My Facebook wall has recently been fairly covered with images and rants (for and against) Kendall Jones. If you are fortunate enough not to know who Kendall Jones is, she is a Texas Tech cheerleader who hunts big game. She has generated a lot of controversy by posting pictures of her with her kills, and taking a combative position on her hunting. There is a Change.org petition to bar her from traveling to Africa (that's a US petition to bar a US citizen from legally travelling to engage in legal activities on a different continent), and there are people literally calling for her to be killed. Much of the outrage seems to stem from the mistaken belief that non-lethal eco-tourism is a better and more effective way to promote and effect conservation. Many people who oppose hunting honestly believe that photographing wildlife does more to preserve species than killing them does. It makes sense, it's logical, it's false.
According to National Geographic the 18,500 hunters that annually travel to Africa to hunt big game animals bring in 200 million dollars a year. That averages out to US$ 10,810 per hunter. That is just what they are paying to hunt. That is not the cost of flights and accommodations. How many eco-tourists could or would pay ten thousand dollars for a photo tour?
But let's take a look closer to home. If you enjoy seeing wildlife, and you live in the lower 48, you should thank a hunter. There were 12.5 million hunters in the US in 2006. That was a drop of 1.6 million over the preceding period of 15 years. That means that less than five percent of the population was hunting. But that five percent accounted for 75% of the funding for state wildlife agencies. And that does not factor in Federal Duck Stamps which can be thanked for 5.2 million preserved acres (National Geographic, November 2007). The Fish and Wildlife Service has a little blurb about this.
In the US we have lots of numbers being tracked. One number that the US Fish and Wildlife Service tracks is how many people are "wildlife watching participants." Wildlife watching participants are the people who are out enjoying the wildlife and taking pictures. Those people number 71 million, and comprise 30% of the population. Six times as many people are engaging in non-hunting wilderness activities, but they provide only a fraction of the revenue from their actions. It is nice to imagine that hiking and bird-watching do more to protect species than the slaughter of innocent animals, but it is a pretty lie.
On a personal level, I do not understand the desire to hunt predators. I have not been an active hunter in recent years, though I hope to change that in the relatively near future. I have killed a number of animals, but for food or to put them out of their misery. I do not like killing animals. Every time I have to kill something it is a psychic pain, and for me that pain is managed by knowing that the animal will be used respectfully, or will no longer be suffering. When I do hunt I am happy to let someone else do the shooting and I'll do the skinning and cleaning. For me the killing of animals is not fun, and that is true for many people. That is not true for many hunters, and obviously not for Kendall Jones.
On a deep level I find safari style big game hunts unseemly.
While I do not understand the desire to hunt predators, I am glad that there are people who do along with laws to control their behaviors. I understand that most people from the Lower 48 have grown up in a setting where the wilderness is contained and their ancestors wiped out most of the animals that would kill them and eat them. When apex predators are not a part of your life it can be hard to remember that they are in fact dangerous. It is seductive to believe that nature is naturally balanced and without human interference life simply moves along with all animals at stable levels. The science does not support this however, animal populations fluctuate. During times of plentiful food prey animal populations rise. This is followed by predator population rises. Predators hunt the prey until populations drop to a point where the predators start to stave and die off.
For an example of the effect of predators on prey populations we can look at Yellowstone. In 1995 the elk population had risen to over 19,000. That year wolves were reintroduced. In 2012 there were 4,174. In 2013 there were 3,915. If we want to keep a healthy elk population and wolf population we are going to need to control the wolf population.
But back to Kendall and her African safaris. Is there a measurable benefit to allowing hunters to kill endangered animals? According to National Geographic there is. In the same article I linked to earlier National Geographic claims that regulated hunts can be thanked for bringing the white rhino population from 50 to over 11,000 because the hunts gave ranch owners an incentive to repopulate their properties. This is where we get to the meat of what hunting does for species.
