EP 22: Women's (In)Equality

As we celebrate Women's Equality Day on August 26th, we talk about how life is like being a women. From cultural differences to work experiences, women have been through so much. But the most important question to ask is how do we change society so that women can be equal to men? What do you think needs to be done? We also share our views on the documentary, Picture a Scientist, which you can find on Netflix.  Share your thoughts on our social media pages. 

Transcript

[00:00:23] Taylor: hey, welcome back to another episode of United AF.

Today, we are going to touch on the very overlooked holiday of women's equality day. Every year on August 26, we commemorate it. I know that in the past couple of years, it has been a little bit more of a. A presence in the know-how of the world, too. But it's a day that honors the ratification of the 19th amendment where specifically white women were granted full and equal voting rights on this day in 1920, the rest of us. Got it a little bit later, but that's beside the point. We're going to talk about the equality of the day. So what does equality mean to each of you?

[00:01:14] Justine: Yeah. it's also in school they're like, how do you use a definition without using the word. Within the definition. Yeah. 

[00:01:25] Taylor: You couldn't use it. 

[00:01:28] Justine: That's what I'm thinking. When trying to think of what it means to me

[00:01:34] Amanda: I guess to me, equality would be everyone having the same rights no one being discriminated against because of race, gender, sexuality religion, obviously. But also not just in a legal way, because people can get around the law. It's been shown many times, but in everyday situations, 

What was an example? So like you're driving. It's something I would never know about. We're going to get you by the 

[00:02:08] Taylor: wheel of a car. Now. I know that is another thing on the list of Amanda,, 

[00:02:14] Amanda: you get somebody who's slow and the automatic thought is, oh, it's a woman, or, it'll be something like I don't know, like a, okay, you're walking, someone's in front of you.

They don't hold the door open and it's a male. So you automatically think, okay, they're not a gentleman, but at the same time, it's Do you really need somebody to hold the door damn door for you? How hard is it to open a frickin door? 

[00:02:34] Taylor: See, that's one that I do hear a lot of people say yo, is shivalry supposed to be dead?

Am I supposed to open the door of my not supposed to do? Does that make me, does it make me a chauvinist pig? Does it make me think you're not capable of hope? 

[00:02:47] Amanda: Door's open. I do. I also do, because I think it's just, I'm not 

[00:02:52] Taylor: talking to women. I'm talking for men. I've heard. Say that to me. They're like, I'm confused. They're like, I don't know if I'm supposed to hold the door for you, but I'm not supposed to hold the door for you. Tell it or don't like it, whatever you want to do. 

[00:03:05] Amanda: Hold or don't hold it. I don't really care either way. I'm capable not to open my own door. I'll thank you if you do, because that's a nice gesture, but it's not necessary to me.

[00:03:14] Justine: If I'm a really close proximity to you, you should hold the door open. Because it's, to me it's common courtesy. If I'm like far away right then. Okay, fine. Don't wait for me and I'll open the door, but if I'm just like literally a person or two behind you and you see me be nice enough to hold the door.

[00:03:35] Taylor: Okay. There we go. There's the answer. 

[00:03:41] Amanda: Oh yeah. Just everyday situations, just if I expect a man to do it, then a woman should do it. If I expect a woman to do it, then a man

[00:03:49] Justine: Just to add to your definition, Amanda, I know you said equal rights or yeah, same rights for everybody. But also to be treated the same way as well. So you're not, I know you did mention discrimination, but yeah. To be treated the same way with each gender race, et cetera.

[00:04:08] Taylor: I agree. It's pretty much the same thing for me. Just they, it doesn't matter who walks through your door, treat them exactly the same way. If they've got two X chromosomes, they've got an excellent wire they're X, or X, Y, or even XO, whatever the genetic makeup of the person who walks in. Visage just have them treated the exact same way regardless. Look, you're going to be a jerk to me, be a jerk to me equally with somebody else. Okay. Just don't do it because the way I look when I walk in the room, but I would rather, you not be a jerk to me essentially. Okay. So since we did equality, it makes it easier to understand what inequality is, which is a thing that most, I will say women face in their lives on pretty much a day-to-day basis. Like I can, you can tell what the expectations are you sometimes by new people that you meet based upon your gender in working environments, culturally, like you said, all those preconceived notions of just driving that has to be a woman in front of me because she doesn't know what she's doing or being upset. If you get into, let's say an Uber and it is a woman you're like, oh my God, they're going to drive slower. All of those different, unnecessary ideas that we are fed. And we don't even realize we're being fed by outside sources. So gender inequality is the social process by which men and women are not treated equally. This treatment may arise from distinctions regarding biology, psychology, or cultural norms prevalent in society. Some of these distinctions are empirically grounded while others appear to be socially constructed studies show that different lived experiences of genders across many domains including education, life expectancy, personality, interests, family, life, careers, and political affiliation.

[00:06:12] Taylor: Gender inequality is experienced differently across different cultures. And it also affects nonbinary. So to get into this topic of gender inequality, all three of us watched the documentary Picture of Scientists. Correct. Cause thank you, Justine, for finding that and shouting it out to us. 

