If there's one sure way to capture the attention of the usual suspects in the press, it's to highlight the problems of women with high-powered careers, as billionaire Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has done. Posted on 03/12/2013 5:49:06 AM PDT by Kaslin
If there's one sure way to capture the attention of the usual suspects in the press, it's to highlight the problems of women with high-powered careers, as billionaire Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has done.
In her Ted talk three years ago and now in a book that has received lavish attention, Sandberg laments that women "are not making it to the top of any profession anywhere in the world. The numbers tell the story ... 190 heads of state -- nine are women. Of all the people in parliaments in the world, 13 percent are women. In the corporate sector, women at the top ... 15, 16 percent."
Sandberg appears not to be complaining about sexism so much as encouraging women to stop sabotaging their own success. Studies show that women are less likely to attribute their success to their own merit than are men, she reports. They are less likely to ask for raises or to negotiate for better terms in a job search. When they are successful, they are less likely than comparable males to be considered "likable."
Those statistics ring true to me. I've noticed both from personal experience and from studies that women tend to judge themselves more harshly than men on other matters, too. Women, for example, are less likely than men to consider themselves good-looking. If Sandberg wants to agitate to help women think better of themselves and get the raises that are due to them, good for her.
But that's not the whole agenda. Though denying that she is judging any woman's decisions and acknowledging that she struggles with the work/family balance every day, there is a planted assumption in her advice to women that work should prevail over family. Noting the small numbers of women in top executive positions at Fortune 500 firms, Sandberg says, "The problem, I am convinced, is that women are dropping out."
There is no doubt that women drop out, though Sandberg neglects to consider the 30 percent small business owners who are women. Many more women than men prefer part-time work or no work when their children are young. There is doubt as to whether this constitutes a problem. Women students at Yale Law School, for example, have published a guide to top law firms that rates them on family-friendliness. As students, these women, who can certainly command some of the highest salaries in the American economy, are thinking ahead about finding workplaces that permit flexibility.
Sandberg sees this phenomenon and appears to condemn it. "Don't leave before you leave," she advises, warning that women forego promotions and more challenging assignments because they're thinking about having kids. This, she argues, makes it less likely that the woman will have a fulfilling job to return to. "I'm here to tell you that once you have a child at home, your job better be really good to go back, because it's hard to leave that kid at home."
Leaving the kid appears to be the goal. But why? "I think a world that was run where half our countries and half our companies were run by women would be a better world."
Maybe. But I haven't noticed that women heads of government or women heads of companies behave differently than men. She's treating her preference as an assumed good. This is one of those little vanities that is permitted to women but would be unacceptable coming from the mouth of a man. No man would dare to suggest, for example, that the field of nursing or teaching would be improved if men were more equally represented.
Isn't it odd that people who exhort us to increase the numbers of women in powerful, high-paying jobs on the speculative grounds that this will be good for the world, discount the roles of women as mothers, which are (usually) of undeniable benefit to their kids? Many women have figured this out. One put it this way: "The world will not be affected one way or another if it has one more accountant during the next decade. But my kids will be profoundly affected by having me raise them."
Many women also find that devoting their time to raising happy, ethical, and responsible children is more rewarding than spending 60 hours a week at the office. Why should they be made to feel that they are letting down the team?
"I hope that ... you have the ambition to run the world," Sandberg told Barnard graduates, "because this world needs you to run it." But the world can wait. Kids can't.
Poss biz opp here Laz.
Totally serious question: You think the world would be better off if half of all world leaders and CEO’s were women?
Only if you like soap operas writ large.
Is she a lesbian? Seems to be the normal lesbian talking points. “family is nothing, career is everything”
Don’t they ever learn? If (most of) us men wanted to marry someone competitive and successful in business, we’d marry another man. What we want is someone who can make life worth living, not someone who makes home into an extension of the office. If her home and family is not her first priority, then she becomes much less attractive in our eyes.
These ‘feminists’ push the “career before all” mindset and then they whine that no man will date them. They never learn!
She sure has found a clever way to unleash her fury at Muslim culture. Just wonder if it is too subtle for them to notice.
If you could sync their menses, we might have a chance. Otherwise we’re looking at a constant wave of moodiness, at least if my wife is any indication.
