The U.S. working class and its role in electing Trump

Joan C. Williams wrote a very informative and cool-headed piece in The Harvard Business Review on what the Democratic Party's strategy got wrong about working class U.S. citizens, and how much this influenced the votes of masses of people.

Williams summarizes several ways in which working class people are misrepresented by Democrats and mainstream media. She emphasizes, that working class people in the U.S. are usually solid middle class, nevertheless are usually presented as poor. Also, often when Democrats focused on policies benefiting the poor, they didn't take into account that these policies would not affect in any beneficial way the middle classes, including working class people. These are surely important and significant points to make, and Williams makes them with admirable clarity.

In this entry I want to discuss two issues she mentions:
- The fact that some working class voters turned away from the Democrats because they detest professionals, teachers, and researchers, and the rhetoric of Democrats was too intellectual.
- That 'manly dignity', male pride, is important to several working class voters.

Williams doesn't say that either of these two things is good. She just highlights them as something that a party that wants to win the elections cannot forget. This is very sound pragmatic advice.

My main issue is the following: while there certainly are many neglected aspects of working class existence these days in the U.S. which should have been addressed by the Democrats, the two attitudes highlighted by Williams and mentioned before are very hard to accept for someone leaning towards enlightenment ideals. Endorsing that people can improve themselves and their society underlies the drive for continuous social improvement. And hence it is very hard to campaign in a way that caters to voters who oppose academics, intellectuals, and white collar workers. Of course this doesn't mean that such voters are bad people. But it does mean that their views of how the world works are very one-sided: while recognizing the importance of skills, experience and expertise in some fields, they play down the importance and legitimacy of these aspects in other fields.

This is what the Republican party, the Christian church, and Trump have both relied on in making many perfectly obvious questions seem controversial:
There is no serious debate regarding whether evolution is the process through which humans came to be what they are.
There is no serious evidence showing that allowing equal pay and equal rights regardless of gender and race has any bad implications for society.
There is no serious debate regarding climate change. It is happening and it will be devastating.
Still, Trump and others have managed to present these issues as if they would still be open questions in the sense, that they haven't been substantially argued for and supported by evidence. They have.
What Trump and others relied on in undermining such perfectly legitimate expert consensus was in part the fact that a number of voters don't have basic science and cultural literacy, they don't understand what researchers, scientists, managers, etc. are doing, and they are suspicious or even antagonistic towards them.

These attitudes surely need to be changed. What to do? Since it seems that simple explanation, fun talks, public intellectuals, politicians who campaign to get the word out are not enough, Williams might actually be right: maybe we should rely on the man-pride of those voters who couldn't get on board with the Democrats because they felt neglected. It might be that if they think they are being cared for, they matter, and they are on the winning team, they would be more open to think in progressive ways.
Still, their resistance is worrying, and it is sad that this is what we would need to rely on. In the long run one can only hope that most people come to understand that in itself neither their social position, nor their gender, or how important they themselves feel that their problems are, can justify ignorance. This in turn will hopefully lead to a more informed and critical acceptance to science and society related issues. Such a stance would enable to endorse the views of proper experts and to neglect fakes. The general idea that the world is too complex now for us to look to one politicians who thinks he himself is the source of authority on every question needs to seep through.

Of course such a change would be much better facilitated by conversations than by talking down. On the other hand it is hard to have the patience to do this all the time, just to save the egos of people who are unwilling to adapt, but whom we do want the best for, and also need them on our team.

If interested in more depth in the connection between work, traditional gender roles, and working class life in affluent Western countries, Williams also has a number of publications, and her recent books (2012 and 2014) discuss these issues. I'm sure many readers would find them interesting, and they can provide plenty of insight.

Why everyone should be a feminist

In my previous post I proposed that there is inequality which disadvantages all women around the globe. Anyone not wanting to change that situation seems irrational, or self-serving and hence morally blameworthy. Since this situation affects half of the Earth's population the matter is urgent, that is why it merits its own treatment.

Why should everyone accept that this is so?