 So picture scientist is the documentary done which delves into the gender inequality and just how serious it is in the world of academia. So like we've all gone to college. We've seen. In each of our fields, the amount of female faculty there are in comparison to male. And it is, I know for me, because I was a science major, it was a huge difference in males, the male to female ratio, when it came to the full term like full professors versus associate professors, I had a lot more male professors with the exception of two or three doctorate level female professors. And so in the documentary, we meet all PhD full E w some of them, it took a very long time for them to become full term. Professors tenured professors. That's the word. Thank you. Tenured professors. So Dr. Nancy Hopkins, is it. I think she was an endocrinology where she was studying cancer in the development of fish that she used, Dr. Raychelle Burks, who is a PhD chemistry professor Kathryn Clancy Corrine Moss-Racusin, Jane Willenbring, I think she was the geologist right guys that was with the, she was on the Antartica study. All of them have very similar, very disparate not issues, but situations that they've found themselves in, where you realize that the big, the biggest thing that they do in this documentary is show you an iceberg as a, 

[00:08:17] Justine: analogy to what's going on now.

[00:08:22] Taylor: Thank you. Cause words are just failing me right now. Yes, it's a perfect analogy to what gender equality is because we don't hear about gender equality at all in the news until someone has been sexually harassed or beaten. That is the only site type of harassment that people think needs to be made aware of, which is complete and utter bull because all of the other compounding little digs people get into each other is still harassment in that is what the me too movement has really tried to show us. But what we learned in this documentary is that it brings to the surface is the MIT report, which was done by Dr. Nancy Hopkins and a bunch of her and all of them, female science faculty at MIT back in the nineties, or yeah, back in the nineties. So Dr. Nancy Hopkins had been a professor, she was junior staff, and then she was senior staff. When she was a senior staff, she realized she needed larger space and then realized that, a bunch of the junior staff have more space than I do. And all of this nonsense showed her just the inequality and the giant disparity between what we're doing to the women versus the men on staff. So then she's okay, I'm a scientist. I'm going to approach this whole thing scientifically. And that it. No matter how much data they gave, people didn't want to listen. And that just showed how demeaning it was to her. And then like in all of this other stuff, you learn the different digs that all the other women in academia have been feeling.

And then they come together and we're not taking it anymore. 

[00:10:10] Justine: Well, and when I was texting you guys, as I was watching it as well, that first, what, 10 minutes or so I was extremely angered by it. But then I was like, am I, , completely biased. Am I not giving this a chance? Maybe it might, the story might change a little bit possibly have a happy ending or whatever, but it's just ridiculous to, to hear their stories. It's ridiculous that there, that men did not still do not. They did all of these things and in order to what's the word? They did all of these things, the bullying, the harassing, et cetera, because they didn't want women to be in that field. They didn't want women to succeed. They didn't want to work with women, which is so fricking ridiculous. But even with statistics, they're like, Nope, we're not going to do anything. Which is like all my freaking God, even if you bring statistics to somebody, because they don't agree with you or they don't care about what you're presenting them, or they may not understand why you're presenting these things and they don't want to. It's just, I'm just like, oh my gosh, you have the facts and you're still not going to do anything about it. 

[00:11:34] Taylor: Amanda, how did you feel about that? 

[00:11:36] Amanda: There was something that really stuck out to me. So I can't remember which scientists it was, but it was the one who was working in Antarctica.

[00:11:44] Justine: Jane.

[00:11:45] Amanda: So she was the one who was being harassed and there was a witness to that harassment, but that witness was like I didn't do anything cause you didn't look bothered, but it's, I guess you still knew what was being done was wrong. Why didn't you say anything? And that's a big problem also that the fact that there are witnesses to these harassments that are happening, but a lot of them don't say anything. And the thing is you could have another woman back you up, but it means more when it's a man that's backing up. Unfortunately. So if our colleagues don't say anything to help us. It's 

[00:12:21] Taylor: what 

[00:12:21] Amanda: are you supposed to do with like, how do you then we need, I hate to say this, but in order to get ahead, women do need men's help. 

[00:12:31] Taylor: Yeah. You're that's the guessing given. Yeah. 

[00:12:33] Amanda: It just sucks because it's like, why can't we do this? But no, he can't. 

[00:12:39] Justine: Yeah. I kind of battled with that. The situation with her colleague, his is more form of bullying, even though it doesn't look like it affected her, you should definitely say something or you could have even reached out to her and said first, you could have reached out to Jane and said, Hey, I noticed that he's doing these things. He blew rocks in your eyes and, dust. And I don't feel very comfortable with that. How do you feel? Because if you're not feeling comfortable, then we need to go in and do something about it and I'll be there to support you. Even though it doesn't look like it's bothering her, if it's bothering you, you should talk to the victim and, say, Hey, this is what I'm seeing. How do you feel about it? 

[00:13:26] Taylor: Oh, most definitely agree. in the back of my head, I was just, I was seething that. Because I'll sit on a couch watching this, that I was seething. And I was like, okay, you think she's fine. She's so super strong about it, but just think of her. She was your sister or your mother when the name calling escalated from Crazy Jane to cunt in my opinion, that's when he should have said, okay, I need to ask her, are you okay with this? Because if it's nothing you ever want to hear someone call your mother that sh like that should be a basis, line for I need to step in. It might be funny. I call you crazy to the boy and you just are just fragile. Not even, it wasn't even gradual that she said for the escalation, it just it was like day to day it morphed from one thing to the next. And then he got there and that was like, okay, this is where we're going. And everyone hates that word anyway. That should be a thing if it's going to chip at you. And he's yeah, I felt so bad. And I'm like, okay. And I tried to tell myself, I was like, okay. He was young when it happened. And then he was also trying to map out his career, the best guy in the field. But the best guy in the field was an absolute asshole 

[00:14:39] Justine: right. And, from that point of view, again, it's that battle? Do I say something because, if I do then what if my whole career tanks, because of this situation and it's really, I think I would have been in that situation as well. Do I stay something? Cause this is really bothering me or do I go on the path of trying to make it for my career? So that's, I would understand why, he wouldn't want to do it or didn't approach her because we all have that picking, and choosing your battles too, but it's still wrong. Like it's not wrong.

