the Jews, it's the other Semitic peoples this prejudice time 'round, that when it's not angst directed at "illegal aliens" or "gays" or "liberals." So long as the shared interests of persons are not too closely aligned for all to recognize, these petty divisions will foment sufficient antagonism to keep what must cohere (to gain power) from coalescing.
When we see corporations making inroads into privatizing life necessities like water, appeasing the very ones they work against by promising to "right to life" fools that now birth control can be safely placed under the abortion heading... in other words using diversionary tactics to keep the pack complicit with its own dis-empowerment. Our task? To educate, person by person by using whatever means we can.
Educated elitists in Europe already knew how to take God's name in vain in order to manipulate the people to enslave them to the Church/State Dictatorial Slave State.
Don't blame Jesus that men took his name & used his name to perpetrate what is only their own worldly ambitions upon others through history as that is what he said would happen.
Do not fall into the trap of calling something you disagree with racist. Understand that please.
I understand it quite well, thats the problem. Racism isn't hard to identify.
Unfortunately, fivecorners, most women don't have "three basic lifestyle choices." Most of the mothers I know HAVE to bring in a paycheck -- not to support a life of luxury, but rather to help pay the rent/mortgage, buy food, provide health insurance, etc. I would've given anything to have been able to stay home with my child when she was little. That wasn't a choice for me, either before or after the divorce. That's true for many working women.
Your magazine editorial writer presumed that all women are in happy, stable marriages with husbands earning high enough wages to support a family. Has that been the case since the 1950s? Or ever? Why do such editorials continually ignore the enormous number of us divorced, single Moms who are truly struggling to keep our families sheltered, fed, and clothed during this disasterous economy?
And so, for all of my adult life, my choices have been "three choices have been (a) work full-time, (b) work full-time, or (c) work full-time." Just like a man.
Hi,
Well - with my math degree, I am still stuck in the women-wage-pay-scale. A math-enhanced sexism-decreased wage.
But I was glad to see the article. Now if my friends say 'But I can't do math because I am a woman' I can show it to them.
- A Fan
"... women have lost jobs and withdrawn from the workplace at the same rate as men ... Needless to say, this is not the sort of equality we were looking for."
Were you hoping that men would lose jobs and withdraw from the workplace more often than women?
Frankly I don't see the need for racists on CD. No one needs them or their racist sentiments.
Chakra Khan sez: "White men are baby Jesus's chosen people"
Huh? Maybe a century ago, being a white male meant something. But as a white guy myself, I have never felt privileged, "chosen" or "special." I've had to endure plenty of downsizings, getting fired, having to take lesser jobs, etc. I've been pulled over by the police more than once for simply driving an older vehicle.
Perhaps it's true that throughout history, most of the privileged elites have been white, male, plantation-owner/robber-baron types. But the percentage of ALL white males who fit that stereotypical image is very small--probably smaller than the stereotypes of any other segment of the population.
And then there's the issue of unemployment vs. age. For men, joblessness increases with age. For women, it decreases slightly with age.
Maybe the perception of "opting-out" has to do with the fact that our culture gives women more options. As one magazine editorial writer put it, "Women have always had three basic lifestyle choices: (a) start a family, (b) start a career, or (c) do a combination of (a) and (b). On the other hand, men's three choices have been (a) work full-time, (b) work full-time, or (c) work full-time.
We have a real problem when young women don't want to call themselves "feminists", would rather shop than read, and dress and act like prostitutes even on the job.
There are many exceptions, of course, but my gut feeling is that women are doing it TO themselves.
(Just want to add here that I'm a 47 year old female.)
the idea that we can use the one and only Earth as the endless physical source of molecules to be industrially altered to support an ever-increasing numbers of 'jobs' in an ever-expanding 'economy' is inherently false, regardless of the physical sex of the 'worker'...
the idea that an individual's psychological makeup or intellectual abilities are somehow related to their physical parts is also inherently false...
there is no way to maintain our current lifestyle as humans ~ not as men, or as women ~ as humans...enivronmental destruction is the only certainty down the road we are on...
This should give you a giggle:
The 'Governator' Arnold Swartzeneggar just cut 200 000 California Government employees pay to the $6.55 US mandated minimum wage from whatever they had been making, until such time a state budget gets approved. Which, if I remember rightly, could be some time as California is in the throes of a massive deficit.
I guess even more California banks will fail as those government employees drain or empty their accounts and default on their car loans, mortgages and credit cards. Which will in turn spread to even more banks across the US.
"...There's no reason at all for inequality..."
Yes there is
White men are baby Jesus's chosen people