I said that in my original post in my thread, but you’re too busy having a hissy fit to see it.
I can’t say I’ve seen that at all. The administrators at nearly every public library I’ve worked at or had a meeting in has been female. In fact, I rarely meet male librarians of any kind in my public library adventures. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but I think they’re much more common in college libraries.
There are several studies out there that show that women by the process of socalisation - that is, the whole influence of parents, family, school teachers and classmates, and the rest of society to perform to the unwriten codes of that society - are taught less self-esteem, still today.
I can’t give cites now, but in one of Deborah Tannen’s books, she cited a study done on African- American girls and boys in self-esteem based on their self-estimation. There was sharp drop for girls during puberty - at age 10, they thought they were as good as the boys; at age 14, they thought different.
Many schools in Germany are now seperating classes again to Gender for natural science classes because lots of studies show that girls who aren’t laughed at for wrong answers, or being called “nerds” for trying to answer, or even unnoticted because the rowdy boys get all the attention, do better in natural science and math. (The teachers don’t want to teach the boys-only classes, because 30 boys are difficult to control to get any teaching done).
An international study of European countries showed that the more the state did to advance women and encourage them and help them in the workplace - Scandinavian countries are leading there - the more self-esteem girls had, and the better grades and test results in math and natural sciences they had, while backward countries like Turkey were at the bottom.
So the studies show that how bad or good girls do in math and natural sciences is a direct result of how dumb or smart they are told to be.
And your anecdotal evidence of not witnessing it is … well, not impressing me much. I notice how much my friend doesn’t notice of the many invisible put-downs. I still hear idiots say that their daughter doesn’t need to study at university, she’s only a girl.
How much on TV, movies, books are women today praised for their looks, and how much for their brains? How much for being nice and gentle, and how much as competent leaders? That’s the enormous pressure.
A popular science TV show recently did an experiment together with an university. They assembled a bunch - maybe 3 scores - of volunteers, all blonde women, and seperated them in two groups: group A got to read generic jokes before doing an test with difficult questions. Group B got to read ditzy blonde jokes before doing the same test. The result: Group B did about a third worse than group A! This was consistent with similar tests the University had done, but I was shocked that
- the women were still affected by it
- and how much the effect was.
If you ever watched the “blue eye” documentary byJane Elliot, you’ll see how little it takes to produce the behaviour you are calling children. Elliot demonstrated the dumb black stereotype, but the same holds true for women, and still today.
Maybe it would help you to understand if you went to one of her exercises from Eye2Eye that are regularly held.
You know, I could make some lame sexist joke right about now, but I’ll refrain. Instead, I will just remain curious as to why any discussion of sexism around always devolves into people telling me and other posters that our opinions don’t count because we’re men or because we’re young or because or where we live or something else.
We haven’t said anything about your gender, age, or hometown. We have different personal experiences. Oh well.
But we ARE posting academic journal articles, studies, and scientific research that corroborates our point of view. Bring some to the table. You work in a college library.
I think partly it may be I was in a town of 40,000 which was the biggest town in a 100 miles, and you were in or near a larger urban area.
I didn’t say this thread. I said that’s how threads like this always end up going.
This thread was a lot more fun when it was in IMHO. As a great debate, none of the studies posted point to women being “culturally oppressed”. Although an argument could be made that if just reading a bunch of blonde jokes before a test threw them off their game, there might still be something to it.
One only has to watch what kind of coverage Hillary Clinton got under the primaries to realize sexism is alive and well. Link to a Daily Show clip that contains such treasures as a reporter saying “Every time men hear Hillary speak, they hear their wives nagging: Pick up the trash!”.
Are you pre-emptively pissed off about what people are going to say in the future but haven’t said yet? Sort of like Pre-Crimes, but for SDMB posts? Wow. Should the women in this thread be worked up by the lame, sexist jokes that haven’t been made yet, or the accusations of whining? They’re sure to come, but haven’t yet, though I can’t see why you’d waste the energy being angry about them in advance.
I’m not sure why you’re so worked up that people are disagreeing with your premise that sexism is over. It’s not, it’s just changed form, as racism and homophobia have. They still exist. No, it’s not in the blatant form they took in the 50s. All the stuff that was easy to remedy has largely been remedied. Now we’re down to brass tacks, and it’s harder to fix IMO. Jerseyman’s post addressed a lot of good points.
Some people are just simply blind to what is smacking them in the face.
By military law, are women in the United States Military allowed to serve in combat situations?
Since the very first Supreme Court Justice was sworn in, how many have been women?
Have we had any women elected President?
If you are a father, does anyone ever ask you how you manage to juggle being a working dad?
If you are a woman, does anyone ever ask you if you help your husband with the housework?
At Thanksgiving, please be honest with yourself and notice the gender of those 1) who do the cooking 2) who set the table 3) who clean up the kitchen.
