"I cannot recall ever being slighted in this way.”
November 12, 2015 11:23 AM Subscribe
Nice zing to get to the end and discover it was written by Justin Wolfers, partner of the prominent economist Betsey Stevenson. They're an economics power couple!
The re-ordering of names to put men first is both trivial and totally maddening once you start noticing it. When my partner and I bought a house, I ended up doing all of the legwork to find and interview mortgage brokers and decide on our final lender, and basically all the paperwork for the loan. I put my name first on every form I was filling out, and I was the only one who ever talked with our lender. If you order our names alphabetically, by either first or last name, I come first. Yet lo and behold, a few weeks after the closing we get our title document for the house and my partner's name is first on the title to our house and I'm second. And I know it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things--I mean, it doesn't affect my legal right to the property--but it still makes me so mad to think that somewhere along the line, someone looked at all the paperwork and make the decision to switch the order of the names so that my male partner's name was first and mine was second. And of course now all of the junk mail we receive trying to get us to change homeowners insurance companies or whatever else is addressed to him and not me, and it makes me mad every time I see it.
If that was happening to me in a work context, when I worked with my husband? Where it actually mattered? I can't imagine not becoming bitter about it.
posted by iminurmefi at 11:47 AM on November 12, 2015 [49 favorites]
The re-ordering of names to put men first is both trivial and totally maddening once you start noticing it. When my partner and I bought a house, I ended up doing all of the legwork to find and interview mortgage brokers and decide on our final lender, and basically all the paperwork for the loan. I put my name first on every form I was filling out, and I was the only one who ever talked with our lender. If you order our names alphabetically, by either first or last name, I come first. Yet lo and behold, a few weeks after the closing we get our title document for the house and my partner's name is first on the title to our house and I'm second. And I know it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things--I mean, it doesn't affect my legal right to the property--but it still makes me so mad to think that somewhere along the line, someone looked at all the paperwork and make the decision to switch the order of the names so that my male partner's name was first and mine was second. And of course now all of the junk mail we receive trying to get us to change homeowners insurance companies or whatever else is addressed to him and not me, and it makes me mad every time I see it.
If that was happening to me in a work context, when I worked with my husband? Where it actually mattered? I can't imagine not becoming bitter about it.
posted by iminurmefi at 11:47 AM on November 12, 2015 [49 favorites]
Nicely written article. The bias is so strong that even I, when reading over the credentials that the women have, was sort of "blah-blah-blahing." Which is horrible. That first billing is really important. It hits us right at our unconscious bias. Everyone who comes after that is kind of...blah, blah, blah.
posted by amanda at 12:09 PM on November 12, 2015
posted by amanda at 12:09 PM on November 12, 2015
Wow, Ralph Nader suggesting an economist "get help from her (less capable) husband"?
I wish this was not for real, and am glad it is being addressed.
posted by TenaciousB at 12:09 PM on November 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
I wish this was not for real, and am glad it is being addressed.
posted by TenaciousB at 12:09 PM on November 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
I started to notice this awhile ago and now I see it everywhere. It started for me with an NPR piece on a math professor who is also a mime and does educational miming. It took over half the piece to reveal, oh, his wife is also an accomplished mime... and an educator... and also "helps out" in writing and performing these math mime bits.
Perhaps not as egregious an example as the ones in this article, but still jarring how easily a woman in a professional partnership is ignored.
posted by muddgirl at 12:15 PM on November 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
Perhaps not as egregious an example as the ones in this article, but still jarring how easily a woman in a professional partnership is ignored.
posted by muddgirl at 12:15 PM on November 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
Close your eyes for a moment, and picture an economist.
Jed Bartlett.
posted by bentley at 1:04 PM on November 12, 2015
Jed Bartlett.
posted by bentley at 1:04 PM on November 12, 2015
In Psychology for the most part the connected researchers know who is the top dog on a paper and the order of authorship doesn't necessarily communicate all that much. There are old-timers who still look at first author as highly meaningful but many tenured advisors readily give first author to students whether they merit it or not in order to enhance their job prospects if they encounter an old-timer during their job search.
Some power couples and frequent collaborators simply alternate authorship on publications. Some established Primary Investigators put themselves last. Some universities require that students get first authorship on publications connected their doctoral work even if it is part of an already in progress program of research. Some people follow institutional rules or field norms so don't and some don't even know them!
