Do you find gender oppression in your workplace? In your community?

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

Answers

Sort of. I work in sports journalism, and there are definitely fewer female sportswriters than there are male. I know that my own workplace has more men than women, and the vast majority of our job applicants are male. FWIW.

There have been multiple female sportswriters at every major event I've ever attended, so the opportunities are there. The one thing I have noticed sexism-wise, however, is that if you're a woman working in sports, you can't afford to make very many mistakes before some of your peers give up on you. Everyone makes mistakes -- asks the stupid question at a press conference, gets someone's name wrong, or whatever. But my experience has been that if you're male, other sportswriters are more inclined to react just by giving you shit about it. If a woman does the same thing, some people will roll their eyes in that "Duh, what do you expect" mode. It seems like you have to prove yourself more if you're a woman.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

Absolutely.

A few years ago I hosted a public access show here in NY with my best friend Jane. The show was fairly popular, and we got alot of mail - about a fifty-fifty split between men who wanted to go out with us and women who hated us because they thought we were trading on our looks to get ratings (which, by the way, do not exist in the world of public access). It was rather unsettling to be alternately praised and attacked for what broke down to be the same reason.

After we'd been doing the show for about a year we got a call from someone at Comedy Central. They were creating a daily news show and were casting a male/female anchor team ala Jane Curtain and Dan Ackroyd in the early Saturday Night Live episodes. They had found their man but had been having trouble finding a woman because "women just aren't very funny". They asked us to come in and audition, and we did.

Needless to say we were not cast, but more to the point, no woman was cast and the show evolved into "The Daily Show" starring Craig Kilbourne (who is an arrogant, mysoginistic, asshole in real life).

So yeah, I've encountered quite alot of sexism and reverse sexism.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

Does the fact the my vice president calls me "precious," "sugar" and "kiddo" count? I'm quite sure she wouldn't refer to a 26-year-old male the same way.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

oh gee do i find gender oppression in my dorm? i think i'm the one who starts it =) yesterday, while i was taking a break from finals, i had a discussion with a friend of mine and a girl who were playing catch in the hallway (hey, it was raining) and they got into a discussion at why the balls in softball are bigger than the ones in men's. i blurted out that it was because it'll be easier for the girls to hit it. i know, i was waiting to get slapped =) but the reason i'm such a sexist pig is because it invokes debate. we had a nice chat at how maybe the women's balls are larger is because it's harder to control the spin compared with the smaller ones. sounds pretty sketchy, so the point of this entry could be: why is it that the balls girls use in softball are bigger than the guys? =)

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

The prevalence of blatant sexism in academia was astonishing. Women were allowed to bypass waiting lists for non-traditional courses. Women were allowed to receive economic assistance through the government that men were not eligible for. There were huge numbers of women-only scholarships. There was a women's center provided by the university (but no men's center). Women were marked easier than men. It just goes on and on.

I'm still scarred by it all.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

Chris, they are bigger so that we can hit guys who say things like that with them.
Kidding. Really. I don't know a thing about softball.
(I'm a girl who can talk about hockey, though...)

Animate.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I could go on and on...

At the University of British Columbia, where I worked for a few years, it was ridiculous. I sat on a hiring committee that turned down the best qualified (and female) applicant for the director of programming job because she was "too small, no one would take her seriously. She couldn't work with roadies and teamsters, or build staging". She would have been brilliant - her resume was the best we had seen, and she gave a phenomenal interview. At the same university, I taught a seminar course, and on the first day, a department head (male) showed up and sat in the back - which he did every day subsequently. Because, he explained, I might need help keeping some of students in line. He had found that the girls sometimes had trouble with that.

I could rail for days on how people say 'feminist' as if they are accusing you of some terrible crime. Or how, whenever feminist issues come up, someone always says there are bigger issues for women, like child care.

Why is child care a women's issue? Why isn't it a parental issue? That burns me.

