The New York Times‘ vision of women in the workplace. (Anna Parini)
Familiar, frustrating construction from today’s New York Times (5/26/15):
It turns out that generous maternity leave and flexible rules on part-time work can make it harder for women to be promoted — or even hired at all.
That’s one way to put it, and the article, by “Women at Work” columnist Claire Cain Miller, puts it that way repeatedly. Women are paid less in Chile as a “result” of the law that requires employers to provide childcare for working mothers. Maternity leave measures “have meant that” European women are less likely to achieve powerful positions at work. Policies intended to mitigate the penalty women pay for their traditional “dual burden,” the Times says, “end up discouraging employers from hiring women in the first place.”
The workplace repression of women is described as the “unintended” impact of family-friendly policies. Sure, such impacts weren’t intended by the policies’ drafters, but that makes it sound as though there were no conscious human beings behind decisions to pay working mothers less or not to hire women. It isn’t the policies that “make it harder” for women, but the male-centric management structure’s unwillingness to integrate those policies into the way work is done. Why not say that?
The Times suggests it might be better if employers didn’t have to pay for policies that make it possible for caregivers to earn a living, or maybe they should be “generous but not too generous.”
Finally, it floats the idea that making family-supportive measures gender-neutral might alleviate some of employers’ punitive responses. This at least starts to broach some of the societal questions—like the idea of making workplaces that support family and community life, rather than the other way around—that, in a better world, might form the starting point for such an article.
You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com, or to public editor Margaret Sullivan at public@nytimes.com. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
Of course, it helps that a woman is making these arguments (with a female illustrator, to boot), don’t it?
I wonder who the “conscious human beings” were behind that decision.
I read that Times piece, and thought, oh gee the Upshot section selling more neo-liberal garbage, but then at then end Ms Cain Miller notes that Sweden and Quebec avoid some of this mess by including men in the family leave laws and rules.
So yes, there are big problems with the tenor of the first 7/8s of the essay, but she does pull back from the worst of the Upshotisms. And correct, if one just skims it, the essay reads like justification for keeping women back.
@Doug,
That “conscious human” would be the section editor David Leonhardt, he’s been pushing this type of crap for years. He’s clearly being groomed for higher editorships within the paper.
Note at the end of the essay by Cain Miller, she subverts the point, and makes it clear that Sweden gets around this crappy treatment of women by including leave for men with new children. So in fact, Fair isn’t being entirely fair to Cain Miller here.
But generally, right Leonhard, Barrow, and frequent essays from Bush administration types, who happen to teach at respectable economics departments, get a lot of space in this section of the Times.
I don’t think that “male-centric management” is to blame. Everyone want’s to help mothers, but when it’s your money on the line suddenly you realize that there are other priorities for you. This is true for women as well as men. Most women would be reluctant to hire another woman to help in the home if they thought that this woman’s chaotic family life would interfere with her job.
” ” don’t think that “male-centric management” is to blame. ” ”
Funny that: the woman is required to take care of the family “Because it is her duty and responsibility”, so it some how becomes her fault that the men in charge don’t want to accommodate that.
Considering that the Male Centric (read Richard Craniums) managers a) aren’t required to have to stay home as would a woman b) can demand their spouses stay home to take of their little bastages they have foisted on the world, it seems ironic don’t you think that they then claim the ‘problem is that the woman aren’t being Man enough’ like they, and (as Susan Faludi noted) “why is that ‘woman’ want it all?” when in fact they didn’t ask for it, they simply wanted to be humans also, not just a “an attachment you screw on the end of the bed, to get the housework done.
Sort of like saying it’s the Black peoples fault for being born into a black family.
” so it some how becomes her fault that the men in charge don’t want to accommodate that. ”
Who said that it is men in charge who do not want to accommodate maternity leave? Imagine you hire a plumber and pay her $10 an hour to do a job for you. If she gives birth, would you keep paying her for that job while she is on maternity leave?
What if you buy cookies from a woman who then has a baby? Do you keep paying for cookies that you are not receiving while she is on maternity leave?
i hope the answer to all the questions above is yes, because that is what you are advocating. You could also help women in need by donating to United Way. Sadly, I suspect that you donate more to Starbucks than you do to United Way.
From “Mirza”:
”’ so it some how becomes her fault that the men in charge don’t want to accommodate that.’
