I find this very interesting. I’ve worked in major corporations for over 30 years and this story is, in my experience, very common. There is a vast difference between a company saying it “wants” to promote women equally, and then actually doing so and the reasons are to be sure quite complex.
When I was a young executive (and I do mean young, only 23) at CBS Records in New York, I was one of a handful of women in a company dominated by men. I was actually recruited, meaning they went to San Francisco, to the local CBS Records office, and yanked me out and took me to New York. My boss was 15 years older than me and so were all the other men. They recruited me, they interviewed me, they moved me, they paid me (not what my predecessor had been making by a long shot, like $50,000 less than he was making and they fired him to hire me!).
But that is where it stopped. Because you can be sitting in a room doing your job brilliantly and still not be part of “the club.” This is what is unspoken and hard to crack. One of the women with whom I worked used to say that in order to be considered one of the guys, you had to have the courage to walk into the men’s room mid-sentence. Another would say that business is done on the golf course and the tennis club and in the sauna, where women are not allowed. Still another would say that it’s easier for guys to “travel” with guys. And yet another would say that women didn’t want to stay out at the clubs tracking bands as late as the guys and this was perceived as an unwillingness to do whatever it takes to rise to the top of the company.
I think it is very hard, if not impossible, to make generalizations as to “why” it happens: are most of the engineers at Google men and are they therefore the ones who are promoted? And if so, why aren’t there more women engineers? Questions questions questions, but very few answers.
All I know is that the stats, whether it’s Google or any other company, are not good. Should we, in 2012, be jumping up and down about one more woman, a comely young pregnant one becoming Chief at Yahoo? Shouldn’t it be de rigeur by now? Should we be jumping up and down about a woman being Chief of Time? Shouldn’t that, too, be de rigeur by now?
Is the answer that men simply do things differently than women at the work place? Is the answer that fewer women do things they way men do at the work place? Is the answer that in a company started by men there will always be more men at the top? Is there some unspoken issue at work because so many women, when they marry and have children decide to leave the work place?
Google has the reputation of being as open to talented women as to talented men:
“We get incredible women into the company, and we work hard at getting incredible women,” said Alan Eustace, senior vice president of knowledge at Google. “I wish we could say we’re amazingly successful and closing in on 50 percent women, but it’s not true.”
But:
Google’s data-filled spreadsheets, for example, showed that some women who applied for jobs did not make it past the phone interview. The reason was that the women did not flaunt their achievements, so interviewers judged them unaccomplished. Google now asks interviewers to report candidates’ answers in more detail. Google also found that women who turned down job offers had interviewed only with men. Now, a woman interviewing at Google will meet other women during the hiring process.
I don’t have the answer. But what I do know is that from my early years as a 23 year old Executive at CBS Records some things seem not to have changed very much and I am beginning to think it is a cultural issue in the ways men want to work at business and the ways women want to work at business.
But something is clearly going on. Otherwise, why is this story front and center on the Times online tonight? I have tremendous respect for the executives at Google who are concerned about it and have spoken up. That is the first pointer toward change.
Would love to hear your thoughts if you are so inclined….
Giselle
August 22, 2012 at 10:57 pm
Wow … so interesting what you say. I’m writing about this stuff and this is very useful. Thanks!
August 22, 2012 at 11:02 pm
Great commentary Giselle. Thanks for sharing.
August 22, 2012 at 11:06 pm
JR Snyder Jr I find it very disturbing too. My stepdaughter and I were talking this past weekend about the “fact” that 60% of higher education degrees (Masters) are women students. And we were both wondering how that is going to affect the work force. But more importantly I personally am wondering what level they will enter the work force and what their pay will be. Women still do not make equal pay for equal work and that is another issues, granted, but still part of the same conundrum.
August 22, 2012 at 11:20 pm
I was interviewed by Google about five years ago, and one of the phone interviewers was a woman.
August 22, 2012 at 11:24 pm
And what happened Lena Levin? Did it go further than that? Did you want it do? Does this article resonate with you or was it a completely different experience.
August 22, 2012 at 11:39 pm
No, it didn’t. On some level, I wanted it at the moment (since at the time, the start-up my husband worked for went belly-up overnight without paying anyone the last two months of salary). On another level, I didn’t really want it badly, and only on rather special conditions (I interviewed not as an engineer, but as a senior scientist — and formally, my work experience was definitely not what they were looking for). My husband found a well-paying job within a week, though, so I just dropped it. I know plenty of men, though, who didn’t pass a Google interview the first time, but then tried again, and are very successful now.
