Comments on: Who Will Our Country Support With The Economic Stimulus Package?

By: That’s Really Super, Supergirl « peacocks and lilies

That’s Really Super, Supergirl « peacocks and lilies — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:20:20 +0000

[...] of this, this, and this? That’s just the beginning; don’t forget Summers, Favreau, the Stimulus Plan. How much evidence does one need to mount to prove that Obama is out of touch with women and their [...]

By: Anna

Anna — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:39:08 +0000

A bit off topic, but not sure where to post this…

Some good news from the House regarding the Lily Ledbetter legislation and I think if you read the article, it highlights (among other things) that voting for women based solely on gender and nothing else can work against our interests:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....pay_equity

By: Gretchen Glasscock

Gretchen Glasscock — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:38:38 +0000

As author of the blog post, I’d like to thank Linda Hirshman for taking her time to comment. So I’d like to reply.
First, Linda, I’d like to say I love the way you write and I love the way you think. I couldn’t agree more with your original article. I also agree with concept of Franke’s article that it would be a positive step to get more women into the engineering and building trades. I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. I think we should try to get increased funding for both. As you mention, it has been a long, uphill battle. The barriers and stereotypes are ancient and systemic so change will be glacial and incremental. That doesn’t mean we don’t have to keep pushing for it, as our mothers and grandmothers did and our daughters will have to do also, in the future. But they stand on our shoulders. What I don’t agree with is quibbling among ourselves and particularly calling each other out in public. We are one movement with one goal, to advance women. The advances we make will be made to the extent that we’re united and willing to put it all on the line to move forward. And when I say putting it all on the line, I mean also putting aside small and ultimately insignificant differences over tactics and finding common ground to work together and support each other. We don’t have to agree on every detail of every other woman’s agenda to advance women as long as we’re moving in the same direction. We need to be watching each other’s backs, not sharpening our knives. There’s plenty of criticism to go around as we are all human and fall short of the mark, at times, but let’s not let that criticism come from us. We don’t want to be the “circular firing squad”. The last thing we need is to fight among ourselves when there is so much…out there…which is wrong and which we need to fight. We are not the enemy. We need to aim our fire over the barricade….and with all due respect to both you and Franke, in my judgment.,that applies equally to both authors and both points of view.

By: Linda Hirshman

Linda Hirshman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:07:20 +0000

Only people who did not read my article would write, as Franke has, that a major part of the argument is missing. “It would be great,” I argued IN THE ARTICLE, if there were more female engineers. I of all people have been one of the loudest voices in the country arguing that women should get, meaning make it their business to, and also get, meaning be allowed to, Work. Especially in jobs that pay a living wage, like engineering. Get to Work. Read my book.
The economic stimulus will start to pay out money in a MONTH. Efforts to get meaningful female participation in the construction trades through goals, timetables, training, pressure and everything else you can think of has been going on since I graduated college in 1966. The administration to come has a speechwriter who grabbed the breast of a statue of the Secretary of State, an all male stimulus program and an inaugural pastor who believes that women should not speak in church. If Professor Franke thinks that, after forty years of failed efforts, that administration is suddenly going to integrate the plumbing trades in the next month, in the next year, or, indeed, at all, then the view from her ivory tower is better than mine. And if she could integrate the ranks of engineers, then she’s a time traveler as well, because there simply are not enough female graduates of engineering programs to make the slightest statistical change in the composition of the jobs program. If the advocates of using the stimulus to integrate the building trades, I’m all for it, but the last thing women need right now is feminist law professor pipe dreams of an ideal world while a trillion dollars goes to every man in America, from Robert Rubin (tax writeoffs) to Joe, the, well, you know.
Indeed, the last thing feminism needs is for dreams of the best to be the enemy of the good. Professor Franke just criticized the only approach that has the slightest chance of making a real difference in the dollars in the pockets of women who don’t have, you know, tenure.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:34:47 +0000

If used and marketed properly, a stimulus focus on infrastructure and construction good been a tremendous catalyst for women in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and match) that extends from actual jobs to academia (encouraging young women to aggressively pursue degrees in the STEM which is currently lacking).

If the new Labor Secretary, a women, is at the table and ensuring affirmative actions, goals and timetables are established for women for these jobs, the stimulus empowers her and women.

Watch for what role the Labor Secretary has in the stimulus package, will she be a bystander or an active player and decider.

By: Kiuku

Kiuku — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:27:28 +0000

I understand why the funding is going to construction jobs, because we need to rebuild infrastructure as if that is going to miraculously solve all of our economic problems.

By: Thia, GA

Thia, GA — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:03:56 +0000

Constance,
People will eventually get used to women in all jobs just like they have with doctors, lawyers, etc. The “pioneers” in any field do have to take it in the teeth. If she works in construction engineering most of her daily contact would be with a “less abrasive” crowd who are educated in business well enough to at least hide their sexism. Walking on the job sites the first few times is an interesting experience though.

By: Constance

Constance — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:56:41 +0000

Educating women and their Mothers to the possibilities in these “male” jobs would help. My daughter wants to go to engineering college. Probably construction engineering. I have to bite my lips to keep from saying “Honey it is an all male atmosphere, do you want to be forced to try and organize a bunch of macho twits who resent white collar workers and think women are inferior? Pick something else!” But I am biting my lips because I feel she has the right to make her own choices and mistakes and she probably will be well paid for her efforts. I do not think these construction jobs really represent a good choice for women but I hope I am wrong.

By: Anna

Anna — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:20:26 +0000

Very interesting piece!

By: goesh

goesh — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:57:36 +0000

I certainly agree with the author’s assertions and even if there were equity in these potential make-work jobs, said jobs end, then what? Our industrial base is eroded, seriously eroded. I recently viewed a clip of the world’s most sophisticated and one of the largest auto manufacturing plants in the world, a Ford plant in Brazil. Said plant is never going to miraculously ‘come home’ and provide thousands of high paying jobs for American women and men. Make-work, feel good jobs are just that, providing opportunity that is finite but does garnish votes.