Thanks to Sheryl Sandberg, the media is focused on the absence of women in positions of leadership and power in the corporate world. Ms. Sandberg offers many thoughtful suggestions on overcoming this situation, but makes just one very brief reference to the impediment caused by sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment is in itself an obstacle to women’s success. Indeed, it is prohibited under Federal law only because it operates as a form of gender discrimination at work. How does it amount to discrimination? It results in the affected employee either leaving the workplace or remaining but being less productive and, as a consequence, jeopardizing her potential for raises or advancement.

A worker who experiences sexual harassment may be forced to choose between a professional opportunity with a lecherous creep and a position with less potential. She may find it necessary to lie about her reasons for leaving to her new employer. (Ms. Sandberg cautions that asserting legal protections may chill professional prospects. Imagine the response of a new employer who hears that the candidate is attuned to her legal rights.)

Alternatively, the worker can stay and tolerate the indignities of sexually charged remarks and actions. But if she does, the likelihood that she’ll come to work brimming with enthusiasm is diminished. Her attitude may not be the only casualty. Her productivity may decline, and she may spend more time out of the office. Her health may be affected. Women who experience sexual harassment suffer from physical ailments caused by stress and depression.

Women’s right to be free of discrimination at work was established in the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but sexual harassment wasn’t viewed as violating this right until much later. Sexual harassment as a form of discrimination was first considered in 1974 when a court found that termination of a female employee for rejecting sexual advances did not violate Title VII.  This decision was overturned in 1976, and in 1980 the federal agency charged with enforcing the Civil Rights Act issued guidelines recognizing sexual harassment as a form of gender bias.

Thirty-two years later sexual harassment remains a common problem.  Studies show that between 50 and 85 percent of women experience it during their careers. Regardless of seniority or career accomplishments, no woman is exempt from sexual harassment. Attorneys, nurses, waitresses and investment bankers are just a few of those who’ve filed sexual harassment claims recently.

Sexual harassment is not about sex. It is about power. It is a tool of male privilege to intimidate women in the workplace, to keep them out of positions of power and leadership. Psychologist John Gottman said, “Sexual harassment is a subtle rape, and rape is more about fear than sex. Harassment is a way for a man to make a woman vulnerable.”

If you believe you have been sexually harassed, you should take the following steps:

1. Say “no” or object to your treatment clearly. Better to say you’re not interested in dating than to say you’re busy. If the harassment takes the form of crude jokes, say “I find that offensive.” If the harassment doesn’t stop, write the harasser a letter or e-mail requesting that he stop, and keep a copy.

2.  Write down specifics of what happened, including the date, place, offensive conduct, and possible witnesses. If there are witnesses, ask them to write up the incident, too. Do this for each instance. Because your claim may boil down to he said, she said, this step is vitally important to enhance your credibility. The written record should not be kept at work.

3. Report the harassment to your supervisor, the human relations department, or other appropriate authority at work. Make the report in writing if possible. This step is particularly important if the person harassing you is a co-worker, client, or customer, because the employer may be unaware of what is happening. Make notes about your meeting.

4. Avoid the temptation to talk about the situation with friends or others at work. You could be subject to a defamation claim. If you need a sympathetic ear, call the job survival helpline maintained by 9 to 5, an organization for working women. RAINN also maintains a hotline for victims of sexual assault (any non-consensual sexual touching).

5. Continue to keep a written record, including the notes described in step two above, copies of all correspondence, and notes of any meetings about your complaint.

6. Review your personnel file. In some states, you have a legal right to make a copy of its contents.

7. Follow whatever “official” procedure your company has for handling sexual harassment complaints. Find it in your employee manual or ask human relations.

8. As these steps escalate, you may suffer physical or psychological damage. See your doctor for help and documentation.

9. Involve your union if you’re unionized.

10. File a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency, or with your state’s fair employment agency. The EEOC hotline is 800-669-4000. Be prompt! The deadline for filing your complaint may be as soon as 180 days from the act of harassment.

11. File a private lawsuit after you have filed with a governmental agency. You can ask a court for money damages, to reinstate you in your job, or to force your employer to adopt practices that would deter future harassment. Because a determination of sexual harassment rests on the facts of each case, an experienced attorney can best evaluate the merits of your claim.

