Title: REMEMBERING WOMEN
Date: 02/27/09
Program Number: 1751
HOST:
BONNIE ERBE
PANELISTS:
DEL. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, (D-DC)
GENEVIEVE WOOD, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
MEGAN BEYER, DEMOCRATIC COMMENTATOR
TARA SETMAYER, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR
SUNDAY, MARCH 1, 2009
TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED BY
DC TRANSCRIPTION - WWW.DCTMR.COM
MS. ERBE: This week on To the Contrary, up first, recessionary discrimination on Wall Street, then evangelical churches encourage married parishioners to have sex and lots of it. And behind the headlines, we celebrate women's achievements for Women's History Month.
(Musical break.)
MS. ERBE: Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbe and welcome to To the Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives. Up first, recessionary discrimination.
Is it the economy or just plain old sexism? That's the question being asked as the number of women working on Wall Street plummets along with stock prices. Women say financial firms are using the recession as an excuse to practice employment discrimination. Five women executives recently filed charges with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against their former employer, Citigroup. The women say they were unfairly terminated, while less qualified men kept their jobs. An attorney representing the executives says, "although women made up just 12 percent of Citigroup's public finance department, 45 percent of laid off executives were female." Citigroup isn't the only Wall Street firm accused of discrimination. Women have made similar claims against Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, and Bank of Tokyo. Women comprise three fourths of the more than quarter million people who've lost jobs in the financial sector.
So Congresswoman Norton, does recessionary discrimination exist or is it just a sign of economic tough times?
DEL. NORTON: Bonnie, these outsides firings of women at the top - they're giving new and additional meaning to last hired, first fired.
MS. WOOD: Look, I will see how these things go. I think we'll see what the court says and so forth. But the reality is in general I think recessions and tough economies are not discriminatory. Everybody's at risk.
MS. BEYER: It took lots of litigation to raise corporate consciousness on discriminatory hiring. I'm afraid it's going to take the same kind of thing with corporate firings.
MS. SETMAYER: I think we need to be careful because just like racism still exists, sexism still exists, but - like Genevieve said - this is a recession. This is the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, supposedly, so everyone's going to be affected by it.
MS. ERBE: But which is more - which is - exists in greater percentages and it's more societal accepted? I would argue sexism and therefore firing of women is going to get a done a lot more than firing of, at least, men of color.
MS. SETMAYER: Naturally, the financial sector is dominated by men. That's one of the most manly professions. Wall Street, suit and ties, high power executives -
MS. WOOD: Which must be why there were so many troubles.
MS. SETMAYER: That's right. (Laughter.) If we were in charge, we would probably be much better off. Right? But - so we have to be careful, though, because I think that we always talk about are women the first to be fired? Is that discriminatory? But there are other outside factors to why women lose their jobs. Could it be because of family? It's because these women executives just had babies and they can't do the same work? Is it because they are trying to get flexibility at home and - or they're looking at, well, men or women - she's going to be more likely to take sick leave because she has children -
(Cross talk.)
DEL. NORTON: These women were fired. Let's face it. And we've got to look at, yes, all the factors. In a system which has seniority, you cannot argue that last hired - and last hired may be women, last hired may be black - it's very painful to see that as they get a foothold. This is not that kind of system. The system at the top of the financial companies and the investment companies where these women are are supposedly (merit?) people, they get paid on the basis of bonus and the rest -
MS. ERBE: And being rainmakers.
DEL. NORTON: - it's far easier to go at eeny, meeny, miny, moe. And let's face it - explain these numbers because I could understand that there might be more women on the basis that they are new. I can't explain these like 45 percent versus 12 percent in the companies. I can't explain those -
MS. WOOD: Well, in some cases, though - and I agree with you. But look, the numbers are pretty staggering. You've got to look at them. But the larger number - you said the 45 percent that's in the 64 percent of women out of 72 percent of the workforce, a lot of the secretarial positions are women predominantly. And a lot of those jobs were cut. I think that inflates -
MS. ERBE: But we're talking about directors and high level women here.
MS. WOOD: I know - (inaudible) - the big numbers, but you're right at the top -
(Cross talk.)
