I took this photo a few blocks from my house a couple of weeks ago. It is a picture of a fabric store window with a generic "help wanted" sign displayed. Below the sign a small piece of cardboard has been added with the word "male."
The federal policy against employment discrimination is more than 40 years old, yet employment discrimination is still practiced, often more covertly than the above example. The above sign raises the following often discussed questions:
1) How do we define policy and practice?
Can this sign be taken as evidence of a store policy? Because it has been written on cardboard, does that somehow formalize it? Is the distinction between policy and practice important?
Practice can be just as entrenched as policy, as those of you who have tried to change practice in institutional settings may have observed. What is different about it is that it is not supported by written documentation, and may not be a reflection of the conscious decisions of an individual or group.
Practice is often wide-spread in an organization because it is transmitted through cultural norms. We often do what we see done without a great deal of thought. There is an efficiency in mimicry. The behavior that becomes practice may not be efficient, but from the perspective of functioning in an existing system, mimicry will get you by.
My judgement, certainly open to criticism, is that the sign represents the policy of employment discrimination in the store. Simply by taking the time to make the little cardboard sign, the owner is making explicit their choice to seek male employees.
A written policy like the one in the store window is self-evident. When you are dealing with practice, sometimes the first step is to simply document the practice. In both cases, you need to understand the underlying rational for the policy or practice. What motivated the decision-maker(s) to put the policy in place? What incentives helped to develop current practice?
2) How do we deal with practices or policies that violate the law (or other preemptive policies)? This store is in clear violation of the law. Is it the best first step to get law enforcement involved? Can the result of that involvement be predicted? Is it important to determine whether or not the owners are aware of the law? What do we want to know about the store's place in the community, and how would that impact the approach we choose? Are businesses organized in the neighborhood, and do they have a self-policing mechanism? Has anyone else in the community noticed this sign; are they concerned? When we begin by posing a series of questions, then we are guided to answer-seeking actions.
3) How do we create change in our own communities? This is a big question for a short blog post. I will keep you updated with my local experiment.
