A Paleo-Feminist on Transgender Sexism Studies
| Mon Oct. 6, 2008 2:49 PM PDT
An extremely 'well intentioned' young white guy I work closely with said to me the other day that, appalled as he was by this "new" notion of white privilege he'd just heard of, thank god he'd never been its beneficiary. Others had, of course, but not him and man! would such a thing suck if it actually did exist.
While trying not to either laugh at him or slit his throat, I informed him about a study done by U of Chicago and MIT professors. In that study, identical resumes were sent in response to their local papers' want ads. Identical, that is, but for names like "Jennifer" v. "Tanisha," and "Jamal" v. "Joe". Let's just sum it up thusly:
The authors find that applicants with white-sounding names are 50 percent more likely to get called for an initial interview than applicants with African-American-sounding names. Applicants with white names need to send about 10 resumes to get one callback, whereas applicants with African-American names need to send about 15 resumes to achieve the same result.
"Testers" (fake applicants sent out to rent apartments, buy cars, etc.) find basically the same results.
He could only stare at me in silent bewilderment that his white skin had ever, ever helped him. Him, with his Martin Luther King T shirts, pants sagging off his ass, and tongue stud but white bread name, let alone skin. I love the kid but he doesn't yet know that anybody can cover up their piercings, but only some of us can lose melanin for the brief duration of an interview. C'mon white folks. Tim Wise can't do it alone. Get a clue already.
Now comes an equally delicious way of proving that sexism and male privilege are all too alive and well (hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.) From Time:
Continues Below
Continued From Above
A new study looks at this problem in a wonderfully inventive way. In previous studies, academics have looked at variables like years of education and the effects of outside forces such as nondiscrimination policies. But gender was always the constant. What if it didn't have to be? What if you could construct an experiment in which a random sample of adults unexpectedly changes sexes before work one day? Kristen Schilt, a sociologist at the University of Chicago and Matthew Wiswall, an economist at New York University, couldn't quite pull off that study. But they have come up with the first systematic analysis of the experiences of transgender people in the labor force. And what they found suggests that raw discrimination remains potent in U.S. companies.
Schilt and Wiswall found that women who become men (known as FTMs) do significantly better than men who become women (MTFs). MTFs in the study earned, on average, 32 percent less after they transitioned from male to female, even after the authors controlled for factors like education levels. FTMs earned an average of 1.5 percent more. The study was just published in the Berkeley Electronic Press' peer-reviewed Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy.
Sew on a penis, get what you're worth. Hmmm...Wonder how long it takes living a man's life to pay off all that surgery.
And since I'm on my hairy-legged, humorless, Paleo-Feminist kick, check out my girl Linda Hirshman at The Nation on how Sarah Palin (i.e. history's most unqualified candidate for ANY office) is just a sad retread of the hideous "Rules" girl.
Then read Hirsh's serialized post-abortion, apocalyptic-abortion novel on HuffPo on Tuesdays and Fridays. Here's the first installment and a Washington Post piece on the same subject.
Still not afraid of a McCain-Palin White House? Well, just stay tuned here.
Comments
My boss once actually asked a co-worker to go through all the resumes we got for a receptionist position and "get rid of all the Laquisha's." Boss was white South African, but I was still shocked to actually hear the words leave her mouth. After being called on it, she recanted and said what she meant was to get rid of all the folks who had degrees from DeVry and ITT Tech as opposed to 4-year degrees from a good state school.
Really interesting. I've always felt that as a gay person I understood discrimination, but have been able to see [if not prevent] the advantages of being both white and male. It's distasteful to be given the advantage but I don't know what a person is supposed to do about it. Other than trying to spread my ideals of equality to others, I feel stuck with a fair amount of 'white guilt' that I also inhereted with the privileges.
By the way, how did they change the genders? I didn't follow links but can't figure that one out.