12. Prepare yourself for the results of taking these steps. Your employer may retaliate. You may have trouble finding another job; you may be branded a troublemaker; you may be shunned by other workers (including women); you may open up your personal life to scrutiny by others; you may incur legal fees; and you may feel anxious, isolated, and depressed. Consider joining a support group.

It takes courage and determination to pursue a sexual harassment claim.

Katie is the author of a legal suspense novel Terminal Ambition, which is available on Amazon.com.  She is an advocate for women and she tweets from k8mcguinness.

photo credit: Olivander via photopin cc

No one would be surprised to learn that a person who happened to be a lawyer broke the law. Acting in their personal capacities, lawyers commit the same variety of crimes that other citizens do, ranging from fraud to rape to murder. But when lawyers manage their own businesses, their own law firms, they should be expected to obey the law.

Often, they don’t — especially when the law mandates equal treatment for female employees. A class action law suit filed earlier this week calls into question a major law firm’s compliance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Francine Griesing filed a $200 million class action law suit against her former law firm, Greenberg Traurig, alleging that the firm discriminated against her and other female lawyers in its Philadelphia office because of their gender. Greenberg Traurig is one of the nation’s 200 largest law firms, and Ms. Griesing was a partner there from 2007 to 2010.

Ms. Griesing claims that many women partners received less compensation than did men with similar accomplishments. According to her law suit, there was only one exception to the inferior treatment afforded female partners: “GT [Greenberg Traurig] prioritizes, pays and promotes women who have intimate relationships with firm leaders or who acquiesce to sexualized stereotypes.”

The truth of these allegations will be determined by the trier of fact — either a jury as Ms. Griesing has requested or an arbitration panel as the firm prefers. I have no knowledge of whether the claims are true or not, but the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigated them and found ”reasonable cause” to support class-wide claims of gender discrimination in compensation.

What’s more interesting than Ms. Griesing’s accusations against Greenberg Traurig is the possibility that this suit will inspire other women to sue the firms where they work on similar grounds. When asked if other law firms should be concerned, one of the lawyers representing Ms. Griesing said, “I have no doubt that the EEOC would come to a similar conclusion in other cases. It’s a systemic problem in many law firms. But you have to look at the statistics of a firm and its history.”

The percentage of female equity partners is a key statistic. (Equity partners are those with an ownership interest, receive the largest compensation and determine policy.) Although females have provided much of the brainpower for law firms since the 1980s, the number of female equity partners in the nation’s 200 largest law firms has hovered around 15 percent for the last twenty years. The percentage of female non-equity or income partners is approximately 26 percent.

These numbers are especially troubling given women have constituted at least 40 percent of enrolled law students since 1985 and reached a high of 50 percent in 1999. Women’s representation in either class of partners is far below their representation as worker bees.

The number of women entering these large firms after graduation has dropped; they now constitute only 45 percent of new associates. I suspect the decrease is a result of women abandoning the hope of ever grabbing the gold ring or even getting a fair shake. Perhaps Ms. Griesing’s suit will cause law firms to consider their treatment of women more critically.

This post was originally published on The Huffington Post.  It is cross-posted with permission.

Photo credit Sanford Heisler LLP.

Reporters buzzed this weekend with news about the murder−suicide committed by Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. Before killing himself at the Chiefs’ practice facility, he shot Kasandra Perkins, his 22-year-old girlfriend, nine times in their home. The couple’s three-month old daughter and Belcher’s mother were in the house at the time of the shooting.

Much of the ensuing coverage has searched for reasons why Belcher, a member of Male Athletes Against Violence at his alma mater the University of Maine, committed such heinous crimes. Some commentators focused on widespread gun ownership in our country. Others questioned whether the players in the National Football League are especially prone to violence. Still others wondered whether Belcher had suffered traumatic brain injuries that triggered the episode. All are issues worth considering.

But as tragic as Kasandra Perkins’ death was on Saturday, she was not the only female domestic violence fatality that day. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that every day in the United States more than three women are killed by their intimate partners.

Our country is suffering from a plague of domestic violence. Compare the number of American troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq (6,612) to the number of women killed during the same period in the United States as the result of domestic violence (11,766).  Almost twice as many women died at the hands of men who supposedly loved them as did American soldiers on battlefields.