When people just want to take pictures of majestic animals they are not likely to be willing to pay thousands of dollars to take one picture. Africa is not a continent sized game preserve. It is a continent with dozens of countries and more than 1.03 billion people on it. Those are 1.03 billion people who need to eat and don't want to be killed by animals. If there is no economic incentive to keeping dangerous animals around, how are they going to be protected. The animals that we like so much (lions, cheetahs, leopards, rhinos, hippos, elephants, etc) are threats to people who live with them. A lion might be majestic, but the majesty of the lion might be tarnished in your eyes if it ate your children and livestock. Why would you protect an animal that will only harm you? If you could make a living off of the management of lions you would have an incentive to protect them. Maybe you could then afford better housing and protection for your livestock.
Legal big game hunts are vital to the survival of endangered animals. Maybe someday humanity will be evolved enough that we need no motivation beyond love of wilderness to create adequate protections for animals, but someday is not today. Right now we still need incentives to live with violent and dangerous animals.
Still, I don't think that the vitriol aimed at Kendall Jones is based on rational thought about the welfare of species. Kendall occupies a bizarre intersection of feminism and misogyny. She is a stereotypically attractive young woman. She has orange skin, lots of makeup, and she is thin; the American ideal. She also has a bright smile that she flashes in her photos with dead animals. You can find plenty of article claiming a feminist perspective that characterize her hunting as catering to misogynistic hunter goddess stereotypes. You can also find plenty of articles that imply that her taking pleasure in the hunt is unwomanly and unseemly.
She also courts controversy. She posts inflammatory statements. She makes her hunts a political statement. It should not be surprising that she has run afoul of a lot of feminists when she has positioned herself in opposition to many progressive values. But I think it is a bit of hypocrisy to promote female equality and then excoriate a young woman for hunting. But that is just my perspective. I consider myself a feminist, but for me the goal of feminism is to make a world where my daughter can choose to live how she wants to live. I do not want my daughter to feel forced to conform to a feminist ideal of how she should live her life any more than I want her forced to wear a burqua. That said, I would be much more understanding if she wanted to be a vegetarian lesbian investment banker than if she wanted to wear a burqua... But I like to think that I would try to give her space to make her choices (please Abby, no burquas).
Kendall Jones seems like a bit of a jerk to me. I'm fine with her hunting, and helping conservation with her activities. I'm fine with her pursuing atypical interests. I'm even fine with her cynical courting of controversy. But I do not like the conflation of fame and infamy. But it is not Kendall's fault that being a jerk is just as good as having talent to achieve notoriety in our country. She is not committing crimes, she is just riling people up. And in our country riling people up is an effective way to get attention and support. If you want Kendall Jones to go away, just shut up about her.
Showing posts with label Gender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gender. Show all posts
Monday, July 7, 2014
Friday, July 4, 2014
Equal Pay, Part II: Divisive Politics In Action
The second part in my series on Equal Pay is my personal analysis of why the Paycheck Fairness Act bill was voted down, and what will happen with the bill going forward. This is not an analysis of the gender wage gap, or the bill itself, I am just looking at the way that legislation is used by lawmakers. The bill was not brought to a vote in an attempt to pass a law, it was simply an attempt to create political ammunition.
To start with I will look at the political ammunition that was created for the Democrats (notice that this is not about Liberal or Conservative, this is about politics as a zero sum game):
My friend Meagan asked me if this was true. Here was my response:
This kind of legislation is brought up to prove how bad the other side is. The Democrats have the majority in the Senate, but not in the House. Because it can be safely assumed that the Republican House would not have passed this legislation, it is hard to see the raising of this legislation as an honest attempt to pass a law.
The Democratic party has a majority in the Senate. If they wanted to they could force the issue. All they have to do is wait. A filibuster simply prolongs debate, but if the majority refuses to add anything else to the agenda then a vote will happen. That is how the Civil Rights Act passed. A filibuster is a way to waste time and make a vote a pain in the ass. If Senators are willing to tolerate the annoyance it is not an insurmountable obstacle.
