"Women and their opinions are often not taken seriously...in my profession, powerful women are very few and very far between. Unfortunately, 90% of the successful women in the 40 and 50-something generations in my field are criticized all of the time, in personal and extremely offensive ways.

"Many men claim that this is not because they are women but is only because of their particular, individual personalities. But how can that be the case? Nowhere near 90% of the powerful men are criticized in this manner. If successful women have strong opinions, the are demonized and considered you-know-whats. The weak, wishy-washy women are sometimes promoted, and in my opinion this may be because they are not threatening. The most strong, successful, and able women are almost never promoted to positions of real power...

"So although I do not like Hillary Clinton's politics very much, I think it is important to give her latitude in the way she campaigns, I think it is important to give her latitude in the way she campaigns. There is no female precedent, and yet a woman will not and cannot act exactly like a man does. She is breaking new ground and should be given credit for that."--Betsy Barton, scientist

Betsy Barton, a scientist who frequently reads and comments on this blog, wrote an interesting blog comment response to my recent blog post Gloria Steinem: 'What worries me is that some women hope to deny the sexual caste system'. I thought it merited its own blog post because her perspective on sexism is interesting. And since my daughter says she wants to be a scientist in Betsy's specialty when she grows up, whenever Betsy talks about her career, I pay close attention.

I would also ask this--for women who work in male-dominated professions., do Betsy's observations ring true? And for men who work with a few women in male-dominated professions, have you seen women endure the sexist treatment Betsy alleges?

From Betsy Barton:

I completely agree that voting for Hillary because she is a woman is sexist. Absolutely. I completely agree that Steinem systematically fails to recognize that the feminist movement has now given women many unfair advantages over men. In fact, I completely agree with many of the criticisms made in the comments after this article. It's shameful that as a public figure, Ms. Steinem does not hold herself to a high standard of evidence, truth, and fairness.

However, it is important to note that Steinem's intellectual dishonesty itself does not negate every point she makes. She made some points that I believe are true. I do not think that men should now pretend that all the bias is in favor of women. In my opinion, most of the directly government-sponsored bias is unfairly in favor of women. But some of the remaining cultural bias is in favor of men. Here are some of the things Steinem says that I agree with, at least partially:

(1) "Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House."

I don't know it that it is the *most* restricting force, but it still plays a huge part in people's lives. It restricts both men and women. (Really, that's why were all here.)

(2) "...anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects 'only' the female half of the human race"

This is an exaggeration and does not apply to most of the current actions of government, but in my experience, there are elements of truth to it. Women and their opinions are often not taken seriously. Perhaps I can see it so much because I work mostly with men, and perhaps it would be the other way around if I worked mostly with women. But overall, is it not the case that we think the things men traditionally do are "important" and that the things women traditionally do are not?

(3) "...because there is still no `right' way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what."

I think this one is important and true. Of course, my experience is limited, but in my profession, powerful women are very few and very far between. Unfortunately, 90% of the successful women in the 40 and 50-something generations in my field are criticized all of the time, in personal and extremely offensive ways. Many men claim that this is not because they are women but is only because of their particular, individual personalities. But how can that be the case? Nowhere near 90% of the powerful men are criticized in this manner. If successful women have strong opinions, the are demonized and considered you-know-whats. The weak, wishy-washy women are sometimes promoted, and in my opinion this may be because they are not threatening. The most strong, successful, and able women are almost never promoted to positions of real power. And women essentially never succeed without powerful male supporters. So although I do not like Hillary Clinton's politics very much, I think it is important to give her latitude in the way she campaigns. There is no female precedent, and yet a woman will not and cannot act exactly like a man does. She is breaking new ground and should be given credit for that.

My field is still overwhelmingly male dominated. It is enormously competitive and some very brilliant people never "make it." This type of pressure understandably causes people --- myself included --- to have bad attitudes toward the competition. The generation of women perhaps 20-25+ years older than I am had it extremely rough. There were hardly any of them and they were often prevented from taking part in even the most basic activities of our field. I know one prominent women who was told, basically, "We will never give tenure to a woman at [prestigious university]." Years ago, some had to face daily insults and almost unchecked sexual harassment.

In my generation, the situation is quite different. The issues that exist are much more subtle and subconscious, and most people really seem to have good intentions. People do, sometimes, vaguely suggest to me that I have only gotten where I am because I am a woman (untrue). It is also clear that some of my of my older male colleagues are more comfortable talking amongst themselves than they are talking to me. Overall, it is well known that women do not make much progress by having strong "public" opinions in my field. We our counseled that if we want to have an effect, we need to do it carefully and quietly, behind the scenes. If I am involved in a big project and I want to do something radical within it, I generally will privately enlist the support and cooperation of a man, who then becomes the public supporter of whatever it is I want to do. I have tried it both ways, and the behind-the-scenes way is essentially always more successful for me. Maybe this is not fully a gender issue, but many of us believe that it is.

In any case, I think these issues are real, but they are not solely the fault of men. In fact, many of the men in my generation (30-somethings) are fighting to get rid of them. Personally, what I see is that my male colleagues in my generation are all completely opposed to gender discrimination and they are all as sensitive as they can possibly be to the "hidden issues" that affect career advancement today. I am very grateful to them for this. I also think that this is part of the reason for the generational differences in attitudes among women that Steinem alludes to.

There is no doubt in my mind that women, on the whole, are different from men These differences probably even have some basis in biology. But let's face it, all people differ from one another. As people have said over and over on this blog, the only remedy is to work very, very hard to take gender out of the equation as much as possible. Regardless of anything science will ever say about these differences, the government's job must always be to treat its citizens fairly, in a way that is blind to all of their innate differences. Obviously, this is not happening in many segments of government, including the family courts. Both genders will suffer if we continue to let it go on.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Feminism/NOW, Sexism, Misogyny, Political Parties/Presidential Election/Major Elections. You can trackback from your own site.