The Flat Decade

Another in a series of paradoxes:
Decades ago, in principal at least, we committed to equal pay for women for equal work and equal representation in leadership positions. But U.S. women’s progress toward equality so far in the new century can be called the flat decade. It’s as if feminism hit a societal glass ceiling.

The average gender pay gap for workers without a four-year college degree has slightly narrowed since the mid-1990s, in part due to effects of the Great Recession that began in 2007 described below. Surprisingly, the gap has widened for those with degrees. For example, a study of doctors’ salaries in New York State in first jobs after residency eliminated the effects of inflation, hours worked, practice settings, and specialty choices. It found a $3,600 annual gap between men and women in 1999, but a much larger gap of $16,819 in 2008.

Although the aggregate effect of these opposite trends narrowed the average gender pay gap across all occupations by a few percentage points in the first decade of the new century, the median annual gender pay gap for full time workers reduced by less than one percentage point, despite much greater progress in earlier decades. The median is the income of that man or woman whose income is greater than the lowest half of those workers in his or her respective gender, and also less than the higher half. (Given that a relatively small number of those at the top of the income ladder earn very high wages, the average income is higher than the median.) One explanation for the stagnation in the median gap is that even though women made up fifty percent of the total workforce in 2010, they remained stuck at sixty percent of those in low wage jobs.

One might see some progress in the fact that while women lost the most jobs in the recession of 2001, men held more than three-quarters of the jobs lost during the Great Recession. But a New York Times’ analysis gave feminists little cause for comfort. First, it said the Great Recession hit male dominated industries such as finance and construction the hardest. The Times’ second explanation went straight to the heart of the earnings paradox: because of the wage disparity between men and women, women were in greater demand in the Great Recession because they are willing to work for less than similarly qualified men. Public sector layoffs caused by the recession subsequently increased women’s overall unemployment even as private sector jobs began to recover, because women hold a large majority of public sector jobs. In addition, opposite trends in unemployment rates by gender combined with public sector pay cuts and freezes exacerbated the wage gap rather than narrowed it.


In 2010, a General Accountability Office study examining the most recent data found that between 2000 and 2007 the percentage of women managers grew by only one percent. And growth at the top was flat in the first decade of the new century. In 2002, fewer than sixteen percent of corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies were women, and women held just ten percent of the positions with direct responsibility for profit and loss. In 2008, it was the same.

Although there was some progress in the number of women on boards of directors in the first half of the decade, there was nearly none in the last half. As of 2006, women remained less than fifteen percent of the board directors for Fortune 500 companies. Nearly half of these companies had just one woman or no women on their boards. Stung by criticism for their lack of diversity, by 2008 only thirteen percent of Fortune 500 companies had no women on their boards. But the overall percentage of women on boards barely changed, so this was not progress but rather merely reshuffling the deck. The total number of board positions decreased slightly during this period, which means that for every company that added a woman, another with at least two on its board dropped one. By 2010, women broad members still were less than sixteen percent of the total.

It’s probably not a coincidence that law firm management shows similar percentages. A survey in 1999 found that only sixteen percent of the equity partners in the one hundred largest American law firms were women. Another survey in 2009 found the equity partner percentage had not changed.

Because of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin’s historic bids in the Presidential race, and Nancy Pelosi’s ascendency to Speaker of the House, some believe that women made significant gains in elective politics in twenty-first century America. But the sad truth is that women’s hold on political power in the U.S. seems by some measures to no longer be increasing and may even be declining. The percentage of women in elected statewide offices in 2008 shrunk to its lowest level since 1994, at twenty-three percent. It fell half a percent lower still in 2010. In 2008, women were mayors in only eleven of the one hundred largest American cities, a drop of four percentage points from just a few years before. The percentage of women mayors in American cities of at least 30,000 persons was less than sixteen percent in 2008, down five percentage points from 1999. Female representation in state legislatures basically flatlined at twenty-three percent starting in 1999.

