Now here’s a brave woman: a Pakistani who goes by the name of “Eiynah” and is described in Pakistan Today this way:
Eiynah is a Pakistani-Canadian blogger/illustrator who writes about sexuality in Pakistan. She dreams of a progressive motherland and is also a children’s book author. She blogs at http://www.nicemangos.blogspot.com, and tweets at @Nicemangos
And in yesterday’s issue of Pakistan Today, you’ll find her piece: “An open letter to Ben Affleck“. As a few quotes below will show, she goes after Affleck for trying, as she argues, to minimize the plight of Muslim women like her. Just a bit to give you the flavor:
Noble liberals like yourself always stand up for the misrepresented Muslims and stand against the Islamophobes, which is great but who stands in my corner and for the others who feel oppressed by the religion? Every time we raise our voices, one of us is killed or threatened. I am a blogger and illustrator, no threat to anyone, Ben, except for those afraid of words and drawings. I want the freedom to express myself without the very real fear that I might be killed for it. Is that too much to ask?
When I wrote a children’s book that carried a message of diversity and inclusivity for everyone, my life changed. My book, ‘My Chacha (uncle) is Gay’ has the innocent anti-homophobia message, ‘Love belongs to everyone’. This was not palatable to many of my Muslim brothers and sisters.
Since that project I have been declared an ‘enemy of God’ and deemed worthy of death. All because I want to help create a world where South Asian children too can have their stories told, so they too can know that love comes in all forms, and that that’s okay. My Muslim brothers and sisters were hit hard by this work because it addresses the issue of homophobia within our own community. It is not something they can pass off as ‘Western’ immorality. Just like they deny that any issues exist within the doctrine of Islam, many deny that homosexuality exists amongst good, ‘moral’ Muslims. Just like that, millions of people’s existence is denied. Please do not defend people who think this way, and let me tell you Ben, many ‘good’ Muslims do think this way.
What you did by screaming ‘racist!’ was shut down a conversation that many of us have been waiting to have. . . You became an instant hero, a defender of Islam.
Well, maybe Affleck became a hero to those who willfully overlook the excesses of Islam that are not confined to only a small percentage of Muslims, but to me he’s an ignoramus—and a dangerous one. A 2013 Pew Poll showed that 76% of Pakistani Muslims who favor making sharia the law of the land (and that’s 86% of those Muslims) favor the death penalty for those who leave Islam. That’s at least 50% of all Pakistani Muslims. 89% of that 86% (a minimum of 77% of Pakistani Muslims) favor stoning to death as punishment for adultery. And 88% of that 86% (minimum of 76%) favor corporal punishment for crimes like theft. This is not a small minority or a “fringe,” at least in Pakistan. And Eiynah hits that point hard.
In your culture you have the luxury of calling such literalists “crazies”, like the Westboro Baptist Church, for example. In my culture, such values are upheld by more people than we realise. Many will try to deny it, but please hear me when I say that these are not fringe values. It is apparent in the lacking numbers of Muslims willing to speak out against the archaic Shariah law. The punishment for blasphemy and apostasy, etc, are tools of oppression. Why are they not addressed even by the peaceful folk who “aren’t fanatical, who just want to have some sandwiches and pray five times a day? Where are the Muslim protestors against blasphemy laws/apostasy? Where are the Muslims who take a stand against harsh interpretation of Shariah? These sandwich-eating peaceful folk do not defend those suffering in the name of Islam, Ben, and therein lies our problem.
This is just part of her letter, but I also wanted to put up the ending, because it’s snarky—but in a good way:
If I were allowed to meet a man that is not my father, brother or husband unchaperoned, I would have loved to discuss this over drinks (which I am also not allowed to have) with you. So, you see, things must change.
Sincerely,
Eiynah
The website is apparently produced from Lahore, so I’m at a real loss to understand how this letter got published (Eiynah must be a pseudonym) given the state of Islam there. But I’m also chuffed that it got published.
h/t: Marcel ~
an excellent letter. thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I wonder if Mr. Affleck would bother reading it.
Excellent letter. Most likely she lives in Canada where she at least has the law on her side.
This woman is an example of someone Sam Harris says we should support. If his detractors weren’t screaming “racist” over his words, we’d here this more clearly.
Yes. Excellent letter.
Exactly.