Here are some other chilling domestic violence statistics:

● 30 percent of the female homicides in our country are committed by the victim’s intimate partner.
● The number one cause of death during pregnancy in the United States is homicide.

During the telecast of the Kansas City Chiefs’ game the day following the murder-suicide, broadcaster Bob Costas linked Kasandra Perkins’ death to our country’s gun culture.  He has been criticized for his comments but they are very relevant. Here’s why:

● The likelihood that a woman will die a violent death is increased by 270 percent if there is a gun in her home.
● Two in three women killed by their intimate partners were shot with guns kept in their home by their partners.

But gun ownership is only part of a much bigger problem. Violence against women takes many forms from the sadly routine abuse of punching, strangling and shooting to bizarre homicides by chainsaw decapitation.

Kasandra Perkins’ tragic death occurred during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence that runs from November 25 to December 10.

Perhaps the single most effective thing we can do to stop more needless deaths like Kasandra’s is to loudly demand Congress re-authorize the Violence against Women Act.  Both the House and the Senate have passed versions of the act, but the House’s narrower rendering is driven by the GOP’s concern that it covers “too many victims.”

Kasandra Perkins is one victim too many.  Her death should represent more than yesterday’s news.

This post is originally published on The Huffington Post.  It is cross-posted with permission.

Photo credit Kasandra Perkin’s Instagram.

Rape became politicized during the recent election. Extreme conservatives favored the modifiers “legitimate” or “forcible” while feminists countered with the slogan, “Rape is rape.” When a woman is raped during an armed conflict, rape takes on a different character. Rape becomes a weapon of war− a cheap weapon of war.

Under any circumstance, rape is a brutal, dehumanizing attack. Rapes of civilian women during war take on the most horrendous aspects of this crime. Women are often raped in front of their husbands and children by multiple men using their bodies and, at times, gun barrels or other objects to penetrate women.

Like any rape, these acts may to lead to pregnancy and transmission of STDs and infection. The psychological toll can be devastating. Victims may be stigmatized by their communities and even subject to honor killing by their families. Typically, justice is not available because civil police organizations are disbanded or ineffective during wartime.

It is important to recognize that conflict rapes are much more than opportunistic pillaging. In modern warfare, rape has become a strategic weapon used to humiliate, demoralize and dehumanize the enemy. The use of rape as a tactic may, in fact, be ordered by those in command of combatants. In ethnic conflicts, rape is seen as a tool of genetic “cleansing.” Even when a conflict has ended with a truce or ceasefire, rape continues to be used as a weapon against the vanquished civilian population. Rape violates the Geneva Convention and is viewed as a “crime against humanity” by the International Criminal Court.

Recent history provides horrific examples of the use of rape as a weapon of war:

• Approximately up to 500,000 women were raped during the Rwandan genocide
• Approximately up to 64,000 women were raped in Sierra Leone
• Over 40,000 women were raped in Bosnia-Herzegovina
• Hundreds of women are raped every day in Syria, Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo

The reality of rape during conflict is brought home by a crowd-sourced map of Syria that reports the location and details of sexual assaults occurring during the current conflict. This resource is maintained by the Women under Siege Project of the Women’s Media Center.

The days between Nov. 25 and Dec. 10 have been designated by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership and the Nobel Women’s Initiative as the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign. In 2012, this campaign focuses on gender violence in conflict, use of small arms in domestic violence and state actors perpetrating violence against women, such as commanders sexually assaulting military women with impunity.

You can speak out against these outrages in a number of ways: Organize an educational activity, write to your newspaper, blog or tweet. The campaign’s website offers an action kit with information sheets, model letters and sample posts. Follow the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign on Facebook and follow them on Twitter and adopt the campaign’s logo as your profile picture.

You don’t have to be a woman to participate in this campaign.  All you need is a voice and a conscience.

This post is originally published on The Huffington Post.  It is cross-posted with permission.

Image credit Rutger’s Center for Women’s Global Leadership.

This post is originally published at Role/Reboot.  It is cross-posted with permission.

Disturbed by this week’s news on the unchanged wage gap, Kate McGuinness offers advice on how to negotiate for better pay.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Census Bureau released data for 2011 showing that the gender wage gap remains unchanged from 2010. For every dollar a man earns working full time, a woman working full time earns 77 cents.