In 1997, the U.S. ranked forty-first internationally for female representation in national legislatures. By 2008, the U.S. had fallen to seventieth. At this rate, the U.S. could be at the bottom of the rankings in just two decades.

It’s ironic that in the fourth decade of the modern women’s movement many indicators of women’s participation in government and business are flat, and some are negative. Building on prior efforts, nearly all these indicators should at this point be climbing. But they’re not. A decade from now, will we be looking back at another ten years of zero or minimal growth? Without determined national effort, it’s a distinct possibility.

What would happen if we turned our thinking upside down and:

• Oprah gave all of her billions to journalist and women’s rights crusader William Kristof to spend on projects to help women?
• Bill Gates announced that the other half of his foundations’ billions not devoted to vaccines henceforth would go to projects to help women and girls?
• Every member of the NBA making over one million dollars a year made a public service spot against domestic violence or rape and paid to air it on TV shows aimed at the young male demographic?
• The U.S. ratified the international treaty banning gender discrimination, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)?
• The Federal government and all companies and organizations receiving federal funds were required to offer flexible workplace policies and reduced schedule options to all employees?
• The U.S. went from seventy-fourth in world rankings of women’s percentages in national legislatures, where it is in the company of Albania and Turkmenistan, to fourth?

Part time professionals = more full time lives.

Another in a series of paradox solutions:

If our economy is to obtain the maximum benefit from the millions of women trained and educated to create, produce, process, diagnose, teach, manage or advise, can’t we offer options that will allow them to continue to work if they choose to have families? Providing part time options in every career track will ensure that the greatest number of women are poised for leadership roles when they are done having children. If women are forced to leave their jobs in order to have children, most will never recover those lost years in their careers. At the age when many men are at the pinnacles of the their careers, many women are reentering the work force with unequal experience. But how to change the existing employer mindset that so opposes part time opportunities for professionals? Here’s one idea:

When layoffs began in earnest in 2008 in response to the recession, there was much public debate about the merits of simply reducing many workers’ pay and hours proportionately in order to reduce the need for layoffs. Proponents argued that shortening hours would greatly reduce the number of families in dire economic circumstances, spread the pain of the recession more equitably, and lessen the chances the recession would go into free fall. In Germany this approach is called Kurzarbeit, which translates as short work. When companies reduce workers’ hours, the government uses money from a special fund to pay workers two-thirds of their lost salaries. The U.S. should consider using this approach. If it could jumpstart a change in employers’ attitudes toward letting employees work less than full time schedules, we’d not only be better able to weather economic downturns, we’d also have a more flexible and family friendly economy.

Rape victims revictimized.

Another in a series of paradoxes:
As further evidence that the U.S. is not making a serious effort to reduce the incidence of rape, a report by Human Rights Watch revealed that scores of police departments in Los Angeles County have not tested thousands of rape kits. That means hundreds or perhaps thousands of rapists will not face justice for their crimes and may rape again. Just as many women will be revictimized by the message that the justice system is not intended to redress the wrongs inflicted on them. Rape will continue to be one of the many injustices women face that makes it harder for them to attain a standing in society equal to men.

U.S. rape and domestic violence rates up.

Another in a series of paradoxes:
U.S. Department of Justice surveys show an increase of 25 percent in rape and sexual assault and 42 percent in violence by intimate partners against women between 2005 and 2007, in part due to a change in research methodology. "Except for simple assault, which increased by 3 percent, the incidence of every other crime surveyed decreased." You would think this would be big news, but it did not get much coverage in the media.

A number of blogs fail to point out that these numbers are based on telephone surveys of crime victims, which is only the start of the confusion. The surveys found that the percentage of rapes and sexual assaults reported to the police increased from 38 percent in 2005 to 42 percent in 2007. Yet at the same time, the number of rapes actually reported to the police decreased more than 4 percent from 2005 to 2007. Based on these numbers, one can only assume that the 25 percent increase in rape and sexual assault is because a lot more women are telling the phone surveyors that they were sexually assaulted, but either they are not reporting these assaults to the police as rape, or the police are not categorizing the reports as rape. Is that what's really going on here?

