Years ago, when my career depended on my being so much better at what I did than were the men I worked with, and my willingness to work twice as hard for
60.2 percent of their salary, I was forced to walk a very fine line between my feminist principles and my need for that truncated paycheck.
I loved the work though; I was thrilled to be paid to analyze the physical and financial aspects of a business and to make a decision. Someone was actually willing to pay me to think. And to deal with abstract concepts, like finance and contracts and tort law. Heady stuff for one who was raised in an era when few women worked outside the home.
Even in my early twenties, I knew that the words we used shaped the way we think. Back before it was called politically correct, when it was merely seen as respect, we stopped referring to adult African American males as boys. But even the most liberal men of that era still referred to women as girls.
One day, up on that tenuous tightrope upon which the first woman in a man's job had to balance, I had a discussion with my boss, a Berkeley graduate working in San Francisco, about the word girl. Politely, with humor and a winning smile, I suggested that referring to an adult in the terms of childhood diminished her standing in his eyes. That it was not possible to see the professional woman when he was thinking of her as a child, as "less than" an adult member of his team. I remember saying that of course, it was his right to use whatever language he felt was appropriate, but that I did wish he would at least think about the word and what it implied, when he was using it.
Today, I am no longer in need of a paycheck issued by a man, so I can say it flat out, "Do not call me 'girl.' " I am not a child, and it doesn't matter how many women use the term to describe each other or themselves. It is inappropriate to label an adult as a child in any professional setting. Or in any discussion of adults in a professional setting.
The reason this needs to be said now, is that we are likely to nominate the first woman as president of the United States within the next year. We have to be prepared for the backlash that is sure to come, just as our black sisters and brothers have had to deal with the backlash created by the election of the first black president of the United States.
There is more below the fold.
Last week
Laura Clawson reported that there were United States congressmen who would not allow a female staff member to accompany them to evening events, be alone in a car with them or in a closed door, one-on-one, meeting.
As a result, women are kept out of important meetings and kept from developing the kind of professional relationships that are so crucial to advancing on Capitol Hill. Not because they've done anything wrong, just because someone might think it looks bad.
These policies are in a minority of congressional offices, but they're also not a one-off thing. Such policies are discriminatory and illegal—yet they're coming from members of Congress tasked with making the law. Talk about inspiring absolutely no confidence.
Someone suggested that this illegal, discriminatory behavior was to protect the man from a sexual harassment claim. That intrigued my curiosity. How many actual claims of sexual harassment are filed every year? Is this a concern that most men should be troubled with? And if so, what should we do to eliminate it as a threat?
According to the Department of Labor:
Of the 123 million women age 16 years and over in the U.S., 72 million, or 58.6 percent, were labor force participants—working or looking for work.
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Office in fiscal year 2014, there were a total of
26,027 claims filed alleging discrimination on the basis of sex. Those claims include sexual harassment as well as pregnancy and other sexually related claims. The total claims alleging sexual harassment were
6,862.
Keep in mind that in order to file a federal lawsuit claiming sexual harassment, all administrative remedies, including an EEOC complaint, must be exhausted first. So in order to sue, a woman must first comply with all corporate procedures for filing a sexual harassment claim, submit to the corporation's attempts to mediate, and then if unsatisfied, she must file with the EEOC before a suit can be brought. There are a lot of hoops to jump through to file such a claim.
Although these numbers include a minority of male victims as well, I am using the feminine pronoun. But even if we were to assume that all claims were brought by women, that still results in a chance of .01 percent (6,862 divided by 72,000,000) that the woman sitting in your office will bring a claim against you if your office door is closed. And that assumes that some type of harassment actually occurs. The odds of a claim without reasonable basis (52.0 percent of filed claims), is .005 percent.
So for an infinitesimal chance that a false sexual harassment suit might be brought, women must be excluded from one-on-one meetings with men, staffing politicians at evening events and even serving as their drivers?
Sarah Mimms, for the National Journal, spoke with a representative from the congressional Office of Compliance about this issue.
"Policies, official or unofficial, that prohibit female staff from being alone with a Member can be discriminatory and create an unequal playing field in the workplace," OOC spokesman Scott Mulligan said in a statement to National Journal. "A practice like this means that women can never become trusted advisors or rise to high positions within an office based solely upon their gender. Employers should concentrate on ensuring that their staffs are trained in workplace rights laws and that the workplace is free from harassment and discrimination rather than trying to build unlawful fences around their female staff."
Women already, (still) face an unequal playing field in the competition for leadership rolls in the workplace.
Unsurprisingly, women are more more likely to see sexual discrimination than are men. The recent Pew survey shows results strikingly similar to one done last summer that showed a difference in the perception of racial bias in policing between white and black respondents.
In that survey, 70 percent of blacks said that blacks in their community were treated less fairly than whites in dealings with the police, while only 37 percent of the whites surveyed agreed that such disparate treatment occurred.
It is much easier to recognize inequality when it affects you personally, but that such sexual discrimination exists is made plain in a report issued by the Center for American Progress, the highlights of which include:
[Women] are only 14.6 percent of executive officers, 8.1 percent of top earners, and 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs. They hold just 16.9 percent of Fortune 500 board seats.
In the financial services industry, they make up 54.2 percent of the labor force, but
are only 12.4 percent of executive officers, and 18.3 percent of board directors. None
are CEOs.
They account for 78.4 percent of the labor force in health care and social assistance
but only 14.6 percent of executive officers and 12.4 percent of board directors. None,
again, are CEOs.
In the legal field, they are 45.4 percent of associates—but only 25 percent of non-equity
partners and 15 percent of equity partners.
In medicine, they comprise 34.3 percent of all physicians and surgeons but only 15.9
percent of medical school deans.
In information technology, they hold only 9 percent of management positions and
account for only 14 percent of senior management positions at Silicon Valley startups.
Although women control 80 percent of consumer spending in the United States, they
are only 3 percent of creative directors in advertising.
Their image onscreen is still created, overwhelmingly, by men. Women accounted for just 16 percent of all the directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors who worked on the top-grossing 250 domestic films of 2013, and were just 28 percent of all offscreen talent on broadcast television programs during the 2012-13 primetime season.
When, however, there are more women behind the camera or at the editor’s desk, the representation of women onscreen is better: Films written or directed by women consistently feature a higher percentage of female characters with speaking roles.
The professional leadership picture for women of color is even worse.
Women of color occupy only 11.9 percent of managerial and professional positions.
And of those women, 5.3 percent are African American, 2.7 percent are Asian
American, and 3.9 percent are Latina.
Women of color hold only 3.2 percent of the board seats of Fortune 500 companies
More than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies have no women of color as board
directors at all.
It is important, going forward, to keep in mind just how far we have left to travel. As women, and as a society in troubled economic times, we have to draw that line in the sand today. As Hillary Clinton's campaign picks up speed, we will be inundated by often subtle sexual bias in the media and from the conservative members of the Republican Party. We have to be able to recognize it and to present a united stand against it.
Let's start by recognizing her maturity and cease referring to an adult female as a girl.
