Øystein Gullvåg Holter

In Norway, now, there is a debate on sick leave – why is it so much higher for women, than for men.

A new report finds that divorce has a big effect on sick leave, especially at the time of the divorce, but later also. The long term higher sick leave effect of breakup or divorce is largest among women with children (Bakken, Jonas Blich; Haug, Anne Kari: Blir syke av skilsmisser. Dagens Næringsliv 15.11.14).

Much of this new empirical picture was shown already in a 2006 survey (Foreningen 2 Foreldre – Synovate MMI: Sorg uten blomster. En undersøkelse av omfanget av sykefravær og annet fravær ved samlivsbrudd [Sorrow without flowers. A survey of the extent of sickness leave and other leave in couple relationship break-ups]).

The 2006 survey showed that breakups and divorces are costly, in psychosocial terms, and also in economic terms, for employers. It was also found that many of the target respondents had trouble responding; they felt so bad about the breakup.

Interestingly, this exploratory survey – 8 years before the more “mainstream” research now reported in the media – was created through the initiative of what had in many ways been a father’s right group (Foreningen 2 foreldre [The two parents association]), now turning the critical flashlight from bad mothers to the costs of divorce.

This came about through the intervention of the Gender equality center, at my proposal, to get the children’s rights associated NGO organisations to talk together, regardless of their differences.

At the meeting at the Gender equality center, the mother’s organization (Aleneforeldreforeningen [The single parent association]) and the two parent association were present. I argued that if mother organizations and father organizations just quarrel, we will never get further, so instead we should focus on what is common for all – a concern for the child. This strategy paid off. Instead of just attacking unreasonable mothers, the fathers’ association created an innovative agency: let us look at what divorces actually imply.

This approach got support from the employer’s union. Thereby a survey was made in 2006 that in many ways predicts the new 2014 study results. I was part of the advisory group of the 2006 study, along with other experts like the psychologist Frode Thuen.

A new study of attitudes to gay rights has been published, with more coverage than before, combining data from several international surveys and country statistics. The report shows that generally, gay rights have gained some more acceptance over the last decades, but the main picture is one of strong global variation.

Testing for predictors of attitudes to gay rights, the researchers found that attitudes are more positive in richer countries and less conservative religious countries (but more negative in post-socialist than other European states). Generally, higher education, lower age, and female gender predicted more positive attitudes to gay rights.

The study included testing for income, education, religion and other variables – but strangely enough, no social equality variable was included. Income equality (like the Gini index) and gender equality (like the Gender gap index) are missing in action, so to speak.

I checked this for Europe, using the Gender Equality Statistics database (see Holter, Ø 2015), including a gay acceptance measure from the Gallup world poll: Is the city or area where you live a good place or not a good place to live for gays and lesbians?

Result:

Among 28 European countries, there is a .60 correlation between gender equality and that the area is a good place to live for gays and lesbians. This is very strong.

Of course these numbers by themselves say nothing about what causes what, but historically, there is little doubt that gender equality has helped pave the way for gay/lesbian acceptance and rights.

Therefore, gender equality and other forms of equality should be included, in models trying to explain gay, lesbian and trans acceptance. Other variables that probably would help develop these models include quality of life, and social trust and cohesion.

This is also a theory issue. Is gay acceptance and rights explained mainly by tradition, culture and religion? Or are there also more “sociological” forces at hand, causing changes in acceptance? Many theories to this effect exists, especially, theories of how gays and other “outgroups” can become scapegoats for wider system problems.

If we look at historical developments over the last hundred years, it is not religion per se that creates the well-known tendency of authoritarian regimes to deny gay rights. Rather it is part of the working of the authoritarian system. In tendency, gay rights and gender equality disapper – across very different regimes like Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, communist China, non-democratic Moslem states, etc. Gays (and to some degree, lesbians) become scapegoats, embodying a kind of freedom that the regime does not want, their rights declining in societies with rising authortarianism, inequality and conflict. If social inequality becomes large, others will have to suffer, as a system tendency – and this will hit on gays and other outcasts.

Besides income, education, less fundamentalist religion etc there are probably two main factors contributing to gay rights – class equality and gender equality. Ethnic equality is probably important too – racism and homophobia are well-known twins in social science. Possibly, gender equality is the most important of these factors, at least in a direct sense, since gender equality is the type of social equality that is most closely connected to sexuality.

This is a very important research area and hopefully, new research will be funded, to tell us more.

