Gender Lesson 7: Inequality, Work and Females

Please answer the following two questions before beginning the lesson.  Here is the Google form.

1.  Before we begin, do you think there is a difference between how much income women earn on average compared to men?  

2.   If you said yes to #1, what do you think the reasons are for this difference in pay?
If you said no to #1, why not?  What have you heard/read about women's incomes compared to men's?

ANSWER THE ABOVE BEFORE CONTINUING

Women are paid less 

Sociologists have examined the income of females compared to males and through a number of different comparisons, the females are paid less (about 80%) than what males are paid.

This public policy recommendation published by the American Sociological Association (2019) shows that 

In the last four decades, women’s educational levels and work experiences have increased dramatically. Women are over half of college graduates and nearly half the workforce, and families rely on women’s earnings. However, women are still paid less than men. More than half a century after the passage of the Equal Pay Act (EPA), a woman working fulltime, year-round in 2017 was typically paid just 80 cents for every dollar paid to a man working full-time, year-round. The gender wage gap varies by race and is larger for most groups of women of color: nationally, Black women, Native women, and Latinas working full-time, year-round were typically paid just 61 cents, 58 cents, and 53 cents, respectively, for every dollar paid to their non-Hispanic White male counterparts, while non-Hispanic White women were paid 77 cents for every dollar paid to non-Hispanic White men. Asian women working full-time, year-round were typically paid 85 cents on White non-Hispanic men’s dollar, but the wage gap is substantially larger for some communities of Asian women. Gender wage gaps persist in all 50 states and in nearly every occupation. Significant wage gaps also exist for mothers compared to fathers, LGBTQ women compared with men, and women with disabilities compared to men with disabilities. 

Skeptics of the wage gap contend that it is due to differences in education levels or the kinds of jobs that women choose.  But studies show that at the very beginning of a woman’s career, just one year after college graduation, women working full time were paid only 82% of what their male colleagues earned and we know that wage gaps grow over time.  For women overall, even when accounting for factors like unionization status, education, occupation, industry, work experience, region, and race, 38% of the wage gap remains unexplained.  Data make clear that discrimination— based on conscious and unconscious stereotypes—is a major cause of this unexplained gap.  A recent experiment revealed, for example, that when presented with identical resumes, one with the name John and the other with the name Jennifer, science professors offered the male applicant for a lab manager position a salary of nearly $4,000 more, additional career mentoring, and judged him to be significantly more competent and hirable.  When women lose out on earnings because of discrimination, families and the economy suffer.

3.  After reading the above excerpt, are women paid less because they typically have less education than men?

The rest of the publication is available here and the citations are here.

Women earn about 80% of what men earn and women earn less compared to men of similar education at every level.  Using census data from 2014, this is true for all levels of income and education; from women in poverty to women with professional degrees.  It is also true for women working right out of college compared to their male cohorts.   It is true for single households headed by women compared with men. (Ferris and Stein)   

The National Women's Law Center published this report showing that, 

Women who work full time, year round in the United States were paid only 82 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts in 2018. For many groups of women, the gaps are even larger. This document provides details about the wage gap measure that the Census Bureau and the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) use, factors contributing to the wage gap, and how to close the gap.

4.  Are women paid a similar income to men when they get out of college, but the pay gap shows up after they have kids?

The more women that work in an industry, the lower-paid those jobs are.  This link from Payscale illustrates that as does this from Payscale.   Examine the following graph from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth then answer the questions.

This graph shows the higher paid occupations are more male and the lower-paid occupations are more female.

5.  Using the graphs above, out of the highest paying jobs in the U.S., which is the MOST female?

The Gender Pay Gap from the Washington Post does a terrific job of explaining the dynamics and nuances that lead to unequal pay for women.  (If the link doesn't work, see the graphics below)  The data is from 2017 and was compiled using microdata from IPUMS USA for the pay gap by occupation, for the historical change in earnings by share of women in the job, and for the breakdown by education and by workweek. We used decennial census and American Community Survey 5-year data because is the most comprehensive, despite not being the most up to date, and used people who had worked most of the year.  For the recent, general data points, we used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In the graphic above, the purple circles represent the number of females in a particular occupation and the yellow circles represent the number of males.  The red line represents the pay gap.  