[00:15:20] Taylor: Yeah, no, I just, and I feel like that's, that is more of the problem we have today because. So many of these aspects and facets of the world have been, are historically patriarchal. We can't get around it because of how things started to where we are now, how there was never this, quote, unquote re con connection of women. There's more women have always been smart. We just haven't been heard. And that's the huge shift that's coming today that because of the increased in media, we're it we're able to be seen to be able to be heard in so many different aspects of the world that in trying to break those less, we break the glass ceilings. Yes, it's fine to break it. But once you get there still fighting that system that still thinks that you're not supposed to be in place. There is so hard when so many of us like. There was a woman that was in there that they had to hide her face because she called out that guy and that complete her dream, her dreams from a child was going into NASA. Yeah. And he tanked that for her. 

[00:16:35] Justine: So ridiculous. And again, it goes back to that dilemma as well. Granted, hers went, just completely south. And he said no, you're not continuing this program. They're not going to fund you. And then that's it. Your career is over like it's so, oh really?

[00:16:52] Taylor: He said it with smile. 

[00:16:54] Justine: So 

[00:16:55] Taylor: I'm just so irate. 

[00:16:59] Justine: It's ridiculous that we have to rely on these people for our next step in our career. And again, she also went to , her university to complain about it. I forget which position it was, but she was talking to another woman and the response was we get a lot of, I think money or something from him, or, and he's very reputable. And because of that, we're not gonna do anything about it. And it's just wow, seriously, it's ridiculous. 

[00:17:33] Taylor: Yeah. It may, it comes back to the end of it. The end all be all of everything is that money gives you power. And then when you get that power, you're untouchable that's why all thing, things like Harvey Weinstein Kevin Spacey, like all of those high profile people who are crumbling because they have money all this time. They had people's careers and their livelihoods in the palm of their hands. And okay. You can do this or can make sure you never work again, when those are your options, it's just, do you put up with it? I guess the question is what needs to change in order for us to get to that level of equality that we need?

[00:18:16] Justine: Well, I think men need to be on board too. I think they need to, be cheerleaders and supporters of women and not, bringing them down and not seeing as I am a God and you need to, follow me. I think they need to be supportive of women in their careers wherever they are. And, again, just be that cheerleader because if you don't have men supporting women, then it's just gonna continue continuously and just widen that divide

[00:18:50] Amanda: Yeah. No, definitely agree with Justine. We need the support of the men because they are technically the ones with the power right now. Specifically. Those are the ones we need to support us and to be on board with the fact that, women are just as capable and can do the job just as well, and sometimes continue even do it better and therefore need to open their eyes, opened the doors for us so we can get in there.

[00:19:19] Taylor: No agreed. Most definitely and we didn't have to drag them kicking and screaming. It seems because with the fallout of the Me Too movement, we saw two different sides of reactions. We have men like Adam Lewis who they're like yeah, in hindsight, yes, it was horrible. And I will stand with you. We have the ones who are like, it's always been an issue. How are we going to fix this? And then you have the ones who are saying that women are just complaining. Oh, okay. I don't know if I can have this conversation with you right now without me going after everything you hold dear in life. It's just, it's it. Yeah. We just need to get men to the table too. And just start the conversations at an early age, in just what we need to change the way that I guess genders are talked to at each other, because I could definitely remember. In like elementary schools, they'll be like, oh, you need to be next to her. She's you shouldn't do that. She's a girl. You shouldn't do that. She's a girl. You shouldn't do that because he's a boy dah. 

[00:20:30] Justine: or even the, oh, he hit me all. He did all it's because he likes you, 

[00:20:36] Amanda: that is dangerous, very dangerous.

[00:20:45] Taylor: Can you guys think about any other, one of the frustrating microaggressions due to your gender that you've experienced in work in the workforce socially or with your family? 

[00:20:56] Justine: I know my family has always said don't be so hard on your brother. It takes longer for men to mature. 

[00:21:04] Taylor: Oh yeah. There's no excuse. 

[00:21:05] Amanda: My family, it was less microaggression and more just like blatant in the sense that it was like a, so what was it? So my dad, he actually had gotten back surgery. What would we way back. And so w and that was during the summer. So we needed to obviously more lawn. So I had never done it. Never to this day, I've never mowed a lawn. And I offered to mow I was like, listen, how can it be, just push it. Granted, I put some strength into that bitch.

[00:21:35] Taylor: Amanda's got the power. 

[00:21:38] Amanda: And because my brother at the time, he wasn't living near us, I think he was in PA at the time. Cause he was going to some tech school. Yeah. But my dad was literally like, no, you won't be able to do it. You can't do it literally because I'm a female. I can't do these types of things. And he hired someone he hired and it's you're paying you're shelling out money when you could just give me a chance to push the damn lawn door. Wow. Which I will never understand why, because my aunt right next door to us, literally mows her own lawn all the damn time. And it's she could do it, but I can't do it. And I get why he would think it in a sense, because I've always had that sheltered, oh, this is your life. I don't, I've never been the one to go outside and do anything when it came to like having to fix piping or electrical work in the house and not, I never offered to do it or assist but. You could've given me a chance. I probably could have done it. 

