Feminism redux - please read first post of thread

[DanteGabriel]

The issue of pay discrepancy (and women being paid less than their male subordinates) may become a hot news topic again. Jill Abramson, the first woman to be executive editor of the New York Times, has been abruptly replaced. By most accounts there were a number of issues on which she clashed with the publisher, but according to a writer at the New Yorker, unequal compensation was a major problem:

As with any such upheaval, there’s a history behind it. Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was “pushy,” a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect. Sulzberger is known to believe that the Times, as a financially beleaguered newspaper, needed to retreat on some of its generous pay and pension benefits; Abramson, who spent much of her career at the Wall Street Journal, had been at the Times for far fewer years than Keller, which accounted for some of the pension disparity. Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, said that Jill Abramson’s total compensation as executive editor “was directly comparable to Bill Keller’s”—though it was not actually the same. I was also told by another friend of Abramson’s that the pay gap with Keller was only closed after she complained. But, to women at an institution that was once sued by its female employees for discriminatory practices, the question brings up ugly memories. Whether Abramson was right or wrong, both sides were left unhappy. A third associate told me, “She found out that a former deputy managing editor”—a man—“made more money than she did” while she was managing editor. “She had a lawyer make polite inquiries about the pay and pension disparities, which set them off.”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/05/why-jill-abramson-was-fired.html

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

You can put the word "those" anywhere you want.

No you those can't, though I appreciate the later clarithosefication.

[TerraPrime]

The issue of pay discrepancy (and women being paid less than their male subordinates) may become a hot news topic again. Jill Abramson, the first woman to be executive editor of the New York Times, has been abruptly replaced. By most accounts there were a number of issues on which she clashed with the publisher, but according to a writer at the New Yorker, unequal compensation was a major problem:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/05/why-jill-abramson-was-fired.html

Didn't someone once assert that equal pay is there for the taking if only women would demand it? Was that person wrong?

[brook]

They just need to find a way to demand without being 'pushy'. Clearly.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Psht. It only counts if you actually get what you ask for, otherwise you didn't really want it.

[1918me]

Of course, men are the only ones logical enough to grasp such high-level reasoning.

[Tempra]

I am sure there is more to the story; for instance, the NYT claims Abramson's total compensation was 10% higher than her (male) predecessor. The devil is usually in the details.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/15/news/companies/jill-abramson-new-york-times/

ETA: Some numbers have surfaced:

Lets look at some numbers Ive been given: As executive editor, Abramsons starting salary in 2011 was $475,000, compared to Kellers salary that year, $559,000. Her salary was raised to $503,000, andonly after she protestedwas raised again to $525,000. She learned that her salary as managing editor, $398,000, was less than that of a male managing editor for news operations, John Geddes. She also learned that her salary as Washington bureau chief, from 2000 to 2003, was a hundred thousand dollars less than that of her predecessor in that position, Phil Taubman. (Murphy would say only that Abramsons compensation was broadly comparable to that of Taubman and Geddes.)

Murphy cautioned that one shouldnt look at salary but, rather, at total compensation, which includes, she said, any bonuses, stock grants, and other long-term incentives. This distinction appears to be the basis of Sulzbergers comment that Abramson was not earning significantly less. But it is hard to know how to parse this without more numbers from the Times. For instance, did Abramsons compensation pass Kellers because the Times stock price rose? Because her bonuses came in up years and his in down years? Because she received a lump-sum long-term payment and he didnt?

http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/05/jill-abramson-and-the-times-what-went-wrong.html

[Sparrowyn]

Sparrow, I'm having trouble parsing the sentence myself. Are you trying to say that women with successful careers who also have children have moved away from identifying themselves as feminist? Or are you saying that those women, who themselves may identify as feminist inculcate feminist values in their children who then reject the label? Something else?

As a woman with a (very) successful career in a (very) male dominated profession who also happens to have three children, I can only say that I have become more feminist and more comfortable identifying as such the further I get along in my career. Children don't figure in that except that I wish to be sure my daughters and son have the maximum opportunity available to them.

So am I (having trouble parsing my original post) now that I'm reading it again... typically I post here after getting off work in the morning, and my brain cells are tuckered out... I'm not always as articulate as I should be. :)

What I meant say, was that I think some women who are self-sufficient, establishing themselves in well paying careers, have children, etc, and who are feminists to some degree... feel alienated by the more hardcore feminism that surfaces in the news. I should have added that some women, at least in my circle of friends and family, have problems with one issue in particular as it relates to firebrand feminism... dare I use the 'A' word... abortion. If these feminism threads tend to get out of hand under the best of circumstances, I reckon a discussion about feminism and abortion is probably not a great idea. :)

[sologdin]

nah. right to terminate pregnancy is a basic component of liberal feminism.

