Sasha Klaeb
WMST 101
7 May 2013
Assignment 4: Women and Work Question 1, The Glass Escalator:
In “The Glass Escalator,” Christine Williams studies the way men are treated and their experiences when working in female dominated occupations, and finds that there exists a glass escalator for men working in these jobs. First, although Williams acknowledges that the proportion of men and women in the labor force is approaching parity, there still exists significant job segregation relating to gender. Both men and women are relegated to single sex occupations, meaning that they work in jobs that society deems more appropriate for men and women. What Williams does in this paper is different from other studies because rather than focusing on women in male dominated occupations and the barriers they face, she studies the underrepresentation of males in predominantly “female” occupations. She examines four typically female dominated occupations: nursing, librarianship, elementary school teaching and social work, and studies the implications of men working in female occupations.
From these studies, she finds that unlike females in male dominated jobs, men do not face any discrimination and are in fact promoted and move up the ladder at a much faster pace than women. As one employee put it, there is a preference for men in these female occupations. Williams found that the more female dominated the job or specialty was, the greater the preference for men. The glass escalator refers to the fact that men in female dominated occupations are almost always rapidly promoted to higher positions and advance in these careers with ease and little struggle, in strike contrast to what women experience in male dominated occupations. For example, when men want to become Kindergarten or 1st grade teachers, they are encouraged instead to become principals or administrators, jobs that are more prestigious and of course, higher paying. In this sense, men are being “kicked upstairs” because they are advancing in an extremely quick manner to higher paying and more respected jobs; jobs that would take years for a woman to even be considered for. On the other hand, when women work in male dominated occupations, they experience a glass ceiling in which they find extreme difficulty in moving up or even being considered for some type of promotion. In these situations, women must work just to keep their place, whereas men in female occupations are almost automatically promoted to a higher position and most of the time without merit.

Question 2, PMS: Premenstrual syndrome is now seen as an illness from which women suffer, plaguing them with physical, but more importantly, psychological problems, which hinder the performance of women. It has been used as yet another excuse to marginalize women in society by claiming they are incapable of doing certain things or holding certain positions because PMS affects their behavior and decision making. Many people argue that women should stay home because of their bodily functions and menstrual cycle, while feminists fight for women to work and be taken seriously in spite of their bodily functions. With this being said, it has become evident that research and conclusions on PMS have been directly related to certain economic cycles in US history. Studies on PMS began in 1931, when Robert T. Frank had described its symptoms. He concluded that PMS was caused by a woman’s ovaries and not long after that, the influence of PMS on females was extended to include one’s emotional state. Researchers found that women’s emotional state and instinctual drives are controlled by PMS, and it was in fact debilitating. These studies were done immediately after the Depression where the gains women made in the labor market were slipping away because of WWI. When they studied women’s ability to work, they found PMS to be debilitating and restricted them to being housewives. It’s not a coincidence that this “science” was being publicized during a time when women were losing their rights. Now, fast-forward to the 1940’s during WWII when all the men were at war and being drafted to the army. During this time, PMS was found to not be debilitating and not a liability, after all. Again, it is no coincidence that when all the men were away and the country needed someone to take over the jobs, they found PMS to not be debilitating, thus “allowing” women to work. But this did not last long at all. Following the immediate end of WWII, when the men were coming back home, women were displaced from many of the paid jobs they had taken on. In order to confine women back to the household, studies magically found that PMS did indeed disable women. Interesting that when the country no longer needed the women working, studies suddenly found that they were mistaken and PMS did in fact affect women. Studies on how PMS affected women and was debilitating was really emphasized during the late 1960’s and 1970’s during the women’s movement. During the second wave of feminism, women demanded to be equal to men in all aspects of life, including in the workplace. This threatened society, and as a result, researchers preached that PMS negatively affected women and was disabling more than they ever had. After analyzing the different conclusions reached on PMS throughout time periods, it is very obvious that PMS was found to be debilitating during times when women were seen as a threat, in order to maintain patriarchy.
