Saturday, September 6, 2014
It's next to impossible for a woman to convince men in the workplace that they treat female coworkers differently from their male colleagues. They vehemently deny it. Given examples, they always have reasons. She doesn't have the experience. She's not as technically astute. She doesn't see the big picture. She doesn't have the necessary leadership qualities. Blah blah blah.
Men don't listen to women the same way they listen to men. If a man objects to some statement, they will listen and consider what's said. If a woman makes the same objection, they immediately assume that she just doesn't understand.
Men rarely interrupt a man speaking in a meeting. Women are regularly interrupted, and no one notices or objects. If she objects and finishes her thought, no one listens and she's described as loud and pushy.
Stuff like that.
Personally, I got tired of men talking to my chest.
Well, finally we have observations from people who have been on both sides. Transsexuals! They know exactly what it's like to be a man or woman in the workplace, and then to experience the treatment as the other sex. And they are the same person with the same skills in both roles. They pretty much say exactly what women have been saying for eons.
They say that as a woman, no matter which way their change went, they got/get no respect.
The New Republic article is at http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119239/transgender-people-can-explain-why-women-dont-advance-work. I urge you to read it, and pass it around, especially to MEN!
(And then wait and see - those men will opine that it's the addition or subtraction of testosterone. Apparently, testosterone makes one logical.)
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I am reminded of a conversation I had with an IBM manager once. He asked if I wanted to go into management. I said "No, I'd rather stay technical."
He asked what my goals would be (he was thinking stuff like fellowship and so on). I replied, "I want to be listened to in meetings. I want that when I say something, people stop and listen and actually think about what I just said. I want people to want to hear what I have to say."
He said, "Oh, so you want to be seen as a technical expert?"
I blinked twice and said, "I! AM! a! technical! expert!! I want them to stop staring at my breasts and listen when I speak. Apparently they ARE subliminally hearing me, because after my observation is ignored, passed off as trivial, not even worth discussion, the next week some other guy says EXACTLY the same thing I said, using the EXACT same words, and everyone thinks he's a genius. Nobody remembers my having said exactly the same thing with exactly the same arguments the week before. I'm getting tired of that. I don't know how to get past it."
He didn't know what to say to that. Especially since he had been in some of the same meetings, and had seen it happen.
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2 comments:
Its funny, young people and feminism these days. My son made a facebook post a few months back about how he hates the term "feminism" and thinks we should all be "equalists". Which makes sense in a 17 year old male sort of way.
A few of my friends commented about how feminism isn't what he thinks it is and that it is still a necessary thing, what it actually means, blah blah blah.
A friend of his, a woman in, I would guess, her 20's, went on a huge rant about how there is no need for feminism anymore and that what we REALLY need to be talking about is MALE RIGHTS. About how men who are sexually abused get treated poorly and how - are you ready for this? - condoms aren't covered by health insurance.
She then went back to her own facebook page and made a rant about the uneducated idiots who think feminism is still an issue and how mad it makes her. I would have commented on that, but she made it so that only people who were her "friends" on facebook could comment. Several of her friends supported her rant, and her fiance went on his own rant on his own page about "male rights" and I read it and it essentially went no where, but he felt better talking about it. Apparently he had been sexually abused at some point in his life, by a woman.
While I did not get the stellar community college associates degree that this woman got from UCCC, I consider myself pretty "educated" in that I am an informed citizen and I listen to NPR on a daily basis. Many of the news stories are about feminism and women dealing with discrimination.
I wasn't alive in the 50's or 60's to take part in the feminist movement at that time. I wish I had been. But I lived with an abusive step-father for many years, which I won't get into details about.
What people these days don't understand about feminism is that it is STILL an issue. It is STILL necessary to support women's rights - in the workplace, medically, and just in general. But we have this generation of people who didn't experience the discrimination of decades past, and don't see the correlation between the disgusting overt-sexualization of women in advertising, and the ubiquitous "not taking women seriously" that is STILL happening today. There is a generation of people who live in la-la land and will never stand for more than their own personal outrageous expression - purple hair is mainstream now - who don't have any clue the struggles women faced in the past, how those struggles still extend into today and who consider people who do want to stand for something more than their own fat asses as "uneducated idiots". It makes me very sad.
Sorry, no point, other than yeah, there are women today who don't take feminism seriously either, and consider those of us who do outdated dinosaurs and kind of stupid for it.
Yeah, the problem is that somehow "a feminist" somehow turned into "a man hater", and there doesn't seem to be any way to turn that back. Maybe your son is onto something.
As for that other woman, she must be unaware that women STILL get paid less than men for the same work. Is that ok with her?
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