What gets me most is the point that Sam (and others) keep trying to make. If it is good for liberals to complain about women here getting paid 80% of what men do and occasionally subjected to sexual harassment, why is is bad to complain about women in the Islamic world being banned from unescorted contact with unrelated males and prosecuted for their own rapes?
Makes no sense whatsoever. I truly cannot figure out what motivates the likes of Affleck.
b&
“…why is is bad to complain about women in the Islamic world being banned from unescorted contact with unrelated males and prosecuted for their own rapes?”
Allow me to don my blue wig and get into “authoritarian left postmodernist” mode here. I think it goes along the lines of:
Can’t you see! Colonialism…and…and hegemony…and evil white people WHO ARE MEN
therefore, I’m assuming
anything goes and we don’t have the right to question or criticize their culture because, after all, the aforementioned are really the root cause of all issues (including those here).
Or something like this (removes wig).
In the comment section of Eiynahs letter (btw, ‘einah’ is the SA’n expression of pain, what’s in a name…) it was alluded that Affleck is financed by the Saudis. IF (a big if here) that is true, it would provide a definite -even if only subconscious- motive.
However, I think it really is more likely he is a sincere, but ignorant ‘do gooder’.
I find it hard to believe Ben Affleck is much in need of funding. He just objects to being mean to brown people, end of thinking process.
“I find it hard to believe Ben Affleck is much in need of funding.”
According to Celebrity Net Worth his net worth is $75 million.
Is it really true that women still get paid only 80% for the same work in Western democracies?
I have difficulty to believe that.
1 – most job packages come with a fixed pay for a specific function.
2 – in the countries I’ve been working, Netherlands, Belgium and South Africa, it is definitely not the case.
3 if true, we would see virtually only women employed. Why pay 20% more?
Admittedly, we see more women employed in badly paid jobs such as cashier, waitress or nurse. But then there are some badly paid jobs where men are dominant, such as grave digger, garbage collector or miner. Would a female gravedigger be paid even less?
Yes it’s really true. These statistics are easy to find online. Here is Statistics Canada’s report.
As for why not hire these cheaper women, most likely because the bias is unconscious.
No, it manifestly is not true. That 80% figure, which is probably pretty close to accurate, is for median pay across all occupations.
It does not account in any way for different pay levels across professions, and different participation rates in those professions. So if you look at the top ten highest paying professions, all but one have large male majorities. The bottom ten all have strong female majorities.
So women make less than men because women have lower-paying jobs than men, not because they get paid less for doing the same job. There’s not perfect parity within each professions (good numbers are hard to come by), but there are no huge gaps.
Why women have lower-paying jobs is another question entirely. A big part of the explanation is certainly that many of the highest-paying professions are less interesting to women. Oppression is certainly not a significant part of the explanation.
The general trend has been that the more free both men and women are to choose their career paths, the more divergent those paths become.
Women are also now a sizable majority in higher education. And women with 4-year degrees who haven’t married or had children make more than men with 4-year degrees.
That is what I suspected. There is no gap for the same work in Western demographies. The difference is indeed the median or average income across the different occupations.
I know that in the Netherlands many women have part-time jobs -of their own choice.
If it had been true it would really have been outrageous.
I guess you didn’t read the pdf I posted that shows the gap. In Canada about 92% son not as bad. This compares the same jobs. They differentiate between the two.
Dear Diana, I *perused* your pdf (thank you for that btw), but I missed different pay for the SAME job, which would be outrageous. That pdf does not really allow us to discern that.
The fact that women are more likely to have a low paid job is a different proposition, which I never doubted. However, I think there is much more to that than ‘gender discrimination’, although I do not deny it may play a role.
Encouraging is that the ‘gap’ appears to be narrowing, at least in Canada.
First of all, why do you keep referring to me as “Dear Diana” while you refer to no one else that way?
Second of all and lastly, the PDF allows us to discern exactly about the SAME job (as in same industry) and yes it is outrageous. Here are the relevant sections where they show how they compared work in similar industries and compensated for variables you have mentioned already. I have bolded the relevant sections.
Here is the verbiage from subsection 9.2. It is on p. 48.
nicky is clearly Sir Humphrey Appleby in disguise: “Dear Lady, …”
/@
I was thinking maybe someone from a Jane Austen novel.
