Peg Tittle's Blog, page 57

The Sexism Compensation Index (SCI)

I suspect that even with today's rigorous interview and job performance appraisal techniques, which require that all applicants be asked and scored on the same questions, multiple standards still interfere with merit as the sole criterion for hiring and promotion.

How? Well suppose the interviewers are asked to rate the candidates on 'friendliness'. On an absolute scale of ten, the averagely friendly woman is, or is thought to need to be, at, let's say, 6. So for a female candidate to be rated 'very friendly' as opposed to just 'friendly enough', she must score 7 or better. The averagely friendly man, on the other hand, men tending of course to smile less, chat less, be more product-oriented than process-oriented, etc., is at, say, 4. So for a male candidate to be rated 'very friendly', he must score only 5 or better. There you have it: suppose both a male and female applicant score 5 on this friendliness score – the man will be perceived as 'more friendly than' and the woman as 'less friendly than'.

The same might go for appearance: the man who spends ten minutes to get ready for work, to shower and put on clean clothes, is deemed presentable; the woman who does the same is told she should've dressed up a bit (what, no make up? no styled hair? no jewellery?).

The assertiveness scale probably works the other way: say both candidates are at 5 – the man may be deemed 'not a go-getter' or 'lacking in confidence', the woman, 'pushy' or 'arrogant'.

And on and on.

How do we correct this? Many interviewers take great pains to be fair, to be consistent, to stick to the list of questions – so what, exactly, is the problem? Well, it's usually not the questions, but the answers – it's how the answers are heard. Most of the interviewers were raised in sexist times and so differentiating on the basis of sex is second nature to them; and it's hard to shed one's formative years overnight. Or even over a decade, apparently.

Gender blind interviewing might help, but without expensive voice scramblers and screens, this is impossible. And I suppose, to some extent, these measures would defeat the purpose of the interview.

However, if all items but those which couldn't possibly be measured except in a face-to-face encounter were measured prior to the interview, that would go a long way. Cover letters and resumes could be identified by number only (as is the case with anonymous review for publication). Calling people listed as references would, unfortunately, reveal gender (damn our language and names), so perhaps the conversation or at least the comments could be translated to gender-free language by someone not doing the actual scoring. This wouldn't eliminate the gender bias of the person called, but it would minimize what gets passed on.

Another solution might be to adjust the scores, after the interviews, to compensate for the sexism: one could apply an SCI, a Sexism Compensation Index, whereby all of the scores would be adjusted up or down a few points depending on the sex of the applicant, the item scored, and perhaps the sex of the interviewer. So, for example, the woman's friendliness score of 5 will get boosted to 6 or 7 to reflect the higher standard that is sexistly expected of women; 7 compared to 5, well then it's clear that the woman indeed is the friendlier of the two.

Am I serious? Not really. But sort of – knowing this, considering this, during the interview and at any other gender-known stage, might alone effect the necessary adjustment.

Rising above Natural Selection

We need to rise above natural selection. Otherwise, as a species, we will continue to become dumb and dumber.

Who has the family of five? Not the physicist or philosopher. She's chosen not to have any kids. And not the biologist or sociologist. He stopped at two.

And who's having the family of ten? The people in 'developing' countries who either don't have access to contraception, let alone a grade twelve education, or who subscribe to some indefensible religio-cultural belief about family.

How do we rise above natural selection? That's the question no one wants to ask. Because the answer is so clear. And so awful.

But not nearly as awful as a species of idiots.

Philosophy – Misunderstood

I think philosophy is one of the most misunderstood subjects. That it took so long to become a high school course, I think, attests to this. Even within academia, however, there seems to be confusion. Two PhDs expressed surprise at the title of my masters' thesis in Philosophy ("The Issue of Consent in Sex and Sexual Assault"); both seemed to think that philosophy was stuff like 'If a tree falls and no one's there, does it make a sound?' or 'Does the table really exist?' Philosophy is that. But not, at all, only that.

