I cannot directly answer this question, besides stating the obvious: I have lived a life and have had experiences that makes me interested in the field. Think about why you came to be interested in your intended major.

Currently, American society, especially those attune to feminism, looks closely at the demographics of various academic fields and career paths. Previously, I explored how the culturally defined notion of gender as it relates to the leadership opportunities of women in various societies. For this episode I have decided to explore the role of gender and culture with concern to women obtaining jobs in typically male dominated fields of Science, Math and Technology. Statistically, women are underrepresented in these fields. When exploring this issue there are several things to consider. First of all, one must think with an opened mind about the subject. There could be several reasons for the underrepresentation of women, and none should be discounted for the fact that they more or less support your particular ideological camp. Two such example of reasons why women may be underrepresented include society producing fewer qualified women in the public school system, or alternatively, women are discriminated during the application process. Another consideration is that based on the culture of American society, women are systematically subliminally discouraged to enter STEM fields.

Currently, there is a major push for increasing the representation of women in traditional male careers to improve equality of gender representation. As I researched this topic, I came across an interesting conversation between writers for the Forbes magazine, one in response to the other. There is clearly a lot of contention between the two writers and I think that each help to frame important schools of thought.

The first article titled “The Real Reason Most Women Don’t Go Into Tech” was written by Gene Marks and published by Forbes on March 16^th of this year. The author cites the major reason for the underrepresentation of women in tech is simply that women generally not even interested in tech. The author substantiates this by giving examples of how in terms of technological education, both boys and girls in the US receive the same amount of attention. From this, Marks concludes that it is simply the fact that most women choose other career fields that there less women in STEM fields. Another interesting fact he cites is the fact that boys score higher in Science and Math in the US, and gives a similar reasoning as above.

The second article is titled “The Real Reason Most Women Don’t Go Into Tech According to Women” written by Tracey Welson-Rossman and was also published by Forbes, and was put out just three days after the first one. Although the major reason for writing the article was seemingly to personally attack Mr. Marks, she does blend in some material concerning “the real reason”. The justification this author gives is that women don’t find tech fields attractive. She goes on to talk about how she has created an organization that attempts to make technology careers seem more attractive to girls.

If you see the same thing that I do, you notice that both authors agree with the reason that there are less women in STEM fields than men. The first time I read the articles, I though they substantially disagreed. However after sifting out the second author’s animosity, I realized both are arguing the exact same thing! The only slight difference between the two arguments is that second author gives examples of how the trend can be reversed, which in fact is outside the scope of a response to the first article and in fact the article’s own title. I apologize for my digression from the topic at hand; I just think it is essential to note how the articles were written.

To wrap up, I want to discuss the bigger picture of the issue, something that was omitted by both authors. The first thing I would like to mention is that the reason why girls overwhelmingly choose not to go into tech fields is ultimately determined by the culturally defined notion of gender. The authors seem to ignore the fact that very subtle aspects of human upbringing and social influence can have a huge impact on a persons predisposed opinion on joining the tech industry. Whether it be childhood toys or expectations of peers, there is some reason (or reasons) why women prefer not to join the tech field. Another aspect that only the first author touched upon was the decision to call the gender ratio of the tech industry a problem. Of course I want every human being to have the ability to seek out whatever career their heart desires, but I fail to understand why the fact that women largely choose not to join the techie ranks is a problem since it’s not what they want. This brings up my final point. It seems to me that socially constructed social norms help to determine dominant gender interests and consequently make decisions in life based on some mechanism of their human psyche that has been shaped by the social norms. Therefore, why is it important to push against the grain of people’s character when they would be content being someone else? I find that the biggest need for change is not in defining what people’s skill set and personality should be to fit “ideal” ratios, but rather in creating a culture that embraces and protects each individual’s mindset and strives for equality in opportunity and potential for success.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2015/03/16/the-real-reason-most-women-dont-go-into-tech/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/valleyvoices/2015/03/19/the-real-reason-most-women-dont-go-into-tech-according-to-women/

 

A Radical Proposal for the Reworking of the US Taxing system

Eric Hodge

 

 

