Barbelith Underground > Head Shop > Do Women Lack Ambition?

Okay, I think there is a shitload of projecting