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derinthescarletpescatarian · 3 years

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Pro-variation vs. pro-selection culture

Evolution requires three things: some form of information that’s inheritable, some way to create variation from that information, and some way to select what information will be passed on to future generations. In biological evolution, of, course, we all know what these three things are: genes (information) can mutate (variation) -- well, it’s more complicated than just mutation, but this isn’t a biology lesson -- and those that are worse at surviving and reproducing themselves are of course naturally weeded out through cause and effect (selection). But other things -- art, culture, language, science, technology -- evolve as well, and they all need the same three things.

When it comes to variation and selection in things like culture and politics, there’s a sliding scale of which one people think is most important -- whether they’re more pro-variation, or pro-selection.

People on the pro-variation end of the spectrum tend to view diversity as a positive thing and selection as something that will take care of itself, or even something to be actively suspicious of because of its tendency to cause harm -- a rainbow queer community, an education system available to people of all cultures and economic backgrounds, country borders that are as open as practical, and embracing a diverse array of art make a community stronger, and things like gatekeeping, means testing and heirarchies on ‘what counts as art’ should be abandoned unless there’s a really good reason for the selective process to exist, in which case it’s grudgingly tolerated. To pro-variation people, exclusion and oppression within a community are threatening. Pro-variation people recognise that yes, you’re going to get some freeloading drains on resources and obvious money laundering schemes masquerading as terrible art and a few people pretending to be gay for a few years to look more interesting to their straight friends, and this is largely a non-issue, a perfectly acceptable price to pay for a diverse and fair world.

People on the pro-selection end of the scale tend to view selection as the main means of advancing or healing a society, and see diversity as something that will take care of itself and as something to be deeply suspicious of. Gatekeeping, unequal opportunities and financial heirarchies are needed to sort the what from the chaff and make sure everyone does their best (”capitalism breeds innovation”); initiatives to redress inequality and give minorities or poor people an ‘unfair’ advantage or make it easier for outsiders to enter the country should be abandoned unless there’s a really good reason for their existence, as they’re dragging down the ‘deserving’ and polluting the culture. To pro-selection people, contamination or invasion from outsiders is threatening. Pro-selection people recognise that yes, you’re going to lose some talented geniuses in sweatshops and stop some deserving people from achieving success and bully some LGBT people out of the community to face abuse and oppression alone, but this is largely a non-issue, a perfectly acceptable price to pay for an advanced and fair world.

“Oh, Derin, you’re just talking about left-wing vs. right-wing philosophies.” Sort of, but not really. It fits the stereotypes and common arguments to a T, but one can’t assume that all righties are pro-selection or all lefties are pro-variation. I have met pro-variation righties, although I’m not really sure how. And there are leftie TERFs out there, despite TERFism being an undeniably pro-selection philosophy. I find determining where people sit on the variation-to-selection scale to be a lot more useful for communication than left-to-right.

I say this because often I’ll see pro-selection and pro-variation people talking to each other, and notice that they’re having fundamentally different conversations. For example, let’s look at the issue of meritocracy. Most modern people would say that meritocracy is a good thing, but ’meritocracy’ means a fundamentally different thing to pro-selectionists than pro-variationists.

A pro-selectionist, when conceiving of meritocracy, tends to think in terms of, well, selection; devising a system where the strongest (those that excel in whatever the thinker thinks is important; innovation or determination or whatever) rise to the top and gain special privileges and power over others, that they can use to determine the rules and make life better for themselves and their children, elevating society as a side effect. To the pro-variationist, this is absolutely not a meritocracy. “You’ve built a system whereby those who don’t start out with more, those who are born poor or disabled or underprivileged in some way, have to work way harder and be lucky in order to get anywhere than those born lucky. People don’t get ahead on merit in this system because the playing field becomes drastically uneven after a couple of generations. This is not a meritocracy.”

A pro-variationist, on the other hand, would concentrate on making sure that everyone has a fair chance at exercising their skills and getting ahead. They’d focus on making sure that people had the space and security to exercise their skills and that, when it came to supporting the society to make that happen, those with more contributed more. To a pro-selectionist, this is absurd. “So those who have pulled ahead and succeeded are being penalised by having to give more? That’s the opposite of a meritocracy! That’s a system designed to drag the best down!”

I find this framework useful in explaining a lot of weird political quirks of certain subcultures. TERFs and tradwives, for example, are theoretically political opposites, but in practice their logic sounds almost identical to outsiders, sounding rather a lot like standard right-wing talking points and Fascism Lite. This is because they’re all using pro-selection arguments. To a pro-selectionist, the arguments of these groups look very different -- “we’re saying that X kind of people are good/virtuous/victims, and Y kind of people are bad/oppressors/sinners, which is the exact opposite of what the other group is saying!” To a pro-variationist, the fact that they are making literally the same argument makes them identical -- “you’re still putting people in your little ‘keep or cull’ boxes for exactly the same reasons, you just wrote different names on the boxes to keep or cull according to your personal taste.”

I think a lot of the things associated with right-wingers could be more accurately associated with people on the pro-selection end of the spectrum in general. It’s known, for example, that right-wingers tend to have a more sensitive disgust reflex and, as a consequence, be generally more xenophobic. You can see this in the way xenophobes talk of making room for outsiders; they talk of invasion, contamination, infection, hygeine, purity. LGBT exclusionists, lefties and righties, talk in the same sort of language. So do antis.

It’s also notable in the sorts of innocuous-seeming things that such people get really angry about. Right-wingers and authoritarians are known for their trend of an almost comical hatred of modern art. The idea that anything can be art, or that art can be measured on any level that isn’t strict complexity and realism of paint and sculpture, causes a surprising level of dislike in such groups. (See also arguments like ‘what is a video game’, ‘does this even count as a game’, althoughpeople thankfully seem to be bored of that now). Exclusionists are equally renowned for campaigns against inclusive terms like ‘queer’, and TERFs get obsessively nitpicky about people’s genitals to a really creepy degree and get very uncomfortable when you mention the ‘grey area’ in biological sex. This is normally assumed to be just dislike at people challenging their arguments, but I think it’s deeper. I think it’s like the modern art thing. Any kind of radical inclusivity is threatening to pro-selection thinkers, not because it’s a challenge to their rules and definitions -- they can have those arguments perfectly comfortably -- but because it is an attack on the very concept of meaning. “Words mean things! Groups exist! You can’t just... just get rid of groups and open up categories to include more people without putting them through a serious, rigorous proving ground first! You can’t just call anything you want to ‘art’, you can’t just call anyone outside cisheteronormative expectations part of the LGBT community, you can’t just call people men or women based on how they feel! That’s chaos! How can any progress be made if we just decide words don’t mean anything??”

(I also think this is a much-overlooked aspect of the same-sex marriage debate. Yes, most of that was garden-variety homophobia, but I’ve known a lot of people who were perfectly fine with ‘the gays having equal rights’, they just didn’t want it called marriage. To a pro-variationist, having the same legal language for partnerships regardless of the sex or gender of the participants is really important -- it’s a shield against future discrimination as the laws relating to either marriages or civil partnerships change over time. To a pro-selectionist, changing the definition of words related to fundamental cultural activities is a huge deal. “They’re eroding the very meaning of marriage! Chaos! How much more will the word change? Can people marry animals or cars next?!”)

As I said, this is a spectrum. I’ve met very few people who are on either extreme end -- even the most pro-equality liberal anarchist acknowledges that some standards of behaviour, community responses to inappropriate action and definitions of different communities do have to exist, to protect people, and the most hardocre fascist admits that there needs to be some measure of generating diversity to avoid stagnation and extinction. And people’s default reaction isn’t necessarily their position on all issues -- somebody who’s generally pro-variation might feel specifically threatened by immigration and think a strict proving ground for immigrants is necessary, or someone who is generally pro-selectionist might think that a robust social system is necessary because one’s economic status at birth has no bearing on one’s merit or value. But I’ve always found it to be a very useful general model.

#culture #politics #bigotry #left wing #right wing #queer #lgbt

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deogenezen · 4 years

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A Leader’s Great Influence

Hello! We are Group 3 and today we proudly present to you our blog!

To give you all a short preview, when all our essays are compiled, it revolves around one topic - A Leader’s Power in Effect to his or her Followers.

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─── ──── ──── ❝ Ways of being a Leader ❞ ──── ──── ───

(By: Alfonso Herrero)

Napoleon, who is the leader of Animal Farm, and Duterte, who is the President of the Philippines, have some similarities and differences on how they run their government and how they rule their people. Sometimes, one leader is better than the other in how they do things. With so much power in their possession, Napoleon and Duterte used their powers in many different ways that made their own followers have conflict with themselves or their supporters into their enemies.

These two leaders have a distinct way of addressing their followers. They both have others who act as a dictionary to make the people understand what they said or did. These two leaders have others twist their words and actions to make it less controversial. Duterte has Roque as the Presidential Spokesperson, as he is the one who sometimes, sits in front of the cameras to repeat what the president said. Napoleon has Squealer to explain his actions to the other animals to make them think that Napoleon is not breaking the seven commandments.

Both of these leaders have lied to their followers multiple times. These promises were made as a way to gain the favor of everyone. Back at the 2016 election, Duterte promised to fight for the West Philippine Sea. Right now, all we see is him being friendly with China and just letting them take what is rightfully ours. Napoleon lied to the animals because he broke majority of the rules that he implemented for everyone. An obvious commandment he broke was “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy” as we read in the last chapter that he was walking on two legs.