Well, we know at the moment the following: We know that there is inequality that we can all agree is wrong. Namely:

- Income inequality: women doing the same job get lower salaries in many places.

- Chance inequality: often when admitting students or hiring applicants for a job male's are preferred, even if there is no other relevant differentiating detail in the applicants' CVs.

- Recognitional inequality: women get promotions and favourable performance reviews less often. This even happens - sadly - when women rate women, or for example when students rate teachers and lecturers.

- Inequalities in further gender-role based expectations: it is widely different how much work is expected from a woman to be spent raising her children, cleaning, and providing other essentials for her family. On top of this in many societies there are further unequally spread expectations such caring for the elderly and the sick, playing community roles, or being physically attractive.

To the last inequality some people object: but there is a similar expectation towards man, just look at the fact that handsome man are on TV and in ads. But this argument is wrong because it mixes up two things: it is very different that some people (among them some women) enjoy, and on men expecting women to look good. This is especially salient, because for women looks are often less important in choosing partners, whereas men sometimes 'punish' women on the basis of their looks, going even as far as to leave them, or making employment, promotions, and so on conditional on appearances.

All the above listed are inequalities between men and women that are proven, that have been measured and observed in experiments, and can be read off from economic data. It is certainly obvious to any grownup that this situation needs to be changed.

With this, I’m not saying that woman should not care about their looks, not have children, etc. but that this should be in their freedom to choose, and not what is expected of them to be prioritized. I’m sure many would choose to those these things, as these activities can be very joyful, rewarding, fulfilling, etc. for some people, and there is nothing wrong with them in themselves. What is wrong if someone chooses these activities because they are made to believe that that’s the only right thing to do and they should choose it otherwise something is wrong with them.

Of course as with any problem that is very large scale we should look at the causes of the problem. As with other social-psychological large scale problems there are social structural problems in the background. Most plausibly the factors are that: 

- Girls are not encouraged to follow certain career paths, and life-way, and to also experiment with new life paths, and

- women are given role models and feedback that prioritizes the traditional gender behavior, plus

- there is a lack of viable role models and alternatives, a lack of support for these, and a lot of punitive political and social action and feedback if one tries to step out of line.

- Add on top of this that due to implicit bias even people and organizations who are consciously and explicitly committed to equality make sometimes biased judgments.

What we need to do is to provide choices, and a range of role models, and to protect those who are punishing women for following their own paths. Just as a man nowadays one can aim at becoming a good father, an astronaut (the most boring example of aiming high), a lawyer, an electrician, and a nurse; a carer, an artist, a dancer, a bachelor, a family man, a community fighter, a lone wolf, etc. so all options should be open and the same should be available for any woman. And just as all these different types of men are cheered on, and there are people who reassure them that they are filling in a role that is needed, that they are making the right choices, so, women need the same kind of assurance, whatever track they choose, and whichever way they go.

There are some important mistakes that need to be avoided while giving positive feedback. One of them is essentialism, the idea that there is some element of the traditional gender role that has to be maintained to be still a woman. This mistaken notion has had harmful effects already in many cases in the last 40 years. Just look at supposedly ‘empowering’ videos featuring woman who train hours every day and appear in the videos dancing in minimal clothing  - reinforcing one of the most harmful stereotypes that being attractive sexually is what being a woman is - and perform stereotypical male actions like handling power tools, fighting and shooting, taking revenge, driving sports cars, and so on.

What would be needed instead would be the message that "Hey, you men – most of you – aren’t like that either, and I don’t need to be like a man anyway. I’m happy to let go of the traditional woman package too: I don’t have to be sexy, and I don’t have to wield power tools or be a top business executive. I can be an okay lawyer or counselor, or ... whatever! I can have my average business dealing in whatever I know about, I can write books or pretty much do whatever I want. I can identify with whatever I want, and I can change. If I want to be like that I will be." Of course I'm not advocating radical individualism or that in making up one's mind about how one should live one shouldn't take into consideration one's family, loved ones, and community. But not in the way that one only thinks of the ways one could contribute to the life of others as people living in more rigid times did.

