Just a quick statistic: On the Board of Directors of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the males out number the females two to one.
Just sayin’…
You are again ignoring any part of my argument that works in my favor, but I’ll play again.
I didn’t “fail to notice” anything. Did you fail to read where I said that of the top two choices for the principal’s job at my high school, both were female and both turned down the job?
I also pointed out that the district superintendent (the person above the principal) was a woman during my entire educational upbringing. You ignored this.
You also attack my age. Very classy.
Why is this discrimination? You bemoan the fact there are few women principals in high schools. You think the number should be more equal. Others bemoan the fact there are few male librarians. They think the number should be more equal. Why are you right and I’m wrong?
I also never said I was sure of that statement, it was just something several co-workers suggested to me was a possibility.
Librarians are paid less because they are public servants. All public servants are paid lower wages compared to equivalent jobs in the private sector. This is not news.
As for why men stopped being librarians, it is a mystery, and one we’ve discussed in my library school classes. No one seems to know why, it just sort of happened.
I’m sorry, we seem to be talking at cross terms here. In New York state, mayors can only be elected in cities. Any other township elects a “town supervisor,” same basic job, different title. And as I stated, the town supervisor of my town (AKA, the mayor) is a woman.
I’d also like to point out that the county executive is not a glorified secretary and the position is held by a woman. As I said, your crystal ball needs cleaning.
Stop ignoring the arguments I make that show my arguements in a good light and then we’ll talk about blindness and density.
However, if we are talking about ongoing sexist practices, we need to be aware that even where attitudes have changed, the numbers are not going to flip overnight. When a school board is finally populated by enough people who are going to be sex-blind in hiring and promotion, they are not going to run out and fire all the men currently serving in the top positions just so that they can increase the number of women in place. Similarly, when a school is doing a search to bring in candidates from the outside, the existing pool is going to be skewed by the current number of men who already have similar positions on their resumes. I would not be surprised to find that there is lingering sexism in the area of school management, particualrly in certain regions of the country that have stronger cultural dispositions toward the roles of men and women. However, neither pointing to current raw numbers nor anecdotes establishes the level of sexism currently operating. It only demonstrates that the effects of sexism have not yet faded.
As an example, when I entered programming in the early 1980s, I could not have named a single IT manager outside data entry or scheduling, although there were a large number of young women programmers. Today, I can name lots of women managers in programming departments, and general IT managers, and even CIOs. Did it take 25 years to change? Not startting in 1980. I suspect that sexist hiring had already pretty much died (with the occasional cantankerous exception) in the 1970s before I entered the field. Why do I say that? Because within two years of my entry I began to see more and more women promoted to management and I do not recall a single objection raised* that they would not work out because they were women. Sexism did not die in 1981, although a 1980 snapshot would have suggested that sexism was rampant. Rather, the sexism died before 1980 and qualified women only became available to take advantage of that change in attitudes in the early 1980s.
- By “single exception” I mean an actual objection raised by the men overseeing the hiring and promotion. There were, of course, one or two troglodytes among the troops who grumbled.
While I agree, Tom, I’ve also been hearing that argument for 25 years - we are a generation removed from “women’s lib” and still being told “patience.” And the numbers are not close to proportional for most professions. Granted - for many professions they WON’T be (I work for a company that hires engineers - do you know how hard it is to hire “persons of color” as engineers - not that hard if they are Asian - harder but possible for Latinos - near impossible for African Americans - try a diversity initiative to hire Black engineers - it ain’t easy - add Black female engineers and you can’t even find applicants). And granted, women are still far more likely to Mommytrack. But look at women in partnership professions (big CPA firms, law firms) and even without kids, billing the same hours, having been in those professions for decades, women are far less likely to make partner than men of the same age, experience, and education. (Unfortunately, the two studies I know about - one from the ABA and one from the ASCPAs aren’t googleable).
Also, men don’t want to go into elementary education. A woman can declare her love for children without having people sidle away and call *Dateline * on her.
I am not asserting that equality has been achieved. I simply note that a look at raw numbers in a snapshot format does not indicate that sexist policies are in place today for any given field. One does need to look at trends. In education in Ohio, I would say that the trend is hevily toward equal opportunity. In Tennesse, I would make no such claim. But in either case, a look at the figures for any given year is inadequate to determine whether sexist practices are changing.
Heck, some of the “victories” are being re-examined in the light of economics. There has been a great deal made about the fact that women, who used to be prohibited entry to medical school, are now a majority of med students. The unspoken part of that equation is that with the steep rise in malpractice insurance and the squeeze imposed by managed health care, medical doctors earn less (in comparative buying power) than they have in over a century and men appear to be shunning the profession as it is no longer a guaranteed entry to “wealth.” I have not followed the discussion closely, (although I do know a few anecdotes on the matter), but it is interesting to see successes portrayed as losses and it would be more interesting if it could be demonstrated to be true.
My point in my exchange with Zoe, however, remains one of caution when using snapshots to determine progress.
That, too, is changing, however. My local elementary schools have had male teachers for a decade, or so, and the middle schools have had male teachers for a long time. (The result of elementary school teachers finally getting a living wage, at least in affluent suburbs and exurbs, perhaps?)
I posted some information I found in this thread about material instinct. (See post #5 - and, mods, feel free to let me know if you need me to copy & paste the info here. I’m being lazy now, but would be happy to if necessary to comply with board rules.)
It discusses the mother’s biological responses more than the child’s; however, the studies I found seem to imply that children are hardwired to respond to their mothers, just as their mothers are hardwired to respond to them. As I noted in that post, I was having trouble finding articles I didn’t have to pay for. I found cites for many more, but wasn’t willing to fork over the cash (I’m cheap that way).