MS. WOOD: - did make that distinction, but at the very top, you did have women who obviously more were cut than men, but I think you do have to look at - and I don't know this. I haven't read all the history cases here. Oftentimes it is the people who showed up last on the job as opposed to those who've been there the longest. And women are newer in this field than men. So I don't think it's that - I'm not saying it's right, but I'm saying it's not that surprising. I don't know that it's necessarily sexism.
MS. BEYER: But it's completely disproportionate and this takes an industry where women have worked very, very hard to get a toehold and to get representation. And to think that in an industry that has a reputation for having an old boy network, that they immediately go to this outsize number of firings for women, it's -
(Cross talk.)
MS. ERBE: - I want to get back to your point too, Tara, which is talking about women taking time off for families. The women who get to the top of these companies by and large don't take - they have children, yes, but they hand them over to their mothers, caretakers, whatever. These are people - these are women putting 100 hours a week not only on Wall Street, but also Wall Street firms and New York firms and Washington, D.C., firms and LA firms and Chicago firms to make partner. These are not women who put family first. For that phase of their career, they put career first, and they're still not rewarded for it.
MS. SETMAYER: I'm not denying that and I think that in these specific cases - I read some of the anecdotal stories, and I think for some of these women they have legitimate cases. I think, though, that the overall - when we start getting into the tens of thousands who've been laid off, there are other - I think that we shouldn't always jump to sexism. These five women - I think they may have a legitimate case and that's why we have the EEOC. We have legal means to go after companies like these. Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, they've been sued in the past for this thing -
MS. ERBE: Well, that's what I was going to say -
MS. SETMAYER: - and they've been settled for it, so probably legitimate -
MS. ERBE: - but didn't they learn?
(Cross talk.)
DEL. NORTON: They think they're covered by this recession. Let's face it. Women at the top like this are very vulnerable and they're vulnerable in a system that has no system for hiring and firing. And thus it really is the case that they really do have greater room. The problem they're going to have when they go to court - I tell you as a former chair of the EEOC - is reconciling these very large numbers. They'll start with those. They don't prove anything. They just are a prima facie case. So they're going to have to go to each and every one of these women. And let me tell you something. These women are risking being blackballed. They are taking a huge risk. And these women that deal in figures, if they didn't think that they had a very fair chance, it wouldn't be worth the risk.
MS. BEYER: I have a sister who's in the finance industry and the entire time she was going through - and she's a very high executive - never had pictures of her children on her desk, never talked about her children, and she did this for a reason. Because she saw - she was in meetings where people would talk about, "well, that one's pregnant. She's not going to be able to do as much," making all kinds of assumptions that may or may not have been true about women who had families. And if you look at the anecdotal cases of these women who have brought these cases, many of them have started families in the course of their careers and they feel that that affected the decision. That it wasn't just being a woman. It was being a mother.
MS. SETMAYER: And I'm not diminishing that part of it, but it's a tough balance. I get concerned we have this broad stroke of well, then it's sexism because they're hiding behind the recession. Maybe, but the culture in the financial sector definitely is one of a good old boy network. We work in politics and it's like that too, but again, for the ones who have legitimate cases, I think they should absolutely go for it and more power to them, but just we need to be careful and take other things into consideration that may be legitimate reasons for why women are being laid off in large numbers for the non-executive, more secretarial jobs that may not be as necessary. Everyone - there are cuts across the board. Let's not forget, construction, manufacturing jobs men are being laid off -
MS. ERBE: They're being harder hit overall. However, we're out of time on this topic. And we go from Wall Street woes to church and sex.
More evangelical churches are pushing sex, in some cases rather risqué sex, on married couples. The formerly straight laced church is changing with the times and now promoting, even urging married couples to have more varied sex and more of it. According to AlterNet.org, a progressive media website, Christian sex shops, Christian sex advice columns, and Christian sex blogs abound on the internet. Tampa, Florida, Pastor Paul Wirth made headlines earlier this month, issuing what he called "the 30 days sex challenge," urging married couples to have sex every day for 30 days and single parishioners to stay celibate for the same period. Evangelical churches still condemn premarital sex and lesbian and gay sex. They promote abstinence-only sex education, which made some critics wonder whether this is just a promotional push for more membership.
