Friday, April 2, 2010

It's Still a Man's World

I don't know how many of you read Newsweek but they had a story about the progress women have made and haven't.

They report that despite having earned higher college GPAs in every subject, young women will take home, on average across all the professions, 80 per cent of what their male colleagues do. Female MBAs make $4,600 less a year.

The fact that women drop out of the business world to become mothers is sometimes blamed for the problem but a decade out of college, full-time working women who haven't had children make 77 cents on the male dollar.

At Newsweek, men wrote all but six of the 49 cover stories last year. In 1970, women were only 25 percent on the masthead. Now it's up to 39 per cent, an improvement but not equality. Women are three per cent of Fortune 500 CEOs and less than a quarter of law parnters and poliiticians.

And then there's the problem that women who do get ahead are often criticized. Nancy Polesi will go into the history books as an effective Speaker of the House and yet the N.Y,. Times called her "scary tough'' in an article supposedly lauding her for rounding up the votes for health care. At least they didn't call her the b word. For a man being called "scary tough'' is a compliment (LBJ was noted for twisting arms) but it isn't considered a plus for women.

And Newsweek also noted that when a woman gets ahead, there is often talk about were her looks a factor. And male superiors sometimes tell them to "use their sexuality'' to get ahead.

And 45 per cent of women are secretaries, nurses, teachers and cashiers.Not that there's anything wrong with those jobs but they don't tend to be high-paying jobs. And teachers often get blamed when their parents don't insist they do their homework.

And on and on. I wonder what are women bloggers think about the opportunities they have and haven't had and if they think things will be better for their daughters. Or will it continue to be a man's world?

FD

17 comments:

  1. FD Sir,

    I think any kind of change is always slow. Every opportunity I"ve gotten was because of a man (specifically Alpha and somewhat Omega). Did my looks play a part, perhaps...dunno. At some point I had prove that I was worthy to have the job and I did, still working for them today (but that came in a roundabout way)...and my admin assistant has more college than I do.

    That is ironic.

    hugs,
    mouse

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  2. Mouse: Good to hear you've proved yourself worthy to have the job. And, yes, change does come slowly.

    FD

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  3. Hi FD,

    Thanks for posting about this! :) As a card-carrying feminist, it amazes me how many people think that the struggle for equal rights/equal pay between men and women is a fought and won battle. It most certainly is not and, although I have yet to read the full article, I applaud Newsweek for pointing out some glaring discrepancies in salaries, perception of physical attributes (i.e. sexiness gets you ahead), and lack of women's presence in the upper echelons of American high finance and business (among other fields).

    I'm encouraged by programs that I see at American universities that are encouraging women to enter what are traditionally considered "male fields," such as engineering, mathematics, and the sciences. Perhaps we'll be able to see even more change within the next generation or two! :)

    Thanks for posting, FD!

    Take care,
    Baby Girl :)

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  4. Baby Girl: You're right on. If you read the Newsweek article by three young women who were high achievers, there is a key sentence I should have quoted -- After saying they felt something was amiss, they wrote, "As products of a system in which we learned that the fight for equality had been won, we didn't identify these feelings as gender related.''

    So many young women seem to think the fight has been won until they bounce off the glass ceiling.

    Btw you could be a role model for my Lisa series, a feminist in the workplace and a sub at hjome.

    FD

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  5. FD,
    Thanks for posting up this blog. I am a teacher at an elementary school and currently teach 5/6th grades. I find myself in a struggle because of helicopter parents and their expectations of teachers. In the 5th/6th combo students need to be getting ready to move on to Middle School and no longer dependent on parents telling them to take their HW to school every day and teachers shouldn't have to be prompting students to stop daydreaming and pay attention.

    I discussed a specific issue: students daydreaming and not putting 100% effort with another co-worker (male). He plain out said that he tells parents that he will only give the child as much support/help as the effort the child puts in. So if the child is not willing to work hard, ask for help, or pay attention, he wouldn't be wasting his time trying to help the child out. I thought about that and I thought about how it would come out of my mouth and I just couldn't. Mostly because I truly do believe that if they were to hear that from me, a female teacher, it would seem harsh and unfair, yet when he says it, it seems normal and understandable.

    Does that make any sense? I don't know. Sometimes I wish I had the courage to say such things and see how my parents would react to such a comment. Especially those parents who think their child is the only having problems out of 25.

    So thank you for posting that up! It is definitely not over, but at least there is some evolution going on.

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  6. Luna: What you say makes perfect sense. As you said, men can say something and it sounds normal and a woman says the same thing and it sounds harsh. But try not to censor yourself. Say what you feel. It's hard for women to make progress when they don't speak up.

    And I admire teachers these days because they get blame that should be put on the parents for not monitoring their kids and making sure they do their homework. I find it ironic when people say Asian kids are so smart because some of them get such good grades, and I wonder if it isn't a case that their parents set high standards.


    And, yes, there is evolution going on but it's taking longer than it should.

    FD

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  7. I believe "corporate" America is still in the mind set that a woman has a man at home making the money and the man is the 'bread winner' in the family. "Mrs. just has a "little job" to keep her busy" they say. Someone needs to wake these folks up and see that nowadays, Mom is a single mom taking care of 3 kids and needs the income as much, if not more than Dad. But that's just my two cents. Great post!

