posted on February 11, 2007 07:59:30 AM new
WOMEN IN THE PROFESSIONS
Subtle sexism exists
Deborah L. Rhode/Special to The National Law Journal
January 18, 2007
Subtle Sexism in Everyday Life" was the topic of a particularly revealing program at the January meeting of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). "Sexism" is a term not often encountered in such polite company. The concept is familiar enough, but it generally implies some intentionally invidious action, and examples are increasingly difficult to come by. There is, however, a more subtle side of sexism: a cluster of social expectations and practices that, in effect if not intent, reinforce sex-based inequality. They shape the everyday lives of even well-educated and economically privileged women, including those in the legal profession.
As program participants noted, we see women so frequently in positions of power that we lose track of where they are absent and the forces that might explain why. For example, women are a majority of the electorate, but hold only 15% of congressional seats. More than half of college graduates, but only about a quarter of full professors and a fifth of college presidents, are female. Women account for about a third of MBA classes, but only 2% of chief executive officers in Fortune 500 companies. About half of new lawyers are female, but less than a fifth of law firm partners, federal judges and law school deans. The gap widens for women of color, who account for only about 4% of congressional legislators, 3% of full professors, and 1% of corporate officers, law firm partners and general counsel.
There are also large disparities in how women and men structure their nonworking lives. Women spend significantly more time than men do on their families and personal appearance. These disparities are generally attributed not to sexism but to personal preference.
Yet what are too often missed or marginalized in discussions of women's "different choices" are the costs that those choices carry, and the extent to which they are socially constructed and constrained.
Sex-based stereotypes persist
As the AALS panel emphasized, women's opportunities are still limited by traditional sex-based stereotypes. The problem emerges clearly in experimental settings. Even when male and female performance is objectively equal, women's competence is rated lower. Résumés are evaluated more favorably when they carry male rather than female names, and women receive lower ratings when they have authoritative styles that are common in leadership positions. What is assertive in a man seems abrasive in a woman, and female leaders risk seeming too feminine or not feminine enough. Women of color face obstacles on two fronts. In a recent survey by the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, 44% of black female attorneys, compared with 4% of white male counterparts, reported being passed over for favorable assignments.
Cognitive dissonance compounds the effects of unconscious biases. People are more likely to notice and recall information that confirms their prior assumptions than information that contradicts those assumptions. So, for example, when employers assume that a working mother is unlikely to be fully committed to her career, they more readily remember the times when she left early than the times when she stayed late.
The home is no more an equal opportunity employer than is the workplace. Only in domestic matters, the presumptions of competence are reversed, which translates into unequal family burdens. In a survey by the Center for Work-Life Policy, four out of 10 high-achieving women felt that their husbands created more domestic work than they contributed.
posted on February 11, 2007 10:24:44 AM new
so what brought all this about?? ya got passed up for 'head greeter' at walmarts again?? We all know your an angel,so dont worry about it bunky,your time will come..
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If you dont want to hear the truth....dont ask the question.
posted on February 11, 2007 02:31:40 PM newNext time, think, sweetpea.
Your asking the impossible of Craw, Helen.
"When I talk to liberals, I don't expect them to understand my positions on various issues. I spend most of my time trying to help them understand their own." —Mike Adams
posted on February 11, 2007 03:08:55 PM new
No, MY first comment was the the first post titled Women in professions....obviously you missed it, buttercup.
Your first post was a news article by Deborah L. Rhode. Your first "comment" was Wow! If you two got together in the same room there'd be TWO brain cells present
posted on February 11, 2007 04:47:24 PM new
AWWWW! I bore you...such a shame...so sorry you have to keep reading and answering my posts in your boredom....
I'll try to pay more attention to you so your feelings aren't hurt.....
Try having a drink...your corset seems to be tighter than linduh's...
Oh, and if you're that bored you could always try making an intelligent post or maybe even shutting off the computer and doing something else...
posted on February 11, 2007 05:27:30 PM new
You are the whiner, tweedledee. Your every comment in this thread has been a silly whine.
