Principles of Persuasion That the Politicos Forgot

Buttons are one of the "Little Yesses" that leads to voter turnout

One could ask why the Dems took an uppercut in the midterm elections, but why quibble over details. The metaquestion is, why do so few people come out to vote? And if you look at some of the demographic elements the voting silence is deafening: I have 50 students collectively in the three classes I teach at Champlain College. Of them, two voted, and about 35 were utterly unaware there was an election going on. A colleague reported that of her 55 students, none had voted. Having not gotten into the habit of voting by age 22 or so--the age at which prior generations were either rioting in the streets or off fighting wars--I find it doubtful these students will ever be politically involved at a substantive scale.

To me, that's troubling. But I have an inkling why. There is a vast chasm of disconnect between voters and the politicians down there in Washington.  Blame for this widening gap can surely be placed on both sides of the equation; however, it's the politicos who have the better resources, institutional clout and historical savvy to reach across the divide.

What happened in the last ten to fifteen years -- along with the switch in tactics from persuading undecideds to a focus on preaching to the converted, which I've previously written about -- is that the major political parties have abandoned fundamental principles of persuasion proven effective from Aristotle to Dale Carnegie to Robert Cialdini, and instead embraced the principles of mass marketing initiated by Edward Bernays and developed by the Mad Men from the 1950s forward.

What has followed is a shift from campaigns emphasizing party platforms and individual leadership characteristics to campaigns focused on brand iconography and advertising slogans. The Dems and Reps are now Coke and Pepsi -- only marginally different, and keeping up enough of an illusion of competing with one another to distract us from the fact that what they are really trying to do is insure that soda -- or professional big-money politicos -- don't lose market share to, say, Snapple or actual grass-roots movements.

The people who don't buy soda are to Coke and Pepsi what the people who don't vote are to the professional big-money politicos -- as long as they don't cause a loss of market share and the profits keep rolling in, they don't matter at all. But -- in reality, in the last few years carbonated beverage sales are dropping as consumers begin to slide towards healthier, less sugary non-carbonated drinks (green tea, for example). Coke and Pepsi are being compelled to shift strategies, just a little bit, and think about those nonvoters.  Or rather, those non-soda-drinkers.

In the political arena, the big-money political industry has not had to shift yet to pay attention to nonvoters because those nonvoters are not coming up with anything that cuts into their market share. Government has the lock on lobbyist money, contracts, land, industry, jobs -- just about anything it wants. So until a 'healthier' political organizing option emerges -- perhaps a third party built on the time-honored principles of persuasion rather than mass marketing -- we can't government to pay any more attention to citizens, or citizens to feel any more connected to government.

In addition to skillful use of story -- so eloquently described here in Tiffany Bleumle's last post -- two of these most important persuasive elements are 'the little yes' and the personal endorsement.

 Get people to say 'Yes' to little things, and they'll experience a sense of commitment that will get them to say yes to big things. Politicians at the national level have abandoned the little tangibles like buttons and bumperstickers, mistakenly assuming that these are advertising devices and that you get more exposure for your buck by purchasing tv commercials.

True, buttons get you some exposure, but they do two things that tv ads can't. First, they are a 'little yes.' "Can I give you a button?" YES "Now you wear that every day, okay?" YES.  Get those two yesses out of someone, and they will drive to the moon through a snowstorm to vote for you. Getting someone to say Yes to anything related to the ultimate item at issue is a powerful facet of persuasion.

Secondly, few things are more persuasive in making up someone's mind than the ringing endorsement of a friend, neighbor, family member or respected work colleague. A button on the lapel of your best friend or closest colleague is far more effective than a tv ad. You smoke Camels because your brother does; you bought a Subaru because your neighbor really likes hers.

Some politicians are going for the cheapo roll-of-round-stickers option. This is a lame half-hearted attempt to get the Yes effect. You might get a 'yes' out of handing someone a sticker -- but the sticker is so ephemeral, can't be reworn with pride, and--if you're like me-- gets thrown in the wash with the garment and gets gummy crap all over everything so you have to run the load of laundry a second time, so it winds up being a negative thing. Or, the recipient has to rip it off and throw it away -- not the emotional association you want with the candidates name. Buttons are not so easily discarded, they tend to be treasured, collected, stuck on a bulletin board. Bumperstickers require scraping and often just stay on the car until it finally rusts to pieces. You don't get a sense of quality and pride with that ubiquitous sticker roll.

