Blog #38: Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O’Connor was the first women appointed to the Supreme Court. When President Reagan said that he was going to appoint a woman to the bench no one really believed him. They just figured he said it to get elected, but when we was elected that he would sweep it under the bridge. He proved everyone wrong when he gave Sandra Day O’Connor a call in 1981. She said it herself that she more surprised than anyone to receive the call. After she graduated from law school Sandra Day O’Connor could not find a job that would pay her. She got her start by working for free in a small office that she shared with a secretary. Eventually, she had proved herself as a good lawyer and got a salary and an office of her own. She had not done any Federal work and she was just doing her thing in Arizona. She took the job though and said that she felt overwhelmed for the first year or so on the bench. Her whole staff was as green as she was. It was new to all of them. She had so much work to do with the mail alone and she had no idea about how the process worked and what she was supposed to do. She felt her way through it though and makes a great difference on the bench and to women everywhere. She opened the door for so many more women and put a huge crack in the glass ceiling that has been oppressing women for decades. Many people speak of Sandra Day O’Connor as the “swing vote” on the Supreme Court. Being the swing vote means that she was the deciding vote on a lot of issues. It was a topic that she did not like to speak of though.

Blog #37: ABA Report

There were similarities and differences between the report, Charting Our Progress, by the American Bar Association Commission and Holly English’s book, Gender on Trial. The first similarity was as simple as reporting on the presence of women in the law field. The accounted that the number on women as lawyers and who have graduated from lawyer has increased quite significantly. However, they also both reported that women are still facing many barriers in the profession and that a lot of these barriers stem for attitudes that have not changed. Both also talked of the stereotypes that are associated with women lawyers, such as, being too aggressive, too emotional, and too bossy. When these traits are attributed to male lawyers they are seen as good things instead of as negative attributes when applied to women lawyers. They are also talked down to by men in the law field by not addressing them correctly. The report and English’s book both talked of the family friendly policies that are available. The majority of the time these policies are unwritten. When women and men chose to exercise their right to use the policy they are ostracized and penalized. They are also seen as less committed to the job. The both expressed concerns with the billable hours that they are required to meet. This has caused some women to leave their positions. English went further by saying that women are more honest in their billing of hours. The report by the ABA stated concerns that gay and lesbian lawyers were facing; English tried to not get that diverse in the issue. Both the report and English stated that mentoring was very important and that more mentoring programs need to be adapted to the firms. Another similarity was to have more flexible hours for lawyers to be able to utilize. The report and the book were both very educational on learning what women, and some men, go through on a regular basis. It was also obvious that change needs to happen.

Blog #36: Talk of the Nation

Can corporate America lure women back into the workforce? I think corporate America can lure women back into the workforce; it is just going to take a lot of change and understanding. I personally do not see why any man or woman would want to work long hours and then be on-call 24 hours of the day. I understand that Americans are obsessed with success and money, but at what cost. What good is making all this money if you never get to go out and enjoy it? The NPR broadcast “Talk of the Nation” stated that Americans work on average 100 hour more per year than any other industrial nation in the world. I just do not understand why. One of the men who called in to NPR stated that he observed 25 measurable differences between men workers and women workers. Men are concerned with how to make money. The man said that men in general feel like they have an obligation to make more money. Women on the other hand center their work on achieving a balance. The balance women are looked for are: work, family, and having a life. Yes, the glass ceiling is still a problem, but fortunately it has lessened somewhat over the past years. Some people feel that women are forced, but the main consensus was that women opt out and do not want to make the sacrifices that are necessary to be on the top rungs of business. To get women to come back to the workforce businesses need to be more flexible and provide reduced hours. One gentleman said that doctors can still be good doctors if they work 40 hours to 70 hours instead of over a hundred hours a week. It is obvious that women bring great skills and talents to the job. The jobs that have women in the top positions are more successful than the jobs that do not. That should be enough of an incentive to make the necessary changes to get women to come back to work.

Blog #35: EEOC

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) submitted a document titled “Best Practices”. This document is not a binding document, but was writing to get business to go above and beyond the minimum requirements to promote work/family balance. The EEOC understands that there are so many more necessities for care giving that is required of employees. Most people only think of parents as being childcare providers. They tend to forget that the elderly need to be cared for and that falls to their children most of the time. There are also family members who are suffering from medical conditions, some of which are terminal. The document reminds employers that these caregivers not only work for pay, but when they clock out they are going home to work unpaid hours. I also like how the document from the EEOC mentions the recession and how providing for the family has fallen to a lot of the women because their husbands have been laid off. Now we have women working the double shift and only making ¾ the pay that their male counterparts are making. By making the work environment more family friendly will help to alleviates so much of the stress that caregivers are under. English also refers to the benefits that can be had by companies and firms that adopt more family friendly policies. To give that extra support their company will benefit in overall productivity and they will both earn more money and save money on lowering the turn-over rate. Both English and the EEOC document talk about how most of the care-giving duties fall to women. The EEOC goes further than English did and also extended that colored women do more of the care-giving then their white women counterparts. EEOC document stresses the importance that by making more family-friendly work environments it will improve the care-givers ability to “balance work and life”, which is exactly what English has been stressing throughout her book.

Blog #34: Unbending Gender

Joan William’s interview relates a lot to the material we have read in Gender on Trial. Even with the Family and Medical Leave Act there is a lot of discrimination going on that is related to the work/family balancing issue. Joan Williams speaks of women and men who have been penalized for taking care of a sick loved one. There were cases where the employee was assured that everything was fine and that it would all work out. She was assured that her job would still be there when she go back from being with and taking care of her premature daughter. Then out of the blue she finds out that her job has been terminated and her position has been filled. If she wants to come back and work for the company, then she has to apply for another job and take a lower salary. Then, there was the case of the State Trooper who could not get leave approved and had to keep going to work to get his pay check while his wife was struggling at home with the new born baby. Joan Williams also talks about her book Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What To Do About It (Oxford University Press, 2000). She describes what she means by the term “unbending” and I am glad they asked that question because I was unsure about what it meant as well. “Unbending” means that after all these years of women swarming the work force and having careers of their own, gender roles and expectations have not changed in the least, but instead there are more traits as to what is acceptable for females and what is acceptable for males.

In Gender on Trial, Holly English (2003) reflects on gender stereotypes that are associated with men and women lawyers which makes it hard to have both families and careers. Both English and Williams talk about the characteristics that males are faced with in the workplace. Men are expected to be the providers of the family. When a man expresses his interest in taking time off or reducing his hours to spend time at home with his family or to take care of the kids so his wife can go to work, he is met with questions of “Why?” and complete puzzlement as to his intentions. No one can seem to understand why a man would like to actually spend time with his family and know his kids. Both English and Williams also talked about how employees were penalized after they returned to work after a leave of absence or paternity/maternity leave. Clients were lost or responsibilities were taken away. Williams had some good ideas about how to make America a more family-work friendly place. She suggested prorating salaries for reduced hours, having more subsidies for childcare, and to have benefits for women who are working full-time in the home to take care and raise their children. Americans’ differentiate between “market work” and “family work”, Williams suggests providing benefits for the “family work” aspect of life as well.

Blog #33: Women Advancement

Women have been making their way up the advancement ladder for many decades now. Lawyers are no different. The first woman appointed to the Supreme Court was Sandra Day O’Connor. She was not considered to hold a very high esteem when President Reagan called her up in 1981. No one even knew who she was and she had no experience in a Federal Court System at all. In no way am I implying that Justice O’Connor did not hold her own because she certainly did. Sandra Day O’Connor got her seat on the bench because President Reagan said he would appoint a woman to the Supreme Court. This act opened up the door of opportunity for many women. We now have two women on the Supreme Court and there are women who head Fortune 500 companies and there are women partners in law firms. Women are making advancements in every occupation. The problem is that the number of women in these positions is still very low. Linda Tarr-Whelan stated in “Shared Leadership: The Value Women Leaders Bring,” that if women made up even 1/3 of the boards in America it would make a big difference in the economy and in society. This number, however, is only at 16%. Women have done everything they need to do to prepare and get the education they need to succeed. America just is not “utilizing their talents” (Linda Tarr-Whelan). Women face so many challenges in the form of stereotypes. It is okay for a man to be aggressive; he is just going after what he wants. When a woman is aggressive she is seen a hot-tempered and bitchy. If a woman shows empathy, then she is too emotional and cannot make the tough decisions that are necessary for her to make. When a man shows the same empathy, then he is sensitive and caring. This double standard is only succeeding in keeping women down. As Madeline Albright said, “it is harder to be a woman, then a man” (Madeline Albright on Policy, Sexism, and Politics).