Due to my education, my husband’s work in software industry in Silicon Valley, and the whole social circle I am in, I see the whole situation very closely, although from the outside. My impression is that there are just fewer women who really enjoy computer science and related stuff, and those who do, and are educated enough, are eagerly recruited by Universities (which are also hard-pressed to have more women for statistics). A University position is, as a rule, more prestigious, offers better benefits and much, much better work hours and overall freedom than a position in industry, even at Google (even though the pay may be less, but it’s quite enough). I see that Russian women with appropriate education from Russia get high-level positions in this industry rather easily (there are plenty of them here), but many of them choose not to (if they don’t really need it). They prefer to do something else, even for much lower pay. So my overall impression is that there is something deeper than just recruiting procedures.
I have a friend who teaches Computer Science in Paris, and she told me that they have extremely hard time recruiting girls to their school — even though women get better job offers after graduation, on average.
August 22, 2012 at 11:43 pm
MaryBeth Farrell — Yes, they prescreen people by phone; and those are real interviews: they offer you problems to be solved, etc.
August 22, 2012 at 11:44 pm
There were two interviews by phone, and I think it’s a regular practice.
August 23, 2012 at 2:24 am
Lena Levin I am fascinated by your answer, which was thoughtful (typical of you) but layered with quite a bit of observation. I think there absolutely is a difference between industry and a university/academic environment. From what I understand academia is also quite competitive but in an entirely different sense from business. I tend to agree that there is something going on that is quite aside from recruiting procedures…thus my asking/pondering whether the “ways” that men and women are in business these days is just simply very different and, in fact, whether they even want the same things.
August 23, 2012 at 2:26 am
Apologies for how long it has taken me to get back to this tonight and to tell you that no (which you know by now), you did not misread that MaryBeth Farrell. I was surprised, but not surprised. Were it any other kind of business I would have found it completely odd, but in this Google world of online/tech/social media and the inherent belief that all communication is the same (this is my impression) I was not surprised at all. I disagree with the belief, but I wasn’t surprised.
August 23, 2012 at 2:31 am
Giselle Minoli — I think Google phone interviews are partly due simply to the fact that they recruit from all over the country, and they have lots of applicants. Some way of screening before flying applicants for an in-house interview seems reasonable. By the way, many universities do the same thing nowadays: first, a phone conversation, then a meeting at the yearly convention of the appropriate professional association, and only then a full-scale (several days) interview for three candidates.
August 23, 2012 at 2:32 am
Hi Suzanne Roberts. Benchmarking should be exactly that, shouldn’t it? A benchmark. The men I know in business share every secret with one another about salaries, negotiating, benefits, options, investing, everything. Women, in my experience in business are much less reticent in this regard. In fact I know many women who are “warned” not to share salary information with anyone. In this way, women never bond or form a support group or club that enables them to help and boost one another up the ladder.
I am not so sure that it is any different than other “inequalities” elsewhere, the difference between costs of haircuts, drycleaning, etc. There was an amusing/not so amusing article in the Times I believe about this and I remember thinking that it costs so much more for a woman to be alive they should make proportionately more! Wouldn’t that be nice?
August 23, 2012 at 2:38 am
paul beard I hear you. Don’t you think both sides are punished for that? Not only the female family focused leave but also the work being more important and men working longer and longer hours? Having more women in positions of power proving that it can be done is key…but the issue of “children” taking away from work will always be raised. Yahoo pledged to give Mayer whatever she needs to make it work, but I have not witnessed that elsewhere. Did FB give such support to Sandberg?
I thinking working mothers as role models for children is key, but if the only women who can work are those who make enough money to pay for help, the whole issue falls apart. Again, the issues are complex when it comes to why there are not more women at the top.
For what it is worth, Sheryl Sandberg gave a great TEDTalk about this called Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders and you can listen to it here. It’s quite revealing about her, personally:
http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html
August 23, 2012 at 2:39 am
Lena Levin It makes total sense given the numbers of applicants. You really have to treat that phone interview as though it is “in person,” meaning full out.
August 23, 2012 at 2:40 am
Giselle Minoli — when we came here twelve years ago, my husband, who is — undoubtedly — a man, was also warned that information about salary and benefits is private and is not to be discussed. As far as a I know, nobody discussed it in the companies he worked for, and about every immigrant to this country is given the same warning.
August 23, 2012 at 2:41 am
What one learns from this international community Lena Levin.
