It wasn't enough for children to be among the prized consumer goods every upwardly mobile (or upwardly mobile wannabe) couple counted among their possessions, next to the espresso machine and the home gym system and the his-and-her Blackberrys.
Now, pregnancy itself is supposedly a fashion, the new "in" look for women who want to be just like the stars.
I guess they've forgotten that pregnancy simply doesn't look good. It wasn't intended to; it's function, not fashion. Even stars look terrible knocked up. I've seen the recent photo of Angelina Jolie with her do-rag and her brown tent top and huge belly, and it was only after a minute or so of staring at an attractive Asian woman in the center of that same photo that my eyes finally wandered over to the distended Ms. Jolie. Large as she is now, her pregnancy has made her invisible next to an unpregnant woman. Who would think anyone could upstage Angelina in a photo?
Enough celebrity gossip. The point is, pregnancy is not hip. It's not beautiful. It's not in. It's just something people do. All the celeb pregnancies and self-indulgent fashion shoots and hoity-toity maternity boutiques won't change that. Nothing that has been done for millions of years, by billions of people and tens of billions of non-human creatures, is ever going to be "hip."
I can't wait to see the Next Big Thing. What might it be?
"Breathing: The New Black!"
Somebody get Vogue on the phone, stat.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Columnist proposes to fight imagined discrimination with real discrimination
Leslie Morgan Steiner is mad as hell about a study that examines employer bias regarding employment candidates with children. After reading her column, I'm mad as hell, but for very different reasons.
Quoth Leslie: "A Cornell University study released in August showed bias increases the more children a woman has. The more kids, the less potential employers are willing to pay her. The opposite is true for men: the more children, the more employers want to pay him."
The study was done in the U.S. Leslie is in the U.S. and presumably discussing the American employment scene. My experience in the American employment scene is that employers don't want to know how many children you have. They're not allowed to ask, legally. The study doesn't account for that.
From the Cornell study Steiner references: (http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug05/soc.mothers.dea.html):
"Next a memo was added to one of the profiles, mentioning that the applicant was a mother of two children, and her resume was modified to show that she was an officer in a parent-teacher association. The memo and resume in the second applicant's materials made no mention of children.
When asked if they would hire these applicants, participants said they would hire 84 percent of the women without children, compared with only 47 percent of the mothers. In assigning a starting salary to the applicants, given a pay range appropriate for the job, participants offered non-mothers an average of $11,000 more than mothers."
My workplaces have often told we, the employees, to discard resumes that mention parenthood or shut the door on any candidates who let their parental status slip, not because anyone wants to discriminate against them, but because they don't want to be accused of discrimination. They don't want to consider a candidate whose parental status they already know. They don't want to put that candidate through the consideration process, only to be sued later for discrimination because "you hired the other person because you know I have kids and commitments outside work" or "you lowballed me on salary because I'm a working mother."
Do you understand this, parents? When you let potential employers know about your parental status, YOU are hurting YOURSELF.
Back to Leslie:
"Facts like these naturally infuriate me."
Leslie, you're going to let 192 Cornell undergrads, people who saw candidate data that most employers don't get to see, determine your attitude about hiring methods in the modern workplace?
"They make me look around and say:
"Okay, a man in the office next to me, perhaps not even doing as good a job as I am, gets paid more, just for having facial hair."
He also has a penis, and testicles, and a Y chromosome, but I'm digressing. He may also have a better attitude, a higher workload, and more talent than you do. He may even have a smaller paycheck. The point is, WE DON'T KNOW, and neither does Leslie. She's angry about others sitting in judgment of her and her fellow working moms, but she don't hesitate to brand this theoretical male co-worker as a slacker getting by on gender discrimination.
Who's the bigot now?
Oh, but wait. She's just warming up.
"And there's me, daily facing the teeth-grinding stress of trying to be a good mom and a good employee."
As if she's the only one with work stress. As if a gun were put to her head to force her to become a parent. Nobody pushed you into it, toots.