The Yuk Yuk's in Vancouver is a great comedy club...I remember going to see Margaret Cho there, along with another female comic I can't recall - we were shocked at the ticket price..it was cheaper than normal..but the guy at the door told us tickets for female comics were always cheaper than for male comics, because the women weren't as good a value...not as funny.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I work in the arts, which tends to be a female-dominated field, but all of the positions of power are almost ALWAYS held by middle-aged white men. At one time, women on our staff outnumbered men 2 to 1, yet 5 out of 6 of our directors were men. And even though I'm middle management (kind of), it's still difficult to be a 25 year old woman working with 55 year old men in charge. I still ocassionally get asked to make an appointment or make a phone call for them, and it drives me nuts because I know it's only because I'm female - my male coworkers never have to do that stuff.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I'm going to post a message of hope here :) I work in a technology consulting firm, and the main "boss"/manager type here is female, and out of 6 developers, two are female, and out of 3 QA staff one is female... now granted that isn't a helluva lot, but for the computer field it is not bad. So I'm just trying to tell the younger women, it's not all that bad, especially in newer companies!

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

At my college, there is a big emphasis on gender, because we are actually two separate colleges with separate deans,admissions and governments, but sharer the same campus, dorms, facilities, etc. We are what is called a "coordinate system". There are 91 scholarships, grants, trusts, etc. that are for men only. There are 31 for women. However, in the art department, out of the studio professors, three are men and one is a woman. Guess who the director of the department is? That's right, the woman. I have not experienced any overt sexism on campus, or even subtle sexism. It's harder to get into the women's part of the college, and our degree means slightly more as a result, but we are known because of the male counterpart. We have a women's center, but we also have a Men's Studies major. We also have a center that was specifically designed as a men and womens center. They host talks all the time about gender and their differences and similarities, etc.

One thing that really annoys me, though, is reverse sexism. I do not think that fraternities are sexist and that they should have to involve women, as many colleges are forcing them to. Granted, there is a stigma that goes along with frats, and yes, women are taken advantage of there, but for the most part, they are good guys (on my campus, at least). Just as women have a sisterhood, men need to have a brotherhood. When I was in high school, Shannon Faulkner tried to enter the Citadel as a cadet. There was a huge court case against the school, and eventually she was let into the all male military college. She was treated very badly, harassed to no end and wound up dropping out. I think this was wrong, wrong, wrong. I might get crap about this from extremists, but I really disagree with Shannon Faulkner. WHY did she have to go to the all male college? Couldn't she have gone somewhere else? I don't think it's fair that women have their all-female schools, but when a military school won't accept a woman because it is an all male school, they are taken to court and forced to allow a woman in. I really don't think that you would catch many guys trying to get into Wellesly, and then taking them to court when they are rejected based on their gender. That is one thing that really bothers me a lot, is that women seem to have to have everything that men do, yet they want to be able to keep their own things that are strictly female sacred. Do you know what I mean here? I am not a fifties throwback, I just see a LOT of reverse sexism in the world today, and I think it is JUST as unfair as regular sexism.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

My first job was in the female-dominated education field....where most of the power positions are held by men. Since then, I've worked alongside various engineers and programmers, and although I got flirted with a lot, seriously and jokingly, never once did I ever feel like I was taken less seriously than my male colleagues. In fact, my best experience was being the lone female working at a power plant with a bunch of former Naval engineers. Not only did they treat me with respect, they listened to my ideas, implemented many of them, and taught me how to disassemble a jet engine (ok, so I couldn't do it again, but I did have fun tinkering with it). I absolutely felt like a valued member of the team.

Now I work in the foods industry. Much of our technology came over from the U.K., so we have several white-collar engineers from London. And I have never before had to fight so hard to be treated as if I have a brain. Amusingly enough, I have no trouble at all with our American mechanics and technicians, the men from the more blue collar backgrounds, we get along well and discuss technical matters at length, they asking for my input and testing my theories. It's the British, upper-class, multiple-degree-having departmental heads that dismiss my comments and talk at me like I'm a confused 6 year old. And they speak to the female departmental heads in the same manner. Our company is probably about 60% female. Yet four weeks later they'll finally solve a problem by implementing something one of the women suggested at the very beginning (after wasting a few thousand dollars on the boys' ideas first).

