Unknown Speaker  00:02
And together and it gets to the final one. I'm going to talk a little bit about politics, because if we want something to change, we need to be knowledge about as well as involved in it. But I think the comment near the end, we accusation almost that if you worried about girls and means you don't care about boys, well, the study has gotten a not attack so much, although there have been some negative comments about it, is that somehow by emphasizing the girls, that means therefore, whatever we're advocating for girls, will be detrimental to boys. And that's why these things from our mind aren't really being if we improve things for girls, all children will do better. But that's always a danger. Because your opponents always want to find something like that. Okay, let me just tell you, what I'm going to try to cover in the short time. And hopefully, if you have more specific questions, you can. The I've already told you that with this report, will prepare you with some ammunition, if you want to then see what schools are doing in terms of fertile in education, as we all know, is very important and how it's approached. So let me tell you, how we how we went about this study, AAUW had done several reports before, if you're not a member, I'm sure they would encourage it or even get their report. I don't have a copy of their price list. But you could certainly get it. But they did an earlier study that reads that this is the short version, shortchanging girls or changing America, this was a survey of some 3000 girls that got it those issues of self esteem and whatnot, they wanted them to follow it up with another kind of report that would be different than this one, which is what they commissioned their wealth, the Center for Research on Women, which is very similar to the one who had garnered in terms of its overall purpose, to do another kind of a study, which was to look at all of the research that's been done by in schools related to girls pre kindergarten to 12th grade. You can imagine that's a rather gigantic kind of a request, because it'd be done in a year. And then we were to result in a report that was no more than 100 pages long. All of which were really kind of a difficult thing to do. This is what the report ended up being was released in January of last year. And I encourage you to get it you can also get a summary that looks like this.

Unknown Speaker  02:26
For me that the wealthy center or that the order blank I have here, but AAUW your local branch was designed to give you once failure, one, two. Now, in the process of doing that we had several issues we had to deal with. One was what were the topics that were the most important from our judgment that this was a core team of six people that tried to sort out what is it that's most important that schools are doing in relation to girls. And But secondly, what's been researched to do it, because AAUW didn't want us to just guess what's going on, but volunteer to be rooted in current, rarely, rarely current research studies. So those were sort of two limitations. The other was, it was to be public school. And so several people said, What about single sex schools for girls, because there's certainly a lot of evidence in terms of single tech colleges that do better background, the few studies that have been done on high school. But since we were to look at public schools, to my knowledge, there are only two public schools in the country that are still all girls, there may have been more once a Philadelphia ones in Baltimore. So that you don't have we just didn't think it was fair to look at those two. There is another group, I think it's the National Coalition of rural schools that are looking at those and it's certainly an area that we need to look at, even though there may be a self selected factory, who goes to, to those schools. But still, we need to see because the evidence is clear in those schools, and in other places that girls may do better. When they're segregated, I'll use that word. Also, when somebody definitions, it's hard to use it in another context, and whatnot. But we then reviewed 1300 different research reports, these are all listed in this bibliography by topics. So if anybody wants to do some follow up, this to that you could get in terms of the particular studies that we looked at most of them are fairly recent. And, as I say, the core team were made up of people with different backgrounds. As an economist, Peggy McIntosh, she's done a lot in curriculum. And my particular responsibilities since I'm not a full time researcher at the Center with the others work, we're in a particular area, because of the reform reports and if any of you saw the last night on channel 13, continues since the omission and risk was released, kind of a follow up so and there have been what we call several waves of reform since then, some people say maybe we're in the fourth wave now and I feel like we're gonna get drowned before we make any changes in school because every each wave comes up with something different. We're going to look at those reports, of which I looked at 35 I've national reports that were published between 1983 and 1991. That we, the year we were doing the study since then I think I've discovered about another 10. So we've got recommendations from all over the place on all sorts of topics. The question was, were girls considered any of these? Well, to nobodies kind of surprised that chagrin, only, I think I found for that mentioned, girls, as a group, or isn't the, quote, a problem at all? Usually, the problem lots of the others mentioned that, not their problem. But the girls problem, which I'm sure you can guess which is getting pregnant, so they can get more money, and then they can be really become more of a female kitten household group. And while girls drop out of school for that reason, but there's many other reasons they drop out. And we then took another look, and this ties into the overall topic of it. What about the leadership of these various commissions? Were women there at all, because if we're not in the deliberation of what it is that the group is going to study, you're not very likely to find recommendations, if you haven't defined that as a problem, which is one of the drawbacks of defining the problem of pregnancy as only a reason to drop out. And in effect, it's the girls fault and still don't have to do anything. It's just one of the ways in which you define problems often lead to a solution. Well, we found that a few I don't think I found any that I guess there were two or three, that as a co chair, was a woman. And usually when they were proposed to report the man thing was always listed first. And I only one would you believe mentioned Title Nine specifically in their recommendations at all. And that was one of the better ones both areas to excellent. So anyway, one of our tasks then was to meet as we did throughout the year, to kind of found all these studies, how do you put this together? What are the kinds of topics that are major in terms of what research has been done, and what it is that schools or other people can do something about, in terms of the part that I was doing, looking at leadership positions, as commission, but in terms of schools, because I keep hoping that if you have the right kind of leaders, as we've heard this morning, you've got to get them in those positions first, and then you've got to keep on to be honest. And despite some progress in like, like in the political office, the number of women's superintendents, which is the sort of highest position within public education, has increased quite a lot in the last 10 years, it still represents only about 5% of all superintendents of which, if you're not familiar, there are 15,000 school districts United States. Now some range where you may have one school with 200 kids all the way up to New York City, which is obviously the largest in the country. So they have made some inroads. Unlike one of the comments this morning for African Americans, it's still much lower, what they don't do. And we found this throughout many of these research reports, they have separate gender and race,