"Despite the jokes from men at my office about maternity leave being a "nice vacation."
At least babies sleep some of the time. A global office never sleeps, and often, neither do its employees, especially when major projects are at hand.
"Despite a female colleague without kids who calls me at 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. regularly, as if trying to make work interfere at the precise moments my kids need me most."
As if the female colleague knows or cares about Leslie's kids. As if Leslie's kids should control the work schedules of all Leslie's co-workers. I know men and women with kids who work ridiculous hours, 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. being almost the middle of the day for them. I know plenty of people without kids who work those hours, too. Nobody likes it, but it's what "the global workplace" requires.
Leslie, they have something for people like you who can't or won't be available those hours: It's called the Mommy Track, and only mommies get that option. Workers without kids who'd like to opt out of the craziness and upward-mobility insanity without losing their employment altogether don't have that option. You hear that, Leslie? Because you are a parent, you have options that non-parents don't have! If you want saner hours, ask for them, and you'll probably get them! Why? Because you have The Kid Card to play!
"Despite the school personnel who always call me first and my husband never when there's any type of problem with our kids during the day."
Sounds like a personal problem to me. Leslie should work it out with her husband, and then let hte school know. Just once, she could tellt he school, "I'm busy. Call my husband instead." But then she'd lose her martyr status.
Drum roll please:
"I think women should get paid MORE than men. And moms should get paid MORE than people without children, or at least get some juicy tax break, simply because it is so damn hard pulling it all off, day after day, feeling like you've worked a whole eight or 10 hours by the time you get to the office at 9 a.m."
I think people should be paid equally depending on their job duties and how well they carry them out. How can any educated, enlightened person recommend financial discrimination based on gender, especially within a column that decries such discrimination?
I think parents should be paid LESS than people without children, because as childfree people have said ad fucking nauseum, WE ARE THE ONES ON WHOM YOU SHOVE OFF YOUR WORK, LESLIE. That person who calls you at 7 a.m. or 6 p.m. when you're doing kid-related stuff at home? She's WORKING. She is EARNING HER SALARY, a salary YOU DON'T DESERVE.
Parents already get tax deductions for their children. You don't need more gimmes, Leslie. Not you, not your working-mom friends. You are the ones who, like the person who inhabits the cubicle next to me, get to go home early when the rest of us don't, work from home when the rest of us don't, not come in when you don't feel like it because "my child is sick and I don't want to spread any germs," and receive promotions twice in six months for no discernible results or reason other than that you're a mom and the boss, who is also a momzilla, likes you. "She breed. Breeding good. Me promote fellow breeder."
NOBODY made you have children. Nobody forced you into the lifestyle you have now. You think it's tough dragging your ass in at 9 a.m. after having been up for three hours with the kids? What about those who really HAVE put in an 8- to 10-hour day already, because somebody had to handle the midnight problem or the overseas deployment while you and your spouse and your children were sleeping? (Because we can't disrupt the family, you know.)
"And don't think I'm leaving stay-at-home moms out of the equation -- they need a tax break, and child-care access, and financial protection in case of divorce, and plain old RESPECT."
Then stay-at-home moms should learn to budget wisely and plan financially to cover issues such as taxes, and child care, and financial protection. As for respect, I believe that parents deserve neither respect nor disrespect for having children. It's a personal lifestyle decision, and it's a decision that billions of people make. It isn't unusual or special, and whether it's a decision that actually contributes anything good to the world is up for debate. (Guess which side of the debate I'd be on.)
Back to the Cornell study article for a moment:
"To test this idea, Correll plans to repeat the experiment, but this time with a family-friendly model for the hiring company. "This will allow us to assess whether evaluators' responses change for job applicants with children," Correll said.
"She also said the motherhood penalty study could be repeated -- and similar results expected -- with actual employers participating.
"Past research has found that undergraduates and actual managers rate job applicants very similarly. They look at the same kinds of things," Correll said. "But it is still important to replicate the study with employers."