Blog #32: Lawyer Parenting

There have always been differences in the way men and women parent their children and stereotypes associated with each gender. Women lawyers and men lawyers differ in parenting and thinking as well. When it comes to parenting it ultimately comes down to what the mother and father want out of their family relations and out of their careers. Women have been stereotyped as the care taker of children and domestic chores at home. With that stereotype in mind women lawyers have many decisions to make. If a woman lawyer goes after her career while she has kids than she is deemed as an unfit mother. How can a lawyer work long hours and be good at her job and be a good mother to her young children? The common thinking is that she cannot do both. If she goes the other way and wants to reduce her hours so she can spend time with her family and do her motherly duties than there is no way she can be a good lawyer too. It is common thinking that you cannot be both a good lawyer and a good parent. This also effects whether or not woman put pictures up in their office or if they decide to not even mention their family lives.

Men are playing on an entirely different playing field. If we go back to the stereotype of women being the care provider, then the men are the financial providers. When a man in the law profession gets married and has a child, then male colleagues welcome him into the “club” and assume that no he is going to work more hours and work even harder to provide for his family. But, when this same man decides that he actually wants to have a life outside the office and be a part of his children’s childhood then he received even more criticism than the woman lawyer. He is going against all the traditional roles men are expected to have. Why would he want to be a part of his kid’s lives? That is a woman’s job. His job is to work and put food on the table. English’s (2003) study showed that there are actually a lot more men out there who do want to be family men (and even if they are not family men she found that they want to have a life outside the office). These men are not free to express their views though. Instead of saying their child is sick so they will not be making it into the office; they just say they will not be in today. No explanation offered at all and none wanted.

Blog #31: Work/Family Balance

In almost every family you will find one or two parent households who are trying to juggling work, kids, school, and extra-curricular activities. The legal profession is no different. In the legal profession lawyers also have to worry about how they are perceived by colleagues and partners. The major problem that lawyers face in the work/family balance is their dedication. Their dedication is constantly under scrutiny and it also leads to feelings of resentment. There is a different feeling among men and women these days. This feeling is that money is not everything. If we were to go back a few decades then we would see a time when women were at home with the kids and the men were absent fathers whose only concern was to provide for his family. Now a day, fathers’ want to be a part of their children’s lives. They do not want to wake up one day to grown children who resent that their fathers were never around.

As a lawyer there is an expectation that you must be in the office 80 hours a week working on cases and racking up “billable hours” for the firm. When lawyers decide to deviate from this expectation and shorten their hours so they can be a part of their children’s lives, then they work more stable hours. One of the solutions proposed for lawyers who want to be involved with their families is to work part time. The problem with this is that when a lawyer goes down to part-time, they are not seen as “real” lawyers (English, 2003). They lose clients and their status in the firm. Another solution to the work/family balance problem was to allow flexible hours. This also leads to problems of dedication and work ethic. Most colleagues see a lawyer working scattered hours and they do not think that they are capable of getting the work done and being proficient. Even telecommuting was looked down upon because the partners or senior associates could not be standing over your should and see exactly what you are doing. It does not even seem to matter that faxes, emails, and phone calls are coming in regularly to show that work is being done even though the lawyer is working from home.

Blog #30: Shared Leadership

There are many different styles that people employ when they are in leadership positions. Some are good, some are bad, and some fall somewhere in between. One of the problems with our country is that we do not have many women in leadership positions yet. I think that gender expectations are the one of the main reasons why we do not have many women in leadership roles yet. The gender expectations are a direct result of gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes say that women should follow and not lead, be passive and not aggressive, that they are supposed to raise and take care of the family, not go out and do and bring home the bacon. All these stereotypes contribute to America’s apprehension to put women in power, leadership roles. With these stereotypes come the expectations. Americans’ expect women to fold under pressure and to not be able to make the tough military/war decisions that men are able to make. When women go against the norm and take charge, then they are seen by others as trying to be a man. The qualities that are attributed to being a good leader in a man are negative in a woman. Aggression is seen as having a bad temperament instead of going after what he wants when it is applied to a man. The statement made in “Does Gender Matter: Are Women Leaders Different?” that says because we do have women in high power positions (even though it is a rarity) we “miss them where they aren’t”. These statement hits the nail on the head. I know that for me personally, I feel like we have come a long way in this society. Women are breaking out and making a difference. They are going places they have never been and they are proving that they are competent and capable beings. The problem is that when you look at the statistics we have not come as far as I have previously believed.

Is it possible to attribute positive and negative outcomes to the leadership qualities of men and women? In my opinion, that diminishes everything this class is trying to teach us and make us aware of. We know that there are sensitive men in the world, just as there are aggressive women in the world. Applying certain characteristics and behaviors to them just continues the gender expectations and keeps women oppressed with the double standard they are trying to overcome. We know that men are women are different and that they bring different experiences to the table. I tend to like the way Linda Tarr-Whelan stated her opinion on the matter in the “Shared Leadership: The Value Women Leaders Bring” video. That was that men and women need to come together and lead together. The pipeline myth says that if we get women in the lower tiers of the work force that they will have to be promoted to the higher tiers, but that is not the case. Women have already proved that they are talented and educated, but that is not getting them to the top. They keep hitting that glass ceiling and cannot get any higher. If we get those high power women to leadership positions then they will be able to “move the whole women agenda forward” (Tarr-Whelan). Linda Tarr-Whelan gave a couple of reasons why a shared leadership would be beneficial to America. These reasons include: more money for companies, better economy in general, and more advancement opportunities. Madeline Albright said it correctly when she said that it is harder to be a woman than to be a man. There are sexist comments that are still made in the work place and the worse thing is that they are still tolerated. The comments do more than diminish morale; they also give women the wrong perception on other women. Women tend to judge women harder than the men do. If women and men work together to lead our nation, businesses, companies, schools, and everything else, then we would see improvements everywhere. Each will bring knowledge and experience to the issues and there will be a balance to it. I think that the leadership styles that are the best are those that come from androgynous leaders, those who display both male and female attributes.

Blog #29: Minority Women Lawyers

Four percent of all lawyers are minorities, even less than that are women. The retention rate for keeping minority women at law firms is low. There are many reasons as to why minority women do not stay at their first place of employment. Most minority women experience “exclusion, neglect, and harassment” according to “Why So Few Minority Women Stay at Law Firms”. I can see why minority women would choose to find employment in another establishment. For example, a Korean woman was invited into a meeting with a Korean man so she could see someone who shared the same ethnic background as him. The Korean woman did not play this game though and told the client that he probably speaks better English than she speaks Korean. A lot of the women explained that it can be exhausting to have to endure these biases and stereotypes and that in a lot of the cases it is not even worth the trouble to try and fix the problem. These women prefer to put in the resignation and look for a job somewhere else. There is more to it than using these minority women as buffers with clients or to prove that the law firm is diverse; one woman was asked to sit in a meeting because she was both a minority and a woman and the client did not think that the law firm was diverse. She was a token and used to better than image of the law firm. Most of these women also state that they were subjected to racial jokes and innuendos. One Native American lawyer was asked continually where their tomahawk was and if he/she was going to scalp the employee. When people are subjected to these stereotypes regularly it weighs on them. No one would want to work in an environment like that. Instead of turning the other cheek they decide to turn to another company. Companies lose so much money because they cannot retain their lawyers. Now they have to recruit and re-train more employees who will probably end up leaving for the same reason and the whole ugly cycle continues.

