Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Article: Princeton's Woman Problem

Yes, Bostonian, the studies might show women work less, but that is confusing cause with effect. Your saying it is something inherent in women, I am saying that working less is an effect, not a cause.

I also doubt working more should be necessarily seen as a good thing, but that's a whole 'nother issue.

Aculady, I have seen this in action too, it's very sad.

Rather than the misogyny at large claim, I think you could make a stronger case that the Ivy-League schools are out of touch with the world as compared to other state or smaller private schools. As a Brand, the IL colleges will not want to alter than Brand because demand is so much higher. In addition, the students who come in to the IL will be conformists, many from the NE.

I've posted a bit on here about my DW, who ran a BU of a NYSE firm, and she has a lot of stories about her climb to the top. In the end, it came down to performance. She got the job done and kept her superiors happy.

She has since moved on after executing a successful M&A.

She took a number of tests and interview for other firms' leadership positions.

One firm, where she used to be the Executive Assistant to the CEO when just out of HS, agreed that she blew away the interviews and all the tests, and agreed she has a stellar performance there, and has since been on the fast track, but could not get past her age or their memory of her as a "cute Texas High School Cheerleader answering the phones for the CEO."

LOL

She finds immature industries and growing firms much more accepting of her youth and appearance. Old school industries and many of the search firms associated with those industries immediately discounted her once they met her face to face.

I find it interesting that you type "LOL" in response to what is very probably an actionable employment decision. Not that your wife, if she is a typical female, would actually dare to file suit and make herself even less marketable as a result.

I have been specifically told that I was not given a job because I was a girl who would just start having kids in a few years and stop working anyway. I have worked in positions in which I was given more responsibility than my male counterparts for the privilege of less pay. I have also worked (briefly) in a position in which it was made clear that I would have to endure the sexual advances of a superior to stay in that position.

I would bet my eye teeth that a man can not be produced for presentation who was ever told that he was being denied a position because he'd just start having kids. Just saying.

The last place I worked (<15 employees) had an informal team-building policy involving foosball. I learned about it when we were hiring a software developer. I was told (by the VP of Eng) that they asked every candidate about foosball. I laughed, and he said (quite seriously) that foosball was an important for team-building and that not playing would make it hard to bond with "the team." He never, ever asked any of the women to play. The QA guys were invited, but not the women. The customer and sales guys were invited, but not the women. So the message there was that we didn't seem to be part of the team in this guy's eyes.

I'm vocal and did pretty well at that job, but that message was pretty clear. And given how important that game seemed to be for "team building," it seemed pretty rude to me.

Obviously, we could have said, "Hey, you should let us play too!" but the game wasn't the point. The attitude was, and it came from inside that VP. The other guys were all actually pretty cool to work with, but they weren't making the decisions.

Val,

I grew up in a family of six boys and one girl. My father grew up in a family of nine boys and one girl. I have two daughters. My consciousness was raised as a consequence of my being the father of daughters. If I had been the father of sons, I doubt I would have ever gotten a clue about misogyny.

Most males are stupid about females. But what breaks my heart most about misogyny is that girls and women often self-inflict it. For example, a smart woman once responded to me about this � http://supreme-court-gender-equality-pac.blogspot.com/ � by saying: "I'm against it, because we want to always put the best available person on the U.S. Supreme Court."

In sixteen months of trying, I have not succeeded at all in getting any women interested in my proposal. Major female-friendly websites have posted comments by me that have linked to the proposal, but no women have dared to support the idea to my knowledge. Even my sister (who is a very successful physician) has voiced her opposition.

Plainly, I too am stupid about females, even with a raised consciousness. However, I will defend my "stupidity" with this: misogyny will remain fully in place in American society until women share power equally with men. The only place at the top of the U.S. government where shared power can be required by law (meaning: not subject to public elections) is on the U.S. Supreme Court as I have proposed.

As the father of daughters, I think my proposal is fair and just, yet women seem to disagree. It dumbfounds me. A liberal male emeritus professor I know responded to my proposal by saying that women did not deserve the equality, but homosexuals did. So the line forms to the rear, and females are behind all males of color � whatever their color � and all male homosexuals. In other words, last. More than 50% of the population is last.

My advice is this: Do not wait for males to get a clue, because it will never happen unless it is made to happen. Start where you can make the biggest difference, and that is by guaranteeing Gender Equality on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Steven A. Sylwester

I have read numerous accounts of men saying they were denied jobs or promotions because their employers wanted to hire a woman to meet diversity requirements. In a country of 300 million people there will be examples of discrimination against women, but the studies I have cited do not find evidence of large-scale discrimination against women.

I agree with Bostonian in general, and think he makes good points. But then, I'm a guy, and I haven't experienced the sorts of sex discrimination that are related here. I think sex discrimination, to the extent it still exists today, is more likely to exist in small companies and to be a much reduced problem overall, not to be completely nonexistent.

