The "Grievance Industry"
18/4/14 12:26![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsMany years ago, just after the end of Reagan’s first term, I was listening to a local Talk Radio host, Ronn Owens, doing a sort of “summing up” of the Reagan administration so far. He brought up Reagan’s question, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” and he said, “I gotta tell ya. Yes, I am. And everyone I know is better off too.”
Ronn invited his mostly white, middle-class listeners to weigh in. One after another they lined up to chirp about how well they were doing in Reagan’s America.
Then, he got a black caller, who informed the host, “I’m not better off. I’m not better off at all. In fact, things have gotten worse. And I don’t know one single black American who’s not doing worse.”
“Oh now sir,” Ronn said, with the air of someone calming down a hysteric. “don’t you feel you’re being a little myopic?”
I guess the farsighted, non-myopic approach would have been for the caller and all those other black Americans to think happy thoughts about how well Ronn Owens and the other white folks were doing, rather than focusing on their own petty concerns.
There has long been in the United States mainstream the unspoken assumption that a poor, female, gay, non-Christian or non-white person voting in his or her own interest is a form of whining rather than common sense, even though the stakes for these voters tend to be higher than the concerns of wealthy folks who don’t want to pay those extra taxes that could price them out of that second house in the Hamptons. The rule of thumb is, apparently – if you have a real grievance influencing your vote, like “I could lose my healthcare if the Republicans have their way” or “I could end up unable to afford birth control or unable to get access to an abortion” or “As a black American, I don’t want a guy who’s taking advice from Charles Murray deciding policy that’s going to affect my kids” or “My family could go hungry” or “I could end up in jail for having consensual sex with another adult” or “this guy wants to pass legislation that would endanger my right to vote” you are part of the “Grievance Industry.” And that’s a bad thing.
This attitude has recently been kicked into overdrive by the passing of ACA. The right wing is now in full panic mode over the horrifying discovery that people like being able to afford healthcare and are not going to like having that access taken away. Worse, these same people will actually vote in favor of their own physical and civic well-being. The right seems to think this is awfully unfair, and they believe it’s even more unfair for Democratic politicians to point out to these voters how much is at stake.
Joan Walsh at Salon puts it beautifully:
So let me make sure I understand. Telling your voters, accurately, that Republicans are trying to make it harder for them to vote, and are blocking action on pay equity, the minimum wage and immigration reform is unfair “grievance politics”? Likewise, any effort to deal with the scandal of $1 trillion in student loan debt? Oliphant compares it to the grievance politics practiced by Republicans under Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. But that form of grievance politics mainly relied on inflaming white voters’ fears of cultural and racial change with false or highly exaggerated claims about Democrats. (emphasis added.)
The difference between accusations that are accurate and accusations that are highly exaggerated or quite simply untrue is apparently unimportant, as far as some in the media are concerned.
I mean really, it’s all about whether or not they make people get all emotional. All that arm-waving and emoting about “I want to cast a ballot” or “I want my heart medication” or “I don’t want to end up homeless after my unemployment benefits run out” is JUST like those Republicans who said that black people were going to take over and John Kerry didn’t deserve his medals and gay people were going to kidnap your little boy and marry him. So vulgar!
Why can’t people directly affected by these policies stop horning into conversations that should really be conducted as abstract conundrums over cocktails at a DC reception?
*
Ronn invited his mostly white, middle-class listeners to weigh in. One after another they lined up to chirp about how well they were doing in Reagan’s America.
Then, he got a black caller, who informed the host, “I’m not better off. I’m not better off at all. In fact, things have gotten worse. And I don’t know one single black American who’s not doing worse.”
“Oh now sir,” Ronn said, with the air of someone calming down a hysteric. “don’t you feel you’re being a little myopic?”
I guess the farsighted, non-myopic approach would have been for the caller and all those other black Americans to think happy thoughts about how well Ronn Owens and the other white folks were doing, rather than focusing on their own petty concerns.
