We need to stop listening to our mothers who tell us that if we want something from a man we have to be subtle enough to make them think they actually came up with the idea in the first place! We should take Norway as an example to follow and make sure all corporate boards are made up of at least 50% women. Then we should do the same for foundation boards and political representation. Why? Because the reality is that, even if you are a female executive at Goldman Sachs, you will never be part of the "boys' club" -- and guess what, it's still a boys' club.
Women are still discriminated against because of the fact that they are women. They are paid less than men, in many places there is still no maternal leave to protect us when we have children, in fact we can pretty much bet that our careers will be over if we leave to start a family.
I think back to the late 1980s and a job I had when I was twenty-two, working for a Texan, who seemed shocked when I asked him to sign an employee contract. Lucky for me, he signed it. But he also did the following: invited me to lunch in a very dark restaurant where they knew him and showed us to the far back corner table, cornered me in a warehouse where I was cataloging items in his antiques collection, and came up behind me while I was in the home office looking in the file cabinet and basically made me feel very uncomfortable.
I finally quit, and when I did (via a two page letter outlining why I was quitting) he told people he fired me!
Then there was an Italian boss I had who was five months behind paying me for work on a festival. When I pushed him to pay me he finally asked, "What? Don't you have a boyfriend?" I looked at him aghast. What does having or not having a boyfriend have to do with getting paid for a job well done? Women are also usually known for not negotiating for higher salaries; they don't even realize that they can ask.
In France, not so long ago, I read a poll in which women executive assistants were asked if they would go away with their married bosses for a weekend if it meant bettering their careers -- something like 60% replied in the affirmative! In other words, if you help the male peacocks feel powerful and like they are in control, you can gain a bit of power. But the reality is not many women in France are running big banks, or industries or business schools. But neither are they in America. Now imagine if you are a woman working in a country where you cannot even legally drive. How in the heck are we supposed to become empowered when we are treated like children?
The Mad Men series may be sexy, but what is the most wonderful thing about the show is that Don Draper keeps ending up in the arms of more liberated modern women: the beatnik girlfiend living downtown who is free enough to let him go, the woman who inherits her family's business, and eventually turns him down, and the power broking woman his own age whose mind and business sense is as sharp as his own -- and who ends up in a car wreck with him, while the wife (who is about to blow) is on the edge of heading towards some serious female liberation.
You can almost hear the call of the mid-life return to a college psychology degree a few seasons in the future, because the only way to stay married to these sexist men is to become their full-time therapist! In other words, Don Draper is a man whose time has come, and is almost over. He is the post-WWII American male anti-hero who has no place in the modern world. Yet all these cigar smoking execs who have brought us to the financial crisis have not figured that out yet. A real man empowers women. Insecure men need to feel like "the boss."
Women need to run their own companies, have decision making powers and have the same access to financial services, especially credit, as men. The fastest way to end up in poverty is for a woman to get divorced and be a single mother. Yet we have better payback rates for loans than men (look at the microcredit scores of up to 99 around the world in programs which loan primarily to women).
The Obama administration needs to take a look at putting more women in charge of the economy. They are slowly "getting it," but taking advice from the friends of Goldman Sachs (all men), is doing more harm than good. Those who are making the most sense right now are women: Sheila Baer at the FDIC, Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor who serves as the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP program, and the first female recipient for the Nobel Prize in Economics, Elinor Ostrom, whose work focuses not on theories but real world economics and helping poor countries.
Obama's mother, Ann Dunham Soetoro, was a visionary in seeing how women, when given access to credit, could bring themselves out of poverty. It is too bad that she is not here now, at the right hand of Obama, advising him. But surely he knows how important women are to the world, he should, they raised him!
Follow Vivian Norris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/vivigive
Jesse Kornbluth: Maria Shriver's Report on American Women: After the Cheery Headline, Gloomy Trends
Joan Williams: The New Normal: Die Childless at Thirty
Joyce McFadden: Sexism in America: Alive, Well, and Ruining Our Future
Rick Foster: Your Grandmother and Mine, Happiness, and Health
If you hate women and children so much, Please, get a vasectomy now - don't wait! There are plenty of guys who respect their women coworkers and bosses, have enough self confidence that they don't have to view women as their enemy and, because they are comfortable with their own success, they don't have to be bitter over the success of others. I married one.
The personal stories are fascinating to me because so many women have experienced negative treatment even when they are highly qualified and with strong track records.
It has to do not only with respect, but also the fact that the sustainability which is needed for our collective human future, must include both men and women evolving.
