Author Archive
Wage Gap Decreases as Men’s Wages Fall or Hold Steady
The recession that started in 2001 has had one interesting effect on wages — it has resulted in a further closing of the wage gap between men and women as men’s wages held steady or declined over the past few years while women’s continued to rise.
According to the New York Times, a Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows that women now earn 80 percent of what men do, compared to just 62 percent 25 years ago. But, according to The Times,
It turns out that almost half of that gap closed during two comparatively short periods of relatively hard times, totaling about six years. Those periods correspond with the recessions and cutbacks in the work force that marked the opening years of the last decade and the current one.
But while the changes came about as a result of recessions, they persisted even after those recessions were over. The Times surveys various experts who offer different explanations for this, from the fact that men tend to be over-represented in industries that were hit by both recessions such as manufacturing, to companies replacing high-paid men with slightly lower-paid women for administrative and professional jobs, to the increasing educational attainment and tendency for women to work full time.
The Times notes that Bureau of Labor statistics show a big increase in women’s employment in “executive, administrative and managerial occupations”. Women today hold 46 percent of those jobs, compared to just 32 percent in 1983. Similar gains occurred in professional jobs as well.
Given that women now constitute the majority of college graduates, those trends are likely to continue and the wage gap is likely to decline even further as more women work full time and marry later, focusing on their careers in their 20s and 30s. (In 2000, for example, the average age at first marriage was 25 for all women, and even older for college-educated women).
Source:
Women are gaining ground on the wage front. Louis Uchitelle, The New York Times, December 31, 2004.
Medical Ethicists on Fertility Treatment
The other day I mentioned the case of Adriana Iliescu who gave birth to a baby girl at the age of 66. One of my personal pet peeves are medical ethicists who condemn this, and none is worse than medical ethicist megastar Arthur Caplan.
Caplan condemned Iliescu giving birth saying,
“. . . [reproductive decisions] are too driven by the desires of couples and not enough by the interests of children.”
. . .
Caplan called it [Iliescu giving birth] “completely unethical and immoral,” noting that average life expectancy for Romanian women is 73 years. The fact she is single makes it worse because it raises the odds the child would have no one to care for her if the mother dies, he said.
Now the reason I can’t stand ethicists like Caplan is that they apply moral principles in dealing with medical issues that we would never tolerate in other areas.
As I mentioned in my previous post on this issue, the claim that reproductive decisions are driven by selfish interests of parents is silly — almost all children who are intentionally conceived are done for the selfish interests of parents. I doubt there are many women who sit down with counselors and go into detail about all the advantages and disadvantages of having children and decide whether or not it truly makes sense from a purely altruistic point of view. We have children in large measure to fulfill the overwhelming biological drive to do so and the emotional fulfillment that being a parent brings.
So why should we then complain that people seeking fertility treatment are just like the rest of us? Why should they be held to some ridiculous altruistic standard?
The complaint about Iliescu’s age and unmarried status also could broadly apply to large numbers of women who regularly have children (in fact in some countries providing fertility treatment to single women of any age is very controversial and in some areas banned).
There is nothing at all objectionable about Iliescu’s decision to have a child, even at 66. Caplan simply repackages a noxious disrespect for the reproductive rights of individuals and repackages it as “medical ethics.”
Source:
Study finds wide range of ethics at fertility clinics. Marilynn Marchione, Associated Press, January 25, 2005.
Tags: Uncategorized
New Zealand to Ban Up Skirt Filming
According to the BBC, New Zealand is planning to crack down on up skirt filming — wherein voyeurs use camera phones, camcorders or other devices in public to surreptitiously film under women’s clothes.
A surprising number of jurisdictions, including many states in the United States, discovered as the practice became more common they didn’t have specific laws to address the problem (and, generally, recording video in public places is considered unproblematic in most instances).
New Zealand Justice Minister Phil Goff told the BBC,
It is the most serious form of intrusion that someone can make into the privacy of another individual, filming them in the most intimate situations that you can imagine. Technology makes the problem much worse, both in terms of offensive publications and in terms of voyeuristic behavior. We’ve got to update the legislation to cater for the changes in technology which make it easier for people both to capture the images and to distribute them.