Question 3, Option B: In today’s society, there exists many myths and stigma’s attached to those who receive welfare or some type of government support, especially single mothers. In “Flat Broke With Children,” Sharon Hays describes the stereotypical myth of welfare mothers as being social “outsiders” who are responsible for undermining the nation’s moral principles. These mothers are portrayed as welfare cheats, lazy, promiscuous and lousy parents who do not care about their children at all and have more children just to get more welfare. However, the fact remains that most welfare mothers are not the social outsiders and lazy people that they are portrayed to be. In fact, they share the core values of most Americans and contrary to popular belief, they share a commitment to finding solutions to welfare as well as an overhaul of the system. For example, when one woman on welfare, Denise, was interviewed about welfare reform, she expressed the same concerns that all other taxpaying Americans expressed. She expressed her concern over those who abuse the system as well as her concern in ensuring that welfare actually helped people in finding a job so they could eventually get off welfare. However, the public never sees this picture of a woman on welfare that shares the same core values as everyone, especially mothers, in America. Instead, they see the image of the few who have managed to cheat the system, and they become the face of welfare, even though this hardly represents the majority of mothers on welfare.
But given this stereotype, the policies and procedures instituted by welfare reform have aimed at fixing these women. These policies are aimed at fixing these women and the problem by pinning personal responsibility on them and expecting them to live up to almost impossible American family and moral values.
Welfare reform has not been successful because there has always been an “us” against “them” mentality, with “them” being those who receive welfare. Its not been successful because of the failure of the government & society to take into account the interdependency that exists, and this ignorance creates the us verses them mentality. In today’s society, personal responsibility is seen as such an important characteristic and value, but it fails to take into account that we are not completely independent and are dependent on each other and on society in different ways. As the author puts it, it neglects the importance and necessity of wider social ties and connections and makes out interdependence invisible. This personal responsibly is then pinned onto the welfare recipients and they are expected to get out of their situation themselves. But it’s only setting them up for failure because they will be unable to achieve the family values that are considered so important in today’s society on their own. The fact that the labor reform is based on the Personal Responsibility Act only worsens the welfare situation in this country because of the individualistic logic it is grounded in & failing to recognize that no one can get better without a little help & support.
Question 4, A Brief History of Working Women:

Pre Industrial America: * White Women: In pre-industrial America, white women worked primarily in the home doing household chores such as caring for the children as well as cooking and cleaning. They were also productive in the household in the fact that they would make soap as well as spinning and weaving and making lace. The household was structured so that women were submissive to their husbands, and their husbands were the heads of the household. White women were basically treated as second hand citizens, and denied the right to do numerous things. If women worked outside of the home, they worked as nurses, teachers or innkeepers or jobs of that sort. However, they made significantly less than their white male counterparts, and even made less than a hired out male slave. * African-American Women: In pre-industrial America, African American women were slaves to white families or individuals who had bought them. As slaves, they would either work in the house as a servant or be out in the field planting crops and agriculture. Most often, the women were the ones who were the household slaves. They also grew and preserved their own food and made soap and candles, similar to what the white women made in their homes during this time, although of course not as strenuous. The women slaves would also take care of the children, which was a strenuous job in itself. Unfortunately, African Americans during this time were subjected to both racism and sexism. They were seen as inferior because of there color, but on top of that, they were discriminated against even more because of the fact that they were women. Women were already subjected to sexism, but the fact that they were African American women made it that much worse. * Native American Women: In pre-industrial America, Native American women were , much like the white women during this time, responsible for raising their children and keeping the home. However, unlike the white women, Native American women were considered the head of the household and the family name would be passed down from the woman, not the man. In addition, they maintained control over the land and food.

After Industrialization: * White Women: In post-industrial America, many of the products that the white women made at home, such as soap and cloth, was being made in the factories as a result of the industrial revolution. This no longer became a job for women of the household. They were limited to the domestic sphere and were supportive and submissive to their husbands, as well as being fragile. At this time, they represented the cult of true womanhood and were weak and delicate, almost nothing more than an object or ornament. However, single women and poor women worked outside of the home in factories, but eventually immigrant women had replaced these women in these jobs. As a result, the single women turned to jobs such as teaching and nursing. * African-American Women: In post industrial America, African American women were limited to service work, such as factory employment in the tobacco and textile industries, domestic work and farm work. Their employment opportunities were very limited which was in part due to the lack of education they received as slaves. But by the late 1890’s, the African Americans in the factories more than doubled that of the white women working in them. In short, African American women were limited to the most menial and dangerous jobs * Native American Women: In post-industrial America, the family structure and home of the Native Americans changed greatly, especially concerning the role of women. The Native Americans were forced onto the reservations and unlike pre-industrial times, the families became more nuclear and patriarchal in structure. The men took over the food and agricultural work and women were pushed more into the household and less important work. * Latina Women: In post industrial America, Latina women have been slowly improving their work positions, moving from domestic work to manufacturing work, however they still face great discrimination and low education, especially because they are minorities and usually immigrants. * Asian American Women: In post-industrial America, Asian American women are plagued by the myth of the model minority; they are usually uneducated immigrants who are working in factories or in jobs such as cashiers and file clerks. Even the Asian American women who are educated are paid significantly less than Asian American men and white men. In addition, they are obviously restricted to lower paying, less prestigious jobs.

Question 5, The Triangle Fire: On March 25, 1911, a deadly fire broke out at the Triangle Factory in New York City near Washington Square Park, which is now known as the Triangle Fire. The Triangle Factory was a garment factory that employed mostly young immigrant women. The triangle fire was the deadliest workplace accident in U.S. history and killed nearly 150 women, most of them being young Jewish and Italian immigrants. These women worked 13-hour days for just $0.13 an hour in terrible, unsafe conditions, with the owners even locking the doors on a regular basis. Tragically, many women died and jumped to their death because all the doors were locked and they could not escape when the fire broke out. Prior to the fire, the workers had been protesting and called for a strike, demanding shorter hours, better pay, safer working conditions and the right to unionize. Eventually, the owners agreed to shorter hours and higher wages, but would not agree to the right to unionize, thus giving them no collective bargaining power to change safety conditions, which eventually led to their death. The fire unleashed public outrage and required government action; within three years of the fire, more than 36 new state laws had been passed on quality of workplace conditions. The new laws gave New York the most comprehensive workplace safety laws in the country and set an example for the rest of the country. The fire also carries great significance in its relationship to gender because of the fact that most of the workers in the factory were women and they were treated horribly, like second hand citizens. Even when women protested and were beaten up, the police and courts had no sympathy for them and stated that it was not ladylike and natural for women to be protesting. The trial following the fire also revealed its relation to gender in that the women were survived the fire were brought up as witnesses, and many people didn’t believe their accounts because they might have been hysterical and not remembered everything correctly. Even the prosecutor had remarked that they were not as intelligent as the others. Again, the notion of women being unintelligent and hysterical are brought up again as has been the case throughout history. Even when they have endured a terrible ordeal like the fire, they are still treated as though their second class citizens and unintelligent at that. In addition, the triangle fire was very significant in the fact that it created the labor laws and labor reforms that exist today. Following the fire, there was a huge awakening about the unsafe working conditions and lack of labor laws that people were working under and demands to make changes. There would be no New Deal legislation or the Fair Labor Standards Act establishing minimum wages and abolishing child labor without what had happened and the awareness that the fire brought to these issues. It also gave way to things such as social security, unemployment and health insurance. Perkins and Roosevelt played instrumental roles in these advances, and they would not have been able to achieve what they had without the cruel awakening of the triangle fire. As is said in the video, these women who passed in the fire should be celebrated because by dying, they achieved this kind of industrial democracy, which is why the fire holds so much significance in the laws and practices that exist today. One person who played a crucial role in establishing and creating these laws was Frances Perkins was Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor and the first ever woman appointed to the U.S. cabinet. She was not a worker in the triangle factory, however she witnessed the fire when she was 30 years old and since then embarked on a mission to change labor laws and working conditions. She played an instrumental role in the New Deal and in creating the Social Security Act, which established unemployment benefits and pensions. She was a champion in paving the way for labor reform and new laws, which established the safety and fairness of the laws and practices surrounding the workplace. She also played a crucial role in establishing minimum wage, abolishing child labor and overtime laws. She contributed greatly to the industrial democracy that exists.
The Triangle Fire is directly related to contemporary working conditions in today’s world because of all the incidents and working conditions in factories in 3rd world countries. Most recently, in 2010, a deadly fire broke out in a factory in Bangladesh, killing 29 people and seriously injuring hundreds of others. Similar to the circumstances in the Triangle Fire, the workers were working under horrible conditions with no safety precautions in place, and the doors were locked as well. Many of the stories are similar to those heard about the triangle fire, such as how people were jumping out of the windows to their death while many people thought they were throwing down clothes to save. However, the fire and working conditions in Bangladesh were even worse than those in the triangle factory, because they were only being paid $0.28 an hour as the top wage, whereas the women’s wages in the triangle factory amount to $3.18 an hour in today’s value, adjusted for inflation. There was also nothing at all done about the conditions in the factory following the fire and the owner had even blamed the workers, chalking it up to sabotage. Almost 100 years later, and conditions are the same, if not worse after all of the victories for workers and working conditions made after the triangle fire. We have taken the issues of the triangle fire 100 years ago and moved them to Bangladesh and countless third world countries around the globe. And there have been similar incidents like this in numerous of these factories around the world, and a lot of people don’t seem to be paying attention or don’t seem to even care.

Question 6, Lilly Ledbetter:
Lilly Ledbetter began working for Goodyear in 1979 as a supervisor for the tire plant in Alabama. Toward the end of her career, she began to feel as though she was not getting paid as much as she should and men in the same exact position were getting paid more than she was. Shortly thereafter, she received an anonymous letter in her mailbox showing her salary and the salaries of three other male managers in her same position. As it turned out, she was getting paid significantly less; she earned $3,700 per month while her male counterparts were earning $4,300-$5,200 a month. She also received much smaller raises than the men. When her case when to court, the jury found that Goodyear had discriminated against her and she was awarded more than $3 million, however the law required that it be reduced to $360,000. Unfortunately, when the case reached the Supreme Court, they took the money away from her because they ruled that she should have complained every single time she was awarded a smaller raise than the men. They ruled that after 180 days have passed since the pay decision, the worker is stuck with unequal pay and there is nothing illegal about that, basically giving companies a free pass to discriminate against women.
About ten years following her case, the Lilly Ledbetter Act was signed into law by President Obama in 2009 and protects workers against pay discrimination. The Act allows individuals who face pay discrimination to seek rectification under anti-discrimination laws and overturns the 180-day law that the Supreme Court used to take away Lilly’s winnings. It clarifies that any type of pay discrimination will accrue every time the employee receives a paycheck that is affected by discriminatory action. The story of Lilly Ledbetter is truly heartbreaking because of the discrimination she was subject to, and the failure of the justice system to recognize and punish this discrimination. The fact that the Supreme Court took all her winnings away because of the 180-day rule was absolutely absurd. First of all, she had no way of knowing what the men were getting paid because files were kept confidential and she would have to prove that it was discrimination. The court was putting the burden on her, rather than punishing Goodyear for their blatant gender discrimination. By not taking serious action against Goodyear’s discriminatory practices, the courts essentially encouraged other companies to do the same because they made it seem as though they would not be punished for discriminatory pay actions.
