From: beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver)
Subject: Affirmative Action (Re: The Politics Of Appeasement)
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 01:25:57 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.214335.25648@news.nd.edu> slarsen@monet.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen) writes:
>In article <Bvo0wK.Bn9@cs.psu.edu> beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver) writes:
>>In article <1992Oct2.182457.22437@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris) writes:
>>>In article <1992Oct1.161757.5779@news.nd.edu> slarsen@titian.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen) writes:
>>>
>>>)I've always heard AA described as assisting "women and minorities".

>>>I've *never* heard men referred to as a 'minority' though.

>>Is a European background not an "ethnic" background?  Are men not
>>a minority?  Why don't white men get affirmative action?
>
>Maybe it is because white men, as a group, do not have a strong 
>desire to move into fields which have been traditionally dominated 
>by women and/or minorities?

I'm not so sure.  Are (white) male nurses on the rise, for example? 
White male secretaries?  Stats, anyone?  I'm just as curious.


>I don't think AA was instituted to help "minorities" or minority 
>populations because of their numbers.  I think AA was instituted to 
>break a perceived "lock" on the good educational slots and the good 
>jobs that white men (a minority by number) held.  To my understanding, 
>the logic runs something like:  if 15% of the population is African-
>American and 51% of the population is female, then why is the enroll-
>ment at College X 75% white men, or the managerial hirees of Insurance 
>Company Y over the last ten years 90% white men?  In other words, AA 
>recognizes that women and minorities by number are a majority of our 
>population, yet a minority of players on the employment "fast track."
>It is an attempt at a numbers solution to more deeply ingrained social 
>problems.

Here is a radical bit of food for thought.  Many people think that 
childraising and homemaking are important but unrecognized and 
undervalued jobs.  Some feminists suggest that these jobs should 
be paid or at least given some monetary value (cf. Canadian divorce laws).  

So, let's treat childraising and homemaking as serious jobs.  

If women have a "lock" on these jobs (a 90% rate of awarding child 
custody to women reflects this) and on the "educational slots" that 
permit them to stay at home if they choose, then should we implement 
affirmative action for men? 

That is, should we create a presumption in favor of any man who 
requests custody?  Should we arrange federal funding to enable 
men to stay at home with their children (I am not talking about 
parental leave, which is brief and is currently a greater opportunity 
cost to men than to women) -- ie. a kind of "scholarship" to learn 
childraising and homemaking and break the female "lock" on family jobs?

After all, economic factors are a strong motivation for driving
men out of the home and into the workplace.  How many families
have the opportunity to try the "social experiment" of a working
mother and a homemaking father?

(Too bad it'll never fly.)

Don
-- 
beaver@cs.psu.edu                       Opinions from the PC-challenged