Question for Palin.

As Governor, what is she doing about the fact that Alaska ranks number one in the nation for the rate at which women are murdered by men, and number one for its rape rate? (Alaska only ranks 22nd for murders regardless of gender.) While she served as mayor, her town began charging rape victims hundreds of dollars each for the forensic exams used in prosecution of rape, and her police chief vehemently opposed a bill in the state legislature to prohibit charging victims for the exams.

Modernity increases gender differences.

Another in a series of paradoxes:
As gendered cultural influences lessen, innate differences between men and women influence personality to a greater extent, concludes a 2008 global study spanning fifty-five cultures. It confirms previous findings based on multiple studies that gender differences in personality are smallest in the most traditional cultures and greatest in those that are the most modern, affluent and progressive.

These conclusions are "counterintuitive" to the socialization (blank slate) theory of gender differences long favored by most feminists, which has presumed that boys and girls enter the world with similar cognitive and behavioral tendencies and that subsequent personality differences are attributable to the rigid gender roles found in most cultures. The concerns of those who predicted that equal rights for women would homogenize the genders now seem unfounded.

The 2008 study and its forebears are not arguing that personality differences between men and women are only caused by genes. The current scientific consensus is that nature and nurture have roughly equal influences on the behavioral tendencies that define personality. The 2008 study also does not contend that efforts to achieve equality alone create greater personality differences, but that prosperity also plays a huge role. Fortunately, we live in a world in which progressive societies prosper and prosperous societies – excepting a few oil rich nations – are progressive.

Another bombshell contained in the 2008 study: modern cultures are mostly changing and benefiting men’s personalities, not women’s. One theory offered to explain this finding is that industrialization has increased the relative power of men and acted to enhance male personality traits – in part because the benefits of industrialization do not flow as much to women, who are more restrained by the responsibilities of child rearing.

The authors’ alternative explanation is that the struggle just to survive in non-industrialized societies suppresses gender differences in personality. Where advances in civilization have made life easier, innately influenced male personality traits such as assertiveness, dominance, risk taking and affinity for innovation have flourished. It has been well documented that as progressive governments have broadened opportunities, environmental effects matter less in success and inherited traits matter more. An analogous physical phenomenon is the greater differences in height between men and women in more affluent cultures due to better nutrition and medical care. (But progress is not uniformly advantageous for men. Gender differences in blood pressure, non-existent is some agrarian economies, are highest where modernity has liberated men’s personalities to focus on career competition.)

The rise of more egalitarian societies and the decline of institutional and cultural barriers to opportunity are forces that should eventually equalize the relative opportunity each gender has for power and wealth. But the resulting changes in men’s personalities are creating new advantages for them that seem to be acting as a counterweight to the societal forces of equalization. To cite another of the authors’ analogies, in spite of laws equalizing opportunities in competitive track and field in the U.S., a far greater percentage of men cluster at the top – have times close to the best runners of their gender – than is the case for women. Men seem to respond to greater opportunity by becoming more competitive, and the result is greater clustering at the top. As Harvard Law Professor Lani Guinier said, "it is not enough to just add women and stir." We have to do more to help women be more effective in creating social change.

Palin may hinder electing other women.

Another in a series of paradoxes:
Like many people, I’ve trying to wrap my head around McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin, Governor of the forty-eighth state (in population) for twenty months. While many theories abound, my best guess is that trying to pick up Hillary supporters with a woman may have been only one of three of his motivations. Perhaps more important is that McCain is running against what he describes as a celebrity. Regardless of your political leanings, you have to admit that Obama blows away McCain in the charisma department. Palin has a magnetic charm, according to her opponents in the Alaska gubernatorial race, that makes voters love her regardless of her positions on the issues. Unlike Mitt Romney, people tend to believe her sincerity. Also significant is that Palin’s Pentecostal and right wing views amp up McCain’s previously tepid appeal to his party’s religious right base. As more details of her public and private life and of McCain's hasty vetting of her are revealed, however, it is clear that McCain was so desperate to shake up the race that he did not conduct the rigorous investigation to which Vice-Presidential candidates normally are subjected.