So it really requires you to actually know in a deeper way who is doing the research in the field and institutional requirements rather than a cursory scan of an author list.
Not that I dispute any of the claims regarding sexist bias but the TLDR of my comment is that author order is complicated and its meaning is often ambiguous and unclear.
posted by srboisvert at 1:26 PM on November 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
Some power couples and frequent collaborators simply alternate authorship on publications. Some established Primary Investigators put themselves last. Some universities require that students get first authorship on publications connected their doctoral work even if it is part of an already in progress program of research. Some people follow institutional rules or field norms so don't and some don't even know them!
So it really requires you to actually know in a deeper way who is doing the research in the field and institutional requirements rather than a cursory scan of an author list.
Not that I dispute any of the claims regarding sexist bias but the TLDR of my comment is that author order is complicated and its meaning is often ambiguous and unclear.
posted by srboisvert at 1:26 PM on November 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
Mod note: Several comments deleted. Driverless cars etc is a big derail that seems based on nothing in particular, so maybe let's stick closer to the topic.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 1:34 PM on November 12, 2015
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 1:34 PM on November 12, 2015
Author order was a pretty minor part of this article, raised to fend off the claim that the research was attributed to Male Spouse and not Female Spouse because their name happened to come first in the author list. Since that's not true, there must be an explanation why, in these cases, the research was thus attributed.
Is your contention that, in all the cases listed, the journalist must have known that Male Spouse did all the heavy lifting?
posted by muddgirl at 1:37 PM on November 12, 2015 [7 favorites]
Is your contention that, in all the cases listed, the journalist must have known that Male Spouse did all the heavy lifting?
posted by muddgirl at 1:37 PM on November 12, 2015 [7 favorites]
Not surprised this was written by Justin Wolfers. He's amazing on Twitter at calling this out. He also discusses that while he receives the kudos for his work with his wife, she receives all the negative feedback. Like the female economist must have dragged down the quality of work.
And yes, I am very aware that my primary source is the man in the relationship. But that's primarily because she's too busy putting in the work, while he is the amiable First Gentleman. (I think the tweet count alone backs me up here)
posted by politikitty at 2:05 PM on November 12, 2015
And yes, I am very aware that my primary source is the man in the relationship. But that's primarily because she's too busy putting in the work, while he is the amiable First Gentleman. (I think the tweet count alone backs me up here)
posted by politikitty at 2:05 PM on November 12, 2015
Oh, great. Thanks. Angry Day it is then, I guess.
I will say I find it a little bit nice to see that at least there are men who aren't comfortable taking credit for things they haven't done. It is still all too common to see someone casting about looking for some man to credit with my work. I get a little cold comfort, at least, from the men who say, "What? No! What the fuck?" I kind of think that only a real loser would even be willing to accept credit for things they have nothing to do with, but for some reason, it's still notable when someone pushes back like that.
And it is truly horrifying how strong that bias can be.
I bought my house a few years before I even met my husband. I bought it by myself, completely man-free. My father was already dead. I was single. I had been divorced for several thousand years and had never gotten child support or anything, even. My house. Nobody else's. Mine mine mine. Mine, and, you know, the bank's.
Immediately, data miners started digging around looking for some man to address home improvement and home loan ads to. I got them addressed to my dead father, my long-long-long absent possibly dead ex-husband, my brothers who lived in other states, and eventually, they even started coming addressed to my son. (Most were addressed to me, but a consistent subset came addressed to those guys.) Those records are public, and it seems unnecessarily complicated to try to detective some dude into my house, when they could just check the property records and get it right, but there you have it.
Then, a few years after I'd bought the house, my boyfriend moved in, and the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. "Oh, finally! This must be the guy!"
Which culminated in something that will enrage me forever. My insurance company sent an adjuster to check on some damage repairs, my husband answered the door, and called me to come deal with him. The adjuster said, "Nice to meet you, Ma'am," gave me a limp handshake, and then proceeded to talk to my husband exclusively, not even letting me interrupt. My husband tried to explain. He said, "It's not my house. It's hers," and the guy responded, "Oh, ha ha! My wife is the same way! She's the one who is really in charge!" My husband and I were both interrupting at this point, trying to get across to the guy that this isn't some cute little indulgence where I am the silly, childlike lady who gets to decide what colors things should be and whether shoes can be worn in the house, but that I am the actual, real live sole mortgage holder who is actually in charge. Which should have been evidenced by the fact that mine was the only name on any of the paperwork the guy had, and it is not the same last name as my husband's, nor is it a dudely name (e.g., it is not "Ernie Lundquist" or anything ridiculous like that).