Look on the Business page of the Huffington Post and there are two females authors represented out of about 25 posts. At times, people comment on why a Cinema Studies-focused PhD is writing about Business...Entertainment (software, film, video games, etc.) is one of our largest exports...globalized distribution systems, be it for digital media, oil, or big Pharma, are at the center of the world's economies, access to education, wars, and growth (or lack of it). I wonder what the world would look like if half the world's leaders were women, half the banks were run by women, half the software and media companies, half of Big Pharma, and half the oil companies. We'd probably already be much more "green", wealth would be more equitably distributed, access to education would be better, health care in place, and poverty reduced...I hope to see more women writing in the Business section.
Then we'd see some changes in Washington.
Women think its okay to be voracious and show stealing whenever up to bat. Men don't play that way. They played alot of team sports and will wait their turn to bat mean while giving support to the Coach.
Men are men. We like naked women. We are uncomfortable and feel anxious and silly around sexy women. We share this feeling amoung each other and bond over the experience growing up. So by the time we're men we all have a shared anxiety that never goes away entirely. Thats a core primal bond that women will never understand or relate too and most women dont want too. But thats whats needed sometimes to build trust.
So we men huddle out of sight of women and make "men" comments. To help remind us we're men and its ok to be a man with all the ugly brutish instincts. If you want to be part of the "old boys club" you might consider actually being one of the old boys. It's about trust and fair game play. Despite what you see.
I am, however, assuming you're talking about older men, men who may be in their 50s and older. Most men I encounter who are younger than that can barely be considered men and make philandering Don Draper look like a diamond encrusted prize. He's flawed, but he goes about the manly business of supporting his family. And, best of all, he's not a baby about it. Most men today are such whiny babies.
While men just keep being men and take their lumps for being part of the "old boys club".
I'm not certain either group has the high ground but at least the men are just being themselves whereby the "working" women who claim to be career invested immediately become "mothers" from heaven when they want and then expect to return to being an executive after a year of being mother of the year. The men of course got no break and have been in the trenches the whole time. The entire family is counting on them.
If the only way you have to "bond" with other human beings is over your shared sexual identity, then you need some serious psychotherapy.
You can't bond over a shared passion for your career? A shared interest in movies? A shared passion for Chinese food? Or traveling? Or hiking?
You can't trust someone who has primary child-rearing duties in her family and a child at home with a fever of 104? (A guy at my office took off today because his daughter has a high fever -- I still trust him and don't feel he abused me or his role as single father by taking time off for his child.
I hope the next generation of women in the workforce won't have to deal with all the closed-minded, judgmental, arrogant and self-important jerks who have made my time in the workforce such a trail.
Hint to slow learners: Women are HUMAN BEINGS first and sexual distractions only to men who cannot control themselves. Think about something else -- like your work. Parents have to take care of their children -- this is good for the human race. In most families, the person who takes care of sick children is the mother. If you don't like this, then work on smashing the patriarchy. Then men will stay home with their sick children 50% of the time and you can stop being resentful about women taking too much time to care for their kids.
Sheesh.
I enjoyed this line.
It's not the only way but its the most powerful. The difference is, we weren't "hiking" at age 14. We were beginning to notice women and girls. It's a primal hormonal evolution. We're supposed to be that way. We grow to enjoy this manifestation although at first its a bit wild and unbridled. Takes young men time to control their inner cave man. We do so mainly because of parenting and the law then later for employment but make no mistake. Given the chance most men would willing to return the club and the cave.
We do bond over other interests but we will forever be in this club together that started years and years and years ago. Its important that men bond because the alternative is ugly.
We don't instinctively trust women, no. I'm not biased, I love women, I'm just being blatantly honest about men. We come to trust the women we love and marry. It takes us time, alot of time. But women in general ? No. Not with our careeers.
My instinct as a male is to be the bread winner. Just the way I'm programmed. Not entirely my fault. Why do you think men always end up marrying the secretary instead of the executive colleague.
Not entirely accurate. I work in the oil industry and have for almost 20 years. Once a male dominated bastion but now its very different. No manager or executive DARE suggest to a pregnant woman she can't have paid leave or maternal leave and retain her hired position. They are frightened to the point of paralysis.
Women in my working environment openly and galantly flaunt the ability to "disappear" daily for children, family and quite a number of "school" functions. While the men, should they exit the work place it had better be with the boss to a business function or his career is dead.
