#when I give them a consensus on 8+years of experience and study they dismiss it anyway

[rue-with-the-tarot]

Me, a well-studied polytheist: “Zeus is great he-“

Everyone: “diDnT hE rAPe a ThOuSAnD pEOpLe????!!!”

Me: “I cannot keep having the same conversation.”

[foreverlogical]

An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that gender inequality exists in the U.S. But there is stark disagreement about how pervasive the issue is and what should be done about it, according to a TIME-commissioned survey conducted by SSRS last month.

Respondents offered opinions on multiple aspects of gender inequality, including the wage gap, representation in government and unpaid work. The survey, conducted in partnership with Equality Can’t Wait, polled a nationally representative sample between August 19 and August 29, and found that men don’t consider the problems of gender inequality to be as severe as women do.

For example, 75% of people who took the survey believe that female workers are paid less than their male counterparts who do similar work. That may seem like a consensus, but only 62% of men held this belief, compared with 86% of women.

The disparity isn’t a surprise to survey respondents who have witnessed unequal pay first hand.

Take Erica Kaczmarowski, a 40-year-old accountant at a law firm in Buffalo, N.Y. Her job gives her insight into salaries at the law firm, where, she says, female paralegals earn less than male paralegals.

“I think most people don’t talk about what they make, especially at work,” Kaczmarowski says. “Some women may feel they might get fired or not get raises, depending on who their boss is. There’s a risk in bringing it up.”

Women working full time make 81% what their male counterparts make, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It could take another four decades to close the gender wage gap, according to projections from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, based on Census data. And it will take more than twice as long for women of color to reach parity.

Jessica Girard, a 32-year-old database developer with a master’s degree in computer and information systems, works at a mid-sized education firm in Tampa, Fla. She is the only black woman on her team of eight people.

When she asked her manager for a raise last year, he dismissed her, saying that they would eventually schedule a meeting to talk about it. That meeting never happened, despite her repeated requests.

After noticing that her colleagues got meetings to discuss salaries, Girard went to the company’s CTO, who said that her request had never been formally submitted. The CTO quickly approved the higher salary.

“I had a very legitimate case for getting a raise,” says Girard. She concedes that racial and gender discrimination is hard to prove, “but it was oddly coincidental that I was the one not getting heard.”

The TIME poll found a similar pattern for labor outside the workplace. Overall, 82% of respondents think that women spend more time than men performing unpaid tasks, such as managing a household and caring for children. But based on the poll, men generally underestimate the extent of that inequality.

U.S. women spend 67% more time doing unpaid work than U.S. men, according to the OECD, an intergovernmental economic organization. The majority of male poll respondents say that women do 20% or 40% more unpaid work. The majority of female respondents say 60% or 80% more, which is closer to the OECD figure.

Pamela Johnson, 52, has years of experience juggling career and caretaking. When her son was born 12 years ago, she was working full time in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. She recalls waking up at 3:30 a.m. to make bottles and do laundry before leaving for work at 5:30 while her husband, a law enforcement officer, was asleep. After putting in a full day, she cooked dinner and did the dishes. When her older relatives got sick, Johnson chipped in to help her mother care for them. “Women step up,” she says. “They sleep less.”

For the last two years, Johnson has commuted to Houston from Fort Lauderdale, where she works at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Due to her regular travel away from home, her husband has assumed many of the household responsibilities. “Now he sees all the housework is hard,” she says.

There is no silver bullet to achieve gender equality in the U.S. According to the TIME survey, 40% say closing the wage gap is the most important first step. But among parents, more than 1 in 3 say that parental support systems, such as universal childcare and federal paid parental leave, are more critical.

The average cost of child care in the U.S. is $9,000 per year, according to a 2018 report from Child Care Aware of America. But this is highly variable, as care for infants tends to cost much more than for older children, and certain states are more expensive. For example, in Massachusetts, the annual cost of an infant in a child care center is $20,400—or 17% of the median income for a married-couple family. The cost becomes even more prohibitive with multiple children.

The federal government’s current initiatives are insufficient for many American families. For instance, the Head Start programs are intended to serve children under age five who live below the poverty level. But among those eligible children, the programs serve 42% of pre-school children and only 4% of babies and toddlers, according to the Child Care Aware report. The federal government did, however, double the child care tax credit in 2017, from $1,000 to $2,000 per child.

Ryan Swadley, 35, from Green Bay, Wisc., recalls the challenges he and his wife faced when his kids, now ages 8 and 9, were born. The family was lower-income, receiving government assistance from the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program. They relied on family to help out. And his wife, who was studying for her master’s degree, took a job at a daycare in order to get a discount for the kids.