The disparity exists across virtually all occupations—women earn less than men of comparable education, experience, and seniority. From the moment a woman throws her graduation cap into the air to the moment she retires, she earns less than a similarly-situated man.

In 2011, the median annual earnings for women working full-time, year-round were $37,118. The comparable amount for men was $48,202. That $11,084 differential significantly affects the quality of life for women and their families. That amount is the equivalent of 92 weeks of groceries or 13 months of rent.

As dramatic as the annual difference is, the gap becomes a gaping chasm over a 40-year career. The lifetime wage gap for a woman with a high school diploma is $392,000 on average. The gap increases to $452,000 for women with some college. Women with a bachelor’s degree typically lose a staggering $713,000 over their working lives.

Although this analysis measures the gap by looking at broad education levels, the trend is the same when specific occupations are considered. The more education that is required for a particular job, the greater the gap.

The disparities are unfair to the point of being immoral. Worse, the ratio of 77 to 100 was the same for every year since 2002 with the exception of 2003 when it dropped to 76 to 100 and 2007 when it surged to 78 to 100.

Federal law prohibits pay distinctions between men and women but has loopholes big enough to march a battalion of advantaged men through.

The government isn’t going to level the playing field for women. What can you do for yourself?

Learn how to negotiate for better pay.

Don’t let the word “negotiate” scare you. Think of it as a dialogue with your boss. It isn’t a confrontation—it’s a conversation. Here’s how to do it:

1. Start by doing your homework. Find out what salaries employees with similar skills and responsibilities are receiving in your industry and geographic area.
2. Ask for an appointment with your boss to discuss “expectations.” This isn’t a conversation to have on the fly.
3. Practice what you’re going to say. Get your opening lines down pat. Memorize them. You’ll be most nervous at the beginning of the conversation and knowing your lines will reduce the stress.
4. Start on a positive note. “I’ve enjoyed working with you.”
5. Your pitch should center on what your employer’s priorities are and how you have helped achieve them. Have you brought in new clients? Enhanced the company’s reputation? Provided above and beyond customer service? If you’ve taken on additional responsibilities, mention them.
6. Assume you will succeed to bolster your confidence. And remember the man in the next cubicle performing the same job with the same training and experience is probably earning 30% more than you are!

Image credit  Indranis light foundation via theGoogle Image.

This post is originally published on Role/Reboot and is cross-posted with permission.

Kate McGuinness discusses the root of what would become casualties of a Republican President: women’s rights.

Conceding the notion of a GOP war on women is true, Margaret Hoover, great granddaughter of the late President and Republican activist asks, “What has happened within the party infrastructure that has malfunctioned so desperately, so that this minority of representatives are in such positions of power that are so out of step with the majority of Republicans?”

I suspect the party leadership has a plan to gain the Presidency that Ms. Hoover is unaware of: Abandon the hope of defeating a charismatic President in the popular vote but win the Electoral College. To do this, the GOP needs to carry the historically red southern, central, and northern plains states and pick up the electoral votes of several swing states such as Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, and Iowa.

The GOP’s anti-women stance plays well to key constituencies in these states: Christian Fundamentalists and devout Catholics. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently released survey results that indicate 26.3% of Americans are members of Evangelical Protestant churches and 23.9% are Catholics.

Many Christian Fundamentalists, like other religious fundamentalists such as Islamists, oppose women’s agency. Katha Pollitt notes, “a common thread of misogyny connects” Christian Evangelicals and the Taliban, or, as Dr. Peggy Drexler puts it, “female repression is alive and well [in the West] in the precincts of the religious right.”

Some might argue that Catholicism is a Christian Fundamentalist religion. But, even without making that leap, it is clear that the male-led church’s position on reproductive rights, divorce, and ordination oppress women. Presumed Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan, a Catholic, hews to the Vatican’s line on abortion and opposes Obamacare’s contraception mandate as violating freedom of religion.

Will the beliefs of Christian Fundamentalists and Catholics affect their votes? The recent Pew survey questioned the role that religious belief played in respondents’ lives. Fifty-six percent said it was very important. However, this percentage jumped as high as 81% in several red states.

In 2000, 79% of self-identified Christian Evangelicals voted for George Bush. However, this group does not always vote and are, to some extent, independent or swing voters. What better way to get them to the polling place than to appeal to their core religious beliefs?

