Binders full of bitches!

Let's be clear.

Mitt Romney does not believe that women come in binders or that Big Bird should be tossed out on the street. Personally, I find the imagery of "a binder full of women" pretty funny, but I have to roll my eyes at the eagerness to latch onto the newest "OMG, did he really just say that?!" meme-generating gaffe. Not because I agree with Mittens (do we really want our Commander in Chief to carry that pet name into negotiations?), but because focusing on slips of the tongue lets the real issues slip by unchallenged and unreported.

I believe that Mitt Romney is a smart, capable man. I don't believe that he is Mr. Burns. I don't believe that he wants women to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, or that he doesn't love his family, or he thinks the arts are a waste of time, or any of those things. I think that he is a good enough guy that thinks he can steer this country in the right direction. But he's wrong.

The thing about remarks like the "binder full of women" is that they are ignorant, not malicious. And ignorance has to do with upbringing. It's not Mitt's fault that he grew up wealthy, or that he was born white and male. He didn't ask for the preferential treatment he's received all his life, and he didn't create the circumstances that led to it. And here's the best part: being so sheltered, he doesn't even recognize it as privilege. It's called a blind spot. I have no doubt that he worked hard for what he got. But it's that campaign slogan of "we built it" that rings of the type of arrogant impunity this sort of privilege engenders. He may have worked hard, but the framework was there for him that allowed his hard work to pay off. If the system works well, you don't recognize the framework that holds it in place. But for an enormous percentage of Americans, that framework is either designed to keep them in poverty, or designed to keep them dependent on a spouse. Their hard work doesn't pay off the way Mitt's did. And it won't unless we try to correct the framework.

The first step is admitting you have a problem. And it is here where the Republican Party seems so outdated and out-of-touch with reality. There are politicos that deny the existence of the wage gap between men and women. A Republican hopeful said that black people have no work ethic. How and why is this happening?! Because they feel threatened, and rightfully so. Their privilege is threatened by admitting to its existence. When correcting an unbalanced power dynamic, those with power are going to lose some of it. This is not a popular concept, for many good reasons. We balk at the idea of taking something away from someone to give to others. We search for other means. We operate under the belief that "you built that," and no one should be able to take it away from you, even though what is being "taken" is really just an unfair advantage that you did nothing to earn, save being born white and male. It is as though, to find true equilibrium, the pendulum has to swing the other way, but with all the wealth and power on one side of the gap, they are trying to force it to a standstill before it can encroach on their space.

This is the "reverse racism" and "reverse sexism" that people like to tout. And I get it, I really do. I hate the idea that I might be hired based on my sex, rather than my qualifications. Many racial minorities feel similarly, I hear tell. It is not ideal. The answer to racism and sexism is to stop using race and sex as determining factors, not to alter the result of the determination. But here is the thing: we aren't there yet. If we were to dismantle all the laws and restrictions on hiring and pay practices in the private sector, relying only on the benevolence of CEOs to search out their own "binders full of women" and, presumably, binders full of racial minorities, we would find ourselves slipping backwards toward a "Mad Men"-style work environment. Not (and this is important) because they think women and minorities are less qualified or capable, but because we, as human beings, act on what we know. Because of the systemic inequalities of the past, the models we have for successful businesses do not include women or minorities at the top. As such, unintentional prejudice continues, and will continue to exist until we arrive at a generation where models for success are also models of diversity.

This laissez-faire attitude toward workplace inequality is what was wrong with "the binders full of women" remarks. And it is important to point out that Mitt thought that this anecdote presented him as respectful toward women. Had he known how it would be taken, he wouldn't have said it. I am strongly reminded of one of my favorite "South Park" episodes, "The N-word." In it, Stan's dad says the n-word on public TV, and Stan tries to apologize to Token at school. Throughout the episode, Stan tries numerous tactics of understanding and sympathy, all to no avail. He gets more and more frustrated by his inability to make amends, until finally, he throws his hands up and says, "I don't get it," to which Token replies, "now you get it." Genius. And true.

I kind of feel for Mitt after the debate, because he has to be wondering why, when he was honestly trying to be understanding and sympathetic, people are treating him like he's the biggest misogynist ever to run for office. I imagine him pulling at his Ken-doll quaff in utter confusion and dismay, crying, "what can I do to make them see that I understand?!" The answer, Mittens, is that you have to admit that you don't understand. In Stan's words, "you totally don't get it." You never will. Admit that the circumstances of your birth have provided you with unearned privilege, and we will forgive you the fact that you capitalized on said privilege. Admit that being born a white male makes it impossible for you to really understand oppression, and we will recognize that you had no more say in determining your race or sex than we did. Anything else is condescending and disrespectful. Recognizing your own privilege is the only way to truly be respectful to the underprivileged.

