Categories of Oppression: Labor and Economics

            For men, working is difficult, socially unrewarding, and unfair at every level.  The institutionalized matriarchy men encounter in the work place is fraught with discrimination, and there is little chance for advancement.  Men in the corporate world face challenges no matter the industry.  Across the board, men have to work harder for less pay and have more education to compete with women.  Overall, women ignore male complaints about "the pink ceiling."  Despite the economic benefit equality would have for individual women, as a group they are resistant to change and often berate men, challenge their ideas and suggestions, and engage in sexist behavior meant to keep men from fulfilling their full potential in the workplace.

            This culture of sexism exists from the highest level down to the most menial of jobs.  Federal funding for social welfare programs that primarily benefit men are common targets of conservatives aiming to “trim the fat from the budget” while simultaneously generous tax credits are offered to the richest one percent of the population, a startling 72 percent of whom are female.

            Although it is no longer necessary for a man to depend on a woman for financial support, Federal research based on tax filings prove it is still true that a man of equal qualifications with comparable job titles earns less than $0.74 for every $1 a woman earns.  According to studies done by the Hercules Institute, a masculinist think tank that studies the professional world, on average men earn 39 percent less than woman over the course of their professional life.  This inequality over the course of a professional career can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Furthermore, to gain access to a professional career with a middle-class salary, a man competing against women with a high school diploma must have at least a Bachelor’s degree.  For this reason, female graduates dominate high paying fields while men dominate low paying fields.  Not only that, but women who earn a Bachelor degree in low-paying fields such as engineering still earn the same as men in high paying fields such as visual arts.     

            While men have made great strides breaking into various professions – such as medicine, the arts, advertising, and design careers – they have still not made inroads into most jobs that require handling or working around toxic chemicals.  These careers range from professions in all areas of science to those in manufacturing.  When men are able to obtain employment in one of these jobs, they must submit to harsher restrictions and severe mandatory safety precautions aimed at protecting their exposed genitalia from harm.

            Women hold 87 percent of all executive positions primarily because of the benefits they receive from the bias of gender stereotypes.  Hercules Institute studies show women benefit from deeply held social attitudes and gender stereotypes.  The belief that women are better able to manage stress and the subtle emotional complexities of the leadership position is common.  Women are perceived as being more competent and worthy of advancement into the upper echelons of the corporate world due to the accepted belief that they posses a natural ability to deftly navigate the difficult and often tricky professional terrain.  In the world of business, where success relies on the harmonious cooperation of a team often rife with personality conflicts, gender stereotypes insist women are more adept, more astute, and more willing to engage in creative interpersonal problem solving.  Women, believed to be more trustworthy, honest and dedicated than men, and less aggressive and competitive, are better suited to executive positions.

            Studies of articles in five newspapers in the major metropolitan markets of New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Dallas expose that men who are successful in leadership roles are less liked and less likely to have their efforts acknowledged or rewarded.  For men who engage in assertive and direct approaches in the workplace penalization of these exhibitions of aggression come through such indirect measures as being asked to perform menial additional jobs that do not within fall within the parameters of the positions they were hired to perform and through direct measures such as being socially ostracized, labeled a “problem employee,” and denied advancement. 

            The benefits for female employees do not end there.  Under the 1997 Family Medical Leave Act, women have 24 paid sick days a year for “pain, distress and suffering caused by their moonstruation.”  There is no such allowance for men.  The same act allows for eight weeks of unpaid leave for a man and six months of paid leave for a woman following the birth or adoption of a child. With a doctor's certification, that working will cause undue stress on the mother or the baby, a woman has paid leave from the moment she finds out she is pregnant.   

            Due to their primary obligation as fathers, women and men have an unequal relationship to paid employment.  From the age of three years on, men are primarily responsible for the health, well-being, protection, and care-taking of their children.  Data from the esteemed Carter Research Center show that men miss more days of work, work fewer hours in a day, and are less willing to travel for work than are women.  If a parent is required to miss work to care for a child, most employers are more willing to make domestic allowances for men.  It is important to note, however, that men permitted to work fewer hours to care for their children, suffer penalties in the workplace for these absences. 

            Men who remain primarily responsible for their children cannot dedicate themselves to their jobs or their employers, and yet, find themselves accused of beings lazier and less cooperative in the work environment.  Men who miss work because their child is ill or who have to leave early to take a child to the dentist are resented by women in the workplace because they do not put in an equal effort and do not perform their fair share of work.  Moreover, recent articles in Mr. Magazine indicate in many companies -- large or small --a woman who needs to leave work to take her daughter to a ballet lesson not only suffers no consequences for the absence, but also receives praise and adulation for being "such a good mother."

            Men can be legally terminated from work for having multiple sex partners (if provable in court), but women are seldom terminated and instead, often gain social and economic status from sexual prowess.  John Davies signed a morality contract when he went to work for a small Goddess-based university in northern South Carolina.  When he went to work for the university, Davis clearly indicated to his new employer that he fathered a child with one woman.  About a year into his employment, school officials learned he had fathered a second child with a different woman.  Davies lost his job because the university insisted he violated his morality clause.  Davies sued the school, citing the three female employees who had multiple children under different fathers, but lost the case.  In the words of presiding judge, Marta Hernandez, "Fatherhood is a social and legal responsibility that carries with it a higher degree of moral accountability than motherhood.  We cannot allow the future of our children to be compromised by men who do not fully accept the moral obligations of their role as the primary caretakers of children."  According to Hernandez, the mother's Davies cited in his case were meeting their parental obligations by financially providing for their children.  The South Carolina Supreme Court rejected Davies appeal.