 

Of course in some cases there might be people who can 'max out' both the requirements of the traditional male and female stereotype. But that to me seems overly ambitious taken that most of us don’t even succeed in either one of those two categories even when some of us try. What seems to be much saner is to treat these options as a basket into which one puts what one can identify with – this can change as life goes on. Of course commitments have to be taken seriously and people should be encouraged to foster their skills, talents, work hard, help others, raise amazing kids and so on – but not to do all these things at the same time. 

The mistake of pushing woman to pursue corporate and top-manager careers at all costs definitely has to be avoided. Liberation is not to have to be like some of the most competitive, stressed, overworked and sometimes unscrupulous man. And it definitely isn't being like that, plus taking upon oneself to also tick the boxes of fitting the traditional women-roles. One should not be forbidden to achieve such things, but no one should be expected to accomplish such crazy feats which are not good for employers, persons, and kids in most cases. 

So, what needs to be done? Our communities need to provide more support and give more trust to woman whatever their goals and pursuits are. We need to provide girls with many options. Whatever they want to keep or reject from the traditional ‘woman’ package, and whatever else they won’t to buy into, they need to be encouraged to give it their best and figure out if it fits them.

As I said, getting rid of inequality is not taking on elements of the traditional male package or combining those elements with traditional female elements. This also calls for work-place reform: workplaces and environments shouldn’t be built to suit mostly guys, and then claim that they are women friendly if a woman can adjust and get along in them. That’s not equality, that’s expecting women to take on traditional male roles.

What’ better is to offer more employment flexibility: 4 and 6 hours positions, work from home options, opportunities to learn and stay engaged and connected while at home with children and return later, etc. There is nothing necessary in constantly prioritizing people in jobs who are 100% percent devoted to their workplace. While this might be good in short term profits for bigger companies in large economies, it surely isn’t good in the long term. Humans live in states partly to foster happiness and cooperation, not the operations of super-wealthy individuals owning companies. And surely not, that companies can make profits on employing unhappy, unsatisfied, and unhealthy, overstressed people.

Companies get away with these things too easily: they focus on profits, and that is said to be okay in capitalism. Nobody seems to notice that companies only get the best of the employees and state services and communities bear the burden of dealing with stressed, burnt out, disillusioned individuals. Capitalism is not a higher order system when compared with a society, and its demands should not be placed higher than those of communities of humans.

This proposal is in my opinion a modest feminist proposal with which everyone could get on board. It focuses on eradicating striking inequalities as well as their roots. It does not propose that people of either gender should rule or dominate the other gender, nor that one or the other gender is better. People of both genders show a striking variety of emotion, thought, taste, and preferences in lifestyles. Why is it that men can tolerate this in each other but not in women? Once we let go of the notion that there is one type of women it will also be easier for men: just treat women as people, as persons who might or might not like different things, who think this or that way. You can ask questions, find these things out, get to know them, talk with them and so on. Don’t stress about figuring out some supposedly existent female mystique, or getting right 'what women want'. It is as different as what we guys want. I guess you will find that you can even have female friends, because, guess what: they have thoughts, ideas, can be fun, and are interesting.

Mistaken stereotypes about 'women logic'

I've just recently been to a coffee in town. At the table besides me a few engineers (young professionals, not students) were chatting. I overheard them entertaining each other with the difficulty of programming a robot which can understand 'woman's logic'. I guess in most cases it is actually quite easy to explain to people like them the lack of sophistication behind such a label. But just to make sure, here are a few easy pointers to why talk about 'woman's logic' (especially in a demeaning sense) is just plain stupidity.

We have different concepts of rationality. Some of these applies to the capacities we posses as the types of animals we are. Such are our basic spatial positioning skills, our mathematical logic, our abilities to make inferences based on evidence, our mathematical skills, our skills tracking regularities in changes, etc. These are not specific to any gender.