These two leaders, no matter what they do, they will always have some people who will not always agree with them. While they experience the same thing, they have different ways on how to respond to those people. Napoleon will kill anyone who will go against him. Like how he killed the chickens because they weren’t willing to give up their eggs. He killed other animals as well because they confessed that they had been working with Snowball all along. As for Duterte, he answers back to his critics in a non-professional way and acts immaturely. When he receives criticism from anyone, he will take it as a personal attack and not as a way to improve himself. An example of this is how he responded to Leni Robredo’s criticism against him during Typhoon Ulysses. He answered back to Robredo by saying that she herself was not doing anything and that she was just sleeping with another man while the Typhoon was happening.

Both Napoleon and Duterte have a special group of people that will help them intimidate their opponents and anyone who will try to go against them. This show of force is a way to strike fear within people so any sort of resistance against them will be discouraged. Duterte’s way of intimidating people is with the use of the Military and Police. He uses the military and police against the communist party of the Philippines and any drug users. Napoleon has his dogs that he stole from their parents when they were born. Napoleon uses the dogs to chase Snowball out of Animal Farm and to kill animals who confessed their crimes.

The people in their land work hard for the benefit of everyone else, but they were treated differently. In the Philippines, when you’re a taxpayer and already retired, every month you get a pension depending on how much you contributed during your working days. Another benefit is that you are granted benefits from PhilHealth if anything happens to you or to anyone from your family. Napoleon treats his people differently. He bosses everyone around only for the benefits of himself and not for other animals. He has no respect towards them and doesn’t care about their contribution to the animal farm. He killed the chickens because they did not want to give up their eggs and he killed Boxer because he could no longer do his work properly.

Napoleon and Duterte have some similarities and differences on how they run the land that they lead. One similarity is that they lied to their people to gain their favor and one difference is how they treat the people who work hard for the benefit of their land. While our officials are terrible leaders right now, we’re lucky they aren’t worse than other leaders were.

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── ─── ❝ Perfecting Absolute Fascist-Communism ❞ ─── ──

(By: Allan Dela Cruz)

In animal farm, Orwell explicitly made direct allegories to real-life counterparts. Among which include the creation of animal farm; in which the real-life counterpart would be the Russian revolution – seeing as the animals overthrew the “Czar” in this case. The different and diverse class system and their familiar government system named “animal system” which screams of the modern-day socialist system built by Marx. But the most prominent similarity by far is the representation of totalitarian dictators, in this case, Napoleon; is to Stalin.

Both leaders assert their influence in both the military and the constitution. Both have played their own share of politics – and both have won with ruthless force and became dictators. Using both of their absolute and authoritarian power to corrupt and exploit too much of what is, “necessary”. And both having been an inspirational leader. These are the qualities that Orwell clearly wanted to point out to his readers. In terms of contrast, while both leaders are downright power-hungry. I think with Napoleon; he is more interested in his personal (or his kin’s) goals and gains compared to Stalin. While Stalin is greedy, greedy in a sense for the “betterment” of his country, I mean all classes regardless of noble-born or peasants as he was one of the people who revolted against the much privileged and unfair Czars that it only made sense to him for Russia to reform. Stalin's problem was his means to get there, which involved the gulags that made them no better than the 3rd Reich. I do not think Napoleon and the pigs care about the other farm animals, as they focus too much on their self-interest and abuse it to the point of exploiting the other animals. While Stalin technically exploited his citizens, his “first plan" [also called the great turn] – industrialized and modernized Russia in just five years. Russia turned into a once primitive and backward empire - whilst taking no heed by the Czars - into a prospering union – with the help of the gulags of course. While back in animal farm, while they have their own version of gulags – albeit less brutal – the benefits they get from it anyway is almost nonexistent, and that most of it just goes immediately to the pig’s self-interest.

That being said, I think what Orwell’s trying to aim at is that the nature of totalitarianism can be easily distinguished – albeit the way he portrays it can be exaggerated – and that it must be avoided, which is propaganda really.

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── ❝ The Practice of Abuse in the Russian Revolution ❞ ──

(By: Eurick Gamboa)

Orwell has allegories hidden in the story Animal Farm. It overlooks the Russian revolution. The Animal Farm also focused on the system dictatorship, symbolizing Napoleon. There was also a social class system which was called the “Animal System”, which shows the modern day socialism system. Orwell's main message in Animal Farm is that power can corrupt, even when idealism is at the start. The allegory of the Russian Revolution of 1917, where the Bolsheviks overthrew the tsar to establish a communist regime.

One of the novel’s most impressive accomplishments, is its portraits of not just the figures in power, but also the oppressed people themselves. Animal Farm is not told from the perspective of any character in the story. Rather, the story is told from the perspective of the common animals as a group. Foolish, loyal, corrupt, and hardworking, the animals gives Orwell a chance to tell how situations of oppression rose, not only from the motives of the oppressors, but also from the naiveness of the oppressed. When presented with a situation, one of the characters, Boxer, prefers not to be suspicious, so instead he repeats to himself the mottos such as, “Napoleon is always right” and “I will work harder.” Animal Farm demonstrates how the inability to question authority criticizes the working class to suffer the full extent of the ruling class’s oppression.

One of the Commandments was “All animals are equal”. However, this equality was shortly diminished and the pigs began to bend the rules until inequality returned to the farm and the pigs gained power. Orwell used the animals and their actions to make the reader think about equality and inequality. Before 1917, the majority of Russian people suffered from great inequality. They had far less money and food than the ruling classes. However, before the rebellion in Animal Farm, Mr. Jones takes everything that the animals have been keeping or have been caring for away from them. After the Rebellion the animals were free from the tyranny of Mr. Jones and seek to establish equality amongst themselves once and for all.

In conclusion, Orwell's message warns readers about allowing smart, selfish politicians to abuse power and gradually take away civil rights and independence. He warns his readers about the various methods of manipulation and propaganda used by oppressive regimes to crush and control the people.

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─── ──── ──── ❝ Napoleon and Trump ❞ ──── ──── ───

(By: Breanna Geronimo)

The boar, named Napoleon, is the leader of animal farm. He became the leader of the Animal Farm (also known as Manor Farm) when the animals rebelled against the humans, specifically Mr. Jones which was the owner of the Manor Farm. The current President of the United States now is Donald Trump, he won his position last January 20, 2017 and his term will end on January 20, 2021.

Napoleon is a corrupt leader because he only does things that benefits himself. One example was when he stole the idea of Snowball, which was to build a windmill. Another example is that he would also use Squealer to tell all of the animals lies and anything that will make him look correct and good. He is also a greedy leader because he wants all the power of being a leader to be his. He also has a tendency to get too much of everything/ tend to get things that he does not need. An example is when he and the pigs drinks all of the milk and does not give/ provide for the other animals. In my opinion, he is a leader who does not promote/ give equality, because he does not treat the animals equally. For an instance, he said that “no animal, shall sleep in a bed” then he changed it to “no animal, shall sleep in bed, with blankets.” He changed the rules so that he and the pigs can sleep in a bed, while the other animals aren’t allowed to.

Trump as I have said is the President of the United States. He is a corrupt president, because just like Napoleon, he would do anything that can benefit him and his family. For an instance, he corrupted the tax system and funded his own taxes (David Halperin, Oct 26,2020). President Trump can also be a greedy leader because he eviscerated health care, because of his hatred for the former President of the United States, Barack Obama. In my opinion, I also do know and believe that he is a President who does not give/ promote equality. For an instance, He calls “Black Lives Matter (BLM)” a symbol of hate. I do believe that what some of the Americans did was inappropriate (like breaking glass of buildings and stealing) but he still does not have the right to say that it was a symbol of hate. Because what the Americans only wanted was for them to have equality.

Both Napoleon and President Trump are leaders of a certain area/place and they can also tend to be corrupt and greedy leaders. The only difference that I can find between Napoleon and President Trump is that Napoleon is a fictional character and President Trump is not. They are also not the same type of animal Napoleon is a boar while President Trump is human. I just hope that someday people will be able to learn from people who are trustworthy, kind and loving to their country and countrymen.

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─── ──── ──── ❝ The Rule of Dictators ❞ ──── ──── ───

(By: Liezl Montemayor)

Lives dictated by leaders, such as Napoleon and Ferdinand Marcos, had their followers struggle with threats, abuses, and inexorable deaths. These two leaders are corrupt and used all means to keep their power and wealth all for themselves. Because of how much they wanted to satisfy their greed for power has brought many to rebel against them. Therefore, corrupt and dictating leaders, such as themselves, must be impeached for a better society.

To start, Napoleon and Ferdinand Marcos have quite a similarity in their excellent side of leadership traits, though they will soon break their image of good leadership in the future. An example of Napoleon’s leadership trait is uniting and directing the animals to a specific goal. He also organized the structure of power of the animals on the farm. On the other hand, Ferdinand Marcos treats his officials with civility and respect. He also approved building infrastructures to increase the economic growth of the Philippines.

With such leadership, there is no doubt that the threats and civil strife will arise against Napoleon and Ferdinand Marcos’s position. Luckily, they could see this coming and used their power to threaten and terrorize such menace against them. For Napoleon, he used his loyal dogs as a shield to protect his position. Meanwhile, Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law, which will soon bring abuse, threats, and deaths among his country’s people.

The dogs, Napoleon raised were used to kill and terrorize the animals who dared to threaten their master’s position. They were monsters that got brainwashed with the teachings they learned from Napoleon as they were isolated when young. Because of such a horrific event that the animals experienced, Napoleon’s greed has shown that the surviving animals could no longer differentiate pigs from humans. At the same time, Ferdinand Marcos was no different from being greedy with all that he possessed. He violated human rights of his citizens through armed forces and other means. Then, time went by that these violations could no longer be tolerated, and people started to perform reformist oppositions, revolutionary oppositions, and religious oppositions.

