Gender Stereotypes- Not Just A Woman’s Issue
July 30, 2010
by Lynn Harris
|The following article is cross-posted from Unwritten Rules with permission of the author. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
Not enough women in senior leadership roles is often blamed on gender stereotyping.
Gender stereotypes are widely shared views on what is considered appropriate and effective behavior for men and women.
To “fit in” and be socially accepted, men are told explicitly and implicitly to be:
- Primary breadwinners
- Emotionally and physically tough
- Competitive
- Decisive
- Assertive
Men know they need to avoid all things feminine or be labeled a “wimp” or a “sissy.”
Masculine stereotypical behavior fits nicely with our current “macho” leadership model. Senior leaders are expected to be tough, competitive, decisive and assertive.
If men conform to their gender stereotype they are clearly good leadership material.
Women, on the other hand, are expected to be:
- Secondary breadwinners
- Emotionally fragile
- Collaborative
- Likable
- Receptive
Women have to tone down their assertive behavior or be labeled a “bully broad” or “dragon lady,” (or much worse names).
Female stereotypes clearly don’t fit with the “macho” model of leadership. They are one factor that hinder women who want to lead.
If we meet expectations about how we are supposed to behave as women, we are seen as unsuitable leadership material.
If we conform to stereotypical leadership behaviors, we are seen as “unfeminine” and unlikeable.
It’s a tough line to walk.
Not just a woman’s burden
In our efforts to overcome gender bias and promote more women leaders, we’ve focused on gender stereotyping as a woman’s burden.
In reality, however, men also suffer its unwanted consequences.
Many men don’t want the pressure of being the primary breadwinner and suffer under the psychological pressure of this expectation (although, of course, it would be “unmanly” to admit this).
Many men strive to live up to masculine norms and prioritize career advancement over relationships with their family, spouse and friends. This can leave them with poor work/life balance and no-where to turn in times of stress.
Asking for help is generally seen as a weakness in men because they are expected to be tough, decisive and in control. This limits mens ability to acknowledge and seek help for problems such as depression, anxiety and illness.
In reality, therefore, gender stereotypes burden both men and women.
Accelerating Change
If we want to see women equally represented at the top of organizations we need to stop positioning gender as a woman’s issue.
Instead, we need to find ways to help women and men work together as allies to change the behavioral norms that hinder both sexes.
In their report, Engaging Men In Gender Initiatives, Catalyst found that “the higher men’s awareness of gender bias, the more likely they are to feel that it was important to achieve gender equality.”
In other words, if men experience gender norms as a hinderance or barrier in their own lives, they are more likely to understand the problems they cause for women operating within a male leadership structure.
Catalyst recommends that we “help men recognize the personal costs they suffer due to gender bias…People are more likely to judge a situation as unfair if they are personally disadvantaged by it…When men recognize that gender disparities cost men – not just women – they will be more motivated to correct them.”
If we look at a potential cost/benefit analysis of gender bias and gender equity for men, it might look something like this:
|
Cost to men of gender inequity |
Benefits to men of gender equality |
|
Pressure to bear the primary financial responsibility for one’s household |
Freedom to share financial responsibilities with one’s spouse |
|
More distant relationships with spouse or partner |
More rewarding and intimate relationships with spouse or partner |
|
More distant relationships with children |
Freedom to parent more substantively; more rewarding relationships with children |
|
Pressure to acquire status and compete with men |
Freedom to define oneself according to one’s own values rather than traditional gender norms |
|
Poor psychological and physical well-being |
Better psychological and physical health |
Table from Catalyst report: Engaging Men In Gender Initiatives
If we want to accelerate change for both women and men, it’s time to look at the issue of gender stereotypes holistically, and not just from a woman’s perspective.
Before men can support women breaking female stereotypes and achieving positions of power, they must first be convinced there is something wrong with the status quo for both sexes.
What do you think?
I agree. Men are 48% of the population. Anytime you can engage 48% of the population in making a societal change you will make more progress than if you have that 48% doing nothing or actively resisting. But I think you could make more progress by actively challenging and attempting to destroy corporate media who are the ones defining culture and which people have a voice in our culture. Demanding consumer rights to reject channels that are sexist including “womens content channels” and breaking the gate-keeping stranglehold corporate media exerts on new ideas and new contributors would accomplish just as much. Short of destroying corporate media then manipulating them to cover our issue is next best. But women’s groups should be actively teaching all people how to cut the TV cable so they can watch the few shows they like without subsidizing the sexist dreck with their basic cable payment.
They’re not GOING to get engaged, people. They don’t care. And we will exhaust ourselves trying to pry them up. If I’m running a footrace, I don’t stop and try to pry up a boulder to drag alongside me. I run.
Just RUN. We do not HAVE to rely on them for this. Relying on them and expecting to pry them up first will mean that we never get anywhere, ever. They have most of the power and nearly ALL of the money in this world. Let them solve their problems like the adults they are. Once a man reaches a certain age, he shouldn’t need to be mothered, and I’m not taking up the responsibility for someone else’s enlightenment because I’m a woman and as the buttwiper to the world, it’s my job. I have SEEN men dig their heels in and laugh as some well-meaning woman who values his enlightenment more than he does literally works herself into tears and exhaustion failing to connect with him.
I will NOT work for men’s issues, I will NOT waste one ounce of my focus on how Patriarchy Hurts Them, Too, and I will not sit and wait until the immobile boulder of their psyche learns to get up and run before I run myself. We are dooming ourselves by hinging our success on their permission, which is precisely what this amounts to. Do this, and you send the very clear signal to all men everywhere: Dig in your heels, and you can kill this attempt by the slaves to revolt as well. All they have to do is refuse to listen, and we will crumble once again, and they will once again get their free handmaidens, laundresses, and bedroom servants back, and things will go on just like they have for the past 20,000 years.
I don’t spend a lot of time talking about men because they’re all around us, they are the dominant issue. I want women to talk about women, to focus on women, to invest time in women’s issues and stop worrying about men.
However, I’m still aware of how gender stereotyping and the whole patriarchy hurts men. Their life expectancy is lower, their suicide rate is higher. If you start watching a lot of movies the message is kind of funny in a cynical way, men are expected to bleed a lot, to injure themselves in a variety of ways, and to gracefully commit suicide in the end so as to protect their honor. It gets almost as ridiculous as the role for women, which is basically to run around in your underwear a lot, screaming, and never picking up the weapon right next to you.
The problem is, it’s way too easy for women to stop focusing on themselves and to instead start believing they should work towards helping men. There was a woman suffragette who once pointed out the danger of this trap by saying “we have to first free half the human race before we begin freeing the other half.” There is no need to focus on men because a side effect of women’s empowerment really is the liberation of men. We can already see evidence of this, men now days are more encouraged to participate in family life, to nurture their kids, and as such are reaping the benefits of having better relationships with their children and families. The old stereotype of the emotionally distant and absent father is no longer the expected norm. Men are also slowly learning that you can have actual emotions and express them in a positive way instead of bottling that all up until you have an early heart attack.
But seriously, it may go against our instincts, but the best way to help men is to help ourselves. When women are empowered, men will reap the side effects.
The main thing is women need to DO SOMETHING. Enough organizing and planning and defining, enough complaining and fretting. Blow something up that is representative of the patriarchy if nothing else. But do something. Strangle the profits of a sexist corporation with a boycott. Call up the Concerned Women for America, the Christian women who got pornography out of the grocery store checkout area and then took on the US government who were the largest purchaser of pornography which they sold in their commissary system (your tax money at work!) and join the CWFA or make an alliance with them. DO SOMETHING every day or at least every week. You succeed when you actively do something against the problem of degradation of women, you don’t have to eliminate the problem to succeed.
Janis, right. They hurt themselves in order to subjugate women, right? So saying how they hurt themselves isn’t going to stop it; how else are they going to subjugate women? Perhaps to have more access to males they do this as well. They don’t mind it as long as it isn’t oppression by people other than their equals. They get really hurt if, for instance, you featured an ad with a butchered male. They are like little children. They need to be watched constantly policed. They have everything provided to them. They won’t stop by saying “ok guys this hurts you too” though likely ..I mean you need to focus it on the male side of things for any of them to be able to pay attention to it due to an effect I call “Male proximity law”.
What I am proposing in this blog is not motivated by helping men, but rather enlightened self-interest. Men do have most of the recognizable power and when women reach parity at the top of organizations they will need to work with men for the benefit of those organizations. Aggression and blowing stuff up isn’t a great recipe for effecting change where we need to develop long-term working relationships with men. Unless you are proposing a world where women rule to the detriment of men – which will be swopping one kind of oppression for another.
Women need to do something for women. The above quote:
“We have to first free half the human race before we begin freeing the other half.”
comes close. I have no intention of turning a movement for women’s power and equality into psychological diaper-changing for men. I have no intention of turning a movement for women into yet more doing things for men. Not only because it’s so easy to slide into prioritizing men above women, but because why the fuck can’t they do this stuff if it’s hurting them so much? They’ve got nearly all the money and all the power — why the hell do we still have to keep changing their bandaids? When the fuck do they grow up and do for themselves? We have to free ourselves … and them?! Precisely what the hell is THEIR goddamned job, then?
“Precisely what the hell is THEIR goddamned job, then?”
Well that is a very good question and there are probably more species where there are very few males or very weak males or even the males die after mating. Even with humans it seems that males have often been separate from most of culture and most of society because most of them were off starting and fighting wars or conquering something. It could be argued that having so many males around with time to do something besides obsess over their power hierarchy of religious (not spiritual) and political activities is an aberration in history. Men should not be developing or gate-keeping ideas about culture it is clear from the distorted ugliness they have built and ram into our homes over the TV cable. The have degraded and corrupted religion, politics, the economic system and culture. They have made an ugly fucking mess. So what is their role? They are a bunch of selfish whiners who ask “but what about me” any time women try to improve the lot of everyone.
So we need to reach out to women like Concerned Women for America who know how to use their economic power, pick sexist targets for economic boycott and start taking them out and making changes in society. If men want to go along that is all good, but Janis is right we don’t need to stop and pry up a bunch of boulders to carry along with us. And since when is being called “Dragon Woman” an insult?
“Precisely what the hell is THEIR goddamned job, then?”
Well I always joke, the way for a man to become a feminist is real simple, just double your work load and cut your wages in half. There really aren’t too many takers.
I am also not interested in coddling men or trying to inform them that they should support us because the system harms them, too. For those who figure this out, more power to them, but I’m not going to educate, beg, plead, etc. One reason I’ve developed a fondness for right wing women lately, is that they don’t seem to engage in this “what about the men?” stuff. They simply assume men will take care of themselves and start taking action on their own. There isn’t a lot of arguing over ideology or trying to figure out how we can negotiate for change. LOL, in fact, I don’t even think “negotiate” is in their vocabulary. It’s kind of interesting, 3 of those gender stereotypes I can apply directly towards nearly all liberal women running for office, she’s “Collaborative, Likable, and Receptive.” You know what we say about right wing women running for office? She’s polarizing and divisive. Nobody demands that right wing women be “likable enough.”
Progress often comes from strange places.
Call a liberal woman shrill, and she’ll start curling her hair, wearing perfume, and speaking softly. Call a conservative woman shrill, and she’ll tell you to get the hell out of her way. There’s a quote I found recently that I love:
“People are claiming Sarah Palin is a polarizing figure,” says SarahPAC staffer Rebecca Mansour. “I laugh because we are in the process of electing numerous candidates just like Sarah Palin. We are about to elect dozens of Sarah Palins so polarize that.”
Where the hell was this sort of spirit and defiance and pride when Hillary or any liberal woman was running?! Nowhere! We were all running around talking about how we have to worry so goddamned much about being as nonthreatening and likable as possible so that men wouldn’t fear that we’d actually get anything DONE if we had power, or that just because one of us wanted to run the most powerful and influential nation on Earth, it didn’t mean we weren’t still devoting ourselves to THEIR problems 24/7. Conservative women don’t fold like a cheap card table once some man someplace whines that he’ll have to wipe his own damn drippy nose — and mark my words, that is what this “what about the menz” stuff turns into every single time.
I don’t recall black advocacy groups worrying about how racism harms whites and devoting themselves to that question, and I don’t recall the JADL worrying about persecution of Christians. PFLAG doesn’t concern itself with fixing the divorce rate among married straights. Why are we all so craven that we can’t even sit around and TALK about ourselves without making sure that we keep teh menz in mind? Teh menz are adults. They can keep themselves in mind.
And why are we confusing simply ignoring them with oppressing them? Jesus, are things so out of whack that some middle-aged woman commenter on a blog advocating merely not paying them any mind is some terrible thing? Not making them the center of the universe is equal to hatred? WTF?
My history professor said that he became a feminist when he had his first daughter. I had no idea how sensitive men were until I had my son, who knew?
People do not change until they see the benefit in changing themselves, not because we are preaching. We all get to a “Eureka” moment in our own time, but is really frustrating when half the population does not get it and it limits your life. The first thing that women need to do is learn to say “No!” The world does not stop spinning round on its axis if you say “No!” We have just been brainwashed into thinking that it does.
I understand where the author of this piece is coming from when she makes the case that men won’t support gender parity without seeing how it might benefit them. She is right about that, they won’t, but demographics being what they are – most people are women – we don’t need to wait around for men to come around. Maybe I’ve spent too much time around self-sufficient pioneering women, but the fact is, men can either make themselves useful or get on out of the way. Either way, women are on the verge of making sea changes as they become most of the people in the work force and most of the people getting college degrees, law degrees, medical degrees, etc.
There’s a reason for that ‘secure your mask first’ PSA when you fly the friendly skies. Most of the people flying with small children are women, and it’s well known that women put children and indeed, nearly everyone else, before themselves. So they will try to save the children before themselves and the result will be oxygen-deprived women and children.
This metaphor extends to the world at large as well. Most people are cared for and fed by women, even adult males. Women pull off this feat in spite of systematic discrimination, basic lack of respect, and oftentimes senseless violence. When you take care of the women first and make sure they have what they need, everyone else does better as a result. This is one of the findings of the many micro-loan organizations also – women have a built-in economic multiplier effect and literally are the gift that keeps on giving. More often than not, when men were targeted for micro-loans they gambled the money away trying to make themselves look bigger in some fashion.
There needs to be an organization that puts women first, as this is where the greatest payoff will occur. All the other organizations are run by men, and concentrate on men when you take a hard look at it. They’ll be just fine, that is, if they can figure out a way to adapt to all the changes that will occur as a result of women having equal power. So go on, put your mask on first, everyone else will be grateful in time.
Hi
“middle-aged woman commenter on a blog advocating merely not paying them any mind is some terrible thing” here (not sure how you got that from the blog post, but thanks Janis).
What we all have in common, I think, is wanting more women in positions of power and leadership. But clearly I am coming at this from a completely different direction to all of you. To summarize some of what I have taken from your posts:
women are victims
men are evil and the enemy
men are half the population with all the power and the money, but we should ignore them
or
we need to go to war and crush the enemy (act the same way as aggressive males?)
And somehow, this approach is supposed to result in a better world for all of us.
Good luck with that approach!
Perhaps there’s space for a multitude of approaches including “running,” taking action, “doing” something, creating positive female energy, supporting each other, AND engaging men in the change process…
Lynn, That is not really what I take away from all these posts. My opinion is males have had control of culture (through media monopoly), religion, politics, and the economic system and they have degraded and corrupted all of them. They are even unhappy with the current situation themselves, most likely only because they feel they personally are not getting enough power/money from the current situation but they are unhappy with status quo. Clearly they can’t rule anything for the common good on their own. So we have had the “man experiment” and it failed. Minimally we need parity and I don’t care how men feel about that. Further I love being called Dragon Woman and I think Dragon Woman would be a good mascot for the pro women movement.
I think trying to bring men along could be an effective strategy for someone else, but it isn’t one I want to take on and it isn’t one I would donate money to. Clearly men are 48% of the population and it takes energy to ignore them. Anytime you have 48% of the population actively engaged on your side rather than doing nothing or actively resisting you, you will be ahead and that is especially true if that 48% is made up of 99% of the violent people of the world. That is why I think that The New Agenda should have a tabbed web site with only introductory sentences on the main page. That way the people who want to devote themselves to men’s issues with parity could have their own valued place in the pro woman movement and women who weren’t interested in one more malecentric approach just wouldn’t click on it. The real truth is if you don’t have a place in the pro woman movement for those women who are worried about how men feel you aren’t going to get any liberal women to sign on either.
Lynn – I agree with you – and the philosophy of The New Agenda is that we are “unapologetically pro-women, not anti-male”. This differentiates us from many of the other women’s groups. We do happily have about 10% male membership and we view incorporating men into what we do here as essential.
Patriarchy is damaging to men as well as women because it places all the duties of being a provider upon the men. I read some civl war documents once. Some women rose to the challenge, took care of the farm, and provided for their families while their husbands were absent. However, other women truly believed they were meant to be helpless and subservient, so they behaved that way and when hardships such as the civil war came, those women whithered and begged their husbands to return home, but their husbands were too busy suffering in the army.
Thank you Lynn and its time things change for both genders. I raised my three boys and my three girls to share the work equally. My sons were expected to cook and clean the house as well as babysit. I expected my girls to do the yard and take out the trash. We didn’t have gender roles.
here’s the conundrum we find ourselves in re: this issue that Lynn Harris id’s nicely. For some women, the personal is the political. Within this group, some have been/are quite negatively impacted by men starting with ‘dad’ or lack of—
these experiences fortify/fuel their patriarchal view of society–men have it all at womens’ expense.
no answers here on how we can bridge gaps but i agree with Harris’s view-
sexism hurts both.
Lynne, you very well pointed out an interesting catch 22 women leaders are in. If we confirm to cultural female norms, we are too weak to be leaders. If we try to be strong ad decisive (“male” traits), we are scary power hungry bitches. Or at best, people feel uncomfortable with us. I think Sarah Palin is in to something with the Mama Grizzly thing. Americans are comfortable with powerful women if it is associated with protecting our young or even our families. Hillary did well in polls during the “mama bear” phase of her campaign. This may work in politics but how is a woman CEO or president of a university going to play mama bear in her role? I agree, we need other tactics. Thanks for the post.
Good points. Addressing problems and developing solutions are more likely to be successful when both halves of the population are involved. This is an argument for gender parity. Also applies to addressing gender inequality. We will have more success with both genders involved. I agree that most people don’t want to get involved in helping unless they see how it will help them. Talking about inequality or injustice just gets an eye roll. Talk about how something you want to do benefits that person, then they will listen. Helping men see how gender stereotypes hurt them could incentivise them to get involved. How do we do it?
If Patriarchy is as damaging to men as women then why haven’t the men noticed it and why don’t they motivate themselves? Ask the men in the movement to set their own parity agenda and goals, I am sure they don’t need women to do that for them. Man up already! Not wanting to slow down to motivate men and solve every problem they can throw in the way of progress does not make a woman a man hater.
Womens orgs have been talking at society and men for decades. Where has it gotten them or us? Endless talking at men and their institutions accomplishes nothing. Many men don’t process language well and only hear “yap, yap, yap” when women talk (“her voice! I can’t stand the pitch! It hurts my ears!”), some men value any attention they can get from women and see being talked at (even if the talking is critical of them) as a reward or entertainment. Womens orgs need to focus on building membership and making alliances with already organized women like the Concerned Women for America, who know how to throw a boycott, for a short period of time maybe a year, then they need to pick a source of societal sexist origin and cripple them financially with a boycott. After that display of financial power women can then expect to be taken seriously by Corporate America who own our Government. Sure men can come along for the ride (I like men), but they don’t have anywhere near the consumer power we do so it’s not like we need them. The ones who are motivated to see parity can find us.
I agree, men will never hand over their privilege on a platter. Ain’t gonna happen. Never has with any privileged group. That said, we need to keep working against sexism and continuing to promote equity because that is the kind of world that will be the most livable for both genders. We don’t need to be perenially pissed off, and we don’t need to worry at all about ‘what men think’…we just need to keep doing what we’re doing and building a pro-woman movement together. Good men will continue to join us because they know it’s the right thing to do. It happened with white people joining the civil rights movement and straight people joining the pro-gay movement.
Pat,
Reasonable position reasonably said-tx.
All we have to do is look at the divisiveness displayed daily in our national, state, community political scenes-
REPs won’t cross over, DEMs won’t either-the result? quagmire, quicksand and screaming heads that keep tabloid news makers happy…
the message to men is not ‘we hope you will help us’-the message is, ‘we expect you to help because your interests and ours is one in the same—
As mothers, lovers, friends, wives, co-parents et al it benefits all to include all-
Not easy-evidenced by Obama’s hope for inclusion vs, what he’s been able to accomplish so far but change is hard and it takes time–Leading with our expectations invites in ways that leading with our demands doesn’t—men love to roll their eyes at strident talk—just watch ‘em when you start talking–they love to stereotype us…”There’s another one, boys…”
“Helping men see how gender stereotypes hurt them could incentivise them to get involved. How do we do it?”
Make them the center of your attention 24/7. They’ll LOVE THAT. That’s a feminism they can get involved in — one that wipes their asses all the time.
@Janis: LOL
Besides … I’m going to be blunt here:
What the hell is so damned fabulous about them that we NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED them to get involved? Why are they so damned important? This isn’t a stuck pickle jar that we have to bat our eyelashes at them to open. We’re the majority of the race here — how craven is it to insist that we’ll faaaaaiiiiiilZOMG!!! if we don’t get their help! We have to beg and plead with them and convince them that giving us power will be good for them because we’re just weak girls who can’t do it ourselves! Surely we’ll get NOWHERE by ourselves! After all, we’re just girls!
We either stop it with casting our dewy-eyed gaze around like we’re in an old Perils of Pauline serial waiting to get rescued, or we don’t get anywhere. Can you imagine what we could achieve for women with all that energy we’d waste exhausting ourselves trying to get men to grant us permission to be equal?
What are you going to do if he says no, Greta? Ask again? Blame yourself for not finding just the right magic word to see it? Try again later? Try harder? Bake him a cake? Bend over further? What do you do if he says no?
That’s what this amounts to — you can use all the big words like incentivize and “stereotypes” and “paradigms” that you want, but you are waiting for men to tell you it’s okay with them for you to be equal.
No. 1: They’re going to say no. Of course!
No. 2: Who gives a shit WHAT they say anyhow?
No, it won’t be easier with them along. No, they won’t suddenly have a fairy-tale revelation and See Your True Value. You can’t wheedle a man into allowing you to stand up to him. You do the standing first … and that will get their respect. NEVER ask their permission for equality, and never put out energy on their behalf that can be spent on a woman.
I ask again: if we are supposed to save ourselves AND take responsibility for their enlightenment, what the hell is THEIR job, then?
Can’t you see how this coddling is causing the problem? Can’t you see how you can’t coddle someone into respecting you? You can’t get someone to stop seeing you as their lifelong diaper-changer whose attention they feel entitled to until they die by changing their psychological diapers and focusing on them all the time.
I cannot believe we’re expected to convince them that it’s okay for us to be equal to them. I cannot believe we are arguing in favor of taking on responsibility for their choices. Cherchez la femme, eh? I just can’t believe this. Worse, that we actually expect they’ll agree to it. Ever!
Footnote to cherchez la femme:
You also do realize that, if a man is a shithead, this whole attitude means that it’s some woman’s fault for not explaining feminism to him gently enough, and not his fault for being a douchebag.
If only she’d explained it just one more time! I’m sure that would have done the trick!
Okay, one more time.
Well, one more, then.
The next one is sure to take …
The motivation behind this blog, and behind the work that I do in large organizations, is to find faster and more effective ways to get gender balance at the top of organizations so that hopefully we get better decisions and better organizations.
I am not in favour of mothering or mollycoddling men.
What I am in favour of is finding the “men who get it” and engaging them to bring about the change we want. Some of you may think that “men who get it” don’t exist, but I assure you they do – and they are not interested in having their asses wiped by women.
There are various ways to effect change that is difficult. One method, which some in this discussion are advocating, is to push harder against the resistance – this usually creates even more resistance. It’s like trying to accelerate a car with the handbrake on.
Another method is to continue to push, but also to work on reducing the resistance – take off the handbrake. This is the method that I’m suggesting in this blog.
Some of you have asked the question – why do we need to involve men at all. The answer (at least in the field that I work in) is that they currently hold most of the power.
It’s not that we need to ask permission or become girly to get our way. It’s about recognizing that if we truly want to bring about sustainable change at the top of organizations, and in the process create better organizations, it would most likely be helpful to engage feminist men (yes they do exist) rather than ignore them.
Our current efforts to get gender balanced leadership at the top of organizations aren’t working very well. Catalyst has estimated that it could take another 73 years at the current rate of change. I’m looking for positive ways to accelerate this change.
Clearly the rate of change must be accelerated. We also have to quit moving backwards in the way we are defined by media, which women have been doing the last 20 years due to ineffective feminist leadership and male media monopoly.
Lynn,
What I feel is completely left out of this conversation is that women who have “made it” are much more essential in the overall equation. There will be many more men who are against the idea of inviting women to the table when it comes to board of directors, etc. than those who are open to the idea. At least that has been my experience. Some do it specifically because they don’t see the value added with women, others do it because it doesn’t even cross their minds that they should consider a women. I see it all of the time in my industry, Optics. What I have seen be more effective than depending on the men to be “enlightened” is to have a women who gets into a position of power start surrounding herself with her gender. Women cannot get upward mobility unless someone gives them the opportunity. Women who break the glass ceiling can open the floodgates themselves.
I have a few prominent women in my field (myself included) who specifically will only nominate women for various awards and various positions within our International Professional Society. We (women) are only 10% of the membership of academics/industrialists in our professional society and so for us to see any kind of remarkable change in leadership we have to push ourselves upward. This does not require getting the men on board, it requires getting the women. If the nominating slate committee is inundated with a larger percentage of women than men for important slots then they have a higher probability of selecting at least one of the women.
Until I see the kind of change needed in my world to include women at high level positions I will only consider women. It has worked for us and that is why many who have commented here believe it will work for TNA. We are not abusing the men, just focusing on one thing; upward mobility for women. In my professional society, if the women stray from that goal we lose ground. The amount of energy it takes to find that “enlightened man” to agree to include one woman is more than the energy it takes to deluge the system with women by women. Of course, that is my opinion based on my experiences.
Go Janis! Go!
I haven’t laughed so hard since last week when I watched Rachel Maddow tear FOX news to bits http://www.amazingwomenrock.co.....-rofl.html
You have the energy and passion to take them ALL on en masse. The rest of us can just sit back, bat our collective eyelashes and watch
OMG. You are one helluva’ woman
*clapping wildly*
Susan
P.S. I draw the line at wiping asses tho, I think I’ll let them wipe their own…
Excellent point about getting “women who have made it” to support other women. I have no time for the Queen Bees who pull the ladder up behind them. I think it was Madeleine Albright who said that “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women.”
One approach that I’m taking at the moment is to find women and men who have created gender parity in their senior teams and to find out how they have done it, in the hope that we can then replicate it elsewhere.
If anyone can recommend women or men who have achieved this I’d love to know about them.
Thanks
We’ve had a similar conversation about the controversial subject of finding ways for men to recognize how sexism hurts them too. Again, there appears to be the same kind of push-back by those women who come here regularly that we must not fall into the trap of strategizing gender equality by focusing on the men in order to achieve it. Whenever women focus on men, everything else takes a back seat to our learning about why they don’t view us as equals and then the men find ways to play ignorant and acting as if they don’t know what we’re talking about, much like they did when it was about racism.
I believe that the injustice of racism got more traction because of the work done by the black community, particularly Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who NEVER compromising by holding back their outrage against it and pointing it out any and every time it raised its ugly head. Slowly, but surely, they were given the respect they sought in a predominantly white society. It was precisely because of their refusalal to compromise on this issue with the whites which finally resulted in the country’s free, open and ongoing dialogue about the evils of racism and why it must be eradicated. “Bros before Ho’s” directly reflected their progress in the 2008 election. In fact, it’s now a “badge of honor” to be the first to speak out against any racist behavior in the media and elsewhere. No one even wants to whisper the word “sexism” despite it being every bit as evil as racism.
IMO, if women want the same thing to happen with the other “ism”, sexism, then they need to follow Jesse and Al’s example. As has been said here before, you never expect black organizations, websites, groups, etc., to ever concern themselves with placating the white community in any way when it comes to the race issue. They are totally focused on the issue and don’t care if what they do or say to raise awareness about it in some way embarrases, frightens, or offends the white community and neither should we, when it comes to sexism.
In fact, the AA community finally achieved the kind of respect from the white community that helped put racism front and center because they would not compromise on the race issue and stood their ground when the media and society were telling them the same things women are now being told by these same groups of people who thought AA’s should be satisfied with the progress they had made and to just “shut up” about it.
The biggest obstacle women have to overcome is not how to get men on board the sexism train to help us eradicate it, it’s our learning how to respect ourselves and each other as women in the same way men respect each other. Believe me, that is going to take a lot of work in and of itself because women are taught from birth to view other women with suspicion and even contempt. This is key to our achieving equality. To first find ways to achieve the kind of self-respect men have can only happen by focusing on ourselves first and changing the conditioning that perpetuates sexism in the first place…”mens lack of respect for women.”
It will be a lot easier to persuade men to accept our call for equality if it comes from a place of self-respect for ourselves, backed up with our willingness to support women in politics, business, and every other field that shows our value and contributions to society. Men understand the importance of self-respect and respect for each other more than other emotion, so, how can we expect them to respect us as equals if we don’t respect ourselves?
Kathleen
This is the first time during this discussion that I’ve felt truly influenced – your argument and points are really well made and I find myself agreeing with a lot of them.
I have a question I’d like to explore with you:
What about the men who do already respect and support women? Is there any place for them as allies? In Norway it was a male politician who pushed through the legislation that has resulted in over 40% women on boards in that country – and now other countries are following suit. His point was that if a woman had tried to do what he did she would probably not have succeeded.
I’d be very interested to hear your views on this.
Thumbs up Kathleen. Logical argument, well presented. Makes sense. Brava!
Lynn,
Thank you, Lynn. Your support and kind words re my argument are greatly appreciated.
With regard to the Norweigian male politician, the first thing that sprang to mind was how could he be so sure that a woman could not have done the same thing? Most men, in general, think this way, so it’s hard to take to heart his assertion that no woman could have achieved what he achieved. I wonder how many women supported this legislation both in the legislature and in the general public, and what role did their media play in this legislation being passed. I doubt that he achieved this all on his own, but men are apt to leave out those kinds of details that give credit to those who helped him along the way.
On the other hand, here in America, we are dealing with a much greater level of machoism and to get the kind of support we would need for egislation which will help women progress towards equality would involve a much more complicated strategy, IMO. Even when they do pass legislation which pushes for equal pay, for example, the law is rarely enforced and there are many ways to get around it, without having to pay any legal consequences. As a result, women are constantly dealing with “lip-service” by the men in power in order to appease us and give them illusion that we are making headway, when in reality, we have not made any real progress that could be put us on the path to equality at all!
I think women need to take a good, honest, hard look at where we are and where we want to be in 1 year’s time, 5 years time, and even 10 year’s time and set out achieving those goals. I think we should extend our collective hands to men, but not “depend” on them to do our work for us. We’ve been beating that dead horse for decades and it just doesn’t work. I think Sarah Palin has the right idea, at least in part, by going forward and boldly supporting women without apology or explanation. She is simply using her power to empower other women and that’s what we need to do. We have got to stop apologizing for asserting ourselves. Men just don’t respect that, no matter how much we think we are getting through to them by using such “polite” tactics so that we don’t “scare” them away.
Those men who already support women as equals will have no problem with our trying this new strategy of putting women first, in order to build the confidence which makes self-respect possible. Women must know who they are and what they want on their own before men will take us seriously. If we take the approach, which we think is being inclusive, but men will view as “weak and vacilating”, then we will lose them every time (and I mean those who do not consider women as equals).
I guess in a nutshell, what I’m trying to say is that men will accept us as equals, if we start acting like we are, which means we can’t “mother” them. Once they view us in that light, we will lose them. Heck, from puberty on, men begin to push their mothers away, which is the time that they start viewing women, in general, as someone who will weaken them in the eyes of the patriarchy, if they don’t start “dominating” us. Frankly, instead of using sexism as the core reason for their problems, we should show men that it’s not women who are the problem, but the patriarchy, which is the bain of their existence and women’s.
We cannot eradicate the core reason for sexism if we don’t stand up to the patriarchy as a unified force that makes it clear that we are not here to dominate men, as they have done with women, but to free them from a prison of their own making. The only way we can spring them from this prison is to free ourselved first.
Well said Kathleen *standing ovation*
Hello again Kathleen
To answer your first question about Norway – there were 3 key factors that brought about the dramatic change of 40% women on boards:
1. Ansgar Gabrielsen, the then minister for trade and industry introduced the legislation – he had a lot of power and used it
2. There were sufficient women in the Norwegian parliament to help the legislation pass
3. Public mood and opinion – the general public passionately embraced the plan.
Clearly these are factors that don’t currently exist in N. America or in many other parts of the world.
I absolutely agree when you say “men will accept us as equals, if we start acting like we are” and that we need to stand up against sexism wherever it rears it’s ugly head.
I do, however, think that we need to move away from the extreme “us” and “them” approach which I think creates more resistance. Gloria Steinem talks about this in her interview with Katie Couric – if you haven’t seen it here’s a link
http://www.unleashamazingyou.c.....reene.html
Thanks for your very thought-provoking comments, I’ve found them stimulating and provocative.
Lynn,
One last thought…I never intended my comments to imply an “us” and “them” mentality. I wanted to point out that we continue to neglect the “I”, when it comes to how women view themselves in a society predominantly run by men and that we are still not yet comfortable in our own skins, as women, apart from men. Even the most committed feminist resists the “I” in how we view the world and the changes we wish to make and that is the obstacle that we must overcome within ourselves, if we ever hope to reach men in a real dialogue in how men and women define themselves and each other.
I had hoped that by focusing on the “I”, we could find better ways to communicate the “we” which will make it possible for men to finally see the wisdom in accepting women as equals, without losing themselves in the process.
Kathleen
I was referring to some of the other posts, not yours, when I talked of the “us” and “them” approach.
You have given me more to think about – thanks.
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