[00:22:33] Taylor: I was saying the same vein. The door walks the doorbells both ways. He never asked you if you would help him either. 

[00:22:39] Amanda: No, he never did. It was always my brother, oh junior, come on, let's go outside and we're going the car. Oh, let's do this. Let's do that. So it's what do you expect from me now? No, I'm willing to change. I'm willing to learn, but it's the fact that he's not willing to teach. So YouTube is my friend. Now, 

[00:22:57] Taylor: if you want a practical, you can come over and use our lawn mower. 

[00:23:04] Justine: And that way she gets free lawn mowed and didn't have to tear herself.

[00:23:08] Taylor: I can have, I can teach you how to do strides and everything. It's not that complicated. If you wanna learn how to rake to plenty of stuff. And then like regular, just pruning and stuff. If you really want, you ever want to practical know where to find me? 

[00:23:23] Amanda: Yeah, I would say that at home and then at work. Oh God. Yeah. I'm not sure exactly when this shift started, but when I was there as a part-timer part of the job was to box up the old files because we had we needed space for the new year. So most of the time outbox up, I would carry the box to a little corner. Not far away, put it there, keep going, and then somehow that shifted when I became I kinda, it stopped when I became full-time because every department then was just like everybody has to do their own. I didn't do everyone's. I only worked on my small little department was like four boxes max, but then when I got to account. It became, it was obviously a lot more files. And again, I had the most experience with the boxing, so I was like, okay. Yeah, I'll do it. And I started it and then director of finance at the time he saw me doing, he was like, what are you doing? And I was like, I'm boxing the files. We need space for the new stuff. And it was like, oh why isn't any the guys doing this? And I'm just like, I can box. It's not that difficult. It went to my boss who was, who reports to him and was like, oh no, she shouldn't be doing that. She's going to hurt herself. Fuck. I'm going to

[00:24:51] Taylor: But wait a minute. No, but aren't you supposed to be able to pick up 50 pounds, that part of your insurance thing with your job that's part of a pet is no way shape or 

[00:24:59] Amanda: form or exactly not. It's really not. And on top of that, I develop a smarter way to do it by putting it on a chair and rolling it to my destination, like

[00:25:14] Justine: efficiency, deadlifting 

[00:25:16] Amanda: it lifting smarter? Yes. so they literally pulled me out and had the guys doing it and mind you, they even boxed it wrong because you have to do it in order. So that way our files are easy to find. So I'm 

[00:25:29] Taylor: just like, you know,

[00:25:31] Amanda: her stuff. Yeah. So it was like, good luck finding shit now 

[00:25:36] Justine: just to actually, yeah.

To that. When I used to work at a PR startup, of course, we had to do a lot of stuff on our own and like doing events and things like that and carrying things and putting up stuff strenuous ish work, but not too much heavy lifting. But so then when I moved or got another job at the hotel, it took me actually a bit of time to get used to having other people do it, or having another department to help with heavy lifting help with, or bringing stuff from one location to another there, every time they see me carrying boxes or trying to get things one, I know that they're also trying to be helpful, but again, Me not being used to having somebody else do that. And then eventually I did get used to it and took not too much advantage, but I would say I just got used to it. And I remember like my boss telling me, oh yeah you can work with this department and just, go to our section of the storage area or the garage, whatever it was. And they're like, yeah, just you, all you need to do is just point and tell them where you want put it.

I'm like, oh no, really possible. And she's yeah, that does just do the heavy lifting for you. And I'm like, oh my God, no. Obviously I go there and I'm like, yeah, I don't want that. I don't want that. Let's get rid of that. And let's keep that. And I want to put that over there, literally pointing and just, I'm literally just lifting my finger and moving it along and I'm just like, wow, this is different. This is great. Just cause you have those years of just, doing it yourself and to have somebody else do it for you. It's just nice. But again, that's, that's our, like really I could do it myself, but they help sometimes.

[00:27:30] Taylor: Oh, I feel you. Cause I, whenever someone offers to carry something for me, because it rarely happens. I'm always like, do I say yes and do I say no, because I have that internalized struggle of you are a strong female and you have muscles and you can do this at the same time. You're like, I don't want to have to do it all the time.

Right.

Yeah. So I think I have very different experience at work because I work with a majority of women and there are only four men at my job.

[00:27:58] Justine: That's crazy. So it's not crazy. That's very interesting work environment. Cause I don't think I've ever like a department I'm used to having, let's say all women, but, and then like for the rest of the company, it could be 50 50. It could be 60, 40, but never a whole extreme majority, officer. Yeah. Your whole school is just more women and then four men. 

[00:28:26] Taylor: Wow. Okay. Yeah. So my experience and carrying stuff is that other women will ask me, but the men won't ask me unless it's just one of them. It's interesting because if rude if I walked by several of the, if I work by like them as a group, they won't ask me if I need help, if I'm carrying something.

But if they see me in the hallway and I'm carrying stuff, one-on-one, they'll ask me and I'm fascinated by it. 

[00:28:56] Amanda: Why 

[00:28:58] Justine: is it? Because they don't want to look like that. They're empathetic to another person. 