Even if McCain and Palin lose, and as long as Palin doesn’t make too many mistakes, there is a potential upside to her candidacy. It may encourage party bosses to put forward more women as candidates in the future under the assumption that they will charm voters. But there are a number of downsides, including that it may set back efforts toward getting more women into elective office.

The first is that her candidacy may reinforce the popular belief that there are no women with the intellect, experience and ideological beliefs that make them qualified to be President – with the exception of Hillary Clinton. After Clinton’s run fizzled in May of 2008, The New York Times could not find a political strategist able to name anyone else likely to be the first woman President. McCain touts Palin’s executive experience, which presumes he sought that in a running mate. If wanted a sitting woman governor, he had only one real choice: Palin. The other two Republicans are in Hawaii and Connecticut. Hawaii’s Linda Lingle is a childless, twice-divorced Jew. Connecticut’s Jodi Rell signed the bill making Connecticut the first state (not acting under court order) to allow gay couples to join in civil unions giving them all the rights of married couples. Rell does not have a college degree. That left him with Governor Palin, a former beauty queen with an undergraduate degree in journalism from a mediocre university (University of Idaho), whose prior political experience was as the mayor of a small town. Her first trip outside the U.S. was last year. If she has any foreign policy expertise, she’s keeping it a secret.

The second downside would continue the popular belief that it may still be impossible for a woman to be qualified to be President and at the same time not have high negatives with half of the voters. In other words, if you’re a woman with the intellect, drive and toughness needed to be President, many voters will find you to be unfeminine and scary. Thus, the parties may conclude that the only way a woman can become President is to follow the lead of George Bush and be perceived as being a congenial sort, a person the average voter could talk to casually and not find intellectually overwhelming.

For a candidate to not appear to be too intellectual usually means the candidate can't actually be extremely smart. But picking women without the best intelligence and perspective increases the chances that the female leaders of tomorrow will be what some feminists refer to as "social males" – women who simply adopt a patriarchal view of the world and perpetuate it in their words and actions. The problem is more acute in cases such as Palin's, where the good ole boys do the picking. In this sense, Palin’s bid is for women as Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court was for African-Americans.

The third downside comes if the Grand Old Party ultimately does not succeed in dumbing down the office in voters’ minds, and through McCain’s premature death in office at the young age of 73 puts a clearly unqualified woman in the White House. If she does not do exceptionally well, this may block the pipeline for women for that office for decades to come. (The 2005-2006 series Commander in Chief may have prophesied the future of McCain’s administration. In the series, a Republican President dies and his female Vice-President, regarded by some as not qualified to serve, takes over. Too bad ABC impeached it after one season. Otherwise, we could have seen more of how TV writers would imagine a Palin Presidency.)

(Update: Somewhat ominously, in her acceptance speech Palin compared herself to Harry Truman. Less than three months after becoming Vice-President, Truman became President when Roosevelt died. He had been a US Senator for ten years before that.)

At this point we should be so past the need to question whether a woman candidate for political office is qualified. In particular, we should not have to raise this question about a woman’s candidacy for Vice-President in the twenty-first century. If McCain had wanted a female running mate, he had several experienced Republican senators to chose from. There is no excuse for putting forward a woman whose lack of qualification causes people to say that she only got the job because she's a woman, as people are saying about Palin. NY Times op-ed columnist Gail Collins hopes that in the Vice-Presidential debate Biden will say to Palin (in a reprise of the 1988 debate), "I know Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a friend of mine, and governor, you’re no Hillary Clinton."

It is insulting to women to think that just putting a woman on the ticket, no matter her positions on the issues or her qualifications, will convince women to vote for a ticket that opposes equal pay legislation and other efforts towards women’s equality. It’s especially insulting when you realize how far behind the Republican party is in putting women in office, compared to the Democratic party. There are considerably fewer than half as many Republican women in Congress and in state legislatures as there are Democratic women.