Shaneen Harris spent nearly 20 years in information technology. But then she left the field entirely. Among the reasons? Gender bias and a hostile workplace environment. Read more »
Pretty great read, especially if you’re in a high STEM field as a woman OR considering a career within it (engineering, science, med, etc). It’s a pertinent topic that has been shed light on; major corporations and companies ARE making changes and accounting for responsible diversity. However, more awareness of the underlying waves of gender and racial bias are not only still important, but essential to a healthy work environment.
On a personal note, loving and living in the Bay Area Silicon Valley, these kinds of discussions are what may keep the culture innovative AND inclusive.
Take a moment and watch 11-year-old Yemeni girl Nada al-Ahdal tell the story of how she refused to be married off so young and ran away from her parents to live with her uncle.
Choice is human, animal, life...at any age and at any point. Never let anyone take that away.
The Mr. made all the difference. Very interesting short read. How much has changed? Reversed? Are people indifferent to gender descrimination now that most things are about online content and personas?
A belated Tumblr Tuesday to celebrate today’s Supreme Court ruling supporting marriage equality.
Human Rights Campaign
Follow the countdown to the Supreme Court’s decision in the fight for marriage equality.
NYC Pride
Run by Heritage of Pride, NYC Pride is your one stop shop for LGBTQ news of past and present. Those who are based in NYC are given information on how to volunteer for the next Pride event based in the city.
Queer Tips
Musings and an aggregation of information of the LGBTQ lifestyle, be it sex ed, health, political activism or art. Get educated!
F Yeah Bisexuality
A blog giving praise to the bisexual community? F Yeah, for sure!
Fuck Yeah Lesbian Literature
A great way to find novels other works of literature that feature a strong, gay, female lead.
The world's most popular production company is also often the most controversial. One of sociology's favorite go-to topics is the affect Disney has on young girls. People often question whether or not children are negatively impacted by the way women are depicted in Disney's most famous movies.
Disney is one of the biggest media influences on many girls' childhoods, including myself. Princess and the Frog, Brave, many animated films are portraying a strong heroine lead these past few years. Hopefully there will be more to come, but I also hope it's handled with care and the characters continue to have depth, and not to let this become a passing trend...
You know how guys complain they can never read a woman's mind? I think I found the answer.
I remember talking with a good friend about bluntness versus indirectness between the two of us, and she said she didn't understand indirectness. She asked me, if someone felt a certain way, why don't they just say it? For her, who speaks more bluntly than other girls I know, subtlety is hard to pick up on, and inconvenient. I wondered if it would have been as much an issue if she were a boy, and found the answer to be, perhaps not. Then I chuckled (bitterly!) to think that a switch in gender might have helped.
Men and women talk differently, that much is certain. And yet, that's the downside in many situations: relationships, friendships, and especially business. For women, indirectness is a way to negotiate without demanding, which culturally is often put in context with men. But this subtle form is detrimental in business negotiations, where being direct is the more popular form of conversing in American business.
I have this book from two years ago, "You Just Don't Understand: women and men in conversation by Deborah Tannen and randomly flipped to a great page today. This chapter, called His Politeness is Her Powerlessness, describes why, because of how we talk, we're judged differently. Evidence shows that women tend to use covert or indirect language, and men use direct or demanding language, and how indirect or "women language' is interpreted as ambiguous and powerless.
It's part of our culture, but this is America. My family, who's originally from Taiwan, is very big on being indirect, often equating it to being considerate. If someone says 'I'm getting hungry', another will say 'what would you like from the fridge?' At no point is the indirect person considered powerless, regardless of gender. But my friend lived in a very direct household, so if we swapped families, problems of communication would develop.
That's why I see a similarity for women placed in the work force, where if the majority of the workplace is men, then the conversation would take a more direct tone. Women have and are learning how to take on business attitudes in negotiation, but this is culture, something that's hard to change. In the past, women didn't work so it wasn't necessary to be completely direct, but by intermixing two genders then it's necessary to make these changes on both accounts. I think it's not only necessary for women to adjust to being more direct, but I also think it's essential for men to learn some indirect trades, as it is very useful in "mind-reading" or getting certain hints. Plus, it's more subtle, which I think sometimes adds to the beauty of conversation.
Excerpts from Tannen : 'His Politeness is Her Powerlessness'
"There are many kinds of evidence that women and men are judged differently even if they talk the same way. This tendency makes mischief in discussions of women, men, and power. If a linguistic strategy is used by a woman, it is seen as powerless; if it is done by a man, it is seen as powerful. Often, the labeling of "women's language" as "powerless language" reflects the views of women's behavior through the lens of men's." 224-25.
