Alyssa Rosenberg takes a closer look at what men can learn from women and why men and women need to be equally invested in pay equality.
Originally appeared on ThinkProgress
By Alyssa Rosenberg
The Center for American Progress, the think tank that runs ThinkProgress, partnered with Maria Shriver to put together The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink, which chronicles the ways in which the ongoing recession has affected American women. It’s a fascinating collection of everything from photojournalism to first-hand accounts of women workers, increasing numbers of whom are the breadwinners in their families. And it’s also got testimonials from men and women with enormous cultural power, some of whom have been increasingly vocal about their feminism both in their work as advocates, and in their artistic work. I wanted to highlight three of those ideas.
1. From Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, men and women need to be equally invested in pay equality
Knowles-Carter writes in her essay in the report that:
Unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change. Men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters earn more—commensurate with their qualifications and not their gender. Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect.
Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally important and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal? These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning. We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life. And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible.
One thing I think she might have added is that we should teach boys and men that it’s in their interests for the women in their lives not to experience pay discrimination. If your wife is paid fairly, your household income goes up, and your family as a whole is less vulnerable if you lose your job. If your sister gets equal pay, she may be more able to contribute to the care of your parents or to help you in a crisis, and less likely to depend on you financially in case of a crippling emergency. If your mother is paid what she ought to be paid, you may not have to worry as much about how she’ll pay for your college education. Making up that 23 percent gap isn’t about redistributing income from men to women. It’s about making sure that everyone is more financially secure.
2. From LeBron James, men and women aren’t so different that they can’t learn lessons about parenting from each other
King James writes, in a long meditation on his mother’s efforts to provide a stable environment for him as a child, that:
After the Heat won the 2012 NBA Championship, the team was invited to the White House. Speaking about me, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh, President Barack Obama said, “For all the young men out there who are looking up to them all the time, for them to see somebody who cares about their kids and is there for them day in and day out, that’s a good message to send. It’s a positive message to send, and we’re very proud of them for that.”
The truth is that everything I’ve learned about being a parent to my boys—9-year-old LeBron Jr. and 6-year-old Bryce—I learned from my mother. Everything I know about being loving and caring, and sacrificing and showing up and being present in my children’s lives—I learned all of that from her example.
In other words, being a man isn’t diametrically opposed to being a woman. And instead of looking down on women’s work, men have a lot to learn from it.
3. From Eva Longoria, when we underestimate women, we all lose
I hadn’t known the first statistic Longoria gives us here, but it’s a striking one:
Latinas are incredibly entrepreneurial. The number of Latina-owned businesses has increased at eight times the rate of men-owned businesses in recent years. Yet in spite of their ambition and drive, many Latinas are not achieving the American Dream. One in three of us drops out of high school, and 25 percent of Latinas live in poverty. Latina unemployment is high at 9 percent, and when they are in the workforce, Latinas earn less than 60 cents for every dollar a white man earns for the same job.
With more than 25 million Latinas in the United States and projections putting us at 15 percent of the total population by 2050, we must all pay attention to the fate of Latinas because the economic future of our country depends on it.
In other words, we should try to close the gaps between the aspirations people have and the skills available to them to realize their ambitions.
—Photo—Public Domain
About the author: Alyssa Rosenberg is the Features Editor for ThinkProgress.org. She is a columnist for the XX Factor at Slate, and a correspondent for TheAtlantic.com. Alyssa grew up in Massachusetts and holds a B.A. in humanities from Yale University. Before joining ThinkProgress, she was editor of Washingtonian.com and a staff correspondent at Government Executive. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, The New Republic, Esquire.com, The Daily, The American Prospect, and National Journal. Follow @AlyssaRosenberg
It did Archy. I wrote something similar, including the fact that even the US Dept of Labor’s statistics debunk the 77% thrown out there all the time. Hopefully this one shows up.
Did my comment get deleted pointing out the pay gap myth (the myth being at 23% which is far higher than the reality, it’s really 1-7% when adjusted for everything)?
Shriver has said that women now make up 2/3 of all minimum wage workers. Some problems with that stat, assuming that it’s true: 1. The fairest thing would be for women to make up 51% of those workers. So, we’re basically talking about the difference between 51% and 67%. Sixteeen percentage points. Unless she’s suggesting that women should only be a small minority of minimum wage workers….. 2. Minimum wage is minimum wage. Men and women both working for minimum wage are both making the same wage. So, the creation of so many new minimum wage jobs is actually helping… Read more »
Another way to look at it:
A majority of the new jobs created in the past 10 years have been minimum wage jobs.
A majority of minimum wage jobs are occupied by women.
So, that means:
The majority of new jobs in the past 10 years have gone to women.
Never mind. My math doesn’t necessarily add up there. A majority of a majority may not make an overall majority. Logic fail.
I’m generally sympathetic but a little put off by the horribly imbalanced use of statistics and anecdotes. “…. [M]en and women aren’t so different that they can’t learn lessons about parenting from each other.” I totally agree with what that says on its face value. Unfortunately, that full implication does not seem to be the intent of the James message. It seems to be exclusively saying men have a lot to learn from women. I agree with that, but what about the flip side? Somehow I doubt in this report that there is any support for the idea that maybe… Read more »
Agreed. I just wrote a rant yesterday about the counteractive effects of feminism toward equality when they have a one-sided approach to equality. They inevitably demonize men in general, whether or not that’s their intention.
The mixed message approach makes sense if you think of it as a “sales job.” It’s telling different things to different audiences in order to get what the speaker wants. The Shriver report is a political campaign to push certain policy choices, and as such, like so many other things, it is a sales pitch. It’s like the way that many real estate agents behave. When they sell your house for you, they tell you the market is slow. When they sell you a house to buy, they tell you the market is hot. Whichever gets the best result for… Read more »