Women's Studies, African Studies, and other multicultural university departments and programs are first on the chopping block amidst steep budget cuts. Last year the USF WST department pulled a massive effort together to oppose merging all the "marginal" cultural departments into one department, and they were successful not because of the letters from famous feminists on their behalf, but because of student-lead protests. As an alumnus of USF and beneficiary of the strong WS department there (the largest in the south and the oldest in FL) I was proud and relieved to see its survival, and with the Obama presidency, I saw the pendulum swinging back toward the important work of small departments like these.
But I was breathing that sigh of relief too quickly. Jenn Moore posted this information on the Women's Studies list serve: "This year something similar [to USF], but arguably more dire, is happening at Florida Atlantic
University where the school is may be using the recession as an excuse to dissolve the Women's, Gender,
and Sexuality Studies department and its MA program."
The global gag rule has just been reversed, and the Lily Ledbetter Act has passed congress, but feminists are so, so not out of the hot water. I am not surprised that people against WS would use this time of financial crisis to get rid of progressive departments, but we can't let them win. It's true that budget cuts are very real and very big, but it's a repression of information and educational opportunity to systematically ax multicultural and gender/sexuality focused departments and programs of study, as Jessica on Feministing reports is the case in Georgia.
Post-feminists are using this opportunity to use economicspeak to argue that WS has outlived its usefulness, akin to arguments that American car companies deserve to fail if they aren't profitable. But to this charge, I answer that I've been involved with WS programs at three universities, and they had strong enrollment and an excellent record of service and community involvement, the professors strong records of publication and leaders in their fields. I know it's not just about WS, because for instance philosophy departments are also having to defend themselves, but what the fields most often in trouble have in common is that they are are seen as more "feminine" and generate less revenue, lead generally to lesser paying jobs, are in essence less "masculine," so while there are targeted attacks on race and gender studies, there are also attacks that consider themselves to be quantitative but succumb to patriarchal assumptions of value.
Hmpf.
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Living Overseas and Maid Wages
A good friend of mine used to joke that "only boring women keep clean houses," and being anything but boring myself, I have always vowed to pay someone to do my cleaning if I could ever afford to do so. But I got a rude awakening when I triumphantly posted in my Livejournal that I'm paying my new maid 500 ringgit a month for eight hours a week of labor. To see my actual cost, divide that by 3.5. When I posted that blog, I did so with the idea that my American friends would be jealous, a rare occasion because having a maid is one of the few perks of living in Malaysia. Instead, my friends informed that this 40-yr old woman will be make $4.46 an hour, making me a sweat shop slave driver. The money I am giving her is what she asked to be paid for the amount of work that she proposed to do, though, so what that amount meant hadn't entered my mind. And I have the air conditioning on with NPR's All Things Considered in the background. Surely she could do worse.
My conscience was unsettled, though, so I decided to check up on whether she's getting a good part-time wage for Malaysia. Actually, it appears that house maids are doing pretty well according to this salary guide. There currently is no minimum wage in Malaysia, but look at this article which proposes a minimum wage of 1,200 ringgits. My maid earns almost half of that for eight hours a week. If she has two other houses, she's doing better than that, and if she works 40 hours a week, she's making almost double what authorities here think is a living wage. Despite what you might think, by paying maids so highly, we are empowering these women in a market where their unskilled labor would earn far less in other sectors.
But if all of this is true, then why do I feel like I am doing something wrong? I boycotted Nike shoes and Taco Bell tomatoes back in the day because of labor abuses. Of course, my house cleaning is hardly a matter of out-sourcing U.S. jobs or paying illegal immigrants less than locals. In fact, I am paying her more because it's possible to get Indonesian girls to work for you full-time for 500 ringgits. But do I only make myself feel better by saying "Oh, but someone else is worse!" Or am I legitimately doing what any overseas employer does, which is to pay the local going rate? Methinks I doth protest too much.
My conscience was unsettled, though, so I decided to check up on whether she's getting a good part-time wage for Malaysia. Actually, it appears that house maids are doing pretty well according to this salary guide. There currently is no minimum wage in Malaysia, but look at this article which proposes a minimum wage of 1,200 ringgits. My maid earns almost half of that for eight hours a week. If she has two other houses, she's doing better than that, and if she works 40 hours a week, she's making almost double what authorities here think is a living wage. Despite what you might think, by paying maids so highly, we are empowering these women in a market where their unskilled labor would earn far less in other sectors.