Blog #28: Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor’s behavior as a 2nd Circuit Judge was unfair to say the least. The article hit we read hit on all the gender stereotypes and double standards that are out there for men and for women. Sonia Sotomayor was characterized as being temperamental and that her temperament was wrong to serve on the Supreme Court. The same temperament that is seen on men was looked at with praise and efficiency. With Sonia Sotomayor, however, the same temperament was labeled as being hot-headed and bitchy. Every quality that has been associated with men candidates was looked at with esteem and was considered a great quality to have. You take those same qualities and attribute them to a woman, not only a woman, but a minority woman and those once great qualities are now looked at with disdain. It was also being attributed to her being of Puerto Rican descent; the fiery Latina women. Sonia Sotomayor’s competency was also questioned extensively. Anonymous quotes were taken and reported saying that Sotomayor was not a smart women. It is more than just quoting someone. These quotes were taken out of context and what was meant as a statement of praise got turned around to discredit Sonia Sotomayor. When the truth came out and the actual quote was printed in its entirety the author did not even offer a rebuttal or an apology. I do not see how this can even be question considering Sonia Sotomayor’s credentials. To be make it out of the projects in the Bronx, to earn a law degree from Yale and graduate summa cum laude from Princeton speaks for itself. How can anyone say that she is not smart? After all these decades of women proving that they can make it in the “man’s world” and that they are as qualified, if not more qualified, then men to practice law you would think that this double standard that is applied to women would have fizzled out years ago.

Blog #27: Competency Gap

Women have come a long way in closing the competency gap. There are still many way, however, that are linked to holding women back. One of the main issues that women have to battle is their dedication. Women have always been seen as the family care giver. Men have always been seen as the providers. This gender stereotype puts a negative stigma on women in the law field. If a woman wants to have a family, then they are categorized as not dedicated enough and they get ostracized from their colleagues. To avoid being ostracized women will hide a pregnancy or not talk about their families at work. Women lawyers have also expressed feelings that they have to work harder than the men to prove their competency and they always have to be more prepared then the men. Men are seen as competent just because they are men. Women are evaluated on a different standard as well. If a woman is too laid back and soft spoken then she is labeled as not being intelligent. If she goes the opposite direction and is overly aggressive then she is seen as a bully and people say she trying too hard. Women lawyers also have to deal with view that because they are women they are not capable of being leaders. Laureen Shaffer, formerly of General Electric, is a perfect example of this. She has worked for years to prove herself as competent and able. She is now suing the company for gender discrimination because GE promoted outside the company when she feels she deserved the position (NPR, 2007). Women lose networking resources due to the competency gap as well. Men tend to associate with other men and women with women. Seeing how law is a male dominated field it provides an unbalance for women. Men give clients and cases to other men that they go golfing with and get drinks with. Men use different strategies to win cases over women. Some of these strategies are to talk over a woman so she cannot get a word in. Other men try to make women look incompetent in the court room. I enjoy the stories that some of the women lawyers tell of being underestimated by their male counterparts and when the right time arises they strike and quiet the men.

Blog #26: Men Help Women

How do males assist women lawyers? I find myself pondering this question and wondering if I am going in the right direction. I think that this goes back to the common thoughts of 30 years ago when most people asked if women were capable of being lawyers (English, 2003). For the most part this type of thinking has been eliminated. Some men see that women get asked to get food and serve coffee because they are women. These men take the initiative and stand up and say that they will do it. This act helps to even the playing field, but there is still the perception of some that the women should be serving the men while the men do they law work. Some men reinforce what a female lawyer has already stated to get a client or co-worker to go with the suggestion. This also points to law as being a gendered organization because women are not seen as being as competent as men, so whatever they say has to be backed up by men, even if these men are not as experienced as the woman. A gendered organization means that the practice of law is a male dominated job and that women are still trying to prove that they can do it too. There are some male partners who know the importance of having women lawyers. They know that women bring something different to firm and have gone out of their way to ensure that a female lawyer will be hired. This points to the law as being a gendered organization because these male partners have to bend over backwards to get women hired. He has to prove to other male partners that women are capable and are intelligent and that they can do the job just as well or better than some of the males. With men there is a given that they can do anything, but women have to continually prove themselves. One error and they are getting the boot and all credibility is lost. There are also senior associates who will mentor female associates and help them to learn the ropes and how to handle challenges that they may face.

Blog #25: Sexual Behavior

As with any weapon you must be careful how you use it. That is no different from using sexualized behaviors to help you achieve your goals or get a decision to go your way while working as a lawyer. Some female lawyers will flirt with colleagues or clients to get what they want. They can sense how people are responding to them and can turn on and off the charm when they see fit. This can be a good thing because it allows the woman to get the reaction she wants, but it can be a bad thing because it puts her skills in questions. Colleagues can see this female lawyer using charm and flirting to get what she wants and not her lawyer prowess, which puts her abilities under scrutiny. Another pro is that using your sexuality gives you an advantage. The problem with this approach is that if you use it too much or if you do not regulate it well, then you give the impression that that is the only thing you have going for you. Some women use their fashion style to get ahead. These women know that if they have a male judge or if a jury member is watching that they can shorten their skirt or show a little more cleavage to get the people to rule in their favor. Again, this can also diminish how the woman is seen. Other people can see her as not being intelligent and that is why she is resorting to “showing skin”. The media portrays female lawyers as being second to males. They are always beautiful and wear the latest fashions. The movie that comes to mind for me is “Law Abiding Citizen”. The female lawyer, Megan, is second to Jamie Foxx’s character. She is young, attractive, and dresses in clothing that shows off her body. The beginning of the movie shows Foxx having to convince their boss to let Megan take lead on a case.

Blog #24: Advice

All the advice articles that I read for women lawyers revolved around one piece of advice: do not give up. They center on the fact that there are a different set of rules out there that women have to follow. In no situation does the advice for these female lawyers say that it will be easy sailing. It was quite the opposite actually. In “Advice for Female Law Students About to Graduate”, it tells these lawyers that they are going to have to overcome so many more obstacles than they ever thought they would have to (Law Vibe, 2008). Law Vibe goes further by telling these soon to be graduates that they have the power to change the law profession. That if they do not like the way a policy or situation is then they have the power, skills, and knowledge to change it. Law Vibe tells them that they are going to be subjected to “overt discrimination and /or some form of under evaluation” and that it is up to them to change it. If they are not getting what they need out of a big law firm then they need to start their own business and make their own rules. “Young Female Lawyers Play by Their Own Rules” is a perfect example of this. Erica Leathem got some unofficial advice from an older associate at the law firm she was employed by when she was expecting her first child. That advice was to get back to work as soon as possible. Erica did not agree with this philosophy, so she and some co-workers decided to play by their own rules. They left the large firm and started their own firm. These women now have the flexibility to work when they want to without feeling pressure from anyone else that they are not pulling their weight. Erica does not take away anything from what these older women have done for new female lawyers making their way up the ranks. She is just determined to make it by her own set of rules.

Blog #23: Fashion and Politics

Style, confidence, and competency all seem to go hand in hand. Some of the women lawyers in our reading have learned to use their sexuality to their advantage. They have learned to use their charm to get what they want and they have learned how to survive in a male dominated occupation. These lawyers have progressed from dressing “frumpy” and in dull colors because that is what they thought was expected of them to dressing in the latest fashions that accentuate their bodies and their minds. They found that when they changed their way of dressing they also changed the way they thought about themselves and the way co-workers and clients saw them (English, 2003). I find it odd that so much is attributed to one’s fashion sense. It is as if the Law Degree does not mean anything. I was surprised that the NPR had a whole segment on Michelle Obama’s style and the difference that it makes on her status to the public. The radio broadcasters commented that American women like that Michelle Obama dresses like a professional working woman that shows off her curves (Fashion Laws of Politics). Americans also want to be able to relate to the First Woman. When she was on Jay Leno and commented that her ensemble was bought on-line from J. Crew the audience went crazy. It was also stated that Michelle Obama needs to be very conscientious of what her clothing says to others. This means that her style needs to show that she is not submissive, but she is not threatening either. Women are under constant scrutiny. What makes it worse is that no matter where you go you are always going to get contradicting style issues. In “Gender on Trial”, the older litigators feel that the younger lawyers dress to sexy and that it gives the wrong impressions. Judges have even gone as far as telling women lawyers that their skirt was too short (English, 2003). When are we going to be past all these double standards and value what is really important. It is not about the clothes a lawyer wears, it is about their credentials and accomplishments that should earn merit.

Blog #22: Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor is a Puerto Rican female who was raised in the projects of the Bronx, New York. When I started my research for this blog the only information I could find for Sonia Sotomayor were comments on her excellence and her accomplishes, which were very lengthy as it was. I watched a video on YouTube titled “A biological sketch of Sonia Sotomayor” where Judge Sotomayor states that she never knew what it meant to be a minority until after she left to go college. Judge Sotomayor said that she was grew up with Puerto Ricans where everyone was the same and she was not seen as different, but at college she learned that other people had thoughts about minorities that she did not know until then.

