Post whatever you like. Links (including self-links) are delightful.
Elle, PhD discusses her and her family’s experiences driving while Black in east Texas. (Via Art at the Auction.)
“Colorado has taken a giant step forward in reforming the interaction between a state and its citizens on issues of relationship recognition.”
The Degrees of Immigrant Bashing (Via)
As a former New Yorker, I’m very excited by this article about the changes brought by NYC’s traffic commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan. Basically, she’s travelling around the world and swiping the best ideas for New York — closing lanes of traffic to build pedestrian malls, seating, bike lanes, etc.. I can’t wait to see the new Times Square — where Broadway has been turned into a car-free pedestrian mall. If all goes well, they may convert all of Broadway into a pedestrian way.
Sexism, Uhura, and the new Star Trek
Method Actors Say The Most Ridiculous Things (Val Kilmer edition)
It’s not anti-feminist to ask about the Bergmann effect (even when an anti-feminist is doing the asking)
Thanks for the Bergmann effect link. One thing that people often don’t seem to realize is how difficult it is to prove systemic discrimination by an employer. I had a friend working for an anti-discrimination organization who was recruiting “testers” to gather empirical evidence about sex discrimination by employers in the building trades (construction, plumbing, etc.). In order to prove that sex discrimination occurs, you either need to get enough plaintiffs that they’re statistically significant in showing that women weren’t getting hired even when they clearly were equal to or better than the men being hired (and THAT requires that you be able to get discovery on the men’s employment files in order to do the comparison); or you need to get a whole bunch of men and women to act as testers, i.e. going in with a resume/ work history that’s basically the same and seeing whether the men are preferred.
In contrast, it’s much easier to prove that an employer has failed to extend to you all of the rights and privileges you have under the law as an employee. Suppose I want to prove that my FMLA rights have been violated: I show the court the email exchange in which I ask for leave to care for my mother while she recovers from surgery and my boss says no. The burden’s now on my boss to prove either that the email exchange has been falsified or that he has a legal defense against having to abide by FMLA in this situation.
I realize that it superficially sounds bizarre that an employer will violate the law against sex discrimination in hiring, in order to avoid having to abide by other laws, but once you start thinking about how to prove each one, you realize why the employers (who are repeat players and already have thought this out) would do it.
However, I don’t think this was true with the Ledbetter case, because it’s almost as hard to prove pay discrimination as hiring discrimination. The employer usually can manufacture a ton of reasons to pay a particular woman less money, and that’s exactly what Goodyear tried to do, except that there was the smoking gun documentation from back when managers were too ignorant (i.e. too poorly lawyered) to know they shouldn’t actually write down for the record, “We are paying her less because she’s a woman.” The differential of proof required isn’t large enough that allowing women to act on past discrimination will affect future hiring.
Another thought: I think people often confuse the thought processes that go on in engaging in criminal acts that harm others versus civilly-prohibited acts that do. That is, I think it’s a reasonable statement about human psychology to say that a person who wouldn’t break the law against assault probably also will not violate the law against murder. Crimes of violence, or even of direct theft (e.g. mugging, burglary), generally aren’t based on much of a cost-benefit analysis (part of the reason that incrementally increasing prison sentences doesn’t have much impact on crime rates; people don’t think through whether to rob a 7/11 based on the latest sentencing guidelines).
In contrast, corporations that are dealing mostly with laws that have only civil penalties (i.e. nobody’s going to jail) do engage in cost-benefit analysis. They multiply the probability of getting caught by the penalty and compare it to the cost of abiding by the law. This is most often noted with regard to employing undocumented workers: so long as penalties are purely civil, it’s rational for an employer to look at how much money he saves by hiring those workers (who have no redress if he doesn’t respect their rights) and compare it to the risk-adjusted penalties for hiring illegal immigrants.
But it’s also going to occur with other employment questions, such as whether to hire women who are likely to become pregnant in the next few years (statistically quite probable for a married woman in her mid 20s to mid 30s). Multiply the probability you’ll get caught at such discrimination (very small probability) by the penalties you’ll face, and compare to the money you’ll save by not having to grant pregnancy leave.
