Stop Whining
I love this quote from Kathryn Lopez directed to Ellen Goodman (link via Michelle Malkin):
My reaction to Goodman-like complaining is: It's 2007, you live in the United States. You have a pen, phone and Internet connection. Stop whining. It's unattractive. If you want to have an impact, just work. That's how the guys do it. That's how we gals do it.
posted by Lorie Byrd at 9:06 AM
1 Comments:
I have mixed feelings about her column. She relies on anecdotal evidence rather than statistical evidence, citing Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and other prominent women in politics. That's all true, but anecdotal evidence doesn't have the power to prove anything. What we need is the big picture, the overall statistical view, and by any statistical measures, woman are still underrepresented at every political level in our republic.
HOWEVER!!!
There are two factors contributing to this:
1. the presumed sexist bias against women
2. women's own self-imposed restriction.
Now, there's lots of evidence that both of these factors are at work. I recall one interesting experiment involving corporate behavior in which a woman playing an assertive role was perceived by the test subjects as bitchy, while a man playing exactly the same role (with exactly the same words) was perceived by the test subjects as "leader-like". So let's not pretend that sexism is gone.
On the other hand, there are many constraints that women place upon themselves. They do not commit themselves to their careers as obsessively as men. They aren't willing to push themselves unhealthily to get to the top. So, while sexism is still around, it's not the only factor at work.
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