On my last post I was called out for having previously said somewhere at some time that the General Assembly, and the House in particular, has too many white, male lawyers. Here I’m going to lay out some of the facts I found about the over-representation of that specific type of person.
95% of our State Representatives are white. 77% of Rhode Islanders are white.
75% of our State Representatives are male. 48% of Rhode Islanders are male.
28% of our State Representatives are lawyers. 0.4% of Rhode Islanders are lawyers.
27% of our State Representatives are white, male lawyers.
I’m all for having some white, male lawyers in the State House. It’s also okay to have more lawyers than the general population. As some people have pointed out, the job of a legislator is to make laws, so a law degree does not hurt in that regard. However, more important than the technical drafting of the language (after all, there are State House staff with this responsibility) is representing the interests of all Rhode Islanders. Passing a budget that works for all Rhode Islanders. Strengthening public education, investing in infrastructure, creating job opportunities and maintaining safety nets is what I want my legislators to be busy doing. You can’t fix problems you don’t see, and so I want my General Assembly to have eyes in as many places as possible, and I do believe that requires diversity in all factors, from gender, race and age, to class, employment history, and experiences with poverty.
So, if you’re a cashier, or a waitress or a salesperson, it’s time you gave some thought to running for office. Your community needs you. The stakes are too high to sit on the sidelines.
My sources:
www.rilin.state.ri.us/ – each state rep’s bio page for gender, race, occupation info
www.statehealthfacts.org/profileind.jsp?ind=5&cat=1&rgn=41 – for gender and race info on RI
lawschooltuitionbubble.wordpress.com/original-research-updated/lawyers-per-capita-by-state/ – for lawyer info on RI
www.seniorjobbank.org/database/Rhode_Island/Rhode_Island.html – for employment info for RI
I don’t necessarily dispute any of the numbers, but I would like to clarify one point – from where are you getting the racial background information for the legislators? I do not see it provided in the biography pages to which you link. Is this component of the analysis guesswork based on their appearance? I see a number of “Latino-sounding” names in the list, and I suspect there will be a number of self-identified Latino or American-Indian individuals. I went to school with a number of people who were of lighter skin than I was and had “white-sounding” names but qualified for Affirmative Action on the basis that they were purportedly part Latino or American-Indian. At least a few of the legislators on the list are black, which is in the ballpark of the percentage of black individuals in the Rhode Island population, since it is less than the country as a whole.
Footnote: The above distinctions are made for abstract discussion purposes only. I firmly believe that the above classifications are irrelevant nonsense and that people should be treated as individuals on their merits without exception.
So let’s get this straight, you think that generally (and we talking generally here) men understand issues affecting women as well as women, whites understand nonwhites, wealthy understand the poor, etc? That strikes me as utopian idealism. There was a great speech at Netroots that touched on the subject of celebrating and embracing, not pretending to ignore, our differences… Libby’s a woman? Oh, I hadn’t noticed. Hehe
What I reject is “identity politics,” which classifies individuals according to immutable characteristics and then draws political conclusions about them based on those characteristics. The word “understand” is ambiguous in this context; perhaps it is being used that way intentionally. Obviously a man will not “understand” childbirth or nursing or abortion in the sense of having the experiences or choices, but they can certainly understand the issues in an intellectual or moral sense and understand why and how the issues are important to constituents. I do not accept that a woman will be better at legally or politically representing another woman, simply due to the fact that she is a woman, than a man would be in that role. If the “woman” experience was monolithic and universal, there wouldn’t be such a divide between pro-choice and pro-life women; all women would adopt one position or the other. I don’t accept that men should be excluded or verbally dismissed from these public policy discussions or representation roles simply because they are men – that is sexist and unfair. Similarly, I don’t think that black individuals should vote for black politicians any more than they should vote for white politicians or vice versa. We shouldn’t ignore differences, but emphasizing or classifying differences to the point where they are being used to define or draw conclusions about people is bigotry, and I think that is exactly what is happening here, i.e., “White individuals and men tend to be a certain *way*, so we need more non-white individuals and women in the General Assembly to avoid group think.” I don’t see how you can argue this isn’t a form of racism and sexism by definition, although maybe it is a permissible form in progressive circles, like affirmative action. In any case, those types of conclusions being drawn about individuals based on their immutable characteristics what I reject.
“We shouldn’t ignore differences, but emphasizing or classifying differences to the point where they are being used to define or draw conclusions about people is bigotry…”
Bigotry: Intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.
I disagree. It can be especially if one holds that something that is generally true of group must be true of an individual or if those statements about what’s generally true are based on personal bias (for instance, let’s assume Libby is an excellent driver!).
But recornizing that there are differences in the experience and viewpoints of a group is not bigotry. There’s not a marketing organization in the world that doesn’t do just that. Tell me your zip code, age, and gender, and I can draw all kinds of inferences about what you think.
“Tell me your zip code, age, and gender, and I can draw all kinds of inferences about what you think.”
I have no doubt that there are observable and even quantifiable trends, but in my case, most of those inferences would likely be wrong, which illustrates the need to evaluate individuals on their merits, at least for some contexts if not for others. You’re talking about something different from what I am. You’re talking about rationally using averages over large numbers for marketing purposes, which is completely rational and I don’t have any moral problem with (you can always just throw away the ads, which I do). But when we are talking about individual job applicants or political candidates, the qualifications and qualities of the individual should be evaluated on his or her merits rather than based on averages beyond their control because those averages are no longer reliable or fair in such contexts and they should have the opportunity to rebut any presumptions.
This candidate is basically saying, “Men tend to think a certain way and most of the General Assembly are men. I am not a man, so I will be better able to bring new ideas to the GA than my male opponent.” That is sexism by definition because she is (at least implicitly) drawing conclusions about her opponent based on the immutable characteristics of the individual rather than the qualities of the individual himself. Even if this were true about specific category of issues which could rightfully be considered “women’s issues” (and I think even that is a stretch), most issues are not “women’s issues.” they are “human issues” or some other types of issues. Assuming that a woman will have different ideas or experiences on issues that have nothing to do with gender-based experiences is even more dubious and bigoted.
It’s always a treat to see someone take the Colbert position unironically.
I am familiar with Colbert’s schtick on the subject, and your statement demonstrates that you don’t understand my points at all.
“the qualifications and qualities of the individual should be evaluated on his or her merits”
But I hold that bringing a perspect lacking in an organization is among the qualifications and qualities of an individual. In the case of women in leadership that’s not simply my opinon.
“Defend Your Research: What Makes a Team Smarter? More Women”
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The finding: There’s little correlation between a group’s collective intelligence and the IQs of its individual members. But if a group includes more women, its collective intelligence rises.
The research: Professors Woolley and Malone, along with Christopher Chabris, Sandy Pentland, and Nada Hashmi, gave subjects aged 18 to 60 standard intelligence tests and assigned them randomly to teams. Each team was asked to complete several tasks—including brainstorming, decision making, and visual puzzles—and to solve one complex problem. Teams were given intelligence scores based on their performance. Though the teams that had members with higher IQs didn’t earn much higher scores, those that had more women did.
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Businesses have realized this for some time and there have been any number of articles in HBR like the one above or this one…
“Diversity as Strategy“
I don’t have much to say about this particular study other than that I don’t pay any given social study much attention unless it has been successfully replicated and attempts to replicate it have been documented and reported. You can literally find a social science study to justify just about anything nowadays, and the vast majority are not replicable in practice. I’ll remain agnostic about it until that point. We should also be very careful about extrapolating findings in a very specific controlled scenario to all different types of scenarios or to all of human interaction. I don’t think there’s a sufficient basis to make those kinds of generalizations even if this study does turn out to be consistently replicable.
Just pointing out that this is more than “feel good” progressive inclinations. Large businesses view diversity as a competitive advantage.
I don’t doubt it, although I think a more enlightened approach is to break group-think through employee rotations and mixing professional backgrounds, which is what 3M uses with success. I’m skeptical that “adding more women” necessarily leads to better results in all business or political contexts, or in any contexts for that matter. I could be persuaded otherwise if the evidence was compelling.
A dirty little secret among “elite” firms (and I’m not in any way defending it) is that affirmative action hires are often made for the stated purpose of “diversity” but are actually made for statistical and brochure purposes to fend off Title VII lawsuits and to appeal to certain targeted demographics. So be skeptical of their claims – those individuals often have a very different experience than they are expecting and it can often lead to them getting the short-end of the stick career-wise. One of several reasons why I oppose affirmative action.
No doubt legal departments share those concerns, but it is more than that. I found this interesting because it attempts to answer why it’s important to have women in leadership roles:
See “Women Matter”:
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In 2007, McKinsey & Company published Women Matter: Gender diversity, a corporate performance driver. This report demonstrated a link between a company’s performance and the proportion of women serving in its governing body. In Women Matter 2, published in 2008, we identified the reasons for this performance effect by examining the leadership styles that women leaders typically adopt. In 2009, we conducted a survey of about 800 business leaders worldwide which confirmed that certain leadership behaviors typically adopted by women are critical to perform well in the post-crisis world.
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Evidence that women (in general) think differently at the least, no?
RTW, I don’t think this is that complicated. Take any issue, and you will see major differences in attitudes based on different identities and demographics. Rich people, by and large, are far less likely to support taxing the rich than non-rich people. There are many exceptions–Sheldon Whitehouse is rich–but it’s social science 101 that exceptions in no way negate general trends and the conclusions we can draw from them. Libby did not say that every white, male lawyer was a flawed representative, but rather there unrepresentative-ness presence was, perhaps, an issue based on the generalizable (though not universizable) conclusions we can draw from these trends.
I think both sides make some valid points, RTW holds up the ideal of meritocracy rather than identity politics that we should all share for a long term goal. Even short term, drawing convoluted district boundaries to enable some identity group or another to dominate a district, like excessive gerrymandering (see Texas!) for partisan advantage should be at least mildly offensive. But that said, it seems to me that considering the battering that working people have taken and the current offensive against women’s reproductive rights, it is legitlmate to try to redress their relative lack of representation, just as I do in North Providence where a Democratic machne has long dominated so I give special consideration (but not automatic support) to any non-Democrat for local office in order to encourage more balance.