There has long been in the United States mainstream the unspoken assumption that a poor, female, gay, non-Christian or non-white person voting in his or her own interest is a form of whining rather than common sense, even though the stakes for these voters tend to be higher than the concerns of wealthy folks who don’t want to pay those extra taxes that could price them out of that second house in the Hamptons. The rule of thumb is, apparently – if you have a real grievance influencing your vote, like “I could lose my healthcare if the Republicans have their way” or “I could end up unable to afford birth control or unable to get access to an abortion” or “As a black American, I don’t want a guy who’s taking advice from Charles Murray deciding policy that’s going to affect my kids” or “My family could go hungry” or “I could end up in jail for having consensual sex with another adult” or “this guy wants to pass legislation that would endanger my right to vote” you are part of the “Grievance Industry.” And that’s a bad thing.
This attitude has recently been kicked into overdrive by the passing of ACA. The right wing is now in full panic mode over the horrifying discovery that people like being able to afford healthcare and are not going to like having that access taken away. Worse, these same people will actually vote in favor of their own physical and civic well-being. The right seems to think this is awfully unfair, and they believe it’s even more unfair for Democratic politicians to point out to these voters how much is at stake.
Joan Walsh at Salon puts it beautifully:
So let me make sure I understand. Telling your voters, accurately, that Republicans are trying to make it harder for them to vote, and are blocking action on pay equity, the minimum wage and immigration reform is unfair “grievance politics”? Likewise, any effort to deal with the scandal of $1 trillion in student loan debt? Oliphant compares it to the grievance politics practiced by Republicans under Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. But that form of grievance politics mainly relied on inflaming white voters’ fears of cultural and racial change with false or highly exaggerated claims about Democrats. (emphasis added.)
The difference between accusations that are accurate and accusations that are highly exaggerated or quite simply untrue is apparently unimportant, as far as some in the media are concerned.
I mean really, it’s all about whether or not they make people get all emotional. All that arm-waving and emoting about “I want to cast a ballot” or “I want my heart medication” or “I don’t want to end up homeless after my unemployment benefits run out” is JUST like those Republicans who said that black people were going to take over and John Kerry didn’t deserve his medals and gay people were going to kidnap your little boy and marry him. So vulgar!
Why can’t people directly affected by these policies stop horning into conversations that should really be conducted as abstract conundrums over cocktails at a DC reception?
*
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 15:52 (UTC)Women are over-represented in some industries, medicine, HR, education/child development for example, and under-represented in risk-intensive trades like crab-fishing. Any aggregate graph looking at the genders as a whole is going to be effected by this disparities.
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 16:12 (UTC)Please.
A specific graph.
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 16:28 (UTC)But this one from the wikipedia entry for
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 16:31 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 16:33 (UTC)Most of them, including the president's 77% claim (http://www.whitehouse.gov/equal-pay/myth#top).
But this one from the wikipedia entry for "Gender Pay Gap" in particular.
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 16:40 (UTC)I ask because when I have looked closely at these kinds of statistics, (like those compiled for the census) the breakdown tends to be quite specific. Far from merely comparing barristas to crabbers, they compare the salaries of people working the same jobs within the same industries, and yes, in many the disparities remain. The fact that toting it all up results in an overall income disparity does not mean they are equating crab fishermen with people working the counter at Starbucks. It does mean that income disparities within various fields are consistently lopsided enough to affect the stat when they're all compiled as a group.
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 16:59 (UTC)Err yes it does.
Unless the gender distribution of a given trade is even, that trade will weigh the average towards one side of the graph or the other. Crab fishermen are predominantly male as such fluctuations in fishing income effect the male income average more than the female. Likewise if Starbucks employees are predominantly female changes in Starbucks wages will naturally effect the female average more than the male. If (for the sake of argument) there are 2 male welders for every female welder an increase in welder's wages will have twice the effect on male average income that it does on female average income.
