Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Thursday, March 22, 2018
Confirm Pompeo, Deny Haspel
BRETT GRAHAM | COLUMN
C
orporate America has a lot of
work to do if it wants to achieve
any form of gender equity.
According to a 2014 fact sheet from
the Center for American Progress,
women earn almost 60 percent of all
bachelor’s degrees and 60 percent of
master’s degrees. Yet, somehow, they
make up only 14.6 percent of executive
officers, 8.1 percent of top earners and
4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs. They
hold only 16.9 percent of Fortune 500
board seats.
Here we face a dilemma. We
want the girls and young women
to grow up and earn these upper-
level business positions, therefore
increasing gender equality in the
business world. But we also know,
based on these statistics alone,
corporate America isn’t always
the most welcoming place for a
woman. How can we ensure the
women who enter the business
world feel empowered to believe
they are capable of earning a
highly-paid leadership position?
According
to
Quinnipiac
University’s
Women’s
Rugby
Head Coach Becky Carlson, the
first D1 women’s NCAA coach for
a full-contact sport, the first step
to achieving gender equity in the
workplace is working toward gender
equity in sports, she said in a phone
interview with The Daily.
More than 3.2 million girls in
the United States played high school
sports in 2010, and about 200,000
young women played college sports
in 2012. This is often their first
experience working as part of a team
to achieve a greater goal, and one of
their first experiences taking on a major
leadership role, such as team captain.
The skills student athletes obtain
through their sport translate directly to
the business world. Unfortunately, for
female athletes, playing a sport is often
also their first experience facing blatant
sexual discrimination.
Carlson often notices major gender
inequity in college athletics, even when
it means schools are noncompliant
with Title IX, the law that requires
federally-funded institutions (such as
public schools) do not discriminate
based on sex. At athletic events and
seminars, she often explains her
position to athletic directors and
administrators by saying, “Women’s
Varsity Rugby, the only full contact
sport of women in the NCAA.”
“I get this response from people,
and it ranges from insulting, to, ‘Oh,
sweetie, our gender equity is fine,
we don’t need you’ or, ‘You don’t look
like a rugby player,’” she explained
in a phone interview. “I often got
the, ‘We’re in compliance (with Title
IX), we’re fine,’ and I would always
take notes on these universities that
would say this, and they were not fine
or in compliance.”
Even though Title IX was
implemented almost half a century
ago, the glaring gender inequity in
today’s sports world is no secret.
According to Athletic Business, girls’
sports lack not only recognition,
but uniforms and equipment. Take
a trip to any high school athletic
facilities and this will be made
abundantly clear. Or look at the
ESPN or Sports Illustrated website
to see that the sports world values the
accomplishments of its male athletes
much more highly than those of
female athletes. Would it be much
of a surprise if after female athletes
graduate and enter the workplace,
they subconsciously internalize the
idea that their accomplishments are
not as valuable as those of their
male counterparts?
“If we’re doing what we’re
supposed to be doing in athletics —
and it doesn’t have anything to do
with dribbling, kicking, running,
passing — it has everything to do
with preparing them for what lies
ahead,” Carlson said. “And what
lies ahead is a system that is not
going to ask you if you’d like a raise,
it is a system that is not going to ask
you to speak louder, it’s just going
to pass you over.”
Carlson believes her primary role
as a coach is to empower her athletes to
succeed beyond the playing field.
“The first pitch that I make when
I’m with recruits isn’t, ‘Hey, this is the
scholarship opportunity and this is how
great it is to play on the field and this is
the amenities we have,’” she said. “No,
the first pitch is, ‘I want you to leave here
with the understanding that you can
speak in the boardroom.’”
Her goal is for her athletes to
graduate feeling comfortable asking
questions, speaking up and negotiating
their salaries. She doesn’t want them to
graduate with the belief that no matter
how hard they worked, they would
still be second class compared to their
male counterparts. Achieving this goal
begins on the rugby field.
“I coach a full contact sport
and we’ve been three-time national
champions,” she said. “And I still see
that when an athlete tackles and goes
down for a second and needs a moment
to shake it off and get up, our male
trainers are up, off the bench, running
out there. I’m like, give them a second.
Give them a second … That never
happens when a male athlete needs a
second. They’re not running out there.
We rush; we see (women) as weaker.
That’s something in our athletes that I
would like to see change. I would like
for us to be able to say, ‘I would push this
athlete the same way I would push a
male athlete.’”
In other instances, she has seen
women coaches criticized for being
too “harsh” on their athletes, when
male coaches are respected for the
very same coaching tactics.
“It’s always, ‘She’s tough on them
and he’s a great leader,’” she lamented.
“They show Coach K and they’ll show
Geno and in every photo those guys
are coaching and they look serious and
they look badass, right? It’s revered:
It’s strength, it’s impressive, it is a
champion’s face. And then you take
the pictures that DNT has been using
of Shannon (Miller) and she’s greedy,
stubborn, unwilling to work.”
Carlson noted that this mindset
translates directly to the business
world. “That male CEO that you
work under goes in and tells everyone
how it is and everyone’s like, ‘Yeah,
he’s a boss, he’s badass,’” she said.
“And you go into the boardroom and
the woman tells you what to do
and she’s considered bitchy, or
considered moody.”