"Experts and non-experts alike tend to see anything women do as evidence of powerlessness. The same newspaper article quotes another psychologist as saying, "A man might ask a woman, 'Will you please go to the store?' where a woman might say, 'Gee, I really need a few things from the store, but I'm so tired.' The woman's style is called "covert," a term suggesting negative qualities like being "sneaky" and "underhanded." The reason offered for this is power. The woman doesn't feel she has a right to ask directly." 225
"..in a newspaper article in which a couple, both psycologists, were jointly interviewed, the journalist asked them the meaning of "being very polite." The two experts responded simultaneously, giving different answers. The man said, "Subservience." The woman said, "Sensitivity." Both experts were right, but each was describing the view of a different gender." 225.
" Entire cultures operate on elaborate systems of indirectness. For example, I discovered in a small research project that most Greeks assumed that a wife who asked, "Would you like to go to the party?" was hinting that she wanted to go. They felt that she wouldn't bring it up if she didn't want to go. Furthermore, they felt, she would not state her preference outright because that would sound like a demand. Indirectness was the appropriate means for communicating her preference." 226
Evidence from other cultures also makes it clear that indirectness does not in itself reflect low status. Rather, our assumptions about the status of women compel s to interpret anything they do as reflecting low status. Anthropologist Elinor Keenan found that in a Malagasy-speaking village on the island of Madagascar, it is women who are direct and men are indirect. And the villagers see the men's indirect way of speaking, using metaphors and proverbs, as the better way. For them, indirectness, like the men who use it, has high status. They regard women's direct style as clumsy and crude, debasing the beautiful subtlety of men's language." 227
Poster Installation - glimpsing faces without gender.
When you see a face, do you see regard its gender? Does your opinion change upon that first glance? Stand with a friend across from one another and focus on the snippets of their face you can see through the petals.
These petals represent women's stability in the job market and its temporary existence within a male dominated world. Beautiful, prospering, yet short-lived. There is still a lot to be done for women's rights, and we're not finished yet.
From Harper’s Magazine, December of 2012. This study shows that sexism is real, as it focuses on an initial salary offer, based on simply changing the name on a resume from female to male. So, put aside the numerous theories about whether or not the pay statistics are skewed based on dozens of other factors and employees’ individual performances and choices, and just consider this:
Average salary subjects in a September study offered a fictional woman applying for a U.S. university laboratory position.
Average salary they offered a fictional man with identical credentials
Anne Vitiello,Huffington Post Blogger
Gender Pay Gap Widened In 2012, Back To 2005 Levels
An Interesting look at marriage from a young woman's perspective...
"I started out thinking this way, too. When I was entering college, my philosophy was “men die, but your college degree is forever.” I imagined myself an independent, spirited sort of woman. I wrote off the girls I knew from high school in Texas who didn’t finish college or who selected their universities based on their boyfriends’ plans. Getting a “ring by spring” was nice, I supposed, but it wasn’t a grand achievement. Getting a 4.0—now we were talking."
When will progress completely stop, and when can we all comfortably sit in our recliners and say to others, the gender pay gap be a thing of history?
I don’t know. Truthfully, I’m surprised but certain the pay gap will be resolved hopefully within my lifetime. The uncertainty is when that time will be. But just stay informed and keep learning! Keep up to date with facts, listen to what politicians are saying, and speak up.
"To begin with, we must publicly recognize it as a problem. Too often, both women and men dismiss the pay gap as simply a matter of different choices. But even women who make the same educational and occupational choices that men make do not typically end up with the same earnings.
A problem as long-standing and widespread as the pay gap cannot be solved by the actions of individual women alone. "- Dey&Hill
Read More for suggestions from AAUW
HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE STUDENTS:
• Educate yourself about typical salaries for various college majors. Consider future earnings when making the critical decision of college
major. Your choice will affect the economic security of you and your family throughout your lifetime.
• If you must borrow money for college, educate yourself about the terms associated with public and private student loans. Exhaust your
federal borrowing options before considering more risky private student loans.
Recent college graduates in the audience can also take some actions to address the pay gap (ding ding!)
• Consider future earnings when deciding which job to pursue. Like college major, occupation has a significant effect on earnings. Your
paycheck affects many parts of your life, from your healthcare to your retirement savings. Choose your occupation carefully.
• Know what your skills are worth in the labor market. Be skeptical of salary offers and pay raises, and negotiate if you believe your contributions are worth more.
PARENTS AND TEACHERS can help your children and students understand the financial implications of various fields of study and work so they can make well-informed decisions.
Dey & Hill also suggest promoting careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in a way that appeals to girls and women. I do think that this is a personal choice and having that support there is good. However, being an illustrator in the arts industry, I believe that regardless of the choice, this is separate from gender. Math itself is an integral part of logical thinking, brainstorming, problem solving and assessment. It doesn't matter what major you choose, just consider what is right for you. Equal pay should be equivalent within each choice.