6. How is the pay gap different between jobs that are more female versus jobs that are more male? 

These charts show that from 1960-2015, jobs that were mostly female (far left) did not grow in income nearly as much as jobs that were mostly male (far right).  And jobs that became more female (2nd to left) pay declined for men.  In other words, jobs that are perceived as being female jobs are paid less.

And the more female an industry becomes, the less money that field makes.

This graph addresses the idea that women work part-time so they make less than men.  Note that part-time women actually make more than part-time males.  However, the majority of women work full time or longer but they make less than men.

This editorial from Forbes critiques the idea that women are paid less for the same work as men in the same position, but even this editorial admits that,

Of course, none of this closes the discussion on sexism. It is important to ask, for example, why women might not be as ambitious in asking for higher salaries or larger grants and why they gravitate to, say, pediatrics over orthopedic surgery. It is possible that gender discrimination significantly contributes to all this.

For more info, see the Introduction to Sociology textbook (2019) from Open Stax, chapter 12.2:

Evidence of gender stratification is especially keen within the economic realm. Despite making up nearly half (49.8 percent) of payroll employment, men vastly outnumber women in authoritative, powerful, and, therefore, high-earning jobs (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). Even when a woman’s employment status is equal to a man’s, she will generally make only 77 cents for every dollar made by her male counterpart (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). Women in the paid labor force also still do the majority of the unpaid work at home. On an average day, 84 percent of women (compared to 67 percent of men) spend time doing household management activities (U.S. Census Bureau 2011). This double duty keeps working women in a subordinate role in the family structure (Hochschild and Machung 1989).

Salary.com has an explanation of the gender pay gap.  Their explanation includes these:

• Earnings Increase with Age, and the Gender Pay Gap Does, Too
• Education Does Not Combat the Gender Pay Gap
• Location Plays a Huge Role in the Gender Pay Gap

7.  Does this provide evidence that there is a gap in how much income females earn compared to men?  What else would you like to know or is there anything you are still dubious about?


Inequality also means different treatment for females and males on the job.

• Here is a report about the efforts to change women at Ernst and Young (2018).  

"When women speak, they shouldn’t be shrill. Clothing must flatter, but short skirts are a no-no. After all, “sexuality scrambles the mind.” Women should look healthy and fit, with a “good haircut” and “manicured nails.” 

• These were just a few pieces of advice that around 30 female executives at Ernst & Young received at a training held in the accounting giant’s gleaming new office in Hoboken, New Jersey, in June 2018.
• One example of the inequality affecting the attitudes of an engineer in the tech industry is a report by Kara Swisher about the engineer's manifesto (2017).
• Harvard Business Review conducted a study that the difference in promotion rates between men and women in this company was due not to their behavior but to how they were treated.  This indicates that...Gender inequality is due to bias, not differences in behavior. 

Besides applicants' self-selecting jobs based on gender, employers also select based on gender.  This research from Contexts (2019)  shows that employers hire applicants by gender, based on their perception of what the gender of the job should be.

8. Explain what the research in the Contexts article above says about jobs and gender.

Females and unpaid labor

This research from the Society Pages (2019) shows women do a majority of the work at home.   This includes not only physical and emotional work, but also cognitive labor too.

From NY Times Upshot (2019), 

Women, but Not Men, Are Judged for a Messy House 

They’re still held to a higher social standard, which explains why they’re doing so much housework, studies show.  Even in 2019, messy men are given a pass and messy women are unforgiven. Three recently published studies confirm what many women instinctively know: Housework is still considered women’s work — especially for women who are living with men. 

Women do more of such work when they live with men than when they live alone, one of the studies found. Even though men spend more time on domestic tasks than men of previous generations, they’re typically not doing traditionally feminine chores like cooking and cleaning, another showed. The third study pointed to a reason: Socially, women — but not men — are judged negatively for having a messy house and undone housework.

9.  How did this lesson affect your understanding of the effect of gender on income and work?  What specifically stood out to you?

From the PEW Research Center, (2019) Among 41 countries, only U.S. lacks paid parental leave,  

the U.S. is the only country among 41 nations that does not mandate any paid leave for new parents, according to data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and current as of April 2018. The smallest amount of paid leave required in any of the other 40 nations is about two months.

