Samstag, 28. November 2015

GOP Denying Women Basic Economic Rights


As the self-identified party of small government and "maximum economic freedom and the prosperity freedom makes possible," Republicans have been working hard to restrict women's rights and coerce them to conform to traditional roles, such as abstaining from sex until marriage, getting married, having babies, and ideally, relying on their husbands to support them. Their opposition to paycheck fairness bills is consistent with these efforts. Although, the pay gap is in contradiction with encouraging productivity, economic activity, and the American Dream that the GOP is allegedly trying to promote or restore. However, on the other hand, the GOP may just be referring to pursuing prosperity without the presence of integrity and fair and free competition, which would make their opposition to paycheck fairness bills more consistent with their claims.

Making 79 Cents To Every Dollar Made By Men

Women in the U.S.A. to date make approximately 79 cents to every dollar made by men. The reasons for the discrepancy are complex. However, they include historically- and culturally-ingrained sexism exhibited, among other means, through a lack of appreciation for women's contributions to society, limiting gender roles, and (subsequent) discriminatory treatment. It must be noted here that sexism not only influences society's and/or men's view of women, but also the way women perceive themselves. Later in this post, we will discuss how women consciously and/or subconsciously contribute to the status-quo and subsequently, how they can improve their situation through increased awareness and confidence.

Efforts to counteract wage discrimination are not new. President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which prohibits "discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages." However, the Act has not been sufficient. Therefore, wage discrimination continues into the 21st century.

Educational And Professional Attainments Of Women In The U.S.A.

The discrepancy in earnings is hardly due to a lack of education, qualifications, or participation in the job market. Women make up approximately 50.8 percent (2010, see Table 1) of the U.S. population and 46.8 percent of the total U.S. workforce. In2009-2010, females represented 57.4 percent of students receiving a bachelor's degree and 62.6 percent of students receiving a master's degree. In spite of their attainments, women are often locked in traditional female roles, under-represented in traditional male roles, and paid less than their male peers in similar positions. The impacts of loss in salaries accumulate over time and have detrimental economic consequences, particularly for single women and single mothers, which includes their increased likelihood of living in poverty at advanced age.

GOP: Denying Women Their Economic Rights

To date, the GOP has been consistently blocking paycheck fairness bills (2010, 2011,2012, 2013, 2014) introduced by the Democrats, claiming, among other that, such anti-discriminatory laws would lead to litigation, or that managers who were not involved in the discrimination would become liable after the responsible manager leaves the organization, as if any such arguments come close to outweighing what the legislation is supposed to do: help eliminate economic discrimination based on gender. In her most recent effort in 2015, Senator Mikulski introduced another paycheck fairness bill, S.862, which can be expected to be thwarted by the GOP, too.

The GOP is not only adamantly preventing the Democrats from passing any legislation that would help women gain economic equality, they are also overturning progress, as in the case of Republican Governor Scott Walker, who repealed the Wisconsin Equal Pay Law and apparently changed his stand on paycheck fairnesslater. Republicans must have changed their minds altogether, as they recently introduced a watered-down version of a paycheck fairness bill - the Workplace Advancement Act, "which would make it illegal for employers to retaliate against employees for talking to each other about their salaries."

While Congress is continuing to play politics at women's expense, some states such asConnecticut, Delaware, North Dakota, Oregon and California, have acknowledged the urgency of this problem and have passed their own equal pay legislations. Several additional states have introduced similar bills and are awaiting results.

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Of 2009

One of the most significant victories on the path to equal pay for equal work, since the passing of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, alsoopposed by the majority of Republicans and signed into law by President Obama. Under the new law, each paycheck resets the 180-day statute of limitations for filing a complaint, making it much more realistic to hold employers who engage in wage discrimination responsible for their actions and the subsequent damages they cause.

Understanding The Bigger Picture Critical To Understanding The Need For Intervention - U.S.A. Lags Behind Iraq, Namibia, Mozambique, Afghanistan
Due to the deeply rooted and persevering nature of sexism, courageous intervention and progressive policies that address the issue directly, as well as indirectly, are indispensable, as demonstrated by many other countries, such as Germany, Norway, and France, that went as far as introducing quotas to increase representation of women, which is one of many steps toward gender-economic equality.