But if all of this is true, then why do I feel like I am doing something wrong? I boycotted Nike shoes and Taco Bell tomatoes back in the day because of labor abuses. Of course, my house cleaning is hardly a matter of out-sourcing U.S. jobs or paying illegal immigrants less than locals. In fact, I am paying her more because it's possible to get Indonesian girls to work for you full-time for 500 ringgits. But do I only make myself feel better by saying "Oh, but someone else is worse!" Or am I legitimately doing what any overseas employer does, which is to pay the local going rate? Methinks I doth protest too much.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Black Friday, or Death on the Blitz Line
You’d have thought by the news we were in a recession. You’d have thought people were beginning to be frugal, what with gas prices soaring in recent months, food prices skyrocketing, green peppers selling for $2 apiece.
Then what was poetically and accurately described as a group of “animals” and “savages” stormed and surged into a Long Island Wal-Mart, intent on $28 vacuums and $9 copies of “The Incredible Hulk”, unceremoniously trampling a temporary holiday worker to death. Despite recent hard times, can any of us admit to genuine surprise?
I understand that people likewise jostled the very medical crews trying to revive 34-year old Jdimytai Damour (who died of "positional asphyxiation") and kept shopping, even becoming irate when the store was closed on account of sudden death. “I’ve been waiting in line for days,” they said. And they weren’t talking of bread lines.
I recently learned that things were largely as they are today during the Korean War. People went about their business, more or less ignoring the news from the front, blithe in their new found prosperity. NPR reminded me that we have been at war this time around for seven years.
Last night I saw films of Iraqi children with their legs blown off by cluster bombs. Baghdad streets divided by razor wire, and the crumbling houses in Palestine. I am reminded of a story a few years ago, I believe it was in Texas, where free computers were given away at some fairgrounds one day. People attacked each other with folding chairs, an old man was clobbered, another man drove his car over the crowd.
It’s been said before, but now we are clear: America has gone insane.
The country is sickened by materialism. This is capitalism's inevitable end: that we kill each other for HDTV plasma televisions. The fact that 2,000 people are willing to stand in line for days on end--and in winter--to enter some warehouse-sized shopping center is enough to prove the fact. Maybe it began with the Cabbage Patch Kids. Maybe with Alexander Hamilton.
A friend in the Peace Corps in Gambia recently wrote that the Gambians love the idea of Thanksgiving--being with family, talking, a big meal--but the idea of spending all day shopping made absolutely no sense to them. In a country where Supermarkets are brand new, they were understandably confused.
Perhaps it’s only a start, wholly inadequate, but shouldn’t we put ourselves in those shoes? Instead of attacking each other for cheap sneakers?
Then what was poetically and accurately described as a group of “animals” and “savages” stormed and surged into a Long Island Wal-Mart, intent on $28 vacuums and $9 copies of “The Incredible Hulk”, unceremoniously trampling a temporary holiday worker to death. Despite recent hard times, can any of us admit to genuine surprise?
I understand that people likewise jostled the very medical crews trying to revive 34-year old Jdimytai Damour (who died of "positional asphyxiation") and kept shopping, even becoming irate when the store was closed on account of sudden death. “I’ve been waiting in line for days,” they said. And they weren’t talking of bread lines.
I recently learned that things were largely as they are today during the Korean War. People went about their business, more or less ignoring the news from the front, blithe in their new found prosperity. NPR reminded me that we have been at war this time around for seven years.
Last night I saw films of Iraqi children with their legs blown off by cluster bombs. Baghdad streets divided by razor wire, and the crumbling houses in Palestine. I am reminded of a story a few years ago, I believe it was in Texas, where free computers were given away at some fairgrounds one day. People attacked each other with folding chairs, an old man was clobbered, another man drove his car over the crowd.
It’s been said before, but now we are clear: America has gone insane.
The country is sickened by materialism. This is capitalism's inevitable end: that we kill each other for HDTV plasma televisions. The fact that 2,000 people are willing to stand in line for days on end--and in winter--to enter some warehouse-sized shopping center is enough to prove the fact. Maybe it began with the Cabbage Patch Kids. Maybe with Alexander Hamilton.
A friend in the Peace Corps in Gambia recently wrote that the Gambians love the idea of Thanksgiving--being with family, talking, a big meal--but the idea of spending all day shopping made absolutely no sense to them. In a country where Supermarkets are brand new, they were understandably confused.
Perhaps it’s only a start, wholly inadequate, but shouldn’t we put ourselves in those shoes? Instead of attacking each other for cheap sneakers?