“It was a nightmare,” says Swadley. “If we had universal childcare, it would be so much easier for parents to work, and that’s something that hits mothers the hardest.”

Swadley recognizes that some large firms have recently started to offer longer paid leave for mothers and fathers. It’s a step in the right direction, he says, but notes that real change needs to be broader, through a state or federal initiative.

“It has to be more than just a hodgepodge of companies doing the right thing,” he says. “A lot of people in lower income, like we were, are not at those companies, so people who need it most are less likely to get it.”

Looking forward, about half of all respondents believe that gender equality will be reached within the next 50 years. But blacks are more skeptical: only 37% anticipate equality that soon, while 23% say it will take longer and 29% predict it will never happen.

While a majority of men see some level of inequality between the genders, a full quarter of surveyed men say that the country doesn’t need to take any steps to fight gender inequality. This may explain why progress is so slow: It’s hard to address a problem when so many don’t believe it exists.

This poll was conducted in partnership with Equality Can’t Wait – a campaign to accelerate gender equality in the U.S. led by Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company created by Melinda Gates.

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[brittanyyoungblog]

Unwanted Sex and Nonconsensual Sex are Not the Same Thing

In recent years, I have noticed an increasing trend in both public and academic discourse on sex to conflate unwanted sexual activity with nonconsensual sexual activity. For example, in many studies of sexual victimization, “unwanted sexual contact” is often lumped into the same category as rape and other forms of sexual abuse [1].

While it might make intuitive sense to assume that all wanted sex is consensual and all unwanted sex is nonconsensual, there is actually an important distinction to be made between wanting to have sex and consenting to sex.  

In a 2007 study published in The Journal of Sex Research, researchers surveyed 339 college-age women [2]. Participants were asked to describe a previous sexual experience and to answer questions about both consent and wanting in that situation.

They found that consenting to sex and wanting sex were closely linked, such that consensual sex was generally reported as wanted and nonconsensual sex was generally reported as unwanted; however, they also found that “individuals sometimes consent to unwanted sex and sometimes do not consent to wanted sex.”  

In fact, about 1 in 20 women who described a consensual sexual experience reported it as having been unwanted, while a similar number of women who described a nonconsensual experience reported it as wanted. 

Why would someone consent to sex that is unwanted? There are several possible reasons. For example, one participant in this study described sex that she consented to and enjoyed but nonetheless classified as unwanted because she didn’t want to have sex outside of marriage. While she agreed to do it, it wasn’t what she wanted and she feels guilty about it.

As another example of how someone might consent to sex that they don’t want, consider asexual persons—persons who do not desire partnered sexual activity. Research has found that, despite not wanting to have sex, many asexual persons report having had sex before and some report willingness to do it again in the future [3]. 

Why do some asexual persons consent to sex they do not want? It’s important to recognize that being asexual does not necessarily mean that one is aromantic—many asexuals persons still want romantic relationships, and sometimes they partner with someone who is sexual. In these cases, some asexuals report a willingness to have sex because they want to please their partner.

Of course, sexual persons sometimes consent to sex that they don’t want for the very same reason: they might not be in the mood, but agree to have sex anyway because they want to make their partner happy. Research has found that this can even be beneficial for relationships—couples who are motivated to meet each other’s sexual needs (even when a partner’s needs might be different from one’s own) tend to be more satisfied with and committed to their relationships [4]. One caveat: this has to be reciprocal—in other words, it has to go both ways. If one partner is always sacrificing and striving to make the other happy but isn’t getting similar treatment in return, those relationships don’t tend to work out too well.

Now, you might be wondering about the flip-side of this—how can someone say that a nonconsensual sexual experience was wanted? In a study where researchers asked people to describe experiences with nonconsensual sex, some described having wanted that sex for a range of reasons, such as feeling sexually aroused or because they thought it might enhance their image [5].

In other words, there was a certain level of want and desire for sex in these situations, but just because they wanted it doesn’t mean that they consented to it under the specific circumstances under which it took place. Think about it this way: people can want things—both sexual and non-sexual—but decide not to do them for a range of reasons (just like you might want to go out and party with friends tonight, but you don’t agree to go out with them because you need to work in the morning).

Making a distinction between wanting sex and consenting to sex has several important implications. For one thing, it has implications for researchers who study sexual victimization. If all unwanted sexual activity is automatically categorized as sexual assault, it means that some consensual experiences are going to wind up in this category, such as when people consent to unwanted sex with the goal of making their partner happy.  