So the idea that a corporation is either a lawbreaking or law-abiding kind of corporation, just as we commonly think of individuals as the lawbreaking or law-abiding “type,” isn’t going to be correct very often because the penalties and the thought processes are so different..
I’ve been contemplating the recent news of a child potentially being removed from the home because her parents are seriously racist here. When is it reasonable to remove children from their home?
I’m just new and shamelessly looking for a wider audience for environmental issues. This post questions the behavioural effects of warning labels on cars.
Proposition 8 has been upheld by the California Supreme Court. The decision in PDF format is here for those who wish to read it (anyone else note the unusually high use of italics?)
I gave it a quick skim and it looks like it’s pretty much what i expected. Hopefully Prop 8 will be flipped at the next election.
It has already been appealed federally, of course, though it seems unlikely to be overturned.
PG,
You are absolutely correct. Cost benefit analysis is exactly what corporations do.
I think the standard of proof for the civil charges will always be high enough that the punishment deterrent effect will remain small. This is a situation where it is really difficult to use penalties and avoidance to drive behavior.
Positive incentives would work far better, IMO, which is why I think we should use them instead.
Technically, the standard of proof for a civil suit requires only preponderance of the evidence, so it’s not really the standard of proof that presents the difficulty so much as getting any proof in the first place. Again, Ledbetter: she had no trouble convincing a jury that she’d suffered pay discrimination because there were those smoking guns in Goodyear’s files that she obtained through discovery. Corporations are a lot smarter now and don’t have managers going around saying, “We pay Lily less because she’s a woman.” In the absence of that kind of evidentiary smoking gun specific to one’s case, you have prove it by comparing the treatment of men as a group to that of women as a group.
There are social penalties in some spheres for failing to employ a diverse workforce; for example, Wal-Mart’s GC called out its outside counsel on this a few years ago. But that’s at the top tier, where employers have a national image to polish and thus abide by elite expectations that women and PoC will be in the white collar workforce. Treatment of women on the factory line, or folding shirts at Wal-Mart itself? Without being able to bring discrimination lawsuits, how do you envision ensuring equality in those environs?
There’s deterrence and positive reinforcement.
Deterrence says “if you do what we don’t like (discriminate against women, fail to hire women; harass women) then we will punish you.”
Positive says “if you do what we like (treat women well; hire more women) then we will reward you.”
When you deter, you have everyone competing NOT to get the notice of the government, which means that (1) the costs of overcoming that competition–enforcement costs–are borne by the government; and (2) the people who are least open and therefore least noticeable pay the least costs.
When you give rewards, you have everyone competing TO get the notice of the government. This means that (1) the costs of competition are borne by the most interested players; and (2) the people who are most open and most reviewable get the most benefit.
It is difficult to get people to do things they dislike. Sometimes it is easier to pay them (thus changing “dislike” into “like”) then it is to force them to act the way you want.
In that vein, I propose a thought experiment. Which of these do you think would have a greater effect on the hiring, pay, and treatment of women in the workplace?
1) The government significantly raises penalties for gender discrimination and harassment,making it a criminal act with 6 months of mandatory jail time; or
2) the government announces that it will pay 5% of every woman’s salary, permitting her employer to pocket that 5%.
I can tell you which one would almost certainly be ruled unconstitutional sex discrimination :-)
You’re going to get a lot more pushback from men if the government engages in such a level of affirmative action as to create massive rewards for every woman hired that don’t exist for any man hired. However, Men are more willing to concede that women shouldn’t be treated differently from men, which is how we end up with federally-enforced anti-discrimination law.
I have my first real (legitimate) blog post up! *swoon*
(Also crossposted over at Shakesville)
I note you didn’t answer the question, though ;)
Look, hiring women if you don’t want to is a cost. It may not be an objective cost–women may in fact be more productive, better employees, cheaper, faster, and so on–but it’s still a cost if you don’t want it, just as a car is worth “what you can sell it for.”