You could probably get a bit more support if you didn't write this piece from the attitude that "white folks" are stupid for not knowing your problem. Drop you defeatist victim attitude and stop trying to find someone (namely whitey) to blame for your problems. For heaven's sake, the likely next President of the US has the name Barack Obama - about as Tanisha-esque as a name gets. He still got somewhere. And if you truly think you are at a disadvantage because of your name - change it; it is quite easy to do so in this country. No, it isn't fair that you should have to - life if full of unfairness; quite whining and do something.
As a transsexual man, I'd just like to say I'm not wild about being characterized as having sown on a penis to find my true worth. I actually would rather not think my genitals determined my legitimacy, howsoever I can't control their interpretation. But you write me like I am a frankensteinian gender traitor. Please understand that's hurtful. Maybe if you engaged with why we do what we do, you would not say something so basely unfair and upsetting.
Submitted by timothy moriarty (not verified) on Tue Oct. 7, 2008 4:00 AM PDT.
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I understand your feeling guilty, but it really doesnt do anything. I dont feel guilty for being white. I dont feel proud either. Why should we feel anything for something we have no control over? Its just genetics. Society has turned the genetics in to an arbitrary power structure. All we can do is speak and act out against it as best we can.
I am fully aware that being a brown-turning-gray-haired white female, usually well-dressed in public, puts me on the positive side of racial profiling every time.
However, I also lost a job opportunity due to age discrimination. I was obviously the more qualified applicant, any way you looked at it. Filed an EEOC complaint. It didn't help that the younger man was also WAY prettier than I am. But I don't like getting discriminated against for these reasons.
I am in total sympathy with my brothers and sisters who are not young, white, and beautiful. Which is all it seems to take--for example, one of our vice presidential candidates, Caribou Barbie.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
while i appreciate the (somewhat left-handed) attention to transgender discrimination, the attitudes presented in your article leave me cool. your young co-worker is just that - Young. of course he has no idea of all the ways his race has affected his personal, academic and professional life. i don't believe that even the most radical and educated activsts among us could say that we knew all of those things at twenty-some years old, either.
...as for the rest of the piece... "delicious?" "living a man's life?" even your self-deprecating "hairy-legged humorless paleofeminist" description leaves one cold.
your first salvo, 'delicious,' diminishes the brutal experiences that transgendered people have, not onlt in the workplace, but in trying to find a job in the first place. i have a bachelor's degree, but with a c-cup and a driver's license with an 'm' on it in the gender field i came within a hair's breadth of ending up on the street before i finally was able to get hired as a bottom-level civil servant. 'delicious' indeed...
'living a man's life' - what about living HIS life? your statement implies a falsity in the actions of transmen (and, by proxy, transwomen like myself) as they attempt to simply live their lives.
your final jab against feminists doesn't even rate an analysis.
at this point i expect other readers to interject with "she was just kidding" and "get a sense of humor" sorts of things. i want those of you who feel that way to ask yourselves in all seriousness: is diminishing the experience of a heavily discriminated-against minority funny? is taking the language of the enemy and parroting it back at them in a misguided attempt at levity funny?
i don't think it's very funny at all.
Love is the law, love under will
susan holmes
I have to chime in with my trans brothers and sisters here. While I appreciate that you are drawing attention to the article since it not only glaringly highlights gender-based discrimination in the workplace but also draws attention to one of the many difficulties that transpeople face in transition, your rhetoric is pretty glib. This was not a study done with fake applicants as the others cited in your story were - these are real people facing real challenges. Describing it as "delicious" is pretty irresponsible.
Also, you should really clarify what you meant in your "sew on a penis" paragraph. As a fellow feminist, I really hope you are not in agreement with certain feminist segments out there that transmen are traitors to womankind.
Trans rights are way behind GLB rights in this country, and transpeople face serious obstacles, whether male or female, whether pre, post, or non-op. Please educate yourself on trans issues and speak more carefully next time. I recommend checking out the National Center for Transgender Equality and/or the Human Rights Campaign's transgender section.
