Changing Hawaii

By Diane Yukihiro Chang

Monday, October 12, 1998

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Blaming women
for being,
well, women

FOR fervent feminists like myself, there's only one thing worse than the oppression of women. It's the justification of the oppression of women, especially when the rationale is offered up by a female, too.

Such was the sorry case this past Saturday, when Robyn Blumner of the St. Petersburg Times wrote an article for the Star-Bulletin's Insight section with the headline, "Women are pricing themselves out of jobs."

Ms. Blumner made two points that were very troubling:

Laws are supposed to be gender-neutral, but women are more often calling for and using a raft of new legislation and/or judicial rulings that protect their rights as employees. For example, women make up 58 percent of those who take time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act, which is supposed to guarantee up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to attend to the birth or adoption of a child, or a personal or family sickness.

Since women file most of the sexual harassment complaints and lawsuits in this country, a female worker is potentially more "expensive" for an employer to keep on the payroll than a male with the same skills and experience. Ultimately, this leads to women losing their competitive edge and driving down their value and desirability in the workplace. "Yet women agitate for these (protection) laws," the writer stated.

Robyn, Robyn, Robyn. Does the term "blaming the victim" ring a bell?

Certainly, women make up the vast majority of employees taking time off for maternity leave -- not only because they want to but because they have to.

Which gender is still "stuck" with most of the responsibility of raising children and doing housework? Are we going to penalize one gender for the fact that only one gender can physically give birth to a baby?

Nobody is stopping husbands and men from taking 12 weeks of unpaid leave to attend to child-rearing duties in the home. But, hey, bills must be paid. And since women still earn about 65 cents to the dollar that men make, which member of a couple usually ends up making that sacrifice?

Furthermore, don't blame women for the fact that most sexual harassment complaints and lawsuits in this country are filed by them. Most victims are female. It is not a bane but a blessing that, one by one, women are finally standing up for their right to work without being bothered, traumatized and having to do something that they don't want to do, in order to keep their jobs.

Blumner is looking at things okole-backwards. The answer is not hiring fewer female employees, because they might file sexual harassment lawsuits. The answer is not hiring the sexual harassers!

THE St. Petersburg Times writer concluded her article with this distressing scolding: "Companies tired of these social work and charitable obligations will soon divest themselves of the women who produce them. And we women will have done it to ourselves."

Wrong again, Robyn. All women are doing is sticking up for their rights. They are not going back to the bad old days when they were seen but not heard. And as for any company that "tires" of the inconvenience of having a particular gender or ethnicity or age group in its midst, how successful will it be by limiting its hiring pool?

There's only one thing worse than a person who won't help another person shatter the glass ceiling. It's somebody who wants the ceiling lowered.

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Diane Yukihiro Chang's column runs Monday and Friday.
She can be reached by phone at 525-8607, via e-mail at
DianeChang@aol.com, or by fax at 523-7863.