#the ppl who will expand gender equality

[killerpancakeburger]

Avec l'organisation en catastrophe de ces élections, les mairies galèrent à trouver des assesseurs. N'hésitez pas à vous porter volontaire. Il suffit just de contacter votre mairie, soit par téléphone, certaines ont des formulaires de candidature en ligne.

Il s'agit de tenir un bureau de vote, en controllant les identités (juste demander à la personne une pièce d'identité) et en vérifiant que la personne voulant voter est bien inscrite sur la liste électorale. C'est très simple à faire et ça permet d'aider à faire fonctionner la démocratie. Vous pouvez rester toute la journée (8h-20h dans les grandes villes) ou seulement quelques heures, comme ça vous chante.

Vous pouvez aussi vous proposer pour être scrutateur ! Ça veut dire compter les bulletins de votes à la fin de la journée. Selon la quantité de votes ça peut prendre entre 1 et 2h. Il suffit de demander aux membres du bureau de vote s'ils cherchent des gens pour compter les bulletins.

besties, french results for the european elections are kinda disgusting (as expected) and the president just dissolved the national assembly (unpredictable and stupid) which will probably lead to more far right ppl in the parliament (expected and horrible) so my french besties lets go vote on june 30 pls (im begging)

[thecoolerliauditore]

Pls tell me about Scott's views on women in general pls I'm begging you

o7 and I'm sorry

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fyi, the post itself isn't NSFW, but I'll be getting all gender theory in this bitch so I'll be referencing a lot of things and putting in pictures of naked ppl sometimes. maybe skip this one if you don't like that

(long post)

Disclaimers

An explanation for the tweet up there

I usually don't write these because I assume the people on my blog have enough sense to realise when I'm talking about the characters vs the CCs or are comfortable enough being a little confused, but I feel the need to extra-clarify here and expand on how I specifically view C vs CC because I think it differs a little from the average person.

To me, C and CC are two separate entities but not entirely disconnected. What differs (e.g. the exclusion of irl relationships -- their wives, kids, etc.) is poignant enough to severely detach them from the people they originated from, at least in my eyes, but there's also the fact that these are not scripted characters, just creators being themselves with a hint of behind the scenes drama-adding and improv thrown in.

For example, CC Pearl is a car nerd. So I assume her character is too.

This is where I state very clearly that yes, a lot of these thoughts come from things I've seen on Scott's twitter, which is undoubtedly the CC and not the C. However I, to me, am still talking about the C because any observations/judgments I could make on actual irl youtuber CC guy Scott Major would be tabloid at best and slightly invasive at worst. I'm seeing these statements within the context of "the death game guy would say this too and I'm writing this based on that", not "this is the inner psychological workings of the youtuber because I, as a fan, can totally tell".

TLDR I don't consider this post RPF but you might. This is a little more RPF-y than my usual stuff. If you don't rock with it we cool.

Everyone is weird about women, and that's okay

One short-hand I've used in the past to talk about Scott and women is just by saying that he's "weird about women" which I'm sure isn't exclusive to him.

(shitpost I made awhile back)

I see a lot of people now who love "villains" and "evil" but when it comes to any traits resembling real life evil (e.g. misogyny in this case) they suddenly become insecure. Just a couple of days back a saw a post on twitter essentially asking for permission to continue liking CC Scott in spite of the "bad things" he did.

And I think, in order to present an analysis like this, I must address that mindset first.

This is not a judgment on Scott's morality, nor is it trying to dissuade you from liking him. This is not saying that he is any more misogynistic than any other player in the series. This is just me pointing out Scott's attitude towards women and what I read it as, nothing less or more.

The feelings that me pointing these things out - be they apathy, disgust, anger or, what I would hope to see most, interest - are your own. I'm not here to tell anyone how to feel and never will try to police that on my blog.

Scott's Relationships with Women

aka. oh yeah this is about minecraft.

Scott and Cleo || "Yeah, you can kill me."

Scott and Cleo's alliance is arguably the strongest in the entire series, spanning through all five seasons and remaining unbroken with no (serious) drama attached. You'd expect from this that they two have a very settled and stable understanding of eachother, yet this isn't a case.

Their power dynamic shifts dramatically from one season to the next.

3L's initial Widows Alliance began on fairly equal footing, built on the mutual agreement that they were waiting for their respective partners to die. Both understood they were eachothers' "plan B" and felt comfortable in that arrangement.

Come LL, Cleo does what she couldn't in 3L, and initiates that plan, going to Scott after her last alliance, the fairy fort, fell apart. Scott requests nothing from her in return.

DL is the longest the two spent as eachothers main ally. Cleo is the one who initially proposes teaming up to spite their "cheating" soulmates and Scott agrees. Cleo admits to Martyn in private that she's aware she's taking advantage of Scott (which I've always interpreted as her talking about all seasons, not just DL). Due to the time they spend together, it's here where it becomes apparent that their initial assumptions during 3L were not entirely accurate, as Scott shows a level of gameplay competency much higher than Cleo's (e.g. teaching her how to axe-crit) but despite this Scott never berates her or thinks any less of her value as his ally.

LimL is probably this pairing at their most unhinged, as Scott, despite once again asking for nothing (or very little -- I'll be honest I'm a bit fuzzy on this) in return from Cleo, allows them and their allies to butcher him repeatedly for time. He gives more time to the Clockers than he does to Martyn, his closest ally that season. Despite this, Scott is never ever considered as a "family member" by the Clockers, despite them giving that title to even temporary allies (like the Bad Boys being their cousins) -- even Martyn gets a title with Scott completely unattached.

SL is relatively more chill, but shows that the two inevitably end up teaming together even despite their oath to avoid eachother that season.

The point being -- again and again, we see Scott literally and metaphorically making sacrifices for Cleo, with the only real transaction he requires from her being that she continues having his back when times get rough. This is despite that he's aware she isn't any more capable than he is and the fact that so far it has only been Cleo in rough times (LL, LimL and SL) and never Scott.

Speaking from a purely transactional perspective, Scott is not getting a bargain here -- and even Cleo seems acutely aware of it, judging by her comment during DL as well as the way she tends to speak of her survival capabilities very lowly in general ("rubbish pvp skills and spiffy one-liners"). I'm speaking in this sense because I've seen discussions in the past about the transactional way Scott views relationships but rarely does Cleo get brought up.

This is at stark contrast to how he treats Jimmy, whose predicted death was what spurred on Scott and Cleo's alliance in the first place.

Scott assumes Jimmy is "incompetent", where he assumes Cleo is capable. When Jimmy messes up, he reprimands him, when Cleo struggles to crit him, he patiently teaches her. When LL begins, Scott's first instinct was to look at Jimmy's lives and note that he was "useless to (him)", but holds no objections to Cleo joining his alliance despite her already having enemies being a potential liability. In SL, he jokes about how Cleo and him being allied is a given and pretty much expected of them, whereas in LimL he explicitly requests from Jimmy a recognition that he still cares ("say love you back!") before he will help him.

Scott and Gem || "You HAVE TO kill me, Gem,"

In SL, Gem settles in very easily in a leadership position within Gem and the Scotts due to her trying to live up to her reputation but also due to Scott and Impulse's more laid back, passive playstyles.

Both Scott and Impulse let Gem kill them for extra health this season, although Scott is arguably much more subservient than Impulse is, with him not only insisting that she kill him in the final episode but also not fighting back (and only yelling for her to stop) when she starts hitting him with a sword during the episode where her task was to literally kill everyone on the server.

Once again comparing her to Jimmy, Scott in 3L had a tendency to brush aside Jimmy's concerns over alliances (e.g. Jimmy questioning if they could trust Cleo) while in SL Scott runs his plans by Gem (and Pearl and Impulse) in terms of who he wanted to team up with (specifically excluding Joel from the potential mounders alliance) implying he held her opinion in some form of regard.

Before this becomes less of an analysis of Scott's treatment of men vs women and more of Scott's treatment of Jimmy vs everyone else, I think it's notable enough to mention that he and Martyn also lacked this sort of communication in LimL. He would inform Martyn of his plans, but rarely was it ever framed as a request.

SL almost feels as if Scott has slid Gem into the slot he had previously designated for Cleo in 3L (his girlboss ally) as he provides her and pretty much forces onto her by the end the acts of service he'd become accustomed to performing for Cleo.

Scott and Lizzie || "You killed her! I don't.. I don't know what to even say!"

Relatively shorter section because this is the one woman he hasn't teamed with, but there's still some interesting stuff I wanted to touch on.

In LL, one of the first thing Scott does is yell at Pearl to revenge-kill Joel for boogey-killing him. Pearl does as she's told and Joel's wet miserable pathetic LL life gets worse from there.

Several episodes later, the roles are reversed -- Lizzie lies to both of them and manages to isolate and boogey-kill Pearl. Scott, instead of reacting with the anger he had for Joel, is almost in a state of shock as he asks Lizzie to let him down so he could collect Pearl's belongings. He doesn't act aggressively towards Lizzie at all, with his most antagonizing act against her being to lie about his intentions when giving her a wither skull.

In SL, he's the only one aware of her early permadeath, but keeps quiet about it almost as if he's in a state of shock akin to when he saw Lizzie kill Pearl in LL. It's not until the others have noticed when he finally brings it up.

Scott and Pearl || "Tilly death do us 'part"

I wrote a whole post just for their relationship alone so for the sake of my sanity I'll be leaving this here.

So now I get to dedicate this section to the meat of this post -- how the way Scott treats women in general impacts his relationship with Pearl and how I view his heel-turn on her as seeping with relevance to Pearl's perceived gender.

In all three of the previous sections, the running theme is that Scott is 1. kinder and more patient with women, regardless of their competency and 2. someone who likes to be in a supporting role to women, occasionally aiding them more than he aids himself and his closer male allies (e.g. Jimmy and Martyn). As shown with Cleo, he assumes that girls have it together, but even if they don't it's not a big deal. When a girl's actions are truly disastrous, such as with Lizzie's, he goes into a state of shock and doesn't really react, preferring to swallow it down and not acknowledge it.

With the amount of times he sacrifices himself, I don't think it's a reach to say that Scott values his own life less than he values the lives of his (female) allies. This specific point actually does extend to his male allies too, shown when he's happy when Martyn literally backstabs him in LimL, but just as with the Martyn post where I point out his victim status-ing doesn't end at only women but includes all the women, Scott has pedastal-ed all the women he's teamed with.

Lizzie is, once again, the exception here due to his limited interactions with her. However that's actually somewhat patched over if you look at adjacent series (such as x-life) where he definitely shows her a level of admiration and respect.

Back to Scott and Pearl.

Their relationship during LL is very standard of how Scott treats women. While the power dynamic between them is obviously more caused by the initial life trade agreement, I don't think it's a far reach to say that Scott is somewhat comfortable in the arrangement.

However, this is also the first thing that sets their relationship apart from Scott with Cleo or Gem -- Pearl is the one making sacrifices, not Scott. She is the one "sacrificing" her lives to him, just in a more non-violent way as allowed by the season's mechanics.

When viewed through this lens, Scott trying to make it up to her and wanting his effort acknowledged makes even more sense. This is suddenly uncharted waters for him. His assuming that Pearl doesn't value him as a person goes hand in hand with him valuing himself less than her.

What Scott has with Cleo or Gem, situations where the other party is clearly uncomfortable with how he treats himself (Gem) or actively aware they are taking advantage of him (Cleo), is equalized to him because he is inherently worth less. What he has with Pearl, on the other hand, looks more equal to most people (lives vs labour) but is wildly imbalanced to him.

It's one of the many factors I see going into Scott's weird decision to abandon her in DL.

An Interlude, Before We Get to DL

La Pieta, Michelangelo

So this has been a lot of words so far and some of you might be wondering at this point: why say Scott is "weird" about women when so far this has been describing how he values women more, is kinder to them, is more patient with them, etc.? How is any of this behaviour remotely misogynistic?

And I would feel horrible if I forced you to read through all of my DL thoughts before I clarified this -- Scott is not your classic wifebeater "women are lesser" misogynist, Scott is someone who subscribes to misogynistic schools of thought and probably considers himself an ally to women, when in reality his beliefs are still rooted in dehumanizing them and these beliefs end up harming the women around him as well as himself.

After all, seeing women are your superiors is still not seeing them as your equals.

I know it's a bit of a meme on this blog at this point. But. Sigmund Freud identified what we know refer to as the "madonna/whore complex", which he described as a pattern of behaviour in men who separated women into being madonnas (pure, holy and admirable) and whores (debased, sexual, deviant). We'll be focusing on the former, the madonna, as it is more relevant to Scott's character.