Vermont politicians had clung on to a vestige of the 'little yes' principle of persuasion with the every popular lawn sign. Asking supporters to put a lawn sign on their lawn gets that 'yes', and seeing that lawn sign on in a neighbor's front yard can create that personal endorsement effect. Unfortunately, it seems a growing number of Vermont politicians are tumbling into the marketing mindset with lawn signs, sticking zillions of them into the public right-of-way strips between road and sidewalk, creating an irritating and ugly mini-billboard landscape that accomplishes neither the 'little yes' nor the personal endorsement goals.

There are dozens of other ways to get people saying 'yes' to little elements of political involvement, which can lead to a higher likelihood of them coming out to vote. Asking people to serve as party committeepersons and block captains, going through their neighborhood each year with flyers and information, gets a core of 'yes-sayers' as well as demonstrating strong personal endorsements. Asking to add people's names to a published letter to the editor. Hosting a hundred little living-room coffee 'fundraisers' instead of one big $2500 a plate dinner. These things matter -- these are the things that get voters involved, committed, and to the polls.

Politicians adopted the marketing mindset that said if you bombard people with advertising, they'll buy your product. They missed an important element: Like Coke or Pepsi, the consumer may tend to prefer your product next time they are in the store grocery shopping, or next time they happen to be in the market for a car. But they won't go out on a limb -- climb in the car in the pouring rain and drive across town in the dark to get to their polling place before going to work -- for your advertised product. They have not said 'yes'. They have not made a commitment and thus do not feel compelled to expend energy to fulfill that commitment. Quite simply, they will not come out to vote.

#vtEconNeeds

On October 13 a Twitter user named Bob Farnum (@bobthegreenguy on Twitter) used the hashtag #vtEconNeeds to promote a live tweeting event scheduled for October 21, where for 90 minutes Dean Corren (@Dean_Corren) candidate for Vermont Lt. Governor would field questions and offer conversation via Twitter regarding Vermont’s “creative economy.”  During the next several days candidate Corren offered various tweets such as “LT gov in Vermont ‘can be the incubator for creativity’” and “doing nothing on health care is not an option”, all hashtagged “vtEconNeeds”.  We can debate whether Twitter and the concept of a “live tweet” session is a suitable medium to have a serious political conversation.  Twitter allows a user to express itself in 140 character bites and if you are of the opinion that television sound bites ruined political discourse during the past 50 years then you will really dislike the notion of political discourse Twitter style.  I will hand it to candidate Corren, he is doing something other statewide candidates are not doing and striding boldly into the Twitosphere to engage the creative economistas.  I give him an A for creative effort.  

There were less than 50 original tweets during the 90 minute session.  23 of these tweets were from candidate Corren himself and some received some replies and resulted in an actual twitter conversation.  By my count there were 15 of these conversations. I give that a B- for audience engagement.  Many of the posts were retweeted but most were just retweeted once by one person.  For whatever reason (perhaps simply poor promotion but possibly because people just aren’t interested) there were few of Vermont’s creative class participating at least in real time.  There were no notable Vermont creative class entrepreneurs participating in the event from what I could tell although perhaps they were following along silently as some sort of creative class silent majority.

There were a number of posts about health care and about cell service and bandwidth speed for broadband internet.  I will not delve into those in the essence of brevity.  I agree there is much to complain about in terms of health care and cell service and bandwidth speed.  Nothing new here and I don’t think a live tweet is a good way to engage around these issues.  