“Who said that it is men in charge who do not want to accommodate maternity leave? Imagine you hire a plumber and pay her $10 an hour to do a job for you. If she gives birth, would you keep paying her for that job while she is on maternity leave?
“What if you buy cookies from a woman who then has a baby? Do you keep paying for cookies that you are not receiving while she is on maternity leave?
“i hope the answer to all the questions above is yes, because that is what you are advocating. You could also help women in need by donating to United Way. Sadly, I suspect that you donate more to Starbucks than you do to United Way.”
Someone once said that there are no stupid questions; only stupid answers.
I am also reminded of something called the “principle of charity”. This is the position that one should regard an interlocutor as arguing in good faith. Given what Mirza has written, and the fact that I admit that I am unworthy scum, I will openly label Mirza’s questions as stupid BECAUSE they are knowingly and willingly given in bad faith.
A plumber (who we will stipulate is boss of her own operation; that is how you get to hire her to do a job for you and we all know from personal experience that no self-respecting plumber will work for a measly $10.00 per hour) who is pregnant has multiple customers, and those customers are not her employers. Rather, they are her CLIENTS – just as an attorney or accountant has clients. Therefore, she will not expect that her CLIENTS will pay for her time off the job.
The same is true of the woman who sells cookies (Mirza did not say if the cookie seller purveys her wares by travelling door-to-door, or if she runs a store, or if she sells them on-line through website). The cookie seller has CUSTOMERS (a category that very similar to CLIENTS) and as such, a customer is NOT AN EMPLOYER. Therefore, one may justly conclude that, no, a customer or a client will not be obligated to pay for the maternity leave of the cookie seller or plumber.
State and Federal Laws recognize the distinction between customer/clients and employers (as well as between different types of employers). So does common sense. This willingness to conflate and equate the customer/client with an employer (with the latter being obligated under State and Federal Laws to provide not only for wage compensation, but also a safe work environment and so on) is more than enough cause to suspect that the questions Mirza asks are asked in bad faith, and intended as an insult to women workers and to the intelligence of the readers of FAIR.
In the effort to blunt a stupid question, I submit this (hopefully non-stupid but admittedly intemperate answer) in the hope that it opens a means to clearing things up. As well, I will resist the burning impulse to snark about that United Way comment, except to note that women don’t need the charity of United Way; they merely need justice.
Lastly: yes, men are in charge and those with great political power don’t want to see maternity leave happen because it risks upsetting those power relations that involve gender and labor (no pun intended) and management relations.
You’re welcome.
From “Donald”:
” The same is true of the woman who sells cookies (Mirza did not say if the cookie seller purveys her wares by travelling door-to-door, or if she runs a store, or if she sells them on-line through website). The cookie seller has CUSTOMERS (a category that very similar to CLIENTS) and as such, a customer is NOT AN EMPLOYER. Therefore, one may justly conclude that, no, a customer or a client will not be obligated to pay for the maternity leave of the cookie seller or plumber. ”
Oh wow! Using language trickery as a logical argument! George Orwell would be proud. (Why it’s not copyright infringement – it’s PIRACY!!!!)
So in both instances we have one party paying another to preform a service or deliver a good, but whether YOU are required to pay for maternity leave for someone who does work for you or not depends on how YOU see it. How awfully convenient for you!
A plumber and a cookie maker depend on you for their income. How dare you not pay them for maternity leave? You think you can just say “even though I sign their checks, I am not really their boss, so I wash my hands of the whole thing”?
First of all, Mirza, no plumber charges $10 an hour unless s/he is an idiot plumber. When you run a business or work as an independent contractor — I have done both — you are not subject to laws mandating family leave. It becomes your job to charge an hourly rate that compensates you for sick time, vacation time, family time. Donald attempted to make the legal situation quite clear to you, but it does not seem to have sunk in.
And what do United Way and Starbucks have to do with anything other than the latter is a corporation that is potentially subject to family leave laws?
Dogtowner said:
” First of all, Mirza, no plumber charges $10 an hour unless s/he is an idiot plumber. When you run a business or work as an independent contractor — I have done both — you are not subject to laws mandating family leave.”
Both you and Donald seem to fail at logic in two obvious ways. First of all, you miss a point by focusing on unimportant details such as how much a plumber charges per hour. And second, you confuse logic and morality with law. Just because something is a legal reality, that does not mean that it is logical or moral.
