User:Jmleonrojas/sandbox/Breaking through the contempt for girls and women

Breaking through the contempt for girls and women: a duty of us all


Just as we have ever mentioned the existence of web pages against non-white human beings, there are others against economically disadvantaged people, against indigenous communities, against women, etc.

We have lost count of the number of tribes that have been dispossessed of their lands, enslaved and exterminated over the course of centuries. Native Americans, deported, confined in `reservations'; Aboriginal Australians, hunted by the British; the Brazilian Indian population, decimated. Dayak in Sarawak and the Yanomami in Brazil are two examples of indigenous survival.

But such a date back in time is unnecessary. Women remain outcast in many parts of the planet. Not so long ago, for example, their appointment to public offices was approved in Germany. Another example: in Spain, it is not until 1966, when women are allowed to be admitted to the judicial profession. Concepción Carmen Venero was the first woman to be a judge in Spain. She was appointed in 1971 as judge of the Juvenile Court, a post, according to the Diario de Madrid at the time, that 'gets to the very heart of the features, virtues and skills with which femininity has been adorned for millennia' — cfr. Iglesias de Ussell  and  Ruíz Rico  [842] (Chap. VIII, p. 160) —. Claro que en estas afirmaciones ya notamos el «progreso» hacia la igualdad, pues no hay más que remontarse a 1568, año en el que se publica en Sevilla, La filosofía vulgar de Juan de Mal Lara, en el que aparecen mil refranes recopilados por su maestro en Salamanca, el comendador Hernán Núñez. Un ejemplo: «El asno y la mujer a palos se han de vencer» (196r; IV, 22) —via Pintos  [843] (p. 80). La teoría psicoanalista de Erik Erikson afirma que en la mujer, la identidad se forma y expresa en «la búsqueda selectiva de un tipo de hombre por el que ella desearía ser solicitada». O sea, que la mujer carece de identidad. Pero esta idea también es de Freud. Éste define la líbido (que según él, es el origen de toda posible conducta humana) como propiamente masculina, pues caracterizó a la mujer por carecer de líbido: «la niña se percibe a sí misma carente de algo, como castrada, de ahí su sentimiento de inferioridad, de ahí su mayor tendencia al masoquismo. [...] El masoquismo es precisamente la aceptación y el disfrute del dolor para complacer a otros. Es la pérdida de la libertad, de la creatividad a cambio de que otros decidan, soporten y confieran una identidad alienada al masoquista.» —cfr. Fernández Villanueva  [844] (p. 83)—. Todo ello, según Freud, justifica la situación de la mujer, ya que es su situación natural, debida a su naturaleza per se.

Women unfairness in the workplace


One of the most prominent situations is the inequality in the labour market between women and men, both as to the access to work and to its performance, become more apparent everywhere you turn and not only in the case of women of poor, rural and indigenous communities. The caveat is that regarding future of work, women perspective must be seemingly taken into account — cfr. Arantxa Rodríguez, Begoña Goñi and Gurutze Maguregi  [845] (passim).

Although we believe in what Jean Onimus —cfr. §8.19.1— and so many others say, when they claim that there will be not need for us to work, or at least only a little bit, since we shall get machines to perform each and every routine task. Even so, arriving at that point involves the effective equality of women and men[1].

The reality is that society has built idealised patterns for nearly all occupations in such a way that if you think of an occupation, you immediately figure the ideal candidate for it. This relates to the fact that women cluster in certain fields of study and knowledge — mainly in humanities and social sciences — and accordingly in employment — primary school teachers and nurses as opposed to barristers and doctors, at least in recent generations, are often assumed to be women and men, respectively —. These patterns in occupational segregation are probably the visible face of gendered division of labour which in turn it is caused by gender-based discrimination. As mentioned below, the 'glass slipper' metaphor reflects this situation.

One of the identified major problems is that the selection criteria for leadership positions are subjective and imposed by the men who currently hold those positions with an eye on not letting women catch up with them, let alone women who achieve to stand out above them. And not only at the top of the hierarchy but also at the middle and at the bottom. Many metaphors have been conceived for describing situations concerning women unfairness in the workplace (vid. Paul Smith, Peter Caputi and Nadia Crittenden , pp. 290-291):  (a) glass doors, corresponding to the hiring barriers for women to enter an organization; (b) glass floors, settled at the lowest levels of organizations where the existing educational qualifications of women are low and they have little chance of promotion; (c) glass walls\footnote{\url{http://theconversation.com/why-there-are-so-many-women-managers-but-so-few-women-ceos-38447}}, regarding horizontal obstacles based on gender, i.e. for example, for lateral mobility from department to department; (d) glass ceilings\footnote{\url{http://theconversation.com/why-there-are-so-many-women-managers-but-so-few-women-ceos-38447}}, that are similar to glass walls but now at the top levels of organizations, i.e. obstacles in women's upward mobility to top level posts, sometimes so subtle that they seem invisible and women can bump into them not realising that those barriers were there --- although nowadays many of them are actually \textbf{concrete ceilings}\footnote{\url{http://fortune.com/2013/05/22/women-are-breaking-through-the-concrete-ceiling/}}, that women can see quite clearly and could go no further (this situation is even worse for women of color and notoriously difficult for black women\footnote{\url{https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jasmine-babers/for-women-of-color-the-gl_b_9728056.html?guccounter=1}}) ---; (e) firewalls\footnote{Franke, M. and Simöl, I. (2002) Teilzeit im Management von Organisationen. Firewalls für den Aufstieg von Frauen ins Top-Management. In Kramer, C. (ed.) \emph{FREI-Räume und FREI-Zeiten: Raum-Nutzung und Zeit-Verwendung im Geschlechterverhältnis}, pp. 165-78. Heidelberg: Nomos.}, that as Regine Bendl and Angelika Schmidt\footnote{Bendl, R. and Schmidt, A. (2010) From ‘Glass Ceilings’ to ‘Firewalls’— Different Metaphors for Describing Discrimination. \emph{Gender, Work \& Organization} 17 (5). Special Issue: Women and Men in Management: Issues for the 21st Century, pp. 612-634.} argue, the main difference with respect to glass ceilings is that the former reflect a complex, fluid and dynamic situation of `doing' discrimination (as opposed to the simplicity, rigidity and statics of `having' discrimination which are plausibly inferred from glass ceilings), defining a `virtual wall protecting a virtual intangible space from inside' where the insiders deny access to the outsiders, though unlike glass ceilings there exist possibilities for permeability (and even hacking); (g) queen bee, referring to successful women who will not help other women in their pursuit of excellence and promotion; these queen bees will not hesitate to `sting' other women if the latter threaten their power --- hence the metaphor; (h) black sheep\footnote{Kerr, N.L.; Hymes, R.W.; Anderson, A.B.; Weathers, J.E. (1995). "Defendant-juror similarity and mock juror judgments". Law and Human Behavior. 19 (6): 545–567. doi:10.1007/bf01499374.} metaphor is similar though not only applied to women; it happens when members of a group are likely to evaluate other members of their group better than no-members, but only if they all are highly qualified, because if they all are on the average or below it, with equivalent qualifications, then no-members will be better evaluated; accordingly, if early career women are highly qualified, they will be helped by established women but that will not be the case if they are lower qualified; (i) labyrinths\footnote{Eagly, A. H. and Carli, L. L. (2007). \emph{Through the labyrinth: The truth about how women become leaders}. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press.}, that try to capture the intricacy of women career paths (bends, turns, twists, detours, dead ends, barriers, slippery areas, avalanches);</li> <li>(j) maternal walls\footnote{\url{https://hbr.org/2004/10/the-maternal-wall}},</li> <li>(k) sticky floors (Catherine Berheide, 1992\footnote{\url{https://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/22/business/at-work-and-now-the-sticky-floor.html}})\footnote{\url{http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/64807/1/WP228.pdf}} --- sometimes with such a strong adhesive that they seem so much like \textbf{concrete floors} ---, they refer to lowly paid roles, generally for less educated and privileged women, that keep them at the bottom levels;</li> <li>(l) glass slippers (Karen Lee Ashcraft, 2017\footnote{\url{https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amr.2010.0219}}) accentuates how occupations has been idealised by society so that they speak for themselves, such that when you think of an occupation, its social idealisation comes to your mind telling you who is perceived as being fit for the post, resulting in gendered professions (as well as other idealised features such as age or ethnicity), but for occupational identity, as is true for Cinderella's glass slipper, one size does not fit all.</li> </ul>

promote positive discrimination — North American term 'affirmative action' — in favour of women...

they have to perform household tasks and thus stop schooling

Some will cloak their hatred and hidden agenda by invoking the right to free speech and academic freedom. O amparándose en ella la declaran abiertamente. Algunos ocultan su odio e intenciones encubiertas invocando su derecho a la libertad de expresión y la libertad académica.

One of the identified problems is that the selection criteria for leadership positions are subjective and imposed by the men who currently hold those positions with an eye on not letting women catch up with them. Many metaphors have been conceived for describing situations concerning women unfairness in the workplace: <ul style = "list-style: none; margin-left: 5; padding-left: 1.75em; text-indent: -1.75em;"> <li>(a) glass ceilings,</li> <li>(b) glass walls,</li> <li>(c) maternal walls,</li> <li>(d) sticky floors and</li> <li>(e) glass slippers.</li> </ul> are blocking women from advancing to leadership positions. And: <ul style = "list-style: none; margin-left: 5; padding-left: 1.75em; text-indent: -1.75em;"> <li>(f) leaky pipelines make women drop out or simply disappear as they move up the hierarchy;</li> <li>(g) labyrinths capture the intricacy of their career paths (bends, turns, twists, detours, dead ends, barriers, slippery areas, avalanches) and if they reach the top (and they do so in increasing numbers) they are not safe yet;</li> </ul> are blocking women from advancing to leadership positions.

Other metaphors highlighted obstacles for working mothers, particularly second shift, maternal walls, child penalty and wage penalty. Stereotypes such as ideal homemaker and the women are wonderful effect can also hinder the career advancement of women. Discrimination against women ... <ul style = "list-style: none; margin-left: 5; padding-left: 1.75em; text-indent: -1.75em;"> <li>(h) glass escalator, referring to women-dominated jobs where men can receive more rapid chances of promotion than their women co-workers; <li>(h) leaky pipelines make women drop out or simply disappear as they move up the hierarchy.</li> </ul>

And if women reach the top, and they do so in increasing numbers — although the pace of increase is remarkably slow —, they are not safe yet. Another metaphor comes forward: <ul style = "list-style: none; margin-left: 5; padding-left: 1.75em; text-indent: -1.75em;"> <li>(h) glass cliffs, that reflect the precariousness and riskiness of the leadership positions that women are likely to attain; that is, in an organization with a glass cliff, women are only able to reach the worst leadership positions.</li> </ul>

Notwithstanding all what it has been said up to this point, it must be noticed that, on the one hand, there are women that do not want to gain higher status positions in organizations. And on the other, some women simply go in and out of the workplace over time depending on their personal conditions. Some metaphors reflect this `self-selection' — as before, the list in Smith, Caputi and Crittenden's paper (2012) is longer and they describe all the metaphors in great detail: <ul style = "list-style: none; margin-left: 5; padding-left: 1.75em; text-indent: -1.75em;"> <li>(a) opt-out revolution describes those women who leave even prestigious professional careers to particularly focus on nurturing their children;</li> <li>(b)	off-ramps and on-ramps refer to women who leave and return to work, respectively, whatever reason they had; regarding the leaky pipeline model mentioned above, they reflect the ins and outs into the pipeline;</li> <li>(c) mommy track whereas originally it meant a temporary choice, media comentators used it to despise women's commitment to the workplace; alternatively, women used it for praising enthusiastically full-time motherhood.</li> </ul>

Patriarchal mentality — the 'good' and the 'bad' (ballsy vs. cunty and the 'monthly curse')


On the other hand, the basic wealth generated by families in societies, tipically occurs too frequently under conditions that Marilyn Waring \footnote{M. Waring. \emph{If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics}. Macmillan, London, UK, 1989, (pp. 18-19).} qualifies as slavery. The vital importance of the functions performed by women makes the growing decline of family (essentially showed by falling birth-rates and the breakdown of the family unit), observed in many regions and countries, somewhat truly worrying.

It might come from the very distant past, even close to the times of Eve and the the damn apple --- in colloquial English menstruation is dubbed as the curse, the monthly curse. Or from a more recent past. Freud, widely quoted by many who really have no idea why they cite him, characterised women by their lack of libido, thus justifying the current status of women as their natural status due to their very nature.

In a nutshell, many reminiscences from an archaic — and unfortunately ossified — patriarchal mentality for which men are the norm and women, simply the other. And even though some changes have been noted in language, they are not enough. We must strive for the final adoption of a gender-neutral language. Acts and facts are the unique realities and priorities that actually build the future.

La fuerza de la palabra es la de las ideas, y viceversa. Usamos las lenguas para introducir ideas en otras mentes. Y el masculino, gramatical o no, es masculino, de ninguna forma neutro y aún mucho menos, femenino. Si lo que proponen las academias es dejar las cosas como están, en lenguas que ningunean a la mujer, pues no, no aceptamos la imposición. Porque sí sabemos lo que queremos, lenguas como medios para un mundo mucho más inclusivo, para nuestro futuro, para nuestras hijas, para nuestras madres, para nuestras hermanas, para nuestras sobrinas, para nuestras primas, para nuestras amigas, para nuestras conocidas, para todas las que no conocemos, para Ellas. Lenguas inclusivas, sí. Ahora bien, hemos de construirlas con sumo cuidado, sin caer en lo binario. Lenguas inclusivas que respeten y traten por igual a toda la diversidad humana en cuanto a su orientación sexual e identidad de género. Y no tiene por qué ser una solución única. La pluralidad es la esencia de la riqueza lingüística. Así que, recorramos el camino que se nos abre, en compañía, esmerándonos en la escritura y la palabra, para que no quede como una improbabilidad en el recuerdo.

Maybe 'outcast' is a very soft wording. For example, Amnesty International has been denouncing the Salvadorian judicial system and penal legislation for years, having reported that women who miscarry or suffer a still-birth are often presumed guilty of having an abortion (which is illegal under any circumstances and could carry criminal penalties of several decades). In reality there are still numerous societies where rules governing 'family' and 'community' are deeply patriarchal. Some examples of worst practice are the following:

<ul style = "list-style: none; margin-left: 5; padding-left: 1.75em; text-indent: -1.75em;"> <li>(a) murder of new-born daughters, owing to the family's dire poverty in which she had the misfortune to come into the world and because being a girl, her future marriage must be accompanied by a dowry;</li> <li>(b) dowry murder, i.e., the 'accidental' deaths of wives who did not pay the dowry they promised;</li> <li>(c) stoning murder, for having sexual relations outside marriage (even though she is unmarried);</li> <li>(d) murder due to 'adultery' — the infamous 1990 Iraqi decree establishing that 'any Iraqi who kills, even with premeditation, his own mother, daughter, sister, aunt, niece or (female) cousin on the father's side for adultery will not be brought to justice;'</li> <li>(e) sentence a woman to be raped multiple times because a male relative had committed adultery;</li> <li>(f) Hudood ordinances, in Pakistan, that declare raped women as guilty of fornication rather than victims and condemn them to be publicly whipped and thrown in jail;</li> <li>(g) sexual slavery;</li> <li>(h) forced pregnancy;</li> <li>(i) female genital mutilation;</li> <li>(j) arranged or forced marriage, even before they are born;</li> <li>(k) child marriage;</li> <li>(l) prohibition of falling in love without permission from their parents or from the tribe;</li> <li>(m) the recent case of Russia's parliament approving, with practically unanimously (380-3), not to penalise those who make a violent act against their relatives? They have considered that it is not a domestic violence episode, but a kind of family conflict, although provided that it does not cause 'substantial bodily harm' and no more frequently than every year.</li> </ul>

Many sorts of abuse, and many others should be added to all this. In subtlest cases, even disguised as ways to achieve the common good. Many more examples, both within and out the family environment, show the violence against women to which they are constantly facing: <ul style = "list-style: none; margin-left: 5; padding-left: 1.75em; text-indent: -1.75em;"> <li>(a) Discrimination;</li> <li>(b) Exploitation (sexual exploitation included);</li> <li>(c) Trafficking;</li> <li>(d) pay gaps.</li> </ul>

On this last issue, it should be accentuated the large still existing macho population, consisting of specimens like Janusz Korwin-Mikke, a polish European deputy, who publicly expressed his opinion against equality between women and men, saying things like '"must" earn less than men in the workplace because they are "weaker, smaller and less intelligent".'

This last one is only an example of so many others who try to disguise their hatred and hidden agenda, airing their totally disgraceful frustrations, perversions and bitterness from the rooftops, by invoking the right to free thought and free speech in parliaments and universities, as well as to academic freedom in the latter. As if this were not enough, some of them, allegedly under these rights, even had the gall to do it openly.