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Global economic downturn is bad news for women's shelters
I normally think of large corporations as necessary evils (but mostly just evils) of a capitalist society, and although I care about the daily employees, I've felt a bit smug about some of the collapses in a nostalgic Fight Club sense--until seeing that the global economic crisis means less money for charities. And that as the Arlington, VA Doorways women's shelter rep says, "domestic abuse spikes during hard economic times — driving more women and their children to the shelters and safe houses." Doorways is looking at possibly losing only a fifth of its budget, which is bad news, but compare that to the Women's Aid Organization in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which has a shortfall of $200,000 USD, less than the Doorways shortfall, and yet that amount is 2/3 the total budget. The WAO shortfall is also due to the global recession, and if the money can't be raised soon, they will have to close the Child Care Center which allows abused women to bring thier children with them.
It's a commonly held fact that women and children need charity and social services more than men, but lately I felt that such a coversation topic was too divisive, given the broad range of people suffering right now from job loss. But even if men and women were losing jobs at the same rate, women would still be holding the shorter end, because as Susan Faludi so effectively argues in Stiffed, a whole new wave of violence against women is likely to occur, brought about by men who feel emasculated by not being a breadwinner, who can't handle the powerlessness that is intrinsic to suffering consequences of the actions of people more powerful than oneself. And those more powerful in this case are the hedge fund managers, CEOs, deregulationists in congress, and every small investor and motgage holder who attempted to hop onto that bandwagon once it looked unstoppable. And some of those people will also be increasing violence.
So, what the heck is this blog about? I am concerned about how the fall of these major employers will statistically raise incidents of domestic abuse and then concerned that the lack of corporate donations is causing women's shelters to be crippled at the time they are even more in demand. In my naive Fight Club fantasy wherein multinationals crumble because of overexpansion, it never dawned on me that the "extra" of women's well-being would be compromised in such an event. More than this, it never occured to me that of course in a global recession, women in nonwestern countries wherein feminism hasn't nearly made the impact it has in the west will suffer disproportionately; in KL the police are still just as likely to tell a battered wife to go home and cook her husband his favorite meal or ask her "What did you do to make him hit you?" as they are to refer a woman to services like WAO's. In such a climate, clearly the lack of education about violence against women makes fundraising and forming alliances even more challenging for groups like WAO. I'm not saying that charity groups in the U.S. have it easy, except by comparison. And what a sad comparison. Women and children deserve more, and so do men. Men could help by proving the statistics wrong and not increasing violence in the first place.
Roll up your sleeves, friends of women. It's going to be a long winter.
It's a commonly held fact that women and children need charity and social services more than men, but lately I felt that such a coversation topic was too divisive, given the broad range of people suffering right now from job loss. But even if men and women were losing jobs at the same rate, women would still be holding the shorter end, because as Susan Faludi so effectively argues in Stiffed, a whole new wave of violence against women is likely to occur, brought about by men who feel emasculated by not being a breadwinner, who can't handle the powerlessness that is intrinsic to suffering consequences of the actions of people more powerful than oneself. And those more powerful in this case are the hedge fund managers, CEOs, deregulationists in congress, and every small investor and motgage holder who attempted to hop onto that bandwagon once it looked unstoppable. And some of those people will also be increasing violence.
So, what the heck is this blog about? I am concerned about how the fall of these major employers will statistically raise incidents of domestic abuse and then concerned that the lack of corporate donations is causing women's shelters to be crippled at the time they are even more in demand. In my naive Fight Club fantasy wherein multinationals crumble because of overexpansion, it never dawned on me that the "extra" of women's well-being would be compromised in such an event. More than this, it never occured to me that of course in a global recession, women in nonwestern countries wherein feminism hasn't nearly made the impact it has in the west will suffer disproportionately; in KL the police are still just as likely to tell a battered wife to go home and cook her husband his favorite meal or ask her "What did you do to make him hit you?" as they are to refer a woman to services like WAO's. In such a climate, clearly the lack of education about violence against women makes fundraising and forming alliances even more challenging for groups like WAO. I'm not saying that charity groups in the U.S. have it easy, except by comparison. And what a sad comparison. Women and children deserve more, and so do men. Men could help by proving the statistics wrong and not increasing violence in the first place.
Roll up your sleeves, friends of women. It's going to be a long winter.
Monday, October 27, 2008
News from the Center of American Poetry
I receive in the mail a cream-colored envelope from the Academy of American Poets in New York, New York. In the lower left-hand corner, this quote from Walt Whitman: “To have great poets, there must be great audiences…”
The bundle of paper inside is about what you expect: sophisticated panhandling.
First, a letter from the Chairman. “Dear Friend,” it reads. What follows is a petition for my Membership in an organization founded well over seventy years ago by Marie Bullock, who was “outraged” by the fact that poets were not given time off from their jobs to give readings—jobs such as “soda-fountain jerk” or “salesman in a clothing store.” A rather confident letter.
As a member, among other perks, you get copies of books awarded by the Academy, “a valued edition to your personal library.” Join at a higher level (“which will bring you closer to the center of the American poetry world”) and you get a DVD. About poets.