August 23, 2012 at 2:42 am
Yes, it’s also the first time that I hear that some people discuss all this information. We were under the impression that it was a deep cultural feature of the US to keep these things private… 🙂
August 23, 2012 at 2:44 am
I don’t think companies like it discussed, but friends and colleagues consult one another all the time. But I have been privy to far more conversations among men about money/salaries/compensation than I ever have among women. _That_ is very rare in my experience.
August 23, 2012 at 2:51 am
Frankly, Suzanne Roberts I find it crass not to have the freedom to discuss money openly. We are a society that defines itself and power on it, but when it comes to discussing it we think it’s vulgar. Yet needing it is a fact of life. I think this is duplicitous, cowardly and foolish. It’s also bad for the economy not to discuss it. IMHO.
August 23, 2012 at 2:53 am
paul beard I think that perhaps it easy to generalize about “why” this occurs…but that it occurs…less argument there…as the subject article of this post points out itself. Human behavior is hard to pin down…or change…
August 23, 2012 at 3:24 am
What I find most interesting and surprising in this conversation is the implied boundary between “conversations between men” and “conversations between women”. In my work experience, I didn’t make this sort of distinction; if anything, it was much easier, on average, to talk about professional things with men than with women.
August 23, 2012 at 3:58 am
Might there be a difference between academia, university and a traditional business environment? In general I think women are very tight-lipped about money. I always had the impression this was because of embarrassment about how little they make, whereas men are tight lipped because of how much they make. 😉
August 23, 2012 at 4:33 am
Giselle Minoli — it may be this difference, I have very little work experience outside academia. But all my experience suggests that if a man of a relatively similar experience/position/age etc. were tight-lipped about salary with me, it would be because he would have been embarrassed to learn that I make more than he does… 🙂
August 23, 2012 at 4:34 am
Suzanne Roberts — anything work-related, really. A conversation with a woman (in my experience) would much easier slip towards something else and turn into something more personal (for better or for worse).
August 23, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Mike South Thank you for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully. You sound like you have a background in Evolutionary Psychology, a relatively new field, in which I have become interested in the last few years because one of my stepdaughters has a Ph.D. in it (from Purdue) and I find it endlessly intriguing. Thanks for getting my “questions” about whether or not this issue is a result of something deeper that we can’t see altogether.
As a woman who has worked in various fields dominated mostly by men for my entire adult life, something occurs once and you say, “Hmmm, here’s this interesting thing I’ve noticed.” It happens twice and you might say, “Hmmm, there it is again.” It happens repeatedly it is natural to look for similarities in the “structure” of the situation (to rule out the possibility that you might flat out be “making it up”). It happens over the long haul, and you share your experiences with other women who have also noticed the same repeated scenarios in their own careers, then the questions almost become more interesting than the “thing” itself.
I particularly loved the bird story. And it was exactly why I asked whether men and women are simply, ultimately, in the end “different” when it comes to business. I cannot speak for any other woman, but surviving in the mostly male-dominated world of business is most certainly not the same thing as thriving within it. I do, after all this time and all my experiences, now believe that there are many things we just do differently. Is it biology? Perhaps. It it evolution? Perhaps? Is it the psychological/emotional brain? Perhaps. I really appreciate your comment.
August 23, 2012 at 6:57 pm
I want to support Matthew Graybosch’s initiative, while we are at that: when I was freelancing in software development (very little programming experience, but a sound computer science education, which was relevant), it was closer to $100 an hour (and $120000 a year before taxes). That was five-six years ago. But I guess Silicon Valley is a somewhat different beast.
August 23, 2012 at 7:18 pm
paul beard I’ve always had a somewhat multi-pronged approach to money and work: there is the work one does for free because it gives us a certain kind of inherent “payback” – helping someone else, giving back, contributing, volunteering; there is the work that one does for “free” for a long while before any revenue starts coming in – starting one’s own business, developing something, creating something from the group up and watching it grow over the long haul, but at some point the bills have to be paid; there is the work we do “for” and “with” others that brings us all sorts of rewards and we might not mind if we’re not paid either what we want, what we think we should be paid, or what others are being paid because we feel very fortunate to have that work; then there is the work that is drudgery and hard at times in our lives where not everything is quite right enough for other options, where people can be ungrateful and things seem out of balance. We might in fact be paid badly and grumble or very well and have a hard time leaving. It can be all rather mutable.
Sometimes there is the magical combination of having love, creativity and intellectual stimulation and money all at once. Quite often there are only any two of those things. Sometimes there might be only one.