Greed to gain power is the paramount satisfaction of leaders that corrupt and abuse their followers and environment. To attain a prosperous state, a leader must have a great passion and qualities that may influence everyone and everything that surrounds them. Keep in mind; dictators have pros and cons that significantly affect their followers and the situation itself. Goals are set for citizens to seek development of their environment, not its destruction. Eyes must open to free oneself from lies and fear because a life dictated like a puppet is not a solution for a better society everyone aims for.

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References used for the Blog:

More Equal Than You- (Napoleon Animal Farm) by Stardust-Legend on. (2018, January 24). DeviantArt. https://www.deviantart.com/stardust-legend/art/More-Equal-Than-You-Napoleon-Animal-Farm-727346398

References used by Herrero:

References used by Delacruz:

PLOT SUMMARY, BBC, https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z9w7mp3/revision/1#:~:text=Animal%20Farm%20was%20written%20by,Russian%20politicians%2C%20voters%20and%20workers.

World war I Russian revolution, Ducksters Education site, https://www.ducksters.com/history/world_war_i/russian_revolution.php#:~:text=The%20Russian%20Revolution%20took%20place,country%20of%20the%20Soviet%20Union.

Fascism, Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism

http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/07/26/stalin-was-a-greater-fascist-than-bandera-or-mussolini/

https://www.slideshare.net/prime_metin/animal-farm-17943780

References used by Gamboa:

https://www.history.com/topics/russia/russian-revolution

http://links.org.au/russian-revolutions-1917-paul-le-blanc

https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/george-orwell-s-message-in-the-novel-448825

https://www.achievementfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Ideas-8.pdf

References used by Geronimo:

https://twitter.com/pinkpolitical/status/1001824330446237698?lang=ga

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-53261067

https://www.republicreport.org/2020/ten-reasons-trump-is-the-most-corrupt-president-in-u-s-history/

References used by Montemayor:

Human rights abuses of the Marcos dictatorship. (2020, December 16). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_abuses_of_the_Marcos_dictatorship

(n.d.). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://study.com/academy/answer/what-made-napoleon-a-great-leader-in-animal-farm.html

Three important leadership traits from Ferdinand Marcos. (n.d.). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://www.fef.org.ph/gerardo-sicat/three-important-leadership-traits-from-ferdinand-marcos/

Arillo, C. (2015, November 13). Marcos's unmatched legacy: Hospitals, schools and other infrastructures: Cecilio Arillo. Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://businessmirror.com.ph/2015/11/13/marcoss-unmatched-legacy-hospitals-schools-and-other-infrastructures/

Animal Farm. (n.d.). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-does-napoleon-from-book-animal-farm-contribute-129633

How Napoleon Takes and Maintains Control Of Animal Farm in George Orwell's Novel. (n.d.). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://www.bartleby.com/essay/How-Napoleon-Takes-and-Maintains-Control-Of-P3JR8GAZTJ

M. (2017, February 12). ANIMAL FARM. Nerdy254. https://kathmandupost.com/opinion/2017/12/06/dialectics-of-dictatorship. (2017, December 6).

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kelseyapperson · 4 years

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I shouldn’t have to feel bad for being white...

I used to feel this way. I even found some problematic writing from myself, around 7-8 years ago, and I want to talk about it. I think it's important that we normalize changing our minds and growth. It's never too late to admit you were wrong, and I think it's important that I show that and hold myself accountable as I do others.

So, even though it's uncomfortable and not a good look, I'm going to share what I wrote then, and then explain why I now know that line of thinking is wrong and hurtful to Black people.

Here's the writing: "i am tired, deep in my bones. it isn't the kind of tired that sleep can alleviate. it is the exhaustion of generations, carried on my shoulders, passed from my ancestors. it intertwines with a verdict of guilt, responsibility for sins i myself did not commit. it is the burden of my skin color, the plight of my race, and i am expected to feel bad for being white. i'm tired of the shame, i'm tired of the inequalities, i'm tired of our focus on something that doesn't exist. my bones are weary and white, and my children will inherit the color, the burden. they will be born owing others for a past they had no control over. how is this anymore just than those born into slavery so long ago?" Big oof. I have so many thoughts reading this and sharing it with you. I am ashamed at my ignorance. These words were written through the lens of white privilege and as an expression of my white fragility. I do remember feeling these things, I remember feeling defensive for things I didn't even do, I remember feeling like it was unfair that I was being blamed for something in the past. I know many of my white friends may feel this way. But I was wrong. Let's talk about why. ***Disclaimer: I am not here to speak for Black people, but I will echo feelings that I've heard to break down my own racist rhetoric.***

"i am tired, / deep in my bones / it isn't the kind of tired / that sleep can alleviate" What do I have to be tired about when it comes to race? Being given a warning for speeding, as opposed to a ticket, an arrest, or a bullet wound? Black people are tired. They are tired of being treated worse by the color of their skin. They are tired of doing emotional labor to make us not feel guilty about slavery so that we see them as humans. They are tired of living in a white-first world.

"it is the exhaustion of / generations, carried on my / shoulders, passed from my / ancestors."

I'm most ashamed by this idea of generational trauma as a white person, because this is SO REAL FOR BLACK PEOPLE. There is research to back this up. The way Black people have to interact with our society has been passed down from one generation to the next, the trauma and pain and lessons shared. Many Black people speak of their experience with "the talk." The one where their parents tell them, usually at a young age, that they need to handle white people carefully or they may overreact and bring them harm. Imagine being told that a police officer, whose job is to keep people safe, may unjustly arrest you, brutalize you, or murder you - not for doing anything illegal, but for not showing perfect obedience in the power dynamic. AND EVEN IF YOU DO EVERYTHING RIGHT IT MAY STILL GO BAD.

"it intertwines with a verdict / of guilt, responsibility for sins / i myself did not commit. / it is the burden of my skin color, / the plight of my race, / and i am expected to feel bad / for being white."

Me to past me: "BITCH PLEASE." Okay, okay, let's unpack it. I am not guilty of enslaving people nor am I expected to feel guilt for my skin color. Most Black people don't even feel that way or want us to feel this way. However. I have benefited from a social system that has racism built into it. I have been empowered by a system where Black people are disproportionately ensl--arrested, jailed, etc. I benefit from Black people who have numerous disadvantages because of the obstacles put in place by racism, such as poor education from the start, having to work minimum wage jobs, all contributing to them being in poverty while I am able to live my life and benefit from their labor as fast-food workers, retail workers, maids, taxi drivers...so on and so forth. I'm not rich, I didn't grow up rich, I've struggled myself - and STILL I HAVE BENEFITED without even realizing it was happening. Privilege does not mean you have a good life, it means that your skin color (gender, orientation, etc) does not make it worse.

"i'm tired of the shame, / i'm tired of the inequalities, / i'm tired of our focus on / something that doesn't exist. / my bones are weary and white, / and my children will inherit / the color, the burden." Again, this touches on generational trauma, which I discussed above. More importantly, tough, it touches on my privilege as a white person to not see the racial inequities built into the framework of our society. If I'm truly tired of my white guilt, of inequalities, then I need to join the fight for racial equality. Point blank, period, the same goes for you.

"they will be born owing others / for a past they had no control / over. / how is this anymore / just than those born into / slavery so long ago?" Mmm, girl. You did not just compare feeling uncomfortable to slavery. Ugh. So again, we have generational trauma. And, let's be clear. It's not fair that we have to undo the work of our ancestors. It's not. But, it's less fair that those who aren't white are still being penalized because of their skin color. So we're either with them, or we're against them. No, it's not going to be easy. And as people with privilege, we liked to take a step back when things are hard because it doesn't affect us. It's pretty normal and human. But if we really care about Black people and other people of color, we need to step up. We need to roll up our sleeves and do the hard work. I know so many of my friends are damn hard workers. I know that you care about people and you want them to be treated equal. That's why we have to make it happen. Our voices are important, because right now in society they matter more. And that's why it's our responsibility to use them to amplify those who can't be heard as loud. Right now, that's Black people. So, yes, I was super problematic. Some of you probably were too. Maybe you still are. And no, it's not really your fault. We (white people) were all duped into believing that this was an equal society, when it never has been. We need to help affect change so that the generational trauma does not continue. WE NEED TO BE THE CHANGE. So, now, how would I write this poem today? "i hear their weary cries deep in my bones. it isn't the kind of tired that sleep can alleviate. it is the exhaustion of generations, carried on their shoulders, passed from their ancestors. it intertwines with a verdict of guilt, one predetermined before they are even born. it is the burden of their skin color, the plight of their race, and i am empowered to help them because i am white. i'll take some of it, the burden - release the weight from their shoulders. i'm tired of the inequalities and i will fight until they no longer exist. my power is in my skin color, and my children will inherit that too. i will teach them to yield it, giving to others to undo a past that none of us deserve. we cannot undo what was done, but we can do better. it is our duty to do better."

If you read this all, thanks. I hope it helped.

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iwriteaboutfeminism · 6 years

Text

Context and History for Our Fight Against Forced Family Separation at the Border

I'd like to add some context to our discussion on family separation at the border, both to add some history and to expand our scope.

We are all rightly outraged by what we're seeing in the news and we've organized to take collective action against it. Our demonstrations of solidarity with these families achieved a slight change to the policy, but people are still being criminalized and traumatized for the simple act of trying to find refuge. In order to continue our efforts effectively, we have to understand the situation a little more deeply.

The first point I want to make is that this is not the first time our government has separated children from their families. Starting in 1860, the US government kidnapped indigenous children from their families and dumped them into boarding schools where they were stripped of their culture and language and forced to assimilate to American culture in order to "civilize" them. Their hair was cut, their clothes were replaced with uniforms, and they were given new, Americanized names. The children were also forced to abandon their religious and spiritual traditions and convert to Christianity. Discipline in these schools was severe and sickness was common. Their motto, promoted by Col. Richard Henry Pratt, Headmaster of the Carlisle Indian School, was "Kill the Indian; Save the Man." This practice of forced family separation is not long-ago history. Our government did this until 1978.

