Different media same day: “Some Laid-Off Women Now Stay-at-Home Moms” (MSNBC) and “As Economy Slips, New Mothers Cut Short Their Maternity Leave" (Wall Street Journal). I thought I’d wandered into an Onion parody. Which is it—are women being opted out or opted in?
Both stories are no doubt true—as descriptions of the experiences of some moms, somewhere. But that’s not how the pieces are framed. Instead they purport to describe a new “trend.” Trend stories are the slipperiest game in journalism. Journalists especially love to get breathless about supposed trends in women’s social roles, mixing up description and prescription, from the supposed marriage dearth peddled in the 1980s and debunked soon after by Susan Faludi to the “opt-out revolution” hyped by the New York Times’ Lisa Belkin in this century and debunked by Joan Williams in the American Prospect, among others. The New York Times’ trend stories are weirdest, warped as they are by the confluence of gender and class. Their m.o. is to pick some tiny slice of the East Coast’s ultra-privileged and take them as representative of the whole country.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Thursday, March 27, 2008
It's our fault, installment #5,726
As if we needed more proof that mothers can’t win, the Boston Globe recently ran an editorial claiming that the long hours Americans work are women’s fault. The next day the Wall Street Journal reported on a study that found lawyers who are mothers are less productive than non-mothers—whereas lawyers who are fathers are more productive than non-fathers. Which is it—are we women cold workaholics or slackers?
As both Broadsheet and Carolyn Elefant in a letter to the WSJ noticed, there’s a problem with the lawyer study’s definition of productivity. The researchers in fact measured billable hours, which they equated with productivity, which isn't necessarily the same thing at all. Elefant wrote, “I’d be curious to see, for example, whether women lawyers manage to complete tasks more quickly precisely because they have less time. If that’s the case (and I suspect it is), perhaps having children makes them [more] productive, not less.”
Exactly.
The study also found that women without children are more “productive” (bill more hours) than anyone else, male or female, though that brings us back to the Boston Globe’s diatribe against women for working such long hours and upping the ante on all of us.
And then there’s that depressing bit about father lawyers working extra hours, which fits with what researchers have found in other fields. As Joan Williams, Ann Crittenden, Edward McCaffery, and others have explained, the depressing fact that men tend to work even longer hours after they have children is the result of the gender role specialization that our culture—including our tax code—drives parents into. Combine the presumption that mothers be the primary caregivers with the likelihood that the wife in a couple earns less than her husband, add in the lack of public subsidies and meaningful tax deductions for childcare, and, just to really slant the deck, toss in a tax code that heavily taxes the wages of the secondary earner in a family, and you’ve got a recipe for fathers specializing in breadwinning and mothers in caregiving—fathers working longer hours, mothers fewer. Bingo.
Which would seem to suggest that it’s men, or at least fathers, not women, that the Boston Globe should be blaming for the trend to long hours—or that she’s on the wrong track altogether in blaming workers, rather than corporations or government policies. In part because of the perception that mothers are less committed to their work, mothers get paid 40 percent less than men (see that item in my list of facts over to the right). A woman wouldn’t be irrational if she felt the need to overcompensate for this assumption by working extra hours (or, if she’s paid hourly, compensate for her low rate of pay by working more hours), thereby demonstrating her devotion to work. Many mothers will tell you that after they had babies their bosses subjected them to extra demands beyond what other employees faced, as if to test their commitment to work. So give me a break (yet again) with this it’s-our-fault business.
As both Broadsheet and Carolyn Elefant in a letter to the WSJ noticed, there’s a problem with the lawyer study’s definition of productivity. The researchers in fact measured billable hours, which they equated with productivity, which isn't necessarily the same thing at all. Elefant wrote, “I’d be curious to see, for example, whether women lawyers manage to complete tasks more quickly precisely because they have less time. If that’s the case (and I suspect it is), perhaps having children makes them [more] productive, not less.”
Exactly.
The study also found that women without children are more “productive” (bill more hours) than anyone else, male or female, though that brings us back to the Boston Globe’s diatribe against women for working such long hours and upping the ante on all of us.
