<p>Catherine, in many places, the women who stay employed after childbirth still face, if not a glass ceiling, an elastic ceiling that resists upward movement.</p>
<p>Did anybody just hear that loud sighing sound? That was me. The whimper? That was me. The little shake of the head? Me again.</p>
<p>Just as a point of fact I have the WORST attention to detail of almost anyone I know. And really can only work if I know the big picture. And, since last time I looked with the additional confirmation from two childbirths with no drugs, I think I'm right ----I'm a woman.</p>
<p>It just sucks to sit there listening to generalizations that exclude me from the identity point most critical to my life. You can generalize about blondes, Californians, WASPs, I don't care. Baby boomers, fine. Democrats, fine. But these generalizations about women cause me despair. And all my life have caused me to have to choose, am I powerful or am I female? Am I strategic or am I female?</p>
<p>Cease and desist.</p>
<p>Statistically the only behaviors shown to have significant differences between men and women across the board, meaning actual realized significant average differences vs. brain differences or difference in outliers, are 1) Hierarchical status-ranking 2) Aggression.</p>
<p>Everything else is a hypothesis.</p>
<p>Oh no! Please don't cease and desist Alum! These anecdotes are interesting. There are so many professional women/men married to professional women. </p>
<p>I don't read women's magazines unless I am getting my hair done. These discussions are meaningful. They illuminate how many avenues are explored and what the explorers have discovered. </p>
<p>For instance, I am curious how you've been made to choose. I often sit in a meeting surrounded by 20 burly men. Maybe I've missed the social cues, but I never felt I had to choose. I've never 'felt' my brain was a gender, in fact. Do you?</p>
<p>Have you noticed which women survive and succeed in your field? Have you wondered why? Do you think that is valuable to share? I do....</p>
<p>Well.</p>
<p>I work in organizations, always have. Corporate America. And for the last 10 years, for high-tech America. It's a lot harder in the corporate world to sit in a room surrounded by men and not have to choose power over femaleness. I can't count the number of times I have dug my fingernails into my palm to remind myself to keep a lid on it, to refrain from joining in the jokes, to avoid bringing up my kids, etc. </p>
<p>I say I've been made to choose because in my experience you can't be attractive, out there, etc. and still be powerful and professional. Most of us tread a fine line when it comes to power in corporate America - with dry and not very female on one stereotype side and flamboyant and slutty or *****y and catty on the other side. Only those with enormous drive, talent, and luck can avoid the stereotypes as they reach the top. And those women exist. I say more power to them. Now there are those who don't mind the stereotypes as long as they have the power. They don't mind having their gender indentity either compromised or nullified. I say more power to them too. </p>
<p>But I find it hard.</p>
<p>AlumMother, I understand exactly what you're saying: the old "he's not afraid to lay it out there," "she is *****y" dichotomy, multiplied by dozens if not hundreds.</p>
<p>In many places, I see women still suffering from Jackie Robinson syndrome: they have to be better just to be equal.</p>
<p>TheMom is seeing some interesting things with the women a generation younger than her, who will do or say things that she would never of dreamed of doing/saying because it would have been chalked up against her as being "unnecessarily female." E.g., talking about being in a bad mood was always verboten...you get the drift. And then some, I expect.</p>
<p>There is definite discrimination against boys in my son's high school. Twelve girls and 2 boys in NHS in Junior year, along with a feminist team of teachers. Even as a senior, my son still gets a good effort grade from one female teacher with all the rest of the grades as excellent. Unmarried female teachers for the most part do not have the ability to work through the differences of male/female learning differences. As a high school teacher, I witness this behavior on a daily basis and lived through it in parochial school thirty years ago.</p>
<p>I would love to have the opportunity to have a single sex school for my children, however, I look it at all of this as one big learning experience. There is discrimination in schools and in the work place, maybe it's a natural way of evening it out? Wonder what the world will look like in 20 years with more women college graduates?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Unmarried female teachers for the most part do not have the ability to work through the differences of male/female learning differences.