Thanny wrote:
“So women make less than men because women have lower-paying jobs than men, not because they get paid less for doing the same job.”
This is what the Republicans who voted down the Equal Pay Bill would have you believe, but it is manifestly false, as this article in the NYT shows. A majority of the pay gap between men and women actually comes from differences within occupations, not between them. It’s also telling that you single out as an example, women “who haven’t married or had children.” Women pay an economic price for the biological reality that they are the ones who give birth, and the social reality that they are the ones who bear a disproportionate share of the burden of caring for sick kids or elderly parents.
As for the snide remark that, “A big part of the explanation is certainly that many of the highest-paying professions are less interesting to women,” that’s simply condescending nonsense.
I’m a woman with two 4 year degrees and no children. I’m also in a high paying profession. I have been a consistent high performer and my male peers with the same education have consistently been promoted over me. This is true for many of my female peers. There have been many days throughout my life where I have wanted to be stupid because I saw intelligence as a detriment to me. I’m not sure where you are getting your stats and the speculation that women don’t like high paying jobs is really insulting.
I don’t really know any of the data or science behind the issue, but anecdotally, my wife has had a similar experience to yours. In her profession, her make peers often receive promotions or other advantages that she doesn’t. And she is good at her job.
Pretty much boils down to her company just being a boys club.
yeah, make = male
What is weird is my male peers aren’t at all like that. I really like them because they really are good people. I suspect it is a sub conscious bias and I really think it has to do with just not seeing women in those jobs. My female peers get no further than manager.
I’ve given up (as many women do) and I’m just going to enjoy my life. No more perusing the big prize.
Their loss.
And I’m not personally aware of any times I’ve benefitted from privilege…but that’s rather the point, isn’t it? Because I am aware of people who have been discriminated against, even when I haven’t been.
It isn’t just a matter of undeserving men (or whites or whatever) being hired or promoted over more-deserving women. It’s a matter of those in positions of privilege honestly being treated fairly, and the deck being stacked against everybody else. I haven’t been given any special breaks; I’ve simply never been given any bad breaks.
And that’s all it takes.
b&
You are right about promotions. In Software Engineering (and engineering in general), look at the people at the top of the management chain. It is disproportionately male. So, I think there is some bias going on even if many times it isn’t a conscious bias. Of course, there are also feedback loops where women may not feel comfortable acting as aggressively as their male peers to get promoted which feeds into the perception that women shouldn’t behave this way (even though a male acting aggressive is viewed as good in business).
I haven’t seen anything to indicate that there is a huge disparity at entry level; i.e., the number of women Engineers is about equal to the proportion of women getting those majors. So, something happens from that point forward. Last time I saw statistics for Computer Science, I believe it was something like 18% women completing it as a major. So, there is something to be said for women having a lack of interest in some of these fields. Addressing this issue and getting more young women interested in the field should help, but there is also still work to be done at an institutional level within the workforce. Like so many other things, I see hope for the younger generation and how things will look in 20 years. I previously worked in Aerospace and Defense, and industry highly dominated by older males and there was rampant seismic there. I don’t see it in my job now where the average worker is a good 25 years younger and we hire a lot of recent college grads.
*that should be “rampant sexism.” There’s obviously a bias in Android too because it just tried to replace “sexism” with “seismic” again. This has really shaken me up, especially on a Monday morning.
Ha ha!
I actually think the younger generations are figuring this stuff out. What I’d like to see is, as you say, institutional level changes – let’s fix what is going on in companies right now.
There’s another interesting stat about men and women which has some ironic value here. Women are more likely than men to take average generalizations personally. That is, they are more likely than men to fail to recognize that statistical facts pertaining to groups are not statements about any individual.
You really should know better than to read “women have less interest in jobs that pay more” as “all women don’t like high-paying jobs”.
You should know better than to make such a silly generalization, which is completely unsubstantiated.
Ironic.
First of all, I was simply providing my experience as a woman in the corporate world. I wasn’t taking statistics personally. I was however wonder where your statistics are coming from. I have provided mine. They support what I say.
Lastly, I don’t see how my phrase is different from yours. I was not making a generalization, I was paraphrasing your generalization, which is absurd.
These posts are simply drive-by provocations, thinly veiled insults, with vague references to “statistics,” and arguments that just restate the Republican National Committee talking points, from when they fought the equal pay bill.