In all modern societies, taxation is required to construct infrastructure, enforce a legal system and provide for people who are struggling, and ensure security among other things. It is often said that the only two things you can be sure of in life are taxes and death. Every country around the world raises funds through taxation in different ways depending on the demands of the economy, the government’s needs and the government’s perception of equality. Even in the US, taxation on the state level is widely varied. For example, Pennsylvania uses a value added sales tax on many goods besides food and clothing, whereas neighboring Delaware does not. To perform the unfavorable task of taxation on the federal level, the US government relies on a complex system that levies mostly individual’s and business’s income.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As one can see from the chart, after the Second World War, the US receives the largest portion of its funding from individual income taxes, followed by payroll taxes, then corporate income taxes. At the most basic level, the tax system requires the each person or entity to record all income throughout the year, submit this information and subsequently pay the correct amount of tax based on how much money they made. Although this may sound simple in theory, different types of income are taxed in different amounts for different individuals, and different rebates and tax deductions are available for different situations. One of the more basic complexities is the progressive nature of the US tax system. This means that the more money you make in a given year, the higher the rate of tax you have to pay. Why are complexities such as this added to the tax code one may ask? In the United States, Congress is responsible for generating the tax code which is enforced by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Congress adds new code to appeal to the current political atmosphere which is driven by social, economic, military, and political stimuli. For example, the US government promotes homeownership by offering tax refunds on mortgage interest on your home. One of the essential tenets of macroeconomics is that people tend to respond to economic choices in a manner that favors their own economic standing. This being said, the government is able to use this principle in order to influence economic and consequently social choices of its citizens by making complexities in tax code. Another driving force that shapes current US tax code is the idea of fairness.

As one can see from the Gallup poll, Americans predominately believe that wealth should be redistributed through heavy taxation of the rich. Consequently, this is reflected by the progressive nature of the tax schedule. This means that the rich pay a greater tax rate than the poor, besides paying more tax per capita. In fact, the richest two percent of Americans pay almost half of all income tax. This is significant because it shows how the US tax system has developed to appeal to certain groups of people and consequently gains complexity and dimension. Although the complexity of current US tax system has some justification, it incurs undue hardship to all involved in the system. To quantify the extent to which changes are made, and subsequently how complex the tax code has become, one can look to the report made by the IRS in September 2010. The report states that there have been 4,400 individual changes to the tax code since the beginning of the millennium. These changes have resulted in the increase of tax code word count from 1.4 million to 3.8 million during the same time frame. This being said, the code has become cumbersome and unwieldy to tax payers, preparers and administrators.

The current federal tax system is ripe for reform. Tax claims a portion of a taxpayers’ wealth and this is inevitable. Besides the inherent inconvenience of taxation, the complication of the current system creates undue costs to taxpayers and impedance on the economy. Besides the actual cost of tax, US tax payers are served economic resistance by the filing process. In fact, between filing time, purchasing of filing software and professional assistance, and IRS administrative costs, the current tax system costs $431 billion on top of the actual tax owed. This money represents taxpayers’ effort to simply comply with tax law. One can imagine this figure as friction induced by the tax system as taxpayers attempt to push their funds towards the government. Although some said friction is inevitable, as tax systems gain complexity from modification through the years, the representative frictions increases. As seen in “Figure 1”, both gross collections and operating costs have increased significantly over the past three decades (the log scale makes the chart look even less steep than reality). This for one shows the growing inefficiencies of collecting taxes. The liability of tax for the populous is steadily increasing past the raw tax burden. Besides the increasing administration cost, the Joint Committee on Taxation cites three other significant drawbacks to the complex tax system of the US: “Decreased levels of voluntary compliance, increased cost to taxpayers, and reduced perception of fairness” (laffer) The latter in actuality is more than just perception as tests have been done to consider the actual equity of the tax system. One such study was completed in the mid 1990’s when the tax system was even simpler than the modern code.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The current system for taxation in the US

How does the current system work?

What is unfair/ inefficient about the current system?

When and why did the last major reform occur? (Reagan)

What was the most recent minor reform?

Why is now the time to change again?

What is the proposed reform?

What are advantages of taxing consumption?

How would this be practically instated?

What are possible negative implications of such a plan?

 

 

 

 

The most recent major tax reform occurred during the Reagan administration and was titled the Tax Reform Act of 1986.