[/quote]
Even the whimper dies down to a snuffle. It must be the feminists. Oh yeah. I forgot. Silly me. That's because I'm such a girlie thing:). </p>
<p>TheDad, let's just hope it's different for our daughters. And I really wouldn't whine like this except I was worn down by this thread and the previous one...</p>
<p>Back to the stiff upper lip. Down snuffle, down.</p>
<p>I've think I've been pretty lucky in IT as far as overt gender discrimination is concerned. It seems to be the case that managers, execs, and clients respect anyone who is a problem solver, creative, and combines theory with effective execution, regardless of gender. IT is all about real-world results, and everyone on the technical side (even in marketing) has to be detail oriented to some extent (programs, databases, project plans, etc.) - men and women, we are all weenies to some extent. (It does seem to be true that more of the boys gravitate more enthusiastically towards the 'shiny new toys' - hardware, software development tools, methodologies, etc.). I doubt that this more or less gender-free IT zone only pertains to the Mid-Atlantic states, though I could be wrong.</p>
<p>I know quite a few female execs and CEOs - however, my experience has been that most women do not choose to do what it takes to advance through the ranks of higher management because they simply don't want to - the politics and the hours are intense - you have to really want it to put on that yoke.</p>
<p>Well, for ex, UNIX gurus are UNIX gurus, regardless of sex, and I've known both kinds. But that's a highly specialized technical bubble. I know of someone with a Ph.D. in Physics who was getting grief from a couple of guys before class the first day of a high-level Math class. They were ragging on her pretty good and she kept her composure, right up through the moment when the Prof introduced her as his graduate assistant, at which point she just turned and smiled. Like a shark, I think.</p>
<p>
Maybe I was just lucky when I worked for a very well know computer manufacturer, but I never experienced any institutionalized discrimination, nor did any of the women I knew. My experience has been that results gain respect -- especially when those results affect the bottom line. It's hard to argue with documented success, and the successful women I know do not blame discrimination or sexism for any misteps along the way. That's not to say there weren't frustrating moments, but not typically from higher level managers, more from peers.</p>
<p>To a large extent, I think the disparity between genders at senior levels of management is more due to women like me, who chose a different path. I wasn't willing to compromise on spending time with my children -- that was MY choice, and not one that I think everyone would or should make. I also will say that the men I know who succeed at the highest levels also chose to make huge sacrifices in terms of family time along the way. That level of success doesn't come without a cost.</p>
<p>Not quite the same as TheDad's anecdote but not too dissimilar.</p>
<p>In my first year of graduate school, I attended a party for new graduate students. I was asked whose guest I was. Very surprised, I replied that I had received an invitation like others in the room. No, the man asked, whose girlfriend are you? I gestured toward my husband and said, "he came as my guest." It was not the last time this sort of thing happened to me. Not any more, though.</p>
<p>I had the opposite experience. When H was in graduate school, we attended a party hosted by a professor. H had just shaved a beard, so looked quite a bit different. One of the professors thought that I was a new grad student and H was the guest, which we found very funny at the time because math was not my strength!</p>
<p>This was in southern California in the early 80's. I wonder if this is a regional thing -- could the west coast have been a little quicker to accept women in previously unexpected roles? I honestly can't think of any women I currently know, even, who feel that their 'femaleness' gets in the way of their work.</p>
<p>Sjmom:</p>
<p>I suspect it's a generational thing, i.e., I am older than you. :(
Another anecdote: I had applied to another grad school and got admitted. I met the dean at some party. He said: "Mrs. xxx, by not coming, you really messed up our gender balance." "How many men and women did you admit?" "Fifteen, altogether. You were the only woman." Some gender balance!</p>
<p>LOL, Marite!</p>
<p>Marite. I suspect I am older too. As I said before. Let's just trust it's getting better all the time...</p>
<p>Getting so much better all the time.</p>
<p>With thanks to the Beatles.</p>