It also has implications for how we think about sexual assault more broadly. It’s common for people to dismiss rape and sexual assault allegations any time there is evidence that the person wanted sex. In these cases, victims are then—unfairly—blamed for their own assault because they “asked for it.” However, just because someone wants or desires sex doesn’t mean that they are providing blanket consent for anything that happens.   

What all of this tells us is that, while wanting sex and consenting to sex usually go together, these concepts are not one and the same—and we would do well to recognize the distinction between them.

Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology ? Click here for previous articles or follow the blog on Facebook (facebook.com/psychologyofsex), Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit (reddit.com/r/psychologyofsex) to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram.

[1] Fedina, L., Holmes, J. L., & Backes, B. L. (2018). Campus sexual assault: A systematic review of prevalence research from 2000 to 2015. Trauma, violence, & abuse, 19(1), 76-93.

[2] Peterson, Z. D., & Muehlenhard, C. L. (2007). Conceptualizing the “wantedness” of women's consensual and nonconsensual sexual experiences: Implications for how women label their experiences with rape. Journal of sex research, 44(1), 72-88. 

[3] Hille, J. J., Simmons, M. K., & Sanders, S. A. (2019). “Sex” and the Ace Spectrum: Definitions of Sex, Behavioral Histories, and Future Interest for Individuals Who Identify as Asexual, Graysexual, or Demisexual. The Journal of Sex Research, 1-11.

[4] Muise, A., & Impett, E. A. (2015). Good, giving, and game: The relationship benefits of communal sexual motivation. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6(2), 164-172.

[5] Satterfield, A. T., & Muehlenhard, C. L. (1996, November). The role of gender in the meaning of sexual coercion: Women’s and men’s reactions to their own experiences. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, Houston, TX. (As cited in Peterson & Muehlenhard, 2007) 

You Might Also Like:

How Many Men Admit To Sexual Assault When Hooked Up To A Lie Detector?

What Forced Sex Fantasies Mean In the #MeToo Era

Nonconsensual Condom Removal: How Common is “Stealthing?”

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[gordonwilliamsweb]

Black Women Turn to Midwives to Avoid COVID and ‘Feel Cared For’

From the moment she learned she was pregnant late last year, TaNefer Camara knew she didn’t want to have her baby in a hospital bed.

Already a mother of three and a part-time lactation consultant at Highland Hospital in Oakland, Camara knew a bit about childbirth. She wanted to deliver at home, surrounded by her family, into the hands of an experienced female birth worker, as her female ancestors once did. And she wanted a Black midwife.

It took the COVID-19 pandemic to get her husband on board. “Up until then, he was like, ‘You’re crazy. We’re going to the hospital,’” she said.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare health care inequities, more Black women are looking to home birth as a way not only to avoid the coronavirus but also to shun a health system that has contributed to African American women being three to four times more likely to die of childbirth-related causes than white women, regardless of income or education. Researchers argue that the roots of this disparity — one of the widest in women’s health care — lie in long-standing social inequities, from lack of safe housing and healthy food to inferior care provided at the hospitals where Black women tend to give birth.

“It feels like we are needed,” said midwife Kiki Jordan, who co-owns Birthland, a prenatal practice that opened early this year in a 400-square-foot storefront in Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood targeting low-income women of color.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March, she said, the practice’s clientele has more than tripled.

Images of hospitals inundated with coronavirus patients have sparked a flurry of new interest among women of all races in home births, which account for just over 1% of deliveries in the United States. Birth centers and midwives who attend home births say they’ve been swamped by new clients since the pandemic.

“Every midwife I’m talking to has seen their practice double or sometimes triple in the wake of COVID,” said Jamarah Amani, a Florida midwife and co-founder of the National Black Midwives Alliance.

Many Americans think of giving birth at home as backward and scary, or as a quixotic practice of privileged white women, akin to cloth diaper services and home-cooked baby food.

But the growing interest in home births in recent years has fueled a growing Black midwifery movement that harks back to a venerable, if long-forgotten, tradition in the United States.

Jordan’s practice is now 98% Black, “something I’ve never seen before,” she said. She provides pre- and postnatal care regardless of where women plan to deliver, though the majority of her clientele choose home births.

African American infants are more than twice as likely to die as white infants, and the risks extend across social class. Tennis superstar Serena Williams’ harrowing 2018 account of her own near-death postpartum experience with a blood clot in her lungs and a cascade of life-threatening complications was a sobering reminder that even wealth and fame are no protection from being dismissed or mistreated during one of the most vulnerable moments of a woman’s life.