Let me dissect one of the Twitter conversations which I found somewhat amusing. Hansen for State Rep (@OVTElection) noted in one tweet “642 total Kickstarter projects from Vermont: 12 currently live, 376 successful. Let’s look at the 254 that didn’t make it!” Interesting notion here as Kickstarter has become a way for non-profit and for profit entities to fund startup projects, performances, novels, films etc.  In my experience though (my firm periodically studies the Kickstarter market in Vermont) there are many artistic endeavors and projects seeking funding through Kickstarter and not so many for profit business ventures.  About 2 years ago we looked at 179 Kickstarter projects. 20% were music (help me record my CD for instance) and there was a slightly smaller percentage that were publishing (help me publish my novel), and art (help me buy a kiln), and film and TV (help me make my movie).  In any event from what I could tell none of the 179 Kickstarter projects we looked at then had much job creation potential.  Given that, I am not sure why Hansen for State Rep wants to look at the 254 failed Kickstarter projects.  Presumably the failed projects were not well presented, or of dubious value, or lacked the special something that makes Kickstarter projects successful.  Here’s the cold hard fact. The world is a competitive place. Not all projects deserve to be funded.  The state has no role in picking through the Kickstarter losers to see if there may be a diamond in the rough. However candidate Corren tweeted back “imagine of the LT gov was a clearing house for this kind of thing”.  Hmmmm I can in fact imagine that and the result is not pretty. But @bobthegreenguy Tweeted back “Let’s look at the 376 successful ones too! What are their needs? Funded businesses hire faster than unfunded”.  As I pointed about above, few Kickstarter projects are actually businesses.  Many (in fact most) are simply artistic projects or soloprenuerial at best. My opinion: limited benefit to this approach from an economic development (#vtEconNeeds remember) perspective. However, Hansen for State Rep tweets back “That’s a terrific idea – the official state facilitator” and @health_citizen chimes in “that’s the real type of facilitation we need from the Lt Gov job creation facilitation”.  Oh boy that is just where I want my tax dollars going to work.  I want Vermont’s Lt Gov to become the ombudsman for failed Kickstarter projects.  In terms of this conversation, my assigned grade is F. 

If a candidate wants to determine #vtEconNeeds, the platform for engagement is face to face on a grassroots level and the engagement is built conversation by conversation for many, many years.  It's well known that to master something one needs to spend 10,000 hours (the equivalent of 5 full years of 40 hour work weeks) to achieve proficiency.  My suggestion to Vermont candidates who wish to master #vtEconNeeds, is to start now and plan to run in 2020. 

Cairn Cross

Threats of Rape and Murder at Goddard

WARNING: Ugly, disturbing language follows

People of goodwill can have differing opinions about the decision by a Goddard graduating class to have Mumia Abu-Jamal deliver the commencement address from prison. People of goodwill can debate the merits of the case against him, as well as whether or not he received a fair trial.

But people of goodwill took a backseat after Fox News took over, in its insatiable urge to incite the scary crazies of the world. Since they leaped on the issue in their own, inimitable style, the most disgusting threats of violence have, naturally, been pouring in over the phone and email lines from the Fox faithful.

Interesting how this likely won't be so newsworthy. At least not nationally. "Boys will be boys," maybe?

Adding insult to injury is the feeling among some at the College that the State Police did not take the threats seriously - until Governor Shumlin's office was contacted directly. That's according to the scuttlebutt in full circulation, at any rate. A charge like that is obviously tough to confirm.

Here are some examples of the threats being received by Goddard employees. It's about as vile as it gets, so be prepared:

• "You're a fucking whore and I hope your family goes through the same ill fate Danny Faulkner's family suffered at the hands of this maniac you invited to speak at your joke of a school." 
• "Hey, if I rape one of your students and slit her throat - can I become a Graduation Day Speaker?"
• "Fuck you.  You're a filthy, rotten cunt for being involved with the decision to bring that scumbag, sub human piece of dog shit to that hell hole, joke of a college of yours.  I hope that Mumia somehow manages to get free so him and his boys can run a train on your hippy liberal ass and they take turns stuffing that dirty prison cock up that funky little ass of yours... although a pig like you would probably like that.  Eat shit you fucking skank."

More on this soon, but that's all I can stomach for the moment.

- John Odum

THE POWER AND PERIL OF STORIES

(This post is adapted from a speech delivered at a June 4, 2014 conference for educators sponsored by the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation.)

Our culture is literally awash in stories: tweets and posts on Facebook or Instagram, Pinterest boards, YouTube rants, and round-the-clock newscasts. We trade emails about TED Talks we like and pine for the next edition of Radiolab. Nearly everyone I know has participated in, or is preparing for, a storytelling slam.Telling a story is the easiest, most exciting way to explain a problem, describe a condition, make a friend, or sum up a situation. Stories are also an incredibly powerful teaching tool. 

Why?

We’re wired for them. Research indicates that stories are 22x more memorable than facts or bullet points because they activate, not just the language processing parts of our brain, but other parts as well: If someone tells us about how delicious certain foods are, our sensory cortex lights up. If they tell us a story that involves motion, our motor cortex gets active. Because our brains are always trying to make sense of what we are hearing, they are constantly seeking connections to whatever experiences we may have squirrelled away in memory.