From the American Journal of Sociology, this 2020 research by Allison Daminger shows how difficult breaking gender inequality may be. Full article here.  From the abstract:

This article extends prior research on barriers to equality by closely examining how couples negotiate contradictions between their egalitarian ideals and admittedly non-egalitarian practices. Data from 64 in-depth interviews with members of 32 different-sex, college-educated couples show that respondents distinguish between labor allocation processes and outcomes. When they understand the processes as gender-neutral, they can write off gendered outcomes as the incidental result of necessary compromises made among competing values. Respondents “de-gender” their allocation process, or decouple it from gender ideology and gendered social forces, by narrowing their temporal horizon to the present moment and deploying an adaptable understanding of constraint that obscures alternative paths. This de-gendering helps prevent spousal conflict, but it may also facilitate behavioral stasis by directing attention away from the inequalities that continue to shape domestic life.

Gender Lesson 6: The Effects of the Binary on Females

Just as males are at risk in certain ways because of the gender norms in the U.S., so too are females at risk, but in different ways.  Before we get to the details, please answer a few questions off the top of your head.

Here is the link to this lesson's Google Form.  Please open it in a new window and fill it out as you go along.  For starters, without looking ahead please answer these 4 questions:

1.  What does "like a girl" mean?  If someone says you do something "like a girl" what is it implying?

2.  List all the steps YOU take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted.     

3.  Do you know someone who is affected by body image issues?  Without using any names describe their situation.

4.  What does it mean for someone to be a feminist?  Please answer honestly, based on your understanding of what a "feminist" is.

How the binary puts females at risk in our culture

"Like a girl"
The denigration of women and misogyny affect both women and men.  Watch the add below from Always.  Note how both the females and the males act when they are "acting like a girl."  Then, note how they act when they are told to do the action how they really would.



The promotion of masculine traits above feminine ones leads to denigrating of all things feminine.  This binary doesn't allow for individuals to be who they really.  Instead, it pushes males and females to opposite poles with opposing traits.  And the binary's message is, if you are a male, you can't be anything considered feminine.  This means males deny their own humanity because they cannot be caring, empathetic, emotional, vulnerable or dependent - all of which are human traits.

5.  How do the people act when they are told to do something "like a girl?"  How might this affect society's view of females? 



Sexual Assault and Females - How are women at risk for sexual assault?

The objectification of women and the denigration of all things female puts women at risk physically.  Males are socialized to be aggressive and to see women as passive objects.  This puts women at risk of sexual assault and puts them on the defensive.  Men may not realize this because they do not have to think about it.  But for women, this is something that is conscious.  For number 2 at the start of this lesson, how many precautions did you list?  Usually, males have very few, if any, but women can list dozens.  Read this list from Huffington Post.  How many of the actions have you taken?

What's wrong with women protecting themselves? There's nothing wrong with all of us taking precautions to be sure that we are safe.  However, the emphasis on women protecting themselves takes the onus off males to not intimidate, harass or assault women.  Not only is this victim-blaming females, but it is also degrading to males by insinuating that males are animalistic and immoral.  Watch the video below that shows a woman walking in NYC.




CatcallsofNY is an instagram feed highlights the ways people are fighting back against street harrassment.

Here is a similar video from Inside Edition in Venice Beach, CA (2015).

Here is another video from Inside Edition in NYC (2016).

Here is an Iris video that shows dads reacting to their daughters getting harassed on the street.

And here is a video produced by Cosmopolitan in NYC that aired on GMA (2015).

The cast of GMA makes an important point of distinguishing between a compliment and harassment. But the cast also shows how difficult it is to change these cultural dysfunctions.

But sexual harassment is not just catcalls by random strangers on the street, it happens to women at work from people they know.  This 2012 research from Uggin, McLaughlin, and Blackstone concludes that much harassment at work 

...can serve as an equalizer against women in power, motivated more by control and domination than by sexual desire. Interviews point to social isolation as a mechanism linking harassment to gender nonconformity and women’s authority, particularly in male-dominated work settings.

And sexual harassment is so much a part of U.S. culture that a President of the United States could speak openly about harassing women and still be elected.  The Washington Post documents all of the instances of how Trump has demeaned women since 2015. 

