Day 7
Today I give you an essay, to prepare you for International Women's Day, March 8.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY, 2018
Happy International Women’s Day to all my readers. Nothing much will change tomorrow, right? Nothing changes any March 8, at least not in a big way. History continues marching on, giving women the finger as we try to boost our profile. Oh, yes, women have it better now than they used to…or do they? In some ways, yes. Fewer of us die in childbirth. We have more say over our reproductive lives. We are in the boardroom, the House, the Senate, Parliament, NASA, MIT, Oxbridge, the Episcopal clergy (but not the Catholic), and many other places.
Women have been elected head of state in many countries, including India, Israel, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Rwanda, Gabon, Croatia, Myanmar, as well as many of the western European nations, such as Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. The island nation of Indonesia, a majority Muslim country, has had a woman President. Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Iceland have all elected woman leaders. Notably missing from this list are some of the major economic powerhouses – notably, the United States and Japan. Russia has managed to avoid being led by a woman head of state, as well.
There are 23 women who are CEO’s of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies…not too many, if you think of it as a percent of the total. Not even 5% of companies are headed by a woman. Although women make up well more than half of all college students, and have since 1975, only 24% of all full professors nationwide are women. Strangely enough, many of my young male friends who are recent graduates see the opposite. I recently had a conversation with a young friend of mine in which he explained that there were 3 female professors for every male professor in his department. Curious, I went to the school website and counted. There were, in fact, 3 male professors for every female, and many fewer of the female were full professors.
This is a strange phenomenon I’ve encountered in many places. Men often perceive women as dominating professions almost as soon as the first woman arrives. It’s like somehow each woman expands in their mind into three women, or more. Whatever the numbers demonstrate, the men know different, because they’ve seen it. The women are there, there are more of them than men, and they are now taking over the workplace. Why is this? What is going on in men’s minds that makes them perceive women to be so over-represented in the workplace, when numbers show they are there in much smaller numbers than the men?
In a formerly male-dominated workplace, women stick out. Each woman is noticed, each woman is a phenomenon, each woman represents something that has changed, something that isn’t completely male anymore. I suspect most men simply do not notice the other men to that degree. They are just background, the way it is, nothing unusual. A single woman, however, gets noticed and multiples into many women. Soon they see women everywhere, coming out of every door, sitting behind every desk, leading every meeting, and taking over every workplace. No amount of actual numerical data will convince a man who has “seen it with his own eyes”.
Why do young men perceive that, though? Men born within the past 30 years shouldn’t perceive workplaces as normally male, right? So they shouldn’t be perceiving it with this slanted view. Still, these conversations keep happening, and people keep counting and finding it isn’t true, so what’s going on? Why do men born since women moved into business show the pattern of seeing more women than are really in place? It appears the old stereotype of man working in the office and women staying home is a lot more durable than we might expect. The messages are still out there, even if a bit more subtle and muted. That might actually make them more powerful, because they are happening behind the scenes, under the radar, where our reality meters can’t find them and root them out. Most of the men I talk to do not perceive themselves as being sexist or feeling that women don’t belong in the workplace, but they are still exhibiting the same behaviors and beliefs that have been the norm for so long. This suggests that the messages are still getting through.
Try a little experiment for me. Google “famous women” and see what pictures show at the top. Go ahead, I can wait. Scroll over, look at them all. Actresses, singers, sex pots, the occasional politician (Hillary Clinton), first lady (Michelle Obama), sports figure, princess (Diana, of course), and, of course, Anne Frank. But mostly these women are famous for being beautiful, for being on screen, and following the scripts written for them by men (scripts not always being literal, of course). Of course, to be fair, the pattern isn’t much better if you google “famous men” – still mostly screen stars and singers, which perhaps reflects the common search terms more than the actual relative worth of men and women. We are obsessed with celebrity, aren’t we?
So now, let’s do another little experiment. Grab a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left, write the names of all the famous women you can think of, then all the famous men. Give yourself a couple of minutes, writing as fast as you can think of them. Now, which list is longer? I’ll admit, my man’s list would probably be longer, too. I have more books by men in my book collection, more records by men in my music, and more names of famous men in my head. Why? It’s not because I’m uninterested in women’s writing, singing, or other activities. It’s just…normal. Normal, that is, in a society that doesn’t elevate women, promote women, or even recognize women a lot of the time.
So, on International Women’s Day, during Women’s History Month, I want you to make a point of finding out about the women who have done amazing things. They don’t have to be famous. A lot of amazing things are done by people who never become famous. They might be harder to find out about, but with a little digging, you might find a few. So, every day, spend a few minutes and learn about a woman you hadn’t heard of before, a woman in science, in philosophy, in the arts, in politics, law, business…women who have broken down the doors and hurdled the barriers to succeed against all odds. Then, the next time an anti-feminist tells you that men did all the wonderful things, made all the discoveries, built all the buildings, invented all the inventions, and hunted all the mammoths, you can tell them about Maria Mitchell, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Martha Gellhorn, Susan Kare, Rosalind Franklin, Mary McLeod Bethune, and many, many more…including Hedy Lamarr…yes, the actress, but she was so, so much more.