My wife, while not a vocal conservative, is sick and tired of these “high society” women preaching dominance of the working world. My wife is very old fashioned and believes that women are genetically and biologically programmed to birth, raise, and care for children and families. She thinks this militant feminist BS is destroying the confidences of otherwise great women by forcing them to choose between what they believe society wants of them (powerful working girl) vs. what biology has programmed them to do (children).
I realize this doesn’t encapsulate every woman, but I believe at some point, most women are driven toward child rearing whether they like it or not. To deny that impulse is a big reason why women don’t go full-tilt in the work place.
Men have, for time immemorial, been the caregivers, the breadwinners, the providers, and the protectors, and, like women, there are castes in male-dominated career fields where lines are drawn. For instance, men who are single are seen as less stable than men who are married and are less likely to be considered for a high-paying job over the married man.
Totally serious answer, NO!
Sure, they're "independent"... of family. "Independent" of a husband. "Free" from the responsibility of child raising and from being the "helper" for their husband.
But they're just all that much more dependent on the corporation or the government. They're the "helper" for some strange man that probably DOES have a family.
They're in the same role, only that role has been perverted and corrupted.
Knock me over with a feather! Anyone peruse the average shopping mall lately and figure out why women's clothing stores (and sections within department stores selling both) outnumber those for men by at least a factor of three?
Not so long ago, someone published a survey on self perceptions and found women who felt they were good looking was about 10%, average about 10% and unattractive about 80%. The breakdown for men, on the other hand, was a more logical 10% - 80% - 10%.
She was married to Brian Kraff, they divorced in 2004. She married David Goldberg to whom she is still married. They have 2 children
Straight forward decisions take 45 minutes to reach and a what should be a 15 minute meeting drags on for 2 hours, with almost nothing being resolved. Its freaking exhausting.
The equivocating, couching, and lack of assertiveness makes me feel like my head is going to explode.
All these liberal women who decry the relatively low numbers of women on corporate boards or in high-ranking political positions fail to understand that for most of us, the fire-in-the-belly is just not there. We just aren’t driven to conquer the world. Many of us are quietly ambitious, but that’s why we become small-business owners. We tend not to want to run the world. This is partly why so many women in high elective office are liberals: they represent the small minority of females who do want to run everyone else’s life.
They can’t change biology by legislation. Many of our tastes, interests, goals, and attitudes are hard-wired and not responsive to pressure. The desire to have children and care for them is wired into our brains. Our responsiveness to oxytocin—the neurochemical that is released during breast-feeding and imposes a certain broodmare tranquility on us at those times—is also innate. Libs, you need to deal with it.
Your company won’t remember you after your death. Your children will. How they will remember you is up to you.
So the world would be such a better place if women just stuck to the workplace and abandoned children to daycare, huh? How would it be wonderful without any decent people being raised by any mothers? You need decent people for a wonderful world.
I worked ONE day a week (opposite of my husband so no day care) for MANY years while my kids were young and even homeschooled for a while best decision I ever made. I am working more now that they are older, but don’t regret those early years at all. People thought I was crazy, too- just put them in daycare like everyone else. what are you so afraid of they said.
Bottom line.
``STUDENTS, faculty and guests of Wellesley College, welcome. As you know, Barbara Bush was supposed to be our commencement speaker. But at the last minute, she was asked to baby-sit for some of her grandchildren. Because she considers that to be a more fulfilling task, she has asked to be excused.
``In her absence, we have invited Chicago columnist Mike Royko to address you. Unlike Mrs. Bush, Mr. Royko has never been a housewife or mother. And he has a working career. So except for not being a female person, he fulfills the requirements of the 150 student feminists who signed petitions objecting to Mrs. Bush's presence. So I introduce Mr. Royko.''
``Thank you, Chancellor Whatsis, Dean Whoozits, and all the rest of you rich, Eastern elitists who have gathered at this citadel of snobbery.
``First, I would ask that nobody boo, jeer, or otherwise protest my presence, as I have a nervous stomach and that will make me throw up, which, in turn, will make you nauseous, causing some of you to retch, faint, or stampede toward the exits, thereby detracting from the solemnity of this occasion.
``Now for my commencement address. I will begin by saying that I know what you think I'm going to say. You think I'm going to give you the old `get out there and help make this a better world' routine, which is standard for commencement speeches.