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Not to be a snot...but is there such a thing as reverse sexism? I was always taught that sexism was sexism, whether it be against a man or a woman. Same with descrimination..reverse discrimination would be favortism, not descrimination against the 'majority.. Anyways..

My work is actually really great with the guy vs. girls thing. While the majority of the women who work here are in the Sales and HR department, there are a large number of female Engineer's and software QA's. My manager has often said he would like to have tech support be 50/50, but women don't apply very often.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Ky, I assume you go to Hobart/William Smith? I had a friend who went there for a year or two. She said the coordinate system "made a lot of difference" but could never explain how. I give HWS a lot of credit though, they are one of the few colleges to really push "Gender studies" or both men's and women's studies. I wonder how it is there, because I know most men and women can't even admit that a male gender role exists, and when men and women start talking about sexism it seems to inevitably get turned into a pissing contest of who has it harder, who has it easier, who did what to whom, instead of recognizing we're all being restricted and getting fucked in very different but related ways, and we need to work TOGETHER, not against each other, to get out of this crappy (artificial) situation.

It's interesting that you say that no man would try to get into Wellesley and then sue them, because I contemplated that very strategy. My ex goes to Wellesley and I hate that place. For one thing, there are few men's bathrooms so if a man wants to take a leak he has to get permission of the women before he goes in. Men are automatically considered a security threat there (although women who don't even attend the school have walked right into the dorms, right into their ex-girlfriend's rooms and beat the crap out of them, walking out again without anyone batting an eye) and one time my GF left in the morning when I was staying over, leaving the number of one of her friends who could escort me out (unescorted I could get arrested and my gf could have gotten some huge fine). her friend wasn't home, and I had to piss REALLY bad. I ended up waiting several hours and finally filling one of her near empty vodka bottles.

But that isn't the really bad part. The really bad part is the constant degradation I would endure when I was there, constantly hearing how stupid men are, how gross men are, how we all smell and we only want one thing (yet hearing the women talk about other women sexually in a way that would have gotten me slapped). I was rarely referred to by name, only as "boy" or "the boy" like I was a piece of Sarah's property. and if I ever complained I got some defensive self-righteous comment about how they would earn 75 cents to every dollar I would make.

This is of course, bullshit. My dad grew up on welfare, their dad's grew up hanging out with Bill Clinton. That's why they are at Wellesley and I work for a living. They have maids at home and cleaning crews at school, I get evicted from my apartment so my landlord can triple the rent. The fact that they might not make as much as Bill Gates does not mean a damned thing in my world.

Not to say that real sexism isn't out there, I'm just wary of a certain type of person who's lifestyle and position is based on exploiting others who suddenly use feminism as their way to defend junior high antics. I want to know where their "sisterhood" is with their cleaning ladies, with the food service workers, with the half a million Iraqi mothers who've watched their children die because of Wellesley Alumna Madeleine Albrights idea that half a million dead children is a price we're willing to pay to get Saddam Hussein.

Whew, ok, getting off the soapbox here...

Where I work isn't so bad. It's definitely female dominated, the president and all but one of the senior officers are women, and out of the forty or so people in my division, only four of them are male. However, I don't see men getting promoted in a tokenistic fashion nor do I see us getting shunned or held down. In fact, gender is not really a topic of discussion here.

I do wish we could tip the balance a bit in the high-tech industry (I'm a tech worker but I work at a college). I don't believe for a second that women are biologically less good at math or science than men, I think there is a whole industry based on making us think men and women are radically different so we will buy lots of books to figure out the "other" sex or buy lots of t-shirts or stickers proclaiming our pride in our own sex. I wish I knew why so many women are convinced they can't do math and consider themselves technophobic, but if they sit down for a bit and actually try to work something out, they can do it. It's just the belief that they can't that stops them.