Unknown Speaker  07:59
which makes it very difficult again, to define your problem. And even within the race, you will often find just fine, just minorities lifted and doesn't help you or see there's one there, one back then. Or there'll be girls and boys or men and women. And in fact, normal reports, I guess, consider this progress. I don't think I found any that exclusively use the pronoun here. Right. So in terms of labeling, maybe that's progress. But they did it to such a degree that they didn't even use she or girl, when it would have been more helpful in terms of what particularly of pre adolescence where we all know that there are big, big differences between the development of girls and boys and that pre adolescent stage. Those of you're not familiar with Gilligan study, she's, she's got a second one, not only it's called meeting at the crossroads, which was a study of Laurel School, near Cleveland. And all which is really even more fascinating than the first one, if that's possible, because of the interview techniques that they found, while the women were schooled is knowing that there's a great value in relationships and connections, found that they were interviewing these young women with the same distance and caught up activity that was not getting the girls to respond to them. And he taught me when the staff people who participated, then one of the outcomes is not recorded in the book is what happened to the staff at the law school, they found their voice. And they began to talk to each other differently because they saw the value of their own position as women that's kind of a precursor to kind of an interesting side kind of thing. So that's, that was our task to kind of find out what it is that those are just a couple of criteria. The report itself divided into four parts, and it ends with 40 some odd recommendations were under a broad category. I'm just going to tell you what in those four parts and then I'm urge you to buy the study because there will be things of more interest to some of you than others, we're very anxious to get some action as a result of this. And that's always the gap between these, all the reform reports are still waiting for action in some of those areas. I've given talks on this, as I have the other members of the research team, particularly Susan Bailey, who's been directed all over the country, without me to be able to just mute their cell phones, the salmon really isn't. And you can go to this market, and I got brought a whole salmon back with babies, which is really kind of nice. But the follow up if because if we do these talks, and people read the report, but if somehow you don't organize yourself in some fashion, or the groups you already belong to, it's like the the political scene, we won't really make any kind of difference. Now, the first part of the report is what we call sort of framing the issues. And it talks about our place, or lack of place, and we'll reform movement, and a very brief sort of review of the development stages of girl rented that had to be really, really short. But there are a lot of other resources if people want more detail about that. But we were more interested in what happens to the girls reflecting their developmental stages. So the second part is called girls in school. And that's where there's a little more concentration on the achievement, the math and science, there's a long section on that because, and one of the one of the speakers this morning mentioned that while in many ways, girls and boys are getting more equal. In terms of science, they're not taking the advanced courses to the film degree, they still do not aspire to be scientists or engineers near to the degree that you might see even those who are in the advanced placement classes. That's one of the kinds of things if you're interested in what your school happens to be doing is to go and find out how many girls are really advanced physics. Better yet, how many taking algebra seems to be the starting point. For all other kinds of science, there is a section on vocational education, which does is under a new law now. And they're supposed to be gender free and non traditional occupation that needs to be watched to with you. And as you know, you change the law, and it takes much longer to change into action. There is a we separated the teen pregnancy issues from dropping out of school so that the dropping out school became a broader kind of category. And that's one area where a breakdown within race and ethnicity needs to be. Because a lot of the few studies that have been done within Hispanic and Latinos, there's quite a lot of difference. And I would guess between Asians too, you can't lump them together. As African Americans, you can look a little bit better. But even then, it gets a little bit tricky. If you throw Classical

