Prejudice And The Fight For Gender Equity

[Danyelle] Hello everybody. Welcome to Comets Discuss, part of the UT Dallas CometCast network, where we provide discussions on big, trending topics. For this series we’re talking about prejudice. While a lot has been happening in the past few weeks in regards to prejudice, racism and police brutality, this is not a short-term issue. So we’re talking with UT Dallas experts — while practicing social distancing — to provide you with various perspectives on this important topic. I’m Danyelle. Today we’re talking about gender equity with Jacqueline Prince. Jacqueline is the assistant director of women’s and gender equity programs at the UT Dallas Galerstein Gender Center. She is also a graduate student here at the university pursuing a master’s degree in humanities with a history focus. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jacqueline. We really appreciate you taking the time out to talk to us.

[Jacqueline] Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to talk about today’s topic.

[Danyelle] Yes, let’s dive right in. First off, can you give us a quick overview of what gender equity means?

[Jacqueline] Absolutely. So I know that folks might be more familiar with the terminology gender equality and I know that for a lot of folks that’s been the goal and I think depending on what your particular goal is you may be advocating for equality but you also may be hoping for and working towards equity. The difference that I would say would be, you know, looking at UT Dallas — the restroom. So if I’m a student navigating campus and I need to utilize the restroom, if I have access to a restroom that aligns with my gender identity — which I identify as a woman, so I would need to utilize a woman’s restroom — having that available to me makes the campus just that much more equitable because I’m spending less time looking around for restrooms, trying to find that. I’m able to spend more time in the classroom networking with classmates, making connections with teachers and things like that. Whereas just being able to attend the institution, I’m having an equal opportunity to be educated but I’m not necessarily being given an equitable experience, with getting all of my needs met. So hopefully that makes sense of the difference between equality and equity.

[Danyelle] Yeah, I think that makes perfect sense. Thank you for that quick overview. We really appreciate that. What are some examples of how we see gender inequity play out in our normal everyday lives?

[Jacqueline] The ways that you can see it really starting out in a person’s just life trajectory is really young. I think that some of these inequities can start from infancy. childhood into elementary school and beyond. We see these things come to the forefront pretty early from how often we encourage boys and girls and, and again that is a very binary dynamic, so I’m only looking at two genders while also acknowledging that multiple genders exist. But for the context of this conversation just referencing boys and girls in a classroom. For example boys being encouraged to utilize toys and to be interested in things that increase spatial awareness and different topics that are geared towards engineering. You know, we’re at an engineering school and so you see those numbers play out from, you know, we could track it from boyhood up to manhood and looking at how that encouragement happens very young and is continued throughout a person’s lifetime. Whereas girls may be encouraged to really dive into some of the helping fields, encouraged to be really interested in caring for one another and honestly, that’s not even necessarily something that’s built into curriculum, but it could be a teacher really relying heavily on girls in the classroom to help clean up and to, you know, make sure that we’re being mindful that no one is left behind in the group and you know really encouraging people to make connections with others. Whereas looking to the boys to encourage their leadership skills and making sure, you know, that they are really boosting their confidence levels and encouraging competition, whereas that’s really something that we steer girls away from. So I think it starts pretty early in terms of some of these gender inequities and they just grow and take different shapes throughout our lifetimes.

[Danyelle] So your example of gender inequity has to do with children. What are some ways that parents and/or teachers, or any other type of caregiver, can try and instill values of gender equity in children? So like you mentioned, boys are encouraged to do certain activities maybe in the classroom and girls are encouraged to do others. But what are some ways that we can combat that from a young age?

[Jacqueline] I think probably the thing that I’ve found most 0:05:07.229,0:05:12.780 successful just within myself has been self-examination. So when I’m more aware of my own bias, my own internalized sexism or gender inequity, I am that much more aware that I am not putting some of those same messages that I received into the children and little ones in my life. So I would say that that would be a really great first step for people is to really just take a moment — especially those in educational environments — to think about how you are splitting up your classroom because sometimes, you know, activities dictate that you would split folks up. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard okay boys versus girls, boys against girls, or I want the boys over here and the girls over here. And just really having it clear at a very young age that that is an important distinction, that gender distinction is important for some reason. And so really having some of that internal dialogue with yourself of, why does it feel important for me to split up this classroom in terms of gender? Would it be more helpful for me to split up this activity in terms of people who like cats and people who like dogs, you know? ‘Cause I feel like especially that one, people have a lot in common with one another. There’s definitely like cat team and dog teams sometimes, right? So that can be a really strong bonding place versus the reinforcement of gendered expectations.