[hijack]Now you’ve got me really interested - what area of developmental psychology did you study? Do you work in dev. psychology now? I did a lot of genetic biological study in my post-grad, but worked mostly in archaeology. Toward the end, though, I would have liked to have studied neural development and sociobiology more. I’d love to hear more about your studies. [/hijack]
I hear crickets chirping.
Did I manage to kill yet another thread?? 
I’m dismayed that we’ve drifted back into a numerical argument. It should be abundantly clear that equality of opportunity does not imply equality of outcome, and conversely, different proportions of people in certain careers does not imply discrimination. tomndebb’s point about doctors is a great example; as more women enter medicine, there has been a concurrent increase in emphasis on lifestyle when choosing specialties. (Some specialties, such as surgery, require long hours and/or time on call, which makes it more difficult to raise a family and is generally annoying. These specialties also tend to be better paid.) Furthermore, a disproportionate number of women choose “good lifestyle” specialties, such as dermatology and oncology. The lack of discrimination - nobody’s stopping female medical students from becoming neurosurgeons - does not result in a perfectly equal distribution. Result: female doctors earn less than male ones, on average; a result of their emphasis on lifestyle over wages. Secondary result: logic-deficient feminists cry “discrimination!”
Absent any evidence of discrimination, this only goes to demonstrate that proportionality is not guaranteed even in the lack of discrimination. I can turn this around and say that the fact that the numbers aren’t even and won’t be anytime soon demonstrates inherent differences in priorities or abilities.
If you want to claim discrimination, you have to produce evidence of a discrimination mechanism. Simply playing numbers games is not enough.
I didn’t claim those were from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The only mention of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is here where they point out that their statistics are misleading. To the best of my knowledge the government doesn’t control for many of the factors that the above study does.
Is there a specific stat you don’t believe? I can attempt to provide the original cite if you want.
Not trying to be snarky at all, just trying to learn, but do you have evidence, not anecdotal, that contradicts my cite when the same factors are controlled for?
In the two studies I’m talking about (there have been related legal cases for both industries), there is more than just “numbers” - there are women who bill the same number of hours as men. Who have similar or better academic credentials. Who are said by their clients to be just as productive and important - and they fail to make partner. In law and public accounting, discrimination has been proven by more than numbers. They are probably five year old studies now, however - and my google skills aren’t uncovering them.
I’ve been groped by a woman in the supermarket and by another in an airport (this one was a security guard).
Maybe it’s only lesbians and straight guys who grope unknown people in public places, though 
At home we mourn the current “equality by quota” law re. electoral candidate lists as one of the worst backups ever suffered by Spanish feminism; we’re expecting quotas on immigrants, second-generation immigrants and gipsies any day now. I’m ChemEng: my school accepted the first female student in 1973 (class of '82, therefore); my own class of '94 was exactly 50:50… with no quotas involved. We had all had to prove we had at least as much brain and cojones as any of the teachers.
But what can you expect of a Socialist government whose First Vicepresident considers that we should copy the US legal system :smack:
The response to Blaster Master’s post intrigues me, especially seeing as it was in a thread about sexism. Why is it that when a girl says that she gets groped on a subway, the response is, “Men are pigs! How dare they touch you without your permission?”* But then a guy posts that he’s getting basically the same treatment and he only hears, “So what’s your problem, man? Getting tired of having to beat them off with a stick?”*
*-Both responses exaggerated for effect.
I’m only addressing the “why do women do all the child care stuff” issue.
It’s not because women are better at taking care of sick kids (though a specific woman may be better than a specific man). It’s because frequently the workplace still doesn’t allow men the same flexibilty necessary to be good parents. And that’s sexism too…the unwillingness to believe that Dad can go home and take care of the sick kids instead of them having to be with Mom.
Mr.stretch was the better parent all away around. And yet his female supervisor would always question his need to take time off for a sick kid. She’d say, “Your wife should be the one dealing with that.” Well, if it was my step-son, I was not the kid’s mom and he might feel better about being with his Dad. Or I may have had to be out of town for my job and would need mr.stretch to pick up the slack with my bio-kids and he’d get flack for it. This is in state government, where the equality things are supposed to be figured out.
So the whole ‘women work less cuz they need to take time off for children’ thing is more of a cultural issue that could be changed to make things equal*. Employers, quit expecting the women to do all the child raising chores and give your male employees the opportunity to be the parent they should be able to be!
*other than the actual biological realities of women having the babies.
stretch, it’s funny you should say that, because in my experience, it’s exactly the opposite. I’ve noticed that when a man regularly leaves the office to pick the kids up at daycare or attend soccer games, people comment on what a great dad he is. When a woman does the exact same thing, people roll their eyes and insinuate that she’s not serious about her job.
Of course, I don’t assume that my experience is universal, and either way it stems from the exact same sexist notion, which is that when a woman takes care of her kids, it’s her job, and when a man does it, it’s a favor.
Where I work, it’s more of a equal thing. People generally expect that parents need to take care of their kids and don’t care what type of plumbing you have. But my husband worked in a social service agency filed with women workers and they were sexist as hell. Of course, his agency in our geographic location also has a very high Hispanic worker contingent and that culture played into things as well.
Sexism still exists and rears its ugly head for both women and men.
It’s wrong to be skeptical and it’s horrible when anyone is harassed, but in my personal experience the equivalent of a woman being groped or hissed at or flashed by a man for a straight man is not to have a woman do it to him but another man. Only when my male friends are hit on by disgusting guys in public restrooms or clubs do they get the picture. When women harass them it’s almost a novelty because it’s so rare and there’s usually no danger present.