Unknown Speaker  12:42
Studies. And there is one section where Limburger cheese was on the economist, attempted to break down on all three factors, gender, race, and class. But that's hard, because most studies are not done that way. Except the new eighth grade longitudinal study has just gotten started this huge when the federal government is doing that is breaking it down that way. So we're making, because the solutions, again, depend on how you define the problem. There is another the third section is on section, gender and Tech Tech bias. And that's another one, there are ways to make them as test as bias free as possible. Like so many things, we know how to do it, if we have the will to do it. But the heart of the report is in the fourth section, which is about curriculum. Because here very much like we heard this morning, it's not only the media that needs to change, but that's how we view of ourselves, what people are doing. What we what we see in the curriculum, and I'm not even talking about textbooks with everything that happens that the materials, what it is that emphasize in classroom is and if you never see yourself, as a young woman, or a girl or an old woman in the thing is that you you begin to think well, I'm not very well valued, nothing that I'm reading, is that anything to do with me, ignoring pretty much all of this? Well, I say the regular thing is that women have been doing over the centuries to really keep the generations going. Peggy McIntosh has this kind of a five stage way in which women maybe get included into the curriculum, nobody sort of reached the last level, which is really to redo the whole approach to curriculum and teaching so that not only are women but all the other groups that have been excluded are incorporated a very different way. You don't quite know how to do that yet. We've got to have some commitment that that is a high value. Because what happens in the material that young women or any young men, if they only see the heroes, the hero wins. They may think that unless you're a Sojourner Truth, and you'll notice I'm wearing my new I'm sure the person I bought it from would love it the rackets and hair products a border plays a lot, but some of you will remember her name but if that's the only person that you will have one view of black folks in slavery that everybody had to be like that there were 1000s of us who survived, along with the women who did all the other things to keep the society alive. and whatnot, if you only see Joan of Arc, or whatever. So that's part of the need to change, there has been some progress in textbooks. Because this has been pushed, I think a lot of the push came initially from ethnic groups, particularly African American, to change what you see him in textbook. So there has been some progress along there. But obviously, constant vigilance is required. But we separate for three minutes real quick to two other parts of the curriculum. And then what we'll do with the recommendations is during material that we could talk about them, because the curriculum, we had two other parts, one was just talking about this as a form of curriculum. And then we had another section called classroom as curriculum. And some of you may have seen Dateline about a year ago with Jim Foley, but they actually photographed in fifth grade classroom, and to see the subtle ways in which boys that trade with older girls that had time I would have brought along and finally got a copy of it. But that's something that you need to go and see what happens. And this was a teacher who was was not thinking she was biased at all, and I think some of it is unconscious was very clear voice that more of the teachers attention, which is one major kind of resource. And also that I think makes a difference. When I did the same talk at the was, of course rich Parker's board rich School of the Sacred Heart of Seattle, they had taken the fifth graders had taken it as an assignment and gone back to visit their fourth grade. And they actually sat in that teacher's classroom and recorded how many times she called on the boys. And they grabbed on and was just really grappling with the last part of the curriculum, we coined the phrase, you created a curriculum. And again, it harks back to what we heard this morning, we're not comfortable about talking about sexuality, or about body health, the obsession with the images and, and all those kinds of things and suicide, child abuse, you name it, the kids lived with not only in the ghettos of the world, but every place now the violence is sort of evaded. And we don't know how much longer we can leave that I would have been dealt with in a very direct way in school. If kids come to school with these things on their mind, it's going to be hard for them to concentrate on anything else. I mentioned the one thing and I think I'm about finished,

Unknown Speaker  17:30
because it will do maybe I'll get a chance to look at some of the recommendations because they go the wide range of them. But one of the things I mentioned already the research that is not helpful because it's not broken down. The other hand, we struggle a long time with labeling. I mentioned the fact that the the girls have been singled out in the reports, which is a plus or minus. But even more important, how do we come up with the labels of the various ethnic groups to make sense. And that's getting to be more and more of a problem with how the studies that we did review, we use whatever terminology they were. But we all know that that's continues to be a problem to define it in a way that's helpful for each group, but doesn't divide us. And that's a constant kind of problem. Our group, I guess, has had the most trouble with labels. But I think the Hispanics and the Asians are beginning to have the same confusion and almost unhelpful way if you can find it in one way and not enough.

Unknown Speaker  18:28
Thank you very much. And our next speaker will be Linda pomp. Thank you

Unknown Speaker  18:33
I only have 10 copies. But this is the data on Asian American enrollment from game to our share. My my discussion today is based upon data that's gathered Oh. If we're talking about Asian American women or girls, I like to put things in context. I like to start with a general overview and demographics of Asian American enrollment in the New York City public school system. And then from that, and we could discuss more detail the cultural gaps and whatnot. But just an overview, the data would indicate that in 1991, there's about 8.3% of total student population are Asian Americans. That's the I think the absolute number is about 80,369. And if ik He's actually so it's probably over that amount, which we're just trying to interpret the data here, given by the Board of Ed. And they're about. These are recent immigrants. So we're talking about between a period of 1990 to 9093. Approximately 26,000, or 27,000 Asian Americans, and they're coming from different nationalities about 23 countries involved. So we're talking about Asian Americans, we're talking about East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the continent subcontinent of India, Pakistan, and Nepal, Bhutan, and it's pretty extensive. That's the federal definition of Asian Americans. So it's very diverse, very, very diverse, which is probably the source of a lot of problems are some of the challenges for educators. Now, as you all are well aware that the great diversity of Asian Americans is not just Chinese or Korean, we're talking about, as I said, geographically, it's a whole span. And not only known as like countries, but historical differences, because we're talking about countries that have been in conflict with each other. Essentially, we're talking about carpentry Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and the sort of world war two experience of China, Taiwan, and the Filipino experience and Asian experience. And of course, India, which is part and Malaysia, which are part of the British colonies, so they have a whole set of differences and linguistically might be easy for them. But nevertheless, it's a great culture. And you have such differences coming together here. And you're basically and it's been, and it's very challenging. Now, I just wanted to tell you about the length by the language and cultural differences, for instance, like Asian Indians versus East Asians and Southeast Asians you know, I'd experienced the the Asian Indians are have an easier time getting ahead in school because of a relatively lack of linguistic difficulties. Whereas we're talking about Southeast Asians or Chinese permanent, preferred, but not only language, but it's also socio economic background. The New York City public schools are getting more refugees, which composed a big chunk of the new immigrants, and these are refugees from competencia. Vietnam, as perhaps Laos, I doubt is Thailand. But But what you get with these group of kids are kids who are not even educated in their home countries very well. Even in parts of China. It's a result of cultural evolution or living in the countryside, where they have no access to formal school training. They're having difficulties, even their own languages. So you have kids who are coming in who are

