random-thoughts

Not-So-Random Thoughts on Work-Life Balance

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 17:05:56 +0100

It seems like no matter where I go to look for information on the current climate of work – online or in person – everyone is talking about the need for work-life balance. It also seems like many seek to have that balance tipped heavily in favor of life over work. The most extreme are making demands that employers make financial accommodations in the form of less work (24 – 32-hour work weeks) for the same amount of money (or even more!). I suppose that does make sense, in a broad view: How will one be able to afford to do all that one wants with all this extra free time if one does not have the extra money to pay for such a lifestyle? Something has to give and, in keeping with this surrealistic balance, it should be the employer. Oh, the entitlement!

Yes, this view strikes me as incorrect and grossly egocentric. I believe that to view work-life balance as the mythical scales of justice, which must constantly undergo minute adjustments to remain in balance, is incorrect – and terribly inefficient. Like counting blueberries in a batch of muffin tins to make sure there is an equal amount in each muffin, spending too much time paying attention to every little detail results in micromanagement of the little details while the major details are left untended. (And if you said those six words in a Robert DeNiro voice, we are going to get along just fine, regardless of whether we agree on this matter).

To me, work-life balance is less like a scale and more like a merry-go-round: a balance that does not tip from side-to-side, but moves in a circular motion around a balanced hub. If the hub is balanced– in my case, my physical and mental health – then all that attaches to it stays in place and moves with smooth, fluid motion. The carousel moves in a circle while the horses go up-and-down in rhythmic motion, the sleigh seats stay in place and the brass ring is there for anyone who cares to try and grab it. In short, my work-life balance is like a well-oiled machine; it can still work if the wheels need greasing or if my suspension is thrown slightly out of alignment – as so often happens in life. Unlike a scale that is out of balance, the small imbalances are far less noticeable on a merry-go-round. So long as all areas are properly maintained, those small and occasional imbalances can be corrected in the end. If, on the other hand, misalignments are left to fester, the calliope will crash to the ground (yes, I am also a fan of Manfred Mann).

Now I realize there are those who will argue that record pay should be the result of record profits. Does this mean that during the lean times all employees should take a pay cut to ensure nobody will get laid off? If we are going to look at work-life balance as something binary, like the scales of justice, this is the fair work model. However, I digress; my true point here is that it needs to be understood that company profits go not only to salaries. There needs to be money left over to go into research and development, investments in the industrial infrastructure, and other expenses that come out of gross profits. These examples are only a small portion of what companies do with their profits to enhance the company brand and keep it competitive enough to stay in business. Just as we do not look at gross income as a picture of a company’s fiscal health, we should not look at gross profits as the basis of what employees should be paid. Rather, it needs to be a combination of a base wage or salary and the employee’s worth to the company. While I agree that the matter of merit pay is far too often overlooked, that is a discussion for another time.

The issue of imbalance in work-life balance has come to a head due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has messed with our infallible sense of American invincibility and left us to question what it is we truly value in life. Let us work to find the root causes of why we feel so imbalanced before assuming facts not in evidence, and then jumping to conclusions that tip the scale so far so fast that those on the other side of it are launched from it like boulders from a sprung catapult.

KJM

02.06.2024

On Becoming the Woman I Want

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 17:16:04 +0100

From the moment I was born, I was taught how to be a woman. I never really thought about the process of being taught how to be a woman in American society - I have always been attracted to dresses and high heels, bright colors and delicate patterns, makeup and visits to the salon. I wasn't one for spitting or using foul language although I did go through both phases when I was a child, wanting to be included in the games boys played because they were fun, too. I loved my Barbie Dream House and my brother's Erector set with equal fervor and wanted to build what the Dream House would have looked like before it was finished; I was too young to know what a Structural Engineer was, but that was what I was discouraged from being. The Erector set was my brother's toy, and I was to leave it alone unless he invited me to play with it.

As a teenager, my Grandma taught me how to cook so I could help my mother around the kitchen. It was never assumed that my brother should learn how to cook; it was assumed that he would one day have a wife to do it for him. As a woman, I needed to learn how to cook - firstly to make dinner on the nights my Mom had to work late and second because it would someday be my responsibility as a wife. My family was - still is - very traditional in many ways and I love our traditional ways, which shocks a lot of people; as a feminist, they expect me to want a more egalitarian set-up but the fact remains that my kitchen is my territory and I would not have it any other way. I'm a feminist in the workplace and a traditionalist in the home. It's the type of woman I always wanted to become, as well as how I was raised. It's complicated, I know.