Researchers at Princeton University found that a remarkable thing happens to our minds when we hear a story. Personal stories actually cause the brains of both storyteller and listener to exhibit what the study called “brain to brain coupling.” To put it simply, telling personal stories puts us in sync with the listener and helps forge human connections that are essential to our well-being.

They can make us stronger and more resilient. Studies conducted by Emory University psychologists over the past two decades appear to demonstrate that family narratives – about where one’s parents met and where they lived as children, about how a grandparent earned a living, or a setback that put the family in debt – actually foster resilience in children. The more children know about their past, the stronger their sense of control over their lives: indeed, researchers determined that familiarity with one’s family narratives was the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness.

So what of storytelling’s perils?

Just as narrative can be a powerfully positive force in our lives, it can limit, oversimplify, or silence. In a TED talk that has now enjoyed 7 million hits, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie reflects on the way in which stories - specifically, a single story with cultural currency -- can reduce a people or a country to stereotypes. That single story, she explains, can become the only story that we know. For example, she relates how her mother repeatedly described her family houseboy as poor. When Adichie visited him in his home village, she recalls being startled to enter a home in which she is shown beautiful baskets woven by the boy’s brother. “All I’d heard about my poor houseboy’s family is that they were poor so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything but poor. Their poverty was my single story of them.”  It simply didn’t compute: poor people could not make or have such beautiful things.

In another TED talk economist Tyler Cowen regarded storytelling with a particularly jaundiced eye.

“I was told to come here and tell you stories,” he said, “but what I’d like to do is instead tell you why I’m suspicious of stories, why stories make me nervous. In fact,” he continues, “the more inspired a story makes me feel, very often the more nervous I get…The good and bad things about stories is that they’re a kind of filter. They take a lot of information and they leave some of it out, and they keep some of it in…”

We make sense of our lives, Cowen laments, by squeezing our choices and events into a single, manageable, perhaps heroic, narrative. “If I actually had to live those journeys and quests and battles,” he states, “it would be so oppressive to me! It's like, my goodness, can't I just have my life in its messy, ordinary…glory? It's fun for me - do I really have to follow some kind of narrative? Can't I just live?”

I found his message especially refreshing as a professional in human services who is asked often to share stories about our graduates. I used to like telling them. But they have begun to make me uncomfortable. A story captures a snapshot in time. On Wednesday I could tell you about a graduate who had enjoyed particular success – by Friday, she might have gone back to jail, relapsed, or been fired. Life is fragile and dynamic, particularly for many of the women with whom we work. Stories also skim over details that if examined closely might make the difference between a good program and a superior one. 

As funders and advocates, we hunger for stories that follow a particular arc: she was in prison and without hope; she enrolled in our program and developed skills; she graduated and now owns her own company. Some stories follow that line, but most don’t; they’re pocked by crises of confidence, misguided decisions, or a bout of bad luck. Now I don’t wait to trumpet the grand success but instead celebrate the small steps, with the hope that there will continue to be forward movement. It is more honest, and is fairer to the participant, who can be overwhelmed by our hopes and expectations.

Finally, in our zeal to share our stories we may drown others out.  We might offer our stories as a means of connecting with or supporting young people. But too often, I think, our voices crowd out those we need to hear or assert similarities where in fact there may be few.

Striking a Balance

We shouldn’t stop telling stories just because they’re tricky. Stories are critical if we’re to help young people figure out who they are and what they can become.

One of the best memoirs I’ve ever read is The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. I like it, not just because it is so beautifully written or because its story is compelling, but also because its author offers a portrait of parents who could be both abusive and tender, stunningly oblivious and surprisingly clear-eyed. A passage from the book describes a Christmas evening spent with her father, a gambling alcoholic who once offered his daughter to the winner of a pool game:

“When Christmas came that year, we had no money at all. On Christmas Eve, Dad took each one of us kids out into the desert night one by one. 

‘Pick out your favorite star’, Dad said.

‘I like that one!’ I said.

Dad grinned, ‘That's Venus", he said. He explained to me that planets glowed because reflected light was constant and stars twinkled because their light pulsed.

‘I like it anyway,’ I said.

‘What the hell,’ Dad said. ‘It's Christmas. You can have a planet if you want.’
And he gave me Venus.