New Zealand is currently proposing changes in its laws that would make up skirt filming punishable by up to three years in prison. Knowingly possessing video or other materials obtained in this manner would be punishable by up to one year in prison.
Source:
NZ aims to jail ‘up skirt’ snappers. Kim Griggs, The BBC, December 9, 2004.
Tags: New Zealand
Washington State Senator Proposes Repealing Law Making “Slander of A Woman” A Crime
Washington state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles recently introduced legislation in that state’s senate that would repeal a 1909 Washington state law making “slander of a woman” a crime. The law makes it illegal to use “false or defamatory words or language which shall inure or impair” the reputation of a virtuous woman, though the statute does allow individuals to slander “common prostitutes.”
Although it hasn’t been used in decades, the law was upheld by Washington’s state Supreme Court in 1914, which affirmed the conviction of a woman who was fined $50 for slandering another woman.
Kohl-Welles told the Associated Press, “This is one of those old laws that is really irrelevant now.” In a radio interview, Kohl-Welles added,
It violates equal protection — not only is it patronizing and a relic of a time when there were different cultural traditions, where women were placed upon a pedestal but were not given equal rights ? but its also unconstitutional.
Kohl-Welles’s proposal to strike the law passed the state Senate in February and goes on to the state House.
Source:
Seattle Senator wants to repeal slander law. Associated Press, January 24, 2005.
Tags: Jeanne Kohl-Welles, United States, Washington
Adriana Iliescu Gives Birth at 66 — Good for Her
Some people were apparently horrified at the thought of 66-year-old Adriana Iliescu becoming apparently the oldest woman to ever give birth thanks to fertility treatments which she underwent for nine years before giving birth to Eliza Maria Iliescu in January.
For feminists like Ellen Goodman, the birth was a morality tale about the horrors of women forced to put aside children to get ahead in their careers. Goodman, in fact, seems to be under the impression that no one ever worked 70 hour weeks in their 30s until women entered the work force.
Medical ethicists did their standard, annoying hand wringing. Romanian authorities initiated an ethics investigation of Iliescu’s doctor. University of Calgary professor Chloe Atkins, who apparently specializes in medical ethics, told the Calgary Sun,
Personally, I think in that case, it was a very selfish decision. She probably won?t be around for much of the child?s life.
Atkins would like to see economic and health-related factors used to restrict fertility treatments. Because nobody with poor long-term health prospects or income ever had a baby before Iliescu. The selfish line is often used but also a bit odd, since I suspect that the overwhelming majority of children who are intentionally conceived and born for purely selfish reasons (namely that their parents selfishly decide that they want to be parents).
I think this was an unmitigated good with absolutely no downside. Anytime we can figure out how to bring new people into the world to loving parents, there simply are no drawbacks. Bravo to Ms. Iliescu.
Source:
World’s oldest mother becomes dubious poster ‘elder’ for having it all. Ellen Goodman, Detroit News, March 4, 2005.
‘World’s oldest mum’ raps critics. The BBC, January 19, 2005.
?Selfish? mom spurs age debate? Andrea Radke, Calgary Sun, January 21, 2005.
Tags: Romania
Further Eroding Parents’ Rights in Michigan
The Republican-dominated legislature here in Michigan passed, and our Democratic Governor signed, a ridiculous law which forces parents who do not want their children to receive visits from their grandparents to defend such decisions in court.
The law is a bit complex. If two fit parents sign an affidavit opposing grandparent visitation, then a judge is required to abide by that decision — but parents shouldn’t have to go through such a silly process, and what if the parent is a single mother or father, or there is a divorce and the non-custodial and custodial parents disagree about grandparent visitation?
Then it all goes to court where the threshhold is pretty low. Basically the grandparents have to demonstrate the child would suffer mental, physical or emotional harm if deprived of regular visits with their grandchildren. Unless the parents can counter that the visits would not be in the best interests of the child, the court can order visitation against the wishes of the custodial parent.
Now my wife and I have very good relationships with my children’s grandparents, but I can imagine a lot of situations where this wouldn’t obtain. One of my grandmothers was a real piece of work whom I wouldn’t let anywhere near my kids. On the other thand, I’m not sure I could put together a case that it wasn’t in the best interests of the child to see such an individual.