SHAKES is right that women do contribute to the sexism against their own gender. I can also agree that men are victims. Men do have babies. They just don’t give birth to them. After the birth, they can become the more nurturing parent. It isn’t always the mother. A lucky child is nurtured by both. But guys, I cannot tell you how important you can be in the life of a kid – boy or girl.
Of course things have improved since the 50s - no-one questions that on this board. My grandmother and great-aunt both had to stop working in the 1940s when they got married. My mother had to drop out of art school in 1969 when she got married.
I am fortunate to come from a generation where I have been able to keep working through a pregnancy - but it’s still amazing how many people ask me whether I plan to return to work, or how long my maternity leave will be - and not a single person has asked the same question of my male partner.
As Jerseyman pointed out, that’s because the laws are just not there for men to take parental leave. The Family Leave Act is pretty pathetic-- all it really does is prevent your employer from firing you. You can take 12 weeks of unpaid leave, during which time they don’t have to pay into your 401K, don’t have to cover your employer contribution to your health care plan (or can put you on a COBRA), don’t have to count your time off towards your seniority, etc. Very lame. My situation isn’t fantastic (30 days paid leave IF you have accumulated enough sick time to cover it; if not, no pay!), but I don’t suffer any of the other penalties. My husband will take one week paid vacation he’s been saving, and that’s it. However, I happen to work in a job that lets you save sick days and roll them over from year to year. Not everyone has that. I’m not sure if men can avail themselves of the 30 days paid with save sick time option at my job… I should ask about that. However, they won’t let you take MORE than 30 days, even if you have them saved up, without a doctor’s note. God forbid.
America is not very generous in terms of time off for child birth for men or women, which could be why so many women opt to just put their careers on hold when they have babies. There is a practical reason for this-- if a woman is breast feeding, it’s much easier for her to stay home and feed the baby than it is for her to work and pump every 2-3 hours, leaving bottles for dad.
Honestly, it’s because I don’t understand at all. I’ve apparently been very lucky, but sexism has just never been a part of my worldview.
In school, the smartest kids were always female. As I said earlier, the valedictorian and the saluditorian of my high school were girls and both were light years ahead of the guy at #3. One went on to become a college professor and the other is a researcher who just won some prestigious fellowship. Saying “girls still get told they’re not good enough” just sounds ridiculous to me.
Working in a library, I have never had a male supervisor. In fact, I only work with two other “men” and one is the maintenance guy. I also supervise three teenage boys as library pages (the kids who put away the books), but that doesn’t really count.
Growing up, my mom stayed home with the kids, but that was never thought of as anyone forcing her to do anything. It was always her choice to stay home and it was her choice when she decided to go back. There was never a discussion, she decided to go back to work and she did.
So honestly, I’ve just never seen it and reading descriptions of it baffle me.
I should have clarified that I am in Australia - here I am paid 12 weeks full pay by my employer, but at the moment this is at their descretion - by contrast, Boy from Mars is entitled to time off, but unpaid. But I totally agree with Jerseyman, that a state of flexibility for both partners, as opposed to just one is where we should be heading.
For the record, Government-provided PPL is being implemented here as of 1 Jan 10, although this will only be the minimum wage and will be income tested.
I understand what you’re saying, but just because it’s not apparent to you doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Your anecdotal experience doesn’t trump anyone else’s, and some people have posted cites to the effect that it’s still an issue. So I don’t get why you seem angry that people are disagreeing with you. In your experience, sexism doesn’t exist. It’s not a great idea to universalize your experience, in case you missed something. I’m not saying your opinion doesn’t count, but is it really a matter of opinion? Probably not. I think the inequalities surface later than they used to. Schools are much more equal places than they were in decades past, as are colleges. However, in the workplace, men still rise in their organizations faster and higher than women (and this includes government). The reasons are complicated, but institutional and personal sexism is part of it IMO, and I think men are suffering due it as well, as our discussion of parental leave has indicated.
And also notice the gender of those who are in the living room or den, watching The Game, or who are just hanging out with other people, and kicking back.
I don’t really know why you think this is making me angry.
Ok, not angry, but amazed, shocked, disbelieving.
I’m an academic librarian at a mid-sized university with four libraries. Just looking around I can see how one might get the impression that being male was a guaranteed ticket to an admin position. There are about 25 librarians working at this university, and five are men. Of those five, all but one are in some kind of administrative position. The sole exception is a man who’s only been working there two years. There are two women in admin positions, and until just a few months ago there was only one.
The head librarians at my local public library and at the small college where I used to work are both women, but in both cases ALL the librarians working there are women. This is consistent with the perception that a woman can only get an admin position if there are no remotely qualified male candidates. Again, I don’t know that this perception is true, but I’ve heard it from many female librarians.
Getting outside the library, I’ve heard female faculty members complain that they’re often called “Ms. Smith” rather than “Dr. Smith” or “Professor Smith”, while male instructors who don’t even have a Ph.D. are commonly addressed as “Dr.” anyway. And it’s students who are doing this, not elderly people who can’t believe there’s such a thing as a LADY professor.