TOWARDS GENDER AND RACIAL EQUALITY

Dr. Silvia Lazo

BUILDING A GENDER-CONSCIOUS AND RACIALLY-CONSCIOUS SOCIETY

1. The “Big Picture” of Inequality

2. Challenges: Denial and Implicit Bias

3. Social Movements, Activism and the General Understanding

4. Equality: Goals and Initiatives

5. Q&A

POLITICS

Of the 43 people sworn in as Presidents, 42 have been White Males.

* 44 presidencies total, with Grover Cleveland having served two non-consecutive terms.

* Prior to the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, all 16 leaders of the Continental Congress were White males.

POLITICS

ALL 47 Vice-Presidents, from John Adams to Joe Biden, have been White Males.

U.S. CONGRESS: 80% WHITE, 80% MALE, 92% CHRISTIAN

SUPREME COURT Traditionally, two-thirds of the Supreme Court have been White Males.

GOVERNORSHIPS Overwhelmingly White, Overwhelmingly Male: 85%

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

GROUP REPRESENTATION POPULATION

Women 4.2% of all Fortune 500 CEOs (21) 50% of all workers

People of Color (POCs) 2% of CEOs 36% of all workers

FACULTY NATIONWIDEBY GENDER

FACULTY NATIONWIDEBY RACE/ETHNICITY

African-American and Latino Faculty

4-6% representation each.

Population:

Blacks: 13.4%

Latinos: 17%

USC

UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA (2013-14)

ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY

"Across thousands of films in the largest ever dataset, it was hard to find a subset

that didn’t over-index maleness. Even romantic comedies have dialogue that is, on

average, 58% male. Including, for example, Pretty Woman and 10 Things I Hate

About You both with lead women. Women had the most number of lines in only 22%

of the films. Further, the number of lines, by age-range, is completely opposite for

women versus men. Lines available to women who are over 40 years old decrease

substantially. Not so for men. 22 of 30 Disney films have a male majority of

dialogue, even in Princess films." (April 2016)

INCARCERATION

MASS INCARCERATION

The United States is the leading nation

in mass incarceration: 2.3 million

people.

Together African Americans and

Hispanics comprise nearly 59% of all

prisoners, even though they make up

only one-quaarter of the U.S.

population (Prisoners: 20% Latinos,

44% African-Americans).

CHALLENGES: DENIAL IMPLICIT BIAS

HISTORICAL DENIAL

"An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy" (1944) by Swedish Nobel-laureate Gunnar Myrdal.

According to Myrdal, the American dilemma refers to the co-existence of American liberal ideals in contradiction to the miserable situation of Blacks. On the one hand, enshrined in the American creed is the belief that people are created equal and have human rights; on the other hand, Blacks, as one-tenth of the population, were treated as inferior and were denied civil and political rights. Myrdal's study covers every aspect of black-white relations in the United States. He frankly concluded: the "Negro problem" is a "white man's problem." That is, whites collectively are responsible for the disadvantageous situation in which Blacks were trapped.

Americans hold very high ideals about democracy and who we are as a nation (the American creed of equality). They are unable to reconcile that view with the deep inequalities that assail certain groups –particularly women and underrepresented minorities (Blacks and Latinos). This produces a dilemma that makes Americans uncomfortable. To "solve" the inherent contradiction, Americans often deny its very existence.

IMPLICIT BIAS

Racism is something that everyone feels they’re an authority on. Yet, racial and gender bias are part of our culture. Whether you are White or Black, you associate crime with Blacks/Latinos and Whites with “being good.” Our brains are programmed from childhood to favor Whites and Males.

"We are born into a racial hierarchy, and every interaction with media and culture confirms it—our sense that, at a fundamental level, Whites are superior. And, the thing is, it feels good. Even though it contradicts our most basic principles and values. So we know it, but we can never admit it."

Robin DiAngelo (2015)

VIDEO – IMPLICIT BIAS

IDEAS ABOUT EQUALITY

“Equality should be defined as equality of results, and not only judicial equality of rights.”

François Nöel, alias Gracchus Babeuf, 1795

“Inequality should exist in a way that benefits the least advantaged members of our society.”

John Rawls, Theory of Distributive Justice, 1971

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, ACTIVISM AND GENERAL UNDERSTANDING

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS: 2000-2016

Black Lives MatterBooks and

Publications

Films and Documentaries

Media:

Social MediaInternet

News Media

GOALS AND INITIATIVES National and Global Examples

POLITICS

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced as his first order of business that half of his cabinet was comprised of women. Asked why, he simply answered: “Because it’s 2015!”

More recently during a public appearance at the World Economic Forum Trudeau came out as openly feminist: “We shouldn’t be afraid of the word feminism. Men and women should use it to describe themselves anytime they want. Men have to be a big part of this conversation. My sons are going to grew up to be feminists just like dad. That role we have as men in supporting and demanding equality, and demanding a shift is really, really important.”