But again, admitting you have a problem is the first step. In this case, the problem is something a lot of people benefit from, including Mitt, and so it's hard to get them to admit it. It's like trying to stage an intervention with a drug addict when the drug in question makes the user healthier, happier, better educated, more attractive, and pays them really well; in fact, the only detriment is felt by those pleading with the user to stop.  It's easy to point the finger bak at us, the interventionists, to say, "hey! Maybe if you get health insurance, eat better, study harder, dress more like me, and work as hard as I do, you wouldn't have a problem!" Suggesting, of course, that we don't want health insurance, access to healthier foods and better schools, that there's something inherently better about the way you look, and that we don't work as hard. When the fact is, despite your hard work and aims at self-determination, it is the drug (read: privilege) that has made it so that your efforts have been rewarded to a much greater degree than ours. In effect, you are the societal equivalent of Lance Armstrong. Your privilege is a form of social doping that gives you an artificial leg up on the women and minorities that are trying to do things the old-fashioned way. Like Lance, you have been winning the race for years (millennia), and it's time to even the playing field.

One of the other things that is so infuriating about the remarks made at the debate is that, in the entirety of the poorly-worded anecdote, not once did it address the question asked. Now, this is old hat, politically speaking, but in the focus on word choice, the evasion was largely ignored. What Mitt addressed, poorly, was an employment gap, not a pay gap. Before I address the pay gap, lets take a look at his thoughts on the employment gap. Apart from being patronizing in tone, his solution was patronizing in practice: women should trust the men at the top, like Mitt, to act in their best interests, rather than trying to demand equal treatment themselves. Better yet, it's not just patronizing, but also untrue! Mitt is asking us to trust people like him, but even he didn't act of his own accord. Turns out, the women's group were the ones who approached him, not the other way around! So, presumably, were it not for the uppity women bringing him binders full of other uppity women demanding to be taken seriously, his cabinet wouldn't have been quite so diverse. Not to mention the fact that, in all its diversity, the positions held by women were largely ones Mitt didn't really care all that much about. And yet, he would have us believe that, were we to let CEOs and other business owners and managers act without intervention, the inequality in the workplace would sort itself out. Right.

But back to the pay gap (you know, the actual question at hand). Women make 72 cents for every dollar men make. Quite often, people try to diffuse this statistic by citing the employment gap, saying that women hold less high-ranking positions, don't work as many hours, etc. Let me try to make this clear. This statistic is an average of the pay gaps between men and women at equal levels of employment. We are not comparing a CEO to a school teacher, but a CEO to a CEO, a school teacher to a school teacher, etc. Levels of experience, qualifications, years on the job, hours worked, positive reviews, all of this is taken into account, and we still have a gap of 28 cents.

So lets imagine a simpler universe for a moment to parse out this statistic, and the problem it presents. A man and a woman work at the same company, have the same job title, put in the same hours, receive the same good reviews on the merits of their work, and yet the woman is paid 28 cents less, per dollar, than the man. The company cannot afford to raise their cumulative salaries. In the simplified universe, the way to correct this is to take 14 cents from every dollar the man makes, and give it to the woman. Now, wait a minute! Didn't the man earn that 14 cents? After all, he's done nothing to warrant a pay cut, and that's what he's been making for as long as he's held this position. I hear you, I really do. It is unfair to force a pay cut on someone who didn't ask to be paid that extra 28 cents in the first place. If we could all have our druthers, I would simply say that we should up the woman's pay to be equal to the man's, with no detriment to the man. Unfortunately, at the higher levels of employment, we're not talking about 28 cents, but rather thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and not all companies can afford to adjust the pay gap without detriment to the men. So, if we look at this 14 cents taken from the man's salary not as something he earned, but as a bonus just for being born male, it becomes a bit easier to swallow. Still, it is a hard truth, and even I have a hard time forcing it down.

None of this is simple, though. None of it is easy. For as much as we like to believe that our change is progress, that we are only trying to make things better for everyone, there are always going to be those that benefitted from the way things have been. And when they see the framework changing, they feel threatened. They feel victimized . But I will say this with as much compassion and understanding as I can: your pain doesn't even come close.

You may deserve compassion, but we deserve justice.