What's happening along the border now is directly connected to what was happening 40 years ago. The white supremacist/capitalist exploitation of bodies of color has always been our history. It's not just now. It's not just because of trump.

My second point is that these families at the border are not the only families we are currently separating. We also see a pattern of forced family separation in the criminalization and mass incarceration of Black youth.

Based on data from 2015, Black children are twice as likely as white children to be arrested and five times more likely to be detained or committed to juvenile facilities. In 2001, the difference was four times, meaning that even over the last 20 years, things have gotten worse.

To be clear, the disparity is not due to Black youth committing five times more crime. The Equal Justice Initiative explains:

Black youth are burdened by a presumption of guilt and dangerousness — a legacy of our history of racial injustice that marks youth of color for disparately frequent stops, searches, and violence and leads to higher rates of childhood suspension, expulsion, and arrest at school; disproportionate contact with the juvenile justice system; harsher charging decisions and disadvantaged plea negotiations; a greater likelihood of being denied bail and diversion; an increased risk of wrongful convictions and unfair sentences; and higher rates of probation and parole revocation.

In addition, the practice of unpaid, forced prison labor is also a direct continuation of slave labor, which was itself, of course, another obvious example of forced family separation. We see in the 13th Amendment, with the abolition of slavery, the express caveat that slave labor may still be used as punishment for a crime.

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

The disproportionate post-slavery criminalization of Black people, since the days of Reconstruction, through Jim Crow and the War on Drugs, and into today, has ensured the continuation of white supremacy and black oppression. The long, American tradition of separating black families has never ended.

Capitalist white supremacy relies on these tactics of separation because the ruling class knows that unity and solidarity would be its downfall. Any possibility of organized resistance is guarded against by building structural inequalities and implementing discriminatory policies, held in place by the invention of racist ideas. These ideas are used as excuses by people who, influence by this framework, end up blaming the victims for their own depressed societal position instead of the institutional policies that force them, and keep them, down.

This suppresses white solidarity with communities of color by convincing them that people of color either 1) don't deserve or need better, or 2) could have better if they would only try harder.

What we can learn from the past, and what we can see with our own eyes today, is that that's bullshit.

It is inaccurate for us to say that what's happening along our border today is "not who we are." The hard truth, but the honest truth, is that this is who we have always been.

But we can be better.

We can reject the capitalist white supremacy we were built on and, in its place, build a new and better society that recognizes and celebrates the inherent value in all of us, rather than the exaltation of a few on the exploited backs of the many.

Our fight against forced family separation and detention at the border needs to be fought with this history and context in mind. Without it, we can't hope to fix the problem because we will only be addressing a portion of it. But with this analysis, we equip ourselves to rebel against and demolish the forces and circumstances that made this problem an inevitable outcome.

#family separation #racism #native americans #mass incarceration #written by me

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bisluthq · 3 years

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You’re making some very good points but you’re also losing sight of what’s relevant and what’s not, and it’s ruining the whole discussion. Like... what’s this?

Taylor about the MAN WHO INVENTED MODERN POP: “weird he wants a songwriting credit when I did the work.”

Taylor about her boyfriend, an amateur multi instrumentalist who to the best of our knowledge has not trained professionally beyond high school: “🥺🥺 baby boy here’s your production Grammy 🥺”

C’mon, you’re better than this... songwriting and production are two very distinct things. People love to act like it’s oh so confusing but it’s not. If Taylor writes an entire song (both music and lyrics) on her guitar and then brings it to a producer asking him to make the packaging for that song, then that producer doesn’t deserve any songwriting credits. And what Taylor criticized is the fact that producers won’t produce FULLY WRITTEN SONGS unless they get a songwriting credit. Like, I’m sorry, but Max Martin doesn’t deserve a songwriting credit “just” for being a legend, if he didn’t write any words or any music. That’s not how meritocracy and fairness work. You know who does deserve credit for coming up with stuff, though? That “C-list actor” who actually came up with melodies and lyrics and (afawk) production ideas. It’s not about who you are, it’s about what you do. Max Martin is a genius who’s responsible for producing (and often also writing) some of the biggest pop songs of the last decades, and he deserves credit for that. Joe Alwyn is an amateur who came up with some good idea who were USED by Taylor, and he deserves credit for that.

Plus, and this is REALLY irking me... the solution to the fact that tons of producers (especially women) are underappreciated and that tons of songwriters aren’t properly credited is NOT to take away credits from those who deserve it LMAO. Taylor did the right thing by crediting him (we can discuss the fact that she withheld the info but that’s another story). What should she have said? “I’m sorry babe, since the system is unfair and producers and songwriters are often left out of crediting I’m not gonna credit you. You know, it would be unfair to credit you for YOUR work since tons of people aren’t”. Like... The solution to people living below the poverty line is to RAISE their salaries, it’s not to lower the salaries of those who live just above the poverty line. The solution to inequity is to create equity, not to create even more disparity so that nobody is treated fairly... she did what she needed to do by crediting him, other big names in music should do the same. She shouldn’t be the one to start behaving badly, but others should behave better.

Then I agree with you that the way she didn’t say anything for months is shady... but you guys are mixing up like ten different issues (songwriting credits, sexism, racism, nepotism, PR and the media, elitism, work rights...) like they’re all the same, and you’re missing tons of points in doing so

I mean yeah some solid points here I do agree. That said Max defs writes on all songs he does because of the whole sciency spiel he does. Like changes the songs to fit a mathematical formula. That’s... writing. It’s not just production. He embeds himself into every single piece of music he does. Taylor is allowed to not like that tho. I think that’s fair.

This looks like nepotism and given the institution is built on patriarchy and racism it’s a bad look given they partook in a media coverup.

Had she credited him in July, and explained his contributions as she did for WB writing, no problem.

But to quote Taylor “it wasn’t right the way it all went down” ya know?

#grammygate

0 notes

wineanddinosaur · 3 years

Text

Morals Over Margins: A Blueprint for a More Equitable Hospitality Industry

The spring and summer of 2020 brought a reckoning for many Americans, with a global pandemic causing mass unemployment and the murder of George Floyd spurring protesters across the country to decry police violence against Black lives. For the restaurant industry, these events brought every failure and uncomfortable truth to the forefront — and exploited and jobless workers suddenly had plenty of time for such conversations.

Social media was flooded with infographics about the racist origins of tipping and the inequities that have kept the hospitality machine running in America since its birth at the blurry end of legalized slavery in this country. Capitalism itself was under a lens, the unfair concentration of power and profit magnified with every report of another billionaire doubling or tripling wealth. Replacing this economic and political system is a long shot, but anti-capitalist practices have existed in bars and restaurants for years now. So what does this look like, and why should everyone care?

Fair Wages

Capitalism is an economic system wherein the means of production of goods and services is privately owned rather than state-owned, with those private owners reaping the sole benefit of profits. That leaves the “means of production” — bartenders straining your Margarita and line cooks preparing your al dente pasta — in the hospitality industry exposed to exploitation thanks to notoriously slim margins for success. And since the hospitality industry, like most in this country, was built on the backs of Black people, it should be surprising to no one that the mistreatment of BIPOC, immigrant, and undocumented workers remains prevalent, despite their significant majority as employees in restaurants today.

One of the most basic ways an establishment can ensure the safety of its staff is by providing stable pay. Sadly, tipped workers who serve guests in bars and restaurants often make a subminimum wage, which is legal in all but seven states. Organizations like One Fair Wage seek to end this subminimum wage, but so have business owners.

In 2015, the practice of paying restaurant staff a higher but un-tipped wage cropped up noticeably. Prominent chefs like Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., began including service fees in guests’ checks in order to facilitate the change, while now-closed Bar Agricole in San Francisco raised its prices 20 percent to do the same. Chef Amanda Cohen was an early advocate for abolishing tipping in New York City when she adopted the practice at her Lower East Side location of Dirt Candy.

A Level Field

One of the most prominent supporters of the movement was Union Square Hospitality Group’s Danny Meyer, who announced back in 2015 that USHG would gradually end tipping and raise menu prices at all of its restaurants. Citing pay disparities between back- and front-of-house employees, which often fuels an unspoken feud between the two, the move to eliminate tipping at such a large and influential restaurant group convinced others to follow suit. This past summer, Meyer reversed the company’s “Hospitality Included” policy, meaning that servers at Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Cafe (to name just a couple) are once again working for tips.

Where Meyer posited that staff should benefit from guests wanting to tip generously in the wake of an economic crisis, Stephanie Watanabe, co-founder of Brooklyn wine bar Coast and Valley, found the opposite to be true. “We instituted a universal living wage, which was super important for us,” she says. “I think we did that in the summer after realizing that folks were not tipping.”

With tips plummeting, Watanabe and her partner Eric Hsu began to have the conversation about livable wages with their staff. “It really solidified for us when Covid hit: People before profits, period. It’s non-negotiable,” she says.

Thanks to her background in filmmaking in Hollywood, Watanabe brought outside perspectives to the argument against tipping, too. The “Most Favored Nations” clause utilized in movie contracts for smaller independent projects — paying the A-list celebrities the same amount as the supporting players — inspired her to try something similar. “We saw the dynamic between dining room and kitchen [employees], and it really bothered us,” says Watanabe of the tipped FOH/untipped BOH schism. “So for me, this was a way to level that and say, ‘No. We’re not going to pay this person less because somehow their job is deemed less valuable than the person who is able to go to get their WSET [Wine & Spirit Education Trust certification].’”

