The Next Steps for Redressing Unequal Pay

I don't normally blog on equal pay. It is for sure not an area of expertise. I did a short post two weeks ago for Fair Pay Day, because I was so struck by the tangibility of the day in April where men's and women's wages would be equal, and how that day is so close to Tax Freedom Day. But it really isn't an area I'm extremely knowledgeable about (as far as studies go), and I know that the notion of "equal pay" is often contested-- studies often come to conflicting conclusions, people often don't make their terms clear, and there are many different opinions as to who should get equal pay and what counts are equal pay.

These debates are not what this post is about. This is about the Fair Pay Act--the one that on the 23rd a motion to advance it was passed by a majority in the Senate, but didn't get enough votes to have a debate and vote scheduled on the bill itself. It's called the Lilly Ledbetter Act, and Suzanne Reissman has an excellent explanation about the history of the bill and what this bill is actually about--check it out here.

Regardless of whether you 'believe' that pay discrimination as a result of sexual identity exists or not, there is no reason not to support this bill--because the bill addresses the terms by which pay discrimination can be redressed--and if there is no pay discrimination, then the law won't need to be utilized!

The next steps for advocating this bill is to contact your Senators. See the National Women's Law Center for more information on pushing your Senator to get a debate and vote on the bill scheduled.

Keep Reading...

What's wrong with this article? Marriage and Taxes, part 2

Especially in light of my critique of 'marriage'-centric social organization, check out this article from CNN.com:

"Study: Single parents cost taxpayers $112 billion":

Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers more than $112 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by four groups advocating more government action to bolster marriages.

hmm...what's wrong with this so far? (hint: it's something to do with the premise of the article)

Ok, I'll tell you.

1. It implies that divorcees and parents who are unmarried are not 'taxpayers.'
2. Thus, it positions those not divorced or single parents--married people, single people (aka not-yet married), and married parents--as the 'ideal taxpayer-citizen'

And that's just the first paragraph.

Next:

Sponsors say the study is the first of its kind and hope it will prompt lawmakers to invest more money in programs aimed at strengthening marriages.

Could it possibly be that our social and economic structures heavily favor married parenting, and that's what needs to be investigated, rather than 'strengthening marriage'??

Two experts not connected to the study said such programs are of dubious merit and suggested that other investments -- notably job creation -- would be more effective in aiding all types of needy families.

...which is good, especially since I heard on NPR recently (I can't find the show reference! aah!) that divorce and income are correlated (and ya know, 'the sanctity of marriage' etc. is of utmost important to preserving 'traditional' --read: patriarchal capitalist --values).

There's more:

Scafidi's calculations were based on the assumption that households headed by a single female have relatively high poverty rates, leading to higher spending on welfare, health care, criminal justice and education for those raised in the disadvantaged homes.

Right, because there's a natural connection between single mothering and poverty, apparently, so we need to fix the 'single mothering' rather than, say, the 'feminization of poverty' or the socio-economic structure that perpetuates single-parent (mother) poverty.

See, there's two problems here with our socio-economic structure:

1. The assumption of two parents present and sharing a home. The model used to be male breadwinner/female domestic servant. Now, women are 'allowed' to have economic independence but continue to bear the homemaking burden.
   
2. Women are paid less money, plain and simple.
   

So in a single-parent family where that single parent is a woman, she's doubly screwed economically.

At the end of the day, the article--along with the study and those who commissioned it--assumes the natural and neutral center of American life (ought) to be marriage and specifically, married-parenting. Further, they conclude that we should tell people how they should structure their networks of association in their life because it would cost less in government expenditures and because they are deviating from some sort of arbitrary 'normal'. Sure marriage is the norm in American society; that doesn't make it natural. It's still an arbitrary primary structure of social relations.

Sure sounds like life, liberty, and all that jazz to me!

cross-posted to The Reaction

see my part 1 here

Keep Reading...

Thoughts on the Tyrrany of Marriage at Tax Time

I've seen a few articles over the last few days about taxes and inequality for lesbian and gay couples, due to the inability to get married, as well as straight couples who aren't married. Mostly, they are addressing the economic inequality faced by cohabitating queer couples who are legally unable to marry (in 49/50 states). Also, any tax allowances made for couples in civil unions at the state level don't apply to federal taxation.

