Are Social Institutions Gendered

are

institutions gendered

most of us think about gender as an

individual trait

or an identity but what about

social institutions like schools

or the workplace or traditionally male

professions

like the law or the military

are institutions themselves gender

this is a question that i think about a

lot

for most of our nation’s history courts

upheld state laws that discriminated

against women

because of their gender many states

passed laws

that restricted women from the right to

vote

or the right to sit on juries or the

right to join

occupations reserved for men

in one famous case a state supreme court

upheld a state law that barred women

from the practice of law

the court agreed that women were too

fragile

and emotional to represent clients in

the rough and tumble of a courtroom

i grew up in the 1970s and during that

time the u.s supreme court

began to change the way it thought about

gender discrimination

the court took aim against gender

stereotypes

mistaken beliefs about men and women

i watched as the court held that states

could no longer

deny women the same opportunities they

offered men

because of outdated and overly broad

generalizations about the way men and

women

are

i grew up and i became a lawyer

i began to work at a prominent law firm

in new york city

something that was not possible for

women the generation before me

the court had aimed against stereotyping

doors swung open but when i looked

inside the law firm

i saw that the partners were mostly

men 30 years later

they still are

in 1992 i began to represent

five female clients in a major lawsuit

that changed the way

i thought about gender equality

that lawsuit challenged the males only

admission

policy of the citadel the state military

college

of south carolina during the course of

that litigation

i began to ask the question

are institutions themselves

gender the answer

is yes particularly for those

institutions that have traditionally

excluded women

sociologist joan acker has written

institutions have gendered assumptions

and practices that are embedded in the

institutions

themselves for these gendered

institutions

it’s not enough to simply open the doors

the institutions themselves must

change to include women

and that is what i would like to talk

about tonight

[Music]

in 1992 i jumped at the opportunity to

represent

three female navy veterans they had sued

the citadel

seeking admission to its veterans

program

how many of you have heard of the

citadel

well at the time i started this suit i

lived in new york city

and i didn’t know as much about the

citadel as i needed to

nor the place it occupied in south

carolina

the citadel is a state college

just like the university of tennessee

its undergraduate program though is

structured

in a military style like west point

its students are cadets they wear

uniforms

they live in barracks and they’re

subject to a system of discipline and

chain of command

that’s run by other students

for 154 years the citadel

excluded women reserving its benefits

for south carolina’s sons but not its

daughters

my female veteran clients had

served the country during the first gulf

war

and returning home they tried to enroll

in the citadel’s veterans program

a program open to men the citadel

refused them admission

in court the citadel argued that it

offered a single gender

education part of south carolina’s

diverse range of higher education

its legal defense was based on

traditional

gender stereotypes men and women it

argued

are fundamentally different men

require stress and adversity

they flourish in the military style

offered at the citadel

the citadel said women do not

women flourish in a kinder and gentler

form of education

if admitted they would suffer harm

rather than admit women the citadel

supported the creation of a deliberately

separate

and unequal program a non-military

leadership program at a private women’s

college

one of its leading educational experts

testified

that women were like a toxic kind of

virus

whose admission would require changes

that ultimately

would destroy the institution

when i began the case i thought it was

straightforward

and easy to win the supreme court had

ruled in a similar case

that the state of mississippi could not

exclude men

from its all-female nursing college that

would reproduce gender stereotypes

i saw the citadel case as the mirror

image

of the mississippi case south carolina

could not exclude women

from a military college based on

traditional stereotypes

i was convinced we would win the case in

three months time

it turned out i was completely wrong

shortly after we began to represent the

veterans the citadel

closed its veterans program

it announced we have achieved equal

protection

neither men nor women can attend the

citadel

and it threw out some 78 male veterans

who had enrolled that semester

what i thought would be an easy case had

morphed into a gender war

i found myself in charleston south

carolina researching cases

involving the civil rights era when

cities and states

closed public schools or pools

rather than desegregate the citadel

mounted a similar scorched earth policy

to keep women out

after the program was closed another

young woman

stepped forward to join the lawsuit

her name was shannon faulkner and she

was an 18 year old

high school senior from powdersville

south carolina

shannon was a model student she was in

the national honor society

she played varsity softball and she

marched in the school’s band

she applied for admission and in 10 days

time the citadel admitted

her thinking she was male

when it discovered she was female it

immediately rescinded

its offer

shannon came was proud to stand beside

her

citadel supporters though quickly

targeted her

i came to realize that the citadel was

not merely

a state college it was a powerful and

traditional institution

in south carolina founded in 1842

the citadel bragged that its cadets had

fired the opening shots

in the civil war excluded

black males until the mid 70s

in south carolina the citadel offered

its male

graduates access to a powerful alumni

network at the time of our lawsuit

the citadel alums included a u.s senator

two former governors of south carolina

and a host

of local and state politicians

businessmen

and decorated military generals

shannon’s lawsuit fundamentally

challenged this all-male

institution

and citadel alumni took aim

citadel alumni helped raise millions of

dollars to keep the citadel

all male they sold t-shirts

that featured the school’s mascot the

bulldog

on the front of the t-shirt it read 1852

bulldogs

the number of male cadets and on the

back

it read and one [ __ ]

featuring a female bulldog with red

lipstick

on campus citadel cadets yelled epitaphs

at my young client

the school newspaper featured a column

that dubbed her

the divine bovine and inside

the men’s room someone scrawled in

graffiti

let her in then f her to death

as her lawyer i also drew fire

during one deposition i recall an older

south carolina attorney interrupting me

to say you are not a lady

i refused to apologize and instead

replied i am a litigator and if you

don’t like it

you are welcome to leave

the more i learned about the citadel the

more i realized

that the exclusion of women was not just

about mistaken beliefs

about gender the exclusion of women

was the defining feature of the

institution

one which the citadel celebrated

the mission of the school was to create

the whole man

and inside the gates a number of

practices

and rituals had constructed citadel

cadets as male

and masculine defined in opposition

to women one of

its graduates a prominent alumni

testified

that the worst thing you could call a

citadel cadet was a woman

though that term was rarely used instead

more derogatory or vulgar words were

used

every minute of every hour of every day

he was there to punish men who did not

live

up to what they thought a citadel cadet

was

in the absence of women the system

fostered hostility and violence

toward women and those men who didn’t

fit in

commissions over the years had recorded

physical hazing in the barracks

the direct result of this

hyper-masculine culture

the more i learned about the citadel the

more i realized it would not be enough

to simply admit women the institution

itself must change

in 1995 the federal court held that the

citadel’s policy

violated shannon’s right to equal

protection

under the constitution as the date of

her admission drew near the threats

against her

escalated she received death threats

her family’s home was vandalized

and signs proliferated throughout

charleston

opposing her admission outside the city

someone had taken a highway billboard

and written die shannon

the federal judge called in the federal

marshals

to escort her onto campus

in august of 1995 shannon became the

first woman to join the corps of cadets

she was incredibly courageous the only

woman among 1800

men most of whom didn’t want her there

unfortunately she withdrew a few days

later

she had become ill and felt the need to

protect herself

from the stress and the threats

the day she left citadel cadets

celebrated they surfed the quad

on mattresses fists pumping

one wearing a t-shirt that read

absolutely

male

a year later the united states supreme

court held

that a similar program at the virginia

military

institute could not exclude women

that was unconstitutional the court held

the court acknowledged that some

accommodations for women would be

required

but it did not consider them to be

material

this was a major victory for women and

we celebrated

and yet

having resisted the admission of women

these two state institutions

also resisted any meaningful change

to their traditions when shannon was

about to be admitted

the citadel asked permission to give her

the same buzz haircut it gave

male cadets the virginia military

institute

continued to call cadets

brother rats even when women were

admitted

the women who entered these institutions

were forced to try to fit in

to the masculine traditions and cultures

that existed

the story for the of the admission of

women at the citadel

reminds us that the fight for gender

equality is not

over formal barriers

have eroded yet new challenges have

emerged

it is not enough to simply open the

doors

for women

the face of institutions has changed as

women have entered

yet inside institutions gender remains

to fully integrate women institutions

must change they must transform

in order to fully include women

institutions

need to consider how to include women

acceptance must give rise to inclusion

institutions need to rethink those

policies and practices

that exist to determine whether they

negatively affect women

and if so they need to change

so what would this look like in practice

well every institution is different and

there are many ways

to be inclusive for workplaces

there are a number of steps that can be

taken as a start

first workplaces must support

pregnancy and caregiving

many women are not just workers but are

family members

so are men institutions

workplaces need to provide paid

parental and caretaking leave they need

to subsidize daycare and they need to

think about

flexible scheduling like part-time work

and they need to do this for both men

and women

second eliminate unconscious bias

workplaces need to train workers to

recognize

the unconscious gendered assumptions

that influence performance evaluations

or decisions about promotion and

compensation

third monitor and enforce accountability

rooting out bias is not easy and it

takes a long time

fairness requires vigilance

so overall institutions need to change

24 years ago the citadel admitted

women to its core of cadets

last year it finally changed its haircut

requirements

for men and for women

it appointed a female cadet as its

regimental commander

the top cadet she graduated in may

change is never easy yet

we cannot afford to ignore it

we must demand that institutions begin

to value women

as much as they have valued men

to value every person or member

no matter their gender

thank you

[Applause]