<p>I run my own organization and have done so since the age of 28. There are hierarchical issues on a constrcution site--between the all-male engineers, contractors, sub-contractors and city planners. I might roll my eyes, but I don't find myself digging my fingers into my palms. Is there a difference in the jockeying? </p>
<p>Every so often, I have a meeting with an badly behaved male Alpha Dog. Still haven't quite figured out a way to deal with those. I have to remind myself not to treat the young ones like the 20 year olds around my house. I did send one 30 year old lawyer to the elevator a few months back--for using language professionals don't use in meetings. </p>
<p>For the most part, I command attention on the strength of my talent, humour and analytical powers--without a second thought about what I wear or don't wear. I am sure men have all kinds of irrelevant thoughts but I don't think about those. Besides, most modern men are good at hiding those thoughts.</p>
<p>In the early eighties, I called a contentious meeting with 25 Korean engineers. At the end of the meeting, a few of them started pounding the table, literally. "Mr______ needs a son!" they wailed, 'Mr' being DH. </p>
<p>Living dormitory style, the Koreans told me they talked about me and 'Mr' every night, trying to figure out our modern marriage. Not my favorite thought, but I got it and it really didn't bother me. I still get a laugh thinking about how upset they were.</p>
<p>Cheers - You are your own boss. As long as you deliver to the bottom line, you are in charge. No one will fire you because they didn't like the color of your blouse - again, as long as you deliver. Or if they do, the barriers to change are lower. I'd rather lose one customer than a job. In a large organization, other factors are in play. Not for women only, BTW. Many many men are denied the CEO role just because of the elusive "chemistry". And besides, you just sound like you are tougher than I am. As I said before, more power to you.</p>
<p>Cheers, speaking of irrelevant thoughts, a couple of decades before "reality TV," I endured many a long meeting where my presence was cosmetic, superfluous, or otherwise had stretches where the nothing had anything to bear on me or mine (yes, badly designed meetings) and I amused myself by picturing the people around the table in either "Life Boat," as in who would get thrown overboard in what order and why, and "Desert Island," figuring out who would wind up pairing with whom. I think that speculation along the latter line a couple of times led me to discern some under-the-radar relationships that I would have never twigged to. [ A) I'm clueless about such things, B) absent virtual captivity, I wouldn't have wasted the brain cycles pondering the possibilities].</p>
<p>The Dad - in some places, yes, there is glass ceiling, but it is VERY different for our kids than it was for us (I assume we are around the same age as our daughters are close in age). We have some very high powered women in my profession and most have chosen the same path as the men who get to the top - they work their tails off 24/7 just like they did in high school and college. We all like to say here that there is no difference between men and women, but men AS A GROUP - with individual differences - seem more willing to put family on the back burner and just work, work, work. I know fewer women with kids willing to do that. Most working men have kids, too. Except for those first months of breastfeeding either sex could take care of the kids but it is more often the women who choose to do it. I am not saying that is a bad thing! It is probably a richer and more fullfilling life. But the investment bankers I know here in NY who are really successful are on an airplane 5 days a week most weeks. Most of the women drop out because they choose to spend more time with the kids. Being a parent has nothing to do with what sex you are. I think women have to come to terms with that - you will not be the lead lawyer on a case if you say you need to be home every night for dinner. That is the way it is and we all make the choices that are right for us. Most women I know who left the workforce, or cut back, would not trade their choice.</p>
<p>I agree with you, Catherine. Especially with this -- "But the investment bankers I know here in NY who are really successful are on an airplane 5 days a week most weeks. Most of the women drop out because they choose to spend more time with the kids." I believe that there are women who are just as successful in business (think Carly Fiorina) but I don't believe they have children, and often have a Stay-at-home husband. As always, I believe it's all about choices.</p>