From: russ@alliant.com (Russell McFatter)
Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women
Subject: gender "data-hiding" (vs. discrimination)
Date: 9 Apr 92 19:47:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: alliant.1992Apr9.194723.2451
Organization: Alliant Computer Systems Corp.

In article <92099.162254JKH107@psuvm.psu.edu> JKH107@psuvm.psu.edu (Joy Haftel) writes:
>
>Toss this one over in your mind:  for women to have an equal weight,
>status, and opportunity in the world as men, they cannot have children.
>I think that is the bottom line.  I would be neither emotionally or
>physically capable of working at a high-responsibility, high-hours job
>if I were pregnant or if I were having a child, and I believe I am
>a fairly strong person.  I would lose precious time due to any pregnancy
>complications I might have, labor, recuperation, and who is going to
>take care of the newborn if I go right back to work?  I would just love
>to raise my children myself.  Career-wise that spells tragedy--I can't
>climb up the "corporate ladder" again after taking off 20 years of work.
>My mother found that when she went back to work--before she was married,
>she had a master's degree and taught at a college.  Now she is working
>as a secretary, and bored out of her skull--but she can only work a job
>like that because she is still caring for my younger siblings.
>
>This is a *big* problem, and also shows when women are being hired; if
>they think you are just going to get married, have a baby, and suck
>the company for maternity leave, you have less of a chance of being
>hired.

This may be true, but is true for both male and female _employers_.
There ARE, indeed, certain "classes" of women that can be counted on to
leave one's employ-- temporarily, sometimes, but often permanently--
for childbearing reasons.

This may be cold reality, but it's a cold reality that employers
have to deal with.  Suppose you have a choice of two, equally-competent
referrals from an employment agency in front of you.  One is a young
woman who's been married about a year, and is likely to be getting pregnant
very soon.  Chances are fairly good, if her husband has a full-time
job and good salary, that she may never return after her maternity leave,
and will either stay home or seek part-time employment.  The other
choice is a man of the same age, or an older woman whose children are
in college.

You know this:  It will take at least two months, at full salary, for
any of these employees to come "up to speed".  The employment agency
commission is $11,500, non-refundable after 60 days of employment.  This
new hire represents the last of your Human Resources budget.  After
this, you won't be able to train anyone else, or get (expensive)
temporary help, until at least the next fiscal year.

Does the likeliness of the various candidates to remain in your employ
affect your decision?  If you're a good manager, it sure does.  Legally,
you can't discriminate against the young woman, and of course there's no
guarantee that she WON'T come back, or that your other choices won't
decide to move on after six months, leaving you high and dry; but you've
been through this plenty of times and know the odds.  A single decision
like this can mean profit or failure for an entire small business.

>So any program that wants true equality for men and women will have to
>take women's unique ablility to bear children into account.  I don't
>have the answers but I am thinking about possible solutions.

You can't have "true equality" while taking any "unique ability" into
account.  It's called discrimination.

When I say "discrimination", I mean in the technical sense.  Cleanse
your mind for a moment of your own personal connotation of the word while
I explain.

To "discriminate", simply, is to make a decision based upon a given
characteristic.  Sexual discrimination, then, is any decision made
where the sex of a person is a factor.  This makes no claim about whether
the "discriminated" person gained or lost because of this.  If a person
hires you BECAUSE of your gender, or your gender was any part of the
decision, you're a "victim" of sexual discrimination even though you
got what you wanted.

This kind of discrimination is STILL heavily with us, and weighs upon
all of us each time the word "female", "male", "man", or "woman" is
written into law, company policy, or anyone's decision-making "ruleset".
If anything, it's getting worse in recent years.

For example:  Affirmative Action.  This plan attempts to "correct" past
discrimination ills by forcing companies above a certain size to explain
so-called "adverse" hiring/promotion ratios.  Is this plan discriminatory?
Yes, in two ways.  First, by forcing companies to record these "quotas",
there is pressure to discriminate by both race and gender when hiring.

The AA rules, though, are discriminatory in and of themselves, in that
they only work against caucasians, and males, regardless of what the
numbers are; "Women" and "Minorities" are expressly identified in the
legislation.  If you have more men than women in your company, you need
to calculate the ratios and possibly explain the "adverse impact".  But
if you have more women than men, the rules don't apply and you need report
nothing.  If you decide to hire only "minority" women, and discriminate
against everyone else, AA isn't worried about you.  Move along.

Maternity leave policies are also usually discriminatory, as are state
laws surrounding them.  Briefly stated, Massachusetts General Law states:

	1:  It's illegal to discriminate in hiring, promotions,
	    pay, or benefits on the basis of sex.

	2:  Female employees are entitled to materity leave...

Thus contradicting itself grossly, in adjacent paragraphs.

Here's my brief list of Maternity Leave Discrimination items.  These
are from actual company policies I've seen (not all the same company).

	o  Women are permitted paid Maternity Leave for the shorter
	   of two weeks after the birth of a child (or longer if
	   medically necessary, at the advice of your physician) plus
	   an additional two weeks.  This may be followed by an unpaid
	   leave of up to six months.  There is no limit on the number
	   of such leaves that may be taken during ones employment
	   period.

	o  New fathers are permitted two days' paid leave upon birth
	   of their children.  This benefit is not required by state
	   law and may be withdrawn at any time.

	o  Since our company cares about family values, we have extended
	   the Maternity Leave Policy for paid and unpaid leave to
	   female employees who adopt (!) children.

	o  Expectant fathers who would like to spend time with their
	   newborn children should schedule their vacation time
	   accordingly.

"Data hiding" is a Software Engineering technique which says, basically,
that there are things about entitites that outside agents simply have
no need to know, and thus should make no decisions based upon.  This
deters unexpected behavior of the system in general.  From "typical company
policy", I see the following three components of Maternity Leave time:

	1:  Medical leave during the time that the woman is unable
	    to work.

	2:  Paid, but not medically-necessary time to be home with
	    newborn children.

	3:  Unpaid leave time to be home with children.

Of these three, the SHORTEST segment in most cases (medical leave)
is the ONLY one that can conceivably be accounted to the "unique abilities"
of the female employee.  If there are indeed "Tender Years" where
children bond with mothers but not fathers, it's because WE CREATED THEM
WITH POLICIES LIKE THESE!  No wonder fathers can become so detached
from their own children.  ("Congratulations, it's a girl!  Okay, Dad,
back to work.")

One might consider the leave itself (regardless of the gender issue)
to be discriminatory.  Imagine the plight of the single man who has no
partner with whom to have children, or a married couple that decides not
to have children, or is unable to.  Why do their child-rearing coworkers
get all these benefits?

By far the simplest policy ever is something called an Earned Time system,
where employees accumulate rights to:

	1:  Paid leave time

	2:  Unpaid leave time

for each hour that they work.  All employees have the same rights to
the above hours and need NOT explain the purpose for them to their
employer.  The woman who has a baby every year gets the medical leave
time she needs, and can spend as much time at home with her baby as she
wants to (and has accumulated time for).  Someone who's sick much of the
time ends up with less vacation time to spare than someone who's healthy.
(Extended medical leave time is usually covered by a form of disability
insurance.)  Everyone has the same right to take an unpaid leave for
their own purposes.

Best of all, one doesn't need to discriminate against men, women,
single people, childless couples, or such with a plan like this.

Other plans, which attempt to "correct" discrimination by making it
mandatory, don't make much sense, do they?

--- Russ McFatter [russ@alliant.COM]
    std. disclaimers apply.
Newsgroups: soc.libraries.talk