Seriously, this is high-school level algebra, it should be obvious and intuitive.
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 17:28 (UTC)No, sorry, it doesn't, as anyone who has actually compiled statistics will tell you. And no, it's not "high school algebra." Statistics are actually more complicated, as professional statisticians (including those who compile and analyze census figures) are aware.
As for male and female dominated industries, part of the problem is that the salaries tend to be higher in male dominated fields than the salaries in female dominated fields. And even within female dominated fields, women's pay tends to be less than men who work within those fields.
"Within the 20 most common occupations for women, median full-time weekly earnings for women range from $1,086 per week for ‘registered nurses’ to $379 per week for ‘cashiers’ (Table 1). Women earn less than men in each of the most common occupations for women (these calculations include full- time workers only). The gender wage gap is largest for ‘retail salespersons,’ with a gender earnings ratio for full-time work of 67.5 percent (corresponding to $234 dollars less per week for women) and for 5 ‘financial managers,’ with a ratio of 70.1 percent (corresponding to $454 less per week for women)."
A link to the PDF showing these tables can be found here:
http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/the-gender-wage-gap-by-occupation-and-by-race-and-ethnicity-2013/
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 18:16 (UTC)Statistics are actually more complicated, as professional statisticians (including those who compile and analyze census figures) are aware.
Actually, no they aren't. It is the manipulation of statistics to support predetermined conclusions that is complicated.
To illustrate...
A cursory examination of your source and your source's source, the US Bureau of Labor Satistics, shows that the average hours for a "full-time" worker are 35.4 hours a week for women and 41.3 for men.
As such the obvious conclusion is that if women were serious about equality they'd get off their collective-asses and work more overtime. Otherwise, if we disregard time-and-a-half, "equal pay" would still result in an income ratio of approximately 86 cents on the dollar. That's most of your "Gap" right there. Oddly enough the pdf you linked makes no mention of this.
I wonder why. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 18:48 (UTC)It's not "shifting the goalposts" to ask you to back up your contention that the people who compiled the figures behind this graph did nothing more than compare barristas with crab fishermen.
What I had in mind was something akin to what I posted to you -- a detailed graph which, IF what you claimed was true -- would line the incomes of male crab-fishermen up next to that of female barristas and declare that evidence of male/female income disparity.
In fact, you know and I know that's not what happened.
s: A cursory examination of your source and your source's source, the US Bureau of Labor Satistics, shows that the average hours for a "full-time" worker are 35.4 hours a week for women and 41.3 for men.
Indeed. That's part of the problem, but not because women are a bunch of lazy bunnies who aren't "serious about equality" and are sitting on their "collective asses." It's because women tend to be the primary caregivers for kids. It's moms who generally end up with the kids when the dad walks, and moms have this funny thing about actually seeing their children, fixing their dinners, helping them with their homework, being home when the kid is sick, etc., etc.
That's why flexible and reasonable work hours are considered by many to be a feminist issue.
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 19:11 (UTC)I already did, but rather than acknowledge the touch you shifted the focus to a graph and source of your choosing. Don't get mad that I called you on it.
Indeed. That's part of the problem, but not because women are a bunch of lazy bunnies who aren't "serious about equality" and are sitting on their "collective asses." It's because women tend to be the primary caregivers for kids. It's moms who generally end up with the kids when the dad walks, and moms have this funny thing about actually seeing their children, fixing their dinners, helping them with their homework, being home when the kid is sick, etc., etc.
And if you were serious about closing the wage gap you'd be fighting tooth and nail to change this. There's no reason that fathers can not be primary caregivers more often, or for single women to not work just as much if not more than men.
Otherwise you can hardly ask employers to give special dispensation to one gender and not the other and NOT expect to see those factors reflected in wages and hiring decisions.
Anything else would be the exact opposite of equality.
