Women - Stereotypes Need Apply

The recent news about Congressman Weiner has lead to discussions about why this happens to men and not women. Of course many of these discussions rely on generalizations and stereotypes - and this NY Times article is no different. When I see articles like this (or in a Political Science class I took in college studying leadership in politics), I often wonder how helpful and accurate the generalizations are. A statement like this seems way too comprehensive and therefore not accurate:

"There are certain men that the more visible they get, the more bulletproof they feel," Ms. Myers said. "You just don’t see women doing that; they don’t get reckless when they’re empowered."

Really? No women get reckless? But it is the quote that I find actually harmful:

"The shorthand of it is that women run for office to do something, and men run for office to be somebody," said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. "Women run because there is some public issue that they care about, some change they want to make, some issue that is a priority for them, and men tend to run for office because they see this as a career path."

The problem with generalizations is that they lead to stereotypes which then puts people into a box. Soon, we think all people in a category are a certain way or should be a certain way.

I realize that at first, this quote sounds good: women are the workhorses and men are the show-horses; women are about substance and men about style and ego. But actually it is pigeon-holing women. When you say women run for office to do something, men to becomes someone, you are essentially saying women shouldn't have ambition or ego.

And as this drives our expectations, when women do want to become someone, we bristle at that because she is acting unladylike. And as much as I didn't support Hillary Clinton's campaign (more on that in the future), I think she suffered from this.

And in fact, the reckless line creates the expectation that women won't do that and likely would make the backlash worse. And when I think back to my class on leadership, one of the articles identified differences in leadership styles between men and women where men are more commanding and women more about consensus. Again, this boxes women in.

The bottom line is that we should be very careful with generalizations and creating expectations about how people should act because of the group they are in. This way, they can be free to be who they are - women can be more interested in becoming someone or can be reckless and have only as much backlash as men get. Or they can continue to be the workhorses of government.

What Would Tell Me I am Wrong?

Dear Conservative,

I know you and I have a different perspective on how to improve the economy. I strongly believe that we need more fiscal stimulus and you believe that we don't and need to focus on cutting the budget instead. I get frustrated that the evidence is on my side and that you can't be looking at the evidence clearly to arrive at your position. It makes me crazy that you aren't challenging your assumptions.

So let me show you how it's done by challenging my assumptions. Here is the way I see it. We have high unemployment that isn't improving in any real way. So the two options for fixing that are monetary policy or fiscal policy.

Normally, to use monetary policy, the Federal Reserve would lower interest rates. This has the effect of making saving money less attractive than investing and spending money, having an expansionary effect. However, monetary policy will not work because interest rates cannot get any lower - they are at the zero bound (liquidity trap). In other words, it would take a negative interest rate to get people to decide to spend instead of save. So the only option is fiscal policy.

But what would it take to convince me that I am wrong? Any number of things. If unemployment were decreasing. Or if someone could show me that monetary policy would work (some say if we announced a policy to let inflation increase and promised to maintain it for a certain number of years). Or that fiscal policy will do more harm than good.

It seems conservatives (you) are trying to say that we should try neither monetary or fiscal policy - that things will get better if government gets out of the way. I thought the great depression proved that wrong.

There is also a mindset that if we cut budget deficits, the magic confidence fairy will allow for growth. But there is no evidence that current short-term budget deficits are causing investor concerns. Inflation and interest rates on government bonds remain low.

They (you) are also saying that fiscal policy will cause more problems, that more fiscal stimulus and the higher deficits that would go along with it will increase bond rates. But again bonds are very low right now.

In other words, I am convinced that I have already thought about what would convince me that I am wrong and none of those things hold. We are in a recession, and we need to take action to get out of it. Unfortunately, monetary policy won't work. And you won't let us pass fiscal stimulus. Maybe you should reconsider your position.

Update:
Further evidence that convinces me that I am not wrong: surveys by the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Small Business (hat tip, Jared Bernstein) shows that the economy or weak sales (respectively) are the biggest problems facing small businesses. Now, the NFSB finding speaks for itself, but the Chamber finding, where "the economy" is the biggest problem, needs some explaining. You'll see that the Chamber survey isn't really an attempt to figure out what businesses need, but to create a document they can use when lobbying Congress for tax cuts. Even with such a biased survey, businesses were more concerned with the economy - which I read as depressed sales (demand) - than with taxes.

