Black Women in White Male Industries Revise and Resubmit

You have chosen in this paper a topic that has both national and international significance. How indeed inclusive, fair, and just are so called "inclusion or set-aside" initiatives? How open and accessible are the programs to new immigrants and minorities? These are all very interesting questions that your paper raises.

But you don't fully address whether or not the rational approach considers such programs to be either fair, effective, and even legitimate. Are these programs acceptable or legitimate in the eyes of a policy analyst or maker who subscribes to the rational choice perspective? Why and why not? Your paper also seems to contain a few sentences at the end that are not properly paraphrased but yet are not under quotation marks. This needs to be paraphrased or removed or quoted to avoid plagiarism.

Please find below your Paper 1 Grade and your reviewed paper with my track changes and comments, including some of corrections or suggestions mentioned above. You can make these corrections to improve your score

Paper 1 Grade (Tentative, Revise and Resubmit)

Criterion

Points

Score

Brief Introduction and Outline

10

7

Discusses themes in the readings

10

8

Draws from and summarizes key readings-at least 3 different readings and authors

25

19

Initiates and sustains a central thesis and argument

20

15

Scholarly and organized writing with sources and citations

15

13

Conclusion

10

8

References

5

5

Grammar, Punctuation, and Style

5

5

Total

80

Black Women in White Male Dominant Industries:

Are Set-Aside and Inclusion Programs Really Assisting?

Introduction

When you spend your whole life being marginalized and excluded, you can develop what they call a chip on your shoulder. Resentment. Frustration. I will not say that this has happened to me -- but neither will I say, that it has not. Taking a hard look at oneself is as difficult and challenging as it is to look really at others -- without prejudice, bias, or judgment. As part of the new orientation towards social justice, the so-called social policymaking warriors like to think that they are taking the side of the marginalized, the forgotten, the repressed and oppressed, minorities. Individuals like myself who have tried to look for equality -- only to find that principles and ideals are fine to talk about, but in the real world, human beings act for motives separate and distinct from the ideals that we all presumably share. I seek to represent the so-called "beneficiaries" of the public policies that pertain to diversity and inclusion. Basically, inclusion and set aside initiatives are not independent of, or different from, affirmative action. Within the construction sector, for instance, such programs form part of positive actions. Hence, this paper aims to explore the topic of inclusion and set-aside initiatives for Black females, with a goal to gauge how successful they have been in achieving their purpose. To this end, the paper provides the background, the rationale behind inclusion and set-aside initiatives, and the initiatives' advantages and drawbacks, prior to arriving at a conclusion.

Background to my issue

I don't know why exactly, but I always wanted to be different -- to make an impact. When I immigrated to the United States six years ago, I wanted to make my way in a career that black women normally did not go into. I did not want to cook, cater, clean, care for children -- in short, I did not want to take part in those activities that my ancestors had taken part in as slaves in the States, or anywhere else in this world. I set about researching which field was "no-black-woman-land" and I found it -- the Oil and Gas industry. It was here that I wanted to go. I knew there would be obstacles, but I also knew that there were programs that had been developed to help minorities, women, the disadvantaged and small business enterprises so as to help create opportunities for those not fortunate enough to be part of the power structure, the elite, the privileged. However, what I soon found was that these so-called programs for the disadvantaged were quite restrictive. For instance, a black company was...

I found that black women had to compete with black men for the same contracts while white women did not have to compete against white males. In this industry, the blacks are set against one another -- as though there was some underlying desire on the part of the Establishment to see them run one another out. All the while the white woman is considered our equal, even though she had access we didn't have, be it white money or fronting for her white husband. What I found was a complex web of racialization, racism, white privilege and the "frontier myth and the romanticized cowboy hero" (Miller, 2004, p. 47). A black woman in the Oil and Gas industry was a like an alien walking on earth, speaking and talking like a human being -- but obviously from some other galaxy. I was tolerated -- as much as I had to be -- but I was never accepted on the same level as the white woman or the white man. I ended up asking myself the question: "What policies are underpinning these programs, and who are the policymakers that came up with these policies, and why? Are these set-aside and inclusion programs really assisting?"
I am reminded of the study by Williams, Kilanski and Muller (2014). They wanted to know why the diversity programs initiated by the U.S. oil and gas companies in the 1980s failed to address issues of inequality within the sector. They interviewed women about their workplace experiences and found that in spite of the objectives of these programs, they only ended up reinforcing gender/racial stereotypes and solidifying male dominance. I read their interviews with considerable attention, identifying with the experiences of the women -- affirming that what they said was true: my life was a perfect illustration of that fact. What I could not help but wonder was why something like the color of one's skin or the sex of one's anatomy could be viewed as a such a factor, such a variable in that person's ability to lead, to climb, to provide, to be.

Rational policymaking and social issue

The document presents the synthesis of knowledge on the rational policymaking theory, based on the reading and my experience of discrimination within the oil and gas sector. It builds upon the common understanding of what rational policymaking is and draws on some key references on the relevant subject. This rational model tries to understand all the alternatives, considering all the consequences, and select the best options. It is concerned with the best way (best in terms of promoting the realization of the programs objectives) to organize government and their processes to assure the adequate flow of information, accurate and unbiased feedback, and the weighing and measurement of values (Clemons & Mcbeth, 2001, p. 43).

Each state in the country proscribes its own connotation and legitimacy to 'set-aside' programs and may vary by way of their implication. Some states have established these initiatives in their legislative framework, whereas others have instituted them as social initiatives for guaranteeing equality. However, on the basis of criticisms by the analysts with regard to legality of initiatives not based in law, such initiatives ought to be able to survive judicial review, as their basis is economic and social equality, as part of the constitutional clause on "Equal Protection." The initiatives are formulated with an aim of successfully increasing individual entrepreneurs' and small companies' participation in the city contracts, in economically advanced areas. Hence, one can argue that set-aside initiatives are indeed legitimate.

I aim to seek further information about this particular concept, research topics or case studies that will allow me to apply the rational policymaking theory, to assess if it helps to identify the weak parts of policymaking in the target region with the following rational model objectives as a minimum:

1) Define the problem

- (Re)Define the sense and the role of side-aside and diversity programs in industry and business development, and assess (from my personal experience as a start) if the problem has been adequately defined in the context of its policy;

2) Assemble evidence

Gather as many resources from credible bodies, institutions and government on current policies, disparity studies, case…