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Please visit the site today. Welcome

1:00

to the New Books Network. Hello

1:05

everyone and welcome to the

1:07

New Book Podcast. I'm Deidre

1:09

Tyler-Hosse. Today we will be

1:11

talking with Naomi Cauham.

1:14

She's not going to be here

1:16

but June Carbone and Nancy Levitt.

1:18

They are the authors of Fair

1:21

Shake, Women and the Fight to

1:23

Build a Just Economy. How

1:25

are you doing today? Fine

1:28

thanks. Delighted to be here. I

1:32

wonder if you could start by saying

1:34

a few words about yourself and how

1:36

you got started on this project. Sure.

1:39

Well, I'm a professor at the

1:41

University of Minnesota. I

1:44

have a fancy title called Broke Beaner

1:46

Chair in Law Science and Technology. But

1:50

my traditional areas are family

1:52

law including assisted reproduction. And

1:55

I followed technical information.

2:00

technological innovation, women

2:03

and the glass ceiling in Silicon Valley

2:05

for years and years. And

2:08

I have known Naomi Kahn and I

2:10

have written several books

2:12

together. And Nancy Levitt

2:14

and I have known each other almost

2:16

since the beginning of our careers. And

2:20

we decided to do this book

2:22

together when we discovered our interests

2:24

so relaxed. Nancy? I'm

2:27

Nancy Levitt. I'm the Associate

2:30

Dean for Faculty and a

2:32

Curator's Professor at the University

2:34

of Missouri, Kansas City School of Law.

2:37

Our third, Naomi Kahn, is the

2:39

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy Distinguished Professor

2:41

of Law at the University of

2:43

Virginia School of Law. And

2:46

as June said, the three of us have

2:48

collaborated, written a number of articles together. Naomi

2:50

and June wrote very celebrated

2:52

books, Red Families, Blue Families

2:54

and Marriage Markets. So

2:57

we've been writing together for years. We

2:59

teach and write about gender, the family,

3:01

employment discrimination. We

3:05

talk about gender issues quite a bit among

3:07

the three of us. And we

3:09

did a back of the envelope

3:12

calculation and realized that

3:14

women college grads were

3:16

losing. And we were shocked to

3:18

find that in an era

3:20

of supposed gender equality, women

3:22

were losing ground in the

3:24

workplace. We started our

3:27

research more than six years ago and the

3:29

overall figures seem to show that women were

3:32

ever so slowly gaining on men,

3:34

wage gap was narrowing. And

3:36

then we began to look at the numbers

3:38

for college graduates.

3:40

And we found that the

3:42

gender gap in wages was

3:44

increasing. There was a 2019 Goldman

3:46

Sachs study. It

3:50

got a lot of press for its

3:52

claims that if present trends continue, women

3:55

would not catch up with men in

3:57

terms of wages for another hundred or

3:59

so. so years. So

4:01

that was what spawned the book. Great.

4:05

Tell us about the whistleblower

4:07

at Telstra and what can

4:09

we learn from this story? Well,

4:12

we had been following Elon Musk for

4:15

a while. He had all the traits

4:17

that we think are the

4:19

road to perdition in

4:22

this book. Egomaniac,

4:25

brilliant success. Slave

4:29

driver mentality in the workforce. And

4:32

we wondered about women at Tesla.

4:34

And then we saw Vandermein's story.

4:37

And it had things

4:39

we're seeing everywhere. First, how

4:42

did she get her job? She's passionate

4:44

about Tesla. She parks herself

4:47

on a part-vention Palo Alto until

4:49

somebody comes out of the company

4:51

and then pitches herself to

4:55

her employer. And they're impressed and they

4:57

hire her. She's

4:59

not working directly on cars. She's

5:02

doing other things. But she put in a 26-hour

5:04

shift. And

5:07

so the boss said, hey, I

5:09

want you on my team. And

5:12

that idea that you reach

5:14

somewhere unusual, you hire

5:16

somebody with no obvious educational

5:19

qualifications. She has

5:22

an impressive education, just not

5:24

automotive engineering. And she becomes

5:26

an automotive engineer. That

5:29

story, very much like what

5:31

Jack Welch bragged about at GE, what

5:33

Sam Walton liked to do at Walmart.

5:35

And we thought, yeah, yeah,

5:37

this sounds very familiar. So

5:40

she gets hired. She's putting in long hours.

5:42

She's working like crazy. She really

5:44

believes in Tesla. And two things

5:46

happen. All kinds of sexual harassment.

5:49

Sexual harassment in an automotive

5:51

manufacturing plant with lots of

5:53

pressure, not unusual. But then

5:57

she goes a step farther and finds it.

6:00

out that Tesla

6:02

doesn't believe in quality control.

6:05

She discovers a defect in the car

6:07

she's working on. She proposes a fix,

6:09

just what an engineer should do. And

6:12

they ignore her. Why? Because

6:15

what Elon Musk wants is

6:17

to ramp up production. Unlike

6:20

other people, he actually gave an interview

6:22

where he admitted that he didn't care

6:24

about quality control. He said we'll fix

6:27

that on the next production run. And

6:30

so the story of somebody,

6:32

a woman doing really well,

6:34

seems to be playing

6:36

the game on the same terms as the

6:39

men, long hours, lack

6:41

of credentials. That's how the men work. You

6:44

know, doing a

6:46

good job. And then she shoved

6:48

aside why? Because she

6:51

has the temerity to complain

6:53

about sexual harassment. And

6:55

because she points out quality

6:57

flaws, something for

7:01

which Tesla has become famous. So

7:03

she's pushed aside. Her

7:06

case results in mandatory

7:08

arbitration and a

7:10

non-disclosure arbitration agreement. So we

7:12

can't tell you exactly what's

7:14

happened. But

7:17

the complaint which details

7:19

these allegations fits

7:21

all the stories about Tesla. And

7:24

isn't that different from every other story in

7:26

our book? Interesting.

7:30

Now tell us about the wages

7:33

for men and women in the 90s

7:35

regarding blue collar and college graduates. What

7:37

did you find? Sure.

7:40

So Nancy had started to talk about

7:42

this. And you know,

7:44

Nami in my last book was called

7:46

Marriage Markets, How

7:49

Inequality Is Remade the American Family.

7:52

And our whole argument is the way

7:54

men and women match up has changed.

7:57

And that led to this

7:59

book. is really

8:01

digging down deep on what happened.