[Danyelle] I love that. I love finding other things that make us common besides just whatever we were born as. That’s, that’s cool. And yeah I know you’re right. The cat versus dog argument, that’s one people take really seriously.

[Jacqueline] For sure, for sure.

[Danyelle] Let’s talk about gender and equity on a larger scale. Are there any ways that we’ve seen gender inequity show up in the current national and global events?

[Jacqueline] That is a resounding yes. I think that we have seen through following news media, through social media accounts of activists, academics, scholars, we have seen some really great work being done in examining our current climate in multiple ways but I’m particularly fascinated — I know it’s a little on the nose with my, with my role — but with the dynamics with gender and how people are navigating especially throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been a lot of really insightful work done around examining the work that women academics in particular have been able or not able to do versus men academics. We see the number of research that’s been able to be accomplished by women diminish during this time and men — it’s actually risen. We’ve seen higher productivity for men during this time. And I feel really grateful to be in this time of amazing gender scholars because they’ve been able to really break down what the, I guess, division of labor — specifically domestic labor — looks like in a typical home. And again we’re specifically talking about heterosexual couples that are across the U.S. in this particular example and, you know, I think that the division of labor — domestic labor, chores, child rearing and raising, the schooling — that’s been needing to be done at home with parents has largely fallen to women to accomplish as well as doing their own work. So some have kind of referred to this as women doing “first shift,” which is their job expectations and then doing “second shift,” which is coming home, making dinner, making sure that everyone’s got teeth brushed and baths done and, and some of those daily tasks that it takes to run a family. And what we’re seeing through COVID-19 is that women are doing first, second and third shift of daily life with seemingly no end in sight and so it makes it really difficult I think for women in this dynamic to prioritize their careers when there’s such an imbalance in the home. Also it feels really important to mention during this time of great national tragedy and mourning for the continued loss of Black folks in America that we really take a focus on the, I guess, momentum and movement around Black Lives Matter, in particular, and how the coverage has been. So looking at, yes, the media coverage of whose lives and whose stories are getting told but also in the activation. You know, so we’re looking at the activism and the movement around who’s gotten the focus. And what I’ve seen is it’s typically going to be cis Black men who have the focus in a lot of this activation and then a lot of the media coverage, whereas we know that statistically speaking it is Black folks of all genders who are really harmed by this kind of violence, throughout time but especially within the last few years the spotlight has been shining. So I would say that Black trans women are the most at-risk population that we have in our culture and we do not hear nearly enough about the support and solidarity around this community and I’m saying that as a Black cis women knowing that for a Black trans woman her life expectancy is much less than mine. She can expect to live to about 35 years old, which just feels truly shameful and incredibly disheartening, just as a fellow human being to know that that’s what can be hoped for for this community. And so when we look at, you know, who is is harmed in these situations it feels really irresponsible that we’re leaving out this particular population out of coverage and out of the support and solidarity that is out there — the protests, demonstrations, marches. Just frankly my heart breaks knowing that we consistently leave people in the margins, of the margins, out of these conversations and if we want to have a more ethical and truly inclusive movement we need to acknowledge the people who are most harmed by this kind of behavior and activate for them because if Black trans women and Black disabled folks in particular get the support that they need in order to survive, frankly, we will see all Black folks uplifted. That is really what I hope we move towards but I see that as being a very large inequity going on currently in our current climate. You know, I would also add except feel very passionately about this particular point is when you have people in those entry- to mid-level roles you’re also talking about much lower salaries and we know, we know — again we have research to back this up — that there is a large wage gap when you’re talking about women and men but also specifically Black women and Latinx women who have the biggest gap between them and what white men make and so if you’re then also limited by how far you can get career-wise in a company that’s that much less financial capital. So, you know, actual capital but also social capital to then advocate for things that would help to make your company more equitable.

[Danyelle] Thank you for bringing that to the forefront of this conversation. I think that’s important. I love the way you said the people who are on the margins, of the margins are left out. It’s so interesting that we can see inequity within people who have faced inequity for centuries. Can you talk to us a little bit about some of the work that the Gender Center is doing to combat gender inequity specifically on campus and locally?