Consider the following case — suppose one of my daughter’s grandparents was a vile racist, and my wife and I both agreed that we’d prefer he not have contact with my daughter. Under Michigan law, we could do that today, but we’d have to go both sign an affidavit and get lawyers involved. We can still do it, but its going to cost us.
Imagine a slightly different scenario. We have almost no contact with the grandparent, until he resurfaces after my wife dies an untimely death. In this scenario, I have to go to court and a judge has to weigh the emotional needs of the child to know her grandfather compared to my desire not to have this person associated with my child.
Under the law, this would be pretty straightforward — I’d win every time. But he can refile very two years, and I have to keep hiring attorneys and dealing with this crap on a regular basis.
And what if the example isn’t so straightforward. What if, for example, I convert to a religion that doesn’t believe in contact with people who are not members of my faith? What if I become a right wing religious nut and I no longer want my child to have contact with one of my parent who happens to be a homosexual?
The point is not that any of these reasons are very good or very bad, but that courts should not be making these decisions at all.
A judge ruled unconstitutional Michigan’s previous grandparents visitation law in 2003. Hopefully they’ll do the same thing to this one.
Sources:
ENROLLED SENATE BILL No. 727. Michigan Legislature, January 3, 2005.
Highlights of the past week’s action at the Capitol. Associated Press, January 8, 2005.
State Senate approves grandparent visitation law. Associated Press, December 8, 2004.
Tags: Uncategorized
Should A Paternity Test Require the Mother’s Permission?
In a position that defies all common sense, the ruling Social Democrats in Germany want to make it illegal for men, including married men, to carry out a paternity test on a child without the written consent of the mother. Under the proposal, the man and the lab that conducted the test would both be liable for criminal prosecution.
The German Federal Court of Justice earlier this month ruled that paternity tests carried out in secret are inadmissible in a lawsuit, strengthening the case of the SDP to ban such paternity tests outright.
Deutsche Welle quoted Dr. Karin Jackel puncturing the idiocy in this position,
It cannot be that, as a woman, I have the right to make my husband pay to support a child that is not his own, or to deny children the right to know who their real father is. Men are, in every respect, held responsible for their children under our laws, which is why they have the right to know who their children are.
Wolfgang Zeitlmann of the Christian Social Union told Agence-France Presse in January,
A man must be able to find out whether he is the father or not. Making this right dependent on the agreement of the woman is not fair.
And, make no mistake, the express legislation of this goal is to prevent men from carrying out paternity tests without having to go through the courts. German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries originally proposed this legislation in 2003, complaining that men were seeking secret paternity tests and then divorcing their wives when they discovered that they were not, in fact, the father of the child they had thought was their’s. It being better, presumably, for German marriages to rest on a foundation of lies and deceit.
Zypries said at that time,
Secret paternity tests violate the rights of the child and the mother. They also violate data protection laws.
Sources:
Proposal to ban secret paternity tests divides German government. Agence-France Presse, January 7, 2005.
Who’s Your Daddy?. Deutsche Welle, September 12, 2004.
Father’s rights suffer setback. Deutsche Welle, January 13, 2005.
Tags: Uncategorized
Fathers Rights Activist: I Only Hit My Wife In Self-Defense
Back in November 2004, the BBC aired a program alleging that some members of British fathers rights group Fathers 4 Justice had been denied access to their children in part because they had a history of violence against their former spouses. At that time, Fathers 4 Justice founder Matthew O’Connor complained that the BBC’s Fiona Bruce had an axe to grind against the group because of her support of a domestic violence initiative.
In the first week of January, however, Fathers 4 Justice founder Matthew Mudge admitted that he was convicted in 1998 of two charges of assault against his wife, but added the he only hit his wife in self-defense.
Mudge has been the very high-profile spokesman of Fathers 4 Justice, which has pulled off a number of publicity stunts over the past couple years including throwing flour on Prime Minister Tony Blair. Mudge has talked about his own efforts to have access to his children following his divorce.