Ok, enough rambling.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Dress code where I work: Men- white shirts, ties, no facial hair. On casual Fridays, no jeans, sandals have to be worn with socks, collared shirts/tucked in. Women- No restrictions except panty hose.

Why jeans and exposed feet and facial hair are ok on women but not men, I'll never know.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Dave~ Yes, I do go to HWS. The thing that really annoys me about this school is that even though they have wonderful programs on gender diversity, etc., most of the kids here don't care. The girls will look at Womens Studies classes and say, "I don't want to take that Femme-Nazi class..." yet if you DO take a womens studies class and you mention that you think that men get shit on, too, or that you think women should be able to work if they want, but stay at home with their kids if that's what they want, you get attcked for not being "feminist enough". Ridiculous, no? Most of the students at HWS are extremely rich, spoiled kids. They don't care about politics because they see no reason to get worked up about anything when they have it all already. It's interesting going here. A lot of my friends and I call it "Camp Ho Ho". Or "Snow-bart and William Sniff". That should give you an idea of what a lot of the recreation is like. However, I must say that I do enjoy going here, I think I have a lot of opportunities that a lot of other students don't have. The thing I like the least about this school is the snotty students.

You see what I mean about Wellesley? You got treated like shit there, and it sucked. It was SEXIST, which was kind of the point I was making. Why should a woman insist on being some place like the Citadel? Why would a guy insist on being in such a place as Wellesley? I don't know. I think it's deplorable, the way you were treated there. Women are just as capable of sexism as men, and my major problem with extreme feminists is that they think they should have everything that men do, but not only do they get to have it, but they get to TAKE IT AWAY from the men, and put the men into the subordinate place. Where is the logic? Why is pushing someone else down into the place you used to hold fair? I don't know if I will ever understand that one...

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

ok, the whole post I just did about Wellesley didn't make all that much sense. Sorry. I can't formulate coherent thoughts today.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Hey ky,

i don't agree with Shannon Faulkner and i would certainly never want to go to the Citadel, or VMI, but i'm pretty sure that the reason she did it was because those are both state-supported schools. She felt it was unfair that taxpayer money was being spent on a school that she couldn't attend. And Wellesley is a private school.

i'm just sayin'

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

fyi, i was actually interested in going to smith college (unbeknowest to me it was an all girls college) since it was in northhampton, mass which was the base of thomas cole, one of the greatest american romantic painters and i was so sad that i found out it was an all girls school since thomas cole was the reason why i was actually looking at small northern liberal arts schools surrounded by nature and what better place would that be than where he painted? any that's my two cents (hmm i should stop making run-ons).

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

It's an old debate, but this side hasn't been said yet here, so I'll take the plunge this time.

One of the big problems with the way a lot of people discuss sexism is that they are not clear whether they think it's an individual or a social problem. If you are an individualist, who doesn't believe in social systems, systems of power, then I could see why you might think that sexism means towards either gender.

however, I think one should recognize that there is an overall power structure in the country and the world, in which men are still dominant. Sexism operates to serve that power structure, and it affects men and women differently. I think men are affected negatively by it, but that's along with getting the perks of power. Negative male discrimination is not good, but it doesn't serve to maintain sexist power structures.

Discrimination that men may face in academia hasn't seem to hurt them much in terms of their ability to continue to dominate institutions in society, look at top-paying professions across the board, doctors, engineers, or in politics. Even in academia, majors which tend to lead to higher paychecks are still male-dominated. Even in academia,in applying for tenure-track jobs, maleness is still an advantage (especially the more prestigious and higher-paying schools.. what was that cite on xeney's forum about the study done at MIT about professor pay and privileges?).