But I do think money matters. There is nothing noble about poverty. And I also think fairness matters. It creates good will, promotes productivity and loyalty and is all around a good thing.
August 23, 2012 at 10:22 pm
I know but his wife doesn’t live in Omaha, as far as I understand and hasn’t for a long time. But I like that about him (not that is wife doesn’t live there, but that he does…).
August 23, 2012 at 10:25 pm
paul beard I am one of those people who is tremendously affected by physical/geographical places. I can live in the middle of New York City, or out in the middle of nowhere and pitch a tent in a cornfield. Oddly, they seem the same to me. It’s in between that I have a difficult time with. Similarly, I can work for a huge corporation or start my own business and be a one woman marching band. The in between doesn’t float my boat.
August 23, 2012 at 11:05 pm
Stacie Florer there have been so many references, I’m looking for a good one for you. Stay tuned….
August 23, 2012 at 11:14 pm
Stacie Florer these stats began to emerge in 2010. Here is an interesting article, because it mentions that women are still not competitive at the doctorate level, in part because so many doctorate are given in engineering, a field that is predominately male! http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/14/doctorates
And here is something from the National Journal:
http://fora.tv/2012/07/18/Women_2020_Reshaping_Economy__PoliticsWelcome_Remarks
But there is another I am still looking for….
August 23, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Stacie Florer my dear, I am afraid you are stuck wtih MY OWN POST about the stats from a few weeks ago:
https://plus.google.com/104028329852681318179/posts/UeENer4AEwz
August 23, 2012 at 11:48 pm
Stacie Florer — I found this sort of statistics rather easily several years ago for a similar conversation (men/women breakdown in graduate programs), at some .gov site, so it’s doable. From what I remember, the percentage of women in engineering/science graduate programs was (slightly) on decline, although the absolute numbers were rising, but there were significant differences between programs even within these fields.
August 24, 2012 at 8:29 pm
paul beard Speaking as a woman, who not only witnesses that behavior among young women, but who had one of my “close” friends try to do it to me recently, I can tell you that they do know they are doing it and it is a choice. But it is a specific kind of girl/woman who does it, often the kind who learned (whether it is from their own parents or not is irrelevant) that this is the only trump card they need to play or can play. Girls/Women who were taught/have learned that they have other more powerful and interesting cards to play don’t behave like that.
I’ve personally never thought that the kind of boy/man one nabs with that kind of behavior is the strongest lion in the forest anyway, because they are the kind that can easily be “fooled.” Narcissism is another interesting evolutionary trait.
August 24, 2012 at 10:13 pm
I have been following this discussion with some fascination, and decided that I have a couple of cents to add from a different “cultural” perspective.
It seems to me (or rather — from what I know from numerous conversations) that, to the majority of educated immigrants, the US is, without any doubt, a “country of victorious feminism” — that is, there are no perceivable barriers for an educated woman wishing to make a career (be it engineering, science, or business), with one (quite important) exception — the dismal (virtually non-existent compared to Europe and Russia) maternity leaves and child care.
Insofar as a woman is not involved in child-rearing (either because kids are grown up, or because she is not interested), she doesn’t feel any work-place discrimination and does exactly what she wants and achieves exactly what she can.
Now, I know that I am talking about perceptions here, and I know that lots of American women perceive the situation differently. But this difference makes me suspect that there are some culturally transmitted routines and behaviors that might hold American women back — routines and behaviors which are weaker or just absent in the cultural background of educated immigrants. These cannot be genetic, because we are not so very different genetically…
August 25, 2012 at 12:07 am
Interestingly Lena Levin Your comments echo what the attached article also says…that success at the top for women is a matter of perception, i.e., a woman may get hired, but it is not easy to keep her there, or as the articles says, they are passed over for promotions and have to go elsewhere. Decades ago, when I was hired at CBS Records and replaced a man who had always held my job, men quite vocally told me that I had “taken” a job that had been considered a man’s job, which fascinated me. Was there such a thing? Apparently there was and, also, as the article states, engineering is populated at the top by men.
Regarding childcare and maternity leave, it is was of the most talked about issues among the working women that I know and the problems are multifold: finding trustworthy and affordable childcare, whether it is someone coming to your home, or preschools or schools, and then there is the “guilt” that accompanies being a working mother whose job requires working long, long hours. If she is married to a man who is doing the same – working long, long hours – it becomes difficult to raise a family when the children never see their parents.
I can’t count the number of highly educated, competent women I know who have left the work force ultimately over guilt about not being with their children.