Understanding the overall picture of women's standing in the U.S.A. is crucial to understanding wage inequality. A comparative analysis to developments abroad can help illustrate the situation better: women are not only compensated unfairly compared to their male counterparts, but they also substantially lack representation and voice. For example, women represent only approximately 19 percent of members of the U.S. Congress. In terms of women in the national legislature, the United States ranks 76th in the world, behind countries such as Iraq, Namibia, Mozambique and Afghanistan. In her more than 200 years of history, the United States has not had a female leader, which leaves her behind countries like Turkey, India, Pakistan, Germany, Malawi, Kosovo, and the list goes on.

Under-Represented In Traditional Male Roles While Continuing To Occupy Traditional Female Roles

Besides in politics, women are also under-represented in U.S. board rooms. They only occupy 4.4 percent of CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies. Barriers for women exist also in other senior and executive level positions while being under-represented in other traditional male roles. Within competitive examining and student new hires for federal government occupations, males account for 80 percent of information technology, 83 percent engineering, and 92 percent law enforcement. Women continue to occupy traditional female roles, such as elementary or middle school teacher, while "secretary" remains the most common profession to date for women in the U.S.A. The lack of voice and opportunity for women is a noteworthy situation for a country with such an enormous economic and political impact, particularly when we consider which countries precede her in this arena.

Combat Gender Pay - Raising Awareness, Empowering Women 

Regardless of the complexity of why the wage gap exists, awareness and empowering women is crucial to gender equality. Research shows that women tend to value their work lower than men, are more reluctant to take credit for what they do, rarely negotiate their salaries or ask for raises, are more willing than men to give up or interrupt their careers for the sake of their partners and children, subordinate their needs to the needs of others and the list goes on. The self-defeating aspects of such attitudes are logical consequences of sexism; they are learned behaviors; taught by parents, enforced in communities and strengthened in many aspects of public life throughout history. In addition to these learned attitudes, there are also various practical reasons why women have fewer opportunities than men: women are less likely to have mentors and be favored by the "good old boy's network" that to date determines access to professional opportunities, and once again, the list goes on.

Opponents of paycheck equity laws often argue that such laws are offensive to women as they assume that women are not equally qualified to prove themselves in the job market and ask for what they deserve. In an ideal world, this would exactly be the case. However, we don't live in an ideal world. We don't even live in a world where a woman (or a man for that matter) can always freely negotiate her salary.

Perpetuating A Vicious Cycle - When Employers Base Future Pay On Current Income 

Employers often inquire about salary history, on which they base their offer. Even federal employers base future pay on current income. Such requests for disclosure, however, particularly affect women negatively. They enforce the vicious cycle of previous discrimination to which women and minorities are more likely to be subjected to, making it even more difficult for women to improve their situation, regardless of whether they are improving their negotiation skills and asking for the money they deserve. Contrary to preconceived notions, getting a raise or a desired salary is also not as easy as asking for it, when the inquirer is a woman. When women ask for raises, they can be perceived as demanding. They can also be treatedunfavorably for negotiating their salaries.

Moving Forward

Most jobs today are very specialized and narrowly focused. Everyone who is hired is expected to be qualified and do a good job. There is hardly any reason that justifies the immense pay gaps for doing the same or a relatively similar job, as we see today. And if there is such a discrepancy in performance when doing the same job, that discrepancy should not be determined by gender.

The complex issue of the wage gap is difficult to solve as it is a historical, and subsequently, a structural problem, deeply ingrained in every aspect of our lives; it is certainly not one that is going to go away any time soon. By acquiring the skills and qualifications they need, women have done their part to gain access to opportunities and privileges that men always had. Now the society needs to do its part: take responsibility and provide them with a discrimination-free environment to make the most out of their potentials. Women don't need pity, and they don't need sympathy; what they need is equality of opportunity, opportunity to prosper like any other man.
Let's pass the Paycheck Fairness Act!


All Americans Not Equal: Mistrust and Discrimination Against Naturalized Citizens in the U.S.


Approximately 13 percent of the U.S. population -- nearly 40 million -- is foreign-born, of which about 6 percent are naturalized U.S. citizens. Given the positive image associated with immigrants -- the "nation of immigrants" or "the melting pot" -- one would assume that all Americans in the U.S.A., natural born or naturalized, have equal worth as citizens. This, however, is not necessarily the case. Despite U.S. citizenship, naturalized Americans are seen less than equal to natural born Americans. They are often confused with "foreign nationals." Moreover, their cultural belonging, allegiance, English-language skills, as well as other qualifications, are questioned.