Metaphysics (Is the table real?) and epistemology (What's the difference between believing something and knowing something?) are both areas of philosophy. So are ethics (How could/should we determine right and wrong?) and aesthetics (What do we mean when we say 'X is beautiful'?).

But so are social philosophy (Why is there war? Are affirmative action programs fair?), political philosophy (Which is better – liberalism or socialism? What is the nature of the just society?), and philosophical psychology or philosophy of mind (What is the relation between the mind and the brain?). And some areas have fields pretty large in themselves: environmental ethics (Should we use animals for experimentation? Do trees have rights?); business ethics (Is profit an acceptable motive? How do we define, exactly, a conflict of interest?); biomedical ethics (Is it right to pay someone for their organ donation? Is euthanasia immoral?).

Truth is, philosophy is not so much a subject as a skill: philosophy is disciplined reflection. So there is, there can be, a 'philosophy of' anything or an 'anything philosophy': philosophy of science, philosophy of language, philosophy of education, philosophy of love, feminist philosophy, legal philosophy, etc. Whenever you're examining the conceptual foundations, especially for clarity or consistency, you're doing philosophy. Far from being the least relevant, philosophy is the most relevant: other disciplines deal with who, what, when, where, and how; philosophy deals mostly with why (after dealing with 'What exactly do you mean?').

One of the most misunderstood courses in university is a second year philosophy course called, variously, Critical Thinking, Clear Thinking, or Informal Logic. The template in such courses is 'I think X because Y'. The purpose of the course is to teach people to have reasons for their opinions – to have good reasons. Most of us know that something can't be A and not-A at the same time. But there are other rules of reason, rules we constantly break – and this constantly gets us into trouble. (Is your argument sound? Are your premises true? Are they valid – relevant and adequate?) What the course does is teach these rules of reason, the skills of thinking: it develops the capacity to analyze an issue, to break it down into its parts; to draw distinctions, identify assumptions, clarify concepts, understand connections; it trains one to check for coherence, consistency, and completeness. A philosophical analysis is a very careful examination and assessment.

A supervisor once said of me, after I had provided feedback on a sexual harassment brochure, 'I wish I had a mind like that'. It's a mind developed by the rigours of philosophy. It's a mind developed to be clear, to be precise, to be thorough. It's a disciplined mind. I may not tell you the answers. But by the time a philosopher's through, you'll know what all the important questions are (as well as how they're connected). You'll also have a pretty good idea of the possible answers, each with their implications.

Whether or not to quit your job, whether or not to have an abortion, whether or not to kill yourself – these are all philosophical questions. Even trying to determine why you feel depressed involves philosophical skills – to uncover and clarify perceptions, assumptions, expectations. In fact, while here in Canada and the U.S. when we advise someone to get counselling or therapy, we mean psychological counselling, there is also such a thing as philosophical counselling. It's a well developed field in Europe: it has its own journals, its different schools of thought; one can become a certified philosophical counsellor and hang out a shingle for business, much like the familiar psychological counsellor here. As a parallel to psychoanalysis, it makes perfect sense. After all, philosophy is analysis.

From Romeo and Juliet to "Ass" and "Hole"

I filled in for a high school English teacher one day who had left the following instructions: "Have the students rewrite one of the two scenes from Romeo and Juliet – either the balcony scene or the fight scene – into contemporary English."

"Okay," I said to the class, "this can be lots of fun, let's take a look. Open your books to the fight scene, please, and imagine it: you have these guys raging at each other, and they've been doing it for years; they're going to fight now, and they're going to fight so hard a couple of them end up stabbed to death. Now instead of shouting 'A plague o' both your houses!', Mercutio would say, if it were today, he'd say maybe 'Fuck you!', right? Okay, go ahead, see if you can translate the whole scene."

The students did indeed have lots of fun. And the principal had hysterics. Why did you take it upon yourself to introduce vulgarities into a lesson, he asked. I didn't 'introduce' anything, I responded, we were translating Shakespeare. 'Zounds, Shakespeare uses vulgarities all the time, I added, seeing the need for further explanation. No matter, he asked me to promise never again to swear in class. But I didn't swear in class; I quoted a character who swore. He smiled at me as if I were being silly. It's what men do when they don't understand what a woman has said. An hour later, exhausted by the attempt, I agreed never again to quote a character who swears. I then asked the principal to provide me with a list of words he considered swear words. He smiled at me again. Look, I persisted, I'm promising to abide by your rules – but I'll need to know what they are, specifically.