Unknown Speaker  23:22
I think a lot easier if you're like talking about K to six. But if you're talking about teenagers, it's even more difficult adjustment. Because they're there, they're not good at their old language, and then they have to tackle with new language. And not only that, but cultural pressures from the home country and also the cultural pressures from this new mainstream culture and so it's it's actually a lot of pressure on on especially the teenage and I think that's probably why in areas especially school districts where there's a heavy concentration of Asians that gang gang recruitment is pretty successful mainly because that the developmental stage and once young life that you know, you really don't feel like you belong anymore. And that's where the susceptibility to recruitment spree high and in fact, talking about principals and all that gang recruitment in Chinatown's especially Mountain High and even six way internet junior high school and they're even reaching our best high schools like wrong science labs. And and you're getting bright gang members basically. And then the new challenge is also the gap between amongst Asian American not just diversity, language, ethnic and all that and it's also the The time period, or how long the how long one has stayed in this country, there's a big gap between new immigrants versus second or third generation. And, oh, back to the socio economic background, the differences between the new refugees versus new immigrants from Taiwan or Japan. Totally that's, that's, you know, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, they're called the new tax. So relatively more developed educational development, it's pretty high. So you have those people come in, and most of the parents are either professionals, or at least have some means of supporting the family relatively easier, relatively. And in contrast to some refugees who have to struggle, the language and also displacement and everything. So the socio economic difference is dramatic. And I believe it's my opinion that that's what would account for the success of it. So So I think it's rather skewed. We're seeing the media of the Whiz Kids and everything. I think it's more socio economic basis, not

Unknown Speaker  26:10
necessarily one of the guidance counselor's besides High School, I've worked in downtown flushing. Oh, I should have remarked last year that the Asian children from the Taiwanese children don't have to come to our meeting where we describe the different high schools because in Taiwan, they have already learned that they're to go to Stuyvesant High School. They go recruiting over there, in Taiwan. I've heard of that. Yeah. Could you please address the issue of how the girls versus the

Unknown Speaker  26:49
boys? Well, I think we should let her finish her prepared remarks and then bring up other questions in the discussion. Right, because we will have an entire

Unknown Speaker  26:58
hour after I just want to give you a breadth of the diversity of Asian Marsalis is not an easy question. And actually, I could get into a lot more, but I just wanted to give you a general we're just talking about not focusing on women and girls. I like to address some of the general commonality. Okay. And, and a lot if we're talking about the new immigrants and the role of the women in respect of native country, historically, you know, that obviously, they individually question on making a generalization. And those traditional roles of women, the native countries carry over, at least the first generation anyway. You know, this emphasis of the traditional family units the women is defined as grandmothers, mothers, wives, daughters or sisters, daughters, basically are chattel, in a way, you know, is a means to better the standing, the family unit, basically by marriage, for perhaps pure chi, it'd be a great economic source. And it basically, to assist in economic Well, being a family unit, working and all that, you know, we first stories were Asian Indian girls, go to another village to visit the countryside, not the city countryside, go to another village sell themselves no to, you know, earn some money for the family and everything is appalling examples of that, and then. And also, you know, infanticide in China, girls, you know, I know. But anyway, part of the, the responsibility of women is to get points in these Asian cultures to carry on the lineage. Anyway. So you know, these values are carried over into first generation. So the girls in the school system, not only with schoolwork and the difficulties, they have a responsibilities at home, especially the teenage girls that love a younger one, for instance, Junior High in high school. If they have younger siblings, part of their responsibilities to take care of younger siblings. And not only that, but they are since they've school a year or two in a public school, they're more fluent in English. They have to be sort of like a liaison with the outside world for the parents and the fact that I conducted an interview recently with sixth grade. And she said she have to answer phones to her parents and deal with kind of people when they call and everything and answer letters. They're the only ones because they have to carry that responsibility at home. Those things that we take for granted. But these kids you know, they do it because that's what they're supposed to do. And maybe it's studies where the kids have to take parents. Take the subways, for instance, you know, some of these girls or kids have to Know how to get around and everything you know, so that there's a responsibility there. That's a psychological and all that, obviously, will that, you know, performance in schools. So whatever the stereotype we hear, it's rather a skew, I would say, and, and there are these, I'll talk about stereotypes later. But the whole point is that, with those stereotypes that's so pervasive, it hides and covers the underlying problems, because most of Asians also very respectful authority. So in classrooms, I know that they don't speak up to the teachers, administrators, if you don't speak up, nothing's wrong. Until you find out suicide or something, they don't show up in classes anymore, then the teacher will find out what's going on. That's a normal thing, personally, of teachers that 3040 kids, they can't worry about everybody. Anyway, so. So I'll point is that these responsibilities and these values, basically, to the betterment of the family unit, you know, it was the role of the, the girls, I would say, not just woman, the girl. But and, and it's more cute in refugees, I wouldn't say and some of the,