Tara, is it the place of a pastor to tell - to challenge parishioners to go have sex every day for a month to the married ones and tell the single ones not to for a month?
MS. SETMAYER: Well, absolutely if he is basing it on the word of God and there's plenty of biblical foundation for this - plenty of it. Anyone who read the Song of Solomon, which is very, very sensual, God created love for this reason. It's a - he created it for married couples and there's an extensive fundamental word of God on this.
But what I find interesting about the way people are twisting this is that they're saying that this is some type of ploy to bring in new members or to compete with self-help type of gimmicks going on now - Rick Warren and other megachurches. And I've got news for you: God doesn't need to compete with anyone for an audience.
DEL. NORTON: I agree. I agree.
MS. SETMAYER: So this is - but people who twist it that way to have an issue with it, but it's scriptural.
DEL. NORTON: It's - and it's generational.
MS. SETMAYER: Yes.
DEL. NORTON: Because the church has discovered that it's going on and it is legitimate to talk to your pastor about relationships between - you come to him to get married, for goodness sake. We've seen the end of -
MS. ERBE: Yes, but is your pastor your psychiatrist?
DEL. NORTON: Well, that's why I say - of course he is.
MS. SETMAYER: Yes, he's got the role -
DEL. NORTON: That's why more people don't go to psychiatrists. That is the role religion has played throughout human times.
MS. ERBE: But I mean is that - let me just ask you, is that smart because he or she is certainly not trained as a psychiatrist or a psychologist in most cases.
DEL. NORTON: The minister plays an extraordinarily broad role. You go to him for advice on everything from cradle to grave. Now, that's saying, if you think - well, let's begin with this. The Old Testament is full of fornication, adultery, and bigamy. So it's not as if these people haven't been exposed to the fact that that's in the bible. And by the way in the Old Testament it's not much - it's not much chastised. You've got to get to the New Testament to find, "oh, wait a minute, you shouldn't do that stuff."
MS. ERBE: Right, of course.
DEL. NORTON: And these people have found that in America these young people, even though they are evangelicals, are very much influenced by the overwhelming notion in the media. You've got to do it. It's cool to have sex early. It's cool to have sex out of marriage. I don't blame them from taking it on themselves.
MS. WOOD: Well, I was going to say - and this isn't just being an advisor. He's teaching what the tenets of the church teach, which is premarital sex is wrong, but marriage within - sex within marriage is right. So talking about that out loud from the pulpit, there's nothing wrong with that.
Now, let me just be - let's be careful. The scenes that we saw here - I go to an evangelical church and this hasn't been passed out at ours. I may be surprised this week when I go to church on Sunday. We'll see. But I don't - this is like it's happening everywhere, but I think it's good that pastors are talking about these things because you're up against it. You're in church usually once a week for most evangelicals. You're in the culture 24/7, 365 days a year, and you don't get that message there. I think we ought to be encouraging this.
MS. BEYER: Well, maybe I am just - it's because of my Catholic background, but I have problems - I grew up with a church that wanted to tell you - mandate what you could not do right down to whether a family could use birth control. And so I've seen the flipside of this where they weren't encouraging you to have sex as these evangelicals do. Also I've been to the websites, one called Christian Nymphos, which is allegedly created by evangelical women and I hate to say it - I know I'm cynical, but I have a feeling men started this site because it's all about bestowing blessings upon your husband and it's very much encouraging what looks to me like every husband's dream. (Laughter.)
MS. ERBE: That's the other question I have, which is because the article on AlterNet, on which we - AlterNet.org on which we based this discussion said essentially that - now, again, they're a liberal website, so you would expect them to not agree with what the church is saying, but that it's really more - it's giving husbands a lot more control over their wives and the wives are buying into it. So it's not necessarily a good thing for - and that the women who give the advice - it's a kinder, gentler kind of advice than the advice that comes from the men.