The Democrats knew the Republicans could force a filibuster. They brought up the bill, and Republicans threatened a filibuster, so the Democrats backed off. But why would the Republican senators even filibuster? The bill would not have passed the House. The bill never had a chance, but the Republicans would have wasted time grandstanding anyway.
I would argue that the Democrats backed off because they didn't want to give the Republicans an opportunity to engage in grandstanding, plus the Democrats got what they wanted just by having the Republicans oppose the bill. The Democrats got the opportunity to make claims like the one in the meme above. This kind of claim is powerful. It "proves" that Republicans hate women (though a glance at my Facebook wall indicates that there are a lot of Republican/Conservative women out there) without having to risk actually passing legislation.
But what is most important about this legislation is the way it was taken back by the Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) voted against the bill. Remember, if the Democrats really thought this bill had a chance they could have pushed it. But they didn't, because they knew it wasn't going anywhere. By having Harry Reid vote against the bill though they put themselves in a position where they can bring the bill back up any time they want.
Democrats have established that the Republicans are going to oppose the bill, and have opposed the bill. I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing this debate again, but much more dramatically as the elections approach. the first time around was laying the groundwork. Much more fiery rhetoric can be used at a more politically advantageous time, no reason to waste a lot of political acrimony during the early part of the year.
This is about winning, not good governance. For both sides. Lets be clear here, I don't want to paint the Republicans as good guys or honest in any way. Both sides are fighting to beat the other side. Defeating the opponent is more important than helping the country. Democrats raise bills just to fire up the base, and then the Republicans threaten meaningless unnecessary filibusters on bills that aren't going to make it into law anyway. And by engaging in these sorts of tactics both sides further entrench the partisan divisions in our society.
(Coming soon: Equal Pay Part III: But that is going to require quite a bit of research on my part. My first entry on the topic showed me just how much more there is for me to know about the topic. Also, Purple America: Red States and Blue States are a Lie. Don't believe me? It's true.)
To start with I will look at the political ammunition that was created for the Democrats (notice that this is not about Liberal or Conservative, this is about politics as a zero sum game):
My friend Meagan asked me if this was true. Here was my response:
Short answer: Yes. (Every single Senate Republican)
Long Answer: No, the bill wouldn't have mandated equal pay,
but it would have increased transparency and allowed people who felt that they
were being discriminated against to sue.
So, yes, kinda.
Except it never would
have passed the R dominated house in any case, so the bill was a political
maneuver not a good faith attempt to pass a law. The Senate could have still
passed the bill, but they would have had to tolerate a filibuster. Of course a
filibuster is just someone talking for as long as they can so that people will
get bored and leave. I guess the Senate Democrats didn't feel strongly enough about
it to sit through some endless prattling by some Republican when the bill
wouldn't have passed the house anyway. But it is a good bet that Republicans
would have filibustered even though the bill wouldn't have passed because they
would have been able to make political hay. So it may have been a tactical move
on the part of the Democrats. The possibility of it being a tactical move is
further supported by Harry Reid switching his vote to "No" so that
the Democrats can bring the bill up for vote again. The bill will probably be
back, but it probably still won't pass.
This kind of legislation is brought up to prove how bad the other side is. The Democrats have the majority in the Senate, but not in the House. Because it can be safely assumed that the Republican House would not have passed this legislation, it is hard to see the raising of this legislation as an honest attempt to pass a law.
The Democratic party has a majority in the Senate. If they wanted to they could force the issue. All they have to do is wait. A filibuster simply prolongs debate, but if the majority refuses to add anything else to the agenda then a vote will happen. That is how the Civil Rights Act passed. A filibuster is a way to waste time and make a vote a pain in the ass. If Senators are willing to tolerate the annoyance it is not an insurmountable obstacle.
The Democrats knew the Republicans could force a filibuster. They brought up the bill, and Republicans threatened a filibuster, so the Democrats backed off. But why would the Republican senators even filibuster? The bill would not have passed the House. The bill never had a chance, but the Republicans would have wasted time grandstanding anyway.
I would argue that the Democrats backed off because they didn't want to give the Republicans an opportunity to engage in grandstanding, plus the Democrats got what they wanted just by having the Republicans oppose the bill. The Democrats got the opportunity to make claims like the one in the meme above. This kind of claim is powerful. It "proves" that Republicans hate women (though a glance at my Facebook wall indicates that there are a lot of Republican/Conservative women out there) without having to risk actually passing legislation.
But what is most important about this legislation is the way it was taken back by the Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) voted against the bill. Remember, if the Democrats really thought this bill had a chance they could have pushed it. But they didn't, because they knew it wasn't going anywhere. By having Harry Reid vote against the bill though they put themselves in a position where they can bring the bill back up any time they want.
Democrats have established that the Republicans are going to oppose the bill, and have opposed the bill. I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing this debate again, but much more dramatically as the elections approach. the first time around was laying the groundwork. Much more fiery rhetoric can be used at a more politically advantageous time, no reason to waste a lot of political acrimony during the early part of the year.
This is about winning, not good governance. For both sides. Lets be clear here, I don't want to paint the Republicans as good guys or honest in any way. Both sides are fighting to beat the other side. Defeating the opponent is more important than helping the country. Democrats raise bills just to fire up the base, and then the Republicans threaten meaningless unnecessary filibusters on bills that aren't going to make it into law anyway. And by engaging in these sorts of tactics both sides further entrench the partisan divisions in our society.
(Coming soon: Equal Pay Part III: But that is going to require quite a bit of research on my part. My first entry on the topic showed me just how much more there is for me to know about the topic. Also, Purple America: Red States and Blue States are a Lie. Don't believe me? It's true.)
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Equal Pay, Part I: Protecting Women and Businesses
This entry is the first in an intended series on equal pay. This is typically cast as a women's rights issue. I think the issue affects more than just women, but the issue is debated and acted on in our political system as a Women vs. Business issue. In this first entry I am going to lay out a little of my views, and then start to take a look at the Paycheck Fairness Act.
I want to start this off by saying that I would not support a law requiring equal pay for men and women. Not because I think that wage discrimination isn't real, it is real. Not because wage discrimination is fair, because it is not. I oppose the government interfering with private businesses ability to reward employees based on performance. To assume that two individuals do equal work because they have equivalent titles is fallacious.
So I say no to telling companies what they can or cannot pay their employees.
But that does absolutely nothing to deal with a very real problem. I am sure that some of the people who do read this article, or might have read the article, are going to be turned off by the title. I know an awful lot of people think that we shouldn't be protecting businesses. But we do need to protect businesses. Without a functioning economy everybody is threatened.
(As an Aside: I think that our economy is broken, I think that even though our system is routinely referred to as Capitalist, if you really look at the way that it is functioning today it is closer to Feudalistic. But this is not the entry to go into depth about my economic ideas.)
Without profits, and growth, and enterprise we do not have jobs, a tax-base, or a functioning society. Ideally we should be working toward a society where everyone has a real stake in our society. Of course half of the people in society are female, so if we are trying to work toward a system where everyone has a stake in supporting and working on our society we need to be working toward fair treatment for women.
(As and Aside: I avoid using the phrase "fair share" here deliberately. I feel that the idea of the "fair share" is like a flag. Anyone can drape it around any atrocity or injustice they care to perpetrate. The idea of the "fair share" is too big to unpack here, but I will write about it.)
There was a recent Bill (which I will be writing more about) in the US Senate that failed to pass, the Paycheck Fairness Act. The bill was not expected to pass, and really amounts to political grandstanding than an actual attempt to create change, but I think that the bill was a good one.