And then there’s that depressing bit about father lawyers working extra hours, which fits with what researchers have found in other fields. As Joan Williams, Ann Crittenden, Edward McCaffery, and others have explained, the depressing fact that men tend to work even longer hours after they have children is the result of the gender role specialization that our culture—including our tax code—drives parents into. Combine the presumption that mothers be the primary caregivers with the likelihood that the wife in a couple earns less than her husband, add in the lack of public subsidies and meaningful tax deductions for childcare, and, just to really slant the deck, toss in a tax code that heavily taxes the wages of the secondary earner in a family, and you’ve got a recipe for fathers specializing in breadwinning and mothers in caregiving—fathers working longer hours, mothers fewer. Bingo.
Which would seem to suggest that it’s men, or at least fathers, not women, that the Boston Globe should be blaming for the trend to long hours—or that she’s on the wrong track altogether in blaming workers, rather than corporations or government policies. In part because of the perception that mothers are less committed to their work, mothers get paid 40 percent less than men (see that item in my list of facts over to the right). A woman wouldn’t be irrational if she felt the need to overcompensate for this assumption by working extra hours (or, if she’s paid hourly, compensate for her low rate of pay by working more hours), thereby demonstrating her devotion to work. Many mothers will tell you that after they had babies their bosses subjected them to extra demands beyond what other employees faced, as if to test their commitment to work. So give me a break (yet again) with this it’s-our-fault business.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
My maternal profile
Today I lost another job to motherhood. Being visibly pregnant makes it hard to look for work, so I’ve registered with a temp agency. This morning the agency called to offer me a nice, month-long clerical job at a nonprofit that would involve some lifting of boxes up to 25 pounds. I still weightlift more than that, so it wasn’t a problem, but, stupidly thinking aloud, I reminded the recruiter that I was seven months pregnant. That did it—the client didn’t want me.
This is turning into a trend. A couple of months ago, after an excellent interview that I foolishly ended by mentioning my pregnancy (I thought it was visible, but I realize now it wasn’t to the interviewer), I never received a call-back. Two years earlier, shortly after returning from giving birth to my first child, I lost a long-term position because the progressive nonprofit I worked for decided they were no longer willing to accommodate my need for flexible or part-time work. (A nasty moral of my story you might have noticed: Don’t expect warm fuzzy nonprofits to be all warm and fuzzy toward mothers.)
Moms Rising has recently coined the term "maternal profiling," meaning discrimination in pay or hiring against women who are or might become parents (and The New York Times picked up on it, so it must be real). I’m here to tell you, those of us whose profiles are temporarily rotund know all about it. I’d love to hear your stories. Have you been maternally profiled?
In the meantime, learn from my mistakes and don’t be naïve. If you’re pregnant, wear a loose shirt to interviews and don’t mention it. Wait until they’ve offered the job before you negotiate the issue (it is illegal to discriminate against someone for pregancy). If you know what you can do while pregnant, don’t give them the opportunity to second-guess you. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
This is turning into a trend. A couple of months ago, after an excellent interview that I foolishly ended by mentioning my pregnancy (I thought it was visible, but I realize now it wasn’t to the interviewer), I never received a call-back. Two years earlier, shortly after returning from giving birth to my first child, I lost a long-term position because the progressive nonprofit I worked for decided they were no longer willing to accommodate my need for flexible or part-time work. (A nasty moral of my story you might have noticed: Don’t expect warm fuzzy nonprofits to be all warm and fuzzy toward mothers.)
Moms Rising has recently coined the term "maternal profiling," meaning discrimination in pay or hiring against women who are or might become parents (and The New York Times picked up on it, so it must be real). I’m here to tell you, those of us whose profiles are temporarily rotund know all about it. I’d love to hear your stories. Have you been maternally profiled?
In the meantime, learn from my mistakes and don’t be naïve. If you’re pregnant, wear a loose shirt to interviews and don’t mention it. Wait until they’ve offered the job before you negotiate the issue (it is illegal to discriminate against someone for pregancy). If you know what you can do while pregnant, don’t give them the opportunity to second-guess you. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