Another factor is that the jobs women do historically have been valued less because they have been done by women. This is probably addressed in Diana’s pdf, which I haven’t read yet. If you assess a particular job based on the skills, knowledge etc etc required to do that job, consistently jobs which come out with the same score but are traditionally performed by different genders, the jobs usually done by men are ALWAYS higher paid than those done by women. This is a big reason for the gap.
These days in almost all western countries, women are better educated than men and are more likely to have a univerity degree if they’re under about 35. This should correlate to higher pay for women in jobs where higher education is required, but it doesn’t.
Ah, but you know, equal rights are only for white, educated, well-off women. Black and brown women have to be subject to their culture, v
because anything else would be er, racist. / Guardian off
Well, here in South Africa that is not really true for State employment.
They have a complicated points system in which the nr of woman, blacks, coloureds, whites, etc that are actually employed in a specific job will give you extra points or not. Eg. if you are a male ‘Indian’ dr. with the same qualifications and ability score as a female ‘black’ dr, the latter will get the job because of these extra points. There is plethora of male Indian drs, so they do not get any points at all.
The ‘quota’ system.
I do not approve of this system, I have some very good and some outstanding black and ‘coloured’ female professionals, but everybody thinks they are where they are due to the quota system, not because of their excellence. I utterly hate that, it is Demeaning, with a capital D. 🙁
To be honest, in its defence, the system is kind of algorithmic, there has been a notable increase in the nr of white male nurses in the State service, since that quota was very empty until recently. 🙂
Quota systems can be good temporary remedies in places where an historical pattern and practice of discrimination exists until such time that discrimination can reasonably be considered to no longer exist. Yes, it might sometimes (but generally not) result in the less-qualified individual getting the position. However, so long as the person is still adequately qualified, this should not pose any immediate problem, and the benefits to society and the institution outweigh any insignificant inefficiencies that might be introduced.
It is important, of course, to ensure that the system never results in an un-qualified person being hired for a position just to fill a quota, or otherwise remove merit from the system.
In short, just as we already recognize that not all skills are equally important for performing a job, there are other characteristics than skill important for performing a job. Somebody who can’t type isn’t likely to make a very good programmer, but somebody who can type 150 WPM but doesn’t know an algorithm from a logarithm isn’t going to make a very good programmer, either. Similarly, somebody who’s a great programmer but an utter asshole may well be a net detriment to a programming team. Quotas just recognize that a diversity of workers has its own benefits that outweigh other factors.
As a very crude example…a team of young male programmers fresh out of the fraternity house might think it a good idea to put in a game a “special hidden bonus round” that upper management isn’t even aware of that consists of nothing but beating, raping, and murdering naked dark-skinned “hos”. Shit like that would never even get suggested out loud (and, frankly, likely never even thought of even by the token frat boy) in a team whose demographics matched those of society as an whole.
So, if your demographics are seriously out of whack, quotas are a good way to bring them back in line. And if there’s good reason to think that your demographics will go askew if you drop the quotas, best to keep them for a while longer.
But, yes: the ideal is a workplace where quotas aren’t necessary because there isn’t any inherent bias in the first place that needs to be overcome. Alas, such workplaces are far from universal….
Cheers,
b&
Yes, serendipitously, CBC had an interview with 3 women about quotas. Sadly, they focused on high positions where I think they need to ask why women are not promoted to leadership past managerial because if they can’t make it that far, they aren’t going to make it to board rooms.
They did talk about quotas. I generally loathe this because (and all the panelists agreed) it leaves the perception that the only reason you have the job is because of quotas and that isn’t a good environment to work in. At the same time, however if my hypothesis of unconscious bias is true, quotas are the only way to break that bias quickly – have women in jobs so then you get used to seeing a person who looks like women do, doing those jobs.
Job searches are notorious for coming down to a small handful of candidates and a tough time picking between them. Were I in charge of HR — not that that’d ever happen — I’d drop the notion of the committee trying to pick a single candidate. Instead, the committee would identify all candidates they think are capable of doing a good job, and then leaving the final selection to some sort of impartial algorithm or whatever. Could just be a random number generator, but it could also weight the numbers based on both the demographics of the organization and the pool of candidates.
It would, I think, solve a lot of problems. Committees don’t need to agonize any more over whether they’ve really picked the best candidate; only whether the person they’re considering right this moment is “good enough.” Candidates don’t have to wonder if they were picked or rejected for some random unspoken reason; they instead know that they were, indeed, “good enough” (or not) and the final decision was the luck of the draw. Those same candidates can be put on the short list for other similar positions in the future; they’ve already been vetted and deemed “good enough.” And the organization doesn’t have to worry nearly as much about biases of whatever flavor seeping into the hiring process.
b&
I consider myself very fortunate that the company I work for now hires everyone who passes the interview. Obviously, this has to do with the growth of the company and the difficulty of the interview as the two primary factors, and it can’t continue forever. Last year, we had something like 20000 applicants and about 100 new hires in Software Engineering.
When the time inevitably comes when not every qualified candidate can be offered a job, I think your algorithm idea is solid. That said, I think something needs to be done at an institutional level to increase the diversity in high paying jobs. If 20% of the Computer Science majors are women and 20% of people hired into the field are women, there’s not an intrinsic bias in hiring (assuming that talent is pretty randomly distributed amongst race and gender for everyone who completes a degree). However, there is a problem in that more than half the population is women and we can’t seem to draw anywhere near that amount into programs that are the drivers of humanity’s future–STEM programs. If we want equality for women, we need to find a way to get more women into these programs well before it’s time to worry about discrimination in the workplace.
I think it’s something of a chicken-and-egg problem. I’m sure there’re talented young women who’d be fantastic STEM professionals who avoid the field because they don’t want to be the token butt of sexism in an old boy’s club and so pick some career field with a more even balance.
That’s where quotas can help. If 20% of the candidates are women but 50% of the new hires are women, you’ll have at least some women going for the job just because they think it’s an easy way to get a job. Yes, this creates problems of its own. However, if those women who are hired are competent, you quickly wind up with a balanced workforce and much less of a turn-off for girls in school wondering what career path to pursue. Then, theoretically, the quotas can go away and the system can maintain its balance through inertia.
b&
I think you need to stop women leaving STEM as well. They often get fed up and just go elsewhere.
I got a Manolo Blahnik thrown at my head once for making a similar point.
A very recent episode of the PBS show “Finding Your Roots” traced the ancestry of Ben Affleck. Ben’s mother was very opposed to racism in the US and in fact participated in the Civil Rights marches of the 60s (good on her). From this fact one can easily imagine that Ben was raised in a home where racism was hated, and this hatred of racism may have been at the bottom of his obvious contempt for Sam Harris on the Bill Maher show (Ben clearly took Sam to be a racist). But Ben was simply misinformed, perhaps as a result of having imbibed too much Greenwald-type PC liberalism and too many Twitter smears of Sam. As Sam put it, Ben was just not thinking clearly.
I don’t think he was thinking at all. He had already decided what his position vis-à-vis Sam Harris would be, long before. Not necessarily Sam Harris specifically. But everyone in the same bin into which Affleck sorts such people.
In the Afrikaans language there is a word “Eina!”, which is pronounce the same way as the Pakistani name Eiynah.
In Afrikaans Eina! means “Ouch! That really hurt”. I hope this letter was “Eina!” for Affleck.
Sorry to have ‘doubled’ you about the ‘EINA!’ in my reply to Ben. Are you living in SA?
Bravo! to this woman for speaking up.
A cart and horse coordination problem :
The people who are afraid of words and drawing and anything different to what they were indoctrinated to as being “right” are precisely the people you need to be at least cautious of. Their very fear makes them dangerous.
“This post is temporarily unavailable due to a publishing mix-up. It will be published in another publication! ”
that what I found following the link to her post…
Very sad story.
Best regards.
Yes, I got the same message. The post has been taken down.
Will Affleck now accuse the letter’s author of racism?
I think Maher should have both her and Affleck on at the same time.
That would be great; let’s hope she’s still alive.
Yes, I was wondering the same thing when I checked her website. It’s an excellent letter.
If they can accuse Ayaan Hirsi Ali of Islamophobia, I don’t see why not.