If you're going to talk about individual experience, that's one thing, but if you make a general statement, you can't just back that up with individual information. There are certainly places in which men face discrimination, but please don't generalise that to society at large, unless you're going to engage with the statistics about society at large, especially salaries and occupations.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

a quick answer to Chris that if you want to go to school in northhampton you have five colleges to choose from, so not going to Smith shouldn't have kept you out.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

Ky,

I wouldn't say that what happens at Wellesley has anything to do with "feminism" or "extreme feminism." Feminism is the fight for liberation, the fight against oppression. The attitude I faced here was simply a childish fight (if even) against men. It was just a bunch of spoiled little rich girls who were too cool for the MIT guys and too rich for the Northeastern guys and are going to school in a boss-factory.

IT's too bad you're not entierly having a good time at HWS. My friend Sarah had a bad time there too, for the same reason. She eventually transferred to Smith which is still fairly apathetic to everything but the lesbian social clubs, but a little better than HWS and she's managed to plug into a lot of stuff going on at UMass I think. Unfortunately she became a Maoist which I don't exactly trust but that has to do with the history of anarchism and communism that I won't go into here.

Anyway, I think one of the most striking things about HWS when I was there to visit was when some kid said that he didn't understand why "townies" hated college kids so much. Look at downtown Geneva. Nothing but empty storefronts, bars, and second hand stores. That means all the jobs have moved out of town and folks sell what they have to buy money to get drunk and forget their despair. Of course if you're forced into a situation like that you're going to resent kids who have tens of thousands of dollars to blow on college who (seem to) do nothing but get fucked up and complain abou thow boring Geneva is.

But that's totally off topic.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

Reverse sexism is a bullshit term, and should not be used. This isn't meant to offend anyone who does use it (or uses sexism to mean only against women), I know most people do so because it's easy, and because others use it. But it is a false term. Worse than that, having a word/phrase that denotes sexism, which makes a distinction between sexes, is actually harmful to the issue of sexual equality.

Sexism should be used to mean what the word actually means: discrimination based upon sex.

Discrimination against a woman based on her sex should be labelled "sexism against a woman", or something equally clumsy perhaps, but more importantly, equally accurate. The same, obviously to me, applies to sexism against a man. Ideally of course, neither of these clumsy phrases should be needed - because sexism would not imply either gender, it would merely mean that gender was being taken into consideration inappropriately.

I don't want to get into the men-have-more-power-look-at-the-statistics issue - it's far more complex than the raw numbers - it's probably true, yes, but it's not *as* true as the numbers suggest. But in any case, whichever is the "dominate" sex should have nothing whatsoever to do with what the word sexism means.

Most anything that draws attention to differences, helps maintain those differences. Can't you see, Trouble, that if you were to make sexism have an implicit "against women" tacked on the end, that it would put sexism against men in a different class? And that if we are living in a biased towards men culture, it would necessarily be the inferior class? (conversely, if we are living in a biased towards women culture, it would be the superior class, so it has to be a bad thing either way)

To have a society in which sexual equality is inherent, rather than enforced, you need to educate people so that they see men as people, and women as people. People first, gender second. If sexism meant sexism against women, and you carried that attitude through to all of culture, you would have a society in which everyone was acutely aware of how very different women are from men (and vice versa), but how you must never act as if they are. Both societies might act the same regarding sexism, but one would be very very sick inside.

Sorry for the rant, saw red at the term reverse sexism, and Trouble's defense of it : )

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

Stephen, that was a very reasoned and calm argument. I understand your point, I think. I still disagree.

I don't think it's helpful to talk about what words "really mean". you equate 'sexism' with 'discrimination based on sex.' I would use the phrase 'sex discrimination' in that case. I think it's important to have a term that deals with the power relations in society, the power balances tend to sift out along multiple lines (which are constructed not necesarily inherent), one of which is gender.