Managers discuss in closed doors and restaraunts how they dont want women in their Depart because of this whole "maternal" disappearing act. Also women tend to be more whiney about small things where a guy will just bully through.
I resent the women who abuse the priviledge afforded them by hard working people. My mother worked hard and long to keep us clothed as a single mother and she never once got treated like todays women. She was treated like one of the guys in a male dominated work environment and she did so successfullly. She didnt like it but she did it.
If she were alive today she would scoff at the women who have such a privileged "work life balance". My observations about the work place are honest and without edit.
If you'd like to see more dialogue about these issues IN THE WORK force in meetings and open some air on the topic take a look at your comments to me. Now you know why men will avoid those meetings and rarely attend diversity. Close minded ? Your kettle seems a lil black.
The hiring manager lied to my face. He claimed that they gave bonuses for team performance and quick advancement to "make up" for the less than stellar starting wage.
Of course, the bonuses never came and near the end of my years at that company I found out how much more they had been paying the men I supervised, the men who billed fewer hours than I did, the men whose code I corrected.
40% more for junior programmers, just for being male.
It was pure, unadulterated sexism. Some men will LIE right in your face before they'll pay a woman a fair wage. That's just how they roll -- they get off on abusing their power over us.
i have saved enough now that I will stand up and walk away before I'll accept "women's wages". That's what it takes, women. You have to be ready to call their bluff and MEAN IT when you say you'll walk if they cannot meet your salary. If you don't mean it, they'll smell weakness. They don't give a rat's hind end if you retire in poverty, or can never afford to buy even a cheap condo in a bad part of town.
These men will smile and pretend to be courtly, but bottom line? They care NOTHING for you, so you'd darn well better start caring about yourself.
I've been in the workforce for thirty-seven years and I have never once met a woman who got paid more than men in the same position. Not once.
It's a nice story to tell yourself, however. If you believe that it "goes both ways" then you don't have to do anything about it.
"Could you imagine "blind" interviews?
Before blind auditions became common in the 70s, just 10% of new hires at major U.S. orchestras were women. The theory was that women weren't very good musicians. But labor unions protested the hiring process and pushed for blind auditions where musicians would try out behind a curtain so appearance and gender were concealed.
In studying personnel from 11 major orchestras, Harvard economist Claudia Goldin and Princeton’s Cecelia Rouse found that 29% of females and 20% of males advanced to the final round in blind auditions. When auditions were not blind, only 19% of women advanced compared to 23% of men.
Even though sex discrimination is hard to measure, those stats speak volumes. Fortunately, since the 80s, about half the news hires at the New York Philharmonic, 40% at the San Francisco Symphony and more than a third in Boston and Chicago have been women.
It got us wondering, what would the workplace look like right now if all interviews were done "blind" -- where recruiters and hiring managers had no idea of your gender, age, or looks?"
http://blog.womenforhire.com/2009/03/could-you-imagine-blind-interv.html
"Women are also usually known for not negotiating for higher salaries; they don't even realize that they can ask. "
with comments about asking for a raise. Forget the raise.
You have to ask for what you are worth when you are trying to get the job in the first place. You will never close the gap with a raise.
Know what people in your professional are paid and insist on the going rate at least. If you don't know, start with sites like Salary.com.
Sorry, if you haven't done that, then you will have to change employers to get the going rate. Be prepared to explains some benefit that your last job provided that made you accept it for less than the going rate, and how that no longer applies (to get experience...).
It is unlikely that you will be able to close the earnings gap through raises alone, start with appropriate compensation.
Now if this is happening all to frequently in the work place and the matters of work are discussed and negotiated at the exclusion of someone; than the boss needs to know about it and rectify ASAP. In the office you are the team, out of the office you do your own thing. It is not magical and there is no special formula for people to include or exclude. Human behavior predicates that.
The "team" thing is what you tell suckers.
There is nothing wrong with women passing along the very little info they get about opportunities exclusively to their female counterparts.
We should have come much further in the US by now and countries like Norway show us what is indeed possible.
Catalyst has a study that concluded the best way to break the glass ceiling is from the top down. That companies that have women on the board of directors and in the C-suite empower women more.
Should not be news that a great way to get more power is to have a lot of it to start with!
A story: I remember a dear couple where the woman was larger than the man, and when they argued, she would tend to sit on him, or pin him down, to make her point. It made him very upset, and after many years they broke up. I always wondered if her being larger than him contributed to his breaking up with her.
Has all the progress been made that's wanted and required? Of course not.
Has a lot of progress been made? Of course.