At the risk of triggering Fyyr's hot-button again:

Update 1: Nordic Women Suffer Gender Gap Least
05.16.2005, 10:51 AM

Women in the Nordic countries are most likely to be paid on a par with men and experience equal job opportunities, according to a global report released Monday. At the other end of the spectrum, Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan have the widest economic gaps between men and women.

The World Economic Forum's report also singled out the United States for criticism, saying it lagged behind many Western European nations.

The report used criteria including equal pay for equal work and female access to the labor market to rank 58 countries - all 30 OECD nations and another 28 emerging markets - on a "Gender Gap Index." It also examined the representation of women in politics, access to education and access to reproductive health care.

No country on the list managed to close the gap entirely, the Swiss-based think tank found.

"Gender inequality is one of the most prominent examples of injustice in the world today," said Augusto Lopez-Claros, WEF Chief Economist and author of the report.

Lopez-Clarez said that women continue to be discriminated against, often on the basis of cultural, religious and historical beliefs, and countries that fail to close the gender gap do so at their own risk.

"Countries that do not fully capitalize on one-half of their human resources are clearly undermining their competitive potential," he said.

Lopez-Clarez said the priority for closing the gap should be improving education prospects for women. Countries that do so benefit from falling adolescent pregnancy, greater income generation and associated overall wealth generation, he said.

"The education of girls is probably the most important catalyst for change in society," he said.

The report found that Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Finland were best at narrowing the gap and providing a workable model for the rest of the world.


More at Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2005/05/16/ap2030064.html)

I guess its a good thing that 58% of college grads last year were women.

I wonder if we'll start having affirmative action for men now.

These were my favorite sections

Lopez-Clarez pointed out that women hold 45.3 percent of seats in the Swedish parliament, compared to a global average of female representation of 15.6 percent.

The United States, the world's largest economy, was ranked 17th. Lopez-Clarez said the ranking was low compared to much of Western Europe because of a lack of maternity leave benefits, high young female unemployment compared to young male unemployment, high adolescent fertility and low representation of women in politics - women hold just 14 percent of seats in Congress, less than the global average.


Educate the women and everything changes:

Lopez-Clarez said the priority for closing the gap should be improving education prospects for women. Countries that do so benefit from falling adolescent pregnancy, greater income generation and associated overall wealth generation, he said.

"The education of girls is probably the most important catalyst for change in society," he said.

As I said, 58% of college grads last year were women. What more do you want?

Of course, if only 14% of our congress is female...you have to blame women for that. There are more women than men in the US. If the women wanted women representatives...there would be women in congress.

Aidon, the article wasn't just talking about the US. Can you imagine the sort of changes that regions like India, Africa and the Middle East would undergo if they made a concerted effort to educate their women?

Which hot button?

I am the one who says that women are far superior to men...You are the one who disagrees with me.

You seem to deduce of me as some misogynistic Calvinist. When in fact, I am further in your corner than you are. I am not Andrew Dice Clay. I am way past you, in fact.

I can predict a flood of non-feminist women empowerment when certain conditions come to fruition. And those are highly likely in enlightened, educated with peaceful intra societal conditions, and peaceful extra societal conditions. That is one of the cool things about cultural anthropology, if you look at matriarchial societies their values clash very hard against traditional feminist ideology. But the one thing that does happen in them is that both men and women get what they want from each other.

I predict that one day we will look back at the Betty Friedan and Ellie Shmeal screeching feminists with ridicule and laughter(well as much as they ridiculed and laughed at Freud). You can already start to hear it now with Camille Paglia and Eve Ensler. That is to say, many of the 'oppressions' of males over females are from the opposite, ancient practices of protection and provision for females, AT THE FEMALE'S BEHEST. Of female superiority over males. Hell, they even told us that a Corvette was a phallic symbol, a big red penis, why? just because it was longer than it was wide? (everything is longer than it is wide) A Corvette is curves, it is a waist and buttocks and breasts, it is a vagina.