Fine. Repeat it all you want. Repeat it with real employers. That won't change the fact that the study does not replicate real-life hiring situations. Most employers will not know details about the applicants' family life and parental status, and those applicants who go out of their way to reveal this will find themselves out of the running, because employers are protecting themselves from greedy, lawsuit-prone entitlebreeders on a never-ending handout quest.
Now, back to Leslie:
"The most demoralizing, frustrating fact is that it's so hard to bring about greater equality at work and in government on a mom-by-mom basis. Especially when many of our most high-powered, best-educated moms lose clout when they stay home with kids (There's nothing wrong with staying home to care for kids -- what's wrong is that women who stay at home often lose power to bring about change."
Why do moms insist on having clout at the office and at home? Why are they still trying to sell themselves and the world on this bullshit Superwoman myth? At least men were smart enough to opt out of that and mostly concentrate on career only. Humans can only do so much in so many places, and being a parent means you have to make choices. Which roost do you want to rule? Who are your subordinates going to be? Stop raising the bar impossibly high for yourselves and your non-childed co-workers. Stop caving in to the expectation that you can or should be everything to everyone. Be brave enough to give up the power in one place to concentrate on giving your all to the other place, and if you have kids, they should be your priority. If you're going to have kids, at least give a damn about being there for them without expecting not to lose anything anywhere else. YOU CAN'T HAVE IT ALL. NOBODY CAN.
"Equal pay for equal work, flexibility except when it's truly impossible, support for the lives employees lead outside of work. It's not just moms and kids who will benefit -- although more equitable treatment of moms and kids should be enough, in itself, to motivate companies to change. Everyone benefits from fair treatment."
She almost had me there except for that goddamned "moms and kids should be enough." No, it shouldn't. Drop the entitlement, Leslie. You are hurting yourself and everyone else who could and would benefit from a more flexible workplace. If you want it to happen, you have to get support from others, not alienate others. Get the support of the person who needs time to care for an aging parent or ill spouse. Get the support of the person who has fibromyalgia but doesn't have a doctor's clearance to go out on disability dispite incredible pain and fatigue. Get the support of the healthy, childless workers who just want a few normal evenings and mornings and a good night's sleep, rather than working around the clock in support of a never-ending global workday.
You want to fight discrimination, Leslie? Do it without promoting and inviting a different kind of discrimination. A lot of people out there could benefit from work-life balance, but if the mom brigade keeps pushing for all those benefits to go to parents, for all that flexibilty to be for parent- and kid-related issues, then you'll have a lot of people fighting against you who would otherwise fight alongside you.
Your call, moms. Just remember that at least in the U.S., and in much of Europe as well, there are fewer of you all the time and more of those who can either be for you or against you. Your greatest number of teammates is likely to come from the non-childed side. Choose wisely.
Quoth Leslie: "A Cornell University study released in August showed bias increases the more children a woman has. The more kids, the less potential employers are willing to pay her. The opposite is true for men: the more children, the more employers want to pay him."
The study was done in the U.S. Leslie is in the U.S. and presumably discussing the American employment scene. My experience in the American employment scene is that employers don't want to know how many children you have. They're not allowed to ask, legally. The study doesn't account for that.
From the Cornell study Steiner references: (http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug05/soc.mothers.dea.html):
"Next a memo was added to one of the profiles, mentioning that the applicant was a mother of two children, and her resume was modified to show that she was an officer in a parent-teacher association. The memo and resume in the second applicant's materials made no mention of children.
When asked if they would hire these applicants, participants said they would hire 84 percent of the women without children, compared with only 47 percent of the mothers. In assigning a starting salary to the applicants, given a pay range appropriate for the job, participants offered non-mothers an average of $11,000 more than mothers."
My workplaces have often told we, the employees, to discard resumes that mention parenthood or shut the door on any candidates who let their parental status slip, not because anyone wants to discriminate against them, but because they don't want to be accused of discrimination. They don't want to consider a candidate whose parental status they already know. They don't want to put that candidate through the consideration process, only to be sued later for discrimination because "you hired the other person because you know I have kids and commitments outside work" or "you lowballed me on salary because I'm a working mother."