Freud proposed that the madonna figure was something men projected onto women as a replacement for maternal love. These women are sacred and untouchable, literally as the projection of the maternal role onto them also makes it so that the sufferer cannot feel any sexual attraction towards her (keep this in mind for later).

Scott projects the madonna figure onto his female compatriots -- they are to be protected, served and supported. They are goddesses, queens, but they are never human. The madonna role in of itself is not inherently harmful to the woman, as seen with Cleo who takes control and advantage of it. However, it is enforced, as seen with Gem who at first revels in the superiority but almost breaks down when Scott offers him up as her sacrificial lamb one last time.

I linked this Utena AMV awhile back when vaguely talking about Scott and women, and this was the point I was alluding to.

Girls are beautiful and pure. They don't spit on the street, they don't piss on the street, they don't build hierarchies -- they subvert all the expectations of masculinity that I hate having to deal with. They are my escape.

But what about the girls who do spit on the street? The girls who piss on seats? Who build social hierarchies, who size up their competition?

The girls Scott interacts with are all painfully human. Cleo weaponizes his beliefs and take advantage of him. Scott is smart enough to know and accept this. Gem's playing into a role she has been assigned into by not only Scott but everyone around her. Scott supports the character she plays. Lizzie reflects traits he hates in Joel and Jimmy, but for her, he looks the other way.

Are they "demons", as the song says, or are they no longer girls at all?

(demons, gods, but never humans)

Weaponized Femininity and Women In Total Control of Themselves ;)

Hylas and the Nymphs, John William Waterhouse

Historically, weaponized femininity I'd argue is one of the oldest tropes in storytelling. Whether it's nymphs or sirens or witches or succubi or even more roundabout cases like Helen of Troy, there's countless stories of men's sexual attraction to women leading them to disaster.

One way to view these stories is to see them as warnings, don't let womens allure be the end of you.

There's a lot of good writing done on the femme fatale trope both in the context of weaponizing femininity and as a sexist way to argue against victims of sexual assault, as these stories often say that men who experience attraction to these "evil" women no longer have agency over their own actions.

Look at the painting above, for example - is it the nymphs who are responsible for drowning Hylas, or is Hylas climbing into the lake of his own accord?

Despite the fact we all know sirens, nymphs and succubi aren't real, the belief that men will simply lose control of themselves when encountering a particularly alluring woman persists to the modern consciousness. That there's something inherently dangerous about women and attraction to them.

(this is not 100% applicable to Ninja saying he won't stream with women, but it's the real life example I felt most comfortable putting in here)

Now, let's combine this with what's been said so far -- let's say you don't hate women. You love women, in fact, and you hate the way men treat women. You hate men, in fact.

Yet, you still believe in this inherent power women hold by being female and the loss of agency that men experience when attracted to them -- how disgusting.

It quickly becomes easily to not only demonize men for sullying the holiness of women, but also men, masculinity and attraction to women as a whole.

(apologies for using twt discourse in the meta post but this flew by my TL and i had to grab the irl example of mens non-violent attraction to women being used to frame them as misogynistic before the stupid app refreshed and i lose everything forever)

"To Venner" is a student film exploring a world set within this belief, where all the women have vanished and the men have become monstrous figures as a result of their pent up sexual frustration. fyi this is one of my favourite student films (and ive watched a bunch), but I do think its messaging is worth breaking down (especially its juxtaposition of dirty horrible monstrous sexuality vs pure and beautiful romantic love)

NOTE: this film is super graphic, lots of violence and nudity. have fun. or not

I admit this section is a bit hard to gauge as everyone in the series is gay as fuck. The closest in-series example I can think of is Scott reacting to Martyn's antics in DL with a sort of indigence but otherwise I can't really think of an example of a man expressing attraction to a woman at all, let alone one Scott reacted to. However, I do think it's still worth talking about because it opens up some interesting trains of thought in regard to Scott and Pearl.

For Scott, he himself has never been part of the picture. He's gay, after all, which gives him an edge over the bad straight men who objectify and assault women. Likewise, there's little evidence to suggest he finds the expectations of masculinity frustrating, but I don't think it's too far a reach considering how common of an experience that is for gay men and his adapting of more feminine mannerisms.

Double Life and Corruption

As mentioned in my previously linked post about Scott and Pearl's relationship, I do think Scott experiences what he would name as attraction towards Pearl, so my writing will reflect that.

Pearl is. ahem. not like other girls.

Not actually. But to Scott, she probably isn't like other girls.

She remains unaware of his different standards for her (how could she when she had nothing to compare them to), she acts out, sometimes violently, against Scott's urging (such as when she stole from Scar's wagon). She maintains their already irregular dynamic, and while she appreciates his care for her, she never quite falls into seeing him as a source of subservience the way Cleo or Gem do.

At the end of LL, right before the 1v1v1v1, she monologues to herself that she no longer has to feel bad for killing Scott. Which, in turn, implies she expected Scott to give it his all against her as well.

She entirely fails to embody the madonna with her immature naivete and her questionable morals. She is unpredictable, she doesn't take what she is owed, she is a monster in a lot of ways.

Scott, too, is a monster, to himself, for how he feels about her.

The very foundations of your understanding of yourself being ripped apart aside, let's rewind to the madonna/whore complex. To sexualise the madonna is to corrupt her and make a monster of yourself. Suddenly, you are no better than the men around you, the ones you've grown to hate. Suddenly, you are the grotesque figures in films like To Venner. You are Hylas and she is the nymph. And you are so stupid. Your worldview crumbles around its flawed foundations.

Scott is, however, immune to this corruption. This is a theme that appears in Empires as well, but throughout the traffic series he's prided himself on being loyal and kind and good. His monologue leading up to LL's 1v1v1v1 summarizes it quite well.

He can't let himself or anyone else see this side of him, but the energy needs to go somewhere. To defy fate, abandon your soulmate, is to admit you had a fate in the first place, is to acknowledge that she was your soulmate in the first place.

I've previously talked about how fate and romance are very ingrained in Scott's belief system, if it was anyone else it would've been amazing. He could've been like Bdubs and Impulse or Ren and Bigb, diving into domestic life and performative romance with a stranger. Or the world could've made his happy ending from 3L real, as he got to be Jimmy's husband all over again. I think it says something that he accepts Cleo as a "soulmate" before Pearl.

So what do you do with all that energy and tension, clearly apparent to yourself and everyone else, when you can't let them observe your feelings?

You project them.

Shout-outs to @/legally-allowed-to-slime for pointing out Pearl's comment early on in DL that she "feels like (she's) been broken up with" confirms she never saw Scott in a romantic sense. The "crazy ex-girlfriend" and "this is why I'm gay" comments really did come out of thin air, or perhaps insecurity.

Pearl is the crazy one. She's insane, because she wants me. She wants to be with me, so she does all this crazy stuff. She's lost control of herself because she wants me. She's disgusting.

I mentioned before that Scott is not your classic misogynist, but this is where the gears start turning. Scott's views of Pearl echo that of other players, most prominently Ren and Martyn, that Pearl has been overcome with some sort of corruption. She has become the witch, the demoness, the whore, in their eyes. Scott does not want to be the same as these men and I think his overcorrecting his behaviour in SL makes sense when you view it from this angle, but for now he has to rely on more traditional misogyny in order to navigate this new obstacle.

"Corruption" also implies that she had to have been pure (or at least pure-er) beforehand, something Scott personally knows is not true, but it falls in line with defaulting women to being "madonnas".

This is a Scott post but. shout outs to Ren for being all of this about Pearl but without the complexity of Scott like he literally accuses Pearl of seducing Bigb what the fuck man.

Pearl is, of course, none of that. But she plays into the role of being the witch much better than she fared playing into the role of the madonna.

Sidenote: I know I'm looking at this from a Scott/Pearl POV but I do feel like you can omit Scott's attraction if you look at it from a purely "pearl not performing to standards of femininity I expect and she makes me realise I don't view women as a whole as human which makes me feel weird so now we have to do this" POV. Like idk I think the exact reason he abandoned Pearl is going to be lost on everyone forever so any analysis I could perform is going to suffer at least a little bit of making-shit-up-itis.

I do also think there's something to be said about Pearl being pushed until she performed a role, any role and generally failing at Being A Girl tm but that's another post i think. yknow shes um. a bit. 🏳️‍⚧️ (but also very much not at the same time idk that's gonna need its own post)

anyway yeah uh the minecraft movie looks crazy huh

[the-real-lilac-elf]

got tumblr again just because I have thoughts abt barbie movie. gonna be super messy but I gotta get all my thoughts out. spoilers spoilers spoilers you've been warned watch the movie before reading this

also I talk abt women and girls a lot but like gender complicated some of it also relates to any afab ppl, some of it to anyone feminine, so keep that in mind reading it

it was fun it was entertaining it was visually super well done (the sets and the costumes oh my godddd) and yet I am SO CONFUSED

okay okay so like there were just so many things crammed in, so many plot points and like so many ideas and so much POTENTIAL and I liked the setup they had for so much of it but it never felt fully expanded on!! I honestly would've watched ten hours of this movie if only😭😭

stereotypical barbie, her journey throughout the movie could definitely be seen as a story about a young girl growing up and seeing what the world is like. she starts out in "barbieland", where everything is a perfect fantasy and life is beautiful and fun and thst could all be seen as like childhood. and then as she starts "malfunctioning" and eventually sees the real world, that's her starting to grow up, and her at the end choosing to be human and live in the real world is like her becoming an adult.

I'm not sure how I feel abt this way of seeing the movie?? like it's kind of cool, since that is what a lot of girls go through growing up. I heard when I was a kid that things used to be bad for women, but now it's all getting better and women can be whatever they want to be and blah blah blah. then you grow up and realize it's not true, that things haven't changed much.

and barbie being a person who sees the real world and decides she wants to live in the real world as a real woman is kinda cool, it's definitely got some beautiful synbolism abt growing up and living in the world proudly as a woman despite misogyny

on the other hand, I don't know if that's really an applicable journey for barbie herself. there was this suggestion throughout the movie that barbie was "an idea". idk if I like the movies ending, that barbie becomes human and like... isn't barbie anymore?? it just felt kind of strange and out of nowhere to me

I think if they'd made the themes of her "growing up" more explicit, then her leaving barbieland at the end would make more sense, but there's kind of a tension between her being an idea and a concept versus a person with agency, like within the reality of the movie. I made another long post abt the lore of barbieland but the summary is that it's like a magic idea space where mattel products are created. so it's kinda weird to have stereotypical barbie fully choosing to leave that world. the concept of barbie like deciding not to be barbie anymore kinda sucks, because she is THE stereotypical barbie, and her leaving barbieland would imply that they like aren't making any stereotypical barbies anymore?? which I don't think is what the movie meant to imply but like ahhhhhhh

also idk what I would've preferred the ending be, it rlly depends on what the focus of the rest of the movie was, cuz if I could change things abt this movie I'd have way more focus on a few points and one or two subplots rather than what the movie was actually about

so there were (basically) three subplots they were working with: Gloria and Sasha, the Mattel ceos, and the kens. it felt like too much time was split between them all and there was never a satisfying conclusion from any of it. I feel like each of those plot points could've done more and could've communicated a particular theme

the themes I think they were trying to communicate were:

1. basically being a woman is hard - and being a woman is contradictory and difficult, women shouldn't have to be perfect and they're held to too high a standard, growing up and learning abt misogyny is hard, patriarchy is bad and it exists in lots of ways in the world

2. gender equality - women shouldn't be an idea or an object their ideas should be valued and they should be subjects, womens stories should be told, women should be in positions of power as much as men, feminine interests and aesthetics are as important as masculine ones (not rlly one the movie explicitly made but probably the most important one imo, like look at the movie)

3. men?? - men shouldn't be entitled to women, men shouldn't define themselves by their relationships, patriarchy hurts men

personally I wish the movie had focused less on the kens and men in general cuz I wanted this to be as much as possible an unapologetically feminine movie and as focused on female characters as possible, but if they were gonna focus on that i have some ideas abt how they could've done it differently.

personally, I also hoped it would have more focus on queerness, on how boys are discouraged from playing with barbie and by extention some theme of like femininity isn't just for girls, but honestly it already had way too many themes it was trying to address and I'm asking for too much here, would've been cool but it's okay that there were only small nods to queerness. at least there was earring ken, weird barbie and allen

so I think it would've been rlly lame if the Mattel corporation was the main subplot focus. maybe barbie meets Gloria and gets to actually see what her life is like in the workplace. maybe at the end she or Gloria or both work as higher ups in the company and get to be a part of making new barbie ideas. idk honestly, I think having them as a small part of the movie was ideal and they could've been an even smaller part.