Unknown Speaker  31:15
in the lower economic strata, especially non skilled workers were refugees or non skilled immigrants, most of the parents in, at least in Chinatown, flushing might be different, you know, lessons, it's more Taiwanese upper echelon kind of thing we don't know. But that's part of how we don't have enough research on things. But in certain areas, for instance, the Fathers will cook and the mothers a garment, worker, seamstress and all that. So that the economic, the point is that the economic survival, the family unit is the primary concern, private at the early stages, so everybody chips in basically, you know, you go and rent a one bedroom for four or five kids and stuff like that. But everybody, just because the basic thing was like, now the primary concern is to get everybody taken care of. And that requires a lot of individual sacrifice from everybody concerned. So the individual needs and whatever it's also assuming to the unit surviving. So that's carried over even more extreme refugees, and it's a blue collar. And so, it's understandable that, you know, this parental pressure of doing well in school and all that, that is means of social, some social mobility, and economic mobility. You know, once you come here, your parents come here, at my greatest sacrifice, you're working at 20 hours, that's the only hope they have as the kids, and hopefully they do well in school to get a steady job and be able to get a house, even get a two bedroom apartment or something for the whole family, you know, that's a big deal. For being able to go out for together as a family dinner or something, that's a big deal tonight. So but, you know, for girls, though, there's different pressure because in one interview, this one girl, there's some pressure and tension between the family because these are this one particular girl a little more outgoing, she's worked, and she's fluent in English and everything, but there's a tension because her parents favor her brother, more than she and, and this could be part of that thing about expectations, sons and daughters. And that's the old value that kids that carry over, which is that, you know, the daughter, while you know, daughter will contribute best she can, but eventually she's going to marry out anyway. Whereas a son, you want to make sure if he does well, because he's going to be the provider for you, you need the parents and that you a part of his was the daughter Mary out. And therefore, the parent will not invest as much time care and effort to that particular daughter. And for them, but obviously there are exceptions. This is all generalization because there are many Asian American women who've done well, you know, despite Oprah but I think that would be an interesting study for the daughter, you know, within the parent thing, and one of the things that I hope we have these researches to the nonprofit research on this issue well, you know, as Asian Americans play longer in this country, you know, pension filled out you know, I think mainly of girls and women because you know, you when you see more and you associated with more friends, different friends and and obviously social values and more the western values of the individual. And with the women's movement and all that, I think, you know, this, this awareness and consciousness, you know, reach a certain level that it conflicts with what you have to deal with at home. And that's where the thing comes in, I think happens, I don't know the exact scientific data when it occurs, but But I, that's when it starts happening, we, when the girls start going to school, and learn different things, and especially when they start working, that financial independence comes with certain personal independence. And this, perhaps, certain confidence. And because a lot of these girls, they start early to have to handle stuff with a family, that extra thing would force them to be a lot more outgoing. So that might be a factor. I'm skipping a lot of stuff, because there's stereotypes and stuff about, you know, science and mathematics and all that stuff. We could do it in, you know, our discussion period. But I just want to touch some points about the first or second generation and among Asian Americans, you know,

Unknown Speaker  36:14
that's where that thing about high achievement, because, you know, higher ed, I believe, 15 20% Asian Americans, wow, be careful, you know, yellow horn, their goals, curve, you know, don't take any science or engineering classes and all that. But if you see too many Asians that you don't take those courses. But I think it's highly cool stuff. Because, you know, I think people concentrate on that, because Asian Americans because of linguistic difficulties. And also, I think, some studies that it's also the metric system. That's why agents do better because Asian consumers, biometric systems, some study from that, therefore, it's not easy to go into math or science. Anyway, the whole point is that statistically, to two Asian Americans have, and there's more on the professional level. But I've spoken recently with a counselor and that kinds of young Asian Americans, and especially women. Yes, they do. Well, professional, however, the disillusionment is later the dissolution in terms of identity, because they've achieved it, and they've more cultural, linguistic, cultural, and all that, and this society that. Now, they don't really feel that, for instance, they're not really Korean. They're not really Americans. So what are they? And professionally, you know, they get to the point where, like, late 20s or early 30s, to start thinking, because they pursue careers, or they have high hopes. And then what happens is that whole glass ceiling phenomena, not just for women, but Asian Americans as well. So you have a double thing. So I think demographically, maybe the post 65 Repeal the exclusion for this big wave of Asian American or Asian immigration that you're getting, big sizable number of college grads and the beginning professional that I think that again, studies, I hope you may this is the disillusion and that's beginning to sit in. There other stuff. I mean, race relations in schools, there a lot of physical harassment against Asians, especially Asian with girls, you know, captivity and all that. From African Americans and Latinos and all that, and covered, there are good aspects to resolve those particular tensions to sports programs and everything. I mean, we've get into a lot more work if we have more social contact between the different groups that usually results in better relationships. And also stereotypes with kids model minority syndrome kind of thing. Everybody knows that, right? That's okay. You know, and then, as far as Asian women and Asian girls, you know, you know, that standard stuff about Suzie Wong, Miss Saigon, or iMedia like Connie Chung kind of tone kind of thing. That That seems to be the same thing. You know, black women be more acceptable and not as threatening to mainstream cultures and same thing. So, you know, as part of the council, chair of the Council, the Chancellor's at America that were supposed to report, this was part of the report and what we found out what I personally found out, it's just that there's a very little study and I hope some of you will pick up on it, the thesis, research some of the things I because they're very interesting, it's just anything a lot more study could be done on this thing. But I think overall, there's a big influx of flux, flux and a transition as far as like cities like New York or out in California, with Asian and Asian American population increasing. I think, previously. There hasn't been that, you know, we've talked about America, you know, I think it's beginning to, to be to, I think there's a penetration of a notion that American identities has that Asian American aspect. It's not as it's just beginning, only perhaps it's the critical mass political numbers type of thing, or is it probably because people raise a lot more hell these days, you know, be noticed. But I think part of this is that America is such a young country, I think it's beginning to to see things like that. And I think that's definitely a good time.