The friction between staff, coupled with the usual caveats of tipping — tipped workers experience higher rates of sexual harassment and people of color are tipped less than their white coworkers — led to a discussion with staff about experimenting with a fixed wage. “We understand the deep roots that tipping has and how ultimately, it’s incredibly, incredibly harmful and racist, and that doesn’t sit well,” Watanabe says. “Every single person, including the owner, gets paid $25 an hour.” This anti-capitalist strategy, which values humans over money, brings her staff equality and stability. It is not, however, an easy way to run a business in America.

“Every month, we’re losing money. But we’re like, ‘and?’” says Watanabe. “Then so be it, then our business can’t survive. Period. And that’s a shame, but it’s also a function of capitalism and society and these systems and structures that exist.”

With profit margins hovering around 1 percent at places like Coast and Valley right now, most investors would be hesitant to risk it all, but many of Watanabe and Hsu’s backers are friends and family who truly believe in their vision. The team recognizes the real struggle that most bars face. “There are good folks out there, and the problem isn’t [that] owners don’t want to pay their people. Some of the time, it’s that they can’t,” Watanabe says.

Even for the big players, a seemingly minimal loss in income might come with strings attached. “Who knows if they’ve got investors and people that they’re beholden to that don’t share their commitment to those things?” Watanabe says. “Then oftentimes, you don’t have a lot of control over it. And that’s where capitalism kind of just comes in and wreaks havoc.”

Nobody is saying that flouting our capitalist tendencies is painless. “To do the right thing is really, really, really hard in this world that we live in,” Watanabe says. “I think it’s like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. But for Eric and I, … we can’t violate our own integrity, and so maybe that means we’re bad business people. And at the end of the day, I’d rather be a bad business person than a bad person.”

A High Road

Andrea Borgen Abdallah, owner of Barcito & Bodega in Los Angeles, was once a general manager at Union Square Hospitality Group’s Blue Smoke in Battery Park City, Calif. “I became really interested in that model and what it hopes to achieve — especially when it came to dealing with the inequity between kitchen staff and waitstaff,” she says. Borgen Abdallah followed USHG’s lead and did away with tipping less than a year after Barcito’s September 2015 opening.

Thanks to the restaurant’s proximity to the L.A. Convention Center, Borgen Abdallah noticed business was very cyclical. “[On a] Monday, I would out-sell a Friday night, and there was no method to the madness,” she says. But eliminating tipping created stability for her employees, ensuring that shifts would be predictably fruitful on any given day. “I was also able to introduce healthcare as a result of that,” Borgen Abdallah says — no small feat, given that the Affordable Care Act only requires insurance to be offered if an establishment has a larger staff of 50 or more full-time employees.

In March of 2020, with the shutdowns brought upon by the rise of Covid in the U.S., Borgen Abdallah closed her restaurant and made two important decisions. First, Barcito would continue to pay for the health insurance of its furloughed employees. Second, it would keep jobs available for anyone lacking a solid safety net. In this way, even though the restaurant was unable to provide the same hours, it was able to keep its doors open and its vulnerable staff cared for.

Last year, Barcito was also one of the first restaurants to participate in High Road Kitchens — a group of restaurants working to provide food on a sliding scale to low-wage workers, healthcare workers, and others in need. One Fair Wage, which fights to end subminimum wages nationwide, oversees the program through RAISE (Restaurants Advancing Industry Standards in Employment). Participating High Road Restaurants like Barcito commit to advocating for fair wages and increased racial and gender equity through hiring, training, and promotional practices.

Borgen Abdallah’s dedication to the fight for better wages began while working directly for One Fair Wage in the past, even making trips to Washington, D.C., and her commitment doesn’t seem to be waning. “I think this pandemic certainly exacerbated a lot of the issues that we’ve had for a really long time,” she says. “And I think a lot of people wanted to sweep [them] under the rug and finally were forced to reconcile.” Now, with all that is known about the instability of a life reliant on tips without guaranteed access to healthcare, paid leave, and other benefits, real change could be on the horizon.

The Hope

It has been one year since the start of the pandemic, and the cry of the overworked and underinsured is once again becoming just a murmur. An increase in vaccine availability quiets much of the fear of going back to a job where contracting Covid remains a danger, but bar and restaurant workers are still far from safe. Returning to work during a national emergency can be confusing, adding new ways for management to exploit staff such as through unsafe Covid practices, unexplained pay changes, and denial of federally required paid sick leave. After so much loss and disruption, mental health is suffering, and affordable insurance is often still tied to employment. One look at the long list of resources put together by the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation, a nonprofit created by and for restaurant workers, gives some insight into just how vastly workers’ lives have been and continue to be affected.

With the passing of President Biden’s latest Covid relief package, small restaurants received access to $28.6 billion in grants, but a $15 federal minimum wage amendment failed. “I think people kind of started to talk about [issues for restaurants],” observes Watanabe, “but it was just like ‘bailout bailout bailout!’ But … that’s not going to cut it anymore.”

Last month, Barcito was able to get all of its employees vaccinated against Covid. As eligibility opens up to the rest of the public, a new normalcy feels within reach. But the sense of urgency to repair broken systems within hospitality threatens to dwindle. “I feel like it has kind of started to fall to the wayside,” Borgen Abdallah says. “The light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter and brighter, and I think it’s just important that we [have] those conversations and that that continues to feel really urgent.”

Anti-capitalist methods can actually work well within our capitalist society, even beyond championing workers’ rights through ensuring stable wages, paid time off, health care, or shared ownership opportunities. American bars and restaurants will need to look at sustainability and minimizing harm not just to people, but to the environment. Ambitious bar programs that are eliminating plastics — eco-friendly paper, metal, bamboo, and even hay straws have become standard — tackling water usage, and targeting waste by focusing on the creative use of what most might toss out have a real chance to lead the way as well.

“I’m hopeful, but I also am disappointed in the industry,” says Watanabe. “I feel like we’ve had a year where we could have addressed some really deep problematic systemic problems in this industry.” Businesses must look frankly once again at where they are lacking in response to the racism, sexism, and ableism that has pervaded hospitality since its early beginnings in this country. If capitalism benefits from white supremacy, then now is the time to challenge them both. “Ultimately, it’s not just about hospitality,” Watanabe says. “This is happening all over the place, and there’s a lot of reckonings happening. It’s really about changing the way we do business to be more conscious, to be more people-centered, to be more thoughtful.”

2020 may have broken us down with its harsh realities, shuttering more than 110,000 bars and restaurants nationwide, but as long as we can keep the momentum of learning and reimagining a better future for this industry — one where it values lives over profits — there is hope. “It’s been a tough year,” says Borgen Abdallah. “I think a lot of it could have been avoided had we done things differently, and I don’t think reverting back to the old way of doing things is the answer.”

The article Morals Over Margins: A Blueprint for a More Equitable Hospitality Industry appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/anti-capitalism-hospitality/

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johnboothus · 3 years

Text

Morals Over Margins: A Blueprint for a More Equitable Hospitality Industry

Fair Wages

A Level Field

A High Road

The Hope

The article Morals Over Margins: A Blueprint for a More Equitable Hospitality Industry appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/anti-capitalism-hospitality/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/morals-over-margins-a-blueprint-for-a-more-equitable-hospitality-industry

0 notes

orbemnews · 4 years

Link

Two of the most powerful economic voices in America disagree on a tax for the uber-rich “Then Janet and I need to have a conversation about implementation,” Warren told CNN Business on Monday after introducing her Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act. The bill would seek to raise $3 trillion to rebuild the economy and fight inequality by imposing a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households and trusts between $50 million and $1 billion. Billionaires would face a 3% tax. “We designed this wealth tax by building on the experiences of other countries that put together a wealth tax and weren’t always successful,” Warren said in the interview. “We saw where the mistakes were and made sure we tightened it up.” $100 billion for the IRS to fight tax cheats Critics argue that taxing wealth would be challenging, if not unconstitutional. In particular, there are concerns about how to value assets and prevent the wealthy from hiding cash overseas Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chief, said last week at a DealBook conference that she isn’t planning a wealth tax like Warren’s because it’s “something that has very difficult implementation problems.” “People say, ‘Well, rich people cheat so we shouldn’t even try to use a wealth tax,'” Warren said. “But if rich people cheat, that doesn’t mean we should just give up and let them pay taxes at lower rates than everyone else. That means we need to hire more enforcement and make them follow the rules.” Warren’s wealth tax comes with teeth. The legislation has a built-in audit rate of 30%, meaning every year nearly a third of all families would be audited. And the bill calls for boosting the budget of the IRS by $100 billion to build up the agency’s audit firepower and modernize IT systems. The Warren plan also proposes a 40% “exit rate” on the net worth above $50 million of any US citizen who renounces their citizen to avoid paying the tax. “Once you’ve got the wealth tax in place, it’s not very hard to monitor year by year. If last year you owned real estate, this year you either better own that same real estate or have a lot of cash that you took in a sale,” Warren said. Fairness in the tax system Asked whether President Joe Biden has any appetite for a wealth tax, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during Monday’s press briefing that Biden “strongly believes that the ultra-wealthy and corporations need to finally start paying their fair share.” “He’s laid out a lot of ideas and when we get to that point in our agenda, he’ll look forward to working with [Warren] and others in Congress,” Psaki said. In other words, the White House didn’t rule it out. Last year, the bottom 99% of households paid about 7.2% of their total wealth in taxes, according to Warren. The top one-tenth of 1%, however, paid just 3.2% of their wealth in taxes. Warren said there is bipartisan support among voters for a wealth tax, including a majority of independents and Republicans. “They understand how unfair the current system is,” she said. The $15 minimum wage fight Warren is also throwing her weight behind an effort to overrule the Senate’s parliamentarian by keeping the $15 minimum wage hike in the Covid relief package. Such a move hasn’t been employed since 1975 and could cause support to crater among moderate Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin. “I would be glad to see us pass minimum wage through reconciliation,” Warren said, referring to the budget process that requires only a simple majority to pass. “And I will fight for that.” Asked about Manchin and other moderates opposing popular measures like the $15 minimum wage, Warren focused on where Democrats agree. “Democrats want to see us increase the minimum wage,” she said. “We need to talk more about exactly what the level is and how to do it. But we want the minimum wage to go up.” Source link Orbem News #America #Disagree #disagreeonataxfortheuber-rich-CNN #Economic #Economy #JanetYellenandElizabethWarren #Powerful #powerfuleconomicvoicesinAmerica #Tax #uberrich #voices

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freenewstoday · 4 years

Photo

New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/03/01/two-of-the-most-powerful-economic-voices-in-america-disagree-on-a-tax-for-the-uber-rich/

Two of the most powerful economic voices in America disagree on a tax for the uber-rich

“Then Janet and I need to have a conversation about implementation,” Warren told CNN Business on Monday after introducing her Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act.