Venus didn't have any moons or satellites or even a magnetic field, but it did have an atmosphere sort of similar to Earth's, except it was super hot-about 500 degrees or more.

‘So,’ Dad said, ‘when the sun starts to burn out and Earth turns cold, everyone might want to move to Venus to get warm. And they'll have to get permission from your descendants first.’

“We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. ‘Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten,’ Dad said, ‘you'll still have your stars.’

I was so confused by this – a sweet and enduring gesture from a man that two pages earlier I’d wanted to punch. But it is precisely why I loved this book and admire Walls. Her father is neither monster nor saint but a complicated tangle of contradiction. 

All of us, but particularly parents or professionals who work with children, need to recognize stories for what they are: a distillation, a way to organize and understand. As Cowen suggests, we should be discerning consumers of the stories we hear and wonder what might have been left out. We must also be as honest as possible in shaping the stories that we tell, maybe even leaving in the messy parts and foregoing a tidy ending. Human existence is essentially complex and often contradictory. Storytelling should be, too.  

And you know what? Not only can young people handle it – they need it.  

- Tiffany Bluemle

Off With Their Heads! Media Imagery and the Emotional Manipulation of the American Public

"Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, `and then,' thought she, `what would become of me? They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there's any one left alive!'" --Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 1865 (image public domain)

Beheading is a time-honored execution method.  France no doubt still holds the record in the beheading department, having knocked off about 40,000 a year at the height of the guillotine era. That glittering machine not only slid heads neatly off of necks at a fearsome pace, but it stood as a testament to Western scientific development, allowing gravity and leverage to make elegant, modern work of what otherwise requires brute force and a wickedly sharp blade.  Science was further advanced by the many impromptu studies of how long those decapitated heads maintained consciousness, with various doctors and witnesses counting how long the eyes of the severed caput continued blinking or turned to look at speakers. Great crowds watched these execution extravaganzas: In the days before the World Wrestling Federation, beheadings, like burnings-at-stakes, ripping-apart-on-the-rack, and other such solemn occasions, were grand entertainment. 

The response of Americans to beheadings in the news today is an interesting case study in the power of media and the role media agendas play in steering national opinion and policy.  

The first point of interest is that executing people in and of itself doesn't bother Americans. According to data from the Death Penalty Information Center American executions have skyrocketed since the early 1980s, going from averages of single digits per year to a new normal averaging about 50 a year every year since 2000.  Recent difficulties in procuring legal execution drugs have resulted in some outright gruesome executions in which the person being executed took far longer to die than he would have with a swift severing of the head. 

A mild, predictable round of head-shaking and muttering occurred after these botched American execution incidents, with some people complaining that the decedent did not suffer enough, and others protesting that we shouldn't be in the business of killing people. But there was no wave of hysteria, no demands that someone bomb Texas or Oklahoma to make them stop this barbarism. As a nation, we have no problem with the concept of executions -- we just want to split hairs over who can do them, by what method, and for what reason.

Americans also apparently have no trouble with other countries conducting executions. While the U.S. performs the 5th highest number of executions per year in the world, we are far overshadowed by the number 1 executioner, our chief trading partner China. Amnesty International has had a hell of a time getting accurate data, but it appears that several thousand people are executed each year in China, by lethal injection or firing squad. But there's no outcry to bomb China, either; in fact, virtually no condemnation whatsoever. Instead there are invitations to the White House and shiny new trade agreements. 

Which raises the second point of interest -- apparently beheading in and of itself doesn't bother Americans either. America's bosom buddy, the House of Saud, executes hundreds of people a year, many by beheading. While Americans have been gnashing teeth in outrage over the public beheadings of two Western journalists by the entity which American media calls the Islamic State, Saudia Arabia has been calmly wacking off heads with swords for such horrendous crimes as being mentally ill or committing adultery. 

Yet no one is demanding that we bomb Saudi Arabia. In fact, we are tightening our military alliances with them and taking public steps to demonstrate just how tight and secure the U.S. relationship is with this tyrannical oligarchy.  

Which brings us to the third point to ponder: Having already established that America doesn't care if people are executed -- in fact, we support the proposition -- and that America doesn't care if people are beheaded -- heck, our dear friends the sheiks do it all the time -- then why did a couple of beheadings by the group we call the Islamic State lead to such a vehement public reaction that we are expending millions of dollars to drop bombs into a multi-party armed conflict in Syria? 