The guy could not process this information no matter what, so we gave up, and when he tried to get my husband to sign the little agreement about the repairs, I almost just left and let him sign it so I could later point out that the guy hadn't even gotten the required signature. I didn't want that asshole to come back, though, so I just forced the guy to let me sign it and complained to the company later.
Most people aren't quite as intractably stupid as that guy, fortunately, but this guy had not only the paperwork there with my name on it, but there were two reasonably articulate adults explaining to him that a lady owned a house, and his brain apparently just rejected that information completely.
So I guess it doesn't surprise me that it's a tough bias to overcome. Most of us should have a little easier time at it than that guy, but we all probably could work on it.
posted by ernielundquist at 2:59 PM on November 12, 2015 [36 favorites]
I will say I find it a little bit nice to see that at least there are men who aren't comfortable taking credit for things they haven't done. It is still all too common to see someone casting about looking for some man to credit with my work. I get a little cold comfort, at least, from the men who say, "What? No! What the fuck?" I kind of think that only a real loser would even be willing to accept credit for things they have nothing to do with, but for some reason, it's still notable when someone pushes back like that.
And it is truly horrifying how strong that bias can be.
I bought my house a few years before I even met my husband. I bought it by myself, completely man-free. My father was already dead. I was single. I had been divorced for several thousand years and had never gotten child support or anything, even. My house. Nobody else's. Mine mine mine. Mine, and, you know, the bank's.
Immediately, data miners started digging around looking for some man to address home improvement and home loan ads to. I got them addressed to my dead father, my long-long-long absent possibly dead ex-husband, my brothers who lived in other states, and eventually, they even started coming addressed to my son. (Most were addressed to me, but a consistent subset came addressed to those guys.) Those records are public, and it seems unnecessarily complicated to try to detective some dude into my house, when they could just check the property records and get it right, but there you have it.
Then, a few years after I'd bought the house, my boyfriend moved in, and the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. "Oh, finally! This must be the guy!"
Which culminated in something that will enrage me forever. My insurance company sent an adjuster to check on some damage repairs, my husband answered the door, and called me to come deal with him. The adjuster said, "Nice to meet you, Ma'am," gave me a limp handshake, and then proceeded to talk to my husband exclusively, not even letting me interrupt. My husband tried to explain. He said, "It's not my house. It's hers," and the guy responded, "Oh, ha ha! My wife is the same way! She's the one who is really in charge!" My husband and I were both interrupting at this point, trying to get across to the guy that this isn't some cute little indulgence where I am the silly, childlike lady who gets to decide what colors things should be and whether shoes can be worn in the house, but that I am the actual, real live sole mortgage holder who is actually in charge. Which should have been evidenced by the fact that mine was the only name on any of the paperwork the guy had, and it is not the same last name as my husband's, nor is it a dudely name (e.g., it is not "Ernie Lundquist" or anything ridiculous like that).
The guy could not process this information no matter what, so we gave up, and when he tried to get my husband to sign the little agreement about the repairs, I almost just left and let him sign it so I could later point out that the guy hadn't even gotten the required signature. I didn't want that asshole to come back, though, so I just forced the guy to let me sign it and complained to the company later.
Most people aren't quite as intractably stupid as that guy, fortunately, but this guy had not only the paperwork there with my name on it, but there were two reasonably articulate adults explaining to him that a lady owned a house, and his brain apparently just rejected that information completely.
So I guess it doesn't surprise me that it's a tough bias to overcome. Most of us should have a little easier time at it than that guy, but we all probably could work on it.
posted by ernielundquist at 2:59 PM on November 12, 2015 [36 favorites]
This is relevant to my interests!
First of all, I LOVE Justin Wolfers. Of all the economists I follow, he's my favorite. Partially because he's a great economist, partially because he is able to explain economic concepts in a way that is understandable to the layperson and partially (and this is a BIG partially) because he elevates the work and voices of women on twitter regularly, and has for years.