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 19:31 (UTC)I shifted the focus to the information I'd asked you for in the first place.
paft: Indeed. That's part of the problem, but not because women are a bunch of lazy bunnies who aren't "serious about equality" and are sitting on their "collective asses." It's because women tend to be the primary caregivers for kids. It's moms who generally end up with the kids when the dad walks, and moms have this funny thing about actually seeing their children, fixing their dinners, helping them with their homework, being home when the kid is sick, etc., etc.
s: And if you were serious about closing the wage gap you'd be fighting tooth and nail to change this.
What makes you think we aren't?
s: There's no reason that fathers can not be primary caregivers more often...
All it takes is those fathers stepping up to the plate. We've been waiting for years for that to happen. Of course, doing that takes certain career sacrifices...
s: or for single women to not work just as much if not more than men.
No reason? Single parents shouldn't worry about being home at least part of the time to care for their kids? Staying home with them when they're sick? Helping them with their homework?
s: Otherwise you can hardly ask employers to give special dispensation to one gender and not the other and NOT expect to see those factors reflected in wages and hiring decisions.
I think all parents, men and women, should be given more leeway by their employers here.
You know, kind of like those Scandinavian countries we were talking about a few threads ago, where there's a strong social safety net, the average work week for both genders is 27 to 35 hours instead of forward, and people enjoy roughly one months worth of paid vacation a year, plus generous periods of paid parental leave?
Those countries you were citing as ever-so-hard-working. Remember that?
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 19:43 (UTC)And I provided it, not my fault you didn't like it.
What makes you think we aren't?
So I can expect prominent feminist publications and pundits to be voicing thier support for father's rights any day now yes? Or maybe holding idiot college girls responsible for thier own drunkenness?
No reason? Single parents shouldn't worry about being home at least part of the time to care for their kids? Staying home with them when they're sick? Helping them with their homework?
You already know the answer to this. Now is the moment to demonstrate the courage of your convictions. (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1851460.html?thread=146070084#t146070084)
Seems to me you want all the privilege and none of the culpability, in the end how does that make you any different from the "sexists" you claim to oppose?
(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 21:58 (UTC)Feminists have and will continue to voicing support for better parental leave policies, more reasonable hours and safter working conditions for both parents.
s: Or maybe holding idiot college girls responsible for thier own drunkenness?
What? Is this some obllique complaint about men being prosecuted for date rape?
s: You already know the answer to this.
Indeed I do. I know the correct answer is, "yes, a single parent, male or female, needs to be home and available to the kids at least part of the time, and our employment policies should reflect that reality."
The question is, what is YOUR answer? And linking back to my OP doesn't qualify as a substantive response.
s: Seems to me you want all the privilege and none of the culpability
What have I said to indicate this?
And by the way, I'm curious. Have you changed your mind about those "hardworking" Scandanavians?
(no subject)
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Date: 22/4/14 00:37 (UTC)I missed that specific part of the graph as well. I thought it was the wrong image link at first, but nope.
(no subject)
Date: 22/4/14 05:02 (UTC)I just explained why doing so is mathematically fallacious and misleading but apparently expecting numerical literacy and the ability to parse basic logic from the general population is a bridge too far.
(no subject)
Date: 22/4/14 05:35 (UTC)I'm unstung.
It's in the damn legend of the graph, and in the wiki article it links to
No it's not; and your link goes to the President's website. And some oblique reference to a Wikipedia "Gender pay gap" is pretty much a zero (and for what its worth, that section of the "gender pay gap" also clearly states there is an unexplained pay gap for women and some studies have shown discrimination could be a factor and in fact comparing apples to apples found examples of wage differences due to discrimination, but nothing mentioned about crab fisherman and barristas.
(no subject)
Date: 22/4/14 06:34 (UTC)If I had been trying to burn you I would have done so in the form of a silly .gif, preferably one with sparkles.
That said you do read english, don't you?
"US women's weekly earnings as a percentage of men's"
In a world where all trades paid the same, or the genders were equally distributed between trades, "women's weekly earnings as a percentage of men" might come close meaning something. But we don't live in that world so it doesn't.