The answer is the emotional impact -- often deliberately designed  and manipulated -- of media coverage of the incidents. We do not see our own executions, or the beheadings committed by Saudi Arabia, on the tv news or even on the internet. When they are mentioned, they are discussed as abstract data or in a context which makes them appear rational. 

Either the media, or powers-that-be which use the media to manipulate the public, have determined that the actions of IS are to be presented in a highly emotional context designed to foster a sense of fear and hysteria. Real information about what is going on in IS-held territories is hard to come by. Obviously there is war, and people are getting killed and run out of their homes and villages. It certainly behooves us out of simple empathy for our fellow humans to provide humanitarian aid to those caught in such crossfires. But what compels Americans to feel an urgent need to enter into a war in a venue in which we have no direct interest? 

In Iraq, some years ago, it was the theory that Saddam Hussein was a Nazi-like force of evil with weapons of mass destruction. Today, it's that IS is a Nazi-like force of evil that beheads people.  But atrocities are always alleged in war. (Name one war in which it was NOT alleged that the enemy was putting children's heads on pikes and raping women.)  Internet watchdog Snopes points out  the difficulties in determining the extent of beheadings and rapes occurring in the territories being taken over by IS -- and notes, by way of cautionary tale, that at least some of the pictures of beheaded individuals circulating which are attributed to IS have in fact been making internet rounds for years, attributed to various individuals or entities depending on the particular furor intended to be ignited.

Is a media-imagery-generated emotional response a good reason to go to war? In the present case it's hard to pinpoint any more rational explanation for the bombs we are presently dropping on Syria. Not only have we established that America doesn't mind executions or even beheadings, we also don't mind supporting rebels overthrowing established governments -- we've backed the revolutionaries on numerous occasions, and were already in the process of backing rebels seeking to overthrow the government in Syria, only now we only like some of those rebels and not others. 

Motivational speaker Justin Cohen rightly says that we are not rational creatures, we are rationalizing creatures. We decide based on emotion and then look for a short dossier of facts to back up our emotional decisions. Since nothing moves emotions faster than story, and nothing conveys story faster than a few well-chosen visual images on commercial news media, it is frighteningly easy to manipulate the public of the most powerful nation in the world into going to war. Rest assured, however, that the photos of the women and children whose heads will be blown off by the bombs we drop, will never show up on the news. 

--Cindy Hill

Man's World

While it's a great thing to step back and consider the significant progress made in the last few decades towards social and economic equality for women, the fact is you never have to wait very long before encountering a stark reminder of just how much work is left to do.

The last couple weeks brought a bitter example right in our backyard.

Consider two biographies on the website of the Vermont Supreme Court. "Justice A"'s resume indicates a law degree from Suffolk Law School in Boston, followed by seventeen years of private practice in Vermont before being appointed to the High Court by Governor Douglas.

"Justice B"'s resume shows a law degree from the University of Chicago, followed by experience as a clerk on the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and then 18 years of private practice in Vermont before being appointed by Governor Shumlin.

One of these two currently serving justices has recently had their qualifications for appointment to the court called into question, and by no less then a former Vermont Governor.

If you find yourself uncertain as to which of the two resumes above was found wanting, let me help; "Justice A" is a man (Chief Justice Paul Reiber), and "Justice B" is a woman (Associate Justice Beth Robinson).

In his recent autobiography, former Governor Jim Douglas openly casts aspersions on Justice Robinson's fitness for the Supreme Court, writing that "[Governor Shumlin] was a strong proponent of gay marriage. Since he was nominated by a scant 200 votes in the Democratic primary, their support may well have provided the margin of victory. He later reciprocated by appointing one of the leading lobbyists of the movement to the Vermont Supreme Court," referring to Robinson (big hat tip to John Walters and Mark Johnson for bringing this up).

For women, this is an all-too-familiar story. Rarely does a woman professional receive a significant promotion or appointment without jokes or open speculation that the recognition must be based on something other the merit, be it their appearance, the perception of quotas, a desire to be "politically correct," or - as in this case - as part of some underhanded deal or special arrangement.

The narrative is so pervasive that many women find themselves questioning their own worthiness when they are recognized for their own merit and accomplishments (See The Confidence Gap)

This is not to suggest that there are not instances of men's promotions being questioned, of course. The point is that for men, such challenges are the exception. Men are generally given the benefit of the doubt.