“Senator Graham Gets Personal with Sonia Sotomayor” was another YouTube video I watched. This video demonstrates the different stereotypes that are attributed to men and women. Senator Graham attacked Judge Sotomayor’s temperament as a judge on the Second Circuit Appeals Court. He read anonymous comments that portrayed Judge Sotomayor as being a “terror on the bench”, “temperamental”, and that she “behaves out of control”. When Judge Sotomayor tried to respond to his remarks he would cut her off and move on to another comment. A man being referred to as “temperamental” has never been an issue because he is a man and that is a stereotypical quality. He is male so he is allowed to act and behave in that way. Sonia Sotomayor is a woman, and not only that, but a “hot tempered” Latina woman. I have heard people accuse Judge Sotomayor as being racist and that she practices reverse discrimination against white people. Judge Sotomayor is also working against remarks made that she was chosen as an “Affirmative Action pick”. From what I have read and seen in these videos it does not seem worth it to me to get into the law field or politics. The men continually steam roll over what women are saying and they attack personal attributes that have nothing to do with the issues at hand. It is women like Judge Sotomayor that help pave the way for other women.

Blog #21: NAFCO vs. Bitton

The website for the National Association for Female Correctional Officers (NAFCO) is about female safety in prison. Specifically, the National Association for Female Corrections wants to stop sexual assaults and sexual harassment of female officers and employees and they want to implement more technological protective equipment (National Association for Female Correctional Officers, 2008). They also want to have a federal legislature passed that enforces a zero tolerance rule against accused rapists and sexual harassment offenders. With this statute the government will provide more monetary aid to states so they may prosecute alleged offenders. The association also wants to hear the stories women have. This goes along with a recommendation by Bitton that we need to get the” real” story of women’s lives in prisons out there for others to hear (Bitton, 2003, pg 225). Bitton suggests that training needs to be instilled that teaches officers how to work at male and female institutions (Bitton, 2003). Bitton also suggests that we need to portray prisons as they truly are, such as, racial stereotypes, the frequency of violence, and the negative view of officers using unnecessary violence Bitton, 2003). I also really like how Bitton takes things further by saying that instead of thinking we need men to control inmates because they are inherently violent themselves that we should change the way we think and teach officers how to defuse the situation instead. The website for National Association for Female Correctional Officers does not have a lot in common with Bitton’s recommendations. NAFCO is about stopping the harassment of female officers and employees. Bitton is about providing a gender equal and race equal establish as well as getting rid of negative images that most people associate with prisons. I think that by following the recommendations of Bitton’s study, we will be able to eliminate a lot of the harassment and abuse that women face just by creating an equal work establishment through knowledge.

Blog #20: Arizona Prison Boss

A prison is a total institution because the people send the whole of their lives in the facility. In my opinion it is a total institution for some of the corrections officers, as well as, the inmates. Prisons display some of the most gendered inequalities in the workforce. Men who are concerned for women’s’ safety either try to protect them or they try to weed them out. This puts women in a no win situation. If they give into the men, they reinforce the men’s perspective that they are incapable. If they stand their ground they are ostracized. Before women started working in the prisons men were responsible for doing the clerical work, but now it is seen as a woman’s job and the women find themselves completing these tasks while the men do more masculine jobs. The two articles that covered the Arizona Lewis Prison hostage situation were shocking to read, to say the least. I found myself wondering where I was that I had not heard about it sooner.

The first similarity I saw between Bitton’s study of correctional officers and the hostage incident was the low education levels of the officers. The article “Arizona Prison Boss” stated that Dora Schriro found that most of her officers were below the standards. Bitton states that most of the people who become correction officers have only high school diplomas or GED’s. Dora Schriro, however, conducted extra training with her officers’ to make sure everyone got up to the proficient levels necessary. On a different note, the training in Bitton’s study seems to be very structured and organized. It may not have covered how to handle female inmate or have interaction with inmates in general, but it was proficient. Dora Schriro told of a completely different Arizona system. She said that “even though the DOC had revised its emergency response strategies years ago, they had never implemented the changes…” There was not even a way to know what the officers even knew because training was not standardized (Arizona’s Prison Boss).

Prisons have always been seen as gendered organizations. Prison inmates need big, strong, masculine men to keep the order and to prevent violence by being a symbol of violence. Women are seen as inferior and not strong enough to enforce the rules and regulations. Women should not be introduced to male inmates’ masturbation or their crude comments and sexual harassment. If by chance women are working in the prison systems, they should be behind a computer or filing paperwork. Under no circumstances should women be working directly with inmates. At least this is the perception many men have about women working in prisons (Bitton, 2003). I happen to like the perception that is portrayed in the article, “Arizona’s Prison Boss” (2004). The article shows Dora Schriro, the head of Arizona’s Department of Corrections, as very capable and she has a vision that she believes in. Instead of conforming to the ideologies of society she went against the bar and has been working in the corrections department for 30 plus years. Not only is she running Arizona’s prison system, but she came from Missouri where she headed theirs as well. Schriro handled the hostage seize with great poise and got everyone out alive, which is something no man has ever done (Arizona’s Prison Boss, 2004).

Lois Fraley, the officer who was held hostage, also showed that there is more to being an officer than size and muscles. She used her brain and was able to get her captors to see her as a human, she stopped bathing so her captors would not rape her again, and she stopped drinking water so she would not have to subject herself to peeing in front of the two men. Most importantly, she stayed alive to tell about it, even when she had thoughts of suicide (Inside the Tower, 2004). Fraley also showed bravery when she went to the court hearing and faced her captor even though she was terrified. Bitton’s study may have a little bearing in this instance. Her study showed that men were worried about this exact thing happening to women prison officers. They may content that she never should have been there, but all in all I think she handled herself very well.

Bitton’s recommendations focus on attaining a gender equal facility and diffusing the perceptions that many people have of prisons, such as, being overly violent (At Work in the Iron Cage, 2003). So, in this case, no I do not think that Bitton’s recommendations would have helped the situation. In fact, I think that it hurts her cause. The Arizona crisis shows a women being raped, beaten, and emotionally abused, which is something that is rare in its occurrence, but it portray the opposite of what Bitton is trying to achieve. If you look only at the fact that Arizona’s head of the Department of Corrections was a women and that she got everyone out of the situation alive than yes, it helps Bitton’s cause.

Blog #19: Media & Gender Inequalities

The media has a very big impact on everyday policies and practice in the workforce and with our countries youth. I think that a lot of the problems we encounter comes from the fact that the media gets to children at a very young age and leaves a lasting impression on them. The Democracy NOW video with Geena Davis stated that “3 out of 4 characters in G movies are male” and these statistics have not changed over the years. The images that are portrayed of women show women as being only concerned with shopping, fashion, and being thin; which adds to another problem with young girls: body image. Young kids see these images and they think that it is okay and that it is right. They grow up with these perceptions and throughout their life they reinforce the gender inequalities, it is a tragic cycle that needs to be broken.
When we take these inequalities that boys and girls grew up learning and we look at how it affects their jobs now, as men and women, the inequalities still exist. A person can pretty much take the statistics that the “See Jane” Foundation researched and apply it to the state and federal prison systems. The Democracy NOW video stated that 17% of characters in group settings children movies are female. That sounds pretty close to the amount of women that are working in men’s prisons. Geena Davis pointed out that the media teaches society to think of females as being worth less, and that their worth is different than males. This is also shown in prison work. The men who work in corrections do not think that women are capable of handling the violence that is associated with prisons. The men in the study associate womens lack of ability to control inmates with their physical size and strength. Sadly, a lot of the women also believe these sentiments (Bitton, 2003, pg. 170). The men also state that women should not be exposed to inmates masturbating or to their crude manner of speaking, but the women state that they are grown women and that “it isn’t anything they haven’t seen before”. These ideologies put women in a double bind. If they allow the men to protect them than they are reinforcing the stereotypes that women are not strong enough or physical enough to do the work. There are few women who go against this and say that they get paid the same as the men so they want to do the same work that the men do. Most of the women list their families as their priorities and this cause them to be over-looked for promotions or to not seek promotions at all.