The bill would seek to raise $3 trillion to rebuild the economy and fight inequality by imposing a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households and trusts between $50 million and $1 billion. Billionaires would face a 3% tax.

“We designed this wealth tax by building on the experiences of other countries that put together a wealth tax and weren’t always successful,” Warren said in the interview. “We saw where the mistakes were and made sure we tightened it up.”

$100 billion for the IRS to fight tax cheats

Critics argue that taxing wealth would be challenging, if not unconstitutional. In particular, there are concerns about how to value assets and prevent the wealthy from hiding cash overseas

Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chief, said last week at a DealBook conference that she isn’t planning a wealth tax like Warren’s because it’s “something that has very difficult implementation problems.”

“People say, ‘Well, rich people cheat so we shouldn’t even try to use a wealth tax,'” Warren said. “But if rich people cheat, that doesn’t mean we should just give up and let them pay taxes at lower rates than everyone else. That means we need to hire more enforcement and make them follow the rules.”

Warren’s wealth tax comes with teeth.

The legislation has a built-in audit rate of 30%, meaning every year nearly a third of all families would be audited. And the bill calls for boosting the budget of the IRS by $100 billion to build up the agency’s audit firepower and modernize IT systems.

The Warren plan also proposes a 40% “exit rate” on the net worth above $50 million of any US citizen who renounces their citizen to avoid paying the tax.

“Once you’ve got the wealth tax in place, it’s not very hard to monitor year by year. If last year you owned real estate, this year you either better own that same real estate or have a lot of cash that you took in a sale,” Warren said.

Fairness in the tax system

Asked whether President Joe Biden has any appetite for a wealth tax, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during Monday’s press briefing that Biden “strongly believes that the ultra-wealthy and corporations need to finally start paying their fair share.”

“He’s laid out a lot of ideas and when we get to that point in our agenda, he’ll look forward to working with [Warren] and others in Congress,” Psaki said.

In other words, the White House didn’t rule it out.

Last year, the bottom 99% of households paid about 7.2% of their total wealth in taxes, according to Warren. The top one-tenth of 1%, however, paid just 3.2% of their wealth in taxes.

Warren said there is bipartisan support among voters for a wealth tax, including a majority of independents and Republicans.

“They understand how unfair the current system is,” she said.

The $15 minimum wage fight

Warren is also throwing her weight behind an effort to overrule the Senate’s parliamentarian by keeping the $15 minimum wage hike in the Covid relief package. Such a move hasn’t been employed since 1975 and could cause support to crater among moderate Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin.

“I would be glad to see us pass minimum wage through reconciliation,” Warren said, referring to the budget process that requires only a simple majority to pass. “And I will fight for that.”

Asked about Manchin and other moderates opposing popular measures like the $15 minimum wage, Warren focused on where Democrats agree.

“Democrats want to see us increase the minimum wage,” she said. “We need to talk more about exactly what the level is and how to do it. But we want the minimum wage to go up.”

Source

#disagree on a tax for the uber-rich - CNN #Economy #Janet Yellen and Elizabeth Warren #powerful economic voices in America

0 notes

dipulb3 · 4 years

Text

Two of the most powerful economic voices in America disagree on a tax for the uber-rich

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/two-of-the-most-powerful-economic-voices-in-america-disagree-on-a-tax-for-the-uber-rich/

Two of the most powerful economic voices in America disagree on a tax for the uber-rich

“Then Janet and I need to have a conversation about implementation,” Warren told Appradab Business on Monday after introducing her Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act.

$100 billion for the IRS to fight tax cheats

Critics argue that taxing wealth would be challenging, if not unconstitutional. In particular, there are concerns about how to value assets and prevent the wealthy from hiding cash overseas

Warren’s wealth tax comes with teeth.

The Warren plan also proposes a 40% “exit rate” on the net worth above $50 million of any US citizen who renounces their citizen to avoid paying the tax.

Fairness in the tax system

“He’s laid out a lot of ideas and when we get to that point in our agenda, he’ll look forward to working with [Warren] and others in Congress,” Psaki said.

In other words, the White House didn’t rule it out.

Last year, the bottom 99% of households paid about 7.2% of their total wealth in taxes, according to Warren. The top one-tenth of 1%, however, paid just 3.2% of their wealth in taxes.

Warren said there is bipartisan support among voters for a wealth tax, including a majority of independents and Republicans.

“They understand how unfair the current system is,” she said.

The $15 minimum wage fight

“I would be glad to see us pass minimum wage through reconciliation,” Warren said, referring to the budget process that requires only a simple majority to pass. “And I will fight for that.”

Asked about Manchin and other moderates opposing popular measures like the $15 minimum wage, Warren focused on where Democrats agree.

“Democrats want to see us increase the minimum wage,” she said. “We need to talk more about exactly what the level is and how to do it. But we want the minimum wage to go up.”

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theadmiringbog · 5 years

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The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, “I was wrong.”

—Sydney J. Harris

Each of us has an intense craving for others to see and acknowledge our various identities, a phenomenon that Bartel and Dutton call “identity granting.” They compare the interplay between identity claiming and granting to a public performance and audience reaction. Tina Fey may claim an identity as a funny person, but if audiences don’t find her funny, her identity as a funny person has not been granted. We are vigilant for clues about whether our identity has been granted.

Psychologist William Swann has studied how much we care about this affirmation of ourselves, including one study in which participants were even willing to pay for affirmation. How people treat us and what they say to us affirms us. When we are unsure of whether an important identity has been granted by others, our craving for affirmation becomes more intense and urgent. Psychologists call this a moment of self-threat—our identity is being challenged or dismissed.6 Just as moments of physical threat trigger a hyperfocus on self-preservation, moments of psychological self-threat do the same. If I value being seen as a do-gooder, then I feel self-threat when people judge me as a greedy person, based on stereotypes of my résumé. If I value being seen as a loving mom, then I feel self-threat when other mothers judge me for working full-time outside the home. Once I am in self-threat mode, other problems follow.

It is difficult to overstate just how quickly and seamlessly we deal with self-threats. Our bodies are built to fight off bacteria and our minds are built to fight off self-threat. This does not make us bad people, but it does make us unlikely to recognize when we do bad things. The result is that all of us, even the “good people,” do bad things. It is easy for us to see this in other people and much harder for us to see it in ourselves.

It is hard to explain things that are visible to you and invisible to others, which is how systemic bias works.

We will unpack the work believers need to do to become builders in four phases:

Activating a growth mindset of being a good-ish work-in-progress, not a premade good person;

Seeing the ordinary privilege we hold and putting it to good use on behalf of others;

Opting for willful awareness, though our minds and lives make willful ignorance more likely; and

Engaging the people and systems around us.

Researchers have studied the role of “representation” in talent-search processes and the findings support Brittany’s instincts. Black and Hispanic job applicants are more likely to apply for jobs when black or Hispanic representatives are depicted in company recruitment materials.

If you are underrepresented, you are more likely to look for representation clues, however superficial, and take them into account.

Edmondson finds that “the most important influence on psychological safety is one’s manager.*

Perrin had essentially been told he got the answer wrong. In a fixed mindset, he would tune out, while in a growth mindset, he would tune in. In her book Teaming, Edmondson recommends that leaders foster psychological safety by acknowledging the limits of their current knowledge, displaying fallibility, highlighting failures as learning opportunities, and inviting participation. If Perrin did, it would liberate Brittany to do the same.

As builders, our opportunity is to learn from this anger, not to recoil from or “tone police” it. When people are expressing anger about something being unfair, consider listening with the intent to grow from what you hear. Even if the anger makes you uncomfortable, do not let it stop you from listening.

Vast data shows that owning assets (such as a home) or holding a college diploma moves the starting point forward for future generations.

The bootstrap narrative ignores the crucial role of headwinds and tailwinds.

Computer simulations illustrate how slivers of bias can lead to huge advantage gaps. Psychologists Richard Martell, David Lane, and Cynthia Emrich ran a computer simulation that assumed an organization of five hundred people for whom performance ratings determined promotions. Half could earn a performance rating on a scale from 1 to 100. Half could earn a performance rating on a scale from 1 to 101; this is the sliver of bias in their favor. The simulation ran through twenty promotion cycles to mimic twenty years in an organization. That teeny advantage made a huge difference in who rose through the ranks. By the end, only 35 percent of the senior employees came from the 1-to-100 group while two-thirds came from the 1-to-101 group.

Loving America is the most American of things to do. Why does loving America preclude an honest understanding of our history and its influence in our lives? Patriotism à la carte ignores headwinds and tailwinds, which makes it impossible to see the problems we face, which makes it impossible to be part of the solution. Without a systems view, Colleen becomes a deeper part of the problem. She defends and benefits from a system that she does not even see.

