Labor market anxiety is killing higher education

This is my first year as a "Teaching Associate" at UCLA. TAing is what graduate students do in exchange for free tuition and a modest stipend--possibly modest enough to get us foodstamps. Many graduate students try to avoid teaching as much as possible because it is so time-consuming and counts for so little on the academic job market (unless you plan to work at a liberal arts college).

I thought teaching might be a nice break from research, which is intellectually stimulating but socially infantilizing. I thought: young, curious minds will get me excited about the fundamentals of sociology again! I thought wrong.

Teaching--I grimace writing that, because I hardly think what I do can be classified as teaching--at UCLA has been pretty demoralizing. It's not because of the pathetic lack of training we receive (two days) or the low pay (I'm used to that). It's because it feels completely transactional. I try, largely in vain, to get students excited about learning and expressing their ideas; students try to get an A out of me.

They're not at all coy about it. I've had students literally tell me that I will ruin their entire lives if I don't give them an A.

I want to dismiss them as grade grubbing bums, but I can't. The truth is that many of the students in my classes work two jobs and commute long distances to be able to come to UCLA. For many students here, a UCLA degree is a way into the middle class. For some, it is a way to stay there. Notice I didn't say a UCLA education, but a UCLA degree. 

Precarity This Week

Some of the best precarity-related (very broadly defined) reads from around the interweb:

Trickle-Down Feminism

Sara Jaffe makes the case the feminists need to start caring about more than just reproductive rights and whether high-powered women like Ann Marie Slaughter and Yahoo's Marissa Mayer can have it all. The real battle for the future of feminis lies in the gendered experience of precarious--contingent, insecure, crappy--jobs.  

On the Chicago teacher's strike, for example, Jaffe writes: 

"As the teachers walked the picket lines, this profession dominated by women was demonized (and continues to be, with the anti-teachers-union movie Won’t Back Down in theaters as I write). Both major political parties supported wage cuts and “accountability” in the form of standardized testing and less job security. There was no public outcry as there was when, for example, Susan G. Komen for the Cure™ yanked its funding from Planned Parenthood. This, despite the fact that some 81 percent of elementary and middle-school teachers are women."

Must read for anyone interested in the future of the labor movement.


Elizabeth Wurtzel Confronts Her One Night Stand of a Life

Photo by David Shankbone

Living by your principles can be risky, very risky:

"Women who have it all should try having nothing: I have no husband, no children, no real estate, no stocks, no bonds, no investments, no 401(k), no CDs, no IRAs, no emergency fund—I don’t even have a savings account."

But Wurtzel certainly does have her convictions:

"I am committed to feminism and don’t understand why anyone would agree to be party to a relationship that is not absolutely equal. I believe women who are supported by men are prostitutes, that is that, and I am heartbroken to live through a time where Wall Street money means these women are not treated with due disdain."

It's easy to judge Wurtzel for her self-righteousness (some of which, like the above statement, if amended to "highly educated women," I happen to agree with) and her unconventional choices in life. Reading the comments to her article, which are vicious, it's clear that people hve no problem judging her. She's a wreck, yes, but that is and isn't the point. She's already, in this very article, judging herself. Love her or hate her, this article made me think about my own life, what I value and what I'd be willing to give up for those values.

'Least Stressful Jobs of 2013' overlooks downsides of autonomous jobs

A silly ranking of the "Least Stressful Jobs in 2013" has sparked an online uproar by naming college professors the least stressful job of 2013. The author of this article had to amend her post after receiving over 150 comments from stressed out academics:

"While I characterize their lives as full of unrestricted time, few deadlines and frequent, extended breaks, the commenters insist that most professors work upwards of 60 hours a week preparing lectures, correcting papers and doing research for required publications in journals and books. Most everyone says they never take the summer off, barely get a single day’s break for Christmas or New Year’s and work almost every night into the wee hours."

I admit that part of the reason I was initially attracted to academia as a career path is that I thought it was flexible (it certainly wasn't the paycheck). A couple hours of teaching a week topped off with summer breaks doing "research" in exotic locations? Sign me up! But the more time I spend as an academic apprentice, the more I understand how rigid the life of a professor really is. Most academics I know work all the time (I consistently get emails from my advisor on holidays, weekends, and the wee hours of the morning).

I think the real confusion in this debate has to do with the concept of autonomy. For a long time, controlling workers was all about limiting their autonomy. Prior to the factory system most manufacturing took place in small artisan workshops and in the home. The factory and the foreman allowed management to speed up work and better control workers (A Rhode Island merchant wrote in 1809: "...a hundred looms in families will not weave so much cloth as ten at least constantly employed under the immediate inspection of a foreman." I happened to be reading Sanford Jacob's Employing Bureaucracy today). Fordist assembly lines sped up and increased this control even further. Ever since, the lost autonomy of the artisan has been sold as the holy grail of worker emancipation.

But this story is far too simple. First of all, control can come in many forms. No one is looking over a professor's shoulder, but the pressure to "publish or perish" is real. The "supervisor" is time itself, including a tenure track clock that happens to run the course of a woman's prime childbearing years. Which is why many academic women are childless. This kind of stress is hard to measure, but its effects may have broad social consequences.

I'm upwardly mobile and skinny fat

I'm skinny fat. I don't really exercise and I quite regularly eat half a pint of Ben and Jerry's for dinner. I've managed to stay at my personal comfort zone clothing size with random, short bursts of "detoxing" (socially acceptable starvation), frantic exercise (thank you Groupon 1-month unlimited pilates, yoga, spinning, etc.), and vanity sizing.

My poor eating habits and lack of exercise manifest in lethargy and a pathetic lack of tone, but as long as I don't have to be in a bikini all is well. Every year I resolve to "get healthy" but, really, that's just code for "get abs." I want to look like the airbrushed hotties in the magazines, or at least my perfect Swedish friends, who do not seem to even understand the concept of cellulite or stretch marks.

A few recent op-eds have forced me to really think about my perpetual, unrealized diet goals. Paul Campos in the New York Times points out that a recent study actually shows overweight people appear to have a statistically lower risk of mortality than normal weight people! Before you break out the cupcakes, this just proves that we simply don't fully understand the relationship between weight and health yet.

What is clear, as UCLA sociologist Abigail Saguy points out in her Los Angeles Times op-ed, is that weight-based discrimination is real and on the rise.

Multiple studies have documented weight bias in employment, healthcare, education and public spaces — unequal treatment based on stereotyping fat people as lazy, unmotivated, sloppy and lacking in self-discipline and competence. Heavier women are not only less likely to be hired and less likely to earn a higher salary compared with their similarly qualified thinner peers, but they are also less likely to marry or to marry a high-earning spouse. Unlike thinner women, who can more easily climb the social and economic ladder, heavy women face the prospect of downward social mobility.

 I now very clearly see my "health goals" for what they truly are: a desire to fit in with my fancy eilte college peers,  despite my working class roots. Without the cocktail-dress-required parties, beach vacations and sailing excusions, I could easily hide in baggy t-shirts and jeans. I can't say I want those abs any less, but I always find it comforting to understand my social neuroses--it's why I love sociology.

I hope to see a lot more research and public awareness campaigns on weight-based discrimination in the near future so we can at least stem its most discriminatory aspects. In the meantime, I plan to institute a regular exercise routine...right after I finish this cupcake. 

Is a practical feminist wedding possible?

Walk down the aisle together:
one small  step in your wedding, one big
leap for gender equality.
Photo by andreacannata

My boyfriend and I have been together for almost five years and are both in our late 20s--whether we want to talk about it or not, the question of marriage comes up a lot, usually from meddling, well-meaning family members.

For the vast majority of people, traditional marriage is a sincere and uncomplicated goal--the only trouble is finding Mr. or Mrs. Right (or, let's be honest, Mr. or Mrs. Good Enough). For feminist hardliners, marriage is an exclusionary institution equated with patriarchy and thus completely out of the question.

I fall somewhere uncomfortably in the middle. "Boyfriend" or "girlfriend" sounds more trivial than "husband" or "wife" (of course, "partner" is always a good option), the tax incentives would be nice, weddings are a great excuse to see family and friends and publicly talk about love and relationships--a beautiful and otherwise uncommon ritual--and we're middle class so our families can afford the expense. On the other hand, I'm completely squeamish about the institution of marriage.

Typical wedding symbolism certainly seems to reinforce a society that is dominated by men: the man buys an expensive engagement ring, which marks the woman (only) as taken; the woman is "given away" by one man (her father) to another one (her new husband); the woman (and their children, which of course are inevitable) takes on her husband's last name. It doesn't look good.

I'm a pragmatist, not a purest, so I think we should improve the institution of marriage rather than advocate scraping it altogether. But how do we go about it on a practical level? Here are some of the ideas my manfriend and I have been talking about to make the idea of marriage more palatable:

The Lazy Progressive's Guide to California Propositions 2012

Prop 30: Yes

Prop 31: Yes

Prop 32: No

Prop 33: No

Prop 34: Yes

Prop 35: Yes

Prop 36: Yes

Prop 37: Yes

Prop 38: Yes (but only if you are also voting yes on 30)

Prop 39: Yes

Prop 40: Yes

Prop 30: Yes "Jerry Brown’s Tax Increase for Education"

What it does:

• Sales tax increase from 7.25% to 7.5%
• Income tax increase of 1-3% on individuals making over $250,000 a year or more

Why vote "yes":

If Prop 30 doesn’t pass it triggers an automatic $6 billion in cuts, mostly from education (including higher education). K-12 classrooms would be forced to shave 3 weeks off of the school year. That is crazy.

Raising taxes on the very rich does not kill jobs. Income taxes are at historic lows in California and federally. From 1950 to 1981, the top federal income tax rate ranged from 91 percent--yes, you read that correctly, 91 percent--to 70 percent. Then came the “Reagan Revolution” and taxes have been lowered almost every year since, culminating in the Bush tax breaks that brought down the highest income bracket to 35 percent.  That decrease in taxes should have done wonders for our economy, right?  In fact, our highest rates of GDP and job growth were in the 1950s and 1960s, when taxes were at record highs.  GDP growth increased with Bush Sr.'s tax increase and Clinton's tax increase and decreased with Bush's tax cuts. Median “real” income (income adjusted for inflation) has declined since the Clinton era (one of the few times taxes were raised since Reagan). Lowering taxes to encourage rich people to hire more people sounds like a reasonable idea, but there is simply no empirical evidence to back it up. So let’s chalk that theory up to “major whoops!” and move on.

This tax is in your interest, even if you have some crazy fantasy that one day you will be a millionaire. Only 3 percent of Californians earn over $250,000 a year. If in the future you are fortunate enough to be in the top 3 percent of income earners in the state of California, I hope you will be willing to cut back on your collection of Lanvin handbags and foreign sports cars to help ensure that the rest of the population is getting an adequate—we’re not even going for great anymore—education.

Charles Munger, Jr. has personally contributed $55 million to defeat Prop 30. Munger is a billionaire who inherited his fortune from his father. I understand why junior wants to defeat Prop 30—he literally has millions of unearned dollars to lose. I can’t, however, understand why the other 97 percent of us would vote against this proposition. 

Prop 31: Yes “Two-Year Budget Cycle”

What it does:

• This is a really complicated proposition. 
• It will imit the state legislature from new spending increases (unless accompanied by revenue increases, aka higher taxes, which are almost never approved in California)
• It will redistribute about $200 million dollars from state agencies to local city governments
• It will  mandate budget approval every 2-years instead of every year

Why vote "yes":

While I think the first two provisions are a huge gamble--especially in the ‘no taxes ever!’ climate in California--a 2-year budget at least encourages some long-term thinking. I also respect the three think tanks that are in favor of this Proposition (California Forward, New America Foundation, and the Nicholas Berggruen Institute). The California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO (the unions) opposes this proposition.

 Prop 32: No “Ban on corporate and union contributions to state and local candidates."

What it does: 

• It's such a load of crap, I can't even pretend to fill this section out. 

Why vote "no":

The proposition sounds great, why should I vote no?

This Proposition is being funded by the Koch Brothers (and Charles Munger, Jr.). That is really all you need to know. Prop 32 sounds great. I desperately want to get money out of politics. But this particular proposition will not accomplish that. Prop 32 was written by and for corporate interests. It exempts Super PACs and independent expenditure committees from limits on contributions—which makes it clear that this bill is not at all about getting money out of politics. It also exempts hedge funds, investment firms, insurance companies, and developers (!) from limits on contributions—which makes it clear that this is not at all about stopping corporations from buying disproportionate political influence. The real goal is to silence unions. Even if you believe unions and union members should not have a say in politics (you’re a progressive, so you almost by definition don’t believe that) this measure is patently unbalanced. It would allow corporations to continue using money to influence politics, but it would stop unions from doing so.

"Economic patriotism" for the win

This is not economic patriotism. Bentley's are made in
England. And car salesmen and car washer jobs 
don't make up for that.  audreytayy on richkidsofinstagram

Finally, the debates are over. No more grandstanding rhetoric, forced smiles, or saccharine-sweet family embraces. The President was justifiably panned for his performance in the first Presidential debate, but something he said that night—in between naps—has stuck with me. It’s not as catchy as “binders full of women” and certainly doesn’t have its own Tumblr account, but it’s what we need as we all try to deal with these very precarious economic times: economic patriotism.

In the debate, Obama asked: “Are we going to double down on the top-down economic policies that helped to get us into this mess? Or do we embrace a new economic patriotism that says America does best when the middle class does best? ” Good question. 

The fact is, the American middle class has not been doing very well for over three decades. Before the 1970s, average Americans saw their “real” incomes (income adjusted for inflation) rise every year for one hundred years. Our reverence for capitalism is rooted in that remarkable consistency. And no wonder—capitalism was working! It greatly improved people’s living standards, very quickly, and for a whole lot of people.

But in the 1970s, capitalism began to suffer from it’s own success. Technological advancements increased productivity while reducing the need for jobs. Companies found it profitable to move operations overseas to newly industrializing countries. Our education system didn’t keep up with the needs of the new economy, leaving masses of workers without good employment prospects.

You know how this story ends. Real incomes stagnated. To keep up the appearance of economic growth, we relied on credit. The debt became unmanageable, yet Wall Street encouraged us to take greater and greater credit risks. Finally, the housing credit bubble burst in 2007 and took the economy with it.