6.  What was the most disturbing part of the video for you?



Sexual Assault and College Campuses

The U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services provides valuable information about assault, including about consent and what that means.  This important for males and females alike to understand.  Please read the info below:

Consent is a clear “yes” to sexual activity. Not saying “no” does not mean you have given consent. Sexual contact without consent is sexual assault or rape.

• Consent is an ongoing process, not a one-time question. If you consent to sexual activity, you can change your mind and choose to stop at any time, even after sexual activity has started.

• Past consent does not mean future consent. Giving consent in the past to sexual activity does not mean your past consent applies now or in the future.

• Saying “yes” to a sexual activity is not consent for all types of sexual activity. If you consent to sexual activity, it is only for types of sexual activities that you are comfortable with at that time with that partner. For example, giving consent for kissing does not mean you are giving consent for someone to remove your clothes.

College freshmen women are especially at risk for assault.  Information about that is here:

• Studies show that students are at the highest risk of sexual assault in the first few months of their first and second semesters in college.2
• Women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, or gay are more likely to experience sexual assault on college campuses than heterosexual women.1

Rainn provides important info here and also is an advocacy group if you want to get involved.

End Rape on Campus has many resources including for marginalized communities such as: 

Civic Nation is an advocacy group working to end rape on campuses.

The Center for Changing Our Campus Culture is an advocacy group started by a grant from the Obama administration in 2016.

The Brookings Institute provides an analysis of sexual assault on college campuses here.

7. Was there anything in the above information that was helpful/eye-opening?


And this video that went viral explaining why men don't have as much to fear.

Lisa Wade is an influential sociologist who studied "hookup culture" in college.  Her research focused on the subculture on college campuses and students being sexually active with each other outside of committed relationships.  One interesting conclusion she found was that some males engaged in sexual activity that they regretted because they felt pressured by masculinity to do it.  However, it should be noted that she found the vast majority of college students were NOT engaged in this subculture of "hooking up."

Here is a review of her book from the NY Times.

Here is a review from the NPR Show Hidden Brain with a 24-minute audio interview of Dr. Wade.

Vimeo has a video explanation here.

And below is a brief explanation from Dr. Wade:


For more info, here is an hour-long talk from Dr. Wade at Elon University.


Femininity and body image - How are women socialized to think about their "self"?
For number 3 at the beginning of this post, most women can name multiple people they know who have wrestled with body image issues or eating disorders. 

This video called Onslaught  from Dove Campaign for Real Beauty highlights the ways girls are socialized by media.

This post from the Society Pages highlights how females are objectified in the media.  Please click the link and read the post.  From the post,

The damage caused by widespread female objectification in popular culture is not just theoretical.  We now have over ten years of research showing that living in an objectifying society is highly toxic for girls and women, as is described in Part 2 of this series.

8.  Which ad from the Society Pages link above stood out to you as being particularly degrading or objectifying?


Do you know Amy?

 
This video shows Amy not feeling like hanging out.


There are numerous studies showing that this is true for significant numbers of young women. Look at the research below and think about whether this has been true in your life. Do you know girls who struggle with self-esteem, body image and eating/dieting disorders? If you don't, can you at least see how the media is constructing a reality for girls?

Research about the effects of media socialization on females

"...after interacting with attractive peers, the women's perceptions of their own appearance changed, whereas interacting with family members did not have any bearing on their body image....Social media engagement with attractive peers increases negative state body image," explain the researchers.  2018 research — led by Jennifer Mills, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada, and Jacqueline Hogue, a Ph.D. student in the department's Clinical Program — examined the effects of social media on the self-perceived body image of young women.  Mills and Hogue published their findings in the journal Body Image.   https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323725.php

Thin Ads + Low Body Image = Stress?
Ads Showing Skinny Models Might Hurt Self-Worth In Vulnerable Young Women Viewing ads of super-skinny models may make young women feel worse about themselves, especially if they have body image problems, according to a new study. Researcher Gayle Bessenoff, Ph.D., reports the findings in Psychology of Women Quarterly. Bessenoff is an assistant professor in the University of Connecticut's psychology department.