Dogtowner: ” It becomes your job to charge an hourly rate that compensates you for sick time, vacation time, family time.”
As if people will pay whatever plumber decides to charge. If anything, an employee has more say over his wage than a tradesman has over the market price of his services.
Dogtowner: “And what do United Way and Starbucks have to do with anything other than the latter is a corporation that is potentially subject to family leave laws?”
Because United Way gives socialists an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is. You think supporting mothers is important, feel free to contribute to United Way. It is easy enough to say that someone else should pay for supporting mothers, but when it comes to your own money, suddenly Caramel Mocha Latte is more important than welfare of working mothers.
Mirza, employers pay employees for every other imaginable kind of thing that keeps them out of work. My daughter’s dad’s co-worker lost a leg in a motorcycle accident. No one forced him to operate a motorcycle; he could have just as easily driven a car. No one at his place of employment caused his accident. But they were required to pay for his mistake (and the mistake of whoever hit him). People like you who condemn the practice of paid maternity leave somehow never seem to criticize medical leave generally, even though someone on non-maternity medical leave is being just as useless to the employer as a new mother is. Mirza is often a man’s name and you’re talking a lot like one, so I will just say this: Check your privilege. And if you are a woman: Get some therapy and stop hating yourself–I know you think you’re only slamming *other* women, but you’re still in our demographic, sweetie, and the evil you wish on other women may someday be visited upon you. (And if you’re a guy? If you’re not married now, someone may make that mistake later and would you want your wife mistreated the way you’re advocating here?)
Mirza, any “socialist” who gives money to United Way needs to do a bit more research. And I never patronize Starbucks, so it, too, is irrelevant. My husband and I pay A LOT in federal taxes, and I think it is far more important for those taxes to go to human needs and taking care of the environment than endless militarism.
You seem unable to comprehend simple legal statutes. Is English a second language?
Believe me, as an independent contractor and a business owner, what I charged per hour was hardly an unimportant detail as what I charged had to cover my costs, my taxes, my Social Security payments (higher than if I had been an employee), etc, etc. I cannot fathom why anyone would think this unimportant.
People do pay whatever a tradesman charges if s/he is a dependable, reliable tradesman; I always pay more if I think someone is not charging me enough (e.g., an appliance repairman who came to our house to fix our washing machine).
Since you know the names of what Starbucks serves — I don’t — that may say something about our comparative economic statuses.
Dogtowner
Legal standing does not matter when we are talking about morality. If we were arguing about abolition in early 1800’s would you keep saying that slavery is OK because it is legal?
Similarly, you decide what to charge in your business like an employee can decide what wage to accept. In extreme case, if you think that it is OK for contractors to not have medical and maternity leave, then let all pregnant mothers become contractors. That would technically satisfy you, right?
The point about United way is that if you think that something is important, than you chose to pay for it. If this issue is important to you, than what percentage of your income do you voluntarily give so that mothers could stay home? You may not be going to Starbucks, but I bet you spend more money on personal comfort than you do on causes that you think are important (but not important enough for your money).
Comparing the requirement that corporations provide maternity leave to slavery is simply grotesque. I can say nothing other than the comparison shows phenomenal insensitivity to the buying and selling of human beings.
Employees don’t have much choice about what wage to accept. Do you work?
Now I must clarify what I think about independent contracting. It is mostly a way for employers to get out of paying benefits. It can have benefits as it did for me when I proofread at home; I was very fast at my job and made a good wage for working part-time (I was already disabled and unable to sit at a desk for a workday). But many employers abuse the independent contractor designation, and I do not support it as a way to avoid “employing” people.
You have no idea how much money I spend on personal comfort and how much money I donate. I wish I had more money to donate, but I live on Social Security Disability. I am not aware that United Way provides maternity/paternity benefits to the general public.
Since we are functioning on the level of personal insult, you prove my point that willful ignorance often goes hand-in-hand with arrogance.
The point about United way is that if you think that something is important, than you chose to pay for it. If this issue is important to you, than what percentage of your income do you voluntarily give so that mothers could stay home? You may not be going to Starbucks, but I bet you spend more money on personal comfort than you do on causes that you think are important (but not important enough for your money).