I have a lot of different people that I follow on twitter who correspond to different interests I have and when I looked at my list of finance/economics people a few years back, it was overwhelmingly, men. Meaning that out of maybe several dozen finance/econ people, maybe two were women. So I started to seek out women, because I work in finance, hate boys clubs and want role models. It was hard to find great women tweeters in this field, not because they're not there, but because dudes don't follow or RT them. The only reason I was able to find more women to follow (apart from the handful I already knew about through their blogs) was because Justin Wolfers will not shut up about bringing more visibility to women in economics, and I fucking love him for it. (Plus, his #fedvalentines hashtag game was one of my favorite hashtag things I've ever participated in AND one of mine was reprinted in the NYT's Dealbook, which made me super happy)
Anyway, the sexism in economics is pretty odious. Ralph Fucking Nader's idiotic comment was mentioned in the article, but I see other examples of it all the time. Janet Yellen in particular puts up with an epic boatload of bullshit on the regular. I remember watching her first televised appearance before Congress on CSPAN a few years ago and I almost straight up passed out from rage at the way some of the men were talking to her. It will go down in history as one of the only times I harbored any positive feelings about Michele Bachmann (who herself is no stranger to very ugly sexism), because when she asked a question, she wasn't condescending and basically just treated Yellen like she was a normal person.
Also, I've linked this here before, but here it is again: How big is the sexism problem in economics? This article’s co-author is anonymous because of it.
posted by triggerfinger at 4:38 PM on November 12, 2015 [13 favorites]
First of all, I LOVE Justin Wolfers. Of all the economists I follow, he's my favorite. Partially because he's a great economist, partially because he is able to explain economic concepts in a way that is understandable to the layperson and partially (and this is a BIG partially) because he elevates the work and voices of women on twitter regularly, and has for years.
I have a lot of different people that I follow on twitter who correspond to different interests I have and when I looked at my list of finance/economics people a few years back, it was overwhelmingly, men. Meaning that out of maybe several dozen finance/econ people, maybe two were women. So I started to seek out women, because I work in finance, hate boys clubs and want role models. It was hard to find great women tweeters in this field, not because they're not there, but because dudes don't follow or RT them. The only reason I was able to find more women to follow (apart from the handful I already knew about through their blogs) was because Justin Wolfers will not shut up about bringing more visibility to women in economics, and I fucking love him for it. (Plus, his #fedvalentines hashtag game was one of my favorite hashtag things I've ever participated in AND one of mine was reprinted in the NYT's Dealbook, which made me super happy)
Anyway, the sexism in economics is pretty odious. Ralph Fucking Nader's idiotic comment was mentioned in the article, but I see other examples of it all the time. Janet Yellen in particular puts up with an epic boatload of bullshit on the regular. I remember watching her first televised appearance before Congress on CSPAN a few years ago and I almost straight up passed out from rage at the way some of the men were talking to her. It will go down in history as one of the only times I harbored any positive feelings about Michele Bachmann (who herself is no stranger to very ugly sexism), because when she asked a question, she wasn't condescending and basically just treated Yellen like she was a normal person.
Also, I've linked this here before, but here it is again: How big is the sexism problem in economics? This article’s co-author is anonymous because of it.
posted by triggerfinger at 4:38 PM on November 12, 2015 [13 favorites]
> In Psychology for the most part the connected researchers know who is the top dog on a paper and the order of authorship doesn't necessarily communicate all that much. [blah blah blah]
So it really requires you to actually know in a deeper way who is doing the research in the field and institutional requirements rather than a cursory scan of an author list.
Not that I dispute any of the claims regarding sexist bias but the TLDR of my comment is that author order is complicated and its meaning is often ambiguous and unclear.
No, the TLDR of your comment is "Hello, ladies, I'm a man, let me mansplain how none of you know what you're talking about, but I do! You think certain things are important, but actually..."
Please don't do that. Thanks.
posted by languagehat at 5:21 PM on November 12, 2015 [15 favorites]
So it really requires you to actually know in a deeper way who is doing the research in the field and institutional requirements rather than a cursory scan of an author list.
Not that I dispute any of the claims regarding sexist bias but the TLDR of my comment is that author order is complicated and its meaning is often ambiguous and unclear.
No, the TLDR of your comment is "Hello, ladies, I'm a man, let me mansplain how none of you know what you're talking about, but I do! You think certain things are important, but actually..."