What Studies Show: Links Between Media and Self Esteem in Girls Many studies conclude that there is clearly a link between young women’s self esteem and the media. *The Journal of Research on Adolesence, in a study of body image and self esteem (Daniel Clay, Vivian L. Vignoles, Helga Dittmar - 2005), imparts that the the declining self esteem that girls often experience entering into adolescence is in part due to social comparison with media models. In a 2006 study of girls' body satisfaction and self esteem from the American Psychological Association (Hayley Dohnt,, Marika Tiggemann), research also illustrates that media creates a negative influence on girls' body images and self-esteem – particularly in regard to acceptable levels of thinness.

A particularly alarming media trend is the sexualization of women at younger and younger ages. Medical News Today discusses how suggestive images of young women negatively affect girls self-esteem, playing a role in onset of depression, eating disorders, and low-self-esteem.

Sexualization Of Girls Is Linked To Common Mental Health Problems In Girls And Women Science Daily (Feb. 20, 2007) — A report of the American Psychological Association (APA) released today found evidence that the proliferation of sexualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising, and media is harmful to girls' self-image and healthy development.

Dying to Fit In- Literally! Learning to Love Our Bodies and Ourselves By Christine Hartline, MA In the United States approximately 10% of girls and women (numbering up to 10 million) are suffering from diagnosed eating disorders. Of these at least 50,000 will die as a direct result! Recent data reported by the American Psychiatric Association suggests that of all psychiatric disorders, the greatest excess of patient mortality due to natural and unnatural causes is associated with eating disorders and substance abuse.

Teen Body Image Media images have a strong effect on people's body image, particularly for women, because the ideals the media presents for women are farther from the average woman's body. The Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) reports that in 1972, the ideal woman shown in the media (models, movie stars, etc.) weighed less than the average woman, yes, but only by 8%. By the late 90s, the difference had become 23%... In one study from Harvard University reported by (SIRC), it was found that by age 17, 7 out of 10 teens have been on a diet and as many as 80% of teens may have a negative body image...The onset of eating disorders for 86% of people is before they finish their teens.


Finally, watch the powerful video below about how people are made to think about themselves and how different that can be from reality.

9.  Is the research above and the video convincing evidence that females are at risk because of gendered expectations?  Any other questions? 

Public Statement and Clarification of Salituro Resignation

The statement below is downloadable and shareable here.

Date: May 16, 2022

To: The Superintendent and District 125 Board of Education,

 

From:  Chris Salituro

 

Re:  Public Statement and Clarification of Salituro Resignation

 

Tonight's board meeting will include my letter of resignation and so I want to include this public statement regarding the letter.  I know that my public resignation (see the letter here) has made waves both inside and outside of Stevenson.   I have heard from teachers all over the United States and especially around our metropolitan area.  But I am most concerned with the community that I have devoted the last 23 years of my career to – District 125.  I have heard from dozens of students, parents and faculty.  They have all expressed support and gratitude for my public statements.  (See this list where I have tried to cull the support that I have received.)  So, not only do I know that this is resonating with them, but I also realize that this must be making waves among you all (even though I have not heard from any of you since receiving my letter a few weeks ago.  And because you must be dealing with the noise from it, I wanted to share more specifics regarding why the assessment practices are so flawed.

 

Detailed below is an explanation of the myriad issues with EBR.  These are the issues that teachers all across the building have experienced.  Teachers in every department have voiced these concerns.  However, teachers have been told by union and directors that EBR is not changing.  I do not know who in admin knows this and refuses to deal with it nor do I know who in admin continues to dig in their heels in support of EBR, but this is the reality.  This is what has frustrated me for years and why I am leaving SHS at the height of my career.  Although I submitted a letter to admin explaining this in January and then again in April, no one from upper admin has reached out to me except on last Friday when the principal showed up in my room and defended EBR again and was unwilling to either listen to my concerns or do anything about them.  He will try to blame division directors, but they hear the same stubbornness from him too.  Multiple union members have said the same as well.  When they have tried to address this with the principal, he has continually been steadfast in his unwillingness to change.  