Blog #18: Training

Prisons become a masculine institution when they try to establish gender-neutral policies. Many of the officers in Bitton’s study feel that their training has left them vulnerable to dealing with women inmates. While going through training, both for state and federal institutions, officers are being trained to work with male inmates. Not is not a direct statement that is made, but training is directed at controlling potentially very dangerous, violent inmates. Most women are not in prison for violent crimes, most women are not a flight risk once they are in prison, and have shorter sentences and “shorter criminal histories” (Bitton, 2003, pg 102). When officers are stationed in a female prison they are not prepared to handle the women. This leads to more leniencies in the facility and the chance for something more detrimental to happen increases. Most all of the officers in the study said that their training focused on the physical aspects of the job, which is one reason why society has previously sought to keep women out of prison work, especially male prisons. The problem with this is the sentiment that many of the officers have voiced that their job is more mental than physical. The prisoners use mind games to try and “one up” the officer (Bitton, 2003). Men prisons focus on keeping and enforcing the institutions policies. Women who work in men prisons also have to face sexual harassment from the inmates, something that they are not taught in training because it would not be gender neutral if they were to. Women officers also have to deal with their male co-workers who do not think that they should be there. When the women do not know options that are available to them it causes some when to leave their jobs. One of the things I find is that in male prisons women are actually able to keep the calm just by being present and how in female prisons the opposite is true. The inmates respond more negatively to the female officers than they do the male officers. All the officers in Bitton’s study claim that their training was insufficient compared to on-the-job training and that they learned almost everything they needed to know about prison work in their first couple of weeks on the job, some of that knowledge coming from the inmates themselves. I think that the state and federal institutions need to re-evaluate their training to incorporate the mental aspect of the job and how different it is to work with female inmates than it is to work with male inmates.

Blog #17: Lockup

I found the NBC documentary, “Lockup: Inside North Carolina Women’s Prison” to be very interesting. I have always had a fascination with prisons and gangs. The “unknown” really draws me in and the two are definitely things I do not know about. I noticed that the video only had one male correction officer that told of his experience. His concerns, however, were very much like the men in Bitton’s study. He voiced that when he comes on the block he always has to announce, “Male on deck” to let the women inmates know that he is there. He also has to be accompanied by a female officer at all times to reduce the chances of having inmates accuse him of sexual misconduct and the like. “Heavy D,” an inmate in North Caroline Corrections facility, stated that “they [the officers] do inmates and bring in drugs”. In Bitton’s study, the men also added that the women “whine” and use “head games” to get at the officers (Bitton, 2003, pg 122-123). They also state that “this is just how women are. If a women officer gives an order the women inmates are more inclined to question them and complain, but when the male officers give the same directive the inmates are more inclined to follow the order. Bitton says that this could because the women like seeing the men at the facility or it could be because they look at men in the stereotypical way of using brute violence.

Another similarity I noticed between the video and the study done by Bitton was the more lenient environment. Both cases told of an environment where the women were able to walk around and show public displays of affection with their partners, whether it was a “prison only” relationship or a way of life for the women. Both video and study spoke of officers having to tell inmates “to get some space” between lovers while in the yard or on the block. Both said that for some women the only way they can survive is by having these relationships because they need to feel like they are loved and cared about. There are penalties for having sexual intercourse between inmates, but the inmates have a system of looking out for each other. Relationships between inmates and officers can also arise and they can create dangers for the officers. In the video, the officers mainly stated that they have to remember that these inmates are in prison for a reason and they cannot get to close. In Bitton’s study, the officers say that if they start to get on a friendly basis with the inmates that the inmates try to take advantage of that relationship and get the officers to bring in drugs or other contraband to the prison. Plus, it is a prison and there is a possibility for violence at any moment. Both video and study also had officers say that the inmates are human and they deserve to be treated as human beings, but they are still inmates and are there for a reason. Annie Harvey, the Warden at the North Caroline Corrections for Women, said that “to get respect, you must give respect” and she tries to follow that philosophy.

African American and Latino officers had extra obstacles to overcome. Not only were they a minority among the majority of white male (and women) officers, but they also have to face a lot of negative racial stereotypes. A lot of the African American and Latino officers have to face ideologies that they should be serving time in the prison instead of working in them, even if they have never been convicted of any kind of crime. One particular black officer says that she does not look at race among the inmates. For her “the job is about everyone” (Bitton, 2003, pg 130). From the inmates perspective it can cause more issues. White inmates do not want to take orders from another man, let alone a man of color. The colored inmates view the African American officers and the Latino officers as trying to “be white”. This can cause more violence than is already present. At the same time, however, the officers in Bitton’s study also say that the inmates want to have the same stability as the officers.

The “Lockup” video showed many avenues the women inmates have available to them. There are vocational jobs and schooling to teach women a trade for when they are released and to earn their GED’s. There are the more common jobs that we associate with prisons, such as, license plate making and food sever. There are also women who work for tourist phone services who talk to civilians who are planning to take a trip to North Carolina. They make dentures and they have a cosmetology school for women. When women were not being obedient the officers would take away their privileges. For most women this was the only time they did not feel like inmates so they did not want to lose their right. In Bitton’s study the officers also said that they would threaten the women with a loss of privilege to get them to behave. In both cases the officers compare overseeing prisoners to babysitting children.

Blog #16: Gendered Pathways

Bitton begins chapter 4, “Paths to Prison”, by stating that “occupational socialization is a thoroughly gendered process (Bitton, 2003, pg 78). The paths to prison are no different. The occupation of being a corrections officer is not very lucrative and it does not set high requirements for it employees. Employees only need to be 21 years of age (some states have lowered this age to 19), have a high school diploma or GED, and have no felony convictions. Due to the high turnover rate the prison systems are facing officer shortages nationwide (Bitton, 2003). According to Bitton, most people do not choose to be a corrections officer, they just end up there. Men tend to come from male dominated jobs, such as the military, whereas women come female dominated jobs. The majority of the women came from clerical jobs, sales positions, and child care services. No, the paths to prison are not the same for men and women. Social networks have helped women come into the field of correction officer. When these women meet other women who work in the field they get a sense of the job and the benefits that come with working in a state or federal facility. When you look at the prison facility itself it reinforces the gendered society. Over 50% of women work in women facilities, where only 6% of women work in male facilities (Bitton, 2003). The pay is not that great for a corrections officer. Especially, if you look at the hours they work and the type of work they are doing on a daily basis. Correction officers choose to work in the prison for many reasons. At the top of the list is that there are not any other opportunities available. As a correction officer they are entitled to benefits they otherwise would not be able to get. They also have the stability of regular paychecks. Most of the women are divorced mothers who had to support their children and do not have more than a high school diploma. The men said that they wanted the benefits: retirement, insurance, etc. Once they were in the job they just stayed.

Blog #15: Women in Prison

Women’s prisons have seen worse conditions than male prisons during the early development of the prison systems. Women prisoners were seen as being a lot worse than male prisoners. In the 19th and early 20th century, it made perfect sense for the “horrible women prisoners” to be in the care of men. Unfortunately, turnkey officers were not qualified or educated to be efficient officers. The way they solved problem or issues was through the use of violence. In response to the violence sexual assaults against women inmates, the states brought in Matrons to supervise the female inmates separate from the male officers and inmates. These women were supposed to be “teachers, mentors, and examples” (Britton, 2003, pg. 76). Most women who worked in the prison systems had earned college degrees and were more educated than the men prison guards. The working conditions were horrible for women. They were required to live in the prisons as if they were prisoners themselves. They were on call 6 and a ½ days a week and were subjected to the same living conditions as the prisoners. Women are now able to work in not only female institutions, but also in male institutions. It was not always this way though. Previous ways of thinking included that women were not capable of being in control of male inmates. Arizona has opened the door for females working in the correctional officer field and many of them have succeeded and made their way through the ranks to be Lieutenants, Sergeants, and Wardens (Women in Corrections, http://www.azcorrections.gov/adc/history/Prisca_History_Women.aspx). In recent years, while the number of men going to prison has declined the number of women going to prison has increased dramatically over the past few decades. Arizona is no exception. It is ranked 7th in the nation for the incarceration rate of women in 2004, sending 87 per 100,000 women to prison (The Growth in the Imprisonment of Women, 1977-2004).