For women, though, there is frequently an implicit burden of proof to be met, as this sort of question is, more often than not, the norm. Having the charge so casually made by a former Governor (who himself appointed similarly-qualified male candidates to the Court), makes it a particularly bitter reminder of why talented, intelligent, accomplished women leaders continue to struggle to be taken seriously as full partners in so many of our business and governmental institutions.

- John Odum

Going There, part 1

© 2013 Kim Knox Beckius

Sorry. Been away for a while. Lots to do. But there's one thing that's been driving me nuts, and I can't keep quiet any longer.

Heady Topper: It's fine. Pretty good, even (and it's delightful to see The Alchemist doing so well).

But come on...

Discuss?

- John Odum (don't blame the others)

This is News?

In Wednesday’s NY Times, Tom Friedman reported on new Gallup research on what influences success and engagement at work (link here). What mattered the most? A supportive mentor and hands-on exposure to the field.

Friedman quotes Brandon Busteed, executive director of Gallup’s education division:

“Graduates who told Gallup that they had a professor or professors ‘who cared about them as a person — or had a mentor who encouraged their goals and dreams and/or had an internship where they applied what they were learning — were twice as likely to be engaged with their work and thriving in their overall well-being,’ Busteed said.

“Alas, though, only 22 percent of college grads surveyed said they had such a mentor and 29 percent had an internship where they applied what they were learning. So less than a third were exposed to the things that mattered most.”

From my perspective at Vermont Works for Women, exposure to a field and experience in using its tools is what opens the door to fields like construction, engineering, science or policing. Mentors make a particular difference in whether she is successful and stays. A 2009 report published by the National Research Council affirmed that women in science who had a mentor did better than women without one. In a survey of tenured female faculty in biology, chemistry, mathematics, civil engineering, electrical engineering, and physics, they found that assistant professors with no mentors had 68 percent probability of having grant funding versus 93 percent of women with mentors. That’s a twenty-five percent difference!

What surprises me about Friedman’s column is the way in which he appears to present these findings as new. Learning by doing has been endorsed through the ages by Da Vinci, Thoreau, Dewey, Kurt Hahn and John Holt. Bill Gates quit school to build computers; do we really need to be convinced of the value of applied learning? Mentors have had champions for centuries; one need look only to the ancient apprenticeship model, where mentors are a critical component of training.

Mentors and applied learning have proven their value, over and over again. The challenge, apparently, lies in applying what we’ve learned.

-- Tiffany Bluemle

Divide and Conquer: In the Great Abortion War, the Casualties are Women’s Lives

It’s the ideological battle of the century: Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life.  Let’s skip pondering how much each of those factions paid their high-priced marketing firms to come up with those positive-sounding monikers and go straight to the heart of the matter: As long as women remain locked in a claws-out, sparks-flying perpetual stranglehold over the legality of abortion, women will continue to be held back from political advancement, perceived as a one-issue constituent group.   

And in the real world, in hospitals on the poor side of the city, in small towns across America, and in villages across the world, women and children will continue to die of eminently preventable causes in childbirth and from childbirth complications like obstetric fistula that are not addressed or funded because the women with the most resources and political clout in the world – white middle and upper class American women – are busy funding and fighting the Abortion War.  Every time a woman sends her hard-earned, eighty-six-cents-on-the-dollar check to the National Right to Life Committee or NARAL, she has chosen to let another woman or baby die in childbirth while bolstering the one-horse-wonder political philosophy that abortion is the most important women’s issue.

Money is the sinew of war.  The most recent solid data I found reports that NARAL had a budget of over $11 million annually in 2008, and the National Right to Life Committee a budget of over $9.5 million in 2009.  I assume they’ve both gone up since then. And I assume (confirmed in part by research into some randomly selected state groups across the country) that all the myriad local components – every state chapter, local chapter, church group, etc. – has a combined budget in excess of that of the two major national organizations. A very conservative estimate would be that $50 million is spent annually on the pro and anti abortion debate in the United States.

Every battle has its ‘collateral damage.’ In a war of public rhetoric, high-paid lobbyists and paid advertisements, one way to describe that collateral damage is in terms of opportunities lost. The opportunities lost due to the abortion war are threefold.