Even if gender equality historically has paved the way for gay rights, at some stages, the cause and effect may be different. In a superficial view, gay rights only concern a small minority. Yet it concerns very important majority freedoms too. In some contexts, gay lesbian and trans rights may be crucial gender equality issues, even more than the “traditional” majority issues.

Further reading

New gay acceptance study:

http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/public-attitudes-nov-2014.pdf

Gender equality statistics data base:

Holter, Øystein Gullvåg 2015: “What’s in it for men” – old question, new data. Journal of men and masculinities (in print)

Gallup world poll:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/175520/nearly-worldwide-areas-good-gays.aspx

Authoritarian regimes, aggression and gender related discrimination:

Holter, Øystein Gullvåg 2004: A Theory of Gendercide. In Jones, Adam, ed.: Gendercide and genocide. Vanderbilt University Press, Norman, p 62-97

In a text published October 29 in the newspaper Dagbladet, I argue that the plan of the conservative government to shorten the father quota and make it transferable to the mother is not a wise policy. Fathers’ rights are taken away, in the name of free choice, without testing if the situation is right. All participants in the debate say they want active care-giving parents, yet free, gender-balanced choice takes time to settle, and gender segregated norms and traditions are still strong in Norway. I predicted that taking away the father quota would lead to more difficult negotiations for couples with babies, both at home and at the workplace. See:

http://www.dagbladet.no/2014/10/29/kultur/meninger/fedrekvote/likestilling/debatt/35963182/

Now, a new survey of leaders (N=1003) and one of employees (N=1515) indicate that I am right, at least regarding working life.

The survey report shows continuing gender segregation and care discrimination in Norwegian working life. The situation of recruits and employees who have to care for a baby is very much a contested terrain – even in relatively gender-equal Norway, 2014.

A conflict has built up around pregnant mothers, especially, but fathers meet negative judgments too. 60 percent of female employees have been on sick leave when they were pregnant, and among younger female employees the proportion is 80 percent. As a kind of “response”, 1 of 2 leaders thinks that it is too easy to go on sick leave when pregnant. Many also report that job recruits are not honest, regarding children and parental leave plans.

However, 1 of 3 workplaces does not adjust the job for the pregnant woman, according to the employee survey. 1 of 2 male leaders is willing to break the law, agreeing with the statement that “It is OK to ask if a job candidate plans family increase” [plans getting a child]. Twice as many male leaders, compared to female leaders, agree to this statement. Likewise, 1 of 2 leaders “understands” that companies are reluctant to employ pregnant women.

Even among the employees, 1 of 2 agree that mothers of small children have a lower work capacity, and many also agree that the same goes for fathers of small children. This lower work capacity view is more frequent among men than women, and the gender gap is especially notable regarding fathers (52 percent of men and 39 percent of women agree with the lower capacity view).

The results indicate that gender equal caring arrangements meet opposition not just from leaders but from many colleagues as well, especially men.

Sources:

Øystein Gullvåg Holter: Fedrekvoten i Warszawa [The father quota in Warszawa], Dagbladet October 29, 2014, cf.

http://www.dagbladet.no/2014/10/29/kultur/meninger/fedrekvote/likestilling/debatt/35963182/

Stein Andrè Haugerud: PAMA Proffice ArbeidsMarkedsAnalyse, Sandnes, November 3, 2014, cf.

http://fido.nrk.no/65e7b86fa87c3bb28b6e7b3a288ed24ccbf56722e9b2487fd2854e6c3342b9d8/PAMA%E2%84%A2_presentasjon_20.pdf

This new anthology (in Norwegian), edited by Berit Brandth and Elin Kvande and published by Universitetsforlaget / University press, Oslo, is the most thorough overview of research on the father quota in Norway so far.

I have written one of the chapters, discussing the idea of the father quota as an “export item” in Europe. This is not due to “socialist” thinking – but mainly the fact that quota type reforms work out, while other types of reforms don’t work out. They don’t give the same clear results. Therefore, the father premium / quota principle is being introduced or discussed in many European countries today –  using different terms, and in different contexts, under right wing as well as left wing governments.

At the night of February 5, I went outside to take some shots of the very special snowfall over the last hours (using a small compact camera). Since the temperature was around zero Celsius, the snow had clung to everything like a kind of glaze.  These pictures are taken from my home, first looking towards the street in front, street lights behind the glazed trees, a pedestrian passing at right.

I stand at the top of a snow-glazed veranda staircase.

The snow clings to nearby objects too, like this pine, although with rising temperature the last couple of hours, it has melted a bit, showing only the main part of the the first amazing detail pattern.

The hedge towards our neighbours is glazed.