At least three Black women have died in childbirth since March in New York City, which was hit hard early on by the coronavirus. One of the women, 26-year-old Amber Isaac, had reportedly tried to switch to a home or birth-center delivery after not getting an in-person appointment with her obstetrician as providers abruptly switched to telemedicine in the wake of the shutdown.

For Katrina Ayoola, 29, avoiding unnecessary medical interventions that researchers say can lead to dangerous maternal complications was a key reason for switching to a home birth. As the coronavirus hit last spring, when Ayoola was around five months pregnant with her first baby, she was already frustrated with her obstetricians in Martinez, California. She didn’t like their system of rotating providers, to whom she felt she constantly had to reexplain herself. The last straw was being told to go shopping for a home blood pressure monitor. They were sold out everywhere. “I ended up canceling what would have been an online appointment, and I haven’t heard from them since,” said Ayoola.

“I did not feel cared for,” she said.

On Aug. 1, Ayoola delivered her son, Oluwatayo, at home in Fairfield with her husband, Daré, and her mother at her side following a 29-hour labor supervised by Jordan and her partner, Anjali Sardeshmukh.

“At the hospital, I’d probably have had a C-section,” said Ayoola, who said her home birth was “an amazing, empowering experience,” worth every penny of the out-of-pocket $4,500 the couple paid for it — a discount, based on their insurance and income, from Birthland’s typical $6,500 fee.

Cost is a major barrier for poor people to access out-of-hospital births. Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program that covers many low-income pregnant women, pays for home births in only a handful of states. Since 2015 these have included California, but reimbursement is low and bureaucratic requirements make it difficult for most midwives to accept Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program. A quarter of U.S. states do not even offer midwife licenses, making the practice of home birth effectively illegal.

Jordan led a free-standing birth center in San Rafael that was the first in the state to accept Medi-Cal when it opened in 2016. She and a handful of other Black midwives around the country are leading the effort to make out-of-hospital births more accessible to low-income women, a group that could particularly benefit from community-based midwifery, according to a 2018 study.

Many of these birth workers are struggling to break even, but that’s nothing new.

In past generations, Black midwives sometimes walked miles and stayed days with laboring women, massaging their feet, cooking and babysitting, and reading from the Bible in exchange for a few dollars or a chicken, according to historical accounts. Immigrants and African Americans dominated midwifery during much of this country’s history, and in the South, enslaved women passed from mother to daughter childbirth techniques and remedies brought from West Africa starting in the 1600s.

In certain rural pockets, Black midwives continued to deliver babies for poor Black and white families alike, even into the last century, as modern obstetrics regulated traditional birth attendants virtually out of existence. Midwives delivered half of the nation’s babies in 1900 and just over 10% by the 1930s, as physicians launched a campaign to promote hospital birth as safe and hygienic, while dismissing midwives as “relics of barbarism.”

But in recent years, with hospital birth as the norm, the United States has registered the poorest birth outcomes in the industrialized world. The numbers have worsened during the past 25 years even as they’ve improved in most of the world, largely because of the disproportionate toll on African Americans.

California has led the effort to reverse that trend, cutting its maternal death rate by 55% between 2006 and 2013, though the disparity for Black mothers has persisted.

Researchers have documented countless instances of pregnant African American women being ignored, drug-tested without permission, or sutured without pain medication.

There is a growing consensus among medical researchers and social scientists that discrimination can result in toxic stress that causes maternal complications or premature births. Respectful, holistic prenatal care can improve outcomes, said Jennie Joseph, a British-trained midwife. Her prenatal clinic in Florida serving mostly low-income women of color has had consistently low rates of maternal complications and premature and low-birth-weight babies.

Joseph believes it matters less where a woman gives birth than how she is treated during the previous nine months, and most of her clients deliver in hospitals.

Groups like Amani’s are encouraging more midwives of color to penetrate what she calls the profession’s “old girls’ network.” Just 2% of American midwives are Black, and research has shown that Black patients tend to do better with Black providers.

There is evidence that their numbers are growing with demand, however. California now has about half a dozen licensed Black midwifery practices, including three that have opened in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2017.

Camara said she wanted to support them: She’s had supportive, competent white birth attendants in the past, “but it wasn’t the same,” she said. “This is returning to what we did before.”

At around 6 on a Saturday morning in mid-August, as a heat wave gripped the Bay Area, she phoned Jordan to tell her she was having contractions. Barely two hours later, the midwives helped her give birth to her son, Esangu, 8 pounds, 6 ounces, on her hands and knees on her living room floor.

This KHN story first published on California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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