Because it seems to me that what is and is not a swear word is rather arbitrary. True, most of our 'bad words' refer to religious characters ('Christ!' 'God damn it!') or bodily parts and functions ('Shit!' 'Fuck!'). But if we had any shred of consistency about us, yelling 'Angels!', 'Mucous!', and 'Birthing!' would be just as bad.

Trying to find some semblance of logic, I once thought that our swear words are those words which refer to things we fear – hence the horror when they're invoked in anger. That may explain 'Jesus Christ!' (at least, for Christians) but, well, I don't know about you – I don't live in fear of shit.

Then I thought perhaps swear words are things we want to keep special, sacred, and the offence is in the mention, the making common. Again, this works for the religious terms and maybe even the sexual terms, but defecation is not exactly a holy ritual.

To say they're things we want to keep private, hence the offence at proclamation loud and clear, also doesn't work. That taking prayer out of public schools was a battle suggests that religious words are not to be spoken only in private. Conversely, haemorrhoids, at least until Preparation H came along, have been a matter of some privacy, but that word never made it to the bad word list. And to say that swear words are our society's unmentionables simply begs the question. Besides, yeast infections are pretty unmentionable too, but they don't have swear status.

So I gave up. There is simply no rational explanation for what makes a word a swear word. Swearing, amazingly high on the social shalt not list, is defined at worst by whimsy, at best by custom. (And I doubt that I followed the same customs as the principal; certainly our sense of whimsy was different.)

Even more irrational is that context seems to be irrelevant. Swearing in anger, pain, or frustration, at no one in particular, seems to be as reprehensible as swearing at a specific person. I should think that the 'Fuck!' I yell when alone (say, whenever I hit my thumb with a hammer) is trivial compared to the 'Fuck you!' I yell at my neighbour (say, whenever he looks at me). But they're both swearing; they're both bad.

And yet, context is relevant: words are not intrinsically good or bad – it's how we use them that makes them so. Consider 'ass'. 'The ass is a noble creature.' In that case, the word's okay. But if I say 'You're such an ass!' then the word is offensive, and, if you like, a 'bad' word, a 'swear' word. Context creates meaning, and meaning is what matters.

Sometimes. Not only is the concept of swearing irrational, it's terribly inconsistent. Consider the word 'girls'. 'The girls are here.' That's okay. But if the coach is reaming out his losing senior boys' basketball team at half-time in the locker room and he says with disgust and derision, 'Now girls, you've got to play with your eyes open!' then doesn't the word 'girls' become a swear word? Isn't it offensive? Of course it is. To girls everywhere. (As well as, unfortunately, to the boys – except the ones who value girls and consider it an honour to be called one.)

At the end of the day, I saw the principal's secretary flipping through a dictionary with some frustration. Poor man probably thought if it's in the dictionary, it's okay. And then realized that the words 'god,' 'damn' and 'it' are in the dictionary. As are 'ass' and 'hole'.

Wedding Leave

I recently discovered that my workplace has 'wedding leave': apparently you can get up to three days off—with pay. What the fuck is going on here?

I mean, what's a wedding? It's just a big party. Should employees be allowed to have personal parties on company time? I think not.

Oh, but it's a once-in-a-lifetime party. Well, no, there's a fifty-fifty chance the marriage will end in divorce, and the happy couple may well try again (presumably after shouting 'Switch!'). But even allowing one party on company time is wrong—unless, of course, every employee is so entitled, not just those who choose to marry. Remember, it is a choice: getting married is not like getting sick. (Well, actually, it is, but that's a separate point.)

So what's so special about this choice? Getting married is just entering into a legal contract. Why isn't everyone who enters into a legal contract allowed three days off to celebrate? Why is this legal contract cause for exception?