It's good that you have a partner who will tolerate your nonsense. And I see now why you are so devoted and solicitous to Linda because without her, you are a lost tweedledee.
Do you really believe that I have posted here for several years and don't know that I can "jump in any time"? And you need five smiley faces to distinguish that silly comment?
posted on February 11, 2007 06:20:54 PM new
Classic, I haven't been there this month so I don't know...we live about a hundred miles away from the Bay. Usually, the Bay doesn't freeze. I am familiar with the South River and The Severn River that flow into the Bay. There are creeks on those rivers that may be partially frozen.
posted on February 11, 2007 06:57:09 PM new
okay-I thought you lived in the Baltimore/Annapolis area.The Hudson is frozen
all the way down to Westchester co,which is unusual.The only reason I heard about it is,they have ferries(no not logansdad)going across the Hudson from Orange/Rockland counties to Westchester for commuters to NYC-they've all been suspended.Its been below freezing here for almost a couple of weeks.I dont know where that global warming is you demos are screaming about,but I wish it would get here,Im freezing my ass off.
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If you dont want to hear the truth....dont ask the question.
posted on February 11, 2007 07:38:42 PM new
We live in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. This is a photo of the Potomac River.
Frozen Ferry Ice on the Potomac has kept White's Ferry from operating on
the river north of Leesburg. On warmer days, the service carries commuters
and others between Maryland and Virginia.
Thousands of Pelicans who tried to survive the winter in the Chesapeake bay ares are freezing and starving. Several need surgery for frostbitten feet and many are unable to fly.
posted on February 11, 2007 10:29:09 PM new
To get back to the original post here (big hint): I think women spend more time on their appearance because they can't get anywhere much in the corporate world if they don't. There are big pressures to look good. Men don't have quite the same pressures. Witness those big guys with the beer bellies, no hair, etc., and their arm candy wives.
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Thought for the day: Men are like fine wine . . They start out as grapes; and it's up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with. ~Dave Barry
"To get back to the original post here (big hint): I think women spend more time on their appearance because they can't get anywhere much in the corporate world if they don't. There are big pressures to look good. Men don't have quite the same pressures. Witness those big guys with the beer bellies, no hair, etc., and their arm candy wives.
Hints aren't necessary. Just post your thought and someone will respond or not.
That focus on appearance is changing as a younger and more culturally and racially diverse generation enters the workforce. I read a report recently that lawyers are reporting an increase in the number of lawsuits involving unequal burdens between male and female employees to maintain a certain appearance. One interesting suit involving sexual bias involved a company's requirement that women wear makeup.
Employers are becoming more sensitive to such issues and policies that descriminate against women will be changed.
posted on February 12, 2007 05:57:45 AM new
Helen-my sister-in-law lives in Potomac,Md and I have to say its quite a nice area.We were down there 5 or 6 years ago,I think its off 495 somewhere.We rode around the place and the houses were gorgeous.Senator John Glenn lives or use to live there.We have a 4 bedroom,3 bath house with an inground swimming pool in the back.When I came back from visiting Potomac,I thought I was living the slums LOL
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If you dont want to hear the truth....dont ask the question.
posted on February 12, 2007 06:20:46 AM new
Potomac is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country and home to lots of well known people in the U.S. In addition to a swimming pool like yours, homes there may have horses and a tennis court.
I know how you feel, Classic. After I go to an estate sale there, I usually come home with a feeling that I'm not living right.
posted on February 12, 2007 07:34:53 AM new
Hi Helen!
(ot)
I know this is a particularly cold winter, however, I was curious about the pelicans you mentioned...
do they try to survive the winter every year or is this year different?
do all of them try to tough it out or do some fly south while others stay?
breed specific migration?
I can't imagine they have much a chance of survival if they can't find food or shelter.
Are there rescue groups for them?
(I know these may appear as stupid questions but you're post really surprised me!)
thanks
zoomin
ZoominThis is a local story about the effort to save the Pelicans. It's interesting that they are not trying to fly south. Maybe they realize that chances of survival there are not much better?