[Lyanna Stark]

nah. right to terminate pregnancy is a basic component of liberal feminism.

Yup, there is nothing particular "firebrand" about taking a stand for women to decide over their own bodies.

Here I thought it had something to do with sparrowyn having a really bad experience of being chased through a dark alley by a group of TERFs or something, but it was nothing that exciting.

[Sparrowyn]

Yup, there is nothing particular "firebrand" about taking a stand for women to decide over their own bodies.

Here I thought it had something to do with sparrowyn having a really bad experience of being chased through a dark alley by a group of TERFs or something, but it was nothing that exciting.

Oh c'mon... the topic of abortion is far more complex than that.

There are a multitude of laws, often different from State to State, that regulate abortion. It's sort of an uneasy equilibrium that exists where nobody is very satisfied with the end result.

And as if it needs stating, I am for a woman's right to do what they please with their own body (including abortion), under most circumstances... but not all circumstances.

Do you hear that crunching noise?.. it's because I'm walking on eggshells. :)

[Robin Of House Hill]

And what might those circumstances be, where you aren't in favor?

[TerraPrime]

What I meant say, was that I think some women who are self-sufficient, establishing themselves in well paying careers, have children, etc, and who are feminists to some degree... feel alienated by the more hardcore feminism that surfaces in the news.

What examples of feminists surfacing in the news are you talking about? What's your definition of "hardcore" in relation to feminism?

You're making broad and unsubstantiated proclamations here, which doesn't really help any discussion. Define your terms and cite examples if you want to make a point about one segment of feminist movement alienating "mainstream" people.

[TerraPrime]

[mod hat]

Fair warning - discussion on abortion, in this thread, needs to be tied into feminism. General discussion on the morals and ethics and legal issues of abortion need to go find a new home. I will also encourage people to abstain from discussing one user's take on abortion.

[/mod hat]

[Winter's Knight]

Oh c'mon... the topic of abortion is far more complex than that.

There are a multitude of laws, often different from State to State, that regulate abortion. It's sort of an uneasy equilibrium that exists where nobody is very satisfied with the end result.

And as if it needs stating, I am for a woman's right to do what they please with their own body (including abortion), under most circumstances... but not all circumstances.

Do you hear that crunching noise?.. it's because I'm walking on eggshells. :)

That...doesn't make sense. Under what circumstances would taking away a woman's right to her own body be justifiable?

Is there some allignment of the planets some conjunction of Venus and Pluto when abortions cause tidal waves?

[sologdin]

Oh c'mon... the topic of abortion is far more complex than that.

There are a multitude of laws, often different from State to State, that regulate abortion. It's sort of an uneasy equilibrium that exists where nobody is very satisfied with the )

as abortion relates to feminism, it really is that simple. as you have described, it is a matter of many laws. that keys it squarely into the liberal feminist tradition of seeking redress through the traditional channels and institutions of public grievance.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

I think it is probably interesting to discuss the general fate of discussions of feminism in media. To say it is unsatisfactory is to flatter it. The media are actually quite little c conservatives and I have found the treatment often to be at best condescending.

[Mad Monkey]

I think it is probably interesting to discuss the general fate of discussions of feminism in media. To say it is unsatisfactory is to flatter it. The media are actually quite little c conservatives and I have found the treatment often to be at best condescending.

I think that a lot of media personalities, even ones that really probably should know better, hear the word "feminist" and imagine "Valerie Solanas". For me, it probably comes from the same mindset that you sometimes see on these threads, where people try to conflate feminism with some kind of female supremacist POV and suggest that people who 'merely' support equality should call themselves egalitarians or something.

[Lyanna Stark]

I think it is probably interesting to discuss the general fate of discussions of feminism in media. To say it is unsatisfactory is to flatter it. The media are actually quite little c conservatives and I have found the treatment often to be at best condescending.

We've had a switch happen here a few years ago. Now a lot of prominent journalists have come out as feminists and it's no longer a media faux pas to talk about it. I always got the vibe from the UK though that the media discourse is not at all the same and that it fits completely with what you are saying.

I don't know what decides it, whether it is a country's general level of equality, the leaders of media outlets or something else.

I think that a lot of media personalities, even ones that really probably should know better, hear the word "feminist" and imagine "Valerie Solanas". For me, it probably comes from the same mindset that you sometimes see on these threads, where people try to conflate feminism with some kind of female supremacist POV and suggest that people who 'merely' support equality should call themselves egalitarians or something.