ENCOURAGE WOMEN TO NEGOTIATE FOR BETTER QUALITY JOBS AND PAY
Further magnifying these gender differences, women expect less and negotiate less pay for themselves than do men. Researchers have found that women expect less, see the world as having fewer negotiable opportunities, and see themselves as acting for what they care about as opposed to acting for pay. These learned behaviors and expectations (which may be based on experiences) tend to minimize women’s pay (Babcock & Laschever, 2003).
Individual differences in negotiating skills may lead to pay variation among workers with similar skill sets. Employers have a fair amount of discretion in setting wages as long as they pay at least the minimum wage and do not discriminate based on gender, race, ethnicity, age, or other protectedgroup.7 One study by Babcock and Laschever (2003) found that starting salaries for male students graduating from Carnegie Mellon University with master’s degrees were about 7 percent higher (almost $4,000) than the starting salaries for similarly qualified women. Babcock and Laschever argue that this gap in part reflects differences in men’s and women’s willingness to negotiate.
It’s vital for women to voice their opinions just as soundly and loudly as men.
SUPPORT MOTHERS IN THE WORKPLACE
Mothers earn considerably less than other women earn. Although this regression analysis did not find a motherhood penalty among full-time women 10 years after graduation, it did observe a large number of women leaving the full-time labor force for at least some portion of time. Research indicates that leaving the work force or working part time results in less work experience and diminished earnings potential (Gabriel, 2005; Felmlee, 1995; Bowlus, 1997; Waldfogel, 1998).
Rethink using hours as the measure of productivity.
ENFORCE FAMILY FRIENDLY POLICIES AND SUPPORT HIGH-QUALITY CHILD CARE.
On April 9, 2013, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which President John F. Kennedy declared to be the end of the “unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job” when he signed it.
FAMILY & MEDICAL LEAVE ACT
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 requires that all employers with 50 or more employees provide up to 12 weeks of annual unpaid family and medical leave to their workers. Among other things, family leave enables parents to care for a child after birth or adoption. Typically, workers take only short leaves under FMLA, e.g., in 2000 the typical leave was 10 days, and 90 percent of employees using the policy took 12 weeks or less (Waldfogel, 2001).
A major limitation of FMLA is that it ensures only unpaid leave, and many people cannot afford to take time off without pay. Only 8 percent of private sector employers provide paid leave (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006). While disability insurance covers some workers, only 22 percent of families have access to paid leave of four weeks or more (Gornick & Meyers, 2003).
LILLY LEDBETTER FAIR PAY ACT
Obama created the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on January 29, 2009.
This new act stated that the 180-day statute of limitations for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination resets with each new paycheck affected by that discriminatory action. The law directly addressed Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 (2007), a U.S. Supreme Court decision that the statute of limitations for presenting an equal-pay lawsuit begins on the date that the employer makes the initial discriminatory wage decision, not at the date of the most recent paycheck.
What STILL needs to change for the Pay Gap to become a thing of the past:
Progress will take 45 years if we continue stalling. This is a matter of urgency. Progress is only progress with continued efforts.
AND WEBSITES LIKE THIS only add confusion to the "cause" of the pay gap. In Dey and Hill's Behind the Pay Gap research PDF from 2007, they specifically vanquish the idea that the pay gap is not gender inequality and instead is an outcome of women's choice in majors.
Through meticulous research and statistics, Dey and Hill have shown that It is not a woman's choice to be paid less, and regardless of what occupation she chooses, the pay should be equal between men and women within each choice.
Mad Men and Modern Family...a look at the past and present of women in the home and workplace.
On TV and what you see around us, it seems the biggest threat in regards to gender differences are stereotypes. But subliminally, there are still many forces that show that gender plays a larger role in discrimination. Taking a look at shows such as Mad Men can bring up the importance of pre-women’s rights era, of the typical single-bread winner family dynamic. A character like Peggy Olson, played by Elizabeth Moss, strongly changes the work dynamic and portrays the difficulties women faced in the past. Taking a look at the past can bring us to a closer understanding to modern family relationships and how we can continue to evolve towards balancing work with family, equivalently divide the work between both men and women, and consciensiously support both ends.
Modern Family is a perfect example of new family structures to consider, along with other TV shows like Parenthood, where media delves into these modern family intricacies.
Claire Dunphy is a character in Modern Family that depicts the suburban housewife. She has a college degree, she's smart, capable and independent. But she chose to be a stay at home mom to spend more time and care for her three children. Not all families have this option.
Today, more than half of American couples are divorces, with single mothers and fathers raising children, fathers paying child support, LGBT couples, and other family structures. Because of these changes, it should also be expected that women be paid just as much as men. We haven't even delved into the subject of race or location, however by just focusing on the changes within a working class family, now most of the time both the mother and father are working.
Modern Family Cast in a Norman Rockwell painting...a thing of the past?