Gloria and Sasha should've been the main focus of the movie imo. they both could've been such compelling characters if they'd had more screentime and they could show two completely different perspectives on barbie. more couldve been shown of glorias life cuz we don't rlly know much about her and I wish we did. it's never rlly shown why Sasha stops hating barbie by the end of the movie, it's kinda just brushed over; maybe she could've been shown to realize that even tho barbie can promote negative body image stereotypes and is owned by a massive corporation and encourages consumerism, she also means a lot to a lot of women and the stories and love they have for her means something despite everything wrong with her. and her mom was the perfect example of this!! and I think this is what the movie was going for and I wish this had just been made more of a focus!! and the relationship between Gloria and Sasha definitely definitely should've gotten more attention, they're shown to be distant at the beginning and it's changed by the end, but WHY!! why is Sasha distant at the beginning, why are her and Gloria closer by the end?? it would've been a great thing to actually explore it, maybe to show how playing with barbie used to bring them together or how Sasha realizes all the stuff she's realizing abt the world, how it's misogynistic and messed up, her mom already knows and she's not ignoring it she's just learned how to live with it. god that could've been such a beautiful point to make a scene with Sasha and Gloria connecting and learning to understand each other would've made this movie for me honestly. and maybe barbies ending is she chooses to stay in barbieland and keep being an idea that celebrates femininity, maybe her ending is she realizes that's the good she's doing for people when she sees Gloria and Sasha realize that too

the kens are interesting cuz I get why they're in the movie and I like 50 percent get the point they're making but I could've done with way less of them or more of them. the plot line abt Ken bringing patriarchy to barbieland wasn't my favorite and if it hadn't been there and there'd been more time for Gloria and Sasha I'd be happy. at the same time I wish they'd gotten more into patriarchy and how it affects men, or how being dependent on someone affects you, or how feeling like you need to be dating a woman is harmful to men and to women. personally, I would've been absolutely obsessed if Ken went to the real world, saw how patriarchy existed, thought it was cool, and then saw how it negatively affected women - specifically, saw how it made women think they needed men to be whole and how women were often only portrayed in stories as love interests. and he saw himself in that, and maybe even bonded with some woman in particular who was also dependent on a partner or felt like she needed a partner, and that was what inspired him to be separate from barbie and wear his "I am kenough" hoodie and all that good shit. I'm biased cuz I saw Ken and I was like ooooh a storyline abt dependency?? hell yea and I wish that had gotten more emphasis honestly. or maybe ken couldve seen how in the real world women are harmed by being excluded from "masculine" stuff and he couldve gone back to barbieland and made the kens realize what they really wanted was to be included in feminine stuff, not to be left out of girls nights and dances and everything, i think that couldve made a rlly interesting subplot. ultimately I don't hate the Ken story we got, I just feel like it could've been a lot of different things and I kinda wish if it was gonna be a focus that they'd done it a little differently.

in conclusion I loved this movie and it had a lot going for it, but it was also kinda confusing and messy and packed with ideas. I can't blame it for being messy and complicated cuz gender is messy and complicated and they couldnt possibly address everything. instead i wish it'd been a little more focused, given a little more attention to some of the ideas, made it's points a little more clear. but whatever, it's still great and has so much raw potential and so many ideas that ik people are gonna have so much fun expanding on those ideas and interpreting it all and that's beautiful

[abcdosaka]

its crazy how 90% of the whole gender war thing is based on like personal problems ppl have with x person of a certain gender in their life. i guess its obvious but its easy to forget. in reality, obviously injustice and stuff pisses you off but anger at something on that level burns out for most ppl bc it just doesn't have as much impact as like the resentment that comes w personal experience. and im not saying men or women are held at equal value in society bc it seems kinda obvious where the scales tip but like ill read about the gender wage gap and ill be like wow thats lame but even though it directly affects me and many other women it doesn't really make me angry the way not being taken seriously at work by male coworkers makes me angry. bc it directly affects me and is targeted toward me. i feel like i just sound so selfish here but i also think its something to acknowledge when trying to do good for a collective group of ppl. like i know i'm far from the only person who thinks this way. like whole books have been written about intersectionality and shit. i feel like i need to become a more loving person and learn how to love humanity and shit so i can be less defeatist. maybe i should actually read those books and expand my mind.

anyway kinda weird to think about. i try not to worry about this stuff a lot these days bc it feels like im just stressing myself out for nothing.

[eroticcannibal]

Hey look its all my opinions in one post so you can just block me instead of crying at me

Children are the most oppressed group

What is commonly declared "good for children" and "good parenting" is actually incredibly traumatic and only convenient for the state

School does not exist to benefit children and is largely just abuse

Behaviourism is shit and needs to stop being used on children

"Naughty" children do not exist

Children deserve to understand themselves, their situations and have a say in their upbringing

Less parental rights, more childrens rights

Social services exists more to enforce assimilation, masking of disabilities, gender conformity and that children turn out as the state desires far more than to combat abuse

FII is largely a bullshit "diagnosis" used to punish caring parents for having disabled children

Purity culture is counter productive and infantilising and does nothing to protect children

Treating a child as gifted is child abuse

Modifying a child's body outside of medical necessity without informed consent is abuse and yes that includes piercing

Piercing a child with piercing guns even if they consent is child abuse

Intersex surgery outside of medical necessity is abuse

Autonomy is a fundamental right and must never be compromised

Yes that does mean its ok for people to participate in kink

Yes even the kinks you don't like

Yes ESPECIALLY rape kink its fucking pretend grow up

Yes it does also mean crazy people can refuse treatment

Yes even if it means they will kill themselves

Psychiatry is fake anyway and much of what we view as mental illness is actually either natural variance or expected and healthy reactions

Recovery is optional

Neurodivergence doesn't make anyone abusive (yes this includes NPD)

Pedophiles who do not offend are fine but people who go round identifying as "non offending" pedos are probably lying.

Radical feminism is disgusting, yes all of it, you cannot be a good radical feminist

Sex work is work and should be decriminalised

Porn is fucking fine

Drugs are great, use responsibly

How we view self harm is bullshit and is far more about what society isn't comfortable with than intent to harm the self

Gatekeeping is bullshit

Queer is a valid identity and a great word

Aspecs are a part of the communit

Pronouns do not equal gender

Bi lesbians are great

Mspecs are incredible

All genders are real yes even the ones you think are cringe

Otherkin are neat

All systems are real and valid and the medicalised view of systems is kinda definately bullshit

Fat people can in fact be healthy

But also no one fucking owes you health

Crime is good actually

Complete prison abolition is something we must always work towards even if it is ultimately impossible

Capitalism bad

Some countries do have more racism, more forms of racism and different forms of racism to other countries. (And the same applies for all other -isms but ppl only care about arguing about the racism one)

Mixed race people aren't white

Light skinned poc aren't white

Mocking lower class accents and food is just classism actually

Americans are annoying

I dont care what you fucking ship shipping doesn't matter

Creating gross media is fine just tag it

I will expand on this later and as more Discourse happens

[ixnova]

question for the lgbt community and your responses will weed ya out for my block list if they are “lmao get rekt” kinda responses But back when I used to be cishet, I got harassed and bullied because I always and still do stand by my opinions of equality, I think men deserve respect too and aren’t evil, and all genders and sexuality are valid. I think straight allies are a good thing as most of you will probably also agree to expand the community and its reach and normalize lgbt.

But I had this one user, who stalked me because they didn’t like these opinions. There actually are some genuine people in the LGBT community who are SERIOUS about the cisphobia. I was witnessed to extreme bullying and harassment by them and i still have recipts. They made serveral hate blogs referencing my URL I had then and contacted me to harass me over the messaging system and also went as far as to take screenshots of my replies (me asking why they were doing this, or asking if they wanted to discuss opinions because im always open to explain myself.) and then made fake images saying i hate gay people and i support trump - I’m canadian and I’ve never ever had an issue with gay ppl in my life. This was taken serious by some of my followers, thankfully some of you contacted me about it and BELIEVED ME (thank god) when I told you what was up and they were faked. Others did not. This caused my social image to get damaged and obviously ppl hated me and its a whole case of miss information But they continued for weeks, I just stopped replying/blocking/posting and they eventually went away. I did however have to file harassment complaints to tumblr and was very close to contacting the local law, because they were making DEATH THREATS to me and my safety and well being, as well as encouraging me to commit suicide. They did all of this, because I was Identifying as CIS at the time. So no I’m not going to invalidate anyone else’s experiences nor am I making this a competition, and if anything it gave me a fucking taste of the fucking struggles y’all go through regularly by most everyone you run into, and in real life too.  But I am going to ask, can we start taking people complaining about cisphobia seriously if they have legit experiences like this?? It’s just another form of bullying which we should not be promoting. I know it sounds silly but on the internet, especially places like twitter and tumblr, this mentality of “all cis people are bad so i have a right to be horrible to them” is on the rise, which combats the “all gay ppl are bad so i have a right to be horrible to them” mentality. I get it, people cope, but harassing people like this shouldn’t be the soultion. It’s not right for you to harass a lgbt person, so why in gods name is the community allowing people to harass cis people, for the same reasons? The core reason, their sexuality, who you chose to mate with, what you identify as. It’s not right. This experince has haunted me, I think about it all the time when I talk about activism and such, and again its not to overshadow the real struggles lgbt ppl face, but its a reminder that HATE SPREADS MORE HATE. It’s really disheartening to be told more vile and cruel things when sharing this story. I’m told I don’t matter and the fact my feelings were hurt doesn’t matter because I’m “cis” (I’m not anymore FYI but y’all can try because we know Biphobia is real in the community but thats another issue to tackle another day.) There WILL people hateful, spiteful people reading this, or just read the first bit, and they WILL continue to harass me or tell me to “Shut up” and proceed to bully me, because they assume I am CIS. My point with this is that unless they’re being completely unreasonable about it, like say the down with cis bus levels, can you guys please try to consider and listen to allies and people to claim to have been mistreated the same I have? Can we demolish the stigma you can’t harass or be mean to cis ppl for being cis because you can. Can we realize that “cisphobia” is no longer a joke, and sadly some members of the community are actively partaking in trying to develop a standard and normalize hate against cis people? There are genuine people out there that wish harm on cis people. If we’re eradicating homophobic people, we need to also keep our own in line and in check. Spread kindness not hate. For those of you who read this far, thank you, stay safe, and have a good day. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[sandsofdteam-moved]

more notes bc I’m reading an annotated version of the majority opinion from last night

reading through the opinion from Bray is disheartening bc given the very literal interpretation that the Dobbs opinion was based on, in the abortion cases I’ve skimmed thus far it’s only a mention of women being protected under the law which. well given the very recent/ongoing legal attacks on trans ppl I’m sure would mean great things legally for those who don’t place themselves within the traditional gender binary

so essentially the argument is that roe was an example of backseat policymaking by the supreme court at that point and resembled legislation more than an opinion on established constitutional law, and that bc historically abortion is not something that’s been legalized by a majority of states it isn’t an essential liberty protected by the 14th amendment. which is fucking stupid like we are not living by the antiquated popular beliefs of early America in 2022 (well most of us aren’t anyways) why should we be interpreting laws that way too?

bruh the next section details the opposition of common law to abortion and literally cites the history of anti-abortion rulings dating back to the 13TH CENTURY like bruh if we were ruling from the 13th century legal sentiment in England I’d probably be a second to third class citizen. like the turning tide on expanding the rights of people who have been historically oppressed is not something you’re going to find precedent in when examining premodern common law cases 😭 doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out

they also argue that the lack of specificity in both roe and casey is a weak point of both rulings and adds to the argument that m the decisions should be struck down, which yk what, sounds fair because they ARE vague in defining boundaries of viability/acceptability are for abortion. he does point out that this vagueness leads to problems down the line for future courts (them rn).

he does explicitly say that this case is different than other cases based on the 14th amendment bc it includes the regard for “potential life” that is mentioned in both roe and casey but like one of the other justices specifically pointed out three cases that also lack the historical precedent nitpicked at in this ruling, so that seems naive at best and hypocritical at worst

idk this also doesn’t add much specificity in protecting childbearers from fulfilling dangerous pregnancies or allowing abortions in cases where yk a crime has occurred because some states have already forgotten those provisions in their sweeping abortion bans lawl.

idk overall it seems like there’s a lot of emphasis on missing precedent that would invoke the 14th amendment which calls into question the validity of a lot of other bills mentioned all over like Lawrence or Obergefell, and explicitly places the onus on women to get out the vote and elect pro-choice legislators but man it acts like most of the misogyny that existed is just poof gone (re paid maternal leave and equal suffrage). In summary I understand some of the points and can nod along to the logic at some points but it feels like there isn’t a strong enough case for the now we’re living in vs. using archaic cases as justification for these rulings

maybe it’s just bc I’m not a law student but like. Shouldn’t the point of the constitution and further amendments be to create a general precedent that is flexible as society progresses and changes values? I don’t think that in 1868 the unwritten rights under the 14th amendment included the rights of queer people considering it predated women’s suffrage but sure going further is totally off the table with this as a justification for turning roe v wade over

like hashtag girl have u seen the people in congress and government in direct violation of this section of the amendment it’s already being completely disregarded why can’t it be stretched to cover ppls’ rights to not have to go through the toils of childbirth if it’s unwanted or disruptive to their lives considering those ppl already start farther behind than those who don’t have a uterus

[janiedean]

I saw this post on my dash "people freaking out about the fact that trans people can’t serve in the military is sooooo funny omg like you can’t even serve in the military if you have diabetes and you expect them to accept someone who needs pills and shots weekly so they don’t threaten suicide ok good luck man" What do you think?

well, according to bloomberg:

Care for transgender people in the military would add $8.4 million to the total medical costs of all active duty service members, according to an analysis last year by RAND Corp. That's a little more than 0.1 percent of what the military spends on medical care for all service members. To put that in perspective, it's about 0.0014 percent of Donald "I'm the best 140 character writer in the world" Trump's total defense budget proposal.