Powerful and dominant women are not attracted to faggy momma's boys who cry and 'show their feeling' like they told us. They never were. Men do not want to be 'PW', but they already are. And once men discover that they already do instinctively everything that they do already for women, it becomes easy. Women instinctively want to give men what they really want, anyways.

I went through the Fire in the John(amalgam of Fire in the Belly and Big John) **** already. No man really wants to get naked in the woods around a campfire and hug other men in some ritual of male understanding and bonding. I don't want to bond with males. They have never had, nor can ever give me what I really want. That male rights **** of the 90s was just as absurd as burning bras in the 70s. Our hair covered male ancesters did not dance around campfires and go hunt animals that could eat them back, for other males. That idea and notion is absolutely absurd. I already know males, I know what they like and what they want, I don't need to hug them.

We will move forward. Men and women will be happy. But to go forward will take understanding our past, the life our ancestors lived for a hundred thousand years. But one thing you need to remember is that most of the really smart people who you have learned this from, have left out some very important pieces. They are all there, but they are scattered. No one person(anthropologist), or theory, has put them all together. Yet.

You will start to see it in cultures soon. And your link, your post there is evidence of it. In societies with very low violence internally, and tolerable violence externally you will start to see it, the beginning of it that is. I am quite sure that the facts are straight about that article, though a few of the conclusions are off a bit.

"The education of girls is probably the most important catalyst for change in society," he said.

If you look at the incidence of internal crime(especially rape and assault) in those countries, I predict that they are going to be demonstratively lower than any of the others in the comparison. While education is very important, it really is going to be the perceived and real security within that society that brings about real changes. You will also see a greater acceptance of 'deviant' sexual practices in those cultures as well. The view of sex in general is going to be demonstratively different than what we see in our culture. Very much more permissive.

Nordic women get all the breaks!

Yea, we win *flex*

On a serious note, we've got a long way to go. There's still, on average, a difference in a woman's and a man's wages (doing the same job, same education, same number of years in the firm blabla) of over 10k USD/year. We've still got bosses that simply "do not hire women, cause they just get pregnant and take off". We've still got the old men's club running the boardrooms.

Furthermore we've got a general attitude that assumes that when a woman becomes a mother her career focus will automatically disappear and she'll start slacking at work and staying at home all the time (of -course- unlike a man who becomes a father (<-- sarcasm alert)) and this attitude hurts women wayyyy before those in question have even considered reproducing. The assumption that they will is enough to bypass them on promotions and raises etc. Furthermore, the "women have jobs, men have careers"-thing implies that given the chance, a woman is more likely to slack off than a man, so we see them having a harder time getting perks like flexibla work hours, home office and that kinda thing.

But, (ironically enough thanks to the press hoarding of the party that wishes us back to the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant) it's a topic that's focused on here, and it has been a focus non-stop since the late 60s. So we're getting there.

Tinsi,

If your daughter is sick, and can't go to school or daycare, and you have a suit job and a meeting at 9, what are you going to do? And it is 730.

Better still, what do you do in that situation?

Tinsi,

If your daughter is sick, and can't go to school or daycare, and you have a suit job and a meeting at 9, what are you going to do? And it is 730.

Better still, what do you do in that situation?I'm not Tinsi but I have an answer.

You do the same thing my sister and her husband do. Weigh the importance of the meeting against the other's day and the one with the most flexibility in their schedule that day stays home... IF the nanny can't come early. :) BUT... my sister still is the one in the family who has to make the phone call to the nanny. Quasi equality, I guess.

If your daughter is sick, and can't go to school or daycare, and you have a suit job and a meeting at 9, what are you going to do? And it is 730.

Either me, or my husband, stays at home. My point was that it's implied that women who aren't even mothers yet are at some point going to ditch work, while no such assumption is made for men. You don't hear anyone say "we don't hire men in their twenties, they'll have toddlers soon, and start missing work". There's absolutely no reason in your scenario why it'd be the mother staying home simply because she's "the mother". As long as it isn't about gender for the child, why isn't the assumption that a PARENT will have to sometimes drop work cause their kid is sick?