Perhaps because of what else getting married is: it's a religious ceremony. Well, surely mixing religion and the workplace is a very contentious thing. Can I have three days off to celebrate my religious ceremony, the It's-Time-To-Worship-The-Great-Big-Purple-Platypus-In-The-Sky Weekend?

It seems to me that wedding leave is discrimination pure and simple—if not on religious grounds, then on grounds of marital status-to-be.

But perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. Our society has lots of customs that reward those who marry. Both of my siblings got married and therefore had their apartments half-furnished with everything from blenders to stereos before they even moved in. I, on the other hand, have had to buy every single thing I wanted (and I still don't have a blender). Being married also means that your best friend can get medical benefits through your employer (gee, that's way better than a blender)—I'm referring, of course, to spousal benefits, another policy that just doesn't stand up to contemporary scrutiny (based, as it is, on the single breadwinner, half-the-nation's-adults-are-and/or-need-to-be-'kept', premise). Wedding leave is just one more perk for maintaining the status quo ("Settle down, get a job, find a girl, you can marry…" Cat Stevens).

Now I haven't actually asked about wedding leave, and the fact that most weddings can and do happen on Saturday (one day, and not usually a work day) suggests that I could be mistaken: maybe the three days' leave with pay is intended for the honeymoon. Oh, so only if I sanctify my sexual-domestic partnership with state permission or superstitious ritual am I allowed to take a holiday with my love on company time? What the fuck—

Libraries: what are they and so what?

So I was working in my local public library the other day – well, trying to work. I was distracted by the kid on the computer next to me who was playing a computer game. My first point. Is it appropriate for kids to be allowed to play computer games on the computers in public libraries? I suggest that libraries are repositories of knowledge that people either peruse to borrow or access on-site.[1] Given that, playing computer games should not occur in a public library. Libraries aren't entertainment centers. Yes, perusing and accessing knowledge can be fun. But that doesn't mean that that which is fun is necessarily perusing or accessing knowledge.

Furthermore, the kid was continuously commenting, not in a particularly loud voice, but certainly loud enough for me, sitting next to him, to hear. My second point. Goes along with the intense irritation I experienced while in the university library a few weeks ago, unable to search the stacks for what I was seeking (books containing arguments) because someone in one of the nearby carrels was talking on her cellphone. Not an emergency conversation, mind you, but a mundane hi-yeah-so-like-whatever one. Also goes along with the 'group learning' thing. Is it just me or are people less able to think on their own, silently, these days? In any case, given that libraries are repositories of knowledge that one either peruses to borrow or accesses on site – both of which often require mental effort, requiring concentration, which is inhibited by the distraction of talking aloud – both the kid's running commentary and the cellphone conversation should not have occurred.

Further still, the kid's comments were "I killed you. Killed you too. Got you. Killed you." and so on. Not only distracting, but disturbing. My third point? Given that the library is indeed a public library, I think there are grounds for censorship – could that be considered "hate speech" or "disturbing the peace"? It's bad enough that the kids' parents are irresponsibly unaware of the damage being done to their kids, not to mention to the rest of us, by allowing such activity (it desentisizes the kid to death, and it forms an association between killing and fun/entertainment), but there is no excuse for public librarians to be so unaware. And, given the public status (and funding) of the library, they have grounds for acting on their awareness.

[1] But what about all that fiction? Okay, but isn't it generally 'serious literature' – fiction that has, presumably, insight – knowledge – about the human condition? Actually, no. Don't a lot of libraries have an extensive collection of genre lit (westerns, romances, mysteries…)? So maybe they are community centres, indoor parks, if you will. But then where oh where is the quiet place? Are there no quiet public spaces left??

The Little Birdies?

So I'm out walking today, and as I pass a neighbour tending his bird feeder, I wave.

And the guy calls out to me "I'm feeding some seed to the little birdies!"

The little birdies? What am I, twelve?

No, I'm female. (I have a hard time believing that he would've said the same thing to a middle-aged man.)

And (many) men talk to women differently than they do to men. They talk to us like we're children. Idiot children.