By now I am dismayed.
But look, a letter from Donald Hall, author of the great Anti-Institutional essay "Poetry and Ambition" (1983), telling me poetry “requires institutions to give it a presence in the public world.”
Here is a brochure on all the Programs the Academy sponsors: awards, book clubs, websites, events, and prizes, prizes, prizes. I feel ill.
Finally, the bottom line: check a box next to a dollar amount. American Poetry accepts Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. This donation puts your name on Annual Reports. The return envelope has paid postage—though a first-class stamp will “help keep costs down.”
Whitman’s dream. But how did Whitman get my name and address?
The bundle of paper inside is about what you expect: sophisticated panhandling.
First, a letter from the Chairman. “Dear Friend,” it reads. What follows is a petition for my Membership in an organization founded well over seventy years ago by Marie Bullock, who was “outraged” by the fact that poets were not given time off from their jobs to give readings—jobs such as “soda-fountain jerk” or “salesman in a clothing store.” A rather confident letter.
As a member, among other perks, you get copies of books awarded by the Academy, “a valued edition to your personal library.” Join at a higher level (“which will bring you closer to the center of the American poetry world”) and you get a DVD. About poets.
By now I am dismayed.
But look, a letter from Donald Hall, author of the great Anti-Institutional essay "Poetry and Ambition" (1983), telling me poetry “requires institutions to give it a presence in the public world.”
Here is a brochure on all the Programs the Academy sponsors: awards, book clubs, websites, events, and prizes, prizes, prizes. I feel ill.
Finally, the bottom line: check a box next to a dollar amount. American Poetry accepts Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. This donation puts your name on Annual Reports. The return envelope has paid postage—though a first-class stamp will “help keep costs down.”
Whitman’s dream. But how did Whitman get my name and address?
Monday, March 10, 2008
Debt: The Big Dream Killer
Want to hear something scary? My fiance and I together owe over $120,000 in school loan debt, and we haven't even come close to entering the collapsing housing market yet. So if we were to buy a house here in Massachusetts, where it's unlikely we'd find even a fixer-upper for less than $200,000 any reasonable distance from our jobs, we're likely looking at over $300,000 in debt to start our lives together. Together, we bring in about $83,000 a year (which sounds like so much to me), so we'd owe over 3.5 times what we make in a year. That's not to mention any credit card or auto debt. No wonder we're scared to buy a house, even though we're pitching money down the toilet in rent. And children? Forget it. Can't afford them.
Compare that to my parents, who, when starting out in the mid 70s, had to pay back my dad's student loan of $3000. They bought a starter home that cost about $30,000, and my dad's starting salary as a teacher was about $15,000. They owed about twice what they were bringing in, without counting any money my mom earned before she got pregnant.
It feels unfair. We've gone farther than our parents in education, but we're wallowing under more debt than we can handle. We had more opportunity, more time to dream big, yet many of us are struggling in jobs we don't like to pay for the education that was supposed to make our dreams realities.
I don't regret going to college, but it was so easy to think of those loans like monopoly money. I just wish someone had sat me down when I was choosing paths like English and writing and said, hey, it's great to do what you love, but don't forget this isn't free. You have to pay it back. So if you aren't going down a path that will definitely lead you to a job that will pay for what you love, think about switching majors.
The irony is that you need the degree (and its debt) to get the job to buy the house that will put you in further debt. Oh, and did I mention our dollar isn't even worth as much as it used to be? But luckily, all that writing training comes in handy - I can write all my thoughts here for free, whether anyone reads or not.
Compare that to my parents, who, when starting out in the mid 70s, had to pay back my dad's student loan of $3000. They bought a starter home that cost about $30,000, and my dad's starting salary as a teacher was about $15,000. They owed about twice what they were bringing in, without counting any money my mom earned before she got pregnant.
It feels unfair. We've gone farther than our parents in education, but we're wallowing under more debt than we can handle. We had more opportunity, more time to dream big, yet many of us are struggling in jobs we don't like to pay for the education that was supposed to make our dreams realities.
I don't regret going to college, but it was so easy to think of those loans like monopoly money. I just wish someone had sat me down when I was choosing paths like English and writing and said, hey, it's great to do what you love, but don't forget this isn't free. You have to pay it back. So if you aren't going down a path that will definitely lead you to a job that will pay for what you love, think about switching majors.
The irony is that you need the degree (and its debt) to get the job to buy the house that will put you in further debt. Oh, and did I mention our dollar isn't even worth as much as it used to be? But luckily, all that writing training comes in handy - I can write all my thoughts here for free, whether anyone reads or not.
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