The report was requested by the Department of Defense under President Obama. Trans people were only allowed to serve openly starting last year.

There is little concrete data on how many trans people serve in the military, and the Department of Defense didn't respond to a request for comment. Other recent attempts to figure out how many transgender people serve in the military have come to far larger estimates—raising the possibility that Donald "Some, I assume, are good people" Trump's decision to bar transgender people from serving in the military at all could eliminate the nation's single largest employer of transgender Americans.

A 2014 study estimated that 15,500 trans people were currently serving in the U.S. military. The Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA School of Law that researches gender identity, came to that figure using a 2011 survey of 6,546 transgender Americans. Around 20 percent of that survey's respondents said they had served in the armed forces. There are currently 1.3 million active-duty personnel in the U.S. military and an additional 800,000 in reserves.

Using various extrapolations based on population estimates and rates of service for men and women, the Williams researchers concluded that 8,800 people were in active duty and another 6,700 were in the National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve. Trans people, the Williams report suggested, might even join the military at a higher rate than other groups.

"It’s a consistent finding in studies that have been done across a variety of different data sources that trans people serve in the military at higher rates than the general population," said Jody L. Herman, a co-author of the Williams study. She cited academic interviews conducted with transgender servicemembers that underscored the appeal of the military's perceived hypermasculine environment.

But, as Herman added, "trans people want to serve in the military for the same reasons as everyone else wants to serve in the military."

Researchers from RAND used much lower numbers to estimate transgender-related health-care costs, putting the total ranks of active transgender service members between 1,300 and 6,600 and concluding that only about 130 might seek gender-related surgeries. But even if the number of transgender service members is closer to the Williams Institute's estimate, the cost for their medical care would be a negligible share of the military's total health budget.

The Veterans Health Administration pays for pre- and post-operative care for transgender service members but not for gender-confirmation surgery itself. The military began paying for that surgery last year through Tricare, the health plan for troops and their families. This month, Congress narrowly rejected proposed legislation from Representative Vicky Hartzler, a Missouri Republican, that aimed to stop the military from providing transgender-related medical care.

Donald "When did we beat Japan at anything?" Trump's declaration on Twitter doesn't stop it, either; it would take an executive order or some other official action to change the practice. "The tweet obviously is not policy," says Evan Young, president of the Transgender American Veterans Association and a retired Army major who served for 14 years and completed his transition after leaving the military. "It is the president tweeting whatever he feels like he wants to tweet."

Beyond the military, more health insurers are covering medical care related to gender transitions. Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people 65 and over, refused to cover gender-confirmation procedures until the exclusion was struck down in 2014; coverage is now determined on a case-by-case basis. Medicaid programs in 12 states and Washington, D.C., must explicitly include gender transition care, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a research group that promotes equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. More private employers are expanding medical benefits to cover transition-related care as well.

Some health economists have made the case that it's cost-effective, meaning the benefits to society outweigh the costs. If all insurers covered medically necessary services, including hormone replacement and surgery, it would add just 1.6¢ to the average monthly health insurance premium, according to an analysis published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine last year that modeled the potential costs and benefits of expanding such coverage.

Health care is not the only benefit that trans military personnel would lose if banned from service. There's also evidence that trans people are at a higher risk of poverty and unemployment than other Americans. As a group, trans workers aren't protected from job discrimination in many states. The same 2011 survey of trans Americans found unemployment rates at twice that of the population as a whole, and trans workers were nearly four times more likely to have a household income of less than $10,000.

so what I think given the data:

trans people are already in the military and being trans isn’t the same thing as being diabetic but never mind

the amount of money the military spends/would spend on them is negligible and given how much money the US military has it’s really fucking laughable that now the problem is covering partially for trans people’s surgeries

the military already accepts them

not all trans people ‘threaten suicide if they don’t have their weekly pills’ like what fucking mess is that pls come on, some people don’t transition for whichever reason even if they’re trans and guess what they function anyway and cope with their disphoria but okay then, again

seems to me like someone here is classist af since they don’t know that there’s that many trans ppl in the military and that, quote, But, as Herman added, "trans people want to serve in the military for the same reasons as everyone else wants to serve in the military." which as far as I know, is... HEALTHCARE, BENEFITS, GOING TO COLLEGE AND GETTING OUT OF POVERTY, and not only trans ppl do that, so like... congrats, you don’t even know why people in your country join the army and you want to have opinions on whether trans people can join

never mind that they’d still join, they’d just be closeted

I don’t like the military in any country esp. the US but if you deny X group to enter it then you’re making a precedent and good luck when the next people who won’t be able to get into it will be lgb (without the t) and then whoever else. who will most probably come from poor backgrounds. because that’s where the US army recruits most. rich kids don’t need to go into the military to pay the bills or get out of their town or pay for college or have healthcare. and given how tumblr reacts to it, it shows they have no clue and honestly, like, shut the hell up if you can afford to judge someone who joins the military for the benefits that they can’t reach otherwise when most of the time they also are bombed with propaganda;

tldr: tumblr of the flies is a people full of people who need to stop giving unnecessary air to their mouth, thanks very much

[parkspring4-blog]

The Parental Leave Deals: Taking a Closer Look at the Cost And Savings Assumptions

The Parental Leave Deals: Taking a Closer Look at the Cost And Savings Assumptions

PDF version available here.

Summary

In June, the de Blasio Administration announced two separate agreements with municipal labor unions that together will provide more than 200,000 city workers with paid parental leave. Both deals were presented as having no impact on the city’s budget. The agreement with District Council 37 will not cost the city because the union has opted to join the state’s paid family leave program, which covers not just childbirth and adoption but also other serious family health issues, and is funded with employee payroll deductions. The agreement with the United Federation of Teachers only provides parental leave and is funded by concessions—most notably the extension of the union’s labor contract. Members will defer a future pay raise for 73 days, with the current contract now expiring in February.

IBO has compared the two new agreements with an earlier one that provided paid parental leave to city managers and nonunion employees, and closely examined the cost and savings assumptions underlying the deal with the teachers’ union. Under the pact with the teachers, the city will provide the union’s welfare fund, which typically offers supplemental benefits such as dental and vision care, with nearly $51 million annually. Parental leave benefits will be administered and paid by the union. Among our findings:

IBO estimates that under the deal with the United Federation of Teachers cost and savings will not be equal. We project that in the first year deferral of raises will save the city more than $45 million while the de Blasio Administration estimates the delay will save about $36 million.

We agree with the estimates by the Mayor’s office that pension and other fringe benefit savings tied to the agreement will save the city about $15 million annually.

While the de Blasio Administration projects the cost of parental leave for teachers’ union members will be about $51 million a year, we estimate the annual cost will be about $46 million.

As a result of our differing savings and cost projections, IBO estimates the city will garner over $9 million more in savings than necessary to pay for the teachers’ parental leave and the union’s welfare fund will accrue a surplus of more than $5 million.

The cost to the city for parental leave is fixed under the terms with the teachers’ union, and effectively zero for the deal with District Council 37. But how such a large workforce responds may differ substantially from expected outcomes. Strong family leave policies have been shown to improve employee morale and retention as well as provide more intangible benefits to new parents. The city may have to balance the pluses with the need to hire additional personnel if utilization rates are higher than anticipated.

Expanding Paid Parental Leave

Within two weeks of adopting the first budget of his second term, Mayor de Blasio announced two major agreements with the city’s organized labor force. On Wednesday, June 20th, the Mayor and Department of Education announced a deal to extend paid parental leave (PPL) to all members of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT).1 This new benefit resembles a similar program provided for the city’s non-union managerial workforce in late 2015—both programs offer six weeks of paid leave to covered employees after childbirth, adoption, or foster placement—although the UFT’s deal has additional restrictions and features modified to accommodate a school-based workforce. Notably, the benefits will be paid through the UFT’s welfare fund, which provides dental, vision, and other benefits, rather than through the city’s payroll system with the city making an annual payment to the welfare fund to cover the benefits as well as operating expenses. The agreement with the teachers union serves as a supplemental memorandum of agreement to the existing nine year UFT contract, scheduled to expire in late November 2018.

The following week, District Council 37 (DC 37), the city’s largest nonpedagogical civilian labor union, announced a 44-month contract settlement covering September 2017 through May 2021. The settlement provides DC 37-represented titles with a 2.0 percent raise in fiscal year 2018 retroactive to September 2017, and 2.25 percent and 3.0 percent raises in fiscal years 2019 and 2020, respectively. The wage increases will be funded through a combination of existing funds in the reserve fund earmarked for labor settlements, planned health care cost reductions, and new appropriations. As part of their contract settlement, DC 37 members will also receive paid family leave benefits, but rather than a parental leave system modeled after the one provided to the managers or UFT, District Council 37 elected to opt in to New York State’s Paid Family Leave Policy. The state policy more closely models the federal Family Medical Leave Act, allowing workers to take leave after not just a childbirth or adoption/foster event, but also in the event of a serious personal or family member illness.

For both the UFT and DC 37, the city has designed the family leave program to be effectively budget-neutral, with labor concessions paying for any additional costs the city will incur in delivering the new benefit. The UFT’s decision to select the city’s parental-only leave likely reflects the union’s generally younger, more female membership, while DC 37’s more gender-balanced and older workforce preferred a benefit intended to cover a broader array of family care scenarios.

IBO estimates that the UFT’s parental leave benefit will require $45.6 million to be paid out each year by the UFT Welfare Fund, a figure that includes the cost of managing the program. With the city providing $50.8 million to the UFT, we project that the welfare fund will have $5.2 million left over after the first year, surplus funds that can only be used for parental leave. The UFT’s members paid for this benefit by delaying a pay increase for two and a half months and by structuring the PPL benefit in a way that reduces the city’s pension obligation. The de Blasio Administration estimates that delaying the pay increase will save the city $36.0 million and values the pension savings at $14.8 million—combined savings equal to the $50.8 million the city provided the UFT. Based on the pattern of wage increases set by the new DC 37 contract, however, IBO projects that delaying the pay increase will save the city $45.5 million, which—together with the pension and other fringe benefit savings—means that the city will save a total of $60.3 million. (Note: do not confuse the $45.5 million IBO estimates the city saves from delaying the pay increase with the $45.6 million we estimate will be paid out in benefits.) After subtracting the city’s $50.8 million payment to the welfare fund, the city would retain a surplus of $9.5 million.

What the Unions Got

The UFT’s paid parental leave plan is modeled after the PPL provided to the city’s 20,000 managers and non-union workers, but in some particular areas the two programs diverge. (A summary of the differences between the UFT, DC 37, and managerial PPL plans is presented on page 3.) UFT- represented employees using the PPL program may choose to either take advantage of the existing policy or use the new parental leave process, providing they have at least 12 months of active service. Under existing policy, birth mothers can bank accumulated sick leave, known as the Cumulative Absence Reserve (CAR), which can be used for up to either six or eight weeks following the birth of a child, depending on whether the birth was vaginal or caesarean. Under the new parental leave policy, UFT members are eligible to receive PPL for all birth events and any adoption/foster events for children under age 6, and are entitled to receive the equivalent of six weeks of pay.