So everyone who doesn’t want to hire women tries to avoid the cost by not hiring them. They find workarounds and excuses and loopholes and the like; they hide things and push boundaries to try to minimize their cost.
Very few of those people get caught. So in order to make the deterrence actually have any effect, we raise the penalties fairly high. Same theory as speeding tickets: if you only get caught 1 out of every 100 times you speed (if that) then the penalties need to be quite high to deter you.
So take A and B. Both of them don’t want to hire women; they’re misogynistic assholes. A does it anyway, because he’s a law-abiding asshole. B does not do it, using a loophole to get out of it, or so he hopes. A is doing what we want, but A is suffering more costs than B. B will only pay more costs if B is caught, and prosecuted, and loses.
I do not think a scheme that costs A more than B is sustainable long term. I don’t think we can use the law to make A or B feel differently. I just think that we should choose the most efficient method of actino, and i don’t think that deterrence is it.
Sailorman,
I think the criminal penalties actually would be more effective because they’d have the advantage of not being so off-putting to men. If you present the goal as “we’re trying to get as many women as possible employed,” rather than “we’re trying to end sex discrimination,” a lot of people who would have gotten on board with the second goal will do their damnedest to obstruct the first. And their obstruction will include taking an economic hit if necessary. Men will organize to work for less money than women in order to make hiring men no more expensive than hiring women. You don’t seem to have thought through how such policies actually change people’s behavior.
As for this: “I don’t think we can use the law to make A or B feel differently,” I simply disagree. I think that if A has female employees because the law forbids sex discrimination, and he realizes that they are equally as good as the male ones and no more of a burden, he’ll change his mind over time. How do you think people ever change their minds if not through experiences that contradict their prior assumptions? It’s very rarely through logical argumentation, I can tell you that.
Also, while A may initially suffer more emotional costs than B, these might well be outweighed by the benefits of having female employees (whether in a general sense or due to the specific ones he hires). He now draws from 100% of the population instead of 50%. I don’t think you can assume that A’s total costs are higher than B’s.
How do you think people ever change their minds if not through experiences that contradict their prior assumptions?
You should always try to ignore your experiences in favor of more objective criteria.
Snerk.
—Myca
Speaking of snark, my favorite writing of Sotomayor’s I’ve seen thus far is her 1996 speech-cum-article, “Returning Majesty To The Law and Politics: A Modern Approach,” though I have to admit it’s for snarky reasons. On this webpage, the Heritage Foundation purports to present Sotomayor “in her own words,” yet the statement beginning “The constant development of unprecedented problems requires a legal system capable of fluidity and pliancy…” is not Sotomayor’s own words in that article, but rather a quote from Jerome Frank’s 1930 classic Law and the Modern Mind. Maybe the Heritage kids could put a little more thought into their “rapid responses” — it’s clear that some intern must have run a Lexis search and just grabbed the stuff that looked most damaging without checking to see if it was Sotomayor’s own words or those of someone else.
I don’t think many people really change their mind all that much.
But when they do, they are much more responsive to changes based on experiences which they select and/or enjoy, and are much less responsive to changes based on experiences that are forced on them. I think you would be unrealistic to ignore them.
Furthermore, I don’t really think of the goal of the law as “change people’s minds.” I wish people would think differently, but I do not think the law is an especially good tool for that. You can’t legislate morals very well.
Sailorman,
It’s not the existence of the law that changes people’s minds; it’s having to live with the consequences of the law on a daily basis. Conservatives are well aware of this — it’s why they consider it to not really “count” for a legislature to pass same-sex marriage in a state where a court had imposed civil unions a decade earlier. When it’s a matter of mere prejudice, which often is based on ignorance and unfamiliarity, people get used to things after a while and don’t mind them so much after finding out that the sky doesn’t fall.
