America is a consumer society. To have a consumer society requires two things: a means of producing goods for sale and a group of people to purchase those goods. Permitting women and minorities to have access to good paying jobs increases their purchasing power. The increased demand for goods translates into more jobs producing these goods, transporting them, advertising them, and marketing them.. The economic gains of women and minorities, then, are made not at the expense of angry, white men but by growing the economic pie for all.

High productivity also translates into an increased number of job. America's economy is most productive when all people perform to their maximum potential. Women and minorities make up about 70% of America's population. If this 70% of the American people are not encouraged to work at their maximum potential, everyone will suffer.

Angry, white men are the husbands, brothers, fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and friends of women. Increasing the earning potential of the family, not of one individual, will maximize family income (after working expenses). Since women on average still earn only about 70% of the average white male, the easiest way to increase family income is to insist that women be given the same opportunities as men and be paid as much as men.

Men who are currently single will not necessarily remain single for their entire lives. Eventually most men, like most women, will marry and have children (and later, grandchildren). The women in these men's families, their wives, daughters, and granddaughters will inevitably join the labor force for a significant portion of their lives. Statistics indicate that a girl born today will live into her middle 70s. Due to the decrease in family size and the availability of birth control, the portion of a woman's life devoted to child bearing and child rearing will continue to take a smaller portion of a woman's life. These women will have 20 to 30 years of life after their children leave the nest. I predict that few men will be willing to financially support a woman for 20 to 30 years after her child rearing activities end. Men will increasingly pressure women into the job market and they will insist, for their own good, that "their" women are treated fairly. Also, over a 50 year working lifetime, working men and women will have 2 or 3 or more separate careers. Women will work while their husbands train for a new career: similarly, men will work while their wives train for a new career.

Angry, white men, like all of us, do have legitimate reasons to be angry. But let us put the blame where it properly belongs, not on the backs of women and minorities. Factory managers and company CEOs, in search of ever greater financial returns, are responsible for closing factory doors and shipping jobs overseas, for corporate downsizing, and for the replacement of workers with machines and computers. Reagan tax policies of the 80s were formulated to concentrate the country's wealth in fewer hands [remember capital formation] resulting not only in a concentration of wealth but in a shift of the tax burden from the rich to the poor and the middle-class. Supreme Court decisions allowing the permenant replacement of striking workers and union failures to organize aggressively have resulted in power flowing from workers to management. Government bears other responsibility too: in 1996, the purchasing power of the minimum wage will be at a 40 year low. To keep inflation in check, the Federal Reserve Board (commonly called the Fed) begins tightening the money supply (slowing down the economy) when the unemployment rate drops to 6 percent.

While men's incomes stagnated, women entered the workforce in record numbers to maintain the family's purchasing power. Today, women do not work for "pin" money. Women's paychecks make home ownership possible, provide for their children's college education, finance vacations, and allow us to acquire luxuries, not just subsist on the necessities of life.

If the current Congress is successful in implementing their "Contract on America", all of the economic trends mentioned above will accelerate. The tax burden will shift even more from the wealthy to the poor, the working class, and the middle class. Corporate downsizing, mechanization, and computerization will result in more unemployment. Pressure on family finances will not only make women's paychecks more important to healthy family finances but will also accelerate the movement of women from the home into the workforce. And women's paychecks will become even more important to the average American family.

For these reasons, affirmative action for women and minorities is in the best interest of every angry white, man.

To the Essays Menu

e-mail sunshine@pinn.net