Of his assaults on his wife, one of which left her unconscious, the Western Mail reported,
Mr. Mudge told the court [in 1998] that after an Army party his wife accused him of looking at other women and would not stop hitting him. He told the court, “I had to defend myself. I hit her eight or nine times on her right arm to try to give her a dead arm to stop her.”
“Then she ran a bath and I only forced the door because she wasn’t answering me and I was concerned. She started hitting me again, I slapped her and she slumped to the floor.
You can almost see the credibility escaping Mudge’s body like a deflating balloon.
Sources:
Welsh activist assaulted wife. Martin Shipton, ic Wales, January 5, 2005.
I hit my wife in self-defence, says fathers’ rights activist. Martin Shipton, Western Mail, January 5, 2005.
Massachusetts Town Tries DNA Dragnet to Solve 2002 Murder
In January 2002, fashion writer Christa Worthington, 46, was found stabbed to death in her Truro, Massachusetts home. So far police have had little luck solving the murder and so earlier this month announced they would use a DNA dragnet — they want each of the almost 900 adult men in the town to donate DNA samples that can be checked against DNA from semen found in Worthington’s body. Men have the right to refuse to provide samples, but police have said that men who do refuse to provide a sample will receive close scrutiny.
Do such DNA dragnets make sense? Should men ever volunteer their DNA (and reports are that there are some men who have already volunteered their DNA?)
The American Civil Liberties Union has obvious civil liberties concerns from a test in which refusal to voluntarily cooperate is apparently going to lead to increased scrutiny as a possible suspect. In addition, those men who are innocent of the crime might want to think twice about giving a sample because evidence collected from such dragnets has a habit of being preserved and could potentially be used for other purposes.
But a more basic issue is that such DNA dragnets tend to be expensive and they rarely, if ever, result in the discovery of a suspect. As forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden told Greta Van Susteren on her Fox News show,
VAN SUSTEREN: Dr. Baden, it’s been three years, it seems like an awful lot of clues. Why can’t they solve this?
BADEN: Well, Greta, about a third of all murders in this country aren’t solved. They seem to have very good DNA evidence. I think doing this kind of dragnet has certain civil liberties aspects to it but from a scientific point of view it’s been done a number of times in England and in France and other European countries and it’s proven very inefficient, costly and ineffective in accomplishing the goal of finding out whodunit.
The European cases have, to be sure, occasionally turned up suspects, but in those cases the DNA dragnets are mandatory — those asked to give DNA samples do not have the right to refuse. The BBC notes, for example, that German police tested 16,000 samples in a murder several years ago that did manage to turn up the killer.
Such broad mandatory testing in the United States, however, would almost certainly be unconstitutional, being a clear violation of individuals’ Fifth Amendment rights.
Source:
Mass DNA test for US murder town. The BBC, January 10, 2005.
DNA Dragnet. On The Record With Greta Van Susteren, Transcript, January 11, 2005.
Tags: Uncategorized
China Bans Sex-Selective Abortion
Faces with a growing imbalanced sex ratio among newborns — current figures suggest that 119 boys are born for every 100 girls — China announced this month that it is banning sex-selective abortion.
China’s senior family planning official Zhao Baige was quoted in China Daily as saying,
Any individual or medical organization offering illegal sex-selective abortion services will take legal responsibility.
National Population and Family Planning Commission minister Zhang Weiqing was quoted by China’s official Xinhua news agency as saying,
The Government takes it as an urgent task to correct the gender imbalance of newborns. As a new measure, the commission will start drafting revisions to the Criminal Law in order to effectively ban foetus gender detection and selective abortion other than for legitimate medical purposes.
Family planning officials also plan to launch a “Care for Girls” public relations campaign to convince families to value girls as much as boys. This will be supplemented by a plan to give parents of two girls (family size in China is strictly limited by that nation’s one-child policy) a special pension when they reach 60 in order to encourage parents not to think they have to have a male child in order to provide financial security when they are older.
Source:
China bans selective abortion to fix imbalance. China Daily, July 16, 2004.
China to outlaw selective abortion. ABC Radio Australia, January 7, 2005.
China to outlaw selective abortion. Reuters, Undated.
Tags: China