``You expect me to tell you to think not only of yourself, but to do something with your lives that will help mankind - excuse me, I meant personkind. And that you should think of the downtrodden of society, the have-nots, and all the social ills that afflict our nation and the world.
``OK, if you want to be do-gooders, that's fine, as long as you don't get obnoxious about it. But chances are you won't, because you are more concerned with your own happiness than some stranger's, so we'll leave it at that.
``Instead, I would like to talk about the crummy way some of you treated Mrs. Bush, crabbing that she wasn't a worthy choice to speak here because she dropped out of college, got married, and was never anything but a wife, mother, grandmother and homemaker.
``Actually, I'm glad you did that, because it touched off a national debate and gave a lot of pundits a chance to get their minds off Lithuania and ponder your silliness.
``So I'd like to ask you a question. Those of you who have ever gone through 9 months of pregnancy and 12 hours of labor, raise your hands.
``That's what I thought.
``Now, those of you who have ever hauled yourself out of bed at midnight to change the diaper - non-disposable and with pins - and handle the late feeding of a baby, raise your hands.
``That's what I thought. Probably never made formula, either, right? Or boiled any nipples? Or had a boy baby wee in your eyes?
``OK, now I want to see a show of hands from any of you who have been up at 5 a.m., when the baby starts crying for a bottle, and stayed up all day taking care of the kid while getting the older kids off to school, then making dinner for the whole family, and finally collapsing into bed at 11 p.m.
``Uh-huh, as I suspected.
``Young female creatures, I don't think any of you know what work really is. You think a working career is tough? Let me tell you about working careers. In most of them, when 5 or 5:30 p.m. rolls around, you lock your desk, turn off the office light, and go over to Harry's Place for a drink.
``But at 5 or 5:30 p.m., a young Barbara Bush, or a young Wanda Kowalski, isn't turning off the office light and ordering a white wine.
``She's probably sitting there with a kid going through the terrible twos, and the kid is saying: `Why sun go down, Mama?' So she explains. And the kid says, `Why?' And she explains some more. And the kid says, `Why?' Ten more times the kid says, `Why?' Before she's done, she's into the meaning of the universe, and the kid is still asking, `Why?'
``Meanwhile, a pot is boiling over, two of the older kids are fighting over which channel to watch, and the dog is barking to go out before he ruins the rug.
``Or it's noon. You, in your real-world career, are going out for a power lunch. What's young Barbara, or Wanda, doing? She's just grabbed a load out of the washer and dumped it into the dryer, and is making a mad dash for the nursery school. Or maybe the pediatrician, because one of the kids has red spots all over the face and a 102 temperature.
``By the way, how many of you are adroit in the use of a rectal thermometer at 3 a.m.? Please hold up your hands. Uh-huh.
``This is an unfair question, I know, because of your ages. But have any of you taken a totally helpless infant and guided it through those important early developmental years, reading to it, playing educational games with it, then getting it through one grade after another of school, making sure it does homework, trying to teach right from wrong, providing decent, humane values, until finally one day you have before you a fully grown, mentally developed, useful, intelligent and likable human being - your very own creation?
``Do you realize how much mind-boggling, back-breaking, nerve-frazzling, self-depriving, 16-hour days of work this takes, if you are going to do it right? And you don't consider that a career?
``A final question: How many of you consider yourselves able to hit a good tennis backhand?
``Fine. I knew you had accomplished something.
``Well, in conclusion, I can only say: The back of my hand to you, too.''
“No man would dare to suggest, for example, that the field of nursing or teaching would be improved if men were more equally represented. “
Men and women RN’s openly admit it to each other all the time. Because there have been improvements in pay and benefits with more men represented. (disclaimer notice: I am an RN)
I’m with your wife (”My wife believes that women are genetically and biologically programmed”). There are powerful hormonal, biological urges that come into play with childbirth. Thinking ideologically does not change that.
“You can have it all” is not ever how life works; there are time and human limitations. But you do have seasons of life in which you can focus on different things - one season, raising children; another season, empty nesting. And there are always bits of time here and there to make your life full and balanced.
I didn’t know there were male nurses until after I had a surgery on my neck in the hospital at Fort Campbell, Ky in 1968. The German word for nurse is Krankenschwester which is definitely feminine
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.