[Jacqueline] When it comes to the work that we’ve done in the past and even now — you know, I referenced earlier in our conversation the self-awareness piece — I think that I feel really proud of our center for really doing the internal work to make sure that what we’re offering is not just for us, you know, it’s not just something that I as a Black queer woman would enjoy or appreciate or would feel affirmed by because then we’d be missing out on a whole lot of our community, right? So by doing some some self-awareness checks and making sure that we are, you know, as you reference like looking at the margins of the margins. Who are we potentially leaving behind? Who can we make sure that we include? And that’s just been a really solid commitment that we made to ourselves but also to who we’re serving. Because that’s truly what our role is. It’s a service role. I say all of that to say that you would see that infused in our programming in our resources that we’re offering now online and so I think that that just feels really important to mention because I think that as we’re seeing others really hoping to offer support and solidarity to people who are in great need right now, when you’ve seen some of the — I don’t know if you’re on Twitter but if you’ve seen some of the folks who have have tried with their messages of solidarity and it’s not gone over well with the public — that’s a big piece that’s missing. It may have been well-intentioned but it is something that kind of falls short for people because it’s not what they’re asking for. So we really feel committed to checking in with our community regularly and asking them. I think giving people autonomy, which is connected to freedom and liberation, is the greatest gift that we could offer. We are also still offering trainings because supporting our aspiring allies and champions for LGBTQ+ equity and gender equity are just as important to us with this kind of renewed passion for caring for these communities.

[Danyelle] How can the media move forward with being more equitable?

[Jacqueline] I think that there’s a lot that can be done internally but then also in the coverage that they’re doing. Currently I hope that we can look forward to just some of those newsrooms and offices being more diverse internally. I think that that would do a lot to help. And I want to be more specific about what that kind of diversity would look like. It would not necessarily look like entry-level positions having people of color, women, folks from the disabled community — you know it would not just be folks in an entry-level, you know, coming in with those identities. It would be hiring people in leadership, decision-making capabilities. I think you can tell a lot by an organization by looking at the top because if you look at a company’s overall numbers — this is something that’s becoming very popular for beauty companies I’ve noticed — is that they’re wanting to communicate to their consumers, you know, please purchase from us. We hire in a very diverse way. So that’s been been kind of a leading force that I’ve seen coming up in the past couple of weeks and what I think is another layer that feels that much more equitable to look at is, but what about your leadership? Because what we know is that folks who are in entry- to mid-level are folks who work really hard at carrying out leadership’s vision but what is your vision? So I think when you’re talking about the media, you know, folks are carrying out the leadership’s vision. If you have a really homogeneous leadership team then you’re going to have a very focused, and one could say really limited, vision. And that’s where we see things missed. We see things consistently missed. As mentioned about the Black trans women left out of the coverage really largely, you know, even here in Dallas we have had two women murdered in 2019 and it did not get near the coverage that others did of other Black folks and we’re talking about Black cis men. So I’m just really troubled by this trend but also wanting to take a critical lens towards why that might be happening.

[Danyelle] So Jacqueline, is there one thing you wanted to leave our audience with? One final piece of information or one final thought?

[Jacqueline] I would love to communicate with folks the importance and just true value of self reflection and just really taking time to examine critically what some of your thoughts and, and beliefs that you might have been raised with. To really critically look at the work that you may be hoping to do. I think that that has definitely been beneficial to me and many of the people — students, staff, faculty, community members — that we work with. It’s been to start with yourself. You know, if you are really passionate about advocating for and with, you know, your Black neighbors, friends and family, then really taking a look inside of yourself and saying, you know, what are some maybe prejudices, some internalized racism that I may still hold that I can work on so that I can be that much better of a neighbor, family, friend. And the same would go with gender equity. What are some things about gender that I’m still holding on to that maybe would be better left behind in my past? What are some things that I can work towards to make sure that other women and minoritized genders would be better off if I could just maybe unlearn a few of these things? So I would just really strongly encourage people to read as much as you can. Listen to Black feminists, please. They’re doing incredible work. And really just start with some self re-education. I think it can be really beneficial.

[Danyelle] I think that was an amazing point to leave our listeners on. We can all definitely re-examine our own biases regardless of the marginalized identities that we may hold. Well thank you so much again for joining us and thank you for the time that you’ve given us and the labor that you’ve put in. We really appreciate all of the insight and knowledge and thoughts that you’ve had on this topic.

[Jacqueline] Thank you so much for having me.

[Danyelle] Jacqueline wanted to plug an upcoming event the Gender Center is hosting in celebration of National Parents Day. On July 22nd the center will be hosting an online conversation for Comets who have been parenting and caretaking, especially during this time of self-isolation during the pandemic. Look out for more details on the Gender Center’s social media channels. We’ll include links in our show notes. Thanks for joining us. Comets Discuss is brought to you by the UT Dallas Office of Communications. A special thanks to senior lecturer Roxanne Minnish for our music. Be sure to check out our other shows at utdallas.edu/cometcast. For the most up-to-date news at UT Dallas visit the University’s News Center page at utdallas.edu/news. Take care of yourselves, Comets.