This night, the temperature is rising, wind blows, and the air remains humid. Misty dots or low level clouds drive through Oslo, with effects like this.

And this.

This is not a fire, in the background – just trees in front of city lights in the snowy night.

Photos (c) Øystein Gullvåg Holter 2013

Camera: Nikon Coolpix s2550

The quote is from Erving Goffman’s pathbreaking book Stigma (1963). Goffman, along with Robert Merton and some others, belong to my top shelf of American sociologists. Goffman deserves to be read “with” the text, not too critically “against”. Of course he was not a grand theorist, e g a social class theorist – that was not his mission.

More on Goffman:

See research blog note (in Norwegian) here.

Also, search in my dr. philos. thesis, here.

Other texts where Goffman is discussed (to come)

According to the foreword by Donald Ault in the new Fantagraphics Books series “Donald Duck – Lost in the Andes – by Carl Barks” (2011) , Barks – not Disney – was the one who invented most of the Donald Duck scenery and characters, including Uncle Scrooge. “Barks was perhaps the most widely read but least-known author in the world”.

I was six or seven years old when I started to recognize Barks’ stories, in the late 1950s. I would make a corn-flake bowl when I got home from school, reading Donald Duck when it arrived each week. A new Barks series was a special treat. I knew it only through a sense of the best drawings. Here we are again – top quality.

This is still my impression when, sixty years old, I reread his “Lost in the Andes” story. This layman story (Barks was an autodidact) is just great, regarding adventure, capitalism, US fingers on south America, and general attitude – a true artistic wonder. The foreword helped me me put words to several things I felt as a boy also, not least, the film-like technique, the great attention to timing, in his drawings.

Here is an example of Barks making fun of power in modern society (click on image to get a full version).

“Important egg dealers are interested”…indeed.

Although the foreword describes how Barks died without much recognition, is is a bit curious, by 2012, that it does not more clearly mention his critical view of capitalism, which was a red thread in his best work.

The book as a whole is not up to the standard of “Lost in the Andes”, the long adventure story where Barks had free hands, it also contains shorter and less interesting stories – illustrating the editorial constraints laid on this remarkable artist.

A kind of thought ray has a world locked up in deadly battle with the human colonizers.

The basic theme of Harry Harrison’s Deathworld (1960) has not lost its relevance, and the novel makes for a good reread, and although not great literature, it is up from e g his Stainless steel character. The man gambles but he also thinks and feels. Very interesting concerning the  period development in science fiction.  Camouflaged as science fiction, we get a critique of military logic, and a sketch of another form of society. Not bad, even if some of the writing is poor. I found Deathworld while going through my SF library, to rediscover, and enjoy.

Under the heading, Does feminism have a bad reputation?, almost 50 participants attended the start conference of the new Feminist Forum at the University of Oslo, at Chateau Neuf Nov 26, with presentations by Charlotte Myrbråten, former editor of the feminist journal Fett, and myself. Mostly students, about a quarter men.

The debate concerned whether feminism today has become a mark of disrespute or negative reactions. In some student circles, saying “I am a feminist” is a risky proposition.

Yet the reaction against what is perceived as “feminism” also has some understandable reasons. For example, when feminism becomes the word for women-only-interests, or upper-middle-class-career-interests. Main reasons why feminism gets into disrespute were discussed, including a belief that feminism only favors women (and is against men), only the middle class, or that it is no longer needed (the goals have been achieved, gender equality is here already).

The debate did not provide “answers”, but it was interesting, fun, open and smart – a good start for the new forum. A debate like this would scarcely have been possible twenty years ago. At that time, the “hard” front lines between the genders would have been much more marked. Today, Myrbråten argued that masculinits, also, could be feminists. This idea would hardly even have been understood twenty years ago. There has been a major change of climate, and it is most noticeable among young participants in the discussion.

The debate underlined the need to know, to create better analyses and theories, and for better research.

The new novel by China Mieville, Embassytown, is just great.

As an old science fiction fan, running low on new input for several years, I would never have expected this. Here is a true science fiction novel that shows the superiority of the whole genre, over the money-pushing fantasy bullshit that has polluted our shelves.

Having read some of his former novels, if I had not known, I would never have expected Mieville as the author of this. Since his former novels are good, this is great praise indeed.

Ursula K. LeGuin writes on the cover of my copy, that this is “a fully realised work of art”. On many levels, when reading, I am reminded of her masterwork, The left hand of darkness.

Mievelle’s novel continues the best traditions of science fiction, as well as doing an utterly astonishing “concretization” of postmodernist language theory.

I am still in the middle of it – but this is very much recommended.