Barristas and crab fishermen were simply one example out of many. I could have just as easily used school-teachers and auto mechanics, or any other 2 occupations with a lop-sided gender distribution to illustrate the same point.
Namely that Apples != Oranges.
ETA:
Using paft's own source cited here (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1851460.html?thread=146066500#t146066500), the average gap, once you start comparing apples to apples is actually less than 5%.
Maybe the president should get his own house in order (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/04/09/how-the-white-house-and-democrats-stepped-on-their-own-equal-pay-message/) before he starts telling others how they should run theirs.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 20/4/14 21:53 (UTC)Wikipedia article: Gender pay gap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap)
You are attempting to use political means to blot out some aspects of reality that you don't want to face. Inconvenient facts like female executives considered as a group typically working for companies that are, on average, smaller and worth ten percent less than the average worth of all companies. So tell everyone how it is "more fair" to rob people who work at more valuable companies and give their earnings to people who work at less valuable companies.
How about the problem of the average male executive being five years older, with five years more experience than the average female executive? Are you now going to tell us that it is "fair" to steal from someone who is older and who has more job experience and give that person's earnings to someone younger, with less job experience?
Face it: what is being advocated here is to use the political system to expropriate from people with one X chromosome so that the loot can be given to those with two. Your advocacy is just as prejudicial as you claim the condition you are trying to rectify is, if not more so, because it is, of necessity imposed in a manner that is even more arbitrary than the problem it supposedly addresses. It is idiocy on stilts, on its face. If the wage gap does not exist, and is merely an artifact of applying statistics to an horribly uncontrollable data set then your proposed "solution" is nothing more than self-serving crime masquerading as a "correction" for a problem that does not exist. If, on the other hand, there is a definite, identifiable, "wage gap" that is not arbitraged away by economic competition, then it must be the case that there is a detectable, nearly universal, even among women preference for hiring males at a higher wage than women, for whatever reason and identifying it's cause is merely self-serving speculation. At any rate, in this latter case, how do the redistributionists intend to use a system that functions ostensibly through preference, the political system, to correct a problem which they assert exists because of...wait for it...preference? It is a astonishing that "lib-progressives" could remain in ignorance about how "conservative-fundies" get elected. Pot, meet kettle.
It is understanding what politics is that let's people see why yes, there certainly are politically organized groups of men who probably really do want to pass laws keeping women, as a group, "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen." It's called collectivist, tribal warfare. When you make war, you get war. When you attempt to use the law to expropriate others because you have been unable to achieve something fairly, through voluntary cooperation in the market, others will use the law to expropriate you right back. Frankly, those who use the political process to expropriate others, male or female, are merely getting what they deserve when what goes around comes around. My objection is that those who do not want to use the political system to "play war" against others are suffering collateral damage. This is not to mention the capital consumption and economic market damage that results from indulging redistributionists in their gross moral onanism.
(no subject)
Date: 21/4/14 17:19 (UTC)Even within large companies, female workers tend to make less than their male co-workers in the same positions.
And presuming the claim about female executvies working for on average smaller companies is true -- why do you think that is?
m: How about the problem of the average male executive being five years older, with five years more experience than the average female executive?
Why do you think that is?
You spew words like a frightened squid spews ink.
(no subject)
Date: 22/4/14 05:05 (UTC)You already answered this with your own citation.
Because, on average, they work less hours.
(no subject)
Date: 22/4/14 15:33 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 22/4/14 20:05 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 23/4/14 15:40 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 23/4/14 17:16 (UTC)The average pay gap is approximately 5 cents per hour, disregarding things like time-and-half for overtime and differences in opportunity costs like vacation days, healthcare, workers' comp etc...
In short, your theory that women are being being paid significantly less than their male counter-parts due to pervasive misogyny or discrimination is simply not supported, and in some ways contradicted, by the data that you yourself provided.