MS. BEYER: And also it was using words that to me most women don't use with regard to sex. It looked - it seemed much more - it almost seemed like soft porn to me and I was uncomfortable with it.
MS. SETMAYER: Okay, well, first of all, there's no condemnation in Christ and as evangelicals we believe that and that's why the New Testament came, that's why Jesus died for our sins because the Old Testament God gave us a chance. We didn't like it, so we screwed up. So now we have Jesus - (laughter) - and he stands in as our intermediary here to have a relationship with God. And it's all about love and sex is more than just a physical act. It's about being one. And in the Bible people like to extrapolate scriptures that aren't complete. Most of the scriptures that I looked that we use as reference materials; I looked them up and looked at the scriptures before and after. And a lot of it has to do with - it instructs the man and the woman together as one. It's not about the man dominating the woman. It's also about the woman supposed to be the crown on his head. They're supposed to do it mutually, as one.
MS. WOOD: And we - (inaudible) - it's not surprising that sometimes humans corrupt what's been given and some of the things you see on some of these websites, they take it a step too far. But that doesn't mean that -
MS. ERBE: Show me a situation where quite frankly they don't -
(Cross talk.)
MS. ERBE: And I'll show you - I don't know what I'll show you.
Anyway, behind the headlines, remembering women's accomplishments. Every year since 1987 Congress has approved a resolution designating March as Women's History Month, but how well is society doing at celebrating women's achievements? Not that well according to one women's historian.
(Begin video segment.)
MS. BEVERLY WETTENSTEIN: It's mostly celebrated in schools. You do not see a lot of attention about Women's History Month in the media. And if you ask the men or women in the street, they would not know and they might make a joke about it. But it creates an opportunity and raises awareness for the public about women leaders who made lots of sacrifices for women today.
MS. ERBE: Beverly Wettenstein maintains a database of women's accomplishments and says sparse recognition of women in the public sphere is producing a generation of uninformed young people.
MS. WETTENSTEIN: They just don't realize it because it's not recorded. I say there are three Rs to women's history: recording, reporting, and remembering. With all the attention for Clinton and Palin, there was hardly any mention or no mention of Shirley Chisholm, who was the first black woman elected to Congress and the first black person of a majority party to run for president, and Margaret Chase Smith was the first woman at the Republican National Convention in 1964. And there was no mention. So there's no historical perspective.
MS. ERBE: In fact, in a study the year before the 2008 campaign, one in four children thought it was illegal for women and minorities to run for president. Communications professor Dr. Nichola Gutgold says it's important for young women to know their history because it shapes their own dreams and goals.
MS. NICHOLA GUTGOLD: I think the more strong female examples they see, the more they can truly picture themselves. I'm working on a book about Hillary Clinton's presidential bid and sometimes colleagues will say to me, "oh, too bad about Hillary Clinton." And I want to quickly correct them and say I don't understand why we're empathizing with here. She's secretary of state. She won more votes than any woman ever won for the presidency and she almost became president. And I think that our girls should read about her in history books, just as they should read about Al Gore in 2000. It was a history-making campaign. It was an important moment in electoral politics.
MS. ERBE: Gutgold also thinks society has developed the bad habit of only recognizing women's firsts and being first is freighted with other issues, especially in the world of politics.
MS. GUTGOLD: I think that label, "first," is a burden for a candidate because it immediately points to the novelty of their candidacy. So I do think that while it is worth noting, I have received some criticism for my scholarship for that reason - that you're accentuating the very think you're trying to minimize, that women are equal. And I accept that, but language has some limitations and one of them is that there are few ways to describe what is indeed a first. But it will get old, is already getting old, which is a good thing. And I think Hillary Clinton helped make it old.
MS. ERBE: Wettenstein says firsts never get old and thinks for too long we have been overlooking female firsts without even knowing it.
MS. WETTENSTEIN: When I speak around the country to young women, they don't relate and they don't appreciate because they aren't aware of the women who fought for the rights that they enjoy because they got the new rights without the old fights. The important issue is that a lot of it was the result of legislation and I think that's what they have to realize, even if they might not like politics - that legislation determines a lot what happens in their lives and has an impact. And so they might get more involved in the political process and elections and certainly to vote in all the elections.