Unknown Speaker  41:07
Well, I'm gonna sit here, I'm gonna have to set my watch, so that I give myself the three minute warning. I'm going to switch gears a little bit now and try being the person who, I guess was brought in as the political scientist in the group, to talk a little bit about the background of what we've been hearing. And to put it in a kind of a context and suggest what the state's interests might be, or the extent to which the state participates in the kinds of processes that Barbara and Linda have talked about so articulately. One of the interesting things that you find when you look at gender issues, is in education and sort of discrimination issues more generally, is that women are almost always brought in through the backdoor through something else. The you know, the one that ever but most many people know who studied civil rights is how women even got into the Civil Rights Act. The whole point, the women, sex was added as a category during the Civil Rights Act debates to try to torpedo the Civil Rights Act, there was by Southern by Southern Democrats, there was this idea that if we if if sex was added, like race, creed, etc, that somehow it wouldn't be able to pass. And in fact, they did match, it caused a great deal of consternation, because there were only a couple of there weren't very many women in Congress. And the men didn't know what to do with this. But they wound up by keeping it in. And that is more or less how women got what has been their major weapon in fighting discrimination policy for the last 30 years. And that is Title Seven of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination. Now that prohibited it prohibits discrimination and employment. So even there, we didn't really see an understanding of the role of when I mean of women's and girls positions in education, pre collegiate or higher education, employment was addressed in a couple of different ways in discrimination in Civil Rights Act, and in the Equal Pay Act 6263, which actually predated the Civil Rights Act. Now, for women, this is one of the reasons that I think that the state has tended not to pay a lot of direct attention until this last generation is because women themselves have been a bit bifurcated or have have had internal contradictions within, you know, within their own community, on which strategies to push, you can go back 100 years and see these debates, you can certainly see them around the suffrage movement. And the same debates have carried through when President Kennedy established his Committee on the Status of Women. It was heavily staffed by women of one political persuasion rather than, you know, the other side. And they're the two, the two. I mean, the two sides of the debate that really went through a lot of theorizing and political activism about about women's issues is, should women be incorporated to what I mean? It's not that different, really from the African American debate? Do we fight on their grounds? Or do we make them change the rules? And so what tends to happen is that you will get, you will get women who articulate living with the status quo. And until we get, you know, we can sort of get higher status. On the other side, you'll have women who say, No, we've got to change the rules of the game from the very beginning, that simply living with the status quo or trying to get ourselves incorporated into the system is not really going to transform it. And we're always going to be second class citizens. And the activity in our except for the Title Seven, the activities that we've seen, or the successes that we've seen have tended to be along the status quo lines. Now, by the late 1960s, you start to see a real shift. And that is partly because of the civil rights movement, and also because in large part because of the successes of the civil rights movement, and also because of the ability of the feminist movement to piggyback onto the civil rights movement. Now, most of what I'm going to talk about, is, is going to be about middle class white women. Because most of the state directed activities that we've seen, have been about middle class white women, and they're the ones who have been, to a great extent, the most successful I mean, I can't emphasize how important what the speakers before me have said enough, I can't emphasize that enough, because there is, it's I mean, what you said was so true that women are always forced to choose, are they white? Are they black? You know, are they women? It's a, it should be a double benefit, right? Well, it's not, it's usually a double whammy.