How many of you work for companies where the Human Resources department is NOT comprised of or managed by women?

I have worked for 6 different corporations so far in my life, and in five of them, the entire department was comprised of women. The department in charge of actually hiring people.

The US Census has managerial positions in all US companies filled equally by women, as men. There are as many women managers and professionals as there are men managers and professionals. Across the board.

If women are being discriminated against unfairly, with the numbers as I see them so far, then it is very likely that women are doing the discriminating.



One of the interesting things in the stats, women have actually dropped in employment rolls for industrial machinework 'rosie the riveter' type jobs. And a huge drop in waitressing.


Source US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Gender Promotion Stats 1990

Gender Promotion Stats 1996

Gender and Age Promotion Stats

I guess its a good thing that 58% of college grads last year were women.

I wonder if we'll start having affirmative action for men now.

That was on NPR this morning. One thing that bothered me was the lecturer told a story where she was ridiculed by her mail classmates. Boo hoo, everyone is, but that's not the point. She was telling the attendees that when those guys say they finished the homework in 20 minutes they were lying. I am one of those guys and I was not lying.

The good thing about their seminars is they are telling women that its all about confidence. That's what I see lacking in most students in any endeavour. Be they male or female.

Another commentator talked about how things may be getting worse in the future as men are more and more marginalized. However, no talk is going on about it. He said he didn't envision any affirmative action for men and I don't doubt that to be true. Then again, I sometimes wonder if a possible future will consist of male children being raised on "farms" then "milked" when they hit some optimum age and killed off as they are no longer needed. Good premise for a B rated short story there.

side thought edit: I get the distinct feeling Fyrr, Aidon and I would be fighting on the same side when the revolution comes and then afterward, likely, kill each other.

I have a problem with studies that just look at wages to determine gender equality. Personally I think there is much more then the holy dollar that determines wealth. I think that if you look at the totality of wages, life expectancy and, over all happiness western women are way far ahead of men in terms of over all "wealth". I also think that there are certain inherent factors that will always keep women slightly behind men in the wage department. Factors such as career choice and, missing time in work force due to child rearing.

I think that if you look at the totality of wages, life expectancy and, over all happiness western women are way far ahead of men in terms of over all "wealth".

Uhm, what you do then is work on raising women's wages and men's happiness. Just stating (assuming it's even correct) "women define themselves as generally happier than men, so stop whining about money already" seems very counter-productive to the aim of the article in the first post; namely optimizing the use of your nation's work force and as such increasing your country's competitiveness.

Fyyr,
I'm inclined to agree with you to a certain point - women can be their own worst enemies, and of course, it'd be a horrifically ironic thing to claim if I were to say that ensuring gender equality was men's responsibility. (On the other hand, I've never seen a HR dept that's full of women and I've never ever been hired for any job except for by the person who'd be my direct boss in said corperation, so the setup of the HR depts in my case would be totally irrelevant to wether or not I got hired or not anyway.)

My male friend is expecting twins, well, their surrogate is. Anyway, both he and his wife both work. They're both going to make some pretty large changes to their work schedules when the twins come. If anything, I think he's going to make the biggest changes.

I agree with Tinsi, the hiring choices aren't made by the HR dept. They're made by the hiring manager. The HR dept does chores like figure out the benefits and make sure all the laws are followed.

The HR dept does chores like figure out the benefits and make sure all the laws are followed.

Ya, I know that.

But the companies that I have worked for there was always a crossover of the Personnel Dept. and the HR Dept. Even at Wal-Mart, the country's largest employer.

And for every job that I can list, save one, the initial interview process was almost exclusively conducted by women. I have been hired by women. And considering the line of work that I am now pursuing, that will never change for me. But the women who worked for those(those that I have worked for) companies had and have been hired by women.

I don't know what it is like for every other companies out there. But I AM struck by an irony that it is women who are actually doing the hiring in most of them, especially when it is other women who are complaining about hiring practices.

I don't know what it is like for every other companies out there. But I AM struck by an irony that it is women who are actually doing the hiring in most of them, especially when it is other women who are complaining about hiring practices.