[00:29:05] Taylor: I don't know, but I've seen it. It's not just me with other women around them. It's like they see other women carrying stuff. They, a lot of times they won't ask and I get like the cultural. Like all of this stuff, but the male students will do it. They will ask, do you need help sister? And I'm like, yeah. Or I got it, go to class, stuff like that. Cause I know you're just doing this right now to get out of class. But if they're doing it in at it, like from a genuine place, sometimes I do need help because I'm carrying a lot of stuff and I have them a lot of trips, but when it comes to my colleagues it's the thing I haven't, I've never asked and I need to ask them about one of these days. Cause I will ask one-on-one cause one of the male teachers and I do the science bowl together and I'm going to ask him like from a scientific place and be like, okay, I have a question. But yeah, no, I've never had really like the helping out part since I was at the bakery. Because that was, we had a lot, I will say a lot of our counter staff and Rick, like all of the people that weren't there, all the guys were really good about helping out with stuff. Yeah. I never any complaints about that. They were always very helpful. Okay, what can I do? X, Y, Z. And it 

[00:30:14] Justine: means like one, it's also hard to take out some of those things, especially like coming from the freezer. I remember I was like showing you how to take it out of the freezer. And that was the only time the rack freaking fell over. And I'm just like, oh, of course, when I'm freaking training somebody and showing my capabilities, as a small person, a lot of people think that I can't carry shit or deal with heavy shit. It just freakin topples over. And I'm just like, Ugh, really great. Thank you. And of course, Rick was there too, and it's we could have just done it for him. I'm like no, no, I can do it. 

[00:30:49] Taylor: That's one of those moments where you're trying to get your striving for my rights. I can do this. The universe is like, just take the help.

But yeah, no I've never had many microaggressions. Okay. Outside of, with my bosses when it came to my gender and I was told I was aggressive by our lovely boss at the bakery. And then, but prior to that, when I was in high school and volunteering I got called into an office because I was too gruff on the phone. I think I might've shared this story with you guys before. And the back of my head, I was like, okay. And sh it was a woman who told me and she's just smile more when you're talking. And dah. That was when I started that whole, I'm always smiling thing, because I guess, you want to be perceived as a nice person. You don't want to be perceived as angry, but I stopped and thought about it and retrofit. Cause there was another guy that was like, it was in college. I was still in high school, but he was also a volunteer. He also talked to the same way on the phone and nobody ever calls him out on it. I was like, okay, I'm not going to fight anybody. And I'm just trying to get hours in for national honor society. But at the same time, I'm like, that's just wrong. If you have no problem with, if you have a problem with the way my voice sounds, but not his there's a problem. And the people who I calling don't voice it up to don't call back or contacts the management or whatever, because it's a man on the phone, but because I'm a woman and I'm a monotone woman at this point. Cause you know, I wasn't really into emotions over the phone back then. You're going to make the comment like that's that kind of has niggled at the back of my head. It's that perception of what's you do? Cause this is like potential job force and all of these things and then socially, I don't think I feel many. I don't think I've had many microaggressions that I can think of, but in my family when it comes to gender inequality, I, like I say all the time, I don't see it in my immediate household. Cause we're weird. Like Amanda, didn't learn how to mow the lawn. I've known how to mow the lawn. Since I was like seven, I like all of the heavy lifting and stuff is done in my house by women because my grandfather died when I was little, then my uncle moved out of the house and then my mom just she does things. And so we grew up doing things too when she put us in soccer with boys and other people were like, why are you doing that to them? They're going to get hurt or they're going to be too rough and tumble. They're not they're girls. Why are you letting them do it? And she's like, why do you guys care or what they're doing.

So I was very blessed to have that growing up. But when we are in larger moments of family, it's do you want to, here's what you fix your cousin a plate. And I'm like, are his hands it's broken?

I love that. And we've over there. They have, since I stopped asking them, it's they do those polite ways and oh, could you go get me this? And I'm like, are your hands or your feet not working? Then I missed something. Was there an injury? Like, I'll do it. Don't be a jerk about it. But if I'm over near the drinks, I can bring you one like, normal politeness.

But if I'm sitting down and you're sitting down next to me and you asked me to make you a plate, no you, unless you're my mom or like an. Other than that, please don't come to me and ask me to fix you a plate. I am not your wife 

[00:34:32] Amanda: and then 

[00:34:34] Justine: summer plate. And then, they look at it and they're like, really?

That's all you're going to give me. I'm like, wow. 

[00:34:39] Taylor: Okay. Don't you get me two rolls, like 

[00:34:45] Justine: fix your 

[00:34:45] Amanda: plate. You didn't say 

[00:34:46] Justine: how much don't complain. 

[00:34:49] Taylor: Yeah, no, I love you at all, but I'm sorry. I have a shortlist of people I'm making plates for and that's it. And they're like, oh, why can't you, why are you the treat me like that?

I'm like really? Did I not work this week? As long as sorry. Okay. There's other people that ask another child. I'm not the one today. 

[00:35:17] Taylor: So going back to the workforce thing, because this is all about getting the equality and the things that we are due for what effort we put in same level of education and everything. In 1963, the equal pay act was enacted because at that moment in time, women are in comparison to men and to be, and that is the average of what white women, black women, Latina, and Asian American women were making at that time.

61 cents on the. But like your brother makes a dollar, you make 61 cents. That's what the average of women for everything was at that point. That was 1963, please just 1963. It is 2021. The average has only increased to 79 cents on the dollar in comparison. So in a 58 year gap time, the wage gap up has only closed by 18%.

And that is very specific to all of the other inequalities that happen as a result. So it's 79 cents specifically to white women, Latino women make 55 cents on the dollar native American women make 60 cents on the dollar African-American women make 63 cents on the day.

