Pie in the Sky
Published on 25 Dec 2006 at 7:00 pm.
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Filed under Politics, The Economy, About Buff.
A recent report in the New York Times that college-educated women are losing ground in the race for pay equality will come as no surprise to any woman who’s spent time in the working world. As a full professor, I can report that even people who know the law are rarely aware of the discriminatory impact of their conduct. Examples from the law school where I taught abound:
- During a hiring discussion, a male faculty member blurts out, “Don’t we have enough women?” The faculty is less than 25% female.
- During a discussion, concerning the use of a form for job interviews, a professor (who taught labor and employment law) complains, “I don’t want to fill out a form. I just want to see if I like the guy.”
- During a discussion about two female applicants, a male faculty member speaks in favor of one of the candidates by saying, “She would be a lady-like role model for our students.”
- During a discussion of a candidate with many publications, a male faculty member comments, “But she co-authored these with her husband.” No comment is made about any male candidate’s co-authored articles.
- A male writing instructor is hired at the law school from another part of the university, and is brought in at his current salary. At that salary, he is making more than the female who supervises him. The salaries were both approved by the dean, who felt no adjustment was in order since he had not set the male instructor’s salary. Only when this disparity is the subject of a complaint by female faculty is the supervisor’s salary increased.
- Two new professors are hired, neither with any teaching experience. The male, who is older by 20 years, is paid substantially more than the female. When this disparity is brought to light, the dean cites “practice experience” as the justification for the difference in pay. At no time during the hiring process was “practice experience” listed or considered as a job criterion.
- A female full professor discovers that a male associate professor is earning $7,000 a year more. When she complains, she is told that the associate professor is entitled to a higher salary because he has been teaching for more years.
In none of these cases was discrimination acknowledged as the reason for the disparity in treatment. In every case, the parties setting standards and salaries for jobs felt confident that they were acting without the slightest bias, but based upon concerns about “qualifications” and “quality.”
And therein lies the problem. In too many cases, male professionals come to the table with credentials and experiences that other male professionals deem valuable. I call this process “the presumptive piece of the pie.” A white male hire is presumed to be qualified, and his experiences (particularly experiences shared with white male decision-makers) are deemed valuable. He comes to the table with that presumption on his plate. Unless he eats his pie or throws it in someone’s face, he goes through his career with that presumption of entitlement.
A woman comes to the table with nothing on her plate. She has to bake her pie, and often, to serve it up with a humble smile. Although women are no longer explicitly perceived as “affirmative action hires,”—not deserving of their positions—the factors that go into decisions to give women a promotion or a raise differ from those applied to men.
Here’s another example: A female professor facing tenure is told that she needs to have two articles accepted for publication before her application is due. She meets this requirement. During the discussion of her promotion, a male professor complains about her as a teacher, and notes, “She lets everyone talk.” No pie.
A male professor submits his application with one unpublished (albeit long) article and the faculty votes to grant him tenure despite his failure to meet the standard. During a heated debate about the fairness of this decision, one male faculty member shouts at his female colleague, “He went to the University of Chicago, for god’s sake!” The pie.
The persistent pay gap isn’t news. Similar statistics show up all over professional careers. A 2006 study of the Allegheny County Bar Association found that nothing occurred in a 15-year span to narrow the pay gap between male and female lawyers. The number of female law students has been hovering around 50% for years, but only 16.8% of large law-firm partners are women, according to a 2004 study. Firms used to say that this was a “pipeline” issue, arguing that the number would increase as more women entered the profession. But it didn’t happen. Why? The pie.
Law faculties show a leaky pipeline as well. While almost half the tenure-track positions are filled with women, only a quarter of tenured professors are currently female.
Women are not immune to pie presumption. We expect more of ourselves and ask more of our female peers, perhaps because we know (consciously or not) that more will be expected of a woman, that both students and colleagues will judge women by different, and harsher, standards. And finally, that we will be judged by the success of other women, a process from which white men are immune.
The fact that there are many outstanding, highly successful women actually works against female professionals in many cases. These exceptions are regularly cited as evidence that there is no discrimination when women complain. A faculty with few women hires a woman for a chaired position. A faculty that will not grant full professorship to a woman “proves” that there is no discrimination when it hires a proven star from another school.
Do some women work less? Yes. But with a reward system this slanted, who can blame them? With spouses who may not have the time or the inclination to parent equally, some women value time more than money. But the economics of this choice work against women.
Suppose a woman takes a year off from her career at 35 to have a child. During that year, she does not receive a 10% raise that she otherwise would have received. A man takes a year off from his career at 55 to receive treatment for prostate cancer. He does not receive a 10% merit raise that he otherwise would have received. If they both started at age 35 earning $35,000 a year and receiving 10% raises every year, at age 65, the woman’s choice has cost her $200,000.
Biology cannot write economic destiny. A pay gap of 25% (and climbing) cannot be blamed on women, whether we are having children, failing to fight aggressively for parity, or collapsing in exhaustion. These statistics are just another pie. This time, in the face.
Buff