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Women’s Rights
Using Feminism to Understand White Male Privilege
About a week ago I stumbled on this tumblr page, white guys doing it by themselves. I thought it was the perfect satirical commentary on the patriarchal “white male” culture we live in. As I found out after posting a link to the site on Facebook, some of my fellow law students (specifically, white males) did not think so. They all agreed that our culture should be about promoting diversity, but they didn’t agree with how “anti-white male” everything has become.
It seems as if whenever women or other minority groups make strides, it is at the cost of the “white male” majority. The baselessness of this argument is perfectly demonstrated in the article, “How Feminism Hurts Men” by Micah J. Murray.
What bothered me most about my fellow students commentary was that they didn’t understand my point: it is not about being a white male, it is the ideology of white male privilege. As Zillah Eisenstein states, “The phallocratic standard in Western industrial societies is white, middle-class male.” Historically, this is fact – whites have always been in more power-filled positions, and this includes white females, like myself.
I think the first step to moving forward is admitting this to ourselves – colorblindness and genderblindness are not the answer. In order to successfully move away from white privilege and towards a society where we can learn to appreciate each other’s differences, we have to accept that the structural inequalities in place position white males at the helm. As Peggy McIntosh states, “To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions.”
This is not to say that I, or feminism, are “anti-(white) male;” many people have the perception that feminism is about man-hating. Why does it have to be one or the other? Why must we sacrifice the rights of one group in order to elevate the other? Feminism is about human rights, not necessarily women’s rights – we are all a combination of different races, sex/gender, religion, economic status, and more. Feminism is about learning to appreciate those differences in ourselves and in others.
I told all of this to my fellow students, and I hope we (as whites) can become aware of our privilege and learn to use it to change the system of inequality we currently live in.
Janet Yellen before the Senate Banking Committee
If you happen to follow the Federal Reserve, then you are aware that Ben Bernanke’s tenure at chair of the Fed will be up soon. President Obama has nominated Janet Yellen to the post, making her the first woman nominee. There doesn’t appear to be too much push back from the Senate, and in all likelihood she will be confirmed as the first woman chair of the Fed. You can read a good description of the hearing, including Yellen’s articulation to her intention to continue QE3 into the future, here.
It’s worth noting that, despite the obscurity of the position, the chair of the Federal Reserve is probably the most influential person in the U.S. economy, in many ways much more influential than the President or Congress. In that regard, I think you could classify this breaking of a glass ceiling on par with Nancy Pelosi becoming the first woman Speaker of the House.
What do you, dear readers, think of Yellen as a pick? A victory for modern feminism? Smart/ disastrous continuation of the Bernanke policies? Sound off in the comments.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Legal Barriers to a Women’s Equality
On Monday, October 28, Texas District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that new abortion restrictions passed by the Texas Legislature were unconstitutional, despite the Texas attorney general’s office’s argument that the law works to protect both the life of the mother and her fetus. Judge Yeakel reasoned that doctors in abortion clinics should have the right to do what they think is bets for their patients and that the restrictions would place further restrictions on women’s access to abortion clinics.
Only a few days before, on October 24, Above The Law broke news of a memorandum from Clifford Chance, a New York law firm that lays out how a female attorney should dress, act, and speak while on the job. The memorandum was leaked by a female associate and recipient of the memo, commenting that, “[F]emale associates are very upset by not only the elementary nature of the tips themselves, but the suggestion that these would only apply to women. We have never been a very female friendly firm, but this is beyond the pale.” Among the many topics covered in the 5-page memorandum, quite a few stand out for their ignorant devotion to stereotypes: “Don’t giggle; Don’t squirm; Don’t tilt your head; Practice hard words; Wear a suit, not your party outfit; No one heard Hillary the day she showed cleavage.”
Clearly, it appears that while women have made huge strides in gaining legal control of their minds and bodies, they have also continued to be subjected to gender stereotypes that demean and perpetuate structural inequalities within our society. And in particular, women in the legal world continue to be expected to walk the fine line between being a “career woman” and having power, AKA being more like a “man,” while at the same time maintaining “traditional” ideals of feminism, docility, and passivity, AKA being like a “woman.” In this culture, if we (as women) want equality we have to act like men, but if a woman acts too much like men in terms of aggression, drive, and passion, she is seen as a “bitch.” This memorandum perfectly exemplifies the oh-so-impossible line that gender stereotypes provide and the sheer impossibility of being a woman that has it all.
So, what can be done about such a deeply-embedded and traditionalized mentality about gender in the workplace, and in the larger world?
First, never think that stories like that in Texas are the norm. Women are always fighting for the means to be free in a man’s world, and making one stride is just winning the battle, not the war.
Second, as a female, don’t be afraid to speak up: so many times we are told to silence who we are in order to become who we think society wants us to be. Being strong, confident, independent, and goal-oriented does not equate to being a bitch or “manly;” it equates to being a confident, independent, and goal-oriented human being.
Lastly, female attorneys are just as capable as male attorneys – to demean and degrade them by sending such a blatant display of sexism is something that has no justification. Women should not have to live up to male standards, they should be able to create their own. As future male and female attorneys, we have to be willing to see these obvious displays of misogyny and patriarchy, and begin to fight back. Instead of taking one step forward and two steps back, we should be continuously moving towards a world without patriarchy.
Feminism is Fiscally Conservative
This may surprise some people, but for most it’s a no brainer: having a baby is more expensive than taking birth control. When you multiply those expenses nationally, these savings can be even more substantial. However, because rights to access birth control and contraception are constantly being challenged and eroded in some states, tax payers are paying the higher costs associated with unplanned pregnancies, rather than for preventative measures.
According to a new report compiled by Guttmacher, in 2008, 2 of 3 unplanned pregnancies resulted in births that were publicly funded, and the combined cost of all those births was $12.5 billion. Overall, more than half (65%) of births that were paid for by public insurance programs were the result of unplanned pregnancies. The study contends that this is the result of low access to birth control and abortion for poor women in states that spend a significant amount of money paying for prenatal, hospital, and post birth care for unplanned children.
Keep in mind that these costs do not take into account later, taxpayer-funded government care, like public school and food stamps.
The study also states that in the absence of the publicly funded family planning effort, the annual public costs of births from unintended pregnancy would have been twice as high — $25 BILLION.
As Erin Gloria Ryan from Jezebel adeptly points out, “the public must either bear the cost of preventing pregnancy, bear the cost of unplanned pregnancy, or allow poor women to bleed and die in the street. Which one is the most pro-life and fiscally conservative?”
When women want access to birth control and other medical services, it’s in the best interest of the country that they have that access. People, regardless of whether or not they can afford children, are going to have sex; and if a person doesn’t want a child, why make them have one? Therefore, a person who believes in freedom from government interference and fiscal responsibility then has the same goal as a feminist: allowing all women access to choice.
The study can be reviewed here: www.guttmacher.org/pubs/public-costs-of-UP.pdf