Did you watch Sheryl Sandberg’s TEDTalk? My fear is that the only women who are going to be able to do it are those at the very top. They will earn enough money to have live-in help at home.
But, I have a question: What do well educated immigrant women do when they come to work in this country about these same issues?
August 25, 2012 at 12:22 am
They do more or less the same as everyone else: some leave the regular workforce and either freelance from home or devote themselves entirely to rearing and educating their children; some leave children at home (this might be easier if there are grandmothers willing to help — this tradition is very much alive in many cultures; also, good immigrant nannies are easier to find if you an immigrant yourself, I believe); some leave workforce for a year or two and then return (by the way, in Russia now, for all its problems, there is a three-year long job guarantee for mothers — i.e. your company is obliged to take you back within this period).
At Universities, one can usually work out a good arrangement which amounts almost to a yearly maternity leave (my sister-in-law has three children, and was able to arrange some thing or other every time). My son and his wife have been doing the whole thing between themselves without any leaves, with minimal help from grandmothers, but they are both in academia, which makes it easier to work out the hours.
August 25, 2012 at 12:28 am
Actually, some people “bring in” their parents just for this purpose — it has its disadvantages, yet there is more good faith and less guilt than with hired help.
August 25, 2012 at 1:34 am
This is harder to do in the States Lena Levin. I have watched tremendous changes, at what I would call an exaggerated rate, in work/life balance in the past 5 years. More couples are split apart – one person living and working in one city and the other elsewhere, following good job – and the odds of living, working and raising a family in the same City or State that your parents live in is increasingly more rare. In my own family we have one child on the West coast (married), one on the East (finishing college) and one smack in the middle (working and living with someone). The issue of grandchildren when they come and how even to see them on a regular basis is a question at the moment we avoid because it’s unanswerable.
Add to the geographical and financial costs, the incredibly long hours that people are working, well, this is why I posted this article.
I now wonder, no matter what the intent is to hire more women (they certainly have the education and skills) unless there is a cultural shift to include them by making the reality of their lives more workable, I don’t see how it can change with the best of intentions.
Evolution, biology, psychological and spiritual intents quite aside, the fiscal and very often time realities make it a challenging issue.
August 25, 2012 at 1:54 am
I know. We also have the whole family distributed between four countries and two continents. And I was talking only about the US, of course.
But on the other hand, it seems to me that we have also learned to expect a very easy life for ourselves; because compared to how people lived even a couple of generations ago, our life (in the “first world”) is still fairly easy and comfy, many of its perceived hardships resulting from people’s own voluntary choices (even if they seem to be imposed or “encouraged” by the society). I believe, actually, that life is inevitably challenging and involves hard choices and sacrifices, just slightly different for different generations.
August 25, 2012 at 1:59 am
We are agree there Lena Levin. The I Want to Have it All generation is finding that it isn’t so easy to even have a slice.
August 25, 2012 at 2:50 am
Mike South last weekend I had young friends with their new two month old baby over for dinner and, even though he was someone else’s child, he was still magical to me. He was very immediate. Every emotion, response, reaction, wave of feeling. It is huge responsibility and an awe inspiring one.
I think we are all complex beings. Some of us need more than others. One of the problems I always had with the “traditional” women’s movement is that in it’s naissance it didn’t allow for women to decide what was right for them. For some women staying home is the right thing to do. For others, they need to be mothers and wives and to work. For still others they do not need to be mothers, but want to investigate their professional and perhaps creatives selves.
Watching so many mothers and fathers raise their children over the years I am always struck by the concern, the desire, to provide children with a wide range of interests, opportunities and stimulations – creative, intellectual, spiritual, sports – in order to make them well rounded people who can choose, really choose, where they can make the best contribution and impact in the world.
But I think that mothers often give up a lot of themselves in order to do that and I don’t think it’s healthy. If a woman wants to, fine. But we do have to somehow allow for the more complex woman, who needs and wants more from life to figure out a way to do that with support. It is still very much a choose one or the other scenario. Women are more complicated than that. We just haven’t come very far.
I think it’s great that there seems to be a budding stay at home Dad movement. The only big sorrow in my life is that my Dad died when I was young and I didn’t know what you are talking about. I think it’s wonderful what you describe of your commitment to it.
August 26, 2012 at 2:36 am
That’s kind of you Brent Anthony. I was raised by a single mother, too, Brent (my father died) and it was tough, tough, tough. It wasn’t so much the glass ceiling at her level as a secretary…it was the lack of empathy she experienced for having three kids at home and how incredibly difficult it was to balance it. I always felt she was hired begrudgingly and that there wasn’t really any meaningful support there.