Several times, Carlson has seen
her athletes reap the benefits of
her female empowering coaching
tactics. One of her athletes had been
interning for a company for two
years and wanted to be hired there
after graduation, but believed she
deserved more than the entry level
salary that employees who had never
worked there would earn.
“She went in,” Carlson recalled.
“She directly said, ‘This is the value I
bring to the company and if you want
to hire me, this is my requirement.’
They said no initially, but she kept
her head up after that, and she was
still interning with them. Two weeks
later, they turned around and were
like, ‘You know, we really don’t want
to lose you, we’ll take that salary
bump and we want to hire you.’”
Why
was
this
athlete
so
confident? Carlson explained: “A
recognition and appreciation and a
reverence for strength in athletics
moves over to this life after college.”
The answer is simple. If we treat
women as second-class citizens when
they’re on the rugby field, we
can’t expect them to understand
that they’re equal as soon as they
enter the boardroom.
L
ast week, in the latest
round
of
“Survivor:
West
Wing
Edition,”
President Donald Trump fired
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
and nominated Mike Pompeo,
current CIA director and former
Tea Party congressman, to take
his place. To fill Pompeo’s post,
Trump
nominated
Pompeo’s
deputy, Gina Haspel. Each of
these people would be a disaster
in their post and potentially
irreparably harmful to both U.S.
foreign policy and what little
moral standing this country
has left. Senate Democrats,
however, in the current political
climate, should consider biting
the
bullet
and
confirming
Pompeo,
while
remaining
firmly opposed to Haspel.
First of all, it is important to
establish why both are so odious.
Pompeo is your standard order,
run-of-the-mill Republican hawk;
his career has been financed
almost entirely thanks to the
Koch brothers, he puts forward
a “hard line” on terrorism that
often bleeds into Islamophobia,
he thinks the National Security
Agency’s surveillance program
does “good and important work”
and he wants Edward Snowden
extradited
and
sentenced
to
death. He resembles, in more
ways than one, an external-facing,
slightly younger Joe Arpaio, the
former Arizona sheriff known
for his controversial stance on
immigration law.
Compared to his deputy
and potential successor, he’s
also the more palatable of the
two. Haspel ran a CIA torture
site in Thailand in the early
2000s, where prisoners were
waterboarded, slammed against
walls and confined within coffin-
like boxes. For those not already
sold on her, she later oversaw the
destruction of the video evidence
that would have almost certainly
damned her as a war criminal in
violation of the United Nations
Convention Against Torture.
So, torture and a cover-up.
Double trouble.
There are, though, a few
fundamental situational factors
to take into account. First of all,
consider the current state of
the agencies that each of these
would-be
Kubrick
characters
have been nominated to run.
The
State
Department
has
been understaffed to the point
that, by many accounts, it is
struggling to function properly.
As recently as February, no
fewer than 45 ambassadorships
were
left
vacant,
many
of
which are to important world
powers and allies. South Korea,
Australia,
Germany,
Turkey
and Saudi Arabia all belong to
this group. Though the thought
of
staffing
these
positions
with conservative, reactionary
ideologues is not the most
appealing eventuality, there is
foreign policy merit to having
warm bodies in those chairs.
Pompeo has been, according
to reports, decently effective
and well-liked at the CIA. A
lukewarm
performance
like
that would be a major step up
from what State looked like
under Tillerson.
Secondly, after he staffs the
place up and gets it in working
order, there’s a good chance that
most foreign policy will still
be run out of the White House.
More than temperament, what
impeded Rex Tillerson’s ability
to get things done was the fact
that any diplomatic conversation
or stance could and would be
thrown out the window in 140
characters or fewer. Twitter is
Trump’s State Department and
he is his own ambassador to
the world. That is not likely to
change depending on whom is
serving in that post.
For
those
news
sources
that seem to suggest Pompeo
is different in any way to the
sycophants that came before him
— that Trump listens, trusts or
respects him more than anyone
else who has come through the
White House to this point —
please stop. There was a time
that he listened to Steve Bannon,
too. At other times, it was going
to be Jared Kushner and Ivanka
Trump’s cooler heads prevailing.
Remember
when
we
were
supposed to collectively breathe
a sigh of relief when John Kelly
entered the picture because he
was a moderating force to who
Trump listened? How’s that
working out?
Pompeo
is
not
a
game
changer and, at this point in time,
we should treat that as a victory.
Republicans face a tough road
between now and the midterm
elections. Now is not the time to
pick a confirmation fight over a
nominee as qualified as Pompeo,
just to give them a bit of slack
and make people think that this
is partisanship business as usual.
Senate
Democrats
should
nonetheless make a distinction;
Pompeo,
though
abhorrent,
is qualified to do the job and
the State Department needs a
secretary. The CIA, on the other
hand, is not in any state of crisis
whatsoever (that we know of).
It does not necessarily need this
modern-day
Torquemada
to
keep the lights on and the trains
on time, so to speak.
Pompeo is just about on
par when it comes to what
we expected from a Trump
nominee. Confirm him. The
State
Department
needs
a
secretary. Haspel is almost
undeniably a war criminal.
The CIA can wait for someone
much better.
Gender equity starts on the rugby field
HANNAH HARSHE | COLUMN
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Sarah Khan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland
Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
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Lecturers vary from part
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Washtenaw
Community
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high
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is
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LEO has been very vocal
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