Brooks on Fannie Mae

David Brooks has a column about Fannie Mae that is almost entirely accurate - except for one major distortion. Brooks talks about the problems of this particular public / private partnership. Fannie was a private lender with an implicit government guarantee and so was able to take big risks, make big profits, with the knowledge that they would be bailed out. And through lobbying and support from affordable housing-supportive congresspersons with pro-business congresspersons were able to prevent oversight and regulation.

All of this is true. But this following sentence is not true and I find it appalling:

Of course, it all came undone. Underneath, Fannie was a cancer that helped spread risky behavior and low standards across the housing industry. We all know what happened next.

Look, Fannie Mae's setup was very problematic (And if I remember right, George W. Bush wanted to increase oversight). They either need to be fully government-run or fully private with no government guarantee. There is an argument to be made that their role in providing liquidity to smaller banks is important for the housing market and can be done without making unsound loans.

But Fannie Mae did not spread risky behavior across the market. In fact, the evidence shows that Fannie Mae was late to the game when it came to risky loans. It had to play catch-up to the private groups like Goldman, et al. It frustrates me that this myth among conservatives, even moderates like Brooks, spreads without any evidence to back it up. The evidence is clear that the bulk of the risky behavior was in the private sector and started in the private sector.

Early 2012 Forecasting

My favorite site now by far for election forecasting is the NY Times 538 blog, which looks at politics through polling and statistics. They have had some good posts recently about the 2012 elections, so let's have a look. They are handicapping the Republican field in an interesting way and looking at Obama's chances given our economic situation.

First, the Republicans. The 538 blog feels that early polling can be a pretty good predictor of who will win the nomination. But in this case, they combine polling with name recognition to get an adjusted score. The theory here is that if a candidate polls well among the people who know him or her, then they have a good chance of winning. Looking back, this method fits the outcomes pretty well. So what do we see?

When the post was written, the two front-runners were Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee - who has since declined to run. Depending on the exact model, Tim Pawlenty looks good, too. After that, Palin, Trump (also not running - big surprise), Bachmann, etc don't look as good. In future posts, the blog says that Herman Cain actually looks pretty good - good support among people who know him but also little election experience - so something to keep an eye on.

Now for Obama. The blog tells us that there is no clear relationship between unemployment and presidential election outcomes. However, the overall state of the economy will be a factor. Obama's current ratings are better than the state of the economy would suggest but this tends to change as we get closer to the election.

Of course it is going to come down to whether the economy is seen as improving slightly and whether voters blame Republicans for the economy or think Obama has had enough time to make improvements and therefore is responsible. My personal feeling is that Obama has a tough case to make. He asked for one stimulus and said that would be enough. It clearly wasn't. He didn't ask for another one, even though good economic analysis clearly showed the need for it.

He probably could not have gotten it, but because he didn't ask, he can't blame the anemic growth and lack of improvement in jobs on obstructionist Republicans. Instead, it looks like fiscal stimulus failed. He went weak and he might pay for it. In some situations, it doesn't pay to be moderate.

All might not be lost, since his foreign policy looks pretty strong. Things are improving in Afghanistan and troops are coming home from Iraq. Also, Bin Laden has been killed, and he looks pretty good on Egypt and Libya.

The 538 blog (and Intrade) thinks Obama is still the favorite. I feel that the Republican field is pretty weak - Romney is a hypocrite, Pawlenty is both boring and his plans are laughable*, and the rest of the field is crazy. That being said, the economy is not looking good and I feel that if he loses because of the economy, it's Obama's own fault.

*In the original version of this post, I called Pawlenty a liar. That isn't what I meant, but was tired and left it in there. I was meaning to refer to his laughable prediction that he could get 5 percent growth over 10 years. It isn't exactly lying, but he is a fool or purposely exaggerating what he can achieve.