Mike Lofgren, a long-time GOP Congressional staffer, asserts that religion has destroyed the Republican Party: “Having observed politics up close and personal for most of my adult lifetime, I have come to the conclusion that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism may have been the key ingredient in the transformation of the Republican Party. Politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes—at least in the minds of its followers—all three of the GOP’s main tenets: wealth worship, war worship, and the permanent culture war.”

Women’s rights will be casualties of wealth worship and the permanent culture war. The “religious cranks,” as Lofgren calls them, will drastically cut funds for social programs and restrict access to contraception and abortion.

Progressive women need to act on their feminist beliefs and vote in November. Every race—Presidential, Congressional and local—matters. Register to vote. If you’re already registered, be certain you bring to the polls the identification required by your state.

Check whether you are registered to vote and what your state’s voter ID requirements are by clicking here.

Image via Google Images Creative Commons.

This post is originally published at Role/ Reboot.  It is cross-posted with permission.

Kate McGuinness married four different men all of whom had the characteristics of her mother or father. Why do so many people repeat the same mistakes?     

Our early childhood plays a major role in our choice of romantic partners. Dr. Harville Hendrix theorizes that “We marry the emotional image of our caregivers—both positive and negative.”

Sometimes, in an effort to resolve troublesome issues with a parent, we choose a partner with the same personality flaw that left us feeling unsatisfied as a child. That choice is a desperate, last-gasp attempt to get the love or attention we longed for.

If that sounds preposterous, let me illustrate the hypothesis by describing my four husbands.

My first husband was 14 years older and, by the standards of my small, blue-collar hometown, well-educated and sophisticated. What parental gap was I trying to fill? I was replacing my alcoholic father who left school in seventh grade to work in a textile mill.

This pairing might have succeeded but for its hidden flaw: My husband was gay and married me as a cover-up. I only learned of his gender preference seven years later when he was arrested for soliciting an undercover police officer.

Several years passed and I married husband number two. This was my first attempt at trying to get love from a narcissist—the love I’d never gotten from my mother.

Before the hate mail starts flying, let me say I loved my mother. I understand many of the events and personalities in her background that made her a narcissist. I’m sorry she was so besieged as a child.

When I use the term “narcissist,” I don’t mean selfish. I mean someone who struggles with underlying profound insecurity by inflating her own importance. A hallmark of narcissists is their inability to feel empathy or give love. They have other harmful traits such as being manipulative and willing to do whatever it takes to get what they want.

Also, they have little or no regard for personal boundaries. They may view their child or partner as part of themselves. If the other doesn’t exist, their feelings and needs don’t exist in the narcissist’s mind. The child may come to feel lost unless coupled with another, especially a narcissistic other.

Marrying a narcissist to get the love your narcissistic parent didn’t give you is, of course, futile. By definition, a narcissist cannot love.

Back to husband number two. Before we married, we discussed my desire to have children. Because he had two children by his first marriage, he wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was, but he readily agreed. When I first brought up stopping contraception so I might conceive, he declined, saying “I lied to get you to marry me.”

I stayed in the marriage for years because I’d been trained by my mother not to expect my needs to be met. Finally, after a separation, he agreed to have a child on the condition that he could quit his job as a nuclear engineer and go to photography school.

We succeeded in adopting, but we weren’t a happy family. He complained that the baby was number one in my life and work was number two. He was only number three and wasn’t receiving enough attention. (Psychologists call this narcissistic supply.)

That takes us to marriages three and four. I married the same personalities and hoped for a different result. I’ll spare you (and them) examples.

Samuel Johnson, a prominent 18th century poet and essayist, observed, “Remarriage is the triumph of hope over experience.” After four marriages, I no longer hope to get love from a narcissist.

Photo credit Spirit-Fire via the Creative Commons License.

Here’s another reason to vote in November: when one of the nine members of the United States Supreme Court resigns or retires, the President nominates his or her successor. With few exceptions, the nominee is routinely confirmed by the Senate and serves for life.

The closely split 5-4 decisions on Obamacare, Citizens United, and Bush vs. Gore highlight just how important each justice is. But unless you’re a lawyer as I am, you probably don’t track pronouncements by individual justices.