(End video segment.)
MS. ERBE: So do we pay too much attention to firsts, Genevieve, and not to women's great accomplishments that may not have been - if they've not been the first to do something?
MS. WOOD: Well, I don't know. I think it's a tough question. I was thinking about what she was just saying at the end about that you kind of have a generation now that takes for granted a lot of things. And I myself have even been in that role. I've heard other women - when I first got a job in the career world and I would say something - just kind of take things in my - they thought for granted, but - you don't understand like 10 years ago a women wouldn't have this job and so forth.
But at the same time, I kind of think, isn't that in some ways what we want? You kind of wanted that girls today don't grow up thinking like "I've got to be the first to do this." It's just "No, I've got the opportunity to do this." So it's kind of a catch-22. You - I'm a big believer in knowing history, in knowing from where you came and knowing the trials that people have gone through, but at the same time there is a tendency at times, and I think frankly from older feminists, to kind of want to keep pushing it out there. And I think it rubs the wrong way sometimes.
DEL. NORTON: Oh, goodness. I think the firsts have an extraordinary influence because - an outsized influence and people think, "Oh, my lord, does that mean I can do that, too?" And thereafter the influence may be a little less. I do think that something's very - there's some osmosis happening here. There is the notion, it seems to me, that once the breakthrough - the initial breakthrough has occurred, people - those breakthroughs, in and of themselves, by their very nature and person, educate the general public about the importance of diversity of everybody.
Well, what does in fact this extraordinary achievement of Barack Obama as the first African-American president tell you anything about Shirley Chisholm? Wouldn't you want to know as an educated American about that? Unfortunately, we do need these months and weeks to do it. And they started during the movements you will notice. Then you got these black studies and these women's studies. And everybody said, well, let's really integrate them with everything else, which is what we should do. But the only way to get them integrated is to keep adding these weeks or months so that we keep impressing people with the importance of understanding how marvelous it is that all of these women, not just one of these women, are coming forward and being in places where they weren't before.
MS. BEYER: Historians will tell you that history is written by the winners. And so it colors the kind of history we get. And if you have a month, you have a problem. You were not written into the history because you were not one of the winners. The winners are white men. And so we've got Black History Month. We've got Women's History Month. And now, though, we have some winners. We have Barack Obama. We have Hillary Clinton. If you remember when Hillary captivated the world in Denver at the convention, she talked about Harriet Tubman. She did just what Beverly suggested women who are now winners and making it need to do. She harkened back to another woman in history and said she had what I've got. This has always been there. You're just recognizing it now because I'm a winner. She didn't win the election, but she's clearly a winner.
MS. SETMAYER: I think it's important that we know our history and every - the world needs leaders and it's - I think firsts are important. But during the segment, during the package, I thought it was interesting that she mentioned that some - the first fatigue sometimes takes away from what we are ultimately trying to achieve, which is based on what your achievements are, not the fact that you're a woman. There should be no distinction. Just because you're a woman, so now that makes better or not. So that is a tough dichotomy.
MS. ERBE: Well, how do the news media resolve this? Suggestions? Because - okay, so you celebrate the first, but you ignore the second and maybe she or he - whatever the achievement is - had trials and tribulations too and kids need to keep knowing about that.
MS. WOOD: There's a difference between celebrating and trying to always make a political statement or use it to push some new cause. I was thinking - we've been in Black History Month and I was looking at TV the other day and they talked about, this is the first time - and I forgot which airline it was - that two women who were both black flew the airline. They were both the captains or whatever. And I looked at that - I didn't even think about. I thought, wow, that's kind of cool to know. I never thought that wouldn't have happened, but now that I know - but that was a feel-good moment. It wasn't pushing anything.
MS. ERBE: Got you. That's it for this edition of To the Contrary. Next week, a special in-depth interview with President Obama's senior advisor Karen Kornbluh. Please join us on the web for "To the Contrary Extra" and whether your views are in agreement or to the contrary, please join us next time.
(END)