    ~Jen

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  8. Love: How true. And the woman is sometimes the breadwinner even in a two parent home.

    FD

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  9. I definitely agree with that quote. Today if you label yourself a feminist people assume that you're a lesbian man-hater, they don't realize that there is still so much gender inequality in our society. Because our forerunners made progress it's assumed that it's "all good" now, and that if you speak out about sexism you're just being a bitch.

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  10. Sky: It's good to see that a young woman like you realizes there is still progress to be made. Yes, your forerunners, who were proud to be feminists, made progress, but the glass ceiling is still hard to crack.

    FD

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  11. I smiled when I read your post. I went public with my blog for the first time yesterday and the following is part of the initial post:

    "I am sure that at least once during the rest of my day I will be so caught up in my work that I will forget to look where I am going; I will bump into the ever-hovering glass-ceiling. Once upon a time, I would have been distraught to acknowledge that this ceiling exists in my world, but that was before I had Himself to go home to at the end of the rest of my day."

    I belong in that less than 25% of law partners classification. For most of my career I believed I was proof that equality had been achieved but the longer I am a partner in a large law firm, the more cynical I become not only regarding the existence of equality in the here and now but also as respects the likelihood of our daughters' generation experiencing equality. In recent years, I have billed more hours and brought in more money than my male colleagues and yet their compensation is more than mine by tens of thousands (and in some cases hundreds of thousands) of dollars. I've been told it is because they are more aggressive in making their compensation demands; BUT when I have gone to our executive committee to be "more aggressive" I am labelled "bitchy" or "hysterical."

    I cannot tell you the number of times I have been confronted by peers, clients, etc. who do not hesitate to make a "Legally Blonde" reference. I smile politely and remind the offender that Elle Woods was a Harvard Law graduate who proved to be the brightest lawyer in the room as well as the most fashionable and socially competent person in the room; hence, I assume I am being paid a compliment. HOWEVER, (what I don't say out loud is) no one would ever make such a comment to a professional male whom they did not know outside the professional construct. Does one have to hide her femininity to be taken seriously?

    Some have suggested to me that part of the problem is the way women interact, i.e., a man will take a seat at the boardroom table without invitation assuming his right to be there, where an equally bright and competent woman will wait to be invited. Similarly a man will finish a project high-fiving his colleagues and puffing his chest like a proud peacock where a woman will continue to obsess over whether she has forgotten any minor detail or whether there were elements of the project she could have done better. This raises an interesting question --- especially when one considers how the blogosphere seems to suggest there is a high prevalence of women who are submissive in their personal relationships and at the same time uber-competent, bright, independent, take charge career women --- does our submissive nature somehow negatively impact our ability to break through the glass ceiling once and for all?

    I have no answers. I have learned that life is better when I remember to be thankful for the brave women who forged the path to near equality and to take stock of the opportunities I have had that my mother and grandmother did not. It is also better when I don"t let the lack of equality define me and remind myself that there are better ways to measure one's self-worth than by titles or dollars and cents. The goal is to keep striving to permanently crack open that glass ceiling but to do so without compromising self-esteem and values. It is not easy.

    What would I tell a daughter one day????? That's another post for another day ;)

    Thanks FD for your consideration of the topic.

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  12. Arianna: Welcome to the blogging world. I think you'll find this a supportive community.

    And your post summed up the real life challenges for women in the professional world these days.

    I like your line about continuing to strive without compromising your values and self-esteem. Good luck.

    FD

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  13. In my career, I made about 10000 less than male co-workers. I think things may get better by the time my daughters begin their careers. However, I think we will see the change occur by increases in pay to the fields that are predominantly worked by women as opposed to pay equality to men. Therefore it will ultimately remain a man's world.

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  14. It's a man's world but that's because we let them think it is while we are pulling the strings, lol. I was the "power behind the throne" so to speak at my ex-husband's firm. His partners liked to believe they ran the show, but that's because my husband never let them know the truth, lol.

    But, with the right man I believe giving him "the world" is just the way it's meant to be. Or at least that's what I am starting to believe. ;)

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  15. viemoira: Wow, $10,000 less is a huge gap. Let's hope that things will improve by the time their daughters begin their careers. Also, maybe as more women enter male dominated fields, there could be more pay equality although you could be right that it will remain a man's world.

    Kat5: That may have worked in a family world but not sure it does in the business world as a whole.

    FD

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  16. there is a great book called 'moving the mountain' that discusses the women's movement since 1960. it documents things like the fact that in a year when she won 3 grand slams, billie jean king couldn't get a credit card in her own name. she had to get her husband to co-sign. he was an unemployed student at the time.

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  17. I honestly don't notice it, but then I've never pursued a career where I'm in competition with men. I've heard rumors that there are more male best selling authors than women, but I'm not sure how true that is... and if it is... I really don't feel that reflects on my success as a writer in any way at all... especially since I now plan to self-publish. I think I've chosen one of those careers where you success is determined by your skills, determination and stick-ability rather than you're ability to perform according to your gender. I mean, to be honest, most of the time the people reading your work don't even know who it is behind the words. They just know what they like and don't like to read.

    spirited

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