Blog #14: Theory of Gendered Organizations

Bitton says that the basis of the Theory of Gendered Organizations stems from the wage gap. The wage gap has been apparent since women have started going to work in the work place. Even when women are doing the same job as men they still make less than the men. For example, female correctional officers make 17 % less than their male co-workers (Bitton, 2003). Bitton uses this theory to frame her research questions by showing how the gendered society of America infiltrates the workplace and continues the cycle of women being in positions below men. It is something that is so common that most women are not even aware of the fact that they make less than their co-workers do for the same type of work. When women do go against the norm and work in male-dominated careers they are trapped in a job that does not allow them to advance or they choose to forego promotion so they can fulfill their family obligations. Public and private spheres become engendered concepts because the public sphere starts to mirror the private sphere in the workplace. For generations women have been responsible for the domesticated roles of family and home, but now women are entering the workforce and they are being forced into the same domesticated roles on the job. Women find themselves stuck in a position where they have to fulfill their required job task, just like their male counterparts, but they also have to take care of the clerical and secretarial jobs as well. The only reason this happens is because those types of jobs are seen as women jobs and are beneath men. Women are not able to work the rotating hours or the extra hours that employers value because they have obligations in their private lives that does not allow them to focus on their careers. If they do deviate from the norm they are ostracized for not fulfilling their motherly roles and taking care of the family. Laws have been implemented to keep women from being held back and penalized for their families, but they are not as effective as they should be. Maternity leave is not a guarantee. Women cannot be fired for becoming pregnant, but it does not mean that they do not experience being “pushed out” of their job. Women will never been seen as equals to mean if changes are not made and enforced. Women going to work in male dominated occupations are a start, but we also need to see the wage gap narrow until it is non-existent.

Blog #13: Prison Guards

When I think of a prison guard or correctional officer I think of a big, burly man with tattoos and scars and big bulging muscles. A lot of movies today portray the same images. The prison guards or officers are the most masculine of men who get rough and tough with the inmates they are guarding. A lot of the movies also portray these officers and guards abusing their power, whether it is for personal gain or just because they can. In these same movies, if you see a woman at all in the prison or detention center she is mostly likely to be sitting behind a desk doing clerical or administrative work. I have seen different depictions of women working in these types of jobs in the last few years. I used to see women who were correctional officers or guards as being depicted as “butch, short-haired, gun toting, man wanna-be’s and are usually ugly.” The women could not have any feminine characteristics and they almost always had a chip on their shoulders. Recently, I have seen a change in how women are shown in these positions. Now on tv there are shows that are all about women police officers and their lives. I believe one of them is “The Women of Broward County” or something of that nature and it is all about women police officers. It shows them as regular women who can be both masculine and feminine, they can be authoritative and enforcers, and they are very pretty women. These women are responsible for women inmates and detainees, but they are also capable of taking down big men. I have not noticed any differences in the way males are portrayed in male prisons or the way they are portrayed in female prisons. Actually, instead of abusing the inmates for personal gain in a male facility male officers or guards would sexually harass and force the women inmates for sexual favors in a female facility.

Blog #12: Job Segregation

I think that most of the occupational segregation that occurs is because of gender roles. “At Work in the Iron Cage”, states that there are three ways that the work place is gendered: through culture, agency, and through organizational structuring. Yes, there are laws that prohibit sex discrimination, but it is already in most people’s heads that men are meant to do a certain job and women are meant to do other jobs. Women are taught from the beginning that they are supposed to take care of the home and the family. They are trained to be in a “supportive role” instead of a leading role. Men, on the other hand, are taught to be the provider and the “natural protector” of the family. If they do not provide for and protect their families they are looked down on by society. These standards carry over from their home lives and find themselves embedded in their careers as well. When it comes to going against the grain, I think both men and women feel extra pressure. Will they be scrutinized? Can they juggle family and work? How will they be treated?

Men have always been in leadership roles and women in subservient roles. The work place is no different. Men are given jobs where they have more power, more responsibility, and more opportunities to advance. Again, women are supposed to “help” the man in their position when their own personal needs or desires get placed on the back burner, so to speak. I think that there are also a lot of people who are not ready to see women working hard long hours, both men and women, and this leads to more sexual harassment and more hazing in the work place. I think it can be seen as a way of “pushing” women out of male dominated jobs. Women breaking into male dominated jobs have the advantages of being more financially secure and advancing in the “man’s” world. In some cases, they also have the advantage of doing something they love. As far as men go, I do not think that they are really affected by women who enter male dominated occupations. I think back to my days in the Navy when I worked almost entirely with men and I do not think that having me on their crew affected them at all. Maybe I got lucky and was able to work with a great set of guys, so I did not experience any of the typical “female in male” occupational scrutiny.

Blog #11: Poor Working Women in the Media

I am not one for watching the news or staying up to date on current events. I do, however, love to watch movies. I think that a good movie that addresses the conditions of working poor women is Erin Brockovich. This movie portrays a single mother of three trying to find a job to support her family. What I like the most about this movie is that it is based on a true story. In the beginning of the movie it shows Erin coming to pick up her kids from the informal child care provider. The conditions were unsatisfactory to say the least. Erin went to pick up her children and no one was home, her kids were nowhere in sight, and she was left in a state of hysteria. When she got home she found her kids in the care of her biker neighbor and the only thing he could tell Erin was that “something came up” and the care provider just dropped the kids off and left. It actually turned out to work in Erin favor because she found a new care giver in the form of her biker neighbor who was great with her kids and was reliable. Many of the women in Chaudry’s study had to make choices of whether or not to leave their kids in conditions they did not think were the best. Another aspect of the movie that touched on poor working women was when Erin took her children out to eat because she had no food in the house. While at the restaurant the kids ordered their deluxe cheeseburgers, but when it came around for Erin to order she just order water. When the kids asked their mom why she was not eating she lied to them and said that her “lawyer took her out to a fancy lunch to celebrate…” (Erin Brockovich movie). Erin Brockovich’s story ends with a happy ending. No it does not portray her on the welfare system, but it does not mean that she did not struggle to make ends meet and to provide for her children.

Blog #10: Strategies

Chaudry describes different strategies that the women in the study used to survive after the welfare reform. I do not see the strategies describe as being actual strategies that the women implemented to make child care and work issues work. The way I see it the women did what they had to do to get by. Sometimes this meant working their work schedules around day care schedules and other times it meant working day care schedules around work schedules. In some cases it meant leaving a job, either temporarily or indefinitely, because the child care did not meet the expectation of the mother. Going by Chaudry’s use of the term “strategies”, however, the women had many decisions to make. Sara for example, made the decision to leave her mother’s home and become homeless. She did not want to subject her daughter to the emotional and psychological abuse that she was feeling while living there (Chaudry, 159). For Sara, her strategy was to give Cristina as much stability she could with the Girls and Boys child care service. Sara may not have known where they were going to lay their heads at night or where the system would lead them, but she knew that from 8:30 to 5:45 everyday her daughter would have the stability she needed. Not all mothers took this road.

Some mothers relied only on kin based care. This entailed sharing food and clothing, financial obligations, and living spaces (Chaudry, 164). This method usually proved to be unreliable and did not offer the developmental elements that mothers sought for their kids. Some of the mothers were utterly alone and did not have family to ask for help from. I think that these mothers showed the most perseverance. They would go from center to center, waiting list to waiting list, and would not stop until they got the care they needed. Many of the women were informed from the beginning and sought subsidized care from day one. The lag time in between actually receiving the subsidy, however, left them frantically searching to get the care they needed right away. The last strategy women turned to was Agency-Based Care. These agencies would not only help the mothers find child care, but they would also help the women find work and internship programs to better their lives. This all makes it sound a lot simpler than it actually was. Everyday living and obstacles that came their way added to the tribulations that had to be overcome. Day care times and work hours did not always work out. Late payments and mistakes on the agencies part caused women to have to seek other child care options at the last minute. Jobs were lost, trust was broken, sick children had to be taken care. These women fought day in and day out to get everything accomplished. Without work there was no child care, and without child care there was no work. These mothers had to find a way to balance both because without one, they could not get the other.

There are many similarities between Chaudry’s findings and recommendations for welfare reform. I think that the most important one is to make the process simpler. These women lost too many work hours and sometimes jobs from having to make repeated trips to the agency offices. This suggestion coincides with Chaudry’s suggestion to allow mothers to work continuously (Chaudry, 192). Proving aid during transitional phases will alleviate a major part of the headache women feel when trying to get off welfare. Many of the women in the study had trouble finding care for their infant children. If policies could be changed to mirror Chaudry’s way of thinking than we could expand Child Care options to provide more infant care. Another issue many of the women faced was developmental issues with their young children, such as, speech problem. I think that society as a whole is forgetting that these young children will be running the country in a few decades. There development is essential to our cultures well being. The popular phrase “the children are our future” says it all. Lastly, I think it is important to follow Chaudry’s advice to make all child care affordable. To increase the federal poverty level so more people are eligible for Head Start Programs and so more people are eligible for subsidy aid will be beneficial for everyone. Chaudry states that we should set limits so no family is spending more than 10% of their income on child care. Seeing how on average family spend 18% of their income on childcare. That extra 8% would aid greatly in fulfilling other financial obligations.