However, women should pay close attention to comments by Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia is the Court’s arch conservative, an intellectual powerhouse and a ferocious advocate.  He has long been on record that the groundbreaking Roe vs. Wade abortion decision was wrong. In a recent interview on Fox News, he opined that Griswold vs. Connecticut (a decision that struck down state restrictions on birth control) was wrong as well.

It isn’t surprising that a Jesuit-educated lawyer with nine children would reach these conclusions.  However, Scalia is scrupulous about separating his personal beliefs from his legal scholarship.

Scalia approaches his judicial decisions as a “textualist” and an “originalist.” A textualist looks first to the exact language of the Constitution and then, as an originalist, considers what meanings the words had at the time they were written.

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution was the basis of the Roe and Griswold decisions. Here’s where the trouble begins: the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868 during the Reconstruction Era. The Due Process Clause provides that no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

Scalia believes that in 1868 the term person did not include “women” because women were viewed as property at the time. Additionally, a person of that era (obviously a male person because no other existed in 1868) would not construe “life, liberty or property” to include contraception or abortion.

In Griswold, the Supreme Court found that a right of privacy existed in the “penumbras” and “emanations” of the Constitution.  A couple’s right to contraception was protected by this ephemeral right of privacy. The Supreme Court relied on the same right of privacy as the basis of the Roe decision.

Scalia’s textualist and originalist approaches also led to his conclusion that women have no Constitutional right to be free of discrimination when the Supreme Court considered Virginia Military Academy’s refusal to admit women. He wrote a scathing dissent to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s opinion that any law should be struck down which “denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature — equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society.”

Scalia’s position is that if citizens want access to abortion or contraception or to prohibit single-sex public schools, they can provide for that through the democratic process of passing laws to that effect. True in theory but increasing partisanship has dramatically diminished this opportunity. As William N. Eskridge Jr., a law professor at Yale noted, “It gives the Supreme Court significantly more power and Congress significantly less power.”

Scalia was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1986 by President Reagan and was chosen over Robert Bork, his leading competitor for the nomination, because he was ten years younger and would therefore shape the court’s decisions for a longer time.

Scalia’s positions underscore the importance of the upcoming Presidential election. As the last four years have shown, a President’s agenda can be derailed by legislative opposition.

As you decide how to cast your ballot in the 2012 Presidential election, remember the power of the President to appoint Supreme Court justices. That appointment power may have a longer impact on your life than any other action taken by the President between 2012 and 2016

Photo credit onecle via the Creative Commons License.

Najiba was recently executed by nine bullets for alleged adultery.  The crowd of 150 men cheered on the shooter with cries of “God is great!”

Not far from the site of the shooting, 15-year old Tamana was beaten and killed for being a disobedient wife after her forced marriage to a cousin whose advances she had spurned. No one has been arrested for her death, but her presumed killer’s sister was given to Tamana’s brother as compensation for the crime, an Afghan practice known as “baad.”

A few weeks earlier, Western media carried the story of Lil Baba, an 18-year old girl who was kidnapped, raped, tortured and chained to a wall for five days by a gang of powerful Afghan police officers. She has demanded justice but if the men aren’t prosecuted, her mother insists Lil Baba must commit suicide, the culturally dictated response for a woman who has been dishonored.

A study by Thompson Reuters Foundation released in 2011 concluded that Afghanistan was the most dangerous place in the world for women. Sadly, conditions there appear to have deteriorated. The country’s independent human rights commission has recorded 52 murders of girls and women in the last four months, 42 of which were honor killings, contrasted with 20 murders for all of 2011.

Some attribute the increased violence to the détente reached earlier this year by President Hamid Karzai with the Taliban. While the Taliban are notorious for their severely restrictive and at times brutal treatment of women, violence against women in Afghanistan predates the Taliban’s rise to power.

Christine Fair, assistant professor of South Asia studies at Georgetown University, has extensive experience in Afghanistan. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Senior Fellow with the Counter Terrorism Center at West Point.  I spoke to her about honor killings and other violence against women in the country. She informed me that violence is widespread and by no means limited to Taliban perpetrators. The targets may be women, girls or boys.

It is not uncommon for Afghani warlords, military commanders and wealthy merchants to use attractive boys as catamites or sexual servants. Orphans may be taken from the street or poor boys purchased from their parents to fill this role which is described as ancient and increasing in Afghanistan.