In pretty much all of my jobs, I've been hired and interviewed for by men. Probably just depends on what sort of work you're doing. Lets just say, when I go to conferences in my field of work, I never have to wait in line for the toilet. *snicker*

Same here Panamah. NOT because of my line of work, though, but more because it WAS corporate America.

Fyyr... Human Resources for most corporations isn't a POWER, but more of a screening department when it comes to hiring. The department manager tells HR what he wants, HR does the footwork on getting applicants in (whether through classifieds, headhunters or some other source), and narrows the list so that the managers have a small number of the more "promising" applicant. If the manager feels more comfortable with another man in the work environment, then he's going to hire a man unless HR flat out tells him that they NEED a woman for the job to keep the company out of hot water. I have never known of a company that allows HR to do the complete hire then walk the new hire over to introduce him to his new boss.

As for women in business... yes, we ARE our own worst enemies. When a woman receives a promotion a male co-worker will come and congratulate her and go on about his work. If a woman DOES congratulate her, it's also VERY likely that that same woman will go into the ladie's room and point out to everyone else why the promotion was undeserved. Men will congratulate other men and go on with playing the game of business. Women will congratulate a man and go on with their work. One of the classic needs of corporations, whether they have a female dominated HR department or not, is for the HR department to create a support network for women and encourage it to flourish. Men do this for one another already. Women don't really know how and it is a serious drawback.

If the manager feels more comfortable with another man in the work environment, then he's going to hire a man

You missed the stats from the Department of Labor, I posted on the first page.

Those managers are 50/50 men and women(1996).

Rectify that.

I do not discount bias. I don't, I know it exists. Every human has them. Even women.

My point is that you seem to be placing blame in the wrong spot. Strike that, you are not doling out blame where it additionally needs to be placed.

You missed the stats from the Department of Labor, I posted on the first page.

Those managers are 50/50 men and women(1996).

I must be blind, I can't see it :/ Hepl?

The US Census has managerial positions in all US companies filled equally by women, as men. There are as many women managers and professionals as there are men managers and professionals. Across the board.

You mean this? How about a link?

In Norway (http://www.ssb.no/english/magazine/art-2005-01-28-01-en.html) Only 1 in 10.

In only one profession, Fyyr's in fact, do women hold more managerial positions than men, according to this 2002 report (http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/796/context/archive). But it's actually closer than I thought it was.

I knew I should have posted that instead of just the charts. Mea culpa.


http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1997/04/art2full.pdf


Mea Culpa on saying it was Census data too. (that is where I started looking, and kept writing that, incorrectly).

The US Census has managerial positions in all US companies filled equally by women, as men. There are as many women managers and professionals as there are men managers and professionals. Across the board.
You mean this? How about a link?
Even if it's true, managerial positions span such a vast range of responsibilities and salaries that it doesn't mean much.

From this query.

http://www.bls.gov/aspsrch/query.idq?TextRestriction=gender+difference+manage r+promotion+stats&CiMaxRecordsPerPage=20&CiScope=%2F&TemplateName=query&CiSort=rank%5Bd%5D&HTMLQueryForm=%2Fsearch%2Fsearch%2Easp

Even if it's true, managerial positions span such a vast range of responsibilities and salaries that it doesn't mean much.


If managers are doing the hiring, firing, and promoting(which is what a lot of what management is), then that means A LOT in this discussion.

If managers are doing the hiring, firing, and promoting(which is what a lot of what management is), then that means A LOT in this discussion.
Not really. Hiring for the local dry cleaners isn't the same as hiring for a VP position at a Fortune 500 company.

The numbers seem accurate to me, from my experiences.

And considering your line of work Pan, your experiences in the workforce are reflected in that document.

Engineer types are extremely underrepresented by women. 1 in 10 is dismal.


While the career that I am currently pursueing is (worse than) the other way around. Registered Nurses are 94% women(1996). Anectdotal information today puts males at 11% today, my current class is at 18% males.