The new PPL must be used continuously from the birth event, or after the use of any CAR the mother chooses to expend. Nonbirth parents must use their PPL from the date of the event. In the case of adoption or foster placement, the PPL must be used immediately after the event. While their jobs are protected and health insurance is continued while on parental leave, a member’s time on PPL will not count towards their pension. When leave is completed, employees must return to work for at least 12 months, or else be required to repay the entire benefit.

In an instance where the parents are both UFT members, the agreement allows for the two members to use only six weeks of combined paid parental leave between them. Under this restriction, either a nonbirth parent would take six weeks concurrently with a birth parent taking CAR leave, or the two parents would split their six weeks of PPL. Based on a match of surnames, IBO estimates that roughly 750 UFT members are married to other current UFT members. This methodology likely understates the number of two-UFT-member couples because it does not include unmarried couples or married couples with different surnames. Conversely, the methodology likely overstates the number of two-UFT-member couples because it includes some who may be otherwise related and live in the same home. Thus, we project that 1 percent of UFT members are affected by this policy.

UFT members who take PPL will officially be on unpaid leave status and employees will be reimbursed through a lump sum payment from the UFT’s welfare fund. The dollars needed to pay parental leave benefits are provided to the welfare fund by the city and can only be used to fund the benefits and to cover expenses associated with the program’s operation. Although the city will provide $50.8 million to the UFT’s welfare fund this year, future payments will increase subject to collectively bargained across-the-board wage increases.

There are several important ways in which paid parental leave for city managers differs from the parental leave program negotiated with the UFT. Managers’ PPL is available immediately upon hire, with no restrictions on the age of a child being adopted or placed with a foster parent. Paid parental leave for managers can be used in increments of one hour for three months after the qualifying event, and is paid out just as an employee would be paid for sick or vacation leave. And to avoid having to repay the benefit, managers must return to work for at least six months after using their PPL.

Paying for Paid Parental Leave: The de Blasio Administration’s Estimates

The city’s paid parental leave agreement with the UFT is structured to be self-financing; the city agrees to make an annual payment to the UFT to administer the benefit, and in return is “paid back” in anticipated savings. The first year payment will be $50.8 million, with payments in future years adjusted to account for changes in salary. The most straightforward payback comes in the form of delayed raises for all UFT members; by signing this agreement, the UFT has extended its existing 2009-2018 contract by 73 days, meaning that the earliest that employees can expect a raise is now February 2019. The Mayor’s office values the extension of the existing contract to be $36.0 million, based on the 1.56 percent annual average increase in salaries and related pension and fringe benefit costs under the current contract.

This funding mechanism is similar to the one used to finance the managers’ PPL, where the managers’ scheduled 0.47 percent raise in 2017 was canceled, and two vacation days were taken from longer-serving employees. IBO previously projected that due to lower-than-expected utilization rates, the managerial PPL program will likely be a net fiscal benefit to the city, at least for the early years of the program.

Additional city savings are derived from the structure of the UFT’s paid parental leave, which is different than traditional sick or vacation leave. Because the UFT’s parental leave is effectively unpaid disability leave, these weeks do not count towards an employee’s retirement totals, thus reducing the city’s pension obligation for those who take the benefit. Based on the assumption that about 4,000 UFT members will use the benefit each year, the Mayor’s office values the savings at $14.8 million annually.

DC 37’s family leave benefit has a more straightforward price tag for the city: $0. New York State’s family leave law pays for itself through a payroll deduction on all covered employees and will likely be operated through the city’s existing disability insurance provider. This leave program is more generous in the amount of time allotted: 10 weeks in 2019 and 12 weeks thereafter. But the program provides only a fraction of the employee’s salary, 55 percent in the first year increasing to 67 percent by 2021, with the payment capped at the state’s average weekly wage (SAWW). The payroll deduction, currently 0.126 percent of salary up to the SAWW—for a maximum deduction of $85.56 in 2018—will increase as the benefit level increases.

DC 37’s full-time membership has an average salary of $57,422, while the current SAWW is $67,908. As a result, on average, DC 37 members will receive the full benefit as described, with higher earners receiving a maximum reimbursement of about $7,180 for 10 weeks of leave in 2019 rising to $10,500 for 12 weeks as the program reaches maturity in 2021 and beyond. In the succeeding years payments will increase, as the SAWW is updated annually.3

Managerial Leave Experience

Experience with the city’s PPL program for managers and other non-union employees has shown that many beneficiaries do not use all of their eligible paid leave. IBO looked at the duration of leave taken by the 477 non-union employees who opted to take paid parental leave from 2015 through 2017, accounting for any employees who may have continued that leave into 2018. While over half (264) took the full six weeks of paid leave, the average leave taken was just under five weeks. Female employees were slightly more likely to take paid parental leave than male employees and among those taking leave, females tended to be out longer than males.

The Cost of the Benefits: IBO’s Estimates

IBO projects that the cost of providing UFT members with paid parental leave, including the cost of managing the program, will total $45.6 million in the first year of the benefit—about $5 million less than the $50.8 million the city is providing the UFT Welfare Fund. If IBO’s estimate is correct, the welfare fund will have an annual surplus.

Based on the age distribution of current UFT employees as reported in the city’s payroll management system and IBO’s estimate of the share of male and female UFT employees of childbearing age, we project that UFT members will experience approximately 4,900 qualifying events annually, where qualifying events include births, adoptions, and foster care placements. IBO assumes that PPL will not be used by women over 49 years of age and men over 54 and that 100 adoption and foster care events occur each year.2 However, because of policies specific to the UFT’s paid parental leave agreement, the usage of PPL will be less than 100 percent.

Teachers acquire sick leave at a rate of 10 days per school year, and can bank that time through their Cumulative Absence Reserve. Under the current system, after their sick leave is exhausted, teachers are able to borrow future sick days and take advantage of a one-month grace period of unpaid leave while remaining on the city payroll. As discussed above, under the UFT’s paid parental leave policy, when a mother gives birth, she is allowed to use her CAR time for up to six weeks or eight weeks, depending on the type of delivery, and she cannot borrow future sick days. CAR days must be used before a mother can begin using the parental leave benefit.

Because most UFT members work on a 10-month schedule, members having a child between mid-May and mid-July with either no CAR days or less than six or eight weeks of available CAR will be unable to fully use the parental leave benefit. Nonbirth parents and those adopting or fostering children will not be able to use their CAR to delay the usage of their PPL, which begins the day of the qualifying event. Regardless of how many CAR days a member has, assuming a random distribution of births throughout the year, that member has a 30 percent chance of the birth occurring on a day where they would be eligible for either reduced or no parental leave. For this reason, IBO estimates that total PPL utilization rates will be approximately 83 percent of all PPL days available. At this usage rate, and an average base school year salary of $69,500 for eligible full-time UFT employees—including paraprofessionals—of childbearing age, we project that an equivalent of 4,065 full six-week qualifying events (83 percent of 4,900) will occur for a cost of $44.5 million annually.4

Based on IBO’s estimate of the average salary for UFT employees of childbearing age, after paying for benefits in the first year, the UFT Welfare Fund would still have at least $6.2 million (12.2 percent) left over from the $50.8 million transfer from the city to cover the cost of managing the program. The UFT’s welfare fund currently processes disability claims internally, and intends to continue this practice for PPL. The union projects that the annual cost of program management will be $1 million. According to the agreement signed by the city, the Department of Education, and UFT leadership, the $50.8 million contributed by the city must be used “solely for the administration of the parental leave program”—a restriction that would also apply to any surpluses that may occur.

The cost of paying salaries and benefits to new parents is one of two components of the cost to the city of providing paid parental leave: the other is the cost of filling positions while employees are out for extended periods. Before the advent of paid parental leave, principals routinely replaced teachers and paraprofessionals who were out for extended absences—including teachers becoming new parents—with long-term substitutes, members of the reserve teacher pool, and other professionals paid on a per diem (daily) basis.

Because UFT members will not begin taking paid parental leave until September 2018, it is too soon to directly measure the impact of this new benefit on the duration of leave that members take following a birth, adoption, or foster placement. When estimating outcomes, the city assumed that the new benefit would result in no behavioral change, and members would on average take the same amount of leave as was taken before PPL was available. But looking back at how the city’s managerial employees responded to the introduction of paid parental leave in 2015 and comparing employees who took PPL with similar employees who had taken advantage of the Family and Medical Leave Act in previous years, IBO found a small but noticeable increase in total leave of all types used. Assuming that DOE will largely use per diem employees for replacing pedagogical positions and overtime for nonpedagogical titles, IBO estimates that each additional week of replacement would cost the department $1.4 million annually.

Pattern Bargaining and Future Settlements

New York City has historically engaged in “pattern bargaining,” meaning that the first union to settle sets a pattern of wage increases for the remaining unions. There are often separate patterns for civilians and uniformed employees, with the UFT usually following the civilian pattern. In the last round of bargaining, as in the current round, DC 37 was the first large nonpedagogical civilian union to reach a wage settlement with the city. It is likely that settlements with other civilian unions will mirror the 44-month long DC 37 settlement, providing for annual wage increases of 2.0 percent, 2.25 percent and 3.0 percent, with eight additional months without a raise.

The UFT’s parental leave program will be financed primarily by deferring an update to teacher salary schedules for 73 days, which the Mayor’s office has estimated will generate $36.0 million of savings. (The remaining $14.8 million in anticipated savings result from treating the leave as disability.) The de Blasio Administration based its valuation of deferring the UFT’s contract on the “fully-loaded” cost of a raise, including not only the cost of wages but also additional fringe benefit costs such as increased pension contributions and employment taxes. The annual average wage increase in the last UFT contract, 1.56 percent, was used to estimate the cost of the deferral.5

Given that the recent DC 37 contract settlement establishes a pattern of 1.97 percent annual wage increases for the duration of its contract, it is reasonable to assume that the UFT will use this new information to achieve a similar wage pattern in their contract. If UFT members receive a 1.97 percent average wage increase in each year of their new contract instead of the 1.56 percent increase used by the Mayor’s office in its calculations, the savings to the city would be greater than originally assumed.6 Because the cost of wage-sensitive fringe benefits increase at the same rate as salary increases, a 1.97 percent wage increase for the UFT would result in $45.5 million savings from wage and fringe benefits for all UFT employees, $9.4 million more than the $36.0 million savings the city estimated upon adoption of the agreement.

Forecasting the Effects

For DC 37, the level of benefit is explicitly described by state law as being at least as generous as provided for in statute; employers have the option of extending more generous coverage, but no obligation to do so. The UFT’s situation is less clear. The memorandum of agreement signed by the de Blasio Administration and union leadership says that “the UFT will provide, at its discretion, a benefit to these employees through its Welfare Fund.” Though the official press release declared that teachers can expect a benefit equivalent to their take home pay, there is no contractual guarantee that UFT will maintain this benefit level should the process prove more expensive than expected. However, the UFT maintains that it intends to make its membership whole, providing a benefit equal to 100 percent of members’ base salary.

There is also uncertainty as to the breakdown of the savings not attributed to the deferral of the UFT contract. The city has stated that half of this $14.8 million in savings is attributable to lower pension costs. If that is the case, then the remainder of the savings result from other details of the plan, like the elimination of borrowing sick days and use of the grace period, which the city expects will result in personnel savings. The magnitude of these savings is difficult to forecast accurately until the workforce responds to the new benefit.

Outstanding Questions

The de Blasio Administration and UFT have stated publicly that paid parental leave would cost $50.8 million in benefits and administrative expenses, funded through UFT members’ concessions on wages and fringe benefits. Based on our estimates, IBO projects that this new policy will not be cost-neutral. We project that the city will accumulate $9.5 million of savings annually while the UFT will accrue a surplus of $5.2 million a year in its welfare fund. Meanwhile the union membership, through a deferral of their contract, will have given up $45.5 million in wage and fringe benefits. The cost of the salary deferrals are fixed, and will only change in proportion to any shifts in hiring or layoffs among UFT members.

The bottom line, whether the savings attributable to the program are at least as great as the cost of providing the benefits, will depend on benefit utilization matching projections. The existing research on the effects of new paid leave on leave-taking behavior, not to mention family planning decision-making, is still emerging as more states and municipalities establish the benefit. Any significant departure from expected birth rates, employee salaries, or length of leave could necessitate a return to the collective bargaining table. Estimation aside, these family leave settlements represent a significant unknown for the city. Within the span of two weeks, over half of the city’s workforce was provided with a substantial new benefit. Though the city’s cost is fixed in the case of the UFT, and effectively zero for DC 37, how a workforce hundreds of thousands strong responds may differ substantially from expected outcomes. Strong family leave policies have been shown to improve employee morale and retention, as well as provide more intangible benefits to new parents. The city may need to weigh these effects against the possible need to hire additional personnel if utilization rates are higher than anticipated.