Submitted by TG (not verified) on Tue Oct. 7, 2008 8:06 PM PDT.
Must tread lightly.
The rights of all people are being trampled almost daily, in one basic form or another far more complex form.
Those of us that are unwilling participants are out numbered by the ignorant that are participating.
Too long in this country (and world, and through the bloody history of time) has privilege been reserved for rich white men. -Ism's in any form are extremely detrimental to the progress of humanity.
I don't even think race, gender, sexual orientation, transgendered rights, religion, or age should even be the main concern when discussing injustice. Injustice should be the main concern.
Yet we get so caught up in these narrow self interests that we cannot help but to come to the call of our "brothers and sisters" when in reality it creates further dissidence amidst a population of people that have very strong common denominators. We are all human, and we should fight all injustices whether they effect us personally or not.
No one has any clearer perspective of the life of their neighbor than what they see pull into the driveway at 5 o'clock, or 10, you get my point. The fact that any of us that pass judgment on any other person makes us as evil as what we are fighting against.
Ultimately we are fighting ourselves... We are creating just another class struggle and another rotten social condition. We are clucking about our lack of privilege while the privileged ravage the seed.
Submitted by Tim Footman (not verified) on Wed Oct. 8, 2008 2:51 AM PDT.
Could the ditching of resumes bearing names such as Tanisha and Jamal also be a case of class prejudice? I'd imagine Billy Bob and Lurleen might suffer a similar fate.
Sorry, forgot, the USA doesn't have a class system. My bad.
In an otherwise useful article, the comment -
"Sew on a penis, get what you're worth. Hmmm...Wonder how long it takes living a man's life to pay off all that surgery."
- is insulting and demeaning. It damages your credibility to object to some forms of ignorance and bigotry, and then engage in others.
Sexism probably is part of the reason for pay differences between trans men and trans women. Also, probably a big part is that many trans men "pass" better than many trans women who transition well into adulthood. So to some extent I think what's being penalized here is being visibly gender variant. (I say this as a visibly gender-variant trans woman who's had no economic impacts from transitioning.)
On the comments about "white guilt": the point isn't to feel guilty, it's to be aware. We don't notice the obstacles that *aren't* in our paths. We have privileges and advantages we don't have to ask for, and no one will say, "here, this is because you're white." So we should try to be aware of the obstacles that other people have to deal with, and do what we can to help remove them.
Susan Holmes quotes: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
British Occultist Aleister Crowley??
Crowley claimed that the author of this text was an entity named Aiwass, his personal Holy Guardian Angel.
I doubt the athiests around here, who so love to make snide comments about George Bush's & Sarah Palin's "imaginary friend" are going to take your sources too seriously.
Then again, people have a tendency to apply their standards to others rather selectively, so they just might.
Submitted by Natacha (not verified) on Fri Oct. 10, 2008 2:10 PM PDT.
Good idea to try and calculate the number of years it would take to pay for all the surgery fot F2F transgendered people. but what about all the surgery for F2Ms, they are losing twice round, paying for the privilege of earning less money.
I don't know when it is coming up in the US, but here in the UK we are just approaching "Women Stop Being Paid Day" which is Oct 30th Since women here earn, on average 17% less than men, women effectively stop being paid on Oct 30 and work the rest of the year for free.
Bebe99, what the author was, in fact, doing was making a lame, flip joke about something that is actually an important issue for transmen. So if someone made a 'point' by using clitoridectomy in a hilarious way, you'd no doubt be totally cool with that? The Chicago study is really rather lame, since it doesn't take into account the extent to which MTF women are penalized for being trans (which is often way, way worse than a 32% reduction in income and includes loss of employment, health care, being ostracized by their communities and violence ). As with Ms. Dickerson's penis remark, the study's conclusion projects an important civil rights issue (that of basic trans rights) in trying to make a point on another (perhaps overlapping but still separate) issue, women's inequitable pay. I suspect that's why some folks weren't happy with it.