'Rationality' is sometimes also used to stand for intelligence. Intelligence is gender independent - you find researchers, doctors, engineers, skilled professionals, mechanics, soldiers, and pretty much anything - requiring skill and doing well at school - among female population. Of course this only applies to countries where woman are allowed to get schooling, and throughout their upbringing and schooling aren't held back by harmful stereotypes they are made to adhere to, or pressure from peers.

What female agents seem to be more prone to do is placing value on emotions, personal relations (especially kin relationships). I emphasize 'seem' because I'm almost sure that most males are worried about, care about, etc. much more than they admit. Even if not, the explicitness is a difference. By explicitness I mean things that males often consider repugnant about female behavior, and hence, use discriminating terms like 'woman's logic' to talk about them. (Quick additional remark: valuing emotions and stable relationships is crucial to society.)

Such cases of making something explicit are for example being often worried about health of family members, about their emotional balance, getting stressed by cheeky remarks, etc. I do not even mention cases when females ask a male 'Do you still love/Find me attractive/etc.?' If you don't understand such games, teasers and affectionate jokes, you are not yet mature enough for a relationship. Just say something nice, complementary, and funny. No need to think your girl is really worried, expect if you start taking the question seriously. After all, that sends the message: 'Oh, I really have to think about this.' Silly response, isn't it?

So, what about the less obvious cases? Why do 'woman make so much fuss about things'? One obvious reason is evolutionary: females are hard-wired to care a lot about offspring. Also, social structures enable better survival chances for them and their kids, and more protection. A larger, healthier, more successful group can do better in terms of evolutionary fitness. These things do not depend on culture. They have evolved long ago, when small changes had higher stakes for staying alive.

Some other issues are culture influenced. Most of our societies are still male-dominated. Being male-dominated does not (only) mean that most good jobs are occupied by guys, and they get to make decisions for woman as well in many situations. It also means that this has been the situation for quite a long time, and hence the shape social institutions took, including norms of interactions, what's right and what's not, etc. have been heavily influenced by guys. I'm not making here any claims about this being good or bad. Just saying that this is the way it is. It seems to be quite likely that in many respects our communities are more physically and overtly aggressive than they would have to be given our current rates of food production. There is no need for as much vicious competition as was a long time ago. Of course competition does not disappear if more woman are elected. They also have in them to secure the necessary means for themselves and their groups. But the forms of aggression are different.

The male dominated character of culture places many normative behavior on woman. In most societies if one is not a good mother that still stigmatizes one strongly. Whereas if one is an awful father, one is reproach but not held responsible and blamed for the same degree.

Still, one might ask, if man and woman aren't so different then why are there so many visible differences in behavioral patterns? Well, already the question shows the fallacy of mixing up cause and effect. It is not that there are some differences in man and woman which would ground all of the behavioral differences between them. It is rather that there are some cultural expectations, stereotypes, social pressures, and basic hormonal processes, that are all involved in leading to such differences in behavioral patterns. So, it's not just inherent differences which cause different behavior, and then lead to different treatment. It is rather different treatment that causes different behavior.

One more thing. Different behavioral patterns aren't in themselves bad. If I would say 'let's change some of our social institutions which influence woman to behave in ways that bother man' that would not be much more than saying 'oh, yes, of course guys are always right, so if some of the less emphatic/sensitive/intelligent don't understand a piece of behavior without effort we have to change it!'. And that idea is bollocks.

Accepting the possibility of there being different but still okay patterns is a good step. And no, it does not mean 'anything goes'. It just means that you first think, and assess whether the difference is okay, or not. Obviously, differences in female and male behavior are perfectly fine. And, ideally, up to choice.

In general, if you don't understand someone, first don't blame them for not adhering to your standard of rationality (or 'logic'). Always try out different interpretations to see how you can make sense of their behavior. In most cases you simply don't exert enough effort to understand the other person. These skills can be learned and enhanced. So, before making jokes about 'woman's logic' think a bit about how logical your behavior would seem when you are emotional, moved, angry, stressed, tired, worried, etc. to others, who don't know you and are not sympathetic. See, you aren't that much of a role-model of rationality.