First, the money sent to this battle could have, in a very real and immediate sense, been used to save the lives of women and children by paying for the set of medications commonly necessary in childbirth (about ten medical commodities, according to the UN, including injectable antibiotics, oral rehydration salts, and zinc, at a cost of about $6.40 per woman-giving-birth), and for procedures to repair childbirth injuries such as obstetric fistula surgery (which costs about $300 per woman). Whether your partisanship in the abortion war falls along the side of saving infant’s lives, or enhancing women’s autonomy and dignity, that $100 check will do a lot more of either if it’s sent to UNFPA’s Maternal Health Thematic Fund or to entities like Doctors Without Borders earmarked for maternal and infant health programs than if it’s sent to NARAL or the National Right to Life Committee to pay for lobbyists and magazine ads. 

Second, the intense media and public focus on abortion costs us the opportunity to discuss the vast array of other critical issues surrounding maternal and infant health, even at home in America. For example, the U.S. is the only western nation where the maternal mortality rate is on the rise. The maternal mortality rate in America was 6.6 per 100,000 live births in 1987, 12.7 in 2007, and according to the most recent figures available from the World Bank and WHO, 28 per 100,000 in 2013.  The maternal mortality rate for black women in the US is nearly three times as high as that for white women – meaning the odds of a black woman dying in childbirth in this US are higher than in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, and Iran. If we are to assume that the objective of the women who are carrying pro and anti abortion banners is actually to save the lives of women and children out of respect for all life and all families, rather than merely engaging in ideological debate for the sake of ideological debate, then they all should be collectively screaming in the streets over the U.S. maternal mortality rate.  Email Congress and the White House – I send Michelle Obama a weekly note on this issue but have yet to get a single reply – and send that $100 check to your local hospital earmarked to cover prenatal care for persons of limited resources.

Thirdly, by keeping all these intelligent, passionate, activist women who care deeply about reproductive health and the lives of women, children and families fighting with one another tooth and nail, the hyperbolic abortion debate costs us the opportunity to engage in dialogue designed to work productively towards our common interests. Enhanced reproductive health education. Development of easier-to-use, more effective, and less medically dangerous family planning methods. Community support for pregnant women and new mothers, especially those who are young and single. Removing toxins from our environment that harm fetal and maternal health. Support for increased participation of men in childrearing – financial, economic and physical – especially young unmarried fathers.

There will always remain a fundamental disagreement as to whether abortion should be legal or not, as well as whether it is a morally appropriate option, an unacceptable evil, or a necessary evil. But when nearly 300,000 women die globally each year in childbirth, and another million women suffer debilitating childbirth related injuries and infections – and ten million children die each year in infancy or early childhood – most of which could be prevented for very little money, you have to seriously question whether the pro and anti abortion activists are really much interested in ‘saving children’ or ‘enhancing women’s lives’ or if they are simply committed to fighting with one another.

 

I have tried for years to get any entity in Vermont to facilitate a dialogue between Vermont’s pro-life and pro-abortion contingents. I think that these factions have much to talk about – like why, despite Vermont having a stellar reputation in all aspects of health care and particularly children’s health, we have a merely average abortion rate – about 1 per every 6 lives births, or 1300 a year. Most Vermont abortions involve pregnant women in their early 20s – probably related to the high number of college students.  Wouldn’t it make sense for the women of Vermont—pro choice and pro life -- to work together on diminishing the unintended pregnancy rate in our state, and to reach out to see what the disconnect is at our colleges? To work together to clean up our waterways that present hazards to our unborn and growing children? To create stronger community networks to support young mothers financially, emotionally and physically? 

But apparently they’d all prefer to fight. With very rare exception, the response to my proposal that women of divergent views engage in meaningful dialogue has been met with facial expressions similar to those seen in response to the latest IS beheading video. I’ve been told, pointedly, by individuals from both sides, that they would NEVER talk to THOSE PEOPLE who disagree with them.

Like most wars, the partisans get wrapped up in their self identity as a warrior and lose sight of the underlying purpose of their cause. They’ll keep writing those checks to the side of their choice, even though that decision means they are knowingly standing by watching women and babies die completely preventable deaths in the U.S. and around the world.  They’ll keep waving those signs, marching on state capitals and Washington, pressing candidates to take a side, and telling women that you are either for us or against us. All while the solution to saving and improving the lives of women, children and families is right there in their hands: Stop fighting, start working.

--Cindy Hill