"Women are complicated" is a phrase I have often heard from many sources - mostly men, but also from those who are transitioning. I have had the honor of answering questions about how cis [female-born] women act towards and respond to various social stimuli and the answer is usually the same: it depends on the woman. While the one possible universal is that we don't pee standing up (so please remember to put the seat down, and that goes for anyone who pees standing up!) we all have different responses to stimuli. Some women love it when a man grabs their butt and tells them he wants to take them home; others are highly offended and may even physically strike him in response. Some fear walking to their car alone in the dark while others will abjectly refuse a man's well-meaning offer to escort them (to some it's sexist, to others it's practical). Some women think being required to wear makeup to work is being forced to bend to the will of the patriarchy while others see it as a part of a woman's professional appearance. Like I said, we are complicated. Somewhere along the line - be it as toddlers or adults - we figure out what kind of woman we want to become and start working towards that goal. Often times, it is a lifelong process and like any work of art we only know the that the process is complete when it is finally done.

As for me, I figured out what kind of woman I wanted to be when I was very young; I wanted to be the kind of woman who was not limited by societal expectations, a woman who would happily bend the rules but not break them. I wanted to be the kind of woman who doesn't sit on the sidelines when none of her friends want to play the game. A free spirit, I have always sought adventure - nothing extreme, but always memorable. My bucket list consists of everyday adventures that we all think would be fun but never get around to doing (and I swear that THIS will be the winter that I learn to snowmobile!). Most of all, I wanted to become the kind of person people liked being around without sacrificing the essence of who I am. Who am I?

I am the woman whose voice raises when she is feeling insecure or disrespected.
I am the woman who remains quiet when she is content to be with you.
I am the woman who doesn't laugh often, but when she does it is until she cries.
I am the woman who is always smiling but still wants to be taken seriously.
I am the woman who isn't adverse to dirty jobs but who will always have a bow in her hair as she completes them.
I am the woman people turn to when the need to know how to prepare a special meal or to mix a perfect cocktail.
I am the woman burns dinner because she forgot to set the timer and sat down to read a book.
I am the woman who is brave enough to stand her ground.
I am the woman who is smart enough to know when she needs someone else to come to her defense.
I am the woman who is afraid to love because she loves so deeply.
I am the woman who, when disrespected, can walk away without looking back.
I am creative and I am analytical.
I am conservative and I am liberal.
I am stoic and I am emotional.
I am wholesome and I am bawdy.
I am an enigma and I am an open book.
I am contradiction and I am congruity.

I am the woman whom I have always dreamed of becoming, and that makes me enough just as I am. Tell me: Who are you?

KJM

Misogyny and Misandry and Humor, OH MY!

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 17:02:29 +0100

mi·sog·y·ny /məˈsäjənē/ noun: dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.

mis·an·dry /miˈsandrē/ noun: dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against men.

The Battle of the Sexes is nothing new, with instances of it going back to the dawn of humanity - think the legend of Lilith or the story of Adam and Eve. Men and women are yin and yang, a delicate balance, the conception of one impossible without the other - and many would argue that the moment of conception is the first and only time that masculine and feminine come together as equals - as sperm and ovum, each as dependent upon the other to reach a common goal.

As a Gender Studies scholar, I get a lot of flack from my fellow feminists for my study of male behavior and the sociological/anthropological views of what constitutes masculinity. While this is understandable - Gender Studies programs sprung from an expansion of established Women's Studies programs - I cannot help but wonder if that anger stems from the fear of having "our" program taken over by men, for anger is often times fear putting on a brave face in the presence of danger. This attitude often leads to misandristic rants equal in force to the misogynistic arguments that lead us to cry foul. So why isn't misandry considered as unacceptable as misogyny? In a phrase, power dynamics.