8:04

So if you look at the top of the economy,

8:07

what happens in the 90s is

8:09

the top wages go through

8:12

the roof. CEOs start

8:14

making dramatically more than

8:16

average workers. Go

8:19

back to the 50s and when all

8:21

that big a difference from the CEO to

8:24

the average employee. Now there's an enormous

8:26

difference. And if you look at the

8:28

charts, it's the 90s where

8:30

that takes off. Jack

8:33

Welch at GE introduces competitive

8:37

pay, where

8:39

you pit employees against each other. That

8:42

becomes the norm across

8:45

the corporate economy is

8:48

competitive pay and with competitive pay,

8:50

the top earners start

8:52

getting stock options and

8:55

stock options begin to really pay

8:57

off. You look at tech

8:59

and finance. There's a period from

9:02

the early 90s until the financial

9:04

crisis where 57% of all increases in

9:08

income go to finance. You

9:12

look at tech, this is the.com

9:14

era. It's also a

9:16

shift from, the

9:19

real innovation is now taking place

9:21

at startups, not at

9:23

IBM, startups are the key. And

9:26

with startups, again, you're gambling with other

9:28

people's money. If you

9:30

win big, which means your startup

9:33

goes public and

9:35

is on the stock market or is bought

9:37

out by a larger company, the starters,

9:40

including basic engineers have stock

9:42

options that pay off

9:44

really handsomely. So what

9:46

we see when we look at these numbers is

9:50

that there is this huge gain

9:52

across finance, tech and

9:55

the top executive positions.

9:57

They're increasing dramatically as

10:00

they do, the number of women

10:02

which had been increasing into the

10:05

90s either declines

10:07

as a percentage or flat on

10:09

us. It stays about what

10:12

it had been for the next 10 years. And

10:15

we found that pretty extraordinary. And

10:18

when you look at blue collar jobs, there are

10:20

two things going on. The first,

10:23

you know, where men used

10:26

to outperform women big

10:28

time is the middle of the economy.

10:31

So all those blue collar unionized jobs,

10:33

when you think about the 50s, women

10:35

couldn't get them. And

10:38

those jobs were the middle of the economy.

10:42

And blue collar men are

10:44

doing, you know, what used

10:46

to be unionized jobs. It

10:49

took a hatchet. We have

10:51

offshoring, you know, sending the

10:53

jobs overseas or

10:55

from unionized state in the north to

10:57

the south or outsourcing

11:01

them. And janitors that

11:03

work for big companies used to be

11:06

unionized. Janitorial

11:08

services have now been outsourced

11:10

to the janitorial firm down the

11:12

street. And

11:14

those employees have, you know, no

11:17

security, low wages, et cetera. So

11:19

blue collar men take a hit. What's

11:22

happening to blue collar women? Well,

11:24

they're gaining on blue collar men, but they used

11:26

to be way behind blue collar men. And

11:29

when you look at blue collar women,

11:31

and we start our story talking about

11:33

Walmart, women

11:36

are disproportionately concentrated

11:38

in minimum wage

11:40

jobs. And the

11:42

minimum wage really didn't see

11:45

much increase since the 60s. The

11:49

retail economy, heavily dominated by

11:51

women, squeezed. Labor

11:53

suppression is the name of the

11:55

game. And Walmart set the national

11:58

standards for retail workers. in

12:00

the 70s and 80s had been gaining a bit.

12:03

And teachers, I mean, teachers are the

12:05

middle of the economy. Teachers, when

12:08

you look at the 90s, the

12:11

high point for male

12:13

teachers is in the early 90s. And

12:16

in the early 90s, teachers

12:18

are making about what comparably

12:20

educated professionals are making with

12:23

similar education in other fields.

12:26

That changes. By the time we wrote the

12:28

book, the gap between

12:30

teachers and other workers

12:33

was at an all-time high. And

12:36

women were back up to 77% of teachers, the same kind

12:38

of percentage as years ago. So

12:45

that's what we found. Now,

12:49

you also talked about the Goldman Sachs

12:51

2019 study about

12:53

the present trends. Why

12:56

can you make a case to

12:58

illustrate this information about women in

13:00

the workplace? Sure.

13:03

And we want to make one

13:05

point, and then I'm going to turn this to Nancy.

13:09

The one point we want to make

13:11

is, you know, all the studies in

13:13

Goldman Sachs is typical. Are

13:16

that if present trends

13:18

continue, it'll be another 100 years

13:21

before women catch up. We

13:24

think that's not true. We think if

13:27

present trends continue,

13:29

women will never

13:31

catch up. Let me emphasize

13:33

why. The

13:37

real gains women have made have been at

13:40

the bottom of the economy. So

13:42

at the bottom of the economy, women were catching

13:44

up, and there's not a whole lot more to

13:46

gain. In the middle of

13:48

the economy, teachers, nurses, et

13:51

cetera, there are a whole lot more

13:53

women that are doing better than men

13:55

to some degree in the middle of

13:57

the economy, and they're being squeezed. One

14:01

of the things about the middle of the

14:03

economy, the part of the economy that is

14:05

not being automated, is

14:07

it doesn't exist unless it's government

14:09

funded. Take education. Education,

14:15

the single biggest expense in

14:17

those state budgets is education.

14:21

And the problem with

14:23

state spending is it's cyclical.

14:25

Only federal spending is counter

14:28

cyclical. So you

14:30

have the financial crisis. Who

14:32

took the biggest hit? Teachers.

14:34

Why? Because of something called

14:37

the fiscal cliff. Mitch McConnell

14:39

blocked funding for the state.

14:42

Richard Nixon had championed revenue

14:44

sharing. The federal government needs

14:46

to bail out the states during a downtime.

14:50

Mitch McConnell blocked it with

14:53

the so-called shellacking in 2010. But

14:56

also when Trump was president and we

14:58

had the COVID recession, Trump

15:02

wanted more money for the

15:04

states. McConnell blocked it

15:07

again on ideological grounds. Teachers

15:09

took a hit. The

15:12

good news is that with

15:14

the new administration and a new

15:16

Congress, funding for states

15:20

to soften the effects of the COVID

15:22

recession kicked in, preventing

15:24

depression-level conditions in the

15:26

states. Who's affected by

15:28

this? Number one is teachers.

15:32

Number two is actually police officers. But

15:34

because they're a tiny percentage of the

15:36

number of teachers, they have a larger

15:39

impact on state budgets. And

15:41

then when you look at healthcare,

15:43

the single biggest source of

15:45

expansion of jobs in rural areas

15:48

is Obamacare, keeping open rural hospitals.

16:00

in many states, jobs for women

16:02

in rural areas take a big hit. So

16:05

what we see is, you

16:08

know, those are present

16:10

trends. If present trends, starving the

16:12

beast, you

16:15

know, and

16:18

increasing the benefits that go

16:20

to the top through private

16:22

salaries and male-dominated fields, those

16:25

trends continue. Women will

16:27

lose ground going forward, not

16:29

catch up. And

16:32

just to add to the top,

16:35

we were so used to hearing

16:37

that women had become the better

16:39

educated sex and that education was

16:42

key to advancement. And

16:44

that is true in one sense. Women

16:48

are getting the greater number

16:50

of bachelor's degrees and master's

16:52

degrees. And it

16:54

used to be true with respect to

16:57

the translation to wages. In the 1970s,

16:59

1980s, women's wages were gaining

17:02

on men's and those gains were

17:04

associated with greater education. By

17:06

2000, women had become

17:08

the better educated sex. And since

17:11

2006, more

17:13

doctorate degrees. But it was

17:15

in these groups that the

17:17

ranks of college graduates as

17:19

a group, the highest earners

17:22

among college graduates, in particular,

17:24

where gender disparities had grown

17:26

at the fastest rate. Now,

17:30

can we blind gender wage

17:32

gap between men and women

17:34

on the choices that women make? There

17:41

are a number of conventional explanations

17:43

for women's lack of progress. One

17:46

is women's family responsibilities.

17:49

The role of family responsibilities has

17:52

always explained a significant part of

17:54

the wage gap. It continues to do

17:56

so today. The gender pay gap

17:58

for women who are age. age

18:00

25 to 34 is smaller than

18:02

for women who are in the

18:05

35 to 54 age bracket,

18:07

which is the peak child rearing

18:09

years, when mothers are

18:11

making different career choices and

18:13

fathers to accommodate family responsibility.

18:16

The second conventional explanation

18:18

is women's occupational choices,

18:20

as you mentioned. But

18:23

the problem with this line of

18:25

thinking of focusing on women's choices

18:28

to assume family responsibilities to pick

18:30

different careers, to not lean in,

18:33

is that these factors have always held

18:35

women back. And they don't

18:37

explain why the gendered pay gap

18:39

for college grads, the group with

18:41

the greatest access to quality childcare

18:44

increased after the early 90s. They

18:47

also don't explain why black women,

18:50

who've long managed to a greater degree

18:52

than white women, to juggle

18:54

work and family responsibilities

18:56

remain one of

18:58

the most disadvantaged groups in society.

19:01

And so those don't explain

19:04

why salaries increase so rapidly

19:06

in areas that

19:08

were male dominated to begin with, and

19:11

yet why women's participation

19:13

declined. We think

19:15

it's that these areas got more

19:18

hostile to women from the

19:21

1990s, at least through our data, is through

19:23

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20:20

And can I jump in on this?

20:23

This leads into

20:25

our triple bind, which we talk about in

20:27

the book. So,

20:30

one of the things we emphasize is when

20:33

you talk about the choices

20:35

women make, they're rational.

20:38

That is, if you look

20:40

at the statistics

20:44

on who succeeds, so

20:46

you've got to put in a whole lot

20:48

more time. Go back to 1960. People

20:52

who worked more than 40 hours a week

20:54

made less per hour than

20:56

people who worked more than 40

20:58

hours a week. Today, the

21:00

opposite is true. You want

21:02

these jobs we described that have grown

21:05

exponentially in pay. You've got to put

21:07

in long hours. But,

21:10

and if you don't, you're really out of the running.

21:12

That's the mommy track. But if you

21:14

put in the long hours, take law firm

21:17

partners, the

21:19

average law firm equity partner makes something

21:21

like close to a million a year,

21:23

but the average woman equity partner makes

21:25

something like 600,000 a

21:27

year. To get to where

21:29

she is, she's got to put in the

21:31

long hours too, probably as long as the

21:33

guy. But if she

21:35

does, the payoff is less,

21:37

substantially less. So, we

21:40

describe this in terms of a triple

21:42

bind. If you're not playing by the

21:44

rules, and rules are often hidden. That's

21:46

what happened to Betty Dukes at Walmart.

21:48

She didn't find out until she was

21:50

part of this nationwide class action. What

21:53

Walmart was really about is not what she thought it

21:56

was about. The second

21:58

thing is if you do play by the same

22:00

rules, women are more likely to be

22:02

pushed out. Van Der Rijden

22:04

is a very nice example of that. She's

22:08

aggressive. She was putting in the hours.

22:11

Discovering product safety defects or product

22:13

quality defects that no one else

22:16

had found, and figuring

22:18

out and designing a fix, and

22:20

pushing really hard to get your

22:23

ideas adopted by the company, that's

22:25

what the guys pride themselves

22:27

on doing. That's a good reason why

22:29

she was fired. And

22:32

women, the third part of

22:34

our triple bind, what we add to the

22:36

classic double bind, is if women

22:38

figure out that's what's going on, a

22:42

lot of them either figure, hey, this is not

22:44

worth it. I don't want to

22:46

be the person who's going to lose. Or

22:49

I don't want to be part

22:51

of that game. So

22:53

what you see in a number of

22:55

places, and we're happy to talk about

22:57

finance, which is the worst and

23:00

some of the best documented excesses,

23:04

is if women

23:06

realize what you have to do is cook the books,

23:10

fleece your customers, do

23:14

things that are illegal that could end you up

23:16

in jail, women are

23:18

more likely to say no. But

23:21

they're also more likely to be the

23:23

person who goes to jail. And

23:26

if you figure that out, you don't want to

23:28

play on those terms. And

23:31

so a large part of

23:33

what we tried to describe

23:35

is not just these private

23:37

sector salaries at the top.

23:39

They've increased exponentially, and they're not

23:41

hiring women. But the system

23:44

that produces them is one that rewards the

23:46

people who can break the rules and get

23:48

away with it. And

23:50

that group is disproportionately male, because

23:53

the getting away with it part

23:55

is a critical part of the

23:57

new world. Now,

24:02

I also want

24:05

to know what happens when

24:07

women complain? Nancy,

24:10

you want to go for that? Sure.

24:14

One of the

24:16

things that we have

24:18

noticed and supported by

24:20

significant research is

24:22

that when women complain,

24:24

they are punished. Mark

24:27

Egan, who's a Harvard economist, did

24:29

a wonderful study called

24:31

When Harry Fired Sally.

24:34

And it compared

24:36

the outcomes when

24:38

women were investigated

24:43

for misconduct, women were

24:45

disproportionately terminated for

24:48

misconduct, even if they

24:50

didn't commit

24:52

misconduct as serious as did

24:54

men. And

24:57

when women complain about

25:00

difficulties they have seen in

25:02

the workforce, when they complain

25:04

about sexual harassment,

25:06

when they complain about sex

25:09

discrimination, they are punished

25:12

much more harshly. And they're punished

25:14

for sharp elbows,

25:16

for acting unconventionally for

25:19

their gender. They're

25:21

punished for the complaints.

25:24

And the interesting thing

25:26

is the punishment for

25:28

complaining goes sort

25:30

of subterranean, right? Because if

25:32

there are these structures that

25:35

June has been describing that

25:37

are reward systems and

25:40

if women are not working

25:42

the very longest hours or

25:45

if women are not

25:48

living up to the bosses'

25:50

expectations for short-term

25:53

reductionist metrics, the

25:55

companies think they have essentially a

25:57

market defense. So this employee is

25:59

a as good as others. And

26:02

so what we're seeing is

26:04

this combination of women experiencing

26:06

harassment and discrimination when

26:09

they complain about it, they're

26:11

really complaining in essence about

26:13

a hyper-competitive system, but it's

26:16

the system itself that's the

26:18

defense. Joan, did you wanna

26:20

tell the story of Guitrán,

26:23

Wells Fargo? Yes,

26:25

yeah, there's just a classic

26:27

story. So Wells Fargo, now

26:30

nationally famous for its fake

26:32

account scandal, enormous

26:34

pressure on employees to

26:36

make quotas to open new accounts. And

26:39

it had a slogan, eight

26:41

is great. If

26:44

the same family has eight accounts instead

26:46

of one account, they become stickier, less

26:50

likely to switch banks if

26:52

Wells Fargo offers less competitive

26:55

rates on accounts. On

26:57

credit cards, on pet insurance, the

27:01

goal at Wells Fargo is to

27:03

get your clients to open as

27:06

many different accounts in as many

27:08

different products Wells Fargo offers as

27:10

possible. So

27:12

the pressure was so

27:15

great that

27:18

employees basically said, you couldn't

27:20

meet the quotas without opening

27:22

fake accounts. And in 2011, this is before

27:25

the scandal breaks nationally, Guitrán,

27:30

who's in California, complains.

27:33

She grats at her fellow employees,

27:35

they're opening fake accounts. She's

27:38

saying, I can't

27:40

really do this without engaging

27:42

in fraud, and

27:45

tries to bring this to the attention of

27:47

her supervisors. So what happens? She

27:50

starts being dinged, she arrives a couple

27:52

minutes late, everybody

27:55

arrives a couple minutes late, no big

27:57

deal, except for her. You

28:00

know, she tries, you know, she's

28:03

eventually fired. She tries

28:05

filing for whistleblower protection

28:08

and sex discrimination. Some of this involves

28:10

being like because of childcare issues, et

28:12

cetera. And

28:14

she loses. And the court goes up, the

28:17

case goes up on appeal and California

28:19

appellate court in 2015, after

28:22

the scandal is broken, says, but she

28:24

didn't meet her quotas. They had reason

28:27

to fire her. The quotas

28:29

couldn't be met without opening fake accounts.

28:32

And so we see a

28:34

lot of cases like that. We

28:38

talked to Mark Egan about this study. And

28:42

one of the things he said

28:44

to us is when an employee

28:46

is fired for misconduct, even if

28:48

it's trivial misconduct, even if it's

28:50

invented misconduct, when she's

28:52

really being fired for retaliation

28:54

for complaining. The

28:56

retaliation is illegal. I mean, if you're

28:59

being fired because you complained about sex

29:01

discrimination, you were a whistleblower, that's

29:03

illegal. But if they

29:05

fired you because you were two

29:07

minutes late or because you

29:09

didn't open enough accounts,

29:12

when the only way you could do

29:14

it by opening fake accounts, then the

29:16

court said, well, that person committed misconduct,

29:18

of course, we're going to go second

29:20

guess at that. And

29:23

so it's part of the system that covers

29:25

up what's taking place. WTAI,

29:30

winner takes all. Describe

29:33

that to the audience. What's your meaning? What's

29:36

the meaning of that? We

29:38

use the term winner take all

29:40

or WTAI economy

29:44

to describe a critical

29:46

shift in the new economy as

29:49

the ability of those at the

29:51

top to take a much larger

29:53

share of institutional resources for

29:56

themselves. And It's a new

29:58

economy that crosses job. The

30:00

actors and it explains the patterns

30:02

that had stumped us. The winner

30:04

take all euro It as soon

30:06

said earlier started with. The increase

30:09

in Ceo compensation if it.

30:11

Rose a whopping five hundred and

30:13

fourteen percent in the thirty years

30:15

between Nineteen, Ninety Nine, T in

30:18

Twenty Twenty. And that means that

30:20

back and then fifties back in

30:22

the sixties Ceo to work or

30:25

pay. Was it about a twenty

30:27

to one ratio? today? It is

30:29

a mind blowing. Three. Hundred

30:32

and ninety nine to

30:34

one ratio Successful Ceos,

30:37

In turn began to reward

30:39

their top lieutenants and managers

30:41

and t employees. With bonuses

30:43

and stock options that could

30:45

make. Those who succeeded

30:47

very wealthy and substantially better

30:49

paid than other employees. And

30:52

those bonuses were typically tied to.

30:54

Short Term Reduction: This metric such

30:56

as sales are earning source of

30:59

production of cash. Is and

31:01

those. Profoundly. Changed

31:03

corporate culture is a he

31:05

can places. Where there are

31:08

increased rewards. For those at

31:10

the top are the same

31:12

workplaces. That pit employees

31:14

against. Each other and.

31:17

Practices. Like bees

31:20

are linked to increasing. Gender.

31:22

Disparities and they keep everybody and

31:24

secure. So if the mean archer

31:26

is rewarding the person who opens

31:28

the most fake accounts. Or is

31:31

this Lieutenant is rewarding?

31:33

Those who are making

31:35

their employees commit wage

31:37

and hour. Violations by not recording

31:39

all the time that they to which

31:42

they should be entitled to wages. Then.

31:45

Those. Are the Euro some games

31:47

the employees are playing Zero? Some

31:50

games with of course negative some

31:52

consequences. what we noticed

31:54

was men will typically compete

31:56

at work and men are

31:58

competing for dominance or

32:00

displaying endurance or strength

32:02

or the ability to work

32:05

longer hours. And remember, women are

32:07

the ones with greater family responsibilities.

32:11

Engagement in cutthroat competition.

32:14

Those environments have been shown

32:16

to produce sexist

32:18

climates. And climates

32:21

where women experience hostility,

32:23

where women experience

32:25

patronizing behavior, where

32:28

women experience harassment,

32:31

intimidation, bullying. And

32:34

we're all employees are experiencing

32:36

higher burnout, higher rates of

32:38

illness, higher rates of depression.

32:41

Women aren't able to win in

32:44

that new game, but we tend to see, and

32:46

we can talk about this, women as one

32:48

of the best hopes to fight against it.

32:52

Now, you talk about the gig economy in

32:54

your book. How are women at risk in

32:57

this new gig economy? Go

33:00

ahead, Nancy. Sure. The

33:03

gig economy has pluses and

33:05

minuses, right? Frozen cons.

33:08

Women who might otherwise be home

33:10

full time with kids might

33:12

find this a way to be in the economy at

33:14

all, or to be in

33:18

the economy at hours that are convenient.

33:20

Men who do this generally

33:23

have other jobs. So their reservation price

33:25

is higher. They don't have to do

33:27

the gig unless it pays near to

33:29

what their other job might pay. And

33:32

there's an underlying backdrop

33:35

for the disparities. But

33:37

then if we think about the

33:39

substance of gig work, gig work

33:41

comes with an absence of insurance.

33:43

There aren't any HR controls.

33:47

Whom does one report sexual

33:49

harassment? There's nobody to sue.

33:52

And very insidiously,

33:55

apps will serve to atomize

33:58

workers. They will pit the world. workers

34:00

against each other in competition

34:02

for jobs. And so

34:05

women and men engaging

34:08

in gig labor will

34:10

have fundamentally different experiences

34:13

and the absence of any

34:16

impulse to take collective action.

34:19

Now, if the tech economy

34:22

push women out, yes,

34:26

let me talk about that. So,

34:28

you know, this thing that runs through

34:31

this whole description is

34:33

really a description of the system. Pit

34:36

employees against each other. The person at the

34:38

top, a Tiki

34:41

Lanma starting Tesla, incredibly

34:43

innovative car designed

34:45

to disrupt the

34:48

automobile industry. But

34:52

what he's really gotta do

34:54

is ramp up production incredibly

34:56

fast. And when

34:58

you look at how he runs his

35:01

factories, it's who can

35:03

get me these cars on the road in

35:05

the shortest amount of time possible? Securities

35:08

fraud, he's been endlessly investigated by

35:10

the SEC, had to pay 20

35:12

million and then just went back

35:14

doing it again. I had

35:17

to pay 20 million personally in fines and

35:19

was booted out as chairman of the board,

35:21

but got stay on as CEO

35:23

of Tesla and just did it again. When

35:28

you look at, again, the product issues, incredible

35:31

number of recalls in Tesla. Does

35:35

he care? No, because

35:37

there's a period of

35:39

time in which in

35:41

the same time period, several

35:44

hundred thousand Teslas were recalled in

35:46

the following week. He

35:50

announced he had exceeded

35:52

production. And

35:56

what took place was stock market

35:58

rewarded this by. making him the

36:00

richest man in the world. This

36:02

is within two weeks of each other, okay?

36:05

So when you look at then startups,

36:08

it's even worse. Nancy described, you know,

36:10

if you don't have any rules, you

36:12

don't have HR, it's

36:15

whatever you get away with. Plant

36:18

startup world. So

36:20

startups typically start out as a handful

36:22

of people, and then they grow very

36:24

quickly. Uber, we

36:26

have a chapter in Uber in the book. I

36:28

mean, that's just a whole story in itself,

36:30

because what you've got

36:33

taking place is sexual harassment is

36:35

rampant. The guys putting in

36:37

long hours, the guys

36:39

sometimes compete to get the right women on their

36:41

teams. Uber

36:44

tried to increase diversity. It

36:48

hired a number of women and

36:51

racial minorities out of coding

36:54

boot camps, because

36:57

it was so eager to increase diversity. It was

36:59

20% women suffer

37:01

engineers at one point, a very high

37:04

percentage by the time

37:06

of the investigation had fallen 7%. So

37:09

what's driving women out? Again,

37:12

not long hours. Studies of

37:14

Silicon Valley indicate that it's

37:16

not the hours, because the engineers, the

37:18

people in startups in general tend to

37:20

be pretty young, don't yet have kids.

37:24

That's not what drives them out. Abusive

37:27

bosses. And the studies

37:29

we looked at, Uber,

37:32

again, kind of like Tesla, you've

37:34

got to grow massively very, very

37:36

quickly. That startup culture.

37:38

In an Uber's case, what you're doing is

37:41

you move into an area, you

37:43

grow, you have customer loyalty, and

37:45

then when the taxi companies say everything

37:47

you're doing is illegal, which it typically

37:49

is, it's violating all the taxi regulations,

37:52

then you get the regulations changed

37:54

because your royal customer base

37:57

threatens to vote the people out of office who don't

37:59

let Uber. into the area. That's the

38:01

name of the game. Now who do you

38:03

hire when you're interested in that? Again,

38:06

lovely psychological studies. People

38:08

with over-optimism bias,

38:11

that is narcissism. You

38:16

know there are no downsides, I can do

38:18

it. People

38:20

who are amoral, who are willing to

38:22

lie and cheat and steal. You

38:25

find when you create an environment like

38:28

that, alliances, having the right mentor who

38:30

will protect you, incredibly important. And

38:33

who do mentors look for and

38:35

protect? People whose

38:37

behavior they can predict.

38:40

They dangle carrots, big bonuses.

38:42

They see who jumps highest,

38:44

who will break the rules without being asked

38:47

to break the rules, who will

38:49

not rat out the boss when the investigation

38:54

occurs. And how

38:56

do you predict such behavior? You

38:58

pick people you see as thinking

39:01

like you, acting like you, looking

39:03

like you. High pressure companies like

39:05

this, diversity of all kinds, decreases

39:08

but more critically. The

39:11

people who become bosses, these

39:13

are called masculinity contest cultures, and

39:16

it turns out the type of

39:18

people who thrive in such environments

39:20

think they're entitled, entitled

39:22

to sexually harass. They

39:26

get their bennies out of harassing

39:30

employees they see as weaker,

39:32

including men who aren't macho.

39:35

They, again, it

39:39

becomes like a gang. If

39:41

you think of a criminal gang with

39:44

alpha males who patrol a fiefdom, that's

39:47

what such environments become. They almost

39:49

inevitably drive out women because women

39:52

aren't one of the guys and

39:54

the women who try too hard to be

39:56

one of the guys are often disliked for

39:59

doing so. The way Vander

40:01

Mine was his Tesla and

40:03

so on. Startups especially high

40:06

pressure startups him to produce

40:08

this kind of environment. Whole

40:10

lot of young men working

40:12

long hours on Uber hadn't

40:15

opened Beer Keg on the

40:17

premises. A lot of start

40:19

ups or a substance abuse

40:22

is rampant in all of

40:24

that produces bad behavior. And.

40:27

Rewards Pet became. In

40:31

chapter seven you talk about a

40:33

general copper do and mayor a

40:35

pandemic environment. Can you tell us

40:37

that that's tourists? Sure,

40:41

It will call. The chapter is

40:43

entitled home Alone and. We

40:46

interviewed a woman who was

40:48

an assistant office manager for

40:50

a dental practice and. During

40:53

the pandemic. For. Schools

40:55

and a curse shuddered. She

40:58

and her husband made the very

41:00

difficult decision to leave their baby

41:02

home with their fourteen year old

41:04

who was doing school remotely and

41:06

when the fourteen year old became.

41:08

Ill. Be. And

41:11

of manager asked to work

41:13

from home for a few

41:15

days. To. Arrange Care Christmas

41:18

iphone job and The

41:20

Office. Manager said no.

41:23

It. Was. A private

41:25

equity firm Aspen Dental

41:28

Dental Services Organizations that

41:30

manage the Hr aspects

41:32

of the dental practices

41:34

for individual providers. A.

41:37

the practice where she worked

41:39

and the has been this

41:42

you lose tours private equity

41:44

whole things with people having

41:46

no personal relationships with the

41:48

folks they are managing a

41:50

relationship that would have likely

41:52

said the sure take a

41:55

few days you got the

41:57

two children and a one

41:59

is baby and

42:01

it's the pandemic and we've

42:03

got ill kids, let's

42:05

let you figure out the childcare. She

42:10

filed suit arguing that Aspen Dental

42:12

had interfered with her rights under

42:14

the Family and Medical Leave Act and

42:17

she alleged her employer retaliated against

42:20

her when she tried to invoke

42:22

her rights to reinstatement under another,

42:25

which is another violation of the FMLA. But

42:29

the important picture if you step back and

42:31

look at the big screen

42:33

is the private equity

42:36

playbook has really transformed the

42:38

healthcare sector and it

42:40

brings with it this winner

42:42

take all world view that's

42:44

really out of step with

42:46

the needs of healthcare providers

42:49

and also with patients. There

42:51

are mortality studies from the

42:54

University of Pennsylvania, Chicago Booth

42:56

and NYU and they examined

42:59

private equity owned

43:01

nursing homes over a 15 year

43:03

period and they found that the profit

43:05

goals led to reduced

43:08

staffing and

43:10

providing basic hygiene or

43:12

infection management or monitoring

43:15

or increase in

43:18

anti-psychotic medications administered

43:20

in these homes and these differences led

43:22

to a 10% increase

43:25

in mortality rates. So Aspen

43:27

Dental was just such a

43:29

private equity company and we've

43:32

seen the pernicious effects of

43:35

these remote players who don't

43:37

understand the workplaces and who

43:39

care very little for the

43:41

workers, let alone the clients. Are

43:45

women used as scapegoats? What

43:47

was about the story of Melissa?

43:49

How did she fight back? Well

43:54

actually Melissa Tomlinson, our

43:57

teacher, that's actually

44:00

So, you know, if you

44:02

look at teachers, teachers are,

44:04

you know, I like to joke,

44:07

the last two groups left in

44:09

American society that represent feminine values

44:11

are school teachers and the military.

44:14

What do I mean by that? Obviously, when

44:17

the military goes off and fights

44:19

wars, it's not

44:21

reflecting feminist values and definitely

44:23

not feminist. But

44:25

on the feminine side, if you

44:27

think of you're

44:29

motivated by honor, concern

44:31

for others, camaraderie, you

44:34

care for the person or the foxhole

44:36

next to you,

44:39

you value living

44:41

up to the

44:44

goals of your profession. You

44:46

see teachers as there to

44:48

help kids, to

44:50

be pillars of their community. And

44:54

what you see, what Melissa Tomlinson thought

44:56

about is Chris Christie became governor of

44:59

New Jersey in 2011. This

45:01

is the height of the financial crisis. Mitch

45:04

McConnell is about to engineer the fiscal

45:06

cliff. Christie

45:08

wins because he attacks his predecessors,

45:10

governor of New Jersey for raising

45:13

taxes. He's not going

45:15

to raise taxes. But it's one of

45:17

the biggest budget shortfalls

45:19

in New Jersey history. And

45:22

the only thing he can't cut

45:24

is education. So what

45:26

does he do? He attacks

45:28

teachers. He makes teachers the

45:30

scapegoats. He refers to public

45:32

schools in Trenton and Newark,

45:35

poor, heavily black cities, as

45:39

failure factories. And

45:41

Melissa Tomlinson, who's in not

45:43

a wealthy school district, but

45:45

not a city, not an

45:48

urban school district, she

45:50

decides to confront Christie. So

45:53

she goes to one of his rallies and she

45:55

says to him, why

45:57

are you calling teachers? Why

46:01

are you calling public schools failure

46:03

faculty? It's not true. And

46:07

he wags a finger. It's

46:10

an iconic picture. It goes

46:12

viral. He wags his finger

46:16

in her face and his

46:18

supporters start cheering her. It

46:21

took an enormous amount of courage to

46:23

confront Christie. But her

46:25

point was, look, there's

46:27

a budget shortfall that's

46:30

finance engineered. And

46:33

New Jersey schools are hurting because

46:36

somebody cut the federal budget in

46:38

the middle of one of the biggest

46:40

recessions in US history. It really is

46:42

something to do economically. And

46:46

Christie is trying to make

46:48

scapegoats of teachers at

46:50

a time when teacher salaries are not

46:53

competitive with the private sector and

46:55

when teachers do it because of the

46:57

love of kids and he's trying to

46:59

make them look greedy and incompetent. And

47:03

she describes how all of these

47:06

so-called reforms, things like high stakes,

47:08

test it, make the teacher's

47:10

job worse. You spend all this

47:13

time doing paperwork instead of helping

47:15

kids. You

47:17

know, at Tesla, the ideal is you get

47:19

a group of engineers together to fix the

47:22

product quality defects at

47:24

schools. Teachers get

47:26

together to try to figure out how to reach

47:28

a higher percentage of kids. But

47:31

instead, they're spending their time on these

47:33

tests. And what

47:35

did the Obama administration present

47:38

as a solution? Well, Arne

47:40

Duncan, when he was secretary

47:42

of education, what he wanted

47:44

was competitive pay for teachers. And

47:47

it turns out that when you get the competitive

47:49

pay, one of the things that happens is the

47:53

people most attracted to

47:55

competitive teaching are

47:58

men. The most experienced

48:00

and successful teachers leave for

48:03

private schools. And

48:05

it changes the atmosphere in

48:08

ways that emphasize bottom line

48:10

test results and cheating. Cheating

48:13

on the test, cheating by the teachers, looking

48:17

the other way at students

48:19

who make you look better by

48:21

bringing in material, et cetera. And

48:24

that's not what education is about. So

48:28

Melissa Tomlinson is one of our

48:30

heroes for her willingness to stand

48:32

up to Chris Christie. And

48:34

if I can just build on that to

48:37

address your question, Deidre, of fighting

48:39

back, there's another example of fighting

48:42

back that is writ large. And

48:44

we discuss it in the book. And I

48:46

would imagine every listener is familiar with it.

48:48

And that is the Me Too movement. For

48:52

really centuries, women suffered indignities

48:55

and assaults in silence. In

48:57

2017, actor Alyssa Milano tweeted a term. It

49:03

was a term that actually activist Tarana Burke had

49:05

developed in 2006, hashtag Me Too. Within

49:10

a year, there were 19 million

49:14

hashtag Me Too tweets. And

49:16

it was people telling

49:18

their stories, sometimes in

49:20

excruciating detail. It

49:23

was a call for action. It was a

49:25

call for accountability rather than a source of

49:28

shame. And Me Too

49:30

involved turning the tables on

49:33

those who have used the

49:35

accumulation of power to

49:38

ensure their own invulnerability. So

49:40

Me Too served as a

49:42

form of jujitsu, turning the

49:45

power of celebrated men to

49:47

act with impunity into

49:49

a weapon against them, using their very

49:51

celebrity to topple them. Me

49:54

Too had a stunning impact. In

49:56

2018, the New York Times

49:58

documented over 200,000 who

50:01

had been brought down by reports

50:03

of misconduct, many of whom were

50:06

then replaced by women. And some

50:08

cynics saw this advancement of women

50:10

during a time of crisis as

50:13

just window dressing. But

50:15

the promotion of women to positions

50:17

of power tends not only

50:20

to reduce the incidence of harassment,

50:22

but also to encourage the adoption

50:24

of other sorts of

50:26

pro-social policies leading to

50:29

better employee-employer relationships, greater

50:31

attention to employee health and safety,

50:34

improved management of diversity

50:36

challenges, and showed

50:39

this fighting back. And it

50:41

wasn't just against egregious sexual

50:43

predators like Weinstein, but against

50:46

the everyday harassment that marginalizes

50:48

women's place in the workforce.

50:51

This had a number of

50:53

incredible impacts, including the idea

50:56

that sunlight on these abuses

50:59

is one of the best disinfectants. Now,

51:03

coming to the MeToo movement, you

51:05

gave another example of Marilyn Perez,

51:08

undocumented immigrant from Guatemala.

51:11

What happened here? Nancy,

51:14

do you wanna take that? Yeah,

51:19

you may all know that

51:21

there was time Time

51:25

Magazine did an

51:28

article, and

51:32

it listed the

51:34

person of the year, it was 2017.

51:38

And Time Magazine named the

51:41

silence breakers its person of

51:43

the year, and included were

51:45

celebrities Taylor Swift, Ashley Judd,

51:47

I think a lobbyist, Adama

51:50

Iwoo, and a farm worker

51:52

who wasn't so different from

51:54

Marilyn Perez. Well, Marilyn Perez

51:57

was an undocumented immigrant

52:00

Guatemala, she harvested vegetables

52:02

in Florida. And

52:05

there was a profile of her in the Atlantic and

52:07

her crew chief put together crews

52:09

that consisted almost entirely of

52:11

recent undocumented immigrants. And the crew chief

52:14

forced the workers to put in 10 to

52:16

12 hour days and picking produce,

52:21

working nights at a packing house,

52:23

limiting their access to food and water.

52:26

They were, they were even sold drinks

52:28

and meals at increased prices. And

52:31

Perez protested that she should be

52:34

receiving full pay and not having

52:36

the crew boss taking out money

52:38

for rent and transportation. And after

52:40

her additional requests for full pay,

52:42

the crew boss suggested he might

52:44

pay her more if she had

52:47

sex with him. And

52:49

she refused and he

52:51

caught her alone in an isolated

52:53

area. He grabbed her. He fondled

52:55

her. Her

52:58

story is a story

53:00

that we've seen over and over. And

53:05

there have been some activities

53:09

and making public that made

53:11

public these stories. Perez, when her

53:14

story became public, was connected with

53:16

the coalition

53:18

of Imokalee

53:21

workers. I'm going to

53:23

mispronounce it. I am O-K-A-L-E-E,

53:25

Imokalee workers. It

53:28

was a farm workers rights organization that

53:30

helped her and other workers in her

53:32

camp find a lawyer and

53:34

she won a damage award, a

53:37

significant amount of money, I think in

53:39

hundreds of thousands from her crew boss.

53:42

And so again, what are we

53:44

seeing? We're seeing collective action. We

53:46

are seeing the sunlight

53:50

and we're seeing some shorts

53:52

of reckoning

53:55

on a big picture scale. Now

54:00

you talk about at the

54:03

conclusion, women in politics, what

54:06

are some of the recommendations that you have for

54:08

this new economy? So

54:12

this is actually one of the more

54:14

interesting developments we're seeing on a global

54:16

basis. The economist did

54:19

a recent chart looking

54:21

at gender differences and political

54:23

views, do you lean liberal or

54:25

conservative and finding huge

54:27

differences. Across

54:30

one of the biggest cities in South Korea,

54:32

but the US is pretty up there. And

54:36

the gender gap in voting has been growing.

54:38

It's in the last couple of elections, somewhere

54:40

between five to 9%. But

54:44

the gender gap in

54:46

attitudes is dramatically greater.

54:49

If you ask, men should be men and

54:51

women should be women and we need to

54:53

promote traditional values associated with

54:55

masculinity, you get a 50%

54:58

difference between Republicans

55:00

and Democrats. If

55:02

you ask questions about helping,

55:06

we should help every member of society.

55:09

You also see a big gender difference

55:11

on policies associated with

55:13

helping the poor, lifting

55:16

the floor, things like that. So

55:18

what we say about it and

55:20

what we recommend in terms of

55:22

politics, again, is you have

55:25

to see this as a question,

55:28

how do you build a coalition that

55:31

promotes collective values? One

55:33

of what drives and one of

55:35

the big partisan splits right now

55:38

is men tend to

55:40

be somewhat more driven by

55:43

status and grievance. They

55:46

are more likely to, if you answer a

55:48

question, if somebody, some people can be really,

55:50

really rich, but more people are going to

55:53

be poor, is that okay? Matter

55:57

of fact, more likely to say yes

55:59

to that. that, but they're

56:01

also more likely to be

56:03

driven by a perception they're losing. So,

56:06

you know, we have lots of people and

56:08

we have conversations among ourselves, can we say

56:10

nice things about the 50s, the

56:13

racist, sexist 50s. I remember the 50s.

56:17

And one of

56:19

the things, mistakes I think we do

56:21

make politically is not asking the question,

56:24

why were the way things

56:26

happened in the 50s so different?

56:29

And I think you have to say, look,

56:33

the Roosevelt coalition from 1940, you know,

56:37

started petering out in the 70s, did

56:40

some truly remarkable things. First,

56:44

Franklin Roosevelt created a

56:47

foundation for greater equality.

56:50

When you look at the best periods for

56:52

African Americans, it was the 40s. And

56:55

the 40s, not just because of the war,

56:57

hiring blacks and defense plants, but

56:59

because Roosevelt made a point

57:01

in promoting unionization by locating

57:04

defense plants in pro-union

57:06

states. And

57:08

one of the things you see is the workers

57:11

who got good union jobs, who couldn't have

57:13

gotten them. The unions tended

57:15

to protect them afterwards. Non-union

57:18

workers who had come up

57:20

from the South were laid off when the white

57:22

troops came home. And that

57:24

laid the foundation for the civil rights movement

57:27

with the UAW, for example, which

57:30

had a lot of black workers being strongly in

57:33

favor of civil rights. But

57:36

women's protection came along with

57:38

a greater equality in

57:41

general. When you had

57:43

greater economic equality, you

57:45

also have people who feel, I'm

57:47

doing okay, I can afford

57:49

to let more people in the door. So

57:52

the big push in protection

57:54

for women came in the

57:56

60s in a relatively prosperous

57:59

time period. And I would

58:01

add the other great decade for

58:03

blacks for both men and women is in the South from

58:06

1965 to 1975. And

58:10

it's a variation on the same story. The

58:12

South was booming economically and the price

58:15

was paying some attention to civil rights.

58:18

And you had a win-win

58:20

set of mindset. I

58:22

think you have to do the following things

58:25

that you saw in the 60s. The other key

58:27

to the 50s and 60s, the whole period from 1940 well into the 60s is a

58:30

period of 80 to 90% marginal tax rates.

58:41

Now, I will tell you when I

58:43

tell people that, especially in corporate environments,

58:45

they look at me like I'm a

58:47

radical in the same

58:49

league with AOC who has proposed such things.

58:52

But it turns out that

58:54

when you have relative economic

58:56

equality and high marginal tax

58:58

rates, the bragging rights

59:00

of the 50s organization man

59:03

was my

59:05

company is bigger than your company.

59:07

My company has Bell Labs and

59:09

is more prestigious than your company.

59:12

I like to compare George Romney,

59:14

who ran for president in the

59:16

60s having been president of American

59:18

Motors and then governor of Michigan

59:21

with his son Mitt Romney. Mitt

59:24

Romney's bragging rights when

59:26

he ran for president in 2012 were

59:28

how much money did he have in the

59:30

Cayman Islands in his personal bank account?

59:33

George Romney's bragging rights were the

59:36

health of American Motors. When

59:38

you cap the top and

59:41

have relative equality, you

59:43

invest more in institutions instead

59:45

of who can rip off

59:48

institutions, our winner take

59:50

all model. And you

59:52

also have more support for

59:54

people being left behind. When

59:57

you look at women as a group,

1:00:00

Precisely because women can't win the

1:00:02

rigged game. Women

1:00:04

tend to provide a whole lot

1:00:06

more support for relatively more equal

1:00:09

policies and for the rule of law.

1:00:12

What we describe as the winner-take-all

1:00:14

economy, when you look at

1:00:16

Walmart, when you look at GE, when

1:00:19

you look at Tesla, it's breaking the

1:00:21

rules. All three companies literally

1:00:24

broke the law. Walmart, number one in

1:00:26

wage theft in the country, number

1:00:29

two is Home Depot, and it's hundreds

1:00:33

of millions more by Walmart. Its

1:00:37

success is built on the ability

1:00:39

to defy wages and

1:00:41

hours regulations and get away with it.

1:00:43

That's the real story of Betty Dukes.

1:00:47

Same thing at GE, same thing at

1:00:49

Tesla. Women, because they

1:00:52

can't get away with it, tend

1:00:54

to be a

1:00:56

force for collective action, rule

1:00:59

of law. We're all in this

1:01:01

together, transparent workplaces.

1:01:04

NASDAQ has found that when you increase

1:01:06

the number of women on boards, you

1:01:09

get less securities fraud. You get

1:01:11

fewer mistakes that require revised

1:01:14

accounting statements. BlackRock,

1:01:17

the huge trillion-dollar investment

1:01:19

company, has discovered greater

1:01:21

diversity of all kinds,

1:01:24

tends to produce greater

1:01:27

management regularity. There's a

1:01:29

lot of cynicism right

1:01:31

now about, quote,

1:01:33

woke investing, end quote.

1:01:37

But corporate America

1:01:39

recognizes that greater

1:01:41

diversity is associated with following

1:01:44

the rules, being transparent, caring about

1:01:46

morale. And

1:01:49

there's evidence, though the economists tell

1:01:51

me you can't prove anything, that

1:01:54

it's associated with greater productivity, greater

1:01:56

investment in workers, greater...

1:02:00

more emphasis on training and retaining

1:02:02

workers rather than squeezing

1:02:04

workers in a way that inevitably

1:02:07

produces high turnover and lower

1:02:09

morale. So

1:02:15

what we see when we look at

1:02:18

this is if you had greater

1:02:21

equality, you also get greater

1:02:24

ability to enforce the law

1:02:26

for everyone, not just little

1:02:28

people. And if

1:02:30

you get, you know,

1:02:33

what you're seeing right now in low

1:02:35

wage industries like restaurants and

1:02:37

a number of companies that are now it's

1:02:39

hard to hire, you have tighter labor markets.

1:02:43

When you get that, you invest more in the workers

1:02:45

you have. All of

1:02:47

these things disproportionately benefit women.

1:02:50

And so what we would like to

1:02:52

see is a more equal society

1:02:54

devoted to the rule of law. And

1:02:57

we see women as one

1:03:00

of the forces behind it,

1:03:02

in part, because women

1:03:04

can't win the rig game. They

1:03:07

then therefore tend to be more likely

1:03:09

to support the honest game. Well,

1:03:14

I've taken enough of your time. Can

1:03:17

you tell us the next project you'll be working

1:03:19

on? Well,

1:03:22

we have a number. We

1:03:24

have one talking about is the US about

1:03:26

to engage in legal civil war. We

1:03:29

have another that talks about gender. So if

1:03:31

you take what we're talking about, I want

1:03:33

to whatever findings from the book that's kind

1:03:36

of fun. So we went back and looked

1:03:38

at the organization man in the 50s. So

1:03:41

William White wrote this

1:03:43

screed attacking the organization

1:03:45

man. And John Kenneth

1:03:48

Galbraith wrote the defense of the

1:03:50

organization man. John Kenneth

1:03:53

Galbraith, the highest point of

1:03:55

corporate America in the 50s

1:03:57

is the technocracy ruled

1:03:59

by committee, the superior

1:04:01

form of management. And

1:04:04

he was much lampooned for it. But when we

1:04:06

looked at it, we saw, oh, White

1:04:09

and Galbraith are describing the

1:04:11

same thing. They're describing the

1:04:14

organization man of the 50s

1:04:17

could have been a woman.

1:04:19

And White's preferred executive

1:04:23

could be described in terms of

1:04:25

toxic masculinity. But

1:04:27

nobody ever talked about those engendered terms.

1:04:31

And we'd like to suggest we have a new project that's

1:04:33

going to talk about, you know, you want to talk about

1:04:35

Nietzsche and the will to power, the

1:04:38

authoritarian personality and what was wrong

1:04:40

with fascism in the 30s,

1:04:43

Hobbes, Hobbesian universes. It

1:04:46

turns out these things are deeply gendered.

1:04:49

And Carol Gilligan wrote about this long

1:04:51

ago, and she said, I want to

1:04:53

revalue the traditionally

1:04:56

feminine. And we're going

1:04:58

to argue, hey, you don't have

1:05:00

to revalue it. It turns

1:05:02

out it is often highly valued

1:05:04

when it's associated with men.

1:05:07

And we see the fight that's coming is

1:05:10

one, not between men and

1:05:12

women, per se, but

1:05:14

between what has historically been seen

1:05:16

as alpha male dumb versus

1:05:20

what you could call feminine

1:05:22

values, but could also

1:05:24

be called community

1:05:26

decency in the rule of

1:05:28

law. Well,

1:05:31

we'll be looking forward to those projects.

1:05:33

And thank you so much for being

1:05:35

on the podcast. Thank you

1:05:37

so much for the conversation. We really appreciate it.

1:05:41

Yes, very much.