This post is going to examine foreign-born contributors in the U.S.A. in context of federal government employment opportunities, particularly in the national security area. Foreign-born citizens have critical linguistic and cultural abilities that are needed, but a tendency to profile them may obstruct the U.S. government taking full advantage of their talents. Profiling and mistrust based on national origin in turn can lead to unnecessary resentment and detachment of loyal citizens, endangering the unity that makes the U.S.A. strong against extremists in the first place. As Peter Neumann, Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Professor at King's College London suggests, inclusiveness is a significant contributor to security as it lowers the chances of radicalization and extremist recruitment.

Anti-Immigrant Policies In The U.S., A Historic Perspective

Mistrust and discrimination against naturalized citizens as demonstrated in variousanti-immigrant policies is not new to the 21st century. In fact, marginalization of immigrant groups based on (perceived) threats has been an inherent part of U.S. history. Examples of policies targeting immigrants include the Alien and Sedition Acts, Chinese Exclusion Act, Immigration Act of 1924, the Alien Registration Act and the Executive Order 9066.

Discriminatory treatment of naturalized citizens is even anchored in the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, [...] shall be eligible to the Office of President [...]" There may have been some rationale behind the provision at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. However, that is certainly not the case any longer. An amendment to this provision has been unsuccessful to date, even though the provision is not only discriminatory, but also shows a lack of trust in the democratic system altogether, as, for someone to become the president of the U.S.A., a significant number of Americans would have to vote for him/her.

The lack of concern with this discriminatory passage conveys much about sentiments toward naturalized citizens today. Even in countries such as Germany [see Basic Law, Article 54, Section 1 (president) and Article 64 (chancellor)], or Turkey (Law Nr. 6271, Section 6; Basic Law (Anayasa, Madde 76)), where diversity and inclusion is less of the national identity, any citizen is trusted to lead the country, indicating a significant deficiency in the U.S. Constitution.

Recent Cases Of Mistrust And Discrimination Against Foreign-Born Citizens

Similar sentiments are reflected in policies that denied naturalized citizens equal access to employment opportunities as late as 1988, in violation of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination based on national origin, in this case, "without a compelling state interest." More recently, naturalized citizens were awarded monetary benefits of $31 million resulting from Equal Employment Opportunity complaints in 2014, $35.3 million in 2013, and $37.0 million in 2012, respectively. It must be noted here that employment discrimination is extremely difficult to prove. Therefore, many incidents are likely to go unreported or undetected which, in the contrary case, would have increased these aforementioned amounts per year even more.

Concerning sentiments toward naturalized citizens can also be found in an official report sponsored by the Defense Personnel and Security Research Center (PERSEREC). Based on the extremely limited number of open source cases that occurred from 1990 until 2007 (see Table 2) - 37 (among others) - the author concludes that naturalized citizens are more likely to commit espionage while she fails to provide an explanation on how using protected demographic traits in her research is going to improve U.S. national security policies and how her loaded conclusion will not result in a further increase in discrimination against naturalized Americans.*

Foreign-Born Citizens Dying In Line Of Duty

In the midst of all these, let us examine immigrants' (naturalized Americans and non-citizens) contributions in the area where, according to President G.W. Bush, the "finest citizens" can be found -- the U.S. military. In 2008, foreign-born represented 65,033, 4.8 percent of the 1.36 million active-duty personnel in the armed forces. Themilitary greatly benefits from the cultural and linguistic diversity of these members.

Immigrants, however, not only join the U.S. military, they also perform quite well in it. General Pace, USMC, Chairman, Joint Chiefs Of Staff, testified before Congress that even among the non-citizens, "[s]ome 10 percent or more than those who are currently citizens complete their first initial period of obligated service to the country.... they are reliable, they are courageous.... more than 20 percent of those who have received our Nation's highest award for heroism in combat have been immigrants."

Although naturalized citizens' allegiance is questioned even by liberal officials such as Senator Dianne Feinstein (D), the granddaughter of Jewish and Catholic immigrants from Poland and Russia, who claims that "allegiance is driven by... birth", immigrants die in line of duty, while trying to protect U.S. interests. According to the Department of Defense, as of July 23, 2015, out of 6,837** who died in line of duty from 2000 until 2015, 130 were naturalized citizens. Additionally, the USCIS has grantedposthumous citizenship to 111 military personnel non-American citizens who were killed while defending the U.S.A. since September 2001.

Equal Opportunity, Inclusion And Sticking To American Principles

As the world is becoming increasingly interconnected and mobile, individual identities are becoming even more diverse and are encompassing more than one nation, ethnicity, or culture at a time. Subsequently, concepts such as citizenship or allegiance are changing and becoming more organic. Some things, however, remain the same, regardless: most people, no matter where they are from, are more alike than different. In essence, they generally all want the same things: better opportunities and a better life for themselves and their offsprings. Most people are neither terrorists nor plan on committing any crimes.