A woman's power is unequal to a man's in many ways - in some it is woefully less, yet in others it crushes its masculine counterpart. Politically speaking, women are dominated by the rule of law set down by majority male legislative bodies and historically these laws have favored men: up until a generation ago, domestic violence was considered a private matter; marital rape was legal; and it was perfectly acceptable to discriminate against a woman on the basis of her marital status. However, political power only covers the laws of our courts (and women, having made strides in this area, continue the fight our fore-mothers started). There is another form of power that women yield and that power is the benefit of public opinion and the power its figurative court bestows.

Woman as Mother - yes, with a capital M - commands a sense of respect that borders on worship. While we may mistreat our own Moms, nobody else had better dare insult her. A man may not be able to stand the sight of his ex-wife, but he is thankful to her for the existence of his children and all that she does for their care. A father can spend years coaching his son's sports teams, pushing him to glory, but it is Mom to whom the son dedicates his first championship win. This sense of awe is visible in the grossly unequal spending between Mother's Day and Father's Day, where the money spent on gifts for Moms outpaces that spent on Dads by billions of dollars. Yes, billions, with a "b". The power that comes with living in the glow of such awe - even reflexively, for her status as mother is assumed after a certain age - allows women to get away with abusive speech far more than men.

Women can publicly shame their husbands on social media for laughs. Copious amounts of print media have been dedicated to women's complaints about how men do not carry their share of the domestic workload - yet men are shamed through "humor" when they try to help and fail to live up to their wives' standards of how the job should be done. When a woman complains that her husband did not properly mop the floor, then launches into an exaggerated description of the train wreck that was his efforts, she is met with laughter; if a man were to do the equivalent of his wife's efforts to take on a traditionally masculine chore he would be met with stony silence, at best, or - more likely than not - a tirade of shame for not doing his part and then subjecting the woman he purportedly loves to public humiliation.

Misogyny, a more commonly recognized societal ill, also takes the frequent form of "humor". The trope of the frigid wife fills entire chapters of Truly Tasteless Jokes books; the "dumb blonde" in blonde jokes is always a female; and a woman who enjoys casual sex as much as a man is seen as someone to have fun with, but not the kind of woman you would want to marry or bear your children. Abuse disguised as humor is still abuse and it is only in recognizing that abuse can we work to overcome it.

To follow are tips to recognize misogyny and misandry when disguised as humor:

1. The person who is "joking" excessively or exclusively targets one sex

Some people are great at "roast" humor, putting someone down by pointing out obvious personality flaws in a humorous way. This humor becomes abusive when the target's feelings get hurt and the person "joking" marginalizes these hurt feelings, telling the butt of the joke to grow a thicker skin or calling them a "snowflake". In such cases, examine the "joker's" humor - is it excessively or exclusively aimed towards one sex? If so it is abuse disguised as humor, the goal being social acceptance of the emotional domination of the subject.

2. The "humorous" insults are gender specific or in any way a put-down to the subject's gender (i.e. calling a man "Nancy")

Like it or not, society judges people on the basis of traditional masculinity and femininity, respectively. A woman may be tough as nails, enjoy hunting and fishing, chew tobacco, and in every respect come off as one of the guys...but that doesn't mean she is a guy; joking about her sexuality - asking if she is sure she "doesn't want a dick, and not in the way most women want one" - is abusive. On a similar note, making fun of a man because he orders a salad and a glass of Chardonnay at a sports pub during the Super Bowl is not okay, either. (Yes, I did that once, to a guy I was dating, and I know I should feel shame; I'm working on it).

3. The "humor" is physically violent or torturous to the subject

Tickling can be fun - until it's not. Punching someone in the arm can be good-natured - until it hurts. Sneaking up behind someone and yelling "BOO!" can get a laugh - unless it makes the recipient cry. While these forms of abusive humor are not exclusively sex-based, often times they are, and are used to express dominance over the opposite sex while proclaiming innocence. Tickling to the point of pain starts with laughter, complaining of a punch to the bicep is met with accusations of weakness, and fright over a surprise approach of being a "scardy-cat" or a "wuss". All of these behaviors shift blame to the victim for being "unable to take a joke".

It is only by learning to respect each other as both individuals and as part of a larger cohort that the Battle of the Sexes can reach a peaceful truce. It is only by offering each other equal respect that we can move forward in the battle for understanding between the sexes. Learning to take a joke is only a part of this battle; learning what is not a joke is the bigger issue at hand.

KJM