I understand the idea that "anything that calls attention to differences maintains those differences." but the point is that society ALREADY calls attention to gender differences, and there needs to be a way to address that. If you don't do respond to the fact that society is already skewed in certain people's favor, then you are just supporting the status quo.

as I said above, what you call "sexism against men", which I called "negative discrimination against men", I DO put in a different class. Not morally, I do am not saying that negative discrimination against men is "less bad" or something like that. I'm not sure what you mean by "inferior class." But it in terms of generalizations about society, and in terms of the status quo and power relations, I don't think it's useful to equate it with discrimination which favors the skewed status quo.

My two points are 1) we do not live on a level playing field. not in terms of gender, nor class, nor race, nor lots of other things. -ignoring that will not make it go away. It is difficult to work out how to proceed, but blindness to the various things which affect how we interact with power will not help. 2) we need words which describe actions in support of the skewed status quo. Many people do use "sexism" in relation to gender in this case. -once again "really means" for me is more debatable. dictionaries are often biased or behind the times, and in-use i would say there are arguments on both sides.

what is usefull about this discussion is that people can be at least aware that "sexism" has at least the two definitions used here. I make my argument in terms of usefullness-of-the-term (elsewhere I've done the same with "racism"), rather than what it "really means" or trying to make up a more awkward or unfamiliar word. also, I think "sex discrimination" is clearer for the concept Stephen mentioned above.

-trouble

ps. i think this mighta been a little repetitive. sorry, it's examtime and i'm 'bout studied out.. http://i.am/troubleathome

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

People first, gender later - I could subscribe to that in an ideal world. But the situation we find ourselves in these days, even though progress has been made over the past century, still puts men first and women last, and I despise that. Therefore, I'm all for positive discrimination in this case - for example, if a man and a woman with similar qualifications apply for the same job, the woman should be hired.

Overall, the company I work at has a pretty decent record in this respect. Pretty much equal pay and equal opportunity, but there is room for improvement.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2000

So let's see, now. I'm Mx. Businessperson and I'm going to hire someone to do a certain job. I can hire a man for $40,000 or a woman for $30,000 (since women make 75% of men). Why would I hire the man? Is it because I have all this money I don't know what to do with?

Give me a break. If women really made less for the same work nobody would hire men.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2000

Dave-

Were you sexist, you would theoretically hire the man (and pay the extra $10K) because he's male and you think he'd do a better job than a woman with similar credentials.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

I've actually experienced sexism in the workplace as a man. Working at an advertisement paper in my hometown, I was trying to move up in the company to working as a layout designer from a production assistant. My boss turned down the idea. I was later told by the women in that department that he didn't want any men in that group. He's never hired a male for those positions in the 15 years he's operated the paper. Made me go, hmm...

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

Speaking of Smith, there was an interesting scandal last year. A girl who used to go by GirlyName became, for all intents and purposes, a boy, going by ManlyManName. This wasn't an issue, but when she/he wanted to get a sex f-to-m sex change, Smith was going to not allow her/him to continue schooling there. It was a reasonably intense source of controversy. ManlyManName and his/her friends said that ManlyManName should be able to continue going to Smith even though he/she would, at that point, physically be a male. Smith said no, because only physical females are allowed to study undergrad there.

I think Smith was right. If ManlyManName feels that he/she is a man underneath it all, and wants to go to the extreme of having things physically altered to prove it, why should he/she be at a women's school? It seems pretty clearcut, to me, anyway, as a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

What do you guys think?

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

By having your cake and eating it too, I mean being a man who is attracted to women, attending a women's college. It doesn't fit.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

Mike: exactly. I've never heard of an employer who goes strictly by salary requirements in hiring. Employers are often willing to pay more to a candidate who is perceived as more qualified; it happens all the time.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

I also experienced some interesting gender dynamics in my former workplace. I worked in Marketing, which was traditionally (in that company) a female domain. Out of a department of around 20 people, we had one male. I know from talking to him that he sometimes felt out of place. But I did find that my ideas were more listened to and my authority more respected when meeting with people within my department. Whether this was due to my gender, or just because the people in my department knew me and respected me, I can't say.