There is a bigger issue, a lot of them, I’m afraid. There are good guys and not so good guys. And good women and not so good women on the other side.
This particular post about Google was a bit odd, given the skew toward men on Google+, but I’ve always found it a welcoming community and I’m always interested in what people have to say, women and men.
Thanks for being in touch…and for read the naked dancers post too!
August 28, 2012 at 9:18 pm
Just a quickie note to say: I have arrived a little late to the discussion but it has been absolutely fascinating, thank you all, specially you, Giselle Minoli
August 28, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Daniela Huguet Taylor There is a chair with your name on it reserved at my table no matter the hour or day of the week!
August 28, 2012 at 11:06 pm
Thank you, dearest! Your table always has delicious food. 🙂
September 2, 2012 at 12:27 am
“That continues to be a benefit at Google, as are other family-friendly perks like a $500 stipend for takeout meals after a baby is born, paid leave of up to five months for new mothers and seven weeks for new fathers, and conveniences like dry cleaners on Google’s campus so people can complete errands during the workday.” this is something much more then payed 16 weeks pragnancy and after for new mothers and 2 days for new fathers in Holland!
I did enjoy comments of all of you, and feel like need to say something.
I did grow up in Serbia (ex Yugoslavia) and I never did hear about different salaries between woman and men. Woman’s could and did work, if they wanted.
At many places, woman did work at high positions, if she wanted. There were places dominated by men’s, but also places dominated by woman’s. So , for me was just normal that woman and men have same salary for same job.
When I came to live in Holland, I faced this problem and was really supriesed. But I must say, that woman’s were not so interesting to work. Many of them stoped with work, when they did get children, because that was priority( and also I think, problem with what to do with children when you go to work- childrengarten’s are still too expensive).Benefit’s by pragnency and after were/are minimal, and it is not so easy for woman to work , study and make promotion in their jobs.
I think there are not so many woman’s who even do something more to get better postion, not just because they don’t want, but also, because they give up too easy.
Men’s on another side, have more possibilities and from inside and from outside to fight for their positions on their work.
It is really complex subject and it is great to hear so many opinions and experiences, that we all had.
Thank you for this post Giselle Minoli and everyone else .
I only hope and wish , that everyone do their best on their jobs, and that they will be paid and repected, by work and presentations that they give!
September 2, 2012 at 2:19 pm
Hello hello hello Jelena Milosevic. I so enjoy hearing from you. Your responses are always infused with your keen observations as well as your own personal experiences, and who can argue with that. I confess that, out of my own ignorance surely, I was surprised to read your experience of growing up in Yugoslavia and that men and women had equal opportunities. Mostly all we Americans ever heard about Serbia were the political struggles and not much on this subject.
But what I’m really reading, underneath your post, is that perhaps these issues are cultural from country to country and someone with vastly more historical knowledge than I have I imagine could do a very interesting post about equality/parity/inequality between the sexes in each country and how they are affected by cultural history, economics, religion, etc.
I agree with your last thoughts, Jelena Milosevic…everyone, no matter their sex, needs to be paid fairly for what they do and respected. Thank you…it is so nice to hear from you.
September 2, 2012 at 3:28 pm
That could be Matthew Graybosch….so under Communism women = men and without it, not so much????
September 2, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Giselle Minoli and Matthew Graybosch I talk about before and now also. I lefted Serbia in 1995 and there I did work ten years , and has same experiances.
In my opinion everyone who have quality inside and know what work means, will have no problems with woman-men eqality.It all just about delivering of good done job! And every good done job asks a lot of work; so, it’s about who have more chances and possibilities in own life, to make it works
And there are jobs what mens do better then womans or another way,just because of kinds of work or way men/woman lives. I hope you do understand this right way 🙂
Btw, In Yugoslavia/Serbia was socialism.
September 2, 2012 at 5:27 pm
I do understand Jelena Milosevic and appreciate your clarification…but it underscores my question, which is that I am wondering if it is cultural? You are also talking about the fact that some work is more appropriately male-oriented, and some more female-oriented? I have never personally balked at that idea, but I do underscore the importance of their being equal opportunity. I would make a dreadful firewoman; I’m too small. But I don’t think a woman who is suited to it should be denied the opportunity. Perhaps we are not talking about sameness, but about the same opportunity for equality and parity…
September 2, 2012 at 5:42 pm
I do agree with you, it is about opportunity, and that is what we has and what I talked about! It is about getting the possibility to can make a choice and be respected and accepted, when you can do it good!
I think the problem is , that we do not search for quality people can give, that we do not look further then our nouse ( old saying in Serbia). In our culture we say “Children are sanctity” and pragnent woman is respected, because she have new life inside her self- and that means an wonder! (not that eveyone do it- but that’s personal)
Anyway,I think, it is mix of everything, but most about how we look into the world and about our own knowledge, in this case, about good delivered work.
September 2, 2012 at 8:43 pm
Some time ago I read this: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/09/02/pink-brain-blue-brain.html and I must admit, that I can’t really say “girls are different” without cringing inside… knowing that we have made them so. Women have less drive in their work careers because we’ve made it that way, and men get better pay because we’ve taught them to go for it.
September 2, 2012 at 11:59 pm
paul beard — it’s not the first time I hear that schools are designed for girls, and I think what is usually meant is very close to what your anecdote describes. Children succeed in schools insofar as they are disciplined and follow instructions, and don’t get into trouble. It is easier to do for girls, not only because of the way they are brought up or predisposed, but also because, during the first years of school, they are slightly ahead in overall development, less “childish” than boys, i.e. they grow up at a slightly different rate. This difference carries over to later years because a lot depends on these first years and the role one finds oneself in.
There are even studies that show this effect of age difference even within genders (i.e. children who happen to be a couple of months older than the average in the class are statistically better off than those who are younger (within the year). It translates, statistically, in the number of kids who get into “gifted” programs, etc. — which means it has long-term repercussions. After all, when you are six or seven, half a year is LOTS of time to grow older.
September 3, 2012 at 12:16 am
In my own education (unfortunately) the school I attended were not designed for girls, with the exception of the (then) experimental prep school I attended in junior high, which was the best educational experience of my life. Your comments paul beard are very interesting to me. Carol Gilligan wrote the book on the difference ways in which girls develop: In a Different Voice, but, unfortunately it seems to me that insightful work like hers never gets far outside of the psychological, academic and scientific world in which it was written. This is a shame, because we are foolish if we believe that the only things that are completely different about men and women are their external genitalia.
Girls may be socialized to be liked, to be nice, to participate, to nurture, to take care of. And these perhaps natural tendencies, which are then culturally reinforced may be the exact same qualities that enable women to adapt in time of great change.
September 3, 2012 at 12:21 am
Hello Lena Levin. I’m wondering if it’s possible that what we are seeing is a Renaissance of women? In the 22 years that I have been in the art world, I have oft heard it speculated that the reason there are so few female fine artists, compared to the sheer numbers of men, is that the discipline of producing a lifetime’s body of work can only be accomplished with a great deal, not of talent or discipline, but time. Culturally, historically, women whose major devotion had been to her husband and children could not have an equal devotion to her art – her life’s work.
But many women now are not wanting to have children and are wanting to experience the fulfillment of a life’s work. Perhaps evolutionarily it take a very, very, very long time for cultures to shift so that women can fulfill more parts of themselves than solely their desire to love and have children and families.
September 3, 2012 at 12:32 am
Grrrrr Daniela Huguet Taylor. In every single job I have had my entire adult life I have been told (by a man) that money isn’t everything when I have asked for a pay increase. However, I have yet to meet a man who has been told the same thing. This doesn’t mean the men I know get the raise they ask for…just that their expectation of getting one or needing one or wanting one or asking for one isn’t met with the same response.
September 3, 2012 at 12:49 am
I don’t think I believe in such an overwhelming role of the time factor. It took Van Gogh several years to produce his whole body of work. This case may be somewhat extreme, but in any event, there are many great artists who died, by modern standards, very young, or whose body of work made them famous very young (and ensured their place in art history).
I have a couple of “deeper” explanations of the gender discrepancies in painting, but they are merely “theories” — enough to begin an internet flame, but not something I am ready to defend on the general level; I just use them as a guidance to myself. 🙂
September 3, 2012 at 2:21 am
Perhaps I know more older women who are constantly “fretting” that they are going to outlive their husbands and will have to therefore support themselves long past what they perceive to be their viable years as paid workers. Many of my mother’s friends growing up were female artists. They didn’t feel “guilty” about being mothers. Rather they felt guilty about being artists. As for van Gogh. He only sold one painting while he was alive. Better to be a Contemporary artists like yourself Lena Levin? I’m sure he could not in his wildest painterly dreams have imagined the internet as a “gallery” for art…
September 3, 2012 at 4:27 am
Frankly? I’ll take Van Gogh’s contribution to arts and culture any day over selling more paintings and being more “successful” financially…
I don’t know how and who ingrained in American women this “guilt” about being anything other than mothers and wives. Church, perhaps? You are right, I have never met such a woman (both my grandmothers and my mother were University professors, with fully supportive husbands, in happy marriages, and the idea that they might feel guilty about it never crossed anyone’s mind).
I grew up in a somewhat different environment, which was defined, originally, by the “Soviet” slogan of women’s equality (although abortions were prohibited in 1938), and by the tremendous loss of life, predominantly men, in WWII and in Stalin’s labor camps (there were women there, too, but still). These two put together, and women’s ability to live by themselves, and do all jobs imaginable was proved by life itself. Women outnumbered men among those who have higher education for a couple of generations at least, now probably for three generations (yet statistical differences in many professions still exist, including painting). Personally, I’ve never even thought of it as an issue.
September 3, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Lena Levin you are fortunate not to have grown up needing to overcome silly beliefs, such as that women are not as good in science or engineering as boys (thus the women at the top of Google article). Nor have you had to deal with the women earning .70cents on a man’s dollar scenario. I think the issues of why there even needed to be a women’s rights movement or feminist movement in the United States comes directly from having to fight for the right to vote. Our country is not that old, but perceiving women to have an equal voice is a relatively new idea. Yes, and here, too, women worked during World War II and one would think that would have changed everything. We are still muddling our way through what it really means to be a democracy and what freedom really means. There are many, many great things about our country, but there is also a lack of wisdom in many areas. We are getting there and learning slowly but surely, but the conversation along the way is crucial to that awakening.
September 3, 2012 at 4:13 pm
Oh, the belief that women (statistically) aren’t as good in science and engineering is there, no problem… because statistics is there, despite equal opportunities and despite of indisputable existence of some women who are excellent at it.
For example, my parents graduated from Math Department of the Leningrad University in 1956 (it’s closer to M.A. than to B.A.), and they had exactly 50/50 gender distribution in their graduating class. However, the really working mathematicians with a body of work and international name recognition were predominantly men, with a small group of women (my mother was one of them).
My high school was one of the select group of school for teenagers gifted in math and physics, and the statistical difference between boys and girls there was very visible as well.
All in all, after several generations of equal opportunities in academia, the statistics is very different in different fields. There are, for example, obviously much more brilliant women in linguistics than in physics (it is the same here, of course, and everywhere), and it’s certainly not because linguists were less conservative or anything like that.
September 6, 2012 at 2:07 pm
Lena Levin Daniela Huguet Taylor I wonder if either of you have had a chance to listen to any of the speeches being delivered at the Democratic Convention. In a significant number of them, the issue of equal pay for equal work has been raised, very movingly in fact by Michelle Obama and Lilly Ledbetter herself.
September 6, 2012 at 2:15 pm
Giselle Minoli I follow the US elections only slightly really, being in Spain I’m not as captivated, hehe, but thanks for asking. 🙂
September 6, 2012 at 2:17 pm
I don’t blame you Daniela Huguet Taylor. And Spain has its own rather serious issues these days doesn’t it? I haven’t been there in years, but one of the very best vacations I have ever had was in Spain…in Nerja, Sevilla, driving through the country. I just loved it…the people, the climate, the history, the food, everything….
September 6, 2012 at 2:23 pm
Sevilla is fantastic, easy to fall in love with. 🙂
Yes, Spain has very serious problems, and our government is impressively bad at the moment, a right wing party that not only is worsening our economic situation, but also hurting all those social values that made us be at the forefront of all sorts of equalities… I just hope they don’t end up taking away gay marriage, like they threatened to. And that would still be the least of our worries, I’ve already told my almost 15-yr-old to make his mind up to emmigrate… that’s a very sad thing to have to say. 🙁
September 6, 2012 at 3:52 pm
I’ve only listened to a bit of Bill Clinton’s speech… But, quite independently, I have researched (briefly) the statistics behind the often quoted 70c per dollar figure: https://plus.google.com/u/0/107923530149758134024/posts/KN8vxs3vBGM
September 24, 2012 at 9:57 pm
Hello, Lena Levin. I wonder if you have seen this article, which was published today in the New York Times on job/salary bias in the science field for women. It’s interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/science/bias-persists-against-women-of-science-a-study-says.html?hpw.
September 24, 2012 at 10:01 pm
I’ve read it now, thanks for the link.