I worked with a slew of MIT and Harvard grads once. Grouping by gender and whether a particular worker went to an Ivy League college, the women from Harvard (and one from Vassar) were the most assertive by far, in my opinion. I would be shocked to learn of widespread gender-based discrimination at schools in general, but I have no first-hand knowledge and don't discount the stories I've heard here. And I think there's reason for hope that discrimination today at upper-tier universities is heavily on the wane, when a Harvard president resigns under intense pressure after daring to suggest that innate gender-based differences might explain differences in performance.

How is that a misogynist view? You also should remember that the pool of potential Supreme Court justices is also narrowed by each candidate's perceived alignment with the beliefs of the nominating president.


By using "dared", do you mean to suggest that some women would support your idea on the internet, but are afraid to? I think that's doubtful.

I think some of this boils down to how we are defining and looking at discrimination. As an example, institutional discrimination against people of color is still very prevalent in our country. That is discrimination, even if it is not as in your face as it may have been.

There is still large-scale discrimination against women, but how we view what discrimination is, does impact how we see this.

[quote=lucounu]
But then, I'm a guy, and I haven't experienced the sorts of sex discrimination that are related here. I think sex discrimination, to the extent it still exists today, is more likely to exist in small companies and to be a much reduced problem overall, not to be completely nonexistent.
[\quote]

While it may be more likely, I can emphatically state it still exists. I find this especially the case in technical companies, even when it is not 'overt', it is there.

One summer internship, at a government facility, I was told by a security guard that I was being 'observed' and being commented on by the men that were supposed to be monitoring the equipment of the room I was in. The comments were sexually explicit. This was not a small company.

When I did graduate, I worked for a very large and well known tech company.

I put in years of service, and had phenomenal reviews. I was quite appalled at how things changed when I became pregnant. My husband had no issue changing his schedule. Trying to get my group to have a discussion with me about flex schedules, alternate Friday's off or really anything I put out there, was initially all thrown out of the realm of discussion. There was no project reason I couldn't have telecommuted for part of the week, but they wouldn't hear it.
In the end, they basically lost someone that had been there over 11 years with an outstanding record, because they were unwilling to have any sort of discussion with me about schedule. They simply wanted a body that could be there 60 hours a week, even if that body was untrained, and while I could have done the work easily in 40 hours.

A year after I left, I was called back in by HR. They were trying to contact all senior women that had left, because they were losing their senior women.
I told my story of my experience. I was told that my story was similar to what she had been told again and again by the women that had left. That management (the men), was unwilling to implement worklife balance sort of programs, despite that option being available via corporate guidelines.

Overall, my time there was good. I never had anyone overtly tell me I was incapable of doing something because I was a woman, and I feel my salary was probably comparable.

My biggest issue as a woman came as soon as I had children, and this was epidemic throughout the company based on my HR interview. This was NOT a small company.

The other issues I found as a woman, while I worked. There were not women in positions of management, or few and far between. (Glass ceiling). There was still vestiges of 'good ol' boy' networks. It was very interesting to see lunch, where group of men would go out, but women in the group were not necessarily included. I sat in a meeting where managers refused to acknowledge me and another woman were managers and put us on an organizational chart. The last, I don't think was discrimination, but was plain empire-building and fear their role would lessen to incorporate 'younger' managers.


I have heard that things have improved in the last 2 years, but there were definitely large scale issues at a large scale company involving women.
Tammy

I agree with quaz.

This mirrors the things that I have seen myself as a physical scientist.

It's a pervasive issue, and mostly a hidden one (except for those of us that it is happening to, that is) for several reasons:

a) nobody wants to be labeled as a "whiner" or even "not a team player," and few women will EVER live down such a label if they speak up,

b) much of the misogyny is just short of actionable, or

c) (carefully?) done so that no record of it exists or can be verified.

So it isn't necessarily that it isn't happening. It's just that it happens with few witnesses, it's a pattern of subtly hostile behavior (not a single, overtly discriminatory event), and there is often a clear subtext that if you want to be one of the guys, you'd better just shut up and take your hazing.

All in 'good fun,' of course.

My very least favorite line from male colleagues became "Oh, no offense intended, of course..." when they'd 'remember' that I was in the room with them while they shared an off-color joke, etc.

Also really liked, "But you're not like that..." after getting treated to some anecdote about how female colleagues were unreliable, thought they were entitled to special treatment, tried to establish a 'pack' of female faculty members... etc. etc.

The message was crystal clear. If I sought a female mentor, it was because I was weak and/or looking for a political ally. If I asked for anything-- even indicator prep help for my teaching labs during the first trimester of pregnancy-- it was a 'special favor' that they were granting me, and I should remember how "nice" that was.

Was this a particularly ugly work environment? Yes, it was. Was it uglier still for women in particular? Yes, again.