Not really. Hiring for the local dry cleaners isn't the same as hiring for a VP position at a Fortune 500 company.

So you only want to talk about Fortune 500 companies.


All the vast number of real employers are out of your discussion range? Small businesses. Mom and Pop businesses. Retailers. Chains. Service providers. Hospitals. Schools. Government. Nonprofits?

You want to limit our discussion to only 500 corporations out of the million or so employers out there?

That seems like a fair discussion to you?

You want to limit our discussion to the hiring practices of only 500 organizations?

Did you really say that?

So you only want to talk about Fortune 500 companies.
No, that's just the example I came up with. I can come up with lots of other examples that don't involve Fortune 500 companies if I need to. I don't think I do though. I think I made my point.

Personally, I find it highly amusing that women only fight for equality in high paying white collar jobs.

I don't see women bitching because there more male construction workers than female, or fishermen, or sanitation workers.

No woman complains because there is an inequality in the ratio of female to male paralegals/law clerks.

Women want to have as many CEO's as men, but they don't seem to want to have as many line workers as men.

You missed the stats from the Department of Labor, I posted on the first page.

Those managers are 50/50 men and women(1996).

Rectify that.
I'm not talking about a "manager" title. I am talking about actual managers of a department. There's a difference. There is nothing I saw at a glance that would set the list of "managers" exclusively as department heads in a corporate environment. Heck! Even I've had a "manager" title in a department of one with a shared admin.

Another point, I was taught that if one is speaking of an non-specific gender the male pronoun is used to indicate one of either gender, though I DID mean to use "he" in the male sense and not the general there.

So you only want to talk about Fortune 500 companies.
...You want to limit our discussion to the hiring practices of only 500 organizations?

Did you really say that?Actually, Fyyr, YOU are the one who brought HR departments into the picture stating (essentially) that *most* HR departments are female dominated and yet they aren't hiring their own for key positions. I don't see where a local dry cleaners would even enter into that discussion. :/

...Women want to have as many CEO's as men, but they don't seem to want to have as many line workers as men.Not true, Aidon. The fact is that the women who post here are more likely to be white collar than a pink collar. People tend to discuss areas with which they they are most familiar. Adding more women to traditionally male dominated jobs has always been a part of the overall theme, but the implementation of this change comes from the white collar segment of the work force.

Not true, Aidon. The fact is that the women who post here are more likely to be white collar than a pink collar. People tend to discuss areas with which they they are most familiar. Adding more women to traditionally male dominated jobs has always been a part of the overall theme, but the implementation of this change comes from the white collar segment of the work force.

I still have yet to see women fighting for the right to pick up garbage, or go crab fishing.

But I am constantly bombarded by the complaints that there are more men in top corporate offices than women.

I don't see women bitching because there more male construction workers than female, or fishermen, or sanitation workers.

Uhm, we're not talking about CEOs and managers here because "we want in". It's not about wanting the easy road to the boardroom in this debate, it's about looking at WHY the situation is as it is. Of course it's interesting to see who's hiring. So we simplify and largely picture an office environment, but "the manager" in this debate might just as well be the captain on a fishing boat.

EDIT:
..and even if what you're saying in the post right above this is correct, that's not really an argument for or against anything, is it? I don't know why you'd even mention it, perhaps if you could post it again with an additional paragraph starting with "and this little tidbit of information naturally leads to ..." or something? The closest I can guess my way to is "So women shouldn't be hired in managerial positions in office environments, put'em on boats instead", but.. uhm.. that doesn't make sense. Help a girl out here, Aidon, what are you trying to say?

I see a few women in the building trades but not that many. Probably at best 1 in 10. It certainly is alot more then it has been in the past. Personally I don't see why any woman would want to be in construction. It's dirty, hazardous and, body breaking work. Heck, I don't even know why I do it.

Actually, Fyyr, YOU are the one who brought HR departments into the picture stating...

I brought it up because those are my experiences.

I have worked for two Fortune 500 companies.