When it’s not a matter of prejudice but rather of a serious moral belief (e.g. abortion), then I agree changing the law won’t change people’s minds about it. But it’s unusual for someone who doesn’t want to hire women to have a whole system of beliefs undergirding it that is comparable to, say, a Catholic’s set of beliefs that lead to opposing legalized abortion. People who don’t want to hire women or minorities generally base this on ignorance about the capabilities of women and minorities, or on false beliefs about how much trouble having people of a different sex or race in the workplace will be in the long run. In contrast, some of the most strident opponents of abortion have had abortions themselves — their opposition is not based on ignorance of what is involved, but rather in a paternalistic desire to keep anyone else from suffering as they have suffered.
There’s a reason why Brown v. Board was generally accepted by the 1980s, but Roe v. Wade still isn’t today.
Most of the people I know who don’t want to hire women do so for two basic reasons: (1) because they believe that women are more likely to leave the workforce for voluntary or semi-voluntary reasons, at a higher rate than are men; and (2) because they believe that their personal and/or internal company behavior is not appropriate for a mixed sex environment, and they do not want to change their behavior. Very few of the people who don’t want to hire women actually think women are incompetent, at least in my experience.
Neither of those will be affected by the “see, here’s proof!” method you describe.
The first one won’t be affected because it’s actually true; women are more likely to leave the workforce than men, because people have kids: women tend to end up doing the childcare*. The second one won’t be affected because it is also true; whether a given behavior is inappropriate depends on the company, and more diverse groups lead to more limitations on behavior.
So it may be a fundamental difference in how we perceive the root of sex discrimination. I think much of it has gotten past the moral/illogical “women are worse because they’re women, and that means they’re worse” phase and into the more practical realm. Obviously many of those so-called “practical” reasons not to hire women are WRONG, but proving taht they are wrong requires a different tactic.
*Is this societally mandated, proof of discrimination, etc.? yup. But from the “is this true for the employer” perspective, those aren’t relevant.
Sailorman,
The fact that something is more common for X group than Y group is not a reason to refuse to hire anyone from X group. Women are more likely to leave the full-time workforce than men are, true. But men are more likely to commit violent crimes than are women — is that a good reason to refuse to hire any given man, lest he end up committing a violent crime and besmirching the name of the employer?
Also, both rationales can be affected by the “see, here’s proof” method, because an employer can see that “Oh, the woman is not necessarily going to demand leave as soon as possible to have kids,” and “Oh, women aren’t all freaked out by fart jokes so long as they’re made in a spirit of camaraderie and not targeting the vulnerable group.”
I guess we’ve just had different experiences of people who are discriminatory, anyway, because I’ve certainly seen the unwillingness to hire or promote based on stereotypes about capabilities.
PG Writes:
May 28th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Of course it is, if that something is detrimental to you. Why wouldn’t it be? Oh, sure, the “refuse” part may make it difficult; perhaps the proper modifier is “prefer not to hire.” But other than that, your claim makes no sense to me.
Absolutely; why wouldn’t it be? The problem is that violent crimes are much more rare, and people are generally bad at properly accounting for rare-but-horrible occurrences. but if people knew the statistics then it is certainly possible that they would make decisions on that basis.
So, for example, men are more likely to commit crimes of sexual assault, particularly if you limit the victims to women and girls. So there’s no way in hell I’d hire a male to babysit my daughters; why would I? And I were randomly choosing a friend for my daughters to drive with, I’d similarly choose a girl.
“Can be?” Sure. “Are likely to be?” I don’t really think so. but we may simply have to disagree on this.
I’ve certainly seen that as well, but not all that often; I don’t know if we are disagreeing here.
‘Power’ move by male students ruffles U. of C.
From the story:
I wonder if Farrell also has noticed how much more government and private money goes to finding a cure for colon cancer* versus, say, skin cancer**. I mean, that’s just inequitable between the two groups of patients. Why should we be funding things based on current disparity of outcomes? Everything must be treated equally regardless of what’s happening in the real world.
* The most recent 5-year overall survival rate (i.e. of people diagnosed after 2004) = at best 30%.
** 5-Year overall survival rate (i.e. includes metastasized cancer) = 91%
Dr. Tiller was shot to death this morning at church.
I felt sick when I heard the news.
Good post at Pandagon.