Honor killings become somewhat less shocking against this background of indifference to human dignity. However, honor killings are especially horrific because multiple family members often act together to commit the murder and the victim is likely to be tortured.

Phyllis Chesler, Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at City University of New York, has studied worldwide honor killings extensively. Professor Chesler believes that they are prompted by “gender separatism, the devaluation of girls and women, normalized child abuse, including arranged child marriages of both boys and girls, sexual repression, misogyny (sometimes inspired by misogynist interpretations of the Qur’an), and the demands made by an increase in the violent ideology of jihad.”

Her explanation has been challenged by others such as Widney Brown, the advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, who believes honor killing “goes across cultures and across religions.”

Regardless of underlying triggers, honor killing is a practice that the United States is unable to stop according to Professor Fair. Certainly the presence of our soldiers there has done little to deter it.

The most recent honor killings in Afghanistan occurred this past weekend when a father shot his two teenage daughters who had disappeared for four days with a NATO interpreter. He has been arrested for murder.

Progress, I suppose.

Photo Credit AfghanistanMatters via the Creative Commons License.

Recently, Ellen Pao, a junior partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, sued the firm charging widespread discrimination against women. She also alleged that she had been sexually harassed and suffered retaliation after she complained about the harassment.

Bloomberg  published an opinion piece by Amity Shlaes criticizing Ms. Pao’s suit for a variety of reasons. One was that venture capital firms contribute greater economic growth because they are more “creative” and “wild” with a different culture than square “dinosaurs.”  Although she acknowledges that “creative rebels have often behaved poorly in their creative workplaces,” her argument seems to be that discrimination and harassment should be overlooked if they take place in a company that generates growth.

This argument is patently offensive. Should all legal violations – Occupational Safety and Health for example – be tolerated if the employer creates growth? And what exactly is “growth?” How is it measured? When is it enough to justify turning a blind eye to offenses?

Ms. Shlaes then attempts to reinforce this argument by contrasting countries’ treatment of women and the ease of doing business there. The countries topping the World Bank’s list for “ease of doing business” are compared to those highly ranked in Unesco’s Global Gender Gap Report. The U.S. is fourth in doing business but only 17^th on the Unesco scale. The implication is that countries can only perform well in business if they treat women poorly.

This is a truly misleading and fundamentally faulty comparison. The Unesco report focuses on four measures: “economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment.”  The two elements that are relevant to the country’s economic growth are women’s “economic participation and opportunity” and “educational attainment.” The U.S. ranks number six and number one, respectively, on these measures – standings entirely consistent with its score for ease of doing business. (It ranks 39^th in both health and political empowerment.)

Despite raising the specter of litigation’s adverse impact on job creation and growth, Ms. Shlaes concedes that, with the exception of BP oil spill, tort costs are down. However, she argues that tort claims may move venture capitalists over on the “spectrum of safety.” By any definition of “safety,” that is a desirable result.

Ms. Shlaes concludes, “Pao may think her legal action will create opportunities and top jobs for the next generation of girls (emphasis added). In fields such as the one she chose, there might be more jobs if there were fewer discrimination lawsuits.”

A comparison of opportunities for women in law, another profession requiring advanced degrees, is useful. Elizabeth Hishon sued Atlanta law firm King & Spalding alleging her failure to be promoted to partner was a result of gender discrimination. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 1984 upholding her right to bring such an action was seen as a major victory for female lawyers.

Although statistics are difficult to obtain for the late 1980s, Catalyst reports an increase in women partners in law firms from 13.4% in 1995 to 19.5% in 2011. Many factors may have contributed to this increase. However, Ms. Hishon’s suit clearly did not have the deterrent effect predicted by Ms. Shlaes in the venture capital world.

Unfortunately, Ms. Shlaes fails to suggest what actions other than suit Ms. Pao should have taken to remedy her situation at Kleiner Perkins. Ms. Pao alleges she discussed her problems with human resources staff as well as senior partners and ultimately filed a formal complaint. These steps didn’t bring resolution but only retaliation according to Ms. Pao.

And as to the “girls” of the next generation that Ms. Shales is concerned about, they’ll keep pounding on the doors of venture capitalists and they’ll be hired. The “wild” “cowboy firms” of venture capital wouldn’t want a female employee who would be so easily scared away.

Image Credit Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers.