I have to say, I have only seen the excerpts that are being highlighted in the press. The claims that “sexism is dead”. Thanks for taking the time to review the document and bring some of its good points here. I will take the time as well so that I can comment from a more educated viewpoint.

This is what we need. Fact finding and not media gloss over. I will make sure I don’t fall into the “gloss over” category.

–Jen

I’m reading through the Shriver Report in my extensive spare time, and although I haven’t read it all, so far I haven’t seen anything contradicting Dr Valian’s work. I’m curious about what you found that was contradictory. The report does make use of sidebar polls and raised quotes to make it more readable or somesuch, but those polls, some of which are rather fluffy, are not the main body of the report. I suspect that those who talked about the report in the mass media simply skimmed the sidebars and raised quotes and maybe read the executive summary. The main body is densely packed with data and studies that tend to support what feminists have said for years about the undervaluing of women’s work and the gender pay gap.

Apologies for the rather long excerpt, but this is just part of a very good treatment on the unexplainable part of the gender pay gap:

Differences in men’s and women’s work histories explain the second largest chunk—10.5 percent—of the gender wage gap. It’s important to note, however, that the gender pay gap emerges as soon as women graduate, at a point in their lives when differences in work experience between them and their male colleagues should not play a large role in determining pay. The American Association of University Women examined the pay gap between college-educated men and women and found that a woman who goes to the same kind of school, gets the same grades, has the same major, takes the same kind of job with similar workplace flexibility perks, and has the same personal characteristics—such as marital status, race, and number of children—as her male colleague earns 5 percent less the first year out of school.46 Ten years later, even if she keeps pace with the men around her, this research found that she’ll earn 12 percent less. This gap is not about the “choices” a woman makes, as the model compares men and women who have made nearly identical choices.

How do we explain the “unexplained gap” to young women? After all, as women have taken their careers more seriously they have worked hard to get more education and that is paying off in terms of narrowing the gender pay gap, even if it hasn’t fully eliminated it. Women now are more likely than men to graduate from high school as well as college, even though among women ages 25 to 45, it remains the case that only a quarter have a college degree, and this is similar for men as well.47

Then there’s the “maternal wall.” New research focuses on the role of motherhood in accounting for at least some—if not most—of the unexplained pay gap. In groundbreaking work, Cornell University sociologists Shelley Correll, Stephen Benard, and In Paik used a laboratory experiment to find out whether being a mother means being paid less, all else equal. Study participants evaluated application materials for a pair of job candidates that were explicitly equally qualified—equal levels of education and work experience at similarly ranked schools—but one person was identified as a parent and the other was not.48

Their findings are astonishing: Even though the job candidates identified as mothers had the same credentials as the nonmothers, they were perceived to be less competent, less promotable, less likely to be recommended for management, less likely to be recommended for hire, and had lower recommended starting salaries. The job candidates identified as fathers were not penalized in the same way, and often saw a boost. Study participants also held mothers to higher standards than all men and women without children by requiring a higher score on a management exam and significantly fewer times of being late to work before being considered hirable or promotable.

The Shriver Report is not our enemy. It doesn’t overtly advance a feminist agenda, but so far, does have the goods as far as going way beyond simple surveys asking whether men consider themselves sexist. This is as it should be, since any study or report overtly advancing an agenda, especially a feminist one, will be dismissed out of hand by anti-feminists, who are legion in this patriarchal world. As a feminist, and an engineer for over 20 years in the industry, I know altogether too well that the gender pay gap is not unexplainable, rather It’s the Patriarchy, Stupid, but I don’t expect any well-regarded study to blatantly come out and say that. It’s our job to advance the agenda, and also gather supporting data to advance that agenda.

I do not believe the blame is being put on women. Historically the establishment have come up with excuses on why women are not equally represented in advanced positions in the sciences and I listed two of them that just don’t pan out. If you have a chance to check out Dr. Valian’s website at Hunter College you will see from the data that she collected that there are specific examples of how the male establishment and sexism keeps women from attaining equality at any high level profession.

Dr. Valian’s study completely contradicts The Shriver Report. She collected data from studying real cases of sexism in promotional systems, where it seems the Shriver Report asked individuals if they felt discriminated against or asked men if they discriminated against women. Of course many men will deny being sexist, especially if they don’t understand what everyday behavior (that is acceptable within our society) is sexist.

Dr. Valian is not the enemy, she is working very hard to remind everyone that sexism is entrenched in our society, is still acceptable, and cannot be just dismissed with lame excuses having to deal with us being able to have children. Male dominated establishments makes us work twice as hard for half the benefits; this is our reality.

Maybe we need to start studying not why girls are so wibbly and spinless that they “allow” gender schemas to inhibit their achievement in the sciences, but why men are so ready to accept gender schemas that give them carte blanche to act like animals toward women in the sciences.

WE ARE NOT THE FUCKING PROBLEM IN THE SCIENCES. Men act like raging assholes, specifically target us for harassment, abuse, and career sabotage, and WE’RE the ones affected by gender schemas?! EFFING PUH LEEZE!