I thought I would take this opportunity, then, to give a mention to what many times is overlooked in the Andrew Sullivan version of same-sex marriage advocacy (see his Virtually Normal): that economic dependencies and living arrangements are not internal to intimate relationships. In other words, just because the majority of economic relationships are intimate ones as well does not mean they have to be, and does not mean they are necessarily correlated conceptually. The way our social, economic, and legal policies have shaped the meaning of intimate and economic life informs the way that we think about structuring life. Take away those institutional expectations and rewards, and new possibilities are opened up for organizing the fulfillment of a variety of needs-- and perhaps in more productive ways.

In full disclosure, my Master's thesis involves gender norms as they are produced in marriage and through the interconnection of marriage, economics, legal decisions, liberal political theory of the founders, and citizenship, so my thoughts are referring to a body of research that cannot in any way be meaningfully replicated here.

I simply pose a few questions to chew on:

• Why do we assume intimate relationships must also involve economic dependencies and domesticity? Or rather, that if they don't, they are less socially valuable, are less fundamental to society than those who do.
• Why do we assume that the skills and qualities of an intimate couple are what makes the best or proper parents? This is especially relevant when oftentimes it is friendships, not intimate relationships, that end up being the life-long ones.
  
• What is marriage a (presumed) life-long relationship, characterized by economic dependency/support, cohabitation, emotional reliance, sexual fulfillment, and potential parenting partnership? Why do we assume that one person should be responsible to fulfill all these needs? And that we should assign civic identities and rights based on the collapse of these relationships into one?
• In what ways does the emphasis on marriage and coupling, especially in the same-sex marriage rights movement, neglect and further marginalize those who espouse other arrangements than the life relationships collapsed into one?
  
• Does the emphasis on same-sex marriage in LGBTQ advocacy render even more invisible and produce second-class citizens of queer folks who do not replicate heterosexual relationship norms of marriage/domestic partnerships?
• Finally, what is the function of marriage as a civic identity?

This last one is actually the question my thesis addresses, and it is a complex one. But thinking about it, and the other questions I pose, should make us question why our society rewards structuring both "private" and "public" spheres of life in terms of marriage and coupling and their affiliated expectations.

Sure, same-sex couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples. That's not where my argument is centered. I'm just not convinced that so many rights should be allocated based on intimate coupling, and the assumptions that go along with it (see bullet #3). I personally advocate that civic identity should not be premised on intimate relationships or on the way one structures one's relational life. I see a value in affording certain benefits for those who are in economic dependencies, but that those dependencies should be unrelated to intimate life.

Further, we can begin to think about the other possibilities for living than the only one provided to us when we shake the assumption that marital coupling is and should be the center of social organization. Hell, it may even allow us to think of ways to resist consumerism, financial strains, the emotional stresses of work-family balances. Sustainable living and embracing the Slow Movement become more practical and plausible ways to live. The dirty commie idea of communal living or intentional communities as a shared approach to solving certain daily needs can be more commonplace. But this is a threat to aggressive capitalism by solving problems and meeting needs outside of the capitalist marketplace and reducing consumption. This too, of course, threatens the tax base by creating fewer discreet households by redefining 'household'. Shaking the emphasis on the individualistic and atomistic ideal of marriage and coupling as the ultimate conflation of relationship needs can indeed challenge 'rugged individualism' that has harmed values of community and shared responsibility. Indeed, for me, challenging the place of marriage as the civic identity par excellance is deeply politically progressive.

Thus, I argue that aggressively advocating (same-sex) marriage (or alternatively offering rights to "marriage like" relationships) tends to imply that the marriage-based structure of rights and privileges is just fine "as is" (and I'm not even going to broach the gender normativity still (re)produced in marriage). Instead, I'd like to advocate for different solutions, beyond marriage.

recommended reading: Michael Warner's Trouble With Normal (on my amazon recommendations)

cross-posted to The Reaction

see my part 2 here

Keep Reading...

To Check Out: Shapely Prose

Just wanted to encourage you to check out Kate Harding's blog Shapely Prose that I just recently added to my blogroll. It's a very smart blog about "Fat Acceptance" and our general unhealthy relationship with our body, including the cultural disconnect between body size and health.