Blog #9: child/women poverty

I for one think that child poverty and the poverty of poor working women go hand in hand. According to Robert on “Has Welfare Reform Worked” a NPR podcast, since 1996 when the welfare to work reform was initiated, poverty rates for single working mothers and child poverty have both decreased. Children, especially young children, are dependent on adults for care. It would stand to reason then that if a mother was living in poverty then her child will be living in poverty as well. After looking at the graphs and statistics that were presented in the “Who are America’s Poor Children” article by Sarah Fass and Nancy K. Cauthen and comparing it to the statistic presented in our course material there is a direct correlation between minority women living in poverty and minority children living in poverty. I agree with one of the points that were brought up about TANF being an incentive for working women (Welfare Reform Changes Women’s Lives). This in turn does set a good example for the children, not necessarily even the woman’s child, but children in general. If children see the importance of working hard and getting an education and staying out of trouble I think they will be more inclined to make their life better. Children living in poverty face a lot of the same challenges that poor working women face. Both groups of people worry about whether they will get to eat in a particular day. Both groups worry about whether or not they will have a roof of their heads when they close their eyes to go to sleep. Finally, both groups have concerns about what will happen if they get sick or are hurt in an accident. How will they get the help they need when they do not have any health care. Child poverty is due to women in poverty. If a woman cannot support herself, she cannot support her child. If a child sees their mother struggling to make ends meet then I think they are more likely to get caught in the same cycle. To help the children of America we need to help their mothers.

Blog #8: Urban Poverty

The biggest problems that are created from “urban poverty” for poor working mothers stems from being isolated in the inner-city with no way out (Putting Children First, pg 128). With people leaving the inner-city for better job opportunities and to get away from the violence that is associated with inner-cities it causes the people who are still there to have to make do with what is left. While some people are able to escape to a more affluent life by leaving the poverty ridden streets, others are left there to fend for themselves. This tends to cause the community to be full of crime and violence. Take Jessica, for example, she is living in low income housing and will not lower herself to move into “Section 8” public housing. As it is, she is living in a dangerous neighborhood where she cannot allow her children to go outside and play. This in turn leads her to put more pressure on her kids to succeed in life and to do better in school so they will have more options available to them. When things are really tough and there is not enough food to feed her and her four kids Jessica does not tell her kids why she is not eating (7 Days @ Minimum Wage, part 1).

Poor women living in mixed income neighborhoods have some advantages, but not many. Iris drives a bus full-time and does janitorial work as a second job (American Low Wage Workers’ Tour). Before she became part of the union she received no benefits and got no sick day leave. In a job where she is working around kids all day she was exposed to the same colds and viruses that the kids were and she was getting sick frequently. Iris said in her interview on “American Low Wage Workers’ Tour” that the “system was not equal” and that people who deserved the job where passed over for others that were not qualified or did not have seniority. The situation with Erin, a young women living with her parents, is not much better. She works long hours at a local grocery store to make up for the low pay she gets. She strives to make it from one day to the next. Erin is in a tough place because she does not know what she wants to be in life. For now, she is just getting by (7 Days @ Minimum Wage, Erin – Day 2).

Blog #7 Child Care Stability

Julia faces many challenges while trying to find stable child care for her young daughter Jacqueline. These are challenges that millions of others are trying to overcome as well. After the birth of Jacqueline, Julia had the right mindset: go back to school, make something of herself, and support her family. Unfortunately, she was faced with one obstacle after another and ended up dropping out of school. Jacqueline’s father was able to watch the two young girls while Julia went to school, but after the two broke up and the father moved out Julia had lost her child care. Next, Julia’s sister, Izzy, moved in with her and for a while this was an ideal situation. Julia was able to still go to school while her sister watched the girls. With no money coming in and mouths that needed to be feed both girls started working at a Burger Shop. This situation did not help Julia out. Now that Izzy was working she could not watch the kids and Julia could not work because she had the kids and because if she worked too many hours she would lose her Public Assistance. Not only did Julia lose her child care provider, but she also had to drop out of school.

Julia was finally able to get into the Welfare to Work Program (WEP). Julia started to work internships in the hopes of finding full time employment. One of the benefits of the WEP program was child care subsidies. One might think that this would make all of Julia’s problems disappear, but it just added to them. Julia lost jobs and missed work because her child care checks would come late or come in the wrong amount of money (Putting Children First, pg 88). Julia was forced to go down to the offices to talk with her caseworker on numerous occasions to fix the problem. By then it was too late and Julia was in search of someone else to watch Jacqueline.

The factors that contributed to Julia’s inability to find stable child care were not the only issues she had to overcome. It seems to me that as women do start to do better that they are held down more. For instance, once Julia started to make a little bit more money she was required to pay more money. Julia started to make just over $8.00 an hour and lost all public assistance, which did not bother her, but she still needed the food stamps to feed her family. With Julia having to pay for food on her own she could not afford child care. Jessica from the “7days at Minimum Wage” video is in the same boat. She makes barely over minimum wage and cannot afford to buy her kids any nice things. Jessica does not have to worry about child care expenses anymore, but due to the neighborhood she lives in her kids are not able to play outside. It is a vicious cycle that needs to be fixed.

Blog #6: Child Care

There is a wide range of child care options that low-income mothers are forced to use and what they would like to use for their children. According to “Putting Children First”, a lot of mothers must rely on family care for their young ones. Some prefer to have their families watch them so the kids are surrounded by loved ones in the family atmosphere. Others, on the hand, use family members as a last resort when they cannot afford anyone else or when their normal care provider falls through. They would prefer to have their kids in a learning environment with other kids their own age so they can learn to socialize as well. The next time of care is informal care. Most informal care providers are unlicensed. The mothers in “Putting Children First” tended to have a lot of conflicts with their informal care providers. There were trust issues, times issues, and money issues (mostly from late subsidy payments from the government). Most mothers used informal care as a secondary form of care when working late hours, weekends, and/or holidays. Family day care is like kin care and center care. It has the home setting with loving attention, meals, and family environment, but it also allows kids to socialize with their peers with more one on one attention. The bad thing with Family day care is that it is not as educational and the care is not always ideal. The care centers are the ideal location to have their kids enrolled. There are the most structured, most educational, and they are licensed care providers. The negative aspect is that they are hard to get into, not as much attention, and hours are more restricted. Licensed facilities are declining in number, which means that more families will have to turn to unlicensed care (UnderProtected, UnderSupported, 2009).

There are many factors that go into the mother’s child care choice. I think the most influential factor is the cost. Diana had to find alternative arrangements because she could not afford the $25.00 increase that her informal provider wanted (Putting Children First, 47). Next, mothers need to work and not all jobs have flexible hours to work with them. This leaves mothers shuttling kids around from one care provider to the next and in some cases for the moms to leave their jobs. Such as Julia, who had to move her daughter, Jacqueline around to prove that she was willing to work (pg. 101). Mothers also has to have a “good feeling” about the care. No mother wants to leave their child in an unhealthy situation. A lot of the mothers have trouble finding a center with availability and are forced to put their children on waiting lists and hope for the best.

Blog #5 Working Poor

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 has done little in helping families below the poverty line. Chaudry states that “we are asking the least fortunate to strive and work harder, we are deeply discounting our public responsibility for the children born into poor families and disadvantaged communities” (p. 14). I think that what she means is that by having women, and men, strive to meet specific work requirements in order to receive family assistance, they are actually putting their family in distress. Women are working so hard that they have no other choice but to leave their young children in an environment that they know little about or that is damaging to their mental, and their physical wellbeing, like Annette with her son Aaron (Chaudry, 2004). Annette had no idea what her son was doing while she was away at work. Then, she was so busy that she did not even have time to talk with her son or the childcare provider about it. When families actually start to get ahead and make more money, their assistance goes down, housing goes up, and they just go around in circles. It is like the “Living with a Hole in your Pocket” video stated, “it’s a vicious cycle” living payday to payday trying to make ends meet.