Unknown Speaker  46:02
Just as a, you know, an example, in the affirmative action, sort of rulings nowadays are in the affirmative action schedules. This category one and Category Two, Category One is African American, Latino, Latina, and Native American, and veterans, always veterans. And Category Two is Asians and women. Now, if you're Asian and a woman, you are not category one, you are a double category two. And I mean, I've been told many, many times at Columbia, that it's there that says, I mean, it within the political science department, they're so sorry, but, you know, if only I were a different ethnicity, it'd be so much easier. And I sort of feel like saying, well, sorry, you know, I was born with this. I've done the best I can. But I'm now so. But this this, what this has meant is that, that women that generally people don't know exactly how to deal with women. I mean, it depends on what your ratio is. And that's completely leaving aside class issues, which I'll get to in a minute. So we don't have a specific place within the sort of state hierarchy. I mean, we don't our group does not have a specific place, it depends at any given time, who makes it up, and how we choose to ally ourselves. And I think many of the, the problems and barriers that we've encountered, encountered has been trying to work within the system. Now, in women in education, in particular, access to, especially to higher education preceded non discrimination provisions by quite a bit of access to higher education really opened up after the second world war with the GI Bill, because the large influxes of veterans going into schools meant that there were a lot more colleges, I mean, that's what developed the junior college system. And it certainly developed the satellite campus systems that we see in New York and California, and other places in the country. So what you had in the 50s was a was an explosion of universities and more women starting to go to college, in the 60s, you the colleges, and not only did not only did campuses increase, the number of campuses increase, but the volume was at the campuses increased and the prosperity of the 50s. And the expanding economy pushed a lot of women into higher education. I mean, there was sort of a push pull, women are able to go into higher education that wanted to, and there was also a greater demand, because there were more jobs. So it was a tough, I mean, so women started to come into the academy, kind of without people really knowing what was going on. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't like blacks pushing to enter segregated universities, it was much, I think it was much more I would describe it as much more subtle. At the same time, these processes meant that you saw a lot more middle class women going into work. In the 60s, jobs became much, much more of a possibility. And at this point, you're still looking at, you know, Assistant, two kinds of jobs, but nonetheless, many more than we had seen before. And and many more women started started entering. I mean, obviously working class women and poor women always worked, those numbers have really stayed constant from the 50s to now they're you know, 35 to 60% depending on who you're looking at. But the number of middle class and upper class women started to really go up. At the same time, by the late 60s, the feminist movement is really starting to push not only that, you know, the fact of women in the job market and in higher education, but starting to push the, you know, the idea of it the legitimacy of women being able to go in and the importance of access, especially in upper class and professional areas. So you're seeing I mean, initially you're seeing a lot more access in sort of state schools and junior colleges and quasi quasi institutions. But by the late six Then mid to late 60s, you're starting to see the big pushes for the elite schools, and for the end for the professional schools. And that's when and that's when you start to get the issues that that have really, I mean, that fueled one part of the women's education debate. And that is the right of women to have access to the highest jobs. The turning point for women in higher education in particular, for me, to me is really 1972 and Equal Opportunity amendments and title nine of those. Now, in 1972, the government expanded both affirmative act their own affirmative action provisions and a non non discrimination laws more generally, to higher education, both primary with through employment, it was in faculty representation and staff, you know, Officer and staff representation.

Unknown Speaker  51:00
But But Title Nine, applied equal opportunity, gender equal opportunity, and non discrimination to students. Now, we tend to think I mean, this was really the first explicit attempt to look at equal opportunity for women as women in education, I mean, women again, black, African American girls, were and and Latina, to some extent, can became sort of included in under the race and ethnicity non discrimination, but they weren't really thought up. And it wasn't that they were women, it was that there were African American or Latino, but now it was women. Now, I don't know if I'm in some of you certainly remember when Title Nine was passed, and how it was going to be seen as the end of all higher education. As we knew it, my God, we're going to have women's football teams. Well, we all see how many NCAA title, you know, football teams we have. Now, we know where that's gone. But Title Nine has, I mean, has been important, in many ways. I mean, it has really been a double edged sword. Because on the one hand, schools have increased women's programs, they have also cut back women's programs as quickly as possible when the money has gone down. And the other thing that women's programs have done have created wonderful opportunities for male coaches, many of the I mean, you can sort of track how prestigious a woman's athletic program is, by by how many men are coaching in it. And within the coaching ranks, within the same, you know, in the same area and the same athletic specialty, you the men get paid much more than the women do. And any of you who are watching the the NCAA Women's playoffs, which are now on television, second year in a row, they were actually on television, the Final Four saw that there were many, you know, there were women's coaches, but there were also I think, not the winner, but the runner up was was coached by a man. And that's pretty common. And there's been, you know, there has been with a Donna on Valhalla piano who's been working on this has been a has been a big force for equality and women's athletics has has brought attention to this, but it's still very prevalent. I mean, women, again, women have sort of been left in, but it's still within the same structure. Now, Title Nine should have I mean, not theoretically, legally has the ability to provide for all kinds of, you know, push for equal opportunity for women. However, in practice, it's it's not nearly as effective, as its promise and its promise has not been carried out, primarily because the state doesn't fund it, the government does not adequately fund enforcement efforts. One, we see the same problem in in enforcement of discrimination in education for women that we see in every other enforcement area. And that is that when the government doesn't really want to pursue civil rights, it just doesn't. It the Reagan administration cut back just about everything in the 80s cause most of the Justice Department lawyers who were forced civil rights to leave or go nuts. I mean, they didn't go nuts. They left but the morale was extremely bad. In the Justice Department, and since since the way that our system is set up, is that it's a quasi judicial system for civil rights, you have to bring a case and then it has to be investigated, and then it has to be, you know, sort of there has to be a finding and then it has to be implemented. It's very, very difficult. Um, the the contrast of that, that I always find very alone and ironic and kind of depressing. One is affirmative action by the government, by which I mean affirmative action programs are set up differently. They're the burden of proof like for contracting for example, the burden of proof is on the contractor. Before you can get the contract. You have to show and affirm it. Have action plans, which means these people are pretty good at it. And you know, they may not actually be carried out, but they're on paper everywhere. And to a great extent, I mean, you can enforce the contracts. That doesn't in, in EEO enforcement, it's all motivated by individual complaints, which means it's very hard to change it to have systemic changes. And in the, in the Reagan administration, things like growth city, growth city versus Bell, the gross city decision was a crippling blow, because the government spent five years arguing about whether discrimination would just be in one area in a university or whether if you found discrimination, could it be could you then penalize everything in the university? Well, this is even within the enforcement system, we're arguing about how we're going to enforce so it really slowed down.