To quote Wikipedia: Fifty years after the [Equal Pay Act's] passage, a median wage gap still exists between men and women. According to U.S. News and World Report, the Paycheck Fairness Act is meant to close this gap by:
As you can see, this act would not force companies to provide equal pay, but it would make it harder for them to discriminate based on gender. But those three bullet points don't really capture how the law would work. Among the things that the law would do is it would have opened companies up to civil law suits (Article). And that is very important.
One of the arguments against the Paycheck Fairness Act is that it is already illegal to discriminate based on gender, so there is no need for this law. And also that if this law were passed it would lead to an explosion of lawsuits.
Do you see the logical problem there?
It is illegal to discriminate in pay based on gender, and if this law passed there would be an explosion of lawsuits. The opposition to the act is trying to have it both ways. There is no problem, because discrimination is already illegal, but if this law passed then there would magically be an explosion of lawsuits, which would automatically be frivolous since there is no criminal activity... I don't buy it. All those lawsuits wouldn't just appear like magic, the problems are real and they already exist. Even though pay discrimination is illegal it still goes on and can't be stopped because of the way that our legal system works.
We have a number of different kinds of courts. The two that are most salient here are criminal courts and civil courts. In criminal court the defendant is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In civil court all that is usually needed is a preponderance of evidence. In civil court the level of proof needed is not as high. It is hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an individual was not paid an equal amount due to discrimination. But it is pretty easy to show that large groups were being treated in a discriminatory fashion.
So if the passage of the act resulted in an explosion of successful lawsuits it would certainly indicate that crimes were being committed, but prosecution of the crimes was too difficult in criminal courts.
There is another thing to consider about the difference between criminal cases and civil cases. In a civil case, if the plaintiff wins they are awarded damages. In a criminal case the plaintiff doesn't get anything. The courts may levy a fine, or take other punitive actions, but the woman who was the victim of pay discrimination would not get any money.
It is certainly true that an "explosion of lawsuits" would certainly harm businesses. If businesses were sued for the damages caused by the past half-century of discriminatory activity it could destroy our economy. In this case it would be hard to imagine a scenario where there would not be an explosion of lawsuits... if the law worked retroactively. But our laws do not work retroactively. If businesses are only liable for current and future malfeasance then it is pretty easy to avoid being penalized for engaging in illegal activity, stop committing crimes.
There are a lot of problems with our legal system. There are a lot of problems with our political system. There are a lot of problems with our economic system. But one strength of our legal system has been the civil court's ability to effect change in the way companies conduct business. Our civil courts also create a lot of trouble, but right now lawsuits are the best weapon we have against corporate malfeasance.
The opposition to the Paycheck Fairness Act paints their opposition to the act as a defense of business. It is important to protect business, it is in all our interest to ensure a healthy economy. But from where I stand it looks like opposition to the Paycheck Fairness Act is defending businesses from paying the price for committing crimes.
(Coming Up: Equal Pay, Part II: Every Republican Senator voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act. Was that because Republicans are just evil and Democrats have nothing but high-minded ideals that drove them to bring this bill to a vote? Not so much.)
I want to start this off by saying that I would not support a law requiring equal pay for men and women. Not because I think that wage discrimination isn't real, it is real. Not because wage discrimination is fair, because it is not. I oppose the government interfering with private businesses ability to reward employees based on performance. To assume that two individuals do equal work because they have equivalent titles is fallacious.
So I say no to telling companies what they can or cannot pay their employees.
But that does absolutely nothing to deal with a very real problem. I am sure that some of the people who do read this article, or might have read the article, are going to be turned off by the title. I know an awful lot of people think that we shouldn't be protecting businesses. But we do need to protect businesses. Without a functioning economy everybody is threatened.
(As an Aside: I think that our economy is broken, I think that even though our system is routinely referred to as Capitalist, if you really look at the way that it is functioning today it is closer to Feudalistic. But this is not the entry to go into depth about my economic ideas.)
Without profits, and growth, and enterprise we do not have jobs, a tax-base, or a functioning society. Ideally we should be working toward a society where everyone has a real stake in our society. Of course half of the people in society are female, so if we are trying to work toward a system where everyone has a stake in supporting and working on our society we need to be working toward fair treatment for women.
(As and Aside: I avoid using the phrase "fair share" here deliberately. I feel that the idea of the "fair share" is like a flag. Anyone can drape it around any atrocity or injustice they care to perpetrate. The idea of the "fair share" is too big to unpack here, but I will write about it.)
There was a recent Bill (which I will be writing more about) in the US Senate that failed to pass, the Paycheck Fairness Act. The bill was not expected to pass, and really amounts to political grandstanding than an actual attempt to create change, but I think that the bill was a good one.
To quote Wikipedia: Fifty years after the [Equal Pay Act's] passage, a median wage gap still exists between men and women. According to U.S. News and World Report, the Paycheck Fairness Act is meant to close this gap by:
- "making wages more transparent";
- "requiring that employers prove that wage discrepancies are tied to legitimate business qualifications and not gender";
- and "prohibiting companies from taking retaliatory action against employees who raise concerns about gender-based wage discrimination."[3]
As you can see, this act would not force companies to provide equal pay, but it would make it harder for them to discriminate based on gender. But those three bullet points don't really capture how the law would work. Among the things that the law would do is it would have opened companies up to civil law suits (Article). And that is very important.
One of the arguments against the Paycheck Fairness Act is that it is already illegal to discriminate based on gender, so there is no need for this law. And also that if this law were passed it would lead to an explosion of lawsuits.
Do you see the logical problem there?
It is illegal to discriminate in pay based on gender, and if this law passed there would be an explosion of lawsuits. The opposition to the act is trying to have it both ways. There is no problem, because discrimination is already illegal, but if this law passed then there would magically be an explosion of lawsuits, which would automatically be frivolous since there is no criminal activity... I don't buy it. All those lawsuits wouldn't just appear like magic, the problems are real and they already exist. Even though pay discrimination is illegal it still goes on and can't be stopped because of the way that our legal system works.
We have a number of different kinds of courts. The two that are most salient here are criminal courts and civil courts. In criminal court the defendant is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In civil court all that is usually needed is a preponderance of evidence. In civil court the level of proof needed is not as high. It is hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an individual was not paid an equal amount due to discrimination. But it is pretty easy to show that large groups were being treated in a discriminatory fashion.
So if the passage of the act resulted in an explosion of successful lawsuits it would certainly indicate that crimes were being committed, but prosecution of the crimes was too difficult in criminal courts.
There is another thing to consider about the difference between criminal cases and civil cases. In a civil case, if the plaintiff wins they are awarded damages. In a criminal case the plaintiff doesn't get anything. The courts may levy a fine, or take other punitive actions, but the woman who was the victim of pay discrimination would not get any money.
It is certainly true that an "explosion of lawsuits" would certainly harm businesses. If businesses were sued for the damages caused by the past half-century of discriminatory activity it could destroy our economy. In this case it would be hard to imagine a scenario where there would not be an explosion of lawsuits... if the law worked retroactively. But our laws do not work retroactively. If businesses are only liable for current and future malfeasance then it is pretty easy to avoid being penalized for engaging in illegal activity, stop committing crimes.
There are a lot of problems with our legal system. There are a lot of problems with our political system. There are a lot of problems with our economic system. But one strength of our legal system has been the civil court's ability to effect change in the way companies conduct business. Our civil courts also create a lot of trouble, but right now lawsuits are the best weapon we have against corporate malfeasance.
The opposition to the Paycheck Fairness Act paints their opposition to the act as a defense of business. It is important to protect business, it is in all our interest to ensure a healthy economy. But from where I stand it looks like opposition to the Paycheck Fairness Act is defending businesses from paying the price for committing crimes.
(Coming Up: Equal Pay, Part II: Every Republican Senator voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act. Was that because Republicans are just evil and Democrats have nothing but high-minded ideals that drove them to bring this bill to a vote? Not so much.)
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