Say 'Enough' of these evil-spoken, unclean and vainglorious speeches. We must fight against misogyny and misandry. We must face our prejudices, eliminate stereotypes and remove our phobias. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by these villains masquerading as sages — though surely erudite, cultivated and even intellectual people, although lying at the borders of the broadest meanings of these concepts —. Strive with us all for keeping them off the table, making possible a continuous flow of truth.

It seems that some might forget that women are a key 'piece', in the absence of whom our existence would not take place. Everyone has a mother, even though some have forgotten her. There are no artificial uteri. Without women there are no children. Without women there is no future. Because without children there is no future. Perhaps in the future artificial uteri proliferate — and I will be extremely happy, because all women suffering and dangers involved in childbirth will be overcome —. Unfortunately, this is currently not the case (the Spanish Society of Neonatology establishes the (fuzzy) limit for large premature babies at the 25th week of gestation\footnote{https://www.diariosur.es/malaga-capital/angel-alta-secuelas-20170626215232-nt.html}, although there are success stories for babies born in their 23rd week of gestation\footnote{https://www.diariosur.es/malaga-capital/emilio-gramos-guerrero-20181104220806-nt.html}).

And, by the way, would you be able to imagine how wonderful the world would be if women had written each and every line of History and not only the prolusion?

Unlearn to learn
In the light of these issues, it seems clear that it involves unlearning and innovation. Vijay \textsc{Govindarajan}\index{Govindarajan, Vijay}\citeen{govindarajan_three_2016} has proposed the Three Box Solution strategy for leading innovation, that as he himself has acknowledged, applies everywhere\footnote{\url{https://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-chau/the-three-box-solution-a-_b_9559004.html}}. Adopting and adapting it to the social questions such as we are facing now in this article, we can describe the three boxes in the following way: Box 1, that is about managing the present, could be explained as handling the core of the situation relying on the most beneficial for the people involved; box 2, that is about selectively forgetting the past, could be interpreted as a certain type of unlearning since it refers to be able to reject ideas, practices, and attitudes that could inhibit the innovation of making a difference and truly making things happens); and box 3, that is about creating the future, could be described as converting breakthrough ideas into reality. As Vijay claims in his book, keeping these three boxes in balance is a way to change the situation under consideration dynamically over time.

LGTBQ+
However, if the truth be told, there are too many variables involved. In this article we have accentuate three pairs of them, all around women unfairness situations\footnote{Although we have mainly centered this article around women, LGTBQ+ (\url{https://ok2bme.ca/resources/kids-teens/what-does-lgbtq-mean/}) community is very much in our minds; God willing, we will write a more comprehensive article about their situation.}: poverty and human rights, the workplace and gender-based discrimination, and language and sexism.

Actions
Of course, lists which have appeared in this article are not exhaustive, but we are utterly convinced that their study is able to sow the seeds of change. We hope they can have the resources they need to grow one day. Many of us will keep fighting for that.

Although it is worth noting that, as Frederick W. Mayer note in \citeen{mayer_narrative_2014} (p. 134), with these words, Oronto Douglas echoes Rev. Martin Luther King's words in Selma:

Words that seem to have been paraphrased nowadays into this popular saying that you can find almost everywhere on the internet:

Some ongoing campaigns
For the time being, you can take action in some current and ongoing campaigns:
 * Child marriage:
 * Girls Not Brides
 * Save the Children (NEWS: One Girl Under 15 Married Every Seven Seconds)
 * UNICEF, Child protection from violence, exploitation and abuse
 * Female genital mutilation (FGM):
 * Daughters of Eve
 * uropean Initiative for Gender Equality (EIGE)
 * End FGM European Network
 * Stop FGM Now
 * Modern slavery
 * Crime Stoppers
 * Freedom United
 * Several themes:
 * Amnesty International, Campaigns, Education, News and Research about Women and Girls
 * Crime Stoppers
 * Plan International, Act for Girls
 * UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
 * http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/WRGS/Pages/WRGSIndex.aspx
 * http://www.equalitynow.org/actions
 * http://www.campaignforeducation.org/en/campaigns/girls-education/gender-discrimination
 * http://equalnationalityrights.org/

Related concepts / facts

 * http://universitas.no/nyheter/64578/i-don-t-think-people-dare-to-speak-their-minds-abo/

Notes and references

 * Books


 * Journal articles


 * Newspaper articles


 * Websites

Further reading, writing and acting

 * Equipo Nizkor
 * Derechos Human Rights
 * Proyecto Desaparecidos
 * Radio Nizkor