And Asian-American women make 52 cents on the dollar in comparison to men in the field, same level of education, same level of experience. And in the picture of scientists, they did a study where they sent out to, they sent out equal resumes across the country. One with a woman's name on it, one with a man's name on it, and just did an experiment, a blind experience on hireability for these people to manage a lab.

And the language that came back was, oh, she's unqualified. She's never going to be able to do it, but at the same time, the men was perfect for the job. There was just, oh, can we get them in dah. And then even the offers that they, when they did say that the woman was qualified, the offer in what she was going to make was drastically different from what they were going to give the exact same written resume to the other one.

So why do you think that 58 years after the equal pay act and all this stuff, we're still fighting the same damn fight to say, I just want to make a dollar to your dollar and it can't be this whole thing. This whole nonsense. They're like women don't ask for what they're worth when we do ask for it.

We're never given it. So sorry, guys. What do you guys think

[00:38:08] Amanda: That was actually my paper on for my masters I had a whole my last semester I had to write a whole research paper and I chose basically women in the accounting field. And basically a lot of, I want to say the issues that came up with the fact that women, the last labor statistics that was done by the D by the government was I think was when 2018. As of 20 18, 1 0.9 million people were employed as accountants in the U S and 60.6% were women. So basically my field is mainly compromise a woman, but even though women are dominating the profession, they are still underpaid and underrepresented in upper level management leadership partnership positions.

Basically the reasoning behind it is because of the organizational structure level of education, that whole glass ceiling effect and gender stereo. According to the data collected in 2018 male accountants earned on average $1,404 per week, while women earned $1,108 a week, which is fairly accurate.

So the age gap starts to diverge around 34 to 44 years of age because this is peak childbearing years, apparently. So basically it's considered once you have a child that's where your career. 

[00:39:34] Taylor: Which is completely utter bull as well. Yes, it is. 

[00:39:37] Amanda: Yes, it is. Because it's assumed that you're going to put all your time and effort into raising a family when reality

one of those Ted talks that you were, you had a 

[00:39:46] Taylor: swatch, 

why gender equality is not just about women, 

[00:39:50] Amanda: which is the woman basically said it's when a child is born, it's not a woman becoming a mother.

It's the couple of becoming parents. It's both, both the man and the woman who packed, start thinking, okay, who's going to do what around here. 

[00:40:06] Taylor: Which has also brought, which is another thing that's brought up in the. The documentary and in the MIT report that came out from it that you've lost it w I guess it was just focusing on MIT.

You've lost a lot of your potential tenured faculty, because there were no, at that point in the nineties, there was no childcare option onsite. 

[00:40:28] Amanda: Another thing is because that was the child portion. Another thing is the fact that there aren't women at the top levels at the top fields. Public accounting used to be a male dominated profession along with just about every other profession out there. This dominance has led to very few advances for women in management positions, smaller accounting firms, since they have a better working environment for women, as they tend to find more of a success there than at a larger firm, the AI CPA ran a survey in 2019. 53% of partners in firms are women two to 10. And that's with about two to 10 CPAs on staff at about 53% of them are women 35% in firms with 11 to 20 CPAs, 29% in firms with 21 to 99 CPAs and 16% with a hundred and more CPAs on their staff. So it's like the more there are the lesser women. It's crazy.

[00:41:30] Taylor: Yes. And I guess that's the kids get to 

[00:41:34] Amanda: do, sorry. You no it's. So I wrote here, it's been found that larger firms have a difficult time retaining their female staff and promoting them in a timely manner equivalent to their male colleagues due to how organization is structured. Basically a lot of firms are starting to change that so they can retain that those employees, because they want to tout that whole. Oh, go look at all of these women that the no, a lot of companies are starting to do that, even though, they don't, they might not necessarily actually believe it.

[00:42:02] Taylor: No. That's that happens. I think across all fields, especially including where diverse, we've got a black guy over here, we've got a Asian woman over here. All right. I'll say that we're racist. We've got people. Exactly. You might have people in those positions, but you may still have, they're just like your tea.

They're your token. But how many people are underneath them that look like them? How long did it take them to get to that position in comparison to other people next to them? It's crazy. And then just to go back to the childcare thing, it's wow. I'm always fascinated when nothing is expected of a man, that's the part that gets me.

I was like, the kid belongs to both of you. I know this. So I bought 

[00:42:53] Amanda: even more into that basically saying that, accounting, larger accounting firms needs implements a modified work arrangement. But it's not just for men. Just not, it's not just for women that men are requesting this as well, because they want to healthy work life balance.

So they want like the flexible work schedule, the reduced work hours the toll telecommunications now my age. No, we were always against that, like a hundred percent and, working from home, doing things for when COVID hit. Let me tell you those first few months were a struggle for everybody because no one knew what to do because no one ever it was just so we were so old school that it was just like it took a long time to get a workflow going for that.

But when it, when we prove that we can do it all of a sudden, they're like oh, okay. So we can start cutting costs by getting rid of some of these office spaces now. Oh, okay. And oh yeah. Yeah. You want to take an hour or two to go do some food shopping. Yeah, go ahead before. No, that wasn't a hell. No, you better not.

Don't you dip away from that computer. And times are changing and I think corporations are starting to realize that, oh, women especially can do the job because the technology is making it easier for us to do the job, raise the family, share the workload.

[00:44:26] Taylor: That's awesome. I have a question. Cause I feel like, your employee handbook, what's the, is there an equal paternity leave to maternity leave at your job? No, that's okay. 