Pelicans, rescued from area waters, are being housed in a temperature-controlled greenhouse at Red Oak Nursery in Montross. The birds were starving and freezing in the cold weather after not migrating to warmer climates.
Cold pelicans find cozy home in Montross nursery
February 10, 2007 12:51 am
By FRANK DELANO
This is the story of how a Westmoreland County greenhouse became a cozy hospital for pelicans.
Yesterday, 26 of the big, brown birds seemed to be resting comfortably on straw in a heated, humid greenhouse at Red Oak Nursery near Montross.
The patients were hungry. Their long, slender beaks clacked as they gulped down fish laced with medicine.
The nurse-dietitian was Diana O'Connor of the Wild Bunch Wildlife Rehabilitation Refuge near Warsaw. She rescued the first two pelicans last week by the icy Rappahannock River at Tappahannock.
"They were starving and suffering from hypothermia and frostbite. They were so depleted and weak that we just picked them up," said O'Connor. She also found two dead birds on the shore.
She called R.G. "Doc" Wexler, director of Wildlife Research and Rescue on the Chesapeake in southern Maryland.
"Have you seen any pelicans over there?" she asked Wexler.
"No," said Wexler.
"Well, start looking," said O'Connor, a veteran wildlife rehabilitator.
It didn't take long for Wexler and his volunteers in Maryland to find lots of pelicans in trouble in the frigid waters of the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River.
"Pelicans don't have feathering or down to protect them from the cold," O'Connor said.
On Wednesday, Wexler and his crew delivered a dozen pelicans in cages to a makeshift shelter. Around midnight, O'Connor arrived from Maryland with another eight. Four more came Thursday.
"They're going to need a lot of fish," thought Gary Hutt, who owns the nursery.
Hutt got involved in the pelican placement through his wife, Janice, who sells ads for The Westmoreland News in Montross. O'Connor came by the paper to buy an ad appealing for plastic sheeting. O'Connor wanted to wind-proof shelters for the pelicans at her refuge.
But Janice Hutt thought she could get plastic from some of the many greenhouse growers she knew.
She knew one especially well.
"I asked my husband to offer Diana some plastic and he offered the pelicans a home," she said.
Stanley O'Bier of Pride of Virginia Seafood Products in Northumberland County volunteered the food: frozen buckets of oily menhaden that the pelicans appear to relish. They're eating about 75 pounds a day.
Wildlife experts say pelicans used to live only in warmer waters of the Southeast coast. Now thousands try to survive winter in the Chesapeake Bay.
Bryan Watts of the Center for Conservation Biology of the College of William & Mary said wildlife biologists found the first pair of breeding pelicans in the Chesapeake Bay in 1987. Now, about 1,300 pairs nest on Bay islands.
"The Chesapeake Bay population of pelicans has been doubling every three years," Watts said.
"Why they're pushing their range north and suffering in these cold winters is not clear," Watts said. "It's become almost an annual, winter thing in the Chesapeake region to find pelicans incapable of flying."
The pelicans in the greenhouse hospital face triage today.
O'Connor said Wexler is coming from Maryland to examine each bird and perhaps perform minor surgery on frostbitten spots of some of the birds' big, webbed feet.
O'Connor expects to keep the birds safe, warm and fed until the weather warms up. Then, they'll be released in the Potomac.
Wexler may bring more pelicans today.
"They've got three crews in Maryland chasing 11 birds," she said yesterday. "That's OK. We've got plenty of room and plenty of fish."
posted on February 12, 2007 08:30:17 AM new
thanks, Helen. We've got plenty of room and plenty of fish.
glad to hear that part! "Why they're pushing their range north and suffering in these cold winters is not clear," Watts said.
One would assume that eventually a stronger breed would mutate ~ survival of the fittest and all!
Pelicans from the Northeast typically make it down here with no problem ~ you must have some yummy fish in your water!
or maybe they're just lazy...
relieved to hear they have the rescue teams available (and so generous with their time & donations!)
thanks again!