Research finds that when white people feel self-threat about their whiteness, they turn to one of three strategies. They may deny the privilege, like antibelievers. They may distance themselves from other white people, akin to the hard-knock life effect. Or they may work toward dismantling inequality and promoting change, the approach of moving from believer to builder.

In the provocative book A Colony in a Nation, journalist Chris Hayes chronicles the trap of traffic and parking tickets. Hayes argues that revenue generation on the backs of the poor, more than public safety, guides the enforcement of these rules. When viewed through the eyes of the poor, the system is booby-trapped. Discarding tickets is neither an ideal nor an irrational response. The situation faced by Joe’s employee was not as preventable as it might have appeared. What one saw in the system depended on what one noticed in the system.

Bounded awareness is our tendency to not see, seek, or use readily available and relevant information. Sometimes, we do not perceive readily perceivable information. Other times, we perceive relevant information but miss its obvious relevance. In his excellent book The Power of Noticing, Bazerman explains that we are better at focusing than at noticing. The question is not whether we are failing to notice things we should; the question is what we are failing to notice that we should.

Ordinary privilege is the part of our everyday identity we think least about, because we do not need to. For example, I do not use a wheelchair, but I was recently assigned to a wheelchair-accessible hotel room. In this room, the toilet, sink, and door handle were lower than I am used to. While I rarely give any thought to my ability to stand, I thought about it constantly during this hotel stay.

People who can walk are less likely to think about their legs than people who cannot walk. White people are less likely to think about their race. Straight people are less likely to think about their sexual orientation. The upwardly mobile are less likely to think about their economic mobility. Christians are less likely to think about their Christian identity. Native English speakers in the United States are less likely to think about their first language. It is important to realize that this is not because there is anything inherently better about legs, whiteness, straightness, upward mobility, Christianity, or English. Rather, the society in which we live is structured around these identities.

Most of us do not get involved in issues that do not (seem to) affect us directly, where we lack what psychologists Dale Miller and his colleagues call “psychological standing.” Psychological standing is the feeling that it is “legit” for us to get involved. We do not feel like it is our place to say or do something, even when we are just as outraged about an issue as someone who is directly affected. It is not that we lack confidence or fear punishment.

One of the simplest paths to deep change is for the less powerful to speak as much as they listen, and for the more powerful to listen as much as they speak.

—Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road

Kevin recalls, “For a while, in any space we were in, Jodi would say, ‘Wow, look at how many white people are at this thing.’ And I would think, ‘Yes! This is how it always is. Did you not know?’” Kevin, Kyle, and Jodi were all moving forward, but each was in a different place in their learning.

Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, called “reverse mentoring.” Younger folks often reverse mentor their bosses, parents, and grandparents about technology. Young people field many a phone call from Grandpa about the “weefee” (wifi) not working or an email from a boss asking for help printing an attachment.

In hindsight, I wish I had taken the initiative to do some reading before I showed up for that meeting, as it seemed that Mel did all the work to make me less ignorant, when that should have been my job.

“To me, the way we overcome the natural tendency to exclude people—to make people ‘other’—is to get to know each other.”

Our minds can perceive someone as something other than a human being when we otherize them. We are able to make them less human and less like us than they really are. When we otherize someone in this way, they become more like an object or category and less like a person.

There are four modes of behavior that prevent believers from humanizing others and prevent them from becoming a builder. In these four modes—savior, sympathy, tolerance, and typecasting—good intentions are counterproductive.

By trying to be a hero, by feeling bad, by treating difference as something to be tolerated or ignored, or by typecasting someone to be someone they may not be, we operate in modes that do more harm than good.

When we are not thinking of people as individuals or when we are thinking of them as threats, our visual processing works in a different way. Instead of holistic processing, which allows for nuanced perception, we rely on more piecemeal processing of faces. We see the features of the face—the nose and the eyes—as standalone visual stimuli, not as part of a coherent whole. As a result, we do not deploy the same cognitive prowess in detecting the thoughts, emotions, and motives of this three-dimensional human being. We, literally, see the homeless stranger as less human.

We volunteer our time and contribute our dollars to people and causes and, in doing so, we feel good when others let us help them. Social scientists call this the “warm-glow effect.”9 That warm glow is a few favors away from being a serious problem in which we see ourselves as saviors who sweep into causes and communities to perform a rescue mission.

Saviors like problems because we get to solve them. That is a good feeling. But when we are in savior mode, we forget that there are real people behind the problems. When I am in savior mode, I otherize the very people I want to support, prioritizing my needs over theirs.

“Who feels an ego boost after I do XYZ, me or the other person?,” it is obvious how I am centering my needs over theirs.

When we feel sorry for someone, we inadvertently put ourselves in the high-power position.

“What’s this tolerance business? What do you tolerate, back pain?” Hari fakes a grimace with a hand on his back. “‘I’ve been tolerating back pain . . . and the gay Latino at work.’ It’s a very low bar for humanity.”14 Tolerance otherizes difference.

Managing diversity suggests there is a problem to be solved. The alternate approach is leveraging difference, where there is an opportunity to be seized.

If we are works-in-progress, we will sometimes do the wrong thing. Try, instead, to think or say “I just slipped into savior mode . . . let me drag myself out by refocusing on you and how you are seeing this situation” or “I’m really caught up in how sad this is making me feel right now. Can I have a moment to regroup so I can focus on your experience instead?” Otherwise, the fixed mindset tax will make it hard for you to do anything. Remember the psychology of good-ish people.

They make the mistake of believing that diversity and inclusion are the same thing. Inclusion is what happens before and after the official decisions in which people are formally brought into a group. Think of diversity as the gateways to schools, organizations, and communities, and inclusion as the pathways leading up to and after that gateway. In other words, gateways are the decision points when we track the diversity numbers, such as admissions, hiring, promotions, and salary decisions. Pathways are the moments that shape those outcomes, but they are not tracked by a formal statistic.

“Most of the shows I do concern a group of people who are not listened to or are not heard. I don’t claim to understand an experience that is not mine but I still work to understand it.”

“planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.”

There are three types of individuals in organizations facing change. One group of 20 percent is on board with the change and ready to go. Another 20 percent will resist or even sabotage your efforts; they will drain your energy. The leverage rests with the “movable middle” 60 percent; they are reading the room and can be influenced by either 20 percent group.

Open your heart to what the other party needs, if anything. “It is very humbling to sit and say ‘Let me let you lead. Let me ask questions and be curious and listen deeply. Let me listen to what you need.’” As builders, we can hear the growth mindset in Rabbi Solomon’s approach. Wise as he and we are, his emphasis is not on the counsel he can offer or the wisdom he can deliver. He is listening to what others already know and experience. Showing support does not begin with having a solution. They know more than he does.

#The Person You Mean to Be #books

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philanilanga-blog · 6 years

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Life in the community, A great struggle!!

From Frank, G., & Zemke, R. (2008)

Life, such a complicated and an unfair thing, but what choice do one have except accepting and trying to find other means of living in unfair systems, systems of politics where most of the promises are made to community members by those in power such as the councils who represent their political parties. Sadly, that council is not just an insider but a member of the community who knows almost all the struggle in the community but once they in power they start to provide services with favouritism, indeed a sad and unfair life in the community.

A social transformation model of occupational therapy is to be utilized to discuss life in the community to gain and express life of a community through an occupational therapy model. Owen et al. (2014) provides that occupational therapist uses the models because they leave no room for confusion about occupational therapist’s assumptions about humans and occupation, which are factors that make up the community, models also gives us guidance and help us as health care professionals to collect information in a detailed fashion. This text will focus on the components inside the circle of the model which entails system of distributing wealth and power, quality of natural and built environment, access to information and resource, cultural discourses and practises, education, primary health care, sanitation, shelters, food security, disability, tribal positions in social context, governmental Laws and policies. The components mentioned have relationship directly to the individual change component, because under individual change we look at occupational choices, activity settings, cultural scripts amongst other factors. With community A, in terms of power and wealth distribution, looking closely where I work at, one can hardly point the differences because most of them are condensed flats which a seemingly same, however as you go in outer scale , self-built houses are seen, this creates an imaginary unequal distribution of wealth among the Community A members, therefore there is an evident in inequity as there are also shacks and inequality is also evident, this are also the issues that the people in the politics needs to address because you find those in poor settings with disabilities but cannot get services even though they voted. The natural environment is friendly with the open spaces where garden can be made, you can clearly tell that there were farming practises performed, but not anymore, there are built up structures such as the railway lines as a mode of transport which is good, streets and roads even though ones safety is not ensured and they have a nice library which serve a good purpose in the community as part of leisure, work and studying opportunities and it is a source of information and electronic resources including books and computers, they also have a swimming pool which help children as they are trained , this helps a lot in aiding their development. There is no police station close by for correctional measures mostly violence is solved by violence, meaning that there are know men in the community who provides punishment in form of beating. With cultural activities, little is observed as these people are of mixed ancestry Martin (1998), but mostly smoking is more prevalent. Education system is very good, creches available closely, primary school and high school are close together and easily accessible with educators who put their attention to any problems that needs to be addressed, especially if it affects learning such as drugs and learning difficulties. Regarding sanitation, food security and shelters, these are in good state since mostly in flats they have running water and running toilets, there soup kitchens with the shelters build as flat, however houses become problematic once one has a disability in terms of mobilising because of stairs. The community do have a primary healthcare as a clinic, which is always busy which serves as proof people are utilising it, in addition it provides services such as the CCG, social worker, counselling and an ambulance. Disability is the main problematic inside component of the model which directly affect the individual change, this negatively affects one’s ability to access health care facilities with an ease, occupational choices starts to change, majority of those with disabilities in this community stays indoors, daily routines are also negatively affected due to support and assistance required from the care givers which some of care givers are now experiencing the burden of looking after them. The governmental law and polices for this community are challenging, for example there was a case which required the school to send the learner home and never come back as he was a great danger in everyone is school premises, but the law say they must find another school for him not send him home, so this practically means that the school will be transferring danger to another school off which it is still a big challenge.

