Joan C. Williams
Blog Post List
February 7, 2010
The Poor Kim Braithwaite was making progress. She was working two jobs to support her two children, 9-year old Justina and 1-year-old Justin. But on October 12, 2003, she faced a dilemma: her babysitter was late. Kim would be tardy for her shift at McDonald's if she delayed and she worried that she would be fired. The sitter would arrive in a few minutes, Kim reasoned, and she left for work. The next she heard was from the police. Her children were found dead in her front room; her apartment had caught fire before the babysitter arrived. Kim was arrested for child neglect. Said a neighbor, "...
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November 18, 2009
"When I started my faculty position, I occasionally would bring our 8-month-old to work. On several occasions my colleagues (male), would say, 'So, you're babysitting today, eh?" If our son had been with my wife, no one would have said she was babysitting, not being a parent. It discouraged me from bringing my son to work." A couple of weeks ago, the Center for WorkLife Law launched its new web-based Gender Learning Project, designed for professors, at www.genderbiaslearning.com . The training introduces the four basic types of gender bias professional women often encounter and -- as the...
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October 21, 2009
When I was writing my book Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict in the late 1990s, I was hoeing a lonely field. Feminism was all about domestic violence, sexual harassment, pornography. Work-family issues were just...dowdy. Much has changed, and it's exciting to have talented and dedicated colleagues. Heather Boushey and Ann O'Leary's important new report, written for Maria Shriver's project with the Center for American Progress, was published to much fanfare (see http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/10/pdf/awn/executive_summary.pdf ), and the White House declared November...
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October 19, 2009
I love Maureen Dowd because she is the only New York Times op-ed writer who understands class. Gender...not so much. Case in point is " Blue is the New Black ," in which she tackles the issue of why American women have gotten gloomier since 1972, with a trend line that's truly depressed. Men are getting happier. Who knew? We women are less happy because now we have choices, Dowd tells us. "Choice is inherently stressful," she quotes her source as saying, "And women are being driven to distraction." Let me get this straight. Choices for the American consumer -- good. Drives the economy...
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March 26, 2009
It’s no surprise to the vast majority of us who have both a job and family responsibilities that something’s not working at work. The American workplace is perfectly suited for the American workforce…of the 1950s. Even today, when 46% of the U.S. workforce is made up of women and 81% of women have children by age 44, most good jobs in the U.S.
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