One of the main things that I really liked about the videos for this assignment was that the people being interviewed did not blame other people for the troubles. When asked what solutions the people would implement to help the working poor, the answers did not resolve around “they need to work harder” or “they are not trying hard enough to find work”. The interviewee’s responses were about political changes. Some suggested taxing rich people, to not outsource jobs, to make health care universal, and to raise minimum wage. I tend to agree with the gentleman in the “Working Poor” video. Raising minimum wage rates would just result in the costs of everything else being raised. It is obvious to me that something needs to be done to help not only the people living under the poverty line, but also the working poor who have to make the choices of what to pay for this month and what they can do without (Poverty in America), I just don’t know what to do.

Professor Newman touches on four important aspects to the working poor that need to be addressed. These issues are debt, education, childcare, and healthcare. The working poor know how important education is, but they do not have all the resources to help them. Many kids are left alone for hours and hours while parents are working. And even if parents are working they cannot afford healthcare or their employers do not offer it. I found it really interesting that she looked at the working poor as being success stories. Most of these people came from below the poverty line and are succeeding (on some level) now. I can understand where she is coming from, but I wonder how many of these people feel like they are succeeding while they are trying to make ends meet.

Blog #4 Balance of Work and Family

Balancing work and family is an issue that every family faces, both men and women. Personally, I agree with society when I say that women feel this “juggling act” more so than men. There are many issues to consider about women going to work. Some women go to work because they have no choice and they have to support their children, these would be the single moms of America. Next, you have the women who are part of a “two earner family. These women chose to have a career and a family. Regardless of the circumstance, these women feel more stress and guilt than their male counterparts who are considered the breadwinners of their families, and by society. That is not to say that there are not any single dads out there. In the video “Juggling Work and Family” with Hendrick Smith, they focus not only on single moms, but single dads as well. I think that these fathers have a different view of what so many mothers go through, which many men over-look.

What is considered a good family life? Is it having lots of money? Is it quality time? Is it getting ahead so your children can go to college, so you sacrifice family time? I had both parents at home until the age of 13, but at the same time it was like my dad was not there. He isolated himself from the family for much of my childhood. After that I lived with my brothers and sister in a single mother household. My family may not have had a lot of money, but I think we had a “good family life”. My mom juggled work and family pretty well. I cannot imagine the toll it took on her. My mom found ways to make it to all of our sporting events and extracurricular activities. She found ways to buy us the sporting equipment we needed and keep us clothed and fed. She spent time with us just hanging out watching movies or cooking dinner. One particular memory that will always stick with me was during basketball season of my senior year. We had made it to the 4A State Championship Tournament and my mom could not afford to take the whole week off. So, she would work half a day, drive four hours to get to Phoenix, watch me play, then drive home to do it all again the following day. I think that she did this four days throughout the week. I guess it makes it worth it because we won the championship. My mom has always gone through great lengths to support me and my siblings.

I find it interesting that one of the richest countries in the world cannot find a way to keep kids fed and cared for. According to the “Motherhood Manifesto” 20% of kids live in poverty. These kids and their mothers do not have health care either. Do women “opt out” of the work force or are they “pushed out”? I think they are pushed out. Why do women who do the same work get paid 24% to 44% less than men? Same work, same pay is the way it should be. These women are struggling to make ends meet and they have to cope with and live with the guilt of leaving their kids at home alone. However, I believe there are some benefits that come from being left at home; such as, the kids being more independent, being more self-sufficient, and valuing the time you do have together (Juggling Work and Family). From all the videos and podcasts I have learned that balancing a career and family life is all about trade-offs (Personal Struggle between Work and Home, Juggling Work and Family). But, is it always worth?

The main obstacle that can make it difficult to achieve a healthy balance between work and family are business policies. Not all companies are family friendly. If a business or company will not budge on their policies or flexibility, then most employees have to deal with it and take what they can get. Most single moms cannot afford to lose their jobs so they must adapt and overcome. If the US could follow in the footsteps of the UK, then I think everyone would benefit. Having the flexibility to work while your child is in school or after they have gone to bed would benefit everyone involved. The employees will get the work done and be more loyal to the company for being flexible. The company will benefit by the increases productivity and will save money by not having to re-train employees (Juggling Work and Care).

Referring back to the video “Juggling Work and Family” I would say that changes in traditional gender roles have made work and family issues more complex. The parents in the video refer to “not having enough time” and that the family “can’t keep up”. In traditional roles it was easy, the man went to work and the woman stayed home to take care of the family and home. Since, the 1970 family time together has shrunk by 22%. How much of that is lost in transit alone? It is clear that “family and work are not in synch” (Juggling Work and Family).

Blog #3 Work and Home

Care-work is done in every state and every country around the world. Care-work is not always a choice, but a necessity. If there is a young child or an elderly parent that needs taking care of it falls to the women because they are seen as the primary caregivers. The work they do does not receive monetary rewards and most of the time is overlooked by others. I think that society tends to take for granted how intense this burden is and they do not realize how much women actually do. This work is seen as the “Labor of Love”. Most women who do decide to enter the workforce are finding that after they work their 9 to 5 jobs, they return home to work a “second shift” doing the domestic duties of housework. According to “Changing Shift in Women’s Work”, the gender divide is still present, but the gender roles are shifting. More and more men are staying at home to take care of the kids while the women are the breadwinners. One thing I found interesting that was also in “Changing Shift in Women’s Work” was that high earning women did more housework as a way to make it up to their husbands for making more money and because men wanted to feel masculine so they just refuse to help with house work.

When I first read the questioned posed about my personal experience with care-work in my family I was quick to answer “no”. But, as I was standing at the counter folding laundry it occurred to me that that is what I am doing right now. I am not a mother myself and I am not married, but I help watch two young girls (between 21 – 24 months old) on a daily basis. In between homework assignments I am changing diapers, cooking meals, doing dishes, doing laundry, and many other household tasks. Growing up, however, I experienced a complete 180 in gender roles. My mom would go to work as an electrician in a power plant while my dad stayed home with me and my brothers and sister with the household responsibilities solely on his shoulders. I think that if I could be in a role reversal that I would not think twice about it. I do not see the “labor of love” as something I have to have or have to do. If my significant other was willing and able to do the household chores, then more power to them.

“Juggling Work and Care” has opened my mind to things that I never thought about before. For employers in the UK to be understanding and flexible to their employees responsibilities as care-workers is great. I can see how the arrangement leads to more productivity and loyalty from employees. The UK’s use of small teams and multi-skills training makes it possible for employees to take care of their duties without fear of falling behind or losing their jobs. They know that their co-workers will be able to get the work done without them and without any animosity. Even if an employee is not in a care-worker position they have a piece of mind because they know that if the need arises they will receive the same support.

Blog #2: Gender Inequality

Pay differences between men and women leave a lot to be desired for women. I have heard it said before that men get paid more than women. But, to see it in black and white was an eye opener to say the least. Women make $0.77 per $1.00 that men make (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103979497) for the same work. I have always been a believer that the best person for the job should get the job and that people, regardless of sex, should get paid the same amount of money. CNBC’s Gender Wage Gap: Myth or Reality reported that women have the lowest jobless percentage rate of 7.1%. I do not see how that can be looked at as a good thing when most women do not receive the medical or dental benefits that men receive and they do not get paid the same paycheck. Instead women work two jobs to make ends meet. I think that sex segregation still exists because it is how our culture is defined and when people go against the norm they are ostracized. Slowly, we are branching out and allowing change.

Sex segregation is a cultural invention. Sex segregation in my opinion is having specific jobs for men and specific jobs for women. Cultural norms and stereotypes have dictated what these jobs are. From what I have read and seen more men teach at the University level, but all my professors are women. To be honest, in preparation for this semester and since it has started I have not encountered many men at all.

The socialization I have experienced at home, work, and school goes against patriarchy. Life at home for me was seeing my mom don a hard hat and steel-toed boots and go off to work at the Navajo Generating Station. She works in the man’s world as an electrician. My sister, following in her footprints, is now working there as well as an Operations Specialist. I was in the Navy for four years and my rate (job) was being a gas turbine mechanic. My brothers have always worked in white-collar jobs, as well as my dad. So, for me personally, I do not see our culture as a patriarchy. When I think back to times growing up I know that it has not been easy for my mom. I can remember coming home and finding her crying, but I have never asked her about it. I think that I will change that now and find out what she has gone through and experienced.