This community have the inside factors of the model directly relating to the individual change, therefore in order for community members to experience this change, the dynamics inside the circle has to change, and who knows maybe those with political powers can start to pay attention to the needs of the community rather than personal gains, this can be also obtained should the occupational therapists form a sound collaboration with the government and NGOs to achieve the goal of making peoples live better in the society.

Frank, G., & Zemke, R. (2008). Occupational therapy foundations for political engagement and social transformation. A political practice of occupational therapy, 111-136.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-social-transformation-model-of-occupational-therapy-Occupational-therapists_fig1_285590870- model diagram, Retrieved 08 March 2019

Martin, D. C. (1998). What's in the Name'Coloured'?. Social identities, 4(3), 523-540.

Owen, A., Adams, F., & Franszen, D. (2014). Factors influencing model use in occupational therapy. South African Journal of Occupational Therapy, 44(1), 41-47.

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fitnesshealthyoga-blog · 6 years

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New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/this-is-how-science-can-fix-its-glaring-gender-inequality-problem/

This is how science can fix its glaring gender inequality problem

When Sarah Kaplan, professor of gender and the economy at the University of Toronto, recently got invited to speak on a panel where she was the only woman, she immediately wrote back saying this was inexcusable.

She got an apologetic answer from the organisers of the academic conference saying that they had tried, that they had invited six women, but that they hadn’t found anyone.

“They said they had worked hard to find women speakers, and I am sure they had,” she says. “But they should have worked extra hard and put extra effort in this. That’s how you start making change.”

It’s a mantra we all know: we need more women in science. But with female researchers making up only a third of the scientific workforce in North America and Europe, it’s clear we’re not doing very well when it comes to turning our well-meaning sentiments into hard actions.

Why exactly is that? To try to answer that question, medical journal The Lancet launched a special issue on February 8, 2019, dedicated to mapping the causes and consequences of gender inequality in the scientific community.

That inequality starts right at the beginning of the scientific process – when researchers petition for cash from funding bodies. It had already been shown that men, for instance, had better odds than women of obtaining funding for their research – and one of the main studies published in this issue of The Lancet identifies where and when that gender gap originates. Things start going wrong, the issue explains, during the process of evaluating which research projects should be allocated public money. Evaluators tend to base their decision to invest on the scientist and not on the science proposed.

The research team, from a range of Canadian universities, analysed almost 24,000 applications submitted over five years at a national funding agency in Toronto. It divided funding applications between two grant programmes: one in which the review focused on the quality of the science proposed, and one where it focused on the calibre of the applicant.

Criteria for funding in the first programme, for example, included “importance” and “quality” of the idea; while the second one asked the candidate to demonstrate their leadership or productivity skills. In the first case scenario, the proportion of male and female-led proposals that received funding were roughly the same. But when the funding bodies focused on assessing the candidates, male applicants were 44 per cent more likely to be granted public money than female applicants.

The solution seems straightforward, then: reviews of research applications shouldn’t be accompanied by any information about their applicant’s gender.

Not so fast, says Holly Witteman, from the University Laval in Quebec, and lead author of the study. “It is really important to diagnose the problem well,” she says. “If the problem is implicit or explicit bias against female researchers, then concealing their identity is a good way to fix that. But if the problem is systemic, then anonymity could actually make things worse.”

That’s because there are some inequalities within the system that gender-neutral pronouns or blind reviewing can’t tackle. Inequalities that range from the allocation of lab spaces to sexual harassment, and which all contribute to reducing the quality of the work that female researchers can produce. Witteman calls that “cumulative disadvantage”.

It might be unfair, in this case, to review the work of female scientists based on the same criteria as that of male scientists – and that’s where gender-neutral pronouns and blind reviewing become counter-productive.

Turns out science’s focus on male mammals is really bad for women

Witteman herself holds a foundation grant. One quarter of the criteria to obtain it was based on her ability to demonstrate leadership in her career. “I’m in a medical school,” she says, “and we’ve never had a female Dean. The current Rector is a woman, but that’s a first in the 350 years that the institution has existed.” For many female researchers, arguing their case against male applicants is like racing against someone who has been given a head start.

This is why one of the solutions she suggests is to adjust review scores for women, to account for gender inequalities that exist within the system.

“Funding groups like the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the US do those adjustments for specific groups that are disadvantaged, like early career investigators,” she says. “So that’s one potential avenue.”

Kaplan, in the paper she published in The Lancet, advocates for similar solutions. The fix isn’t just about bringing more women – and minorities – to the scientific workforce to increase diversity, she says, it’s also crucial to bring them to a system that is built to give them the same opportunities as men.

Including more people who have been historically underrepresented in certain fields – in this case, women and minorities in science – without then investing in mentoring and supporting them, will only backfire, she continues.

“That’s why just focusing on diversity doesn’t work,” she says. “If you fail on the second part, which is to make people actually want to stay by giving them opportunities, they will eventually leave.”

A major obstacle standing in the way of inclusivity, however, is the nature of bias. That is because at its very origin, bias is a process of categorisation that is central to the way we socialise.

Because of the amount of information it receives, the brain simplifies things for us by attributing most of it to categories that our neocortical system has drawn throughout a lifetime of observation.

Those categories, such as race, age or gender, originate from patterns we perceive, and come to define our beliefs and expectations. For example, if we have rarely been exposed to female scientists, our brains will automatically perceive female scientists as being against the norm. And when something is embedded in the brain in such a way, changing it is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

If gender bias is endemic, then, does it mean that there is little hope for women who wish to have a scientific career? Kaplan, for one, is far from admitting defeat.

If we want people to change those categories, she argues, we have to start by fixing the procedures and practices of the system they are part of. “What we have been doing until now,” she says, “is just telling people that they are biased and hoping that they will change their behaviour. That doesn’t work. We have to give them the tools to do so.”

In evaluating research papers, for example, reviewers could have checklists – “scientists love checklists, why can’t they have one for this?” she asks – to make sure that criteria has been adjusted when reviewing papers submitted by women.

This is not just about defending the democratic ideal of equality – not that there is anything wrong with that. But in another study published by The Lancet demonstrates that it is also the quality of scientific research that is strongly linked to the gender of the scientists leading it.

The gender pay gap data is useful but it’s just the first step

Studies led by two females, indeed, are 26 per cent more likely to report on both male and female models than those that are not. And this is important, because the same study, after analysing 11.5 million research papers published between 1980 and 2016, found that almost 70 per cent of them failed to report on outcomes for both men and women.

Sex accounts for many biological differences in vulnerability to heart disease or autoimmune issues, among many others. And the consequences of science’s lack of concern for sexual variations are already well known. Consumer organisation DrugWatch estimates that women have twice as many chances of developing an adverse reaction to medication than men do, for example. That’s due to the fact that many drugs are developed based on male models; and now, this study demonstrates that this is more likely to happen when research is carried out by men.

While that can’t prove directly, of course, that including more female scientists in the workforce will directly lead to more sex-diverse research, it is a fair assumption to make that case, says its lead author Vincent Lariviere, from the University of Montreal.

More should be done, therefore, to increase funding for female-led research, or to impose the study of both sexes as a criteria for allocating grants. But that is not all. “We don’t just need more women in the system,” says Lariviere, “but more women in leadership positions, so that they have the power to decide what research is going to be done.”

And the implications go far behind science. For Witteman, getting scientific equality right is a matter of public health: “these are public dollars, and they are scarce,” she says. “It is important that they get allocated to research that will effectively improve public health – men’s and women’s.”

Sarah Kaplan’s five solutions to achieving gender equality in medicine

1. Treat gender equality as an innovation challenge

When you introduce a new initiative to increase productivity in the workplace, you typically come armed with tools to measure its success, and openness to its potential failure. Gender equality is the same, says Kaplan. We need to consistently measure how inclusive the scientific community is, to hold it accountable – but more importantly, so that we can change tactics when old ways stop working.

2. Change institutional norms

It sounds ambitious, and it is ambitious – but Kaplan argues that the key to change is in leadership. “If you are privileged, you are responsible,” she says. It is basic behavioural science: if leaders stop engaging in discriminatory attitudes, it will influence the way their employees react. And when everyone around them appears to value diversity, individuals are more likely to join the bandwagon.

3. Make people responsible for change

It isn’t enough to impose diversity training or anti-bias programmes on individuals, who are likely to resist something that they’re being strong-armed into complying. That dynamic changes when someone is made personally responsible for the success of someone else. Kaplan advocates the introduction, for example, of sponsorship programmes, in which sponsors feel invested in the careers of their protégés.

4. Write guidelines and make plans

Similarly, we have to go one step further than simply telling people they are biased, and leaving them with a set of values they should strive for. There are concrete solutions that can be shown to individuals to help them change their behaviour. The Engendering Success in STEM consortium, for example, has created aworksheet as a starting point for organisations to set their goals for inclusivity.

5. Make organisations accountable

“What gets measured gets done” is a maxim that should be applied to diversity as well. And measurements of progress should be taken at the level of the individual, of course, but also at the level of the organisation. Therefore, we need to create a larger institution, says Kaplan, to monitor and keep track of our entire system’s progress towards diversity.

Updated 08.02.19, 17:20 GMT: This article has been updated to better reflect Sarah Kaplan’s views on quotas.