Do you understand this, parents? When you let potential employers know about your parental status, YOU are hurting YOURSELF.
Back to Leslie:
"Facts like these naturally infuriate me."
Leslie, you're going to let 192 Cornell undergrads, people who saw candidate data that most employers don't get to see, determine your attitude about hiring methods in the modern workplace?
"They make me look around and say:
"Okay, a man in the office next to me, perhaps not even doing as good a job as I am, gets paid more, just for having facial hair."
He also has a penis, and testicles, and a Y chromosome, but I'm digressing. He may also have a better attitude, a higher workload, and more talent than you do. He may even have a smaller paycheck. The point is, WE DON'T KNOW, and neither does Leslie. She's angry about others sitting in judgment of her and her fellow working moms, but she don't hesitate to brand this theoretical male co-worker as a slacker getting by on gender discrimination.
Who's the bigot now?
Oh, but wait. She's just warming up.
"And there's me, daily facing the teeth-grinding stress of trying to be a good mom and a good employee."
As if she's the only one with work stress. As if a gun were put to her head to force her to become a parent. Nobody pushed you into it, toots.
"Despite the jokes from men at my office about maternity leave being a "nice vacation."
At least babies sleep some of the time. A global office never sleeps, and often, neither do its employees, especially when major projects are at hand.
"Despite a female colleague without kids who calls me at 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. regularly, as if trying to make work interfere at the precise moments my kids need me most."
As if the female colleague knows or cares about Leslie's kids. As if Leslie's kids should control the work schedules of all Leslie's co-workers. I know men and women with kids who work ridiculous hours, 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. being almost the middle of the day for them. I know plenty of people without kids who work those hours, too. Nobody likes it, but it's what "the global workplace" requires.
Leslie, they have something for people like you who can't or won't be available those hours: It's called the Mommy Track, and only mommies get that option. Workers without kids who'd like to opt out of the craziness and upward-mobility insanity without losing their employment altogether don't have that option. You hear that, Leslie? Because you are a parent, you have options that non-parents don't have! If you want saner hours, ask for them, and you'll probably get them! Why? Because you have The Kid Card to play!
"Despite the school personnel who always call me first and my husband never when there's any type of problem with our kids during the day."
Sounds like a personal problem to me. Leslie should work it out with her husband, and then let hte school know. Just once, she could tellt he school, "I'm busy. Call my husband instead." But then she'd lose her martyr status.
Drum roll please:
"I think women should get paid MORE than men. And moms should get paid MORE than people without children, or at least get some juicy tax break, simply because it is so damn hard pulling it all off, day after day, feeling like you've worked a whole eight or 10 hours by the time you get to the office at 9 a.m."
I think people should be paid equally depending on their job duties and how well they carry them out. How can any educated, enlightened person recommend financial discrimination based on gender, especially within a column that decries such discrimination?
I think parents should be paid LESS than people without children, because as childfree people have said ad fucking nauseum, WE ARE THE ONES ON WHOM YOU SHOVE OFF YOUR WORK, LESLIE. That person who calls you at 7 a.m. or 6 p.m. when you're doing kid-related stuff at home? She's WORKING. She is EARNING HER SALARY, a salary YOU DON'T DESERVE.
Parents already get tax deductions for their children. You don't need more gimmes, Leslie. Not you, not your working-mom friends. You are the ones who, like the person who inhabits the cubicle next to me, get to go home early when the rest of us don't, work from home when the rest of us don't, not come in when you don't feel like it because "my child is sick and I don't want to spread any germs," and receive promotions twice in six months for no discernible results or reason other than that you're a mom and the boss, who is also a momzilla, likes you. "She breed. Breeding good. Me promote fellow breeder."