Walmart
And Tyco

In both, I was interviewed and hired by women.(which means everyone else was too)

At ADT(Tyco) my manager was a woman.(she was the manager of all my associates male and female too)

At Walmart I had 1 female manager, and a couple male managers. The better of them all was Anita.

When I worked for Pacific Access(a 400 employee company at the time), almost the entire hiring process was with women. I had the last interview with a male. His boss was a woman. The owner was a woman.

In the small businesses that I have worked for, there was an even split.
Sac Security-females hired me. One was a partner.
CCP-The owner, a male hired me.

When I ran my own business, it was women who were mostly in the power to hire employees in the companies that were my customers. Mostly, and I had around a 150 or so regular monthly business customers.

If you look at the Walmart board of directors, there is one woman on the board-sucks sure. But there is a very strong woman shareholder presence and power. You can not tell me that Walmart Family women do NOT have a say as to what happens in that company. If you look at the directors, there are around 20 or so of them, 4 of them are women. Not great, not representative I agree. But the NUMERO UNO Fortune 500 company in the world has 20% women in those most powerful positions.

Stop pointing your fingers at the wrong set of people. I have never been a part of the good ol boys club. I have never met those people. I have never seen that 'support system' for males that was mentioned back on page one. And unlike some Eddie Murphy/Living Color comedy skit, I have never had white males ever give me a leg up(throwing money at me) more than they would if I were female, when the door was closed. There are males who have, sure, I suppose it happens-I just have never encountered it. And I don't like or have to defend those males any more than you do. The only company that I have interviewed for that had an all male hiring process, JellyBelly, I did not get the job. Cluebyfour; I am competing against white males just like the rest of you all. I don't like them any more than you'all do. I don't trust them, I have no motivation to like them, and certainly I have no motivation to defend them.

All I am saying is that the notion that women are not in hiring, firing, and promoting positions is absurd. I think it is higher than 50%. That has been my experience. The Department of Labor puts it at 50% in 1996, so I will concede to that to you all here.

If you want to limit the discussion to 500 companies, and then only the top 20 or so positions in those companies, fine; you have a valid point they are not representative. But then on the other hand don't try and tell me that THAT climate is representative of what the other 99.999% of the workforce looks like. Because as was already mentioned by another, they are NOT like the dry cleaners, and flower shops, and grocery stores, and shoe stores, and record stores. Those small and medium size businesses ARE the predominate employers of this country, and if I interpret the previous sarcasm correctly, you already know that most of those businesses are at least half run by women already.

That is where most women work. Because that is where most people work.

If you want to talk about the inequities of hiring, firing, and promoting of the top 100 or so people in each of the top 500 companies, I am sure that would make an interesting topic for some. I don't know those people. I don't care about those people. I think they are already overpaid at that level. And I don't like those people. I am not going to feel sorry for any of them, male or female, because they lost their job or did not get a promotion, for whatever reason.

You will have to prove to me that they are relevant before they become interesting to me(though I would love to see Carly Fiorina in leather /tch). It is as interesting to me as the top 10 male Hollywood actors make more money than the top 10 female Hollywood actors. Strike that, actually that is much more interesting, but for a different reason.

And lastly, I was not the one who brought dry cleaners into the conversation. She did.

nm

I have worked for two Fortune 500 companies.

Walmart
And Tyco


You know, it always cracks me up when people make these broad generalizations based upon their very narrow experience. You work at two jobs and generalize that the entire world must be like those two jobs were.

I've had experiences that are exactly opposite, but I don't generalize that everyone must experience exactly what I experience. I work in a different industry so my experience is going to be different.

You can not tell me that Walmart Family women do NOT have a say as to what happens in that company.

No, I can't. And you can't say the opposite either, unless you're sleeping with one of 'em.

All I am saying is that the notion that women are not in hiring, firing, and promoting positions is absurd. I think it is higher than 50%. That has been my experience. The Department of Labor puts it at 50% in 1996, so I will concede to that to you all here.

Here again, you're drawing conclusions based upon "your experience" for everyone else.

