Some female friends and I were talking about the mayor of our city interviewed in a local magazine that focuses on minorities. The thing is, she’s white. When I mentioned my confusion to the women I was speaking with, they went on to inform me that women are considered a minority.
Which I don’t agree with.
I’m not saying that all women recieve equal pay for equal work, but that doesn’t make them a minority. Minority has to do with percentage of a population.
Does anyone really think that women are a minority?
They certainly aren’t a minority. They could be considered an “underrepresented group”, but even that’s becoming less accurate, as there aren’t many real bars left to inhibit women’s advancement.
If that magazine wanted to interview “minorities”, they should have tried to find someone who actually fits the definition.
Jeff
One often hears the term “women and minorities” to emphasize that women are sometimes targetted for Affirmative Action even though there are (slightly) more women in the US than men.
I tend to see the world through the lens of radical feminism. Women are a lot of things, many of them politically loaded, but women are not a minority.
The SBA puts women and minorities in the same class. If you are a woman and own your own business, the SBA loan rules apply to you differently than if you are a man that owns your own business.
Only a women can represent women, irishgirl? And do you say that as a matter of practicality based on the way representative democracies seem to actually function, or in a stricter, theoretical sense?
Employers often advertise with: “women and minorities encouraged to apply.” What they really mean is “majority women and minorities encouraged to apply.” I wish they would say this instead.
I think (and please correct me if I am wrong) irishgirl means that women are underrepresented as a percentage of politicians. If women were properly represented then 51% of of politicians would be women because women are 51% of the population.
More than “historically disenfranchised”, women are a protected class under U.S. anti-discrimination laws regarding employment, along with race, ethnicity, religion, etc.
That’s the idea behind it yes. A silly idea, other than in the most narrow definition of the word, that they didn’t have the power to vote. Women have always been powerful, and today enjoy great power. They may not always choose to pursue that power in the most visible way, by running for office and wielding power publicly. By being historically the primary caretaker for young children, women have always had the power to shape the moral and intellectual landscape through their influence over the next generation of adults. Women have been highly present in upper-class intellectual and social circles for the last few centuries, and so have helped to shape the world around them and their own lives through their social influence.
Sure, their roles have been restricted in the past, but so have men’s. Women today enjoy arguably more freedom than men. Women are generally free to exercise the choice to pursue a career, and at some point to abandon that career entirely or go part-time while they raise a family. It’s socially acceptable for women to do this. For men, the choice is work, work, work, or starve. Women’s freedom to abandon their careers to pursue a family rides the back of the men who will be supporting them when they quit their job. That’s the social situation as it’s accepted today.
Women may be underrepresented in the visible aspect of the political decision-making process, but are my no means powerless.
the word ‘minority’ in the way it’s used in american society today is anyone who isn’t caucasian. it kind of took on a meaning of its own in that sense…
a college can have a population that is 75% minorities, in which case, they’re not the minority at all are they? the reason this magazine probably interviewed a white woman is because she is part of an underrepresented population in her field (politics) and can relate to the underrepresented races in america.
I’ll go ahead and say that until our legislators are 51% female, our laws will continue to be made with a male agenda.
That makes women a minority
it’s not about numbers, it’s about access to power, representation.
There are certainly women who are non-minority, just as there are plenty of people that are ethnically non-white who have access to all the privileges of our society and against whom race does not count; these people are the exception, not the rule.
Let me get this straight… a group of around 600 people isn’t statistically representative of our entire population!!! I don’t believe that for a second!
[/sarcasm]
Well, In Conceivable, I think that is exactly what she said. And so now I don’t know what either of you are saying.
Are they underrepresented politically? If so, then my question is: does a politician need to be female in order to represent a female? If the answer is “yes”, then I understand what it is significant that there are a disproportionate number of male politicians. But then I want to know, is this a function of the very nature of our sex, or is it just a matter of practicality that male politicians don’t care about women’s interests even though they could, and so we need to get women up there.
As I understand a representative democracy, or a republic for that matter, or as I understand the term “women’s interests”, I don’t see that it is necessary from a sort of political theory point of view to have females—or any non-politically unified group—proporitionally represented in congress.
No need for the sacrcasm. I don’t think she was saying that women are underrepresented politicially. That is certainly not what I was trying to say. A politician doesn’t need to be female to represent a female.
However, women are underrepresented in most positions of power. Women aren’t over 1/2 of the CEOs. Women aren’t over 1/2 of the politicians. Women aren’t over 1/2 of military officers. Women aren’t over 1/2 of the college deans. When I say underrepresented I don’t mean that their “interests” aren’t looked to I mean that they simply aren’t in those positions.
I don’t think Mr man is keeping her down, I think that all Mr man thinks of in terms of her is how to keep her “going down” on him. So “Mr man is keeping her prone” is more like it.
Meanwhile “little miss lady” isn’t helping much when she talks behind her back and makes her anorexic.
So I guess, c, both of the above plus about a hundred other factors.
Underrepresentation of women in positions of power naturally lends itself to their interests being unrepresented.
In order for one’s interests to be represented, there has to be a representative that finds those interests interesting; and I just don’t think males can (to a large enough degree) represent female interests.