Yes, either that or "Andrea Dworkin". She was a very famous scapegoat a couple of years ago for the "all sex is rape" comment which she hadn't even said (and neither did Catherine MacKinnon).

[Lummel]

I think it is probably interesting to discuss the general fate of discussions of feminism in media. To say it is unsatisfactory is to flatter it. The media are actually quite little c conservatives and I have found the treatment often to be at best condescending.

If it is conservative, then that is better than being reactionary. I was reading this about women artists being literally removed from history and that of course then implicitly creates the impression when you walk round an art gallery that women are not capable, because naturally one has an optimistic view that curators are neutral professionals rather than humans with the typical biases of their time and place. Or on another level this ie the past can't be appreciated for what it was if the viewer can't (or doesn't want to) escape the distorting lens of their own beliefs.

Having sworn my sacred oath on the Holy Beard of the Patriarchs I am naturally reluctant to to think that these kinds of things are deliberate and conscious, yet...

...Yes, either that or "Andrea Dworkin". She was a very famous scapegoat a couple of years ago for the "all sex is rape" comment which she hadn't even said (and neither did Catherine MacKinnon).

There's a series of articles currently online on the UK New Statesman (no planned change of title to Statesperson, or Citizen I suppose!) website revisiting the second wave authors, one of which was about Dworkin :

Dworkin is frequently caricatured as being anti-sex – she never said "all sex is rape" but it's the statement most commonly ascribed to her. What Dworkin actually attacks in Intercourse is the use of heterosexual sex as a method of terror. What she asks is whether sex under patriarchy can ever be anything else. However, the mischaracterisation of her is illuminating because it confirms something that Dworkin herself observes: so naturalised is the belief that possession is inherent to sex, so total the eroticising of male power and female vulnerability, that even to imagine sex on equal terms is to be deemed an enemy of sex...Dworkin is absolutely clear that a world in which rape and prostitution exist is one in which it would be delusional for women to mistake sex for liberation.

Longer extract spoilered for length and on account of language which in various places may well not meet the acceptable standards of gentility required in public discourse

"Critiques of rape, pornography, and prostitution are 'sex negative' without qualification or examination, perhaps because so many men use these ignoble modes of access and domination to get laid, and without them the number of fucks would so significantly decrease that men might be nearly chaste," she writes. And where this sexual domination intersects with racism, as Dworkin explores in the chapter Dirt/Death, the brutality multiplies.

Intercourse is a work in search of a way to free human sexuality from this cruelty – an especially intractable entanglement, because not only does sex take place within the patriarchal coding of men as superior and women as inferior, but furthermore, the individuals participating in the fuck understand it to reaffirm that structure whenever it takes place. When women are not seen as human, intercourse enforces their status as objects:

"In other words, men possess women when men fuck women because both experience the man being male. This is the stunning logic of male supremacy. In this view, which is the predominant one, maleness is aggressive and violent; and so fucking, in which both the man and the woman experience /maleness/, essentially demands the disappearance of the woman as an individual; thus, in being fucked, she is possessed: ceases to exist as a discrete individual: is taken over."

Some radical feminists have taken from Dworkin's analysis the belief that sex under patriarchy is always a form of submission, and must be resisted as such, and Dworkin sometimes seems to believe this too: "How to separate the act of intercourse from the social reality of male power is not clear," she says. But she also offers hopefulness for sex, and even more importantly, hopefulness within it. In her reading of James Baldwin in particular, she identifies the possibility of sex in which each party recognises the other as fully human and, rather than dominating the other, makes himself vulnerable (the sex in Baldwin is sex between men) to the peril of being known by another: "fucking can be a communion, a sharing, mutual possession of an enormous mystery." It is an ideal of sex as something not "taken" from another but shared with them, a moment of contact through which both parties can be changed. This is not some conservative call for the sanctity of monogamy. Instead, sex is sanctified as a moral exchange between two who may be partners or may be strangers, but who must recognise both each other and themselves as equal in humanity, and equally liable to be transformed through their intimacy.

All of which strikes me as very interesting, yet there is something iirc attributed to Voltaire, that he was happy to be a freethinker but wanted his servants to believe in God and to fear Hell so that they wouldn't steal the silverware, ie the implications of that kind of thinking go a long way and perhaps many would prefer to draw the curtains and pretend that there isn't a problem rather than think about what that means in their own lives and relationships. Big ideas from a different viewpoint can be threatening. Easier to be dismissive than to attempt to grapple with them. :dunno: