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because of outdated and overly broad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]