ACADEMIAPresidential Choice. Cornell’s sophomore student, Jennifer Mandelblatt, wrote an article published at the Cornell Daily Sun [04.29.2014], urging the university’s search committee to seriously consider the hiring of a female President. In her enthusiastic letter to the Search Committee she writes:

“Despite skepticism and criticism from his colleagues, in 1868 Ezra Cornell opened up the University’s gates to women who desired to pursue an education. He called this coeducation a ‘great experiment.’ Because of our founder and others that the education of young women is no longer an experiment, but a right.

For Cornell to return to its role as a leader of gender equality, the Presidential Search Committee should actively consider a female candidate. During the search for a university’s president, men are often more privy to the information necessary to be considered. ‘It wasn’t called the ‘old boys’ network’ for nothing.’

It is on college campuses that students concentrate their education into a particular field and begin to draft their career plans. On college campuses, women are designing their futures as they best fit under the glass ceiling. However, if our university president helps shatter that ceiling, women will understand that their futures are theirs alone to shape. The committee asked us what attributes we are looking for in the next president of Cornell University. A female president will prove that limitations placed on you by others are not permanent.”

RESULTCornell’s first female and 13th President, Elizabeth Garrett, took office July 1, 2015. With her ascent to office, the Ivy Leagues are now lead by half men and half women for the first time in history.

Pres. Elizabeth Garrett noted: "There are many more women in the pipeline to take on the jobs as leaders. It certainly is not a battle that has been won. But it is a battle that we’re winning.” Prior to her appointment Garret was Senior VP at USC.

ANOTHER CORNELL EXAMPLE

New protocols aim to ensure diverse hiring pool for faculty.

With faculty retiring in droves, Cornell is looking to recruit and retain the brightest and most diverse generation of new faculty the university has ever seen. In 2014, then Provost Kent Fuchs, rolled out the search accountability initiative. It requires all search committees to actively engage with their dean’s offices at key points in the faculty search process: first, during the initiation of the process, which includes discussion of search goals and recruitment plans; second, before inviting candidates to interview, to review the quality and diversity of the pool; and third, before an offer is made, so the success of the search effort can be discussed.

Results: New accountability measures were informed by recent successes in diversity hiring by the College of Engineering and the College of Veterinary Medicine. In engineering, women made up 26% of assistant professors in 2001, compared with 37% in 2012. At the College of Veterinary Medicine, 31% of assistant professors were women in 2001, versus 55% in 2012.

USC

The Office for Diversity and Strategic Initiatives held its fourth forum at University of Southern California (USC). "Whatever diversity we’re coming in the door with, if those folks stay, that’s what the future is going to look like,” George Sanchez, Vice Dean for Diversity. "We know what the current mismatch looks like, but my assumptions are that as the U.S. population diversifies further and further every year, we’re going to be at further of a mismatch when it comes to 2040.” He suggested setting explicit goals of the number of underrepresented applicants to hire, committing to provost funding for underrepresented applicants and creating intellectual initiatives with the purpose of attracting underrepresented applicants."

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY - SEPTEMBER 2016

In an effort to acknowledge its ties to slavery, Georgetown University will offer the descendants of nearly 300 slaves preferential treatment in its admissions process.

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE - GERMANY

Germany Sets Gender Quota in Boardrooms

On 6 March 2015, Germany passed a law requiring all corporations to have a 30% minimum of women on the Board of Directors. Norway was the first in Europe to legislate boardroom quotas, joined by Spain, France and Iceland, which all set their minimums at 40%. Italy has a quota of one-third, Belgium and the Netherlands 30%.

In passing the law, Germany joined a European trend to accomplish what has not happened organically, or through general pressure: to legislate a much greater role for women in boardrooms. For Germans, the law is “the greatest contribution to gender equality since women got the right to vote” in 1918.

REFORM PROPOSALS TO U.S. PRISON SYSTEM

In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness, Law Professor Michelle Alexander notes that there are currently more African-Americans incarcerated in the U.S. than were slaves in 1850, according to the census of that year: “…the refusal and failure to recognize the dignity and humanity of ALL people has formed the sturdy foundation of every caste system that has ever existed in the United States or anywhere else. Our task is to end not just mass incarceration, but the history and cycle of caste in America.”

BOOKS

SOURCES

1. Washington Post, 5 January 2015

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/01/05/the-new-congress-is-80-percent-white-80-percent-male-and-92-percent-christian/

2. Mother Jones, 23 November 2015

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/11/university-faculty-diversity-race-gender-charts

3. University of Southern California, 25 May 2016

https://news.usc.edu/101163/usc-releases-student-and-faculty-diversity-numbers/

4. University of Montana Faculty and Staff Statistics

http://www.umt.edu/plan/Institutional%20Data/Faculty%20Staff.php

5. Film Dialogue, 2000 Screenplays Broken Down by Gender, April 2016

http://polygraph.cool/films/

6. PBS, American Denial, Implicit Bias, 8 January 2015

https://youtu.be/Ar0iBLrjiCs

QUESTIONS? Dr. Silvia Lazo