shame and awe

Confession. I have a slight addiction to nytimes.com. To make matters worse I recently received FREE online access to the "Times Select" which has not helped the problem. Fortunately, staying on top of current events is actually written in my job description.

And actually today this job gave me a raise making this an ironic time for this post. Regardless, I did notice an article in the old NYT yesterday.

Women make only 80 percent of the salaries their male peers do one year after college; after 10 years in the work force, the gap between their pay widens further, according to a study released Monday.

The study, by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, found that 10 years after college, women earn only 69 percent of what men earn.

They controlled for all likely factors and the result?

"likely due to sex discrimination."

For crying out loud. So, despite having higher GPAs, even in math and science and possessing better and more college education, we're still making less. But here's the real kicker:

Part of the wage difference is a result of people's choices, another part is employer's assumptions of what people's choices will be. ... Employers assume that young women are going to leave the work force when they have children, and, therefore, don't promote them.

Of course I am now at an age when babies seem to be bursting from the seams (shout out to the K-Js). And Jake and I are in discussion about this ourselves. Already we're starting to wonder what the job situation will be like for me post-baby. I don't particularly like the idea of staying at home but the alternative is also hard to imagine.

Here's something I've learned in my first "real job" (listen hard all you soon to be college grads): working 40 hours a week does not mean 40 hours. You really work as much time as it takes to "get the job done." This means un-told hours at conferences, on immersion programs, at school until 9 pm for programs, speakers, films and classes plus the regular 8-4. Some of these activities you just can't do with el nino (which is Spanish for... the nino). Like hang out in Tijuana with Salesians monks or pouring concrete for low-income housing in Birmingham.

I seriously applaud my jefe Tom for hiring me (and my coworker who is also recently married and getting ready to jump on the preggers train) but it also seems wrong and weird to be grateful I was hired because I am of child-bearing years. This article also reminds me that some "formation" needs to happen in our office. Make no mistake, universities are The Corporation, only it pretends not to be which is probably worse.

These conundrums have endeared me to Amy Laura Hall, the sweet Southern theologian from Duke Div. She does some incredible work on women, culture and child-bearing. She has a great article in Christianity Today called "Unwanted Interruptions" (but you need special pay-for-it access to read online). In essence she is tying hostility in the womb to hostility outside the womb. It's no wonder that children are seen as a hinderance to working well and consistently. But it shows very little imagination.

One of the ideas that has come out of reading Hall has to do with creating spaces for children in our so-called professional lives. I work at a Catholic university and Catholic's are supposed to be serious about families. So how about making a little space? How about making my hours flexible? How about working from home some of the time? How about having the baby in the office on occasion? How about really only asking the prescribed 40 hours from me?

I keep thinking that if we can take this seriously at University of Portland then maybe it will redeem the idea of the mother-worker. If any place needs this modeling it's the university. So many young women are struggling with this question. It would be great to show them one way.