Unknown Speaker  55:56
It really slowed down our ability to counteract what we see. Now, um, the, as far as affirmative action decisions themselves go, what we found is that, again, employment we do much better women do somewhat better in employment than we do in education. There has never been an A, there's only been one affirmative action higher education case ever decided by the Supreme Court. There were two one was mooted, one was decided. And that's Baqi and there hasn't been one since then. I mean, it's at Grove City as a funding decision. But in terms of women's representation in higher education students, there's only been 1am, I willing to bet dollars to doughnuts, there will never be another one, at least not in this gender in this course, lifetime. What that means is that the affirmative action that women enjoy is determined almost entirely by the schools themselves. If a school wants to have a strong affirmative action program, it will. But if it doesn't, there's really not a whole lot you can do about it. And faculty hiring is the same thing. You've seen that hiring and retention. I'm sure you've all seen figures. I'm occasionally I obviously take a personal interest in this. But I've occasionally had people tell me, Well, women are a third of the of the faculty now. Well, yes, we are part time adjunct non tenure track non renewable contracts were there. You get us. You know, you get out you get to associate level, and you're down to about 5%. You get to full professors, and you're undefined. So the glass ceiling that Linda was talking about for Asian Americans is just as strong for women. Same thing I've done work on, on women in law firms. About 1979, you see enormous changes, you see all these women because of course, we've all been told that women are half of the entering law school classes. Now. They are they're not half of the people who make partners at the major law firms in the big cities in this country. They are something like a quarter. There's a lot more than there used to be. But again, you know, a lot more superintendents, we're up to 5%. A lot more Senate, you know, a lot more senators, what are we up to? Four, six? Yeah, seriously, we got our own bathroom?

Unknown Speaker  58:10
You haven't finished building it? I don't

Unknown Speaker  58:12
know. I'm really I'm really not sure they have. All right. Hey, I have to give myself my three minute warning here. Okay, let what's the current situation? Well, I think that what we see is we do see huge increases, and women go into college. Women now constitute more than 50% of college enrollment, which is what we would expect, given the relative ways that women and men perform before they get to, you know, in pre collegiate education, the numbers are there. But we see the same kinds of concentrations that we were talking about earlier. And that is, they are disproportionately in education in the humanities in the softer social sciences. In graduate school, there are some fields where we're seeing 50% I think medical school is up to 35%, or something for women. As of seven years ago, it was still considered appropriate to ask a woman if she would, I mean, appropriate by the questioner, to ask a woman if she was trying to have a baby before she finished medical school. At second, but so but we so what we're seeing is, you know, very few women in science, and very few women in the hearts, I mean, just a few women in the heart social sciences. And in graduate school, you see not easy, more attrition, because women generally tend to have more pressures that take them away from what's required to get through a graduate program. There. It's not it does not fall out according to intelligence or performance in classes or any of those things. I think a sociologist, I know once did one of these little studies you know in terms of relative levels of happiness, and the order is the happiest in graduate school. Which, of course, is a relative phrase. But the happiest in graduate school are married men than single men, then married women, and then single women, I actually would switch single and married women myself, but maybe, you know, maybe I'm an outlier here. But it's I mean, men simply have usually are able to find support for the non graduate school aspects of their life to a greater degree than women are. I mean, that's just almost always the case. And also, but oftentimes, women delay going into graduate school because they're financing their husbands or, you know, whoever, and that they, you know, those are perfectly acceptable decisions. I mean, I'm not saying they're sexist decisions within that unit. But what happens is that the result of that is that women are usually disadvantaged, at the same time, that we're still seeing these very sharp gender distinctions. There's a real drop off in interest. I mean, at the sort of governmental level, and at the administrative educational level, on the role of women in the academy, you know, you'll see a lot of hand wringing about not enough women in science. But by and large, women are not considered an affirmative action issue anymore. We're here, what's the big deal? You do not, you don't, and then we're starting to see sort of, we're getting a lot more interested in sort of sexual harassment issues, but the actual laws and the actual sort of structures lag way behind the expressed interest. And I think, here the problem I mean, here, what is defeating us to great extent is the fact that as a group, women are so varied, that people point to the successes that middle class and and professional women have made Asian, white whoever, and you know, middle class, and now increasingly, with people in their 20s African Americans, and they say no, look, it's working. And they really don't see that there are real differences in whom it you know, who it works for whom it works for. If you as a woman, if you profile as like a man, you know, you're single, or you put up childbearing and you have a really supportive spouse, then you probably will do quite well. And you come from a middle class families giving you lots of support and informal education, you will do very well in the American system, you can, you will put up with a lot of crap, you will put up with a lot of what's a nice girl like you do it, you know, studying macro economics. But you can, you know, you will make it everybody else still faces a lot of the same barriers. And the problem is it because some people make it, it takes the pressure off because increasing numbers are making it. It takes the pressure off the system to change. And there's not a real realization of why that you know, what sacrifices those who are making it, because there are still a lot of sacrifices that those people make. It's not that somehow they beat the system. They've just managed to cope with it. But what that means that I'll finish up here