[00:44:36] Amanda: Here's what it is. Our company offers four weeks paternity leave. Okay. Yeah, no, they're good. But the attorney that's happened to probably most places they have it.

But but for women, what they, what we, we basically follow the law. So it's I think it's four weeks for natural six weeks versus. They might have changed that I don't know, but then I think New Jersey also has the whole bonding time. So again we roll with it. That's for women. That's what we do.

For men it's just the four leagues. It 

[00:45:08] Taylor: was the four weeks. And that's only because of your job. Yeah. 

[00:45:12] Amanda: I don't know 

[00:45:12] Taylor: what it is at large. That's the thing I'm going to have to look into before I make any statements, because I know New York now has paternity leave part of their legal system for their families.

It might be just be New York city, but I know new, I feel like it's New York as a state does it now. Cause that was something big that came out two years ago. But it's that? I think that's part of all, we've been saying this whole time that we have to get men in on it too, so that it's not just an expectation that it all falls onto the woman or the mother or the child in that case.

So like for all of these things like bonding time, you need bonding time with your child. If you're a man too, it's still my kid. 

[00:45:50] Justine: And to go back to your parental leave. Only eight states in the U S have parental leave,

but as a country, as a whole, we don't have anything 

[00:46:04] Amanda: now. That's I feel like writing to my Senator. 

[00:46:09] Justine: Oh, we're part of that journey. It says, yeah. Have introduced their own paid family leave policies, which include parental leave, paid a percentage of the employee's salary. That's from the 

[00:46:21] Taylor: ah, FMLA. Okay. Yes, because I always could get confused.

Cause FMLA, I think of like emergency someone when I need to take care of somebody else. It's hard to leave because, 

[00:46:36] Justine: The child, you are taking care of somebody else. No, 

[00:46:40] Taylor: No. I get that. I get that. But like I have a family member gets sick. Yeah. I get those six weeks that are paid for that, which is different than I had a baby.

And I can take those six weeks off like that. That is very different. I think there needs to be a difference between 

[00:46:57] Justine: the two as a nature person. We just do right. It's FMLA. If it's a family medical leave of absence, you can say for your, for yourself, it's M L O so medical leave of absence and it's just, yourself.

[00:47:11] Taylor: Yeah. No. I get you. I get you. Like I understand. Cause you come from that HR background. Cause I know that when I've received. In the past, when I've looked into like the, like, when it comes to having babies around the world what are the big differences? I know some of the Scandinavian countries, you get a full year paid, both male and female.

So it's just, it's not just the mom. Yes. The year off you two as new parents have the option to take the whole year off, post your child, being born to bond and be a family and learn how to work through this. And they also give you, I really wanted to figure, I can't remember if it was Norway or Denmark, but one of them it's called a baby box.

You get, and it's it's box that you get comes with diapers and like a full layette stuff for you and you get formula. And then the box itself can be used as a crib and stuff like that. Like not a bassinet type deal. It's like very into bringing in. We need to make sure that our babies live and get to it, which is weird 

so in the United States, I'm going to look this up now. Maternal mortality rate. I want to say we have one of the highest as a westernized country globally. Let me just bring that number. 

Okay. So on the globalized list, we're number 96, but in comparison to the other countries that are what we call a westernized country, , but like the people that we are in competition with for everything China, the United Kingdom, China's number 91.

But like all of the majority of your European countries, aren't on here until you get to New Zealand is 105, France 106. Oh, there's a five-way tie for number six. Like all of those things. These are your developed places with great technology, but. We had such a high we're a very country.

That's just like focused on the people. It seems, especially the health of our people and a huge focus of your country should be on your maternal health rates. If you want to make sure that there's more people to keep going. It's just, it's crazy. And then that sets off a trickle effect of all of these issues we've been talking about, the woman is expected to do all of these things.

And then because women were taught like what your feminine things would be like, you're given dolls to learn how to care for a baby, grow up. And people are like, oh, you changed the diaper. This is how you feed a kid. Then you have all of this league of men who don't know what to do there. And everybody's always oh my God, what is he going to do?

What is he gonna do? He needs a new wife. He just needs give the baby to a grandparent or put it or do something there needs to be another woman in the area for him instead of be like, no, he's got a support system. He can do this. He should be educated in what he was doing, but. All these different issues come because we are structurally unequal.

[00:50:24] Taylor: why do you believe that? Although all of this data is front of, in front of everybody and even like the United nations has a whole initiative on equality for women across the world. Why do you believe this is going to be my last question for the day? Why do we still ignore that this problem is affecting everyone, men and yeah.

[00:50:48] Amanda: Oh, that's a multiple that's a multiple thing. Let's see. I would say it's because two things, one, probably one of the bigger ones is, the male privilege they. They got theirs. So what do they care? They don't see that there's a problem with the fact that women aren't at the same level as them.

I think another part also is just the whole gender stereotypes, from birth, men and women are just like reared certain ways. And so we were taught certain roles, attitudes, and behaviors, and then you've got when you're in the force that leads like that whole friction, because women need to, they can't be seen as too maternal or too soft or too weak to work in like man's world or but then, they'll if they are like a project that strong facade, or not even a facade, they could just be, strong women then they're seen as cold-hearted or aggressive, but for a man it's like great qualities, but not for a woman, and so I think it's the strong leadership. Yes. And on top of that, if a man gets angry at work, it's totally acceptable. But if a woman does expresses her anger, then she's too emotional. It's, you've got, we got to stop also penalizing women for wanting to become mothers. Cause that is a thing, it's often considered once you, a woman decides to take some time off to become a mother.