Stop pointing your fingers at the wrong set of people. I have never been a part of the good ol boys club.I see you make this statement a LOT when someone discounts a post of yours. I suppose it's pretty female of me but I don't really care WHAT "side" you're on... if I see what appears to me to be a misstatement or gross inaccuracy I'm gonna correct it. :)

I haven't worked a tremendous number of jobs in my life, but my most recent positions have been working for multi-billion dollar companies both public and privately owned. I have worked directly for CEOs, CFOs and Directors of Operations. I have never been hired by a woman. Although all these HR departments did fit the "female dominated" scenario, the HR department head was ALWAYS male.

Company "personality" is driven from the top down. If you want to implement change in an attitude, being on the bottom rung doesn't do it. You have to be in upper level management to even have a crack at changing a company mindset. Most of the men I have worked for and with as peers have wives who aren't in the workforce and they have a tough time relating to women who DO work. Their wives are party planners, shoppers, decorators and spend a lot of time shuttling the kids to and from the local country club. I'm not saying that they are bad people, just that the husbands have no real point of reference. When I look at the overall view and wonder how things can change, it's pretty obvious to me that the newly hired receptionist isn't going to do it.

one great outcome of this would be women would not automatically get the kids in 95% of the divorces. The men would get the kids and the woman would wind up paying child support and alimony and only get to see the kids 2 days out of the month.

If you want to talk about the inequities of hiring, firing, and promoting of the top 100 or so people in each of the top 500 companies
/sigh

Uh, what part of no did you not understand. I gave a single example that involved a Fortune 500 company. I hoped that you might use your capacity for abstract thought to make a generalization based upon it.

You asserted that 50% of all managers are women and implied that this meant that they controlled 50% of the hiring. That oversimplifies the hiring process but, for the sake of argument, lets pretend that it doesn't. I'm saying that not all managers have the same degree of power over hiring. Managers in higher level positions have more power over more people than managers in lower level positions. Right? The ratio of men/women in higher level managerial positions favors men therefore men have more than 50% of the control over hiring.

Panamah,

Do you use your own experiences to come to conclusions?

When special interests lie. When the government lies. When those in academia and teachers lie. When those in the media lie. When the corporations that you work for and buy stuff from, lie.

Why should I discount my experiences in coming to conclusions that are different than those outlets? Or rather, why do you?

And why would you think that your experience is any less than theirs, or MINE??

Arienne,(and Panamah and Tinsi and Klath, et al)
RE: "I see you make this statement a LOT when someone discounts a post of yours"

I use that strategy for a reason. True, it is recurring. I want to hear what YOUR experiences are. I want to hear YOUR opinions. Not **** you read. Not **** some teacher taught you wrongly. Not something someone else fed you.

I don't use that strategy when someone 'discounts' me. Hardly. I use it when I hear and see mantra. The Fortune 500 thing is well known, it is mantra. I have known about that line of debate for over 25 years. I have heard it. I really don't care about those people, or their lives, or misfortunes. I would MUCH rather hear about YOUR experiences and YOUR opinions, than what some hairy armpitted Sociology or Women's History teacher fed you.

It is not a matter of that I fall into that strategy when I hear that boilerplate dogma. I won't bite, you can tell me that some other woman screwed you out of a job, and how. You won't lose anything, it makes your story to me more interesting. I don't want to read regurgitated words. It works for some people.

I have a friend who had to give a presentation, "What It Means To Be A Feminist", about Feminism in association with the production of The Vagina Monologues that were currently running, last semester. She's young. A panel discussion with 4 PHDs and another student. She's scared. She asked for help on her speech. She's overwhelmed. It started off like some typical feminist mumbo jumbo regurgitation paper a 12th grader would write. We took all of her points, stuff she was taught. And I had her researched their accuracy, all of the statistics and facts that she thought were right, were wrong. ERA, wrong. Insurance premiums, wrong. Child support, wrong. She was in tears. We tore her speech down to the marrow, and what was left was real. It was empassioned. It was the truth. And from that truth she wrote and delivered a speech which surpassed every other member of that panel. The audience was in awe. The doctors on the panel were in awe, you should have seen the look on their faces. Here is this 20 year old JC student nuking the **** out of them. And she nuked the **** out of me, too.