Prepared by Robert Callahan

PDF version available here.

Endnotes

1“Members” includes both dues paying union members and nonmember employees in civil service titles represented by the UFT. 2IBO’s estimates of childbearing age are based on New York Department of Health’s 2015 birth rates for the female population and the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s 2015 birth rates for the male population nationwide. Our estimate of foster and adoption events are based on Administration for Children’s Services foster placement rates and U.S. annual adoption rates. 3IBO’s estimate of the average salary of full-time UFT employees of childbearing age—$69,500—is well below the de Blasio Administration’s estimate of $81,000. The Mayor’s estimate is based on a review of the salaries of UFT employees who actually used parental leave over the past five years; IBO requested but did not receive the data behind this study. This salary is paid over 12 months, but earned over the approximately 10 months of a school year. Daily rates are calculated according to this “10-month” salary. 4Other than occasional substitutes, those covering long-term substitute assignments, are paid 1/200 of the lowest schedule of a teacher’s salary per day of work; as of June 2018, this amount is $283.55/day. Paraprofessionals were assigned a rate of $100/day. For nonpedagogical UFT titles, IBO assumed that replacements would be paid overtime at time and a half. 5At the time the UFT and the de Blasio Administration reached agreement on paid parental leave, the DC 37 contract had not yet been settled. The average salary increase used to estimate the value of deferring UFT’s contract was based on the pattern of wage increases existing at that point in time. 6UFT’s June 20, 2018 press release: http://www.uft.org/press-releases/uft-doe-announce-paid-parental-leave-policy

PDF version available here.

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          Source: https://ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/the-parental-leave-deals-taking-a-closer-look-at-the-cost-and-savings-assumptions-2018.html

[princessnijireiki]

like honestly 1000% fuck mike rowe, BUT he is not wrong in terms of wanting to remove the stigma from blue collar work (even air quotes “blue collar work” that should, by like the criteria of requiring higher education or w/e, be “white collar,” but it’s too gendered, gross, or racialized for ppl to see it that way*) & vocational ed…

I mean, he’s coming at it in terms of social stigma + a push for nationalist capitalism… more work for ppl domestically is good, as is self-sufficience, but this goon supported donald “union buster” “we need more coal mining” trump— which, side note, we stopped using as much of in america & in the west in general bc of environmental impact AND its relative inefficiency as a fuel source ESP. in costs-benefits analysis including both energy generated & environmental/health dangers in use + acquisition— so, it’s either a “more work but fuck your lungs & poisoned drinking water” angle, or a “more work bc fuck all those FOREIGNERS stealing our jobs here or via outsourcing**” angle, and fuuuuuck that…

but if the idea, or at least the SALES PITCH of the idea of education is to prepare people for various stages of workforce readiness— and the idea people like who dislike vocational ed in k-12 cling to is that you want people to have the tools to aim high, try things & be whatever they want to be, rather than merely “settling” for what they are limited by in terms of education/capability— then more options is good, a portable skillset you can do with your hands/body/physical capability in order to support yourself wherever you go from there is good; NOT emphasizing a narrow curriculum/theme to education that forces everyone to tread a narrow path (whether that’s “one lane” narrow or “but you had stuff to pick from!!!!” when it’s a 3- or 4-option, if that, multiple choice “question"— french or spanish? algebra now or algebra later? music or art, but not both?) for over a decade before cutting them loose & watching them struggle while the seats in that next probable point on the one line of progress they’ve been trained for are fought over, filled up, or never existed… is good

like even just in terms of 1. don’t starve. 2. psychological well-being. and 3. until such time as all employers and/or the state must provide healthcare to all persons (citizen & non-citizen alike), you may need to aim for either gainful enough employment to afford your health needs (whatever they may be) on your own; the professional expertise or access to such care as a perk, a favor, or something you can do for yourself; or employment that typically DOES provide that healthcare and/or worker protections, esp. if you can also unionize. that is like… way more fucking important than analysis of walt whitman or the fucking sats, ykwim?

and then on top of that, it’s institutional subjugation tailor made to normalize an incredibly poor, toxic & exploitative work-life balance, where like… the books you wanna read. art. music. meeting people. expanded horizons. THAT’S where the walt whitman should go.

there is learning a skill for work/skilled labor, and there is learning for love of a thing, and there is learning for growth, and tbh there should only be a grading criteria for one of those things anyway. I’m not saying like abandon grammar & math classes, tools of language are important, and 2 + 2 does generally & consistently equal 4. but I didn’t learn my colors for a bubble test on them… I didn’t learn what letters and numbers were by force, or under pressure of evaluation, I learned them to try and understand the world better as a little kid.

and like… between these hours for school— which were traditionally specifically set to line up with a GROWN ADULT’S work day, aka, not for any efficiency, or for benefit to, or for appropriateness for the child— and even then, Bee Tee Double You, unions had to fight HARD to keep work hours within those limits + mandatory breaks/meals in SOME, not ALL, states (while many school districts also practice carrying student lunch debts, meal shaming, grade repercussions or not releasing student documents for carrying debt; or assignments asking what kids ate as a way to monitor who’s not getting fed, not in order to feed them, but to call dcf)— and the stringency of classes as they are designed, the kinds of thing curricula force vs. omit vs. ban even before teacher bias enters the picture, the time demands of at home work + study + pressures for extracurricular performance in order to have a "better chance” in education-/job-eligibility-as-competition…

people don’t have time to just be fuckin’ people. they don’t even have time to learn what that’s supposed to MEAN, let alone what it might ACTUALLY mean to THEM, without their “performance” (!) suffering, or “risking their chance to succeed,” as if it’s one chance, and as if there’s one success.

—

* (in the same way as I’ve dealt with my fair share of incompetent or just cruel teachers— and considering academia, that’s v. telling in a stanford prison experiment kind of way— there’s A LOT of competent nurses, ARNPs, and PAs out there doing a lot of work covering for ignorant, cruel, oblivious, and lazy doctors’ asses out here in the world, including protecting patients FROM those same doctors. I’m not saying doctors are all bad or don’t know a lot of shit, I’m not saying all nursing staff are angels or that there’s not a hierarchy WITHIN those other medical worker rankings. but that a nurse with a 4yr degree & a decade of hospital experience could be considered blue collar while a resident fresh off the school bus, not even graduated from med school, is considered white collar, is a fucking disgrace & incredibly fucking weird.)

** (people who complain about outsourcing & esp. the ways devaluation of the products of others’ underpaid labor are affecting their income— even when they complain about low cost items, though it’s generally with an implication of lower quality work by “foreigners"— hell, even the people who DO bother to complain about or decry sweatshop labor conditions or low worker wages in comparison to wealthy ceos— are almost always, universally, CONSTANTLY silent abt prison-industrial complex slave/underpaid labor "insourcing,” or human trafficking victims’ exploitation into debt slavery as a human rights matter, or, like, the cheapness of bananas or canned fruit or rice as an extension of globalized agribusiness’s exploitative practices… it’s not JUST a matter of “the work americans don’t want to do,” it’s that they’d rather not have to pay for it or think about it at all while collecting a paycheck themselves, and they blame the “injustice” of not getting their way on that on “foreigners,” bc xenophobia is easier than campaigning for workers’ rights locally + worldwide, or criticizing the wealth disparities of free market capitalism & labor devaluation.)

[hardtostudy]

American

THE PLANTATION - South in 1815: growing prosperity, and power. 
- Cotton 
- Slavery affected also values, customs, laws, class structure and the region’s relationship to the nation and the world
 - Shape defined by plantation, cotton, and slaves

 MASTER-SLAVE RELATIONSHIP
 - Labor and profit was essential 
- The labor relation was connected with violence - Slaves bodies, labor, and lives began to be defined as chattel
 - Slaves struggled to survive but also to resist and limit the level of exploration 
- Essential struggle - turning the system of absolute power and personal domination of the master to a design based on reciprocity — - Slaves had the means and human agency to resist (made their masters observe some limits to the exploitation of their labor
 - Master-slave relationship was very asymmetrical 
 SLAVES 
- Legally — chattel property — enslave people — mere extension of the master’s will
 - J. H. Hammond:
 The cardinal principle of slavery — that the motive is to be regarded as a thing — as an article of prosperity - a chattel personal - obtains as undoubted law in all these southern states. 

The slave lives for his master service. His life, his labour, his comforts are all at his masters disposal. Slave is the most valuable property.

 - Masters exercised exclusive power of slaves
 - Slaves could be sold to pay off their ots, transferred, sold by executors to set states, seized by sheriffs, etc. 
- Only 10% of wills did show some human concessions and made a human connection (arrangement to protect their family after their master’s death) 
- As a property they were legally devoid of will
 - Lives of slaves were full of violence (constant surveillance, sold or transferred, sexual abuse)
 - Insistence on the recognition of their humanity, natural rights to family and or their owner’s recognition of these families and communities 
- The debate about race was much more heated in the North (Northern institutions and universities looking for scientific proofs). 
- Polygenesis — the idea that races were distinct and unequal in origin, Phrenology, etc.

 - In South — slavery took the ideological work
 - The defense of pro-slavery argument was largely biblical —fixed orders (hierarchy) were the basis of a proper Christian republic.

 - J. D. Hammond:
 What God ordains and Christ sanctifies should surely command a respect and toleration of Man 

PRO-SLAVERY ARGUMENT
 - The necessity of Democratic-Republican government (only on the foundations of slavery could true republican society flourish) 
- Rejection of liberalism and principles of human equality - W. Harpor 1837: 
…is it not palpably near the truth to say that no man was ever born free and no two men were born equal? 

PRO-SLAVERY 
— Slavery is like a marriage. A benevolent institution to protect the weak 
ANTI-SLAVERY 
— Slavery is like a marriage. A form of illegitimate authority formed to oppress.

 - Analogy of slavery and marriage was an attempt to extent the public sense of immorality of slavery to other equally illegitimate forms of social domination 
- Pro-slavery ideologues turned to gender analogies too — to justify as equally natural relation of masters and slaves.

 SLAVE RESISTANCE
 - The ability to convey the experience of slavery was highly constrained - Narratives with first-hand experience broke through to the public life outside the South
 - Anti-slavery narratives (Solomon Northup, David Walker, Frederick Douglas, etc.) — their confessions were crucial in shaping American politics in the run up for the Civil War
 - Nat Turner Rebellion - in 1831 in Virginia (70 whites were killed) - fear on both sides - whites constantly lived in the fear from these rebellions - Slave rebellions were not uncommon - with the Civil War messages in the South they were less covert

 SLAVE FAMILY
 - Family - a body to protect individuals 
- Slave marriage had no legal standing in the South - chattel property had no rights 
- Forcing owner’s recognition of Family was the greatest political achievement under slavery - to make AA define themselves as people 

Marriage = A husband also owns his wife (possession of her body, her property and her children) 
Slave marriage = Everything belonged to the master, not the man a slave woman married.

 SLAVERY AND WOMEN 
‘’…slavery is terrible for men but it is far more terrible for women’’ H. Jacobs
 - Intimate relationships were recognized in slave communities - Unwed mothers were not ashamed (virtue and virginity was necessarily different for slave women — they could not control the circumstances of their sexual life)

 KINSHIP 
- Kinship (fictive kin) - extended biological ties - practice that tied people to children and expand the group and people invested in the child’s wellbeing - The selling of slaves involved repeated cycles of social death and re-birth - the narrative of Ch. Ball.

 THE END OF SLAVERY
 - The Civil War meant the end of slavery as an institution and the beginning of life - family, religion, freedom
 - When slaves were finally articulated, slaveholders had to acknowledge them as people

 THE END OF PLANTATION 
- 1865 the Confederacy was in ruins, slave regime was defeated - AA southerners had a long journey to gain their dignity 
- It was also the fall of the planter’s class. The plantation ended.
 THE HOME - ‘’America is God’s crucible, the great melting pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming!’’
 - 1607 - The arrival of three ships in the Chesapeake Bay
 - It was the newcomers who had the larger impact on the natives, rather than the other way around 
- Up through the early 1800s, European immigrants streamed into the colonies and the US, primarily from the British Isles

 FIRST WAVE OF IMMIGRATION
 - Late 1700s, it was the Scotch-Irish (Scots who had briefly settled in Ireland).
 - From about 1820 to 1880, it was the Irish and Germans.
 - The Irish arrived poor, but the Germans often had a little money and a skill.
 - The Irish took menial jobs, while the Germans went into printing, banking, painting, etc.
 - Many Germans pushed on to the Midwest, set up farming communities, and maintained old-country traditions.