And again, a lot of times women will just be like I can't be away from work too long because then, 

Either I come back and I'll get fired or I'll, my job will have shifted somewhere else or whatever. 

[00:52:27] Taylor: We'll get demoted for success. 

[00:52:30] Amanda: And so it's like a lot of women won't even take the time to bond with their children because it's like I gotta get back work.

I gotta make that money. So in order to actually support this kid, it's, I think we need to just, the mindset needs to change. And that is just a very difficult thing to do a very difficult thing to do. 

[00:52:51] Taylor: So what's your recommendation? What in your perfect world, Amanda, what can be done? I know that's a lot.

What can. You encourage other people to do to fix this or help 

[00:53:02] Amanda: them? I would say that the women who were currently in power need to reach back and start pulling up other women with them just so that we can get more women in those. And hopefully when we have more women in those roles, men will start to see that, oh, I can do the job. Okay. Maybe then we can start Mim. Then they'll start allowing, they'll start pulling women who are qualified for the job, not just because of the women, but instead of just overlooking them because they were women, even though they're probably more qualified for the job than a male.

But yeah, I that's. Okay. I also think, it's got to start, unfortunately, not unfortunately, but you got to start it when they're young. The fact that, men and women can do the same roles, they can have the same it's a growing trend, stay at home dads as opposed to the whole stay at home mom thing.

Not that's wrong. Right. I'd rather 

[00:53:53] Justine: have a stay at home. Dad. 

[00:53:57] Taylor: I didn't have the clean

[00:54:03] Amanda: It's got to start at a very young age where, you got to show them that even stupid shit like, oh, pink, isn't a girl color. You can have pink too, if you want, or, oh, blue. Isn't just the boy color. You can play football if you want. 

[00:54:17] Taylor: Ballet, there you go. 

[00:54:19] Amanda: Things like that. It's just and of that young age, that way, by the time they grow up and they're the ones in power, it's the norm. And so it's, fortunately, I don't know if that'll happen. It probably won't happen for us, the younger ones, the ones that, our generation is giving birth to, we can change it.

We can change it, give it a few, change takes time though. I think that's a, and that great with time. 

[00:54:47] Justine: instantaneous right now. That is the generation of I need it now. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:54:53] Amanda: But I do believe it'll happen. It's just, it's going to take time. 

[00:54:58] Taylor: Understandable. 

[00:54:59] Justine: Justina I do agree with Amanda and I liked that she broke it down.

All of these portions that need to be worked on And I think it is with, these conversations and men need to be part of the conversations about women inequality and what can be done to make it better. When you have these conversations, it's not just men that need to be open-minded, it also needs to be women because yes, we can be very biased as well. Or if you're trying to, have those conversations, you can be very biased and say, this is completely not fair. And you don't open up to, to hearing the concerns of the men.

So I think both parties do need to be very open-minded when you have this type of conversation and it's more of just, how can we help each other to make the world better or make it more equal because in one of your videos, I think it was. Gender equality is not just about women, right? She was mentioning that you need to have the conversation with men because, they want, let's say parental leave too.

They want to bond with their children. And that way you don't have that. The prejudice against men who actually want to be home taking care of their kids too. So I think we, again, need to have that conversation need to include men. And also when you're making these changes, you need to include them into that conversation as well.

And hopefully that conversation turns into action because obviously it ain't worth it. If it's not, if it's not turned into any type of action, 

[00:56:34] Taylor: most definitely. Yeah. I wholeheartedly agree with both of you. We, because to all of our male listeners out there, we hope. You are not part of the problem and that you are actively trying to make better choices in your every single day to give your female counterparts or your nine binary counterparts a place at the table so that we can make this place as cliche as it sounds a better place for all of us, because if we're not all moving in the same direction, nothing is going to change.

So if we were still playing into old stereotypes or implicit biases based upon gender, based upon the way we look, it's not to change anything. And that just goes to harm all of us at the end of the day. But yeah, we've got to, we've got to band together. It's got to be, can't just be three women talking about it.

We'd have to have these conversations with like I do. I do. I will take the L on this one in not inviting a male counterpart for today's discussion, because it would have been wonderful to have that outside opinion, but that doesn't stop any of you for writing to us or letting us know, or sending even somebody else a clip, let us know your opinions and how you feel and how are you affecting change in your lives and the lives of your mothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, nieces, God, daughters, gods sisters, women.

You just know just, we want this place to be better for all of us. Yeah. Just because we got the right to vote. Doesn't mean life came automatically equal. Oh, we were able to show you that in this episode. So thank you all for joining us. 

Picture a scientist documentary on Netflix it's hour 43 minutes. Definitely watch it. I say, watch it as a family, watch it with your brothers. Make sure that females and males are watching this and discussing it at the same time, because it's about all of us and all of what we're doing in all of what can be, what you think is okay.

And acceptable behavior is not at the end of the day. Sorry one did drop that in there. It was really good. You will not be disappointed. 

[00:58:53] Taylor: Thanks for listening to United AAF with us. 

[00:58:57] Amanda: If you enjoyed today's episode, please like comment and share our conversation with your friends and family on our social media pages. 

[00:59:03] Justine: Join us next time. As we talk about continuing education as an adult, 

[00:59:08] Amanda: yay. Go to school and learn.