Remi did that to me in the rape thread. I pushed, and got pushed, and pushed, and got pushed back again. And guess what. Someone wrote something of such awesome proportion, clarity, and truth that it still brings tears to my eyes. She shut the thread down. Remi nuked the **** out of me, just like I knew someone could and would. There were a couple of other posters in that thread who nuked me good too, or got very close to, but Remi's post still gets me.

I want to hear your experiences. Your truths. Your facts. And your opinions. Even if I disagree with you, you win when you do that. I wanted to read Remi's post before she knew she could write it. I will give you all a clue, I don't write about me to see my words on a webpage, I put them there not as some attention whore tactic-(I don't care about me) but because I want YOU to say, "Nuh uh, it's not like that for me. Here is how it is for me. This is what I think. This is what I know. This is how I feel." Why? Because you win when you do that, I can't debate against that. But I am selfish, I do get what I want, which is real information and real experiences from real people, not something someone taught me wrongly. Not some twisted stat.

So many of you out there want standardized stats, compiled information, study after study, peer review. All that stuff can be twisted around to suit anyones' purposes. I spun the numbers, and they were real numbers, the way I wanted for my purposes. They are real tangible numbers, but that don't really mean anything because they can be twisted. That is why real experiences and opinions are superior, that which Panamah discounted the most; is really the most real and important. People twist those numbers all around all the time, people on your side, and people who are against ya. Tell me about you. Tell me about your friend. Tell me about your sister(that was a good post Tinsi, schooled me). I trust you more than I trust those numbers that come from some biased media source, special interest, government, or think tank.

I know you all think they are important, reputable, and right...
"There are three kind of lies,,,lies, damned lies, and statistics."
I bet all your teachers told you that Mark Twain said that.
Nope.
If they did not tell you that Mark Twain said that, I bet they told you that Benjiman Disreali said it.
Nope.
The earliest reference to that phrase was from Leonard H. Courtney.
And I am sure he stole it from someone else.

So Arienne, you picked up on a trend. Did you pick up on any of the others?
I just gave you Kryptonite.

Bonus Round:
When the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association BOTH tell you that 65,000 Americans die of second hand smoking each year. Are you going to believe them, or those who spout their figures in nodding head acceptance? Or are you going to figure it out for yourself and find their sources of those numbers, and discover for yourself that they are in fact LYING to you?

Panamah,

Do you use your own experiences to come to conclusions?

When special interests lie. When the government lies. When those in academia and teachers lie. When those in the media lie. When the corporations that you work for and buy stuff from, lie.

Why should I discount my experiences in coming to conclusions that are different than those outlets? Or rather, why do you?

And why would you think that your experience is any less than theirs, or MINE??


You shouldn't discount your experiences, but you should realize that it takes a much much larger sample size than one person's experience at two jobs to understand the demographics of the workforce.

If you try to use your experience and extropolote that to everyone else, well... you're going to be wildly inaccurate a lot of the time. It's a good starting place to ask questions and start researching, but I think you risk falling into your belly button if you think the world starts and ends with you and your experience. Or at least you risk having people think you're not well grounded in reality.

Why should I discount my experiences in coming to conclusions that are different than those outlets?
You shouldn't but it's always a good idea to keep in mind that your experiences may not constitute the norm. It's precisely because of this that anecdotal evidence tends to be less compelling than other forms of evidence when debating.

You shouldn't but it's always a good idea to keep in mind that your experiences may not constitute the norm.
I know that. You have read me longer than that.

I have never considered my experiences normal.

/smile.


Or at least you risk having people think you're not well grounded in reality.

hehe. Only risk? You have read me longer than that.

/smile

Tell me about your sister(that was a good post Tinsi, schooled me).

Wasn't me. Don't think I ever posted about my sister, did I?

hehe. Only risk? You have read me longer than that.

I was being nice. :D