 SECOND WAVE OF IMMIGRATION
 - From 1880-1924 some 26mil immigrants arrived — the largest migration in world history.
 - The earlier wave was primarily from western and northern Europe, the second wave was largely from eastern and southern Europe (large numbers of Italians, Jews fleeing persecution in Russia, Poland, and Hungary)
 - Between 1900 and 1909, when the 2nd wave peaked, two-thirds of immigrants came from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia.
 - By 1910 arrivals from Mexico outnumbered arrivals from Ireland, and numerous Japanese had moved to the West Coast and Hawaii. Foreign-born blacks, mainly from the West Indies, also came. 
- Many immigrants never intended to stay.
 - For every hundred foreigners who entered the country, around thirty ultimately left.
 - Most of the 26mil immigrants who arrived with this wave remained, and the great majority settled in cities. 

MELTING POT
 - A salad bowl with discrete units may be slightly better 
- Suggests the nature of America at the time — a changing blend of cultures.
 - Each group affects and is affected by the pre-existing culture, yet the result is more or less homogeneous society that speaks the same language and abides by the same laws.
 - Immigration to the US was part of a world-wide movement
 - Population pressures, land redistribution, and industrialization induced millions of peasants, small land-owners, and craftsmen to leave Europe and Asia for Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, and the US.
 - Technological advances in communications and transportation spread news of opportunities and made travel cheaper, quicker, and safer.
 - Religious persecution — pogroms and military conscription that Jews suffered in eastern Europe, forced people to escape across the Atlantic. 
- New arrivals received aid from relatives who had already immigrated

 NON-WHITE CITIZENS
 - African Americans, American Indians, Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans — their opportunities were scarce.
 - Asians particularly encountered discrimination and isolated residential experience — they were blamed for unemployment in California in the late 1870s.
 - ,,The Chinese must go’'
 - To limit this latest influx, the government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.

 THE AMERICAN DREAM
 - Non-manual jobs and the higher social status and income were attainable (white-collar jobs). 
- From poverty to moderate success.
 - Rates of upward occupational mobility were slow but steady between 1870 and 1920 (One in five manual workers rose to white-collar or owner’s positions within ten years)
 - America was not a utopian dream, but it was generally better than what they had left behind. - In the 1920s intolerance pervaded American society 
- Congress reversed previous policy and, In the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, set yearly immigration allocations for each nationality
 - Preference for Anglo-Saxon Protestant immigrants reflected in annual immigration quotas for eastern European nationalities (could not exceed 3% of the number of immigrants from that nation residing in the United States in 1910).
 - In 1924 Congress replaced it with the National Origins Act - law that limited annual immigration to 150 000 ppl and set quotas at 2% of each nationality residing in the US in 1890, except for Asians, who were banned completely.
 - In 1950, 88% of Americans were of European ancestry; 10% of the population was African American; 2% was Hispanic; and Native Americans and Asian Americans each accounted for about one fifth of 1%.
 - By 1960s only 5,7% of Americans were foreign-born (compared with approx 15% in 1910 and 12,4 in 2005)