 

I am concerned that some will try to scapegoat me or others who have been forced to try and work within this dysfunctional system.  Please don’t let the larger issues below go unaddressed.  Please don’t let the firestorm that I created put the attention on me – that would be an incredible disservice to the students, faculty and district.  We have fantastic students and an amazing faculty but this system has been detrimental to mental health of both faculty and students, and it has hindered student learning. I obviously don’t think that anyone at Stevenson wants to contribute to this, including upper admin, but for whatever reason, there is an unwillingness to hear the concerns and feedback from neither students, parents nor teachers.

 

EBR sounds great as a philosophy but practically speaking it is not serving students and it is burning out faculty.  Students do better when their environment is stable and predictable.  EBR does not provide that.  Instead, it creates an exhausting system of varying assessment practices that students find frustrating.  

 

EBR is confusing and contradictory

EBR was created by upper administration but then pushed out to division directors who were forced to try and comply with the EBR mandate despite all of its inherent flaws.  This is why every department has different practices regarding EBR.  And many of the practices are not following what EBR is because teachers across the various divisions are struggling to make it work.  They are trying to patch a broken system.  For example:

 

·      Some teachers grade on the trend and some grade on the overall mode.  Those who use trend define it differently – a trend might be 1 most recent grade or 2 or 3.

·      Some teachers grade skills such as reading and writing and others use categories like tests and homework.

·      Some teachers are told that they can grade homework while others are told they can’t.

·      Some teachers allow students to makeup work at any time during the semester while other teachers set dates limiting when work can be made up and they use that to affect the students’ grade.

·      Some teachers have a grading system that moves with the most recent assignments and others grade the semester’s worth of assignments.

·      Some teachers allow students to submit multiple attempts for an assessment while others move on to the next assessment.

·      Some teachers grade with a bimodal score and others use a single mode.

 

But then, this dizzying array of practices does not translate to a “grade” but instead results in a confusing collection of qualitative descriptions:  Exceeds, Meets, Approaches, Developing.  These qualitative labels are also confusing – what does each mean?  Many teachers use cutoff scores to define these – such as an 85% or above is meets or a 60% and above is approaches.  This creates confusion because the cutoff scores vary from team to team and they have an enormous variation within each label: for example, a team might define both an 84% and a 61% as “approaches”.

 

EBR is frustratingly opaque

And in the end, what students really care about is what they need to go to college.  And that is their final grade.  But EBR keeps the final grade mysterious until the end of the semester.  Admin will say that teachers should be having conversations with students about where they are at, but isn’t that what a gradebook is for - especially in this era when parents can see a daily summary of where their student is at?  Instead, parents see “meets” “meets” “approaches” and they can’t make sense of that.  And practically speaking, how or when is a teacher supposed to communicate with all 28 students what their overall grade is trending toward when that can change each week?  That’s an incredible waste of time that can be spent teaching and learning in the classroom.  Finally, admin will say that in the end, the final grade is at the professional discretion of the teacher.  This leaves the final grade incredibly subjective.  A teacher might see one student as having enough evidence to demonstrate that they are an A but that same teacher might use professional discretion for another student to be a B or C.

 

EBR is demoralizing for students

Even when a student might not have questions on their own grade, they still find it frustrating that some students can turn in assignments multiple times or two weeks late and still earn the same grade as other students.  Even the most motivated students will be tempted to use these rules to their advantage.  And after all, who can blame them?  That is the system admin has created!  This leads to students viewing deadlines as optional, and all work as a first draft because they know that they will have multiple chances to submit their evidence.  And, because EBR only grades the modal score, students know that half of their grades are meaningless.  If a student has 11 grades and 6 are “meets” but 5 are “approaches” that student might get the same grade as a student who has all 11 grades as “meets”.

 

EBR is an obstacle to helping students

And all of this is not just frustrating for students.  Teachers have to field endless questions about grades.  It takes away from teaching and learning.  It erodes student effort.  It places teachers at the center of grade conflicts where students feel that grades are negotiable and subjective.  And, imagine being a part of a student support team and trying to help a student.  Counselors, social workers, targeted tutors have no idea what a student’s grade is or how to help them.  And many parents feel the same. 

 

Please don't let this revelation fall by the wayside. I hope you will try to understand the issues I have spoken about. Please create a safe and honest space for students, parents and faculty to remedy these issues.

 

Sincerely,

 

Chris Salituro

 

Chris Salituro