NOBODY made you have children. Nobody forced you into the lifestyle you have now. You think it's tough dragging your ass in at 9 a.m. after having been up for three hours with the kids? What about those who really HAVE put in an 8- to 10-hour day already, because somebody had to handle the midnight problem or the overseas deployment while you and your spouse and your children were sleeping? (Because we can't disrupt the family, you know.)
"And don't think I'm leaving stay-at-home moms out of the equation -- they need a tax break, and child-care access, and financial protection in case of divorce, and plain old RESPECT."
Then stay-at-home moms should learn to budget wisely and plan financially to cover issues such as taxes, and child care, and financial protection. As for respect, I believe that parents deserve neither respect nor disrespect for having children. It's a personal lifestyle decision, and it's a decision that billions of people make. It isn't unusual or special, and whether it's a decision that actually contributes anything good to the world is up for debate. (Guess which side of the debate I'd be on.)
Back to the Cornell study article for a moment:
"To test this idea, Correll plans to repeat the experiment, but this time with a family-friendly model for the hiring company. "This will allow us to assess whether evaluators' responses change for job applicants with children," Correll said.
"She also said the motherhood penalty study could be repeated -- and similar results expected -- with actual employers participating.
"Past research has found that undergraduates and actual managers rate job applicants very similarly. They look at the same kinds of things," Correll said. "But it is still important to replicate the study with employers."
Fine. Repeat it all you want. Repeat it with real employers. That won't change the fact that the study does not replicate real-life hiring situations. Most employers will not know details about the applicants' family life and parental status, and those applicants who go out of their way to reveal this will find themselves out of the running, because employers are protecting themselves from greedy, lawsuit-prone entitlebreeders on a never-ending handout quest.
Now, back to Leslie:
"The most demoralizing, frustrating fact is that it's so hard to bring about greater equality at work and in government on a mom-by-mom basis. Especially when many of our most high-powered, best-educated moms lose clout when they stay home with kids (There's nothing wrong with staying home to care for kids -- what's wrong is that women who stay at home often lose power to bring about change."
Why do moms insist on having clout at the office and at home? Why are they still trying to sell themselves and the world on this bullshit Superwoman myth? At least men were smart enough to opt out of that and mostly concentrate on career only. Humans can only do so much in so many places, and being a parent means you have to make choices. Which roost do you want to rule? Who are your subordinates going to be? Stop raising the bar impossibly high for yourselves and your non-childed co-workers. Stop caving in to the expectation that you can or should be everything to everyone. Be brave enough to give up the power in one place to concentrate on giving your all to the other place, and if you have kids, they should be your priority. If you're going to have kids, at least give a damn about being there for them without expecting not to lose anything anywhere else. YOU CAN'T HAVE IT ALL. NOBODY CAN.
"Equal pay for equal work, flexibility except when it's truly impossible, support for the lives employees lead outside of work. It's not just moms and kids who will benefit -- although more equitable treatment of moms and kids should be enough, in itself, to motivate companies to change. Everyone benefits from fair treatment."
She almost had me there except for that goddamned "moms and kids should be enough." No, it shouldn't. Drop the entitlement, Leslie. You are hurting yourself and everyone else who could and would benefit from a more flexible workplace. If you want it to happen, you have to get support from others, not alienate others. Get the support of the person who needs time to care for an aging parent or ill spouse. Get the support of the person who has fibromyalgia but doesn't have a doctor's clearance to go out on disability dispite incredible pain and fatigue. Get the support of the healthy, childless workers who just want a few normal evenings and mornings and a good night's sleep, rather than working around the clock in support of a never-ending global workday.
You want to fight discrimination, Leslie? Do it without promoting and inviting a different kind of discrimination. A lot of people out there could benefit from work-life balance, but if the mom brigade keeps pushing for all those benefits to go to parents, for all that flexibilty to be for parent- and kid-related issues, then you'll have a lot of people fighting against you who would otherwise fight alongside you.
Your call, moms. Just remember that at least in the U.S., and in much of Europe as well, there are fewer of you all the time and more of those who can either be for you or against you. Your greatest number of teammates is likely to come from the non-childed side. Choose wisely.
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