Please don't do that. Thanks.
posted by languagehat at 5:21 PM on November 12, 2015 [15 favorites]
We just always assume that the first author on any paper is a man who gets grants and runs labs, and that the second author is the real conceptual mastermind.
posted by ovvl at 6:37 PM on November 12, 2015
posted by ovvl at 6:37 PM on November 12, 2015
Not surprised this was written by Justin Wolfers. He's amazing on Twitter at calling this out. He also discusses that while he receives the kudos for his work with his wife, she receives all the negative feedback. Like the female economist must have dragged down the quality of work.
And yes, I am very aware that my primary source is the man in the relationship. But that's primarily because she's too busy putting in the work, while he is the amiable First Gentleman. (I think the tweet count alone backs me up here)
For some context: Betsey Stevenson, who is married (although not legally so, for tax reasons, I think?) to Justin Wolfers, is the former chief economist at the Department of Labor and until quite recently the chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisors. She is a boss, but has been very busy for the past few years :D
posted by dismas at 6:47 AM on November 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
And yes, I am very aware that my primary source is the man in the relationship. But that's primarily because she's too busy putting in the work, while he is the amiable First Gentleman. (I think the tweet count alone backs me up here)
For some context: Betsey Stevenson, who is married (although not legally so, for tax reasons, I think?) to Justin Wolfers, is the former chief economist at the Department of Labor and until quite recently the chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisors. She is a boss, but has been very busy for the past few years :D
posted by dismas at 6:47 AM on November 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
We just always assume that the first author on any paper is a man who gets grants and runs labs, and that the second author is the real conceptual mastermind.
yeah but in economics there typically not labs, so that particular convention doesn't have an analogy (also my impression for the physical sciences is that if you sort of touch the paper in a reasonable way you get to be an author, perhaps buried in the middle somewhere, but that's less true for economics, which has a culture of credited research assistants who are not authors. This is orthogonal to the topic at hand, I guess).
posted by dismas at 6:49 AM on November 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
yeah but in economics there typically not labs, so that particular convention doesn't have an analogy (also my impression for the physical sciences is that if you sort of touch the paper in a reasonable way you get to be an author, perhaps buried in the middle somewhere, but that's less true for economics, which has a culture of credited research assistants who are not authors. This is orthogonal to the topic at hand, I guess).
posted by dismas at 6:49 AM on November 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
Betsey Stevenson, who is married (although not legally so, for tax reasons, I think?) to Justin Wolfers
Yeah, they refer to each other as their "partner", and Wolfers has specifically said that it just doesn't make financial sense for them to be legally married. It hasn't seemed to hurt them -- when they moved to the University of Michigan a few years back, it was a standard spouse-and-spouse hire.
posted by Etrigan at 7:28 AM on November 13, 2015
Yeah, they refer to each other as their "partner", and Wolfers has specifically said that it just doesn't make financial sense for them to be legally married. It hasn't seemed to hurt them -- when they moved to the University of Michigan a few years back, it was a standard spouse-and-spouse hire.
posted by Etrigan at 7:28 AM on November 13, 2015
Author order is complicated. This article did however mention that econ has an alphabetic convention, only rearranged when it is particularly meaningfully (e.g. if the names *aren't* in alphabetic order it means something, otherwise all you can tell from author order is "this person's name starts with an A".)
Does that fit people's reality in econ? If so, the meaning of author order is clear in that context. (This does vary by field. My own field is pretty much strict alphabetical, but an adjacent one I sometimes do work with has a first-author=most special convention).
It's the responsibility of the reporting journalist to know the author order conventions for the fields they report on, and to ask if they do not know. It's also their responsibility to not automatically interpret author order convention in favor of the male collaborator.
posted by nat at 7:39 AM on November 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
Does that fit people's reality in econ? If so, the meaning of author order is clear in that context. (This does vary by field. My own field is pretty much strict alphabetical, but an adjacent one I sometimes do work with has a first-author=most special convention).
It's the responsibility of the reporting journalist to know the author order conventions for the fields they report on, and to ask if they do not know. It's also their responsibility to not automatically interpret author order convention in favor of the male collaborator.
posted by nat at 7:39 AM on November 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
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posted by Think_Long at 11:38 AM on November 12, 2015