Silenced Voices: The Invisibility of Women in Business

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Silenced Voices The Invisibility of Women in
Business

• Historical forces shape todays business paradigm
• Business as usual women are excluded
• An exemplar of invisibility
• A different voice in business

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There was a time when.

• Societies were egalitarian
• Women participated as partners in the day-to-day
  survival
• Womens contribution were valued
• Pottery
• Textiles
• Hunted/gathered
• Horticulturalists/herbalists

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Institutionalized Patriarchy

• Over the course of thousands of years, patriarchy
  has become the dominant ideology
• Christian church biggest influence on womens
  place in western society
• Women became defined by biology
• Gender-specific attributes

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Systemic silencing of womens voices

• Access to education exclusive to men
• The guilds membership for women defined by
  relationship to men
• Excluded from governance of society
• Witch-trials Church and others feared the power
  that women had in their communities

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Industrial Revolution

• Mass production of home craft
• Women were no longer in charge of the commodity
  loss of power
• Business paradigm profit at any cost
• Women and children in labour market abuses
  which continue today in developing countries

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The Industrial Revolution
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Where is Rose Friedman?
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Invisible
Where is Rose Friedman?
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A Different Voice

• Addressing the silent voices
• Multiple perspectives

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When we dont include womens voices in the
discourse, we perpetuate the invisibility of
women throughout society.
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The Role Of Modern Business Rhetoric In The
Decline Of Female Employment In Information
Technology
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• Historically, women have been involved in
  business finance, as clerks, administrators, and
  more recently as comptometer operators. Women
  have also been a significant factor in the
  evolution of the Information Technology which now
  handles most business finance.
• Is the present relative decline in female
  participation in Information Technology the
  result of combative business rhetoric, gender
  bias in programming games for children, a general
  decline in the working environment of IT, or all
  of this and more?

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• Reckoner One who reckons. Later, a machine which
  reckons, a precursor of calculators and
  computers.
• Computer One who computes. Later, a machine
  which computes.

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Lady Ada Countess Lovelace, the first programmer?
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Comptometer School circa 1890
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Hollerith Operators Berlin 1928
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Programming ENIAC
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Programming Collussus
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Rear Admiral Grace Hopper USN
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IBM705 Post Admiral Hopper
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IBM360 Advent of Modern Computing
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Guys were also well represented
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• What
• Happened?

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Contemporary Perspective
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• IT 29 Women General workforce 47
• Girls Computer-Reticent, not Phobic
• Can, but dont want to
• Tedious, sedentary, anti-social
• Waste of intelligence
• Girls want to make a difference, not

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• IT earnings 60 higher than average, yet
• 40 of IT in 1986, 29 in 2000
• Women leaving IT at twice the male rate
• Computer Science image Dilbert
• Lack of good attitude, courtesy, openess
• (male) Sports emphasis facilities dialogue

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• Some women love IT but,
• Need a sense of purpose
• Want to feel connected needed
• A little more kindness and elegance
• A little less foosball

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Changing imagesGracenet DisGraceful Awards
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Gender use Palm Pilot
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Deborah Tannen

• Older institutions have established the male
  conversational rituals as the norm.
• Boys peer groups are struggles for dominance
  giving orders, brash opinions.
• Girls peer groups reinforce suggestions, show
  respect for other opinions.

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• Men are more likely to use agonism, a warlike,
  oppositional format.
• Humour amongst men is razzing, teasing, mock
  hostile attacks.
• Humour amongst women is self-mocking.

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• Indirectness is a gender-shared attribute, but
  female indirectness is often viewed by males as
  illogical or manipulative.
• Americans The squeaky wheel gets the grease
• Japanese The nail that sticks out gets hammered
  back in

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Sports and Military Idioms

• Stick to your guns, under the gun, calling the
  shots, an uphill battle, a curve-ball, the balls
  in their court, batting a thousand, struck out,
  getting flak, the whole nine yards, in the
  ballpark, deep-six it, a level playing field,
  deadline.

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• In any computer store, the games are clearly for
  boys, often violent and addictive
• In post Ronald Thatcherism industrial economies,
  a business language of social darwinism has
  permeated IT. This is male language.
• For a girl growing up or a woman already
  involved, what would be the appeal of IT?

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Women Take OverPaul A. Strassman,
Computerworld 1 Feb 99

• Women are now the dominant force in the
  information economy. The constitute the majority
  of users of information technology. Thats not
  the case with the pushers of computers. They are
  overwhelmingly male.

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• The information workforce has been growing twice
  as fast as all other occupations and getting
  better raises than everyone else.
• There are 5.6 million more women than men in
  information management occupations. By 1996,
  women had attained parity in the higher-paying
  managerial and professional occupations.

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My Perspectives

• Historically, women have been strongly
  represented as reckoners, computers, and
  Information Technology programmers,
  mathematicians, and operators.
• Exclusion the glass ceiling involved
  management and hardware engineering
• As IT gained status, the male business rhetoric
  of sports, war, and a form of social darwinism
  retroactively permeated the IT workplace with
  gender exclusive behaviour.

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But maybe

• Auto mechanics were in high demand and had a
  certain special stature in the 1920s
• By the 1950s, auto mechanic was just another job
  stable and respectable and uninteresting to the
  rest of the world
• Maybe by 2010, IT Technology pushers and
  maintainers will have just another job
• Could the women who are migrating to new fields
  of Information Management be making the smart
  choice?

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Desperate old IT pleads with potential young IT
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• Have We Come A Long Way?

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So Why Feminist Economics?

• There already exists a history of economic
  criticism against the mainstream economic system

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• Interestingly, economics, a social science
  comparable to the hard sciences because of its
  calculative and empirical characteristics, is the
  last of the social sciences to enter into
  dialogue with its feminist critics.
• http//www.yale.edu/ypq/articles/nov95/nov95c.html
  

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• History of Western Economics has been highly
  androcentric.
• The big guns include Price, Smith, Marx, Keynes,
  Friedman
• Where are the women?

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• Simply put, the feminist critique holds that
  mainstream models do not accurately describe
  women's experiences. Feminists question
  mainstream neoclassical economic assumptions and
  challenge the conceptual underpinnings of
  conventional economic knowledge.
• http//www.yale.edu/ypq/articles/nov95/nov95c.html
  

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Mainstream Economists Assumptions

• Women are dependent
• Families are the basic economic unit
• Women are unproductive
• People are separate and rational
• Economic growth benefits all

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1. Women are dependent

• On men?

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Consequences of dependence theory

• Women seen as secondary income providers.
• In 1997, the average annual earnings of women
  working full-year, full-time were 73 of men's.
• Ignores single women
• Devalues importance of womens wage to family

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2. Families are the basic economic unit
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What is a family?

• Traditional Definition a male earner, a
  dependent female caregiver, and dependent
  children.
• This definition excludes Same-sex couples,
  single parent families, communal families and
  single people.

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Consequences of family theory

• Reinforces the assumption of womens dependence
  on men and all its inequalities
• Justifies not providing income to alternative
  workers in society such as those raising
  children, maintaining homes, and giving care in
  general.

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Leading female occupations in Canada in 1891 and
2001

• 1891 2001
• servant clerical worker
• Dressmaker secretary
• Teacher sales clerk
• Farmer Teacher
• Seamstress child care and/or domestic worker
• Tailoress nurse
• Saleswoman food and beverage server
• Housekeeper cashier
• Laundress retail food accommodation manager
• Milliner machine operator

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3. Women are unproductive
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Private Versus Public Realm

• Public Economics only focuses on the market
  (producers, buyers, and sellers) and considers
  this realm productive.
• Private The household is seen as being outside
  of the economic realm and therefore
  unproductive.

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Consequences of unproductive women theory

• Women's work of bearing and raising children,
  maintaining a home, providing food, and providing
  emotional support for everyone, is simply assumed
  despite the fact that the economy is absolutely
  dependent on it.
• "The true costs of production are grossly
  underestimated." (Helen Longino)

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Statistics Canada on Unpaid Work

• women do two-thirds of all unpaid work in Canada
  for one in four it's a full-time job.
• unpaid work is worth between 30.6 and 41.4 of
  the GDP or Gross Domestic Product. The spread of
  almost 12 is due to the fact that two valuation
  methods were used the first is replacement
  method, and the second is opportunity method.
  According to Statistics Canada, the replacement
  value of unpaid work in Canada in 1992 was 284.9
  billion dollars, while that of opportunity value
  is 318.8 billion.

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• Women also make up the bulk of workers in the
  informal sector, which, for many, is the sole
  source of employment and income. And that sector
  is growing as a result of economic recession,
  reduced job opportunities in the formal sector,
  and an increased need for family income. Work in
  the informal sector also allows women to combine
  family responsibilities with income generation
  since it can often be performed in or near the
  home.

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People are separate and rational

• "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher,
  the brewer, or the baker that we expect our
  dinner but from their regard to their
  self-interest." - Adam Smith

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The separative model assumes

• Interpersonal utility comparisons are impossible
• Tastes are exogenous to economic models and
  unchanging
• Actors are selfish
• BUT
• Individuals do not behave according to the
  separative model vis-à-vis their families.

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Consequences of the separative model

• Prejudice against womens decision making
  patterns as irrational.
• Ignores the importance of human interaction in
  decision making.
• Masks some of the ways gender inequalities are
  perpetuated.
• Fails to account for human behaviour in the
  market.

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4. Economic growth benefits all

• How much money did we make?

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The fallacy

• amount of buying and selling going on in a
  country has little relationship to the health of
  the people within that country because not all
  economic growth is actually good for people.

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Economic growth says nothing about the
distribution of resources within a country.

• "The earth has enough for everyone's need but not
  for anyone's greed."-Gandhi

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Alternative Economic Measures

• time-use surveys surveys that measure how
  citizens spend their time.
• Genuine Progress Index (GPI) an economic measure
  that would allow for values beyond market values
  http//www.gpiatlantic.org/

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Components of GPI

• Human Freedom Index
• Costs of Crime
• 4. Environment Quality
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Sustainable Transportation
• Ecological Footprint Analysis
• Air Quality
• Water Quality
• Solid Waste
• 5. Socio-economic
• Income Distribution
• Debt, External Borrowing, and Capital Movements
• Valuations of Durability
• Composite Livelihood Security Index

• 1. Time Use
• Economic Value of Civic and Voluntary Work
• Economic Value of Unpaid Housework and Child Care
• Costs of UnderemploymentValue of Leisure Time
• 2. Natural Capital
• Soils and Agriculture
• Forests
• Marine Environment/Fisheries
• Non-renewable Subsoil Assets
• 3. Social Capital
• Health Care
• Educational Attainment

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Final Questions

• Is the system unfair toward women?
• How can we ensure equitable distribution of money
  and goods?
• With which of these assumptions do you
  agree/disagree?
• Women are dependent
• Families are the basic economic unit
• Women are unproductive
• People are separate and rational
• Economic growth benefits all

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Baby, Youve Got a Long Way to Go!
The Rhetoric of Business and Feminism
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Why Language is Important?

• Language helps form the limits of our reality.
  It is our means of ordering, classifying and
  manipulating the world.
• One of the basic principles of feminism
• Society is constructed with a bias which favours
  males this bias is located in language.

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Language is Reflective

• Reflects the thoughts, attitudes, and culture of
  the people who make it and use it.

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Who Created English?

• Mostly men
• Womens lifes largely restricted to home and
  family private - while men have lived in a
  larger world public.

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Pejoratives

• More positive words for males
• Many negative words for females with no semantic
  equivalent for males.
• Master, mistress

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Spinster
Bachelor
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Hussy
Hubby
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Sissy
Buddy
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Governor
Governess
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Pseudogenerics

• Words that supposedly include women and men but
  only mention men
• Mankind
• Manpower
• Manned Will you man the booth for me?
• He to each his own

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Who is the Average Person?

• The average person is usually masculine (as in
  the man on the street) and so is the hypothetical
  person in riddles and in school text books (If a
  man can walk ten miles in seven minutes, how many
  miles can he walk in twelve minutes?)
• The word he is usually used as a common-gender
  pronoun.

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Perpetuation

• unconscious absorption of sexism in language
• grammatical and a value system for the use of its
  language.
• How we teach our children.

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They to He

• The singular they was common for centuries and
  used by esteemed writers such as Austen, Johnson,
  Shakespeare, Eliot, Dickens Shaw and Woolf.
• The masculine gender the most worthy

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He Embraces She

• Only 25 years ago children were still being
  taught that he embraced she and that a
  singular they is incorrect.
• Today, the Oxford English Dictionary, The Chicago
  Manual of Style among others sanctions its use.
  However, the standard is still he.

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Job Titles

• 1970s U.S. Department of Labour replaced
  sex-referent language in all job titles in its
  1,400 page Dictionary of Occupational Titles.
• Draftsman ? Drafter
• Fisherman ? Fisher
• Hat-check girl ? Hat check attendant
• Fireman ? Firefighter

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Has Feminism Impacted Language?

• If a phenomenon is important, it is perceived,
  and being perceived, it is labeled.
• - Nathan Kantrowitz, Sociologist.

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Feminism Language

• When things are labeled in language, they become
  real, and can be dealt with.
• sexual harassment,
• battered women,
• the glass ceiling,
• sexism,
• sexist language,
• sexual politics,
• male chauvinists were first named and defined.

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Backlash

• There has been consistent opposition to feminist
  concerns about language since the 1970s.
• Backlash takes the form
• of political correctness

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Political Correctness

• No generally accepted, instantly communicated
  definition.
• What it means
• Weighty phrase with a pseudo-intellectual cast
  that is intended to make people uncomfortable
  and to desist.

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Political Correctness

• The political correctness debate is really
  about the power to be able to define. The
  definers want the power to name.
• - Toni Morrison
• Someone has said that it requires less mental
  effort to condemn than to think.
• - Emma Golman

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A Changing Language

• The appearance of new words generated by the
  recognition of womens full humanity will
  continue to be controversial.
• Women are wrestling with the right to tinker
  with the language. That, in itself, is new.

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Acceptance of New Ideas

• Radically new ideas are said to pass through
  three stages.
• Universal ridicule
• Widely acknowledged as true, but dismissed as
  trivial.
• Those who previously scorned the ideas come to
  see them as so significant that they claim them
  as their own.

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Baby, weve still got a long way to go!

• We are at stage two, and there is a great void
  between where we are at and achieving stage three.