The current statistics of the wage gap between men and women is appalling, especially when it’s broken down by class and race. The fact that women still only make $0.77 cents to every $1 men make is not acceptable. Even worse is Congress’ rejecting of proposed legislature to help stop this problem. It makes it seem as though the Lilly Ledbetter Act was put into legislation just to please people and make women shut up for a little while. It’s evident that Capitol Hill doesn’t think this issue to be significant because of the huge wage gaps that still exist and their failure to try to stop it, demonstrated by their continuous shooting down of legislation to strengthen the Equal Pay Act. However, this criticism is not to undermine the advances that women have made in the job market, because there have been significant victories. Rather, it is to demonstrate that there is still so much more that needs to be done for the rights of women and their right to receive equal pay as men. Women have fought far too hard and too long to continue to be marginalized and discriminated against in the job markets.

Question 7, Emma Goldman: In “Marriage and Love,” Emma Goldman doesn’t hold back when she writes of her opinion concerning marriage, as she is staunchly against the idea and heavily criticizes it as a farce, which people only enter into for the sake of public opinion. Goldman begins by writing that people believe love and marriage to be synonymous and springing from the same motives. She refutes this idea, writing that it is based off superstition rather than facts, and goes on to say that love and marriage are complete opposites and are in fact antagonistic to one another. She argues that love is neither maintained nor created by marriage, however in some cases, love continues in married life. Her main critique of marriage throughout her paper is that it has nothing to do with love and is instead entered into for public opinion and economic reasons. In again demonstrating how marriage has nothing to do with love, she writes that the only thing justifying a marriage is how much income the man earns and whether or not he can support the woman he is going to marry. She compares marriage to entering into an economic arrangement, in that it’s an insurance pact. And the wife pays for this premium with her name, self-respect, privacy and happiness. She also states that marriage condemns women to life long dependency and complete uselessness as they are seen and treated as nothing more than an object. What’s really interesting about her analysis of marriage and the fact that it always leads to unhappiness is the sexual nature of it. To these young women who are groomed for marriage, they are taught that sex outside of marriage is the worst thing one can possibly do; its dirty and disrespectful. They are not allowed to learn about anything concerning sex. However, within the institution of marriage sex is seen as the most sacred arrangement. But when these women do get married and eventually sleep with their husbands, they are shocked and repelled by something that should be a natural healthy instinct, because they have been told to fear sex their whole lives until marriage. A large percentage of the unhappiness and misery that occurs during marriage is a result of ignorance in sexual matters. Most importantly, Goldman concludes by writing that as women are becoming more aware of themselves as individuals, the institution of marriage is being undermined. The reason being that marriage is based on the idea that women have no soul and no awareness of themselves outside of their husband, so they can more readily absorb themselves in their husbands. It is this superiority of the male that has kept marriage intact and now that women are craving independence, it’s threating the institution of marriage.
After searching through various quotes and aphorisms, I found one that had really resonated with me, which reads, “The most violent element in society is ignorance.” This particular quote really resonated with me because I have always felt that ignorance is not bliss and in fact causes many problems. This is very significant when viewing it from a feminist perspective because it’s easy for a lot of women to say that their life is great and to be ignorant to the struggles that they and many other women around the world are facing. It’s easy to choose the path of least resistance and to not pay attention to what is going on in the world, but the fact is, by doing this it only creates more problems because no one is taking a stand against it. For example, many high-powered politicians and individuals preach today that feminism has done its job and there is no need for it anymore, and women everywhere believe it. They are ignorant to the fact that there is still so much more that needs to be done and by not recognizing the discrimination and deceit that is going on, they are only worsening the situation because there allowing the discrimination to continue and go unpunished.

Finance 327 Final:
-23 questions and 7 problems
-1 Non-operating assets
-1 horizon value
-2 corporate MVA
-1 m&m theory on valuation
-2 questions on stock splits
-7 dividends and redistribution theory
-3 business vs. financial risk
-1 asymmetric information
-1 value based mgmt
-1 corporate governance
-2 WACC and CAPM
-1 capitalization

Problems:
-1 payout ratio and capital structure
-1 intrinsic MVA
-1 capital cost with flotation
-1 cost of equity **WACC or CAPM
-1 value of operations -2 m&m valuations