Ideals such as equal opportunity and inclusion are what makes the U.S.A. a strong nation and attracts many foreign-born, hard-working, productive individuals to this country. For many foreign-born individuals, the U.S.A. represents a unique place, possibly different than their places of birth, where they can find things that they may not have been able to find elsewhere: opportunities of economic nature or otherwise; respect and dignity; and maybe tolerance. In fact, naturalized Americans may have a deeper appreciation for this country based on their personal stories than someone who may have been born on U.S. soil and never had an opportunity to compare or choose their nationality. Either way, prejudice and biases can only alienate and detach people, whereas fair and equal treatment attract and nurture ties and allegiances.

Therefore, in regard to federal hiring, it may be best to remain open to the possibility that espionage (or unauthorized disclosure of classified information, for that matter) can be carried out by any person regardless of place of birth, national or ethnic origin, gender and other similar traits. The low number of espionage in the U.S.A. indicates that strong background check processes for defense personnel are in place. Concentrating on improving strategies or developing new ones to ensure that the best and most suitable individuals are hired and trusted with sensitive information will certainly generate better results than profiling of naturalized Americans.

*Under "race or ethnicity" the author lists a category which she refers to as "Arab." "Arab" is generally not a category on which the federal government gathers demographic data. Therefore, it is unclear where the particular data was extracted from and why a separate category was created for this group.

**Combined U.S. service members' deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Operation New Dawn (OND), Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), and Operation Freedom's Sentinel (OFS) from January 2000 through July 2015. Please note that this number does not include all active duty military deaths during this period, e.g. self-inflicted.


Police Brutality Against Black Men, Plausible Outcome of Structural Racism


The killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, last year by a white police officer in which a grand jury decided that there was "not enough probable cause to indict police officer Darren Wilson" was not the first time that an unarmed black man got killed by a white police officer and the justice system failed to redress. As the case of Eric Garner soon showed, it won't be the last time, either.

Protests Are About Institutional Racism Not About Single Incidents

The protests for "Ferguson" and Staten Island have not been about single incidents of one black man getting killed by one (white) police officer. They are about institutional racism in the United States, and about excessive use of police force that ends only in its most visible and extreme form with the killing of a black man by the "defender" of our very system, but remains invisible from the national eye a majority of the time.

Effort To Separate Protests From Race

There is much effort to separate the protests from race as racism understandably remains a very uncomfortable topic in the United States. Understandably, as an open discussion about the issue also leads to the questioning of the status-quo. We have to remember that the construct of racism in its very essence is economic. It was historically constructed to justify exploitation of arbitrary determined groups. Changes to racist structures, therefore, would threaten the existences of many of its profiteers. It would also lead to the questioning of tales about the extent of upward mobility in the USA, or about life being all about choices that one makes, that good choices generally lead to good things and bad choices lead to bad things, etc. Such tales allow people who "have it good" to feel better about themselves as they can claim that they owe the status-quo to their achievements based on the good choices that they made, instead of a system that has set them up to succeed in the first place.

In the realm of the painful truth behind such facades, it is understandable why one would choose not to talk about race.

Civil Rights: Overt Racism Replaced By Covert Racism

Racism today is easy to hide because after the civil rights era, it became not only legally, but also culturally less acceptable to be and act openly racist. In support of the status-quo, a new, highly "sophisticated" and powerful form of racism emerged. Today's racism is very difficult, in many cases, practically impossible to detect. However, careful analyses of an array of data help us illustrate that we still live in a highly racially segregated society.

Moving Forward

The protests against the grand jury decisions in the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner may have triggered the much needed debate beyond the use of excessive police force, about institutional racism and economic inequalities in the USA. It is too bad that it had to take so many deaths before we were even willing to admit that there may be something wrong with the system.

Only history will tell, if we are heading toward the change that many Americans have been waiting for. However, we should not be too optimistic as history also shows that even if changes occur, they are usually very nominal, particularly since a man-made construct such as racism that has taken centuries to build and preserve is not going to turn into equal access, social justice and alike overnight.

What is more likely is that in the near future, we may see changes to the excessive use of police force, which is unfortunately, only a symptom, not the cause of the actual problem. The underlying causes such as structural racism and social stratification will be too difficult to fix, even if the political will to do so should present itself.

On the other hand, sustainable changes, some may argue, come in small doses and no matter how small, any step in the right direction is a gain.



Original Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alev-dudek/police-brutality-against-_2_b_7633184.html