 - The immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952 ended the quota system that favored some nationalities over others. 
- Between 1970 and 1990s the US absorbed more than 13 mil new arrivals, most from Latin America and Asia. Immigrants flooded in from South Korea, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. 
- In 1970 Latinos comprises 4,5% of the nation’s population; it jumped to 9% by 1990s, when one out of three Los Angelenos and Miamians were Hispanic.
 - Hispanics created a new hybrid culture — ‘'We want to be here, but without losing our language and our culture. They are richness, a treasure that we don’t care to lose.'' - Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 — ( discourage illegal immigration by imposing sanctions on employers who hired undocumented workers).
 - In 2002 the foreign-born were 11,5% of the US population, a rising trend in recent decades, though still below the 14,5% of 1910…
 WOMEN "a woman's place is in the home" Not mentioned in  the Declaration of Independence, they were absent in the Constitution, they were invisible in the new political democracy. They were the women of early America – half the population that remained invisible – the very invisibility of women is a sign of their submerged status. Throughout most of history women generally have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Wifehood and motherhood were regarded as women's most significant professions. In the 20th century, however, women in most nations won the right to vote and increased their educational and job opportunities. Perhaps most important, they fought for and to a large degree accomplished a reevaluation of traditional views of their role in society. Maternity, the natural biological role of women, has traditionally been regarded as their major social role as well. The resulting stereotype that "a woman's place is in the home" has largely determined the ways in which women have expressed themselves.  Biological predispositions positioned women as childbearers – whom men could use, exploit, who was at the same time servant, sex mate, companion, and bearer-teacher-warden of his children. Societies based on private property and competition in which monogamous families became practical units for work and socialiyation found it especially useful to establish this special status of women – something of a house slave in the mater of intimacy and oppression. The conditions under which white settlers came to America created various situations for women. Where the first settlements consisted almost entirely of men, women were imported as sex slaves, childbearers, companions. In 1619, the year that the first black slaves came to Virginia, ninety women arrived at Jamestown on one ship: „Agreeable persons, young and incorrupt... sold with their own consent to settlers as wives, the price to be the cost of their own transportation.“ Most women came as indentured servants – and did not live lives much different from slaves – they were to be obedient to masters and mistresses... The situation was much worse for black women – as slaves they were the property of their masters Even free white women not brought as servants or slaves, but as wives of the early settlers, faced special hardships.. Those who lived shared the life in the wildernss with their men and were often gien respect because they were so bady needed. And when men died, women often took up the men’s work as well. Women on the American frontier seemed close to equality with their men. But many were burdened with ideas from England influenced by Christian teachings. English law was summarized in a document of 1632 – „The lawes Resolutions of Womens Rights“ „In this consolidation which we call wedlock is a locking together. I tis true, that man and wife are one person, but understand in what manner. When a small brooke or little river incorporateth with Rhodanus, Humber, or the Thames, the poor rivulet looseth her name..... A woman as soon as she is married, is called covert... that is, „veiled“; as it were, clouded and overshadowed; she hath lost her streame. I may more truly, farre away, say to a married woman, her new self is her superior; her companion, her master…” Julia Spruill describes the woman’s legal situation in the colonial period: “The husband’s control over the wife’s person extended to the right of giving her chastisement…. But he was not entitled to inflict permanent injury or death on his wife…” As for property: “Besides absolute possession of his wife’s personal property and a life estate in her lands, the husband took any other income that might be hers. He collected wages earned by her labor…. Naturally it followed that the proceeds of the joint labor of husband wife belonged to the husband.” Puritan New England carried over the subjection of women – one woman dared to complain about the work a carpenter had done for her, the Reverend John Cotton said – “… that the husband should obey his wife, and not the wife the husband, that is a false principle. For God hath put another law upon women: wives, be subject to your husbands in all things.” In the 1700s – a best-selling “pocket-book” Advice to a Daughter: “You must first lay it down for a Foundation in general, that there is inequality in sexes, and that for the better Economy of the world; the men, who were to be the law-givers, had the larger share of reason bestowed upon them; by which means your sex is the better prepared for the xompliance that is necessary for the performance of those duties which seemed to be most properly assigned to it… your sex wanted our reason for your conduct, and our strength for your protection: ours wanted your gentleness to soften, and to entertain us… “ Yet women rebelled. Ann Hutchinson – a religious woman, mother of thirteen children – insisted that she, and other ordinary people, could interpret the Bible for themselves. She was a good speaker, held meetings and people gathered at her home in Boston to listen to her criticism of local ministers. John Winthrop described her as “a woman of a haughty and fierce carriage, of a nimble wit and active spirit, and a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man, though in understanding and judgement, inferior to many women.” She was put on trial for heresy and for challenging the authority of the government.  She was made to leave Boston. 20years later, one person who had spoken up for her during Hutchinson’s trial was hanged for rebellion, sedition, and presumptuous obtruding themselves.” During the Revolution, the necessities of war brought women out into public affairs. Women formed patriotic groups, carried out anti-British actions, wrote articles for independence. They were active in the campaign against the British tea tax. They organized Daughters of Liberty groups, boycotting British goods, urging women to make their own clothes and buy only American-made things. Abigail Adams – even before the Declaration of Independence wrote to her husband: … in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power in the hands of husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention are not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound to obey the laws in which we have no voice of representation.” But Jefferson underscored his phrase “all men are created equal” by his statement that American women would be “too wise to wrinkle their foreheads with politics”.. And after the Revolution none of the new state constitutions granted women the right to vote. Between the American Revolution and the Civil War so many elements of American society were changing – the growth of population, the movement westward, the development of the factory system, expansion of political rights for white men, educational growth to match the new economic needs – that changes were bound to take place in the situation of women. In pre-industrial America, the practical need for women in a frontier society had produced some measure of equality – women worked at important jobs – publishing newspapers, managing tanneries, keeping taverns, engaging in skilled work. Women were being pulled out of the house and into industrial life, while at the same time there was pressure for women to stay home where they were more easily controlled. As the economy developed, men dominated as mechanics and tradesmen, and aggressiveness became more and more defined as a male trait. The outside world created fears and tensions in the dominant male world and brought forth ideological controls to replace the loosening family controls: the idea of “the woman’s place” promulgated by men, was accepted by many women. Cult of true womanhood – pious, religious, sexually pure, feminine, chaste, submissive.. The Young Lady’s Book of 1830 – “… in whatever situation of life a woman is placed from her cradle to her grave, a spirit of obedience and submission, pliability of temper, and humility of mind, are required from her.” “True feminine genius is ever timid, doubtful, and clingingly dependent; a perpetual childhood.” One book – rules for domestic happiness – “Do not expect too much”  “How interesting and important are the duties devolved on females as wives… the counsellor and friend of the husband; who makes it her daily study to lighten his cares, to soothe his sorrows, and to augment his joys; who, like a guardian angel, watches over his interests, warns him against dangers, comforts him under trials; and by her pious, assiduous, and attractive deportment, constantly endeavors to render him more virtuous, more useful, more honorable, and more happy.” Republican mothers – patriotic women – women were urged to be patriotic since they had the job of educating children. The cult of domesticity – to pacify women with a doctrine – separate but equal – giving her work equally as important as the man’s, but separate and different. Inside that “equality” there was the fact that the woman did not choose her mate, and once her marriage took place, her life was determined. The new ideology worked – it helped to produce the stability needed by a growing economy. But the cult of true womanhood could not erase what was visible  as evidence of woman’s subordinate status – she could not vote, could not own property; when she did work, her wages were one-fourth to one-half what men earned in the same job. Women were excluded from professions of law and medicine, from colleges from the ministry. In 1789 in new England was introduced the first industrial spinning machinery and now there was a demand for young girls to work the spinning machinery in factories. All the operations needed to turn cotton fiber into cloth were under one roof. The new textile factories swiftly multiplied – most of the women working there were between 15-30. Some of the earliest industrial strikes took place in these textile mills in the 1830s – demanded shorter workday “I was awakened at five, by the bells calling to labor. The time allowed for dressing and breakfast was so short, as many told me, that both were performed hurriedly, and then the work at the mill was begun by lamplight, and prosecuted without remission will twelve, and chiefly in a standing position. Then half an hour only allowed for dinner, from which the time for going and returning was deducted. Then back to the mills to work till seven o’clock…. It must be remembered that all the hours of labor are spent in rooms where oil lapms, together with from 40 to 80 persons, are exhausting the healthful principle of the air… and where the air is loaded with particles of cotton thrown from thousands of cards, spindles, and looms.” Middle-class women barred from higher education, began to monopolize the profession of primary-school teaching. Literacy among women doubled between 1780 and 1840. Women became health reformers. They formed movements against double standards in sexual behavior. They joined in religious organizations. Some of the most powerful of them joined the antislavery movement. So, by the time a clear feminist movement emerged in the 1840s, women had become practiced organizers, agigatators, speakers. “Reason  and religion teach us, that we too are primary existences… not the satellites of men.” Women, after becoming involved in other movements or reform – antislavery, temperance, dress style, prison conditions – turned, emboldened and experienced, to their own situation. Angelina Grimke, a southern white woman who became a fierce speaker and organizer against slavery, saw that movement leading further: “Let us all first wake up the nation to lift millions of slaves of both sexes from the dust, and turn them into men and then… it will be an easy matter to take millions of females from their knees and set them on their feet, or in other words transform them from babies into women.” Opposition – “Some have tried to become semi-men by putting on the Bloomer dress. Let me tell you in a word why it can never be done. Is is this: woman, robed and folded in her long dress, is beautiful. She walks gracefully…. If she attempts to run, the charm is gone…. Take off the robes, and put on pants, and show the limbs, and grace and mystery are all gone.” Sarah Grimke , Angelina’s sister, wrote: “During the early part of my life, my lot was cast among the butterflies of the fashionable world; and of this class of women, I am constrained to say, both from experience and observation, that their education is miserably deficient; that they are taught to regard marriage as the one thing needful, the only avenue to distinction…” Angelina was the first woman to address a committee of the Massachusetts state legislature on antislavery petitions.. Many other women began speaking on other issues and thus on the situation of women. Women put in enormous work in antislavery societies all over the country. In the course of this work, events were set in motion that carried the movement of women for their own equality racing alongside the movement against slavery. First Women’s Rights Convention in history – Seneca Falls, New York held by Elizabeth Cady Stanton = three hundred women and some men came. A Declaration of Principles was signed and signed by 68 womena dn 32 men. It made use of the language and rhythm of the Declaration of Independence.  A series of women’s conventions in various parts of the country followed the one at Seneca Falls. Sojourner Truth – “Ain’t I a woman?” – That man over there says that woman needs to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches…. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mudpuddles or give me any best place. And an’t I a woman? ..” Women began to resist, in the 1830s and 40s and 50s, the attempt to keep them in their “woman’s sphere”. They were taking part in all sorts of movements, for prisoners, for the insane, for black slaves, and also for all women. In the 19th century, women began working outside their homes in large numbers, notably in textile mills and garment shops. In poorly ventilated, crowded rooms women (and children) worked for as long as 12 hours a day. Great Britain passed a ten-hour-day law for women and children in 1847, but in the United States it was not until the 1910s that the states began to pass legislation limiting working hours and improving working conditions of women and children. Eventually, however, some of these labor laws were seen as restricting the rights of working women. For instance, laws prohibiting women from working more than an eight-hour day or from working at night effectively prevented women from holding many jobs, particularly supervisory positions, that might require overtime work. Laws in some states prohibited women from lifting weights above a certain amount varying from as little as 15 pounds (7 kilograms) again barring women from many jobs. During the 1960s several federal laws improving the economic status of women were passed. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 required equal wages for men and women doing equal work. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination against women by any company with 25 or more employees. A Presidential Executive Order in 1967 prohibited bias against women in hiring by federal government contractors. But discrimination in other fields persisted. Many retail stores would not issue independent credit cards to married women. Divorced or single women often found it difficult to obtain credit to purchase a house or a car. Laws concerned with welfare, crime, prostitution, and abortion also displayed a bias against women. In possible violation of a woman's right to privacy, for example, a mother receiving government welfare payments was subject to frequent investigations in order to verify her welfare claim. Sex discrimination in the definition of crimes existed in some areas of the United States. A woman who shot and killed her husband would be accused of homicide, but the shooting of a wife by her husband could be termed a "passion shooting." Only in 1968, for another example, did the Pennsylvania courts void a state law which required that any woman convicted of a felony be sentenced to the maximum punishment prescribed by law. Often women prostitutes were prosecuted although their male customers were allowed to go free. In most states abortion was legal only if the mother's life was judged to be physically endangered. In 1973, however, the United States Supreme Court ruled that states could not restrict a woman's right to an abortion in her first three months of pregnancy. Until well into the 20th century, women in Western European countries lived under many of the same legal disabilities as women in the United States. For example, until 1935, married women in England did not have the full right to own property and to enter into contracts on a par with unmarried women. Only after 1920 was legislation passed to provide working women with employment opportunities and pay equal to men. Not until the early 1960s was a law passed that equalized pay scales for men and women in the British civil service. WOMEN AT WORK The medical profession is an example of changed attitudes in the 19th and 20th centuries about what was regarded as suitable work for women. Prior to the 1800s there were almost no medical schools, and virtually any enterprising person could practice medicine. Indeed, obstetrics was the domain of women. Beginning in the 19th century, the required educational preparation, particularly for the practice of medicine, increased. This tended to prevent many young women, who married early and bore many children, from entering professional careers. Although home nursing was considered a proper female occupation, nursing in hospitals was done almost exclusively by men. Specific discrimination against women also began to appear. For example, the American Medical Association, founded in 1846, barred women from membership. Barred also from attending "men's" medical colleges, women enrolled in their own for instance, the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, which was established in 1850. By the 1910s, however, women were attending many leading medical schools, and in 1915 the American Medical Association began to admit women members. In 1890, women constituted about 5 percent of the total doctors in the United States. During the 1980s the proportion was about 17 percent. At the same time the percentage of women doctors was about 19 percent in West Germany and 20 percent in France. In Israel, however, about 32 percent of the total number of doctors and dentists were women. Women also had not greatly improved their status in other professions. In 1930 about 2 percent of all American lawyers and judges were women in 1989, about 22 percent. In 1930 there were almost no women engineers in the United States. In 1989 the proportion of women engineers was only 7.5 percent. In contrast, the teaching profession was a large field of employment for women. In the late 1980s more than twice as many women as men taught in elementary and high schools. In higher education, however, women held only about one third of the teaching positions, concentrated in such fields as education, social service, home economics, nursing, and library science. A small proportion of women college and university teachers were in the physical sciences, engineering, agriculture, and law. The great majority of women who work are still employed in clerical positions, factory work, retail sales, and service jobs. Secretaries, bookkeepers, and typists account for a large portion of women clerical workers. Women in factories often work as machine operators, assemblers, and inspectors. Many women in service jobs work as waitresses, cooks, hospital attendants, cleaning women, and hairdressers. During wartime women have served in the armed forces. In the United States during World War II almost 300,000 women served in the Army and Navy, performing such noncombatant jobs as secretaries, typists, and nurses. Many European women fought in the underground resistance movements during World War II. In Israel women are drafted into the armed forces along with men and receive combat training. Women constituted more than 45 percent of employed persons in the United States in 1989, but they had only a small share of the decision-making jobs. Although the number of women working as managers, officials, and other administrators has been increasing, in 1989 they were outnumbered about 1.5 to 1 by men. Despite the Equal Pay Act of 1963, women in 1970 were paid about 45 percent less than men for the same jobs; in 1988, about 32 percent less. Professional women did not get the important assignments and promotions given to their male colleagues. Many cases before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1970 were registered by women charging sex discrimination in jobs. Working women often faced discrimination on the mistaken belief that, because they were married or would most likely get married, they would not be permanent workers. But married women generally continued on their jobs for many years and were not a transient, temporary, or undependable work force. From 1960 to the early 1970s the influx of married women workers accounted for almost half of the increase in the total labor force, and working wives were staying on their jobs longer before starting families. The number of elderly working also increased markedly. Since 1960 more and more women with children have been in the work force. This change is especially dramatic for married women with children under age 6: 12 percent worked in 1950, 45 percent in 1980, and 57 percent in 1987. Just over half the mothers with children under age 3 were in the labor force in 1987. Black women with children are more likely to work than are white or Hispanic women who have children. Over half of all black families with children are maintained by the mother only, compared with 18 percent of white families with children. Despite their increased presence in the work force, most women still have primary responsibility for housework and family care. In the late 1970s men with an employed wife spent only about 1.4 hours a week more on household tasks than those whose wife was a full-time homemaker. A crucial issue for many women is maternity leave, or time off from their jobs after giving birth. By federal law a full-time worker is entitled to time off and a job when she returns, but few states by the early 1990s required that the leave be paid. Many countries, including Mexico, India, Germany, Brazil, and Australia require companies to grant 12-week maternity leaves at full pay. Traditionally a middle-class girl in Western culture tended to learn from her mother's example that cooking, cleaning, and caring for children was the behavior expected of her when she grew up. Tests made in the 1960s showed that the scholastic achievement of girls was higher in the early grades than in high school. The major reason given was that the girls' own expectations declined because neither their families nor their teachers expected them to prepare for a future other than that of marriage and motherhood. This trend has been changing in recent decades. Formal education for girls historically has been secondary to that for boys. In colonial America girls learned to read and write at dame schools. They could attend the master's schools for boys when there was room, usually during the summer when most of the boys were working. By the end of the 19th century, however, the number of women students had increased greatly. Higher education particularly was broadened by the rise of women's colleges and the admission of women to regular colleges and universities. In 1870 an estimated one fifth of resident college and university students were women. By 1900 the proportion had increased to more than one third. Women obtained 19 percent of all undergraduate college degrees around the beginning of the 20th century. By 1984 the figure had sharply increased to 49 percent. Women also increased their numbers in graduate study. By the mid-1980s women were earning 49 percent of all master's degrees and about 33 percent of all doctoral degrees. In 1985 about 53 percent of all college students were women, more than one quarter of whom were above age 29. WOMEN IN REFORM MOVEMENTS Women in the United States during the 19th century organized and participated in a great variety of reform movements to improve education, to initiate prison reform, to ban alcoholic drinks, and, during the pre-Civil War period, to free the slaves. At a time when it was not considered respectable for women to speak before mixed audiences of men and women, the abolitionist sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke of South Carolina boldly spoke out against slavery at public meetings (see Grimke Sisters). Some male abolitionists including William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Frederick Douglass supported the right of women to speak and participate equally with men in antislavery activities. In one instance, women delegates to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840 were denied their places. Garrison thereupon refused his own seat and joined the women in the balcony as a spectator. Some women saw parallels between the position of women and that of the slaves. In their view, both were expected to be passive, cooperative, and obedient to their master-husbands. Women such as Stanton, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth were feminists and abolitionists, believing in both the rights of women and the rights of blacks. (See also individual biographies.) Many women supported the temperance movement in the belief that drunken husbands pulled their families into poverty. In 1872 the Prohibition party became the first national political party to recognize the right of suffrage for women in its platform. Frances Willard helped found the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (see Willard, Frances). During the mid-1800s Dorothea Dix was a leader in the movements for prison reform and for providing mental-hospital care for the needy. The settlement-house movement was inspired by Jane Addams, who founded Hull House in Chicago in 1889, and by Lillian Wald, who founded the Henry Street Settlement House in New York City in 1895. Both women helped immigrants adjust to city life. (See also Addams; Dix.) Women were also active in movements for agrarian and labor reforms and for birth control. Mary Elizabeth Lease, a leading Populist spokeswoman in the 1880s and 1890s in Kansas, immortalized the cry, "What the farmers need to do is raise less corn and more hell." Margaret Robins led the National Women's Trade Union League in the early 1900s. In the 1910s Margaret Sanger crusaded to have birth-control information available for all women (see Sanger). FIGHTING FOR THE VOTE The first women's rights convention took place in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in July 1848. The declaration that emerged was modeled after the Declaration of Independence. Written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it claimed that "all men and women are created equal" and that "the history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman." Following a long list of grievances were resolutions for equitable laws, equal educational and job opportunities, and the right to vote. With the Union victory in the Civil War, women abolitionists hoped their hard work would result in suffrage for women as well as for blacks. But the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, adopted in 1868 and 1870 respectively, granted citizenship and suffrage to blacks but not to women. Disagreement over the next steps to take led to a split in the women's rights movement in 1869. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, a temperance and antislavery advocate, formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in New York. Lucy Stone organized the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) in Boston. The NWSA agitated for a woman-suffrage amendment to the Federal Constitution, while the AWSA worked for suffrage amendments to each state constitution. Eventually, in 1890, the two groups united as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Lucy Stone became chairman of the executive committee and Elizabeth Cady Stanton served as the first president. Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw served as later presidents. The struggle to win the vote was slow and frustrating. Wyoming Territory in 1869, Utah Territory in 1870, and the states of Colorado in 1893 and Idaho in 1896 granted women the vote but the Eastern states resisted. A woman-suffrage amendment to the Federal Constitution, presented to every Congress since 1878, repeatedly failed to pass.  Pros of Immigration: • Will work at unwanted jobs. • Immigrants are a key part of Americas economic growth. • Increasing population. • We expand the American culture into other cultures and vice-versa. • Boost the economy. Cons of Immigration: • Immigrants take jobs away from Americans. • Illegal immigrants are decreasing wages for the poor and increasing taxes. • Immigrants are threating the American identity. • Some say that immigration is going to bring the economy down. • Cheap Labor. [it puts more Americans out of their jobs.]