There is something rather insidious about what has happened to Pakistani society since the 40’s and 50’s. The North West Frontier has always been backward. But most Pakistani’s are Punjabis, not Pashtuns. Historically, the Islamic culture in Punjab was fairly moderate, and rich in Urdu literature, philosophy and poetry. Some would argue the strain of Sufi Islam in this area paid mere lip service to Islam but drew deeper inspiration from Upanishadic texts. This peculiar spiritual movement had adherents from both Muslim and Hindu backgrounds, and which later provided the philosophical foundation of Sikhism.
The nation of Pakistan was conjured by a handful of political elites, on the premise that Muslims cannot and should not exist peacefully beside their fellow non-muslim citizens. Relations between most Punjabi muslims and non-muslims in the 19th Century had been cordial. But the creation of Pakistan, with its attendant deliberate and ruthless tactics of stoking hatred and mistrust is the singular antithesis of secularism. It’s interesting then to see the sort of numbers now in support of Sharia today. When Islam is left to its own devices, it feeds upon itself to cough up something even more virulent and toxic than ever imagined.
P.S. The most engaging book I’ve read on the topic that left me in a psychedelic stupor of rich history, period placement and a Lawrence-of-Arabia like political drama is Freedom at midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre. It may not be in print any more.
You may be right, but AIUI it wasn’t really the British elites that pushed for it, it was Muslim Indian elites, such as Mohammed Iqbal and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. So I don’t see how this particular decision can really be connected to ‘colonialism,’ except in the vaguest sense of ‘if the British hadn’t been there, things would’ve turned out differently.’
You are correct. When I referred to “political elites” I had Jinnah and his buddies in mind. In the earlier stages of the political campaign for Pakistan the muslims of Punjab were quite apathetic and disengaged. The agitation for Punjab festered mainly in Islamic academic centers in India.
The habit of blaming Britain (usually by ex-citizens of the British Raj) for all the ills of society is rather tiresome and overwrought. Each time you could invoke the Monty Python skit from Life of Brian, What have the Romans ever done for Judea?
Bill Maher needs to set up someone with an intellect closer to Sam Harris, rather than a well known ignoramus. Thanks to the woman to wrote to you – I hope all is OK for her.
I have these debates on FB – differentiating between Muslims who live in a migrated-to democracy, and what the religion really dictates. I stay with light, however the heat in some of these discussions is amazing.
Now enjoying the conversation between Sam and Cenk Uygur. As I can listen to it, rather than watch, it is feasible I will get through the whole thing. I am so grateful to Sam for his integrity, intellect and being out there for us.
Bill Maher needs to set up someone with an intellect closer to Sam Harris, rather than a well known ignoramus. Thanks to the woman to wrote to you – I hope all is OK for her.
I have these debates on FB – differentiating between Muslims who live in a migrated-to democracy, and what the religion really dictates. I stay with light, however the heat in some of these discussions is amazing.
Now enjoying the conversation between Sam and Cenk Uygur. As I can listen to it, rather than watch, it is feasible I will get through the whole thing. I am so grateful to Sam for his integrity, intellect and being out there for us.
sub
Dianne are you on FB? I sent something to a Diane G in Canada?
I’m on Dawn Baker – Brisbane.
Dawn
Dawn, alas, no. This is one of those times I wish I were on!
I’m afraid I’m one of those annoying holdouts…
(BTW, Jerry will connect readers by email, but I know that’s not the same.)
Bravo, Prof. Coyne! I was very disappointed when I saw Ben Affleck defend the indefensible.
He might be an OK actor/director, but I’m afraid his grasp of religion paints him as an idiot.
He’s actually quite smart. Unfortunately, this is a subject he doesn’t know about, so he reverted to the knee-jerk it-must-be-racism response. He has the intellect to understand Harris’s work, but obviously (imo) doesn’t know it. I hope he has the time to read up on the subject because with his profile he could be a valuable spokesperson.
Yes, in Sam Harris’s response to the Affleck fiasco, he spoke about how they talked in the green room after the show and it was clear that Affleck was completely unfamiliar with his work. So, Affleck probably read all those out of context Sam Harris tweets and made up his opinion thusly (or some Glen Greenwald devotee told Affleck about the “terrible” Sam Harris).
When I clicked on the blog/ website there was a warning. Does this happen often for other blogs? Was it a warning based on sex or because it was Islam? Any ideas?
I wonder what Ben has to say upon reading the letter.