Of particular interest are these two features:

1. "Don't you realize fat is unhealthy?" tab at the top, where Kate smartly and wittingly lays "out ten principles that underlie pretty much everything I write about fat and health."
   
2. Illustrated "BMI Project"--also on a top tab-- is a must see. It is a slideshow with images of women labeled with their BMI category (i.e. 'obese,' 'underweight'). It is proof of the absurdity of the BMI standard and how its application has pathologized bodies through the medicalization of 'fat'.
   

If nothing else, at least check out those two features.
(NOTE: nothing more after the jump)

Keep Reading...

Check This Out: Economic Inequality @ The G-Spot blog

The G-Spot has had some really great posts over the last couple days about economic inequality, including the correlation between who does better economically under Democratic vs. Republican leadership that has nothing to do with who comes into power under what economic circumstance. Great reading.

Check them out!

(NOTE: nothing after the jump)

Keep Reading...

GOOD READ: Marginalized groups don't have the same experiences, but that doesn't make their fights invalid

Excellent post at Alas, A Blog about why comparing fat activism (or any other "lesser" discrimination) to anti-racism (or any other more "legitimate" discrimination) is misguided-that the fact that oppressions are different doesn't make any fights against oppression invalid.

But so what? Being Black is not like being fat is not like being female is not like being queer is not like being disabled is not like being Asian is not like being trans is not like being poor is not like being…

No marginalized group’s experience is exactly like any other’s. No one’s experiences are interchangeable. But the legitimacy of fat activists’ complaints doesn’t depend on us showing our experiences are exactly like the black experience, or the lesbian experience, etc..

Read the whole post here.

(NOTE: Nothing more after the jump)

Keep Reading...

Sicko and the Guerilla Girls

I ran across this Guerilla Girls poster, and I was reminded how the social welfare policies in the U.S. run counter to our rhetoric regarding POW's/"enemy combatants"...we defend ourselves as humane because we "take good care of" our "foreign" prisoners, providing them with food, shelter, and health care (as is so poignantly addressed in Michael Moore's recent Sicko), but how humane can we really be when we don't extend those same provisions to our own citizens? Some thoughts...

image credit: Guerilla Girls

From the post title you may think this is going to be a rant on advocating "national" or "government-run" heathcare for the U.S.: it's not. Discussions about private vs. government care tend to frustrate me to no end because arguments are often caught up in the specifics. I am not by any means an expert in Health Management. What I am interested in is social justice. And one scene from Sicko (below) and the Guerilla Girls poster I recently saw (above) both discuss social issues in terms of social justice, not policy specifics. Propose a policy, and I'll form an opinion on it and ask for yours. But please, don't make arguments "for" or "against" specifics of non-existent policies when we need to come to an understand about the concept at hand.

Namely, there is a problem in the U.S. with:

a) the incredible number of uninsured (and mostly middle-class!) people;

b) the denial of health services in order to maximize profit;

c) U.S. officials are quick to defend the treatment of prisoners, etc. (and rightly so, with all the scandal over torture and unjust treatment-they outta be defensive right about now!), yet what does it mean when the treatment they claim they are not giving to prisoners is what we inflict on our own citizens in the name of "free enterprise"!

What does it mean when we give more rights to "life" to criminals than we do our citizens? Whether we're talking about health care, food, or shelter...

So, I don't know if we should have "government-run" health care. But I'll say this: health care, in the U.S., as a for-profit system, has screwed the American public royally to the benefit of shareholders and campaign warchests-typically wealthier people who couldn't give more of a damn. Heath care should be a right of citizenship-not of employment, not of class, and not of marriage.

And we need to start talking to each other in this fashion when we talk about social welfare of any kind-not in terms of how it's abused and therefore inherently a bad idea. We need to start agreeing on the problems, and committing to their solutions, instead of denying the problems based on inadequate solutions.

(shameless plug for Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Democratic nominee hopeful who advocates universal health care. Oh, and did I mention he doesn't accept lobbyists' money?)

OK, so check this trailer from Michael Moore's Sicko, since I couldn't get the movie clip to work (the scene that was so moving for me was the one where he determined that the only place in America where you are guaranteed quality health care is....Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and took the 9/11 volunteers who weren't getting their medical needs me to Guantanamo Bay, to ask for the same care the "terrorist" detainees were getting. Made. me. cry.)

Keep Reading...