In that company (and I'm not trying to generalize this across society), women were often paid less money because they were more likely to take off time to care for a child or parent. In looking at the company bigwigs, the only women there were the ones who were single and childless, and willing to devote every waking hour to their work. The men were much more likely to have wives and children. It's one of the reasons I left the company, but it's far from the only one. But again, that's just my experience.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

Ach. You have stumbled upon one of my peeves. I got to thinking one day that there really is no such thing as "reverse" sexism or "reverse" discrimination. To add the "reverse" with sexism wrongly implies that only men discriminate. The same goes for the phrase "reverse discrimination" - it wrongly implies that only white people discriminate. I don't think I've ever heard of "reverse sexism" in the media, but have definitely heard of "reverse racism/discrimination". I understand what you mean, just think it's something we have to think about...

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

Kim: you have hit upon another source for the statistics about pay. Sex segregated labor markets. women are concentrated in lower-paying professions, thereby driving their average wages below mens. it's not just different pay for same work (although as Beth points out it's about perceptions here, not necessarily actuality), it's also different pay for jobs with different "genders" attached.

interestingly, in some countries where women are the majority in what is elsewhere a male-dominated job (doctors for example) the prestige associated with it, and the pay, is significantly lower.

-trouble

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

oops. as beth and mike pointed out.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

Dave: Were you sexist, you would theoretically hire the man (and pay the extra $10K) because he's male and you think he'd do a better job than a woman with similar credentials. Yeah, I know that's the theory, and I know it's easy to imagine, but the reality is a little different. It's a competitive marketplace out there, and if a company is dumb enough to hire men, when they could get women to do the work for 75% of the pay, they wouldn't last long.

Why aren't there calls at shareholder meetings to fire all the men and replace them with women for 75% of the cost, thereby improving profits? Isn't that suggestion laughable?

It was recently found, in a study based on the '96 Canadian census, that if you only looked at single, never married people, women made 98% of what men made, ie., almost on par.

The real reason that women, on average, make less than men is that many of them neglect their careers in favor of having children. They're only putting in time until they quit to have kids. I've seen it again and again.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

Dave, in his endless quest to infuriate the maximum number of people possible in any given day, writes:

"Why aren't there calls at shareholder meetings to fire all the men and replace them with women for 75% of the cost, thereby improving profits? Isn't that suggestion laughable?"

I freely admit that my job doesn't involve going to shareholder meetings of major companies, but I'd wager that you also don't see calls from shareholders demanding that companies move their factories to other countries with lower wage scales, even though such a move could also presumably affect the bottom line.

(Wow, that's one long sentence!)

I just don't think shareholders necessarily are focusing on a company's salary structure, or -- if they are -- the first thing they notice is executive compensation. And I don't think the lack of any such shareholder action can really be construed as proof that the salary discrepency does not exist. Companies don't publish a list of all their employees and who makes how much, so how would shareholders know the specific salary structure anyway?

I'm not going to touch that last paragraph, except to say that I'm assuming it's there solely for the shock value.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

I think we can do without the personal attacks, Mike.

You're getting hung up on the shareholder thing, it was just an example. My point was, that in theory, if we accept that women really get 75% of the wages of men, any company could become more profitable by firing their men, and hiring replacement women for 75% of the cost. Show me the flaw in that thinking.

-- Anonymous, May 18, 2000

Uh, the men would sue, and so would the women?

Just a thought.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

I think the real answer to Dave's question is that the male employees are perceived (often incorrectly) as being more valuable and prestigious, and thus worth the money.

In my field (biology) approximately 95% of the "big names" are men, and an institution that wants to increase its prestige will try to acquire as many big names as possible. This increased prestige means that the institution will be able to pull in more grants. Big names are a good investment.

I think the essential question is not one of salary (which is a symptom of the problem, not the cause) but is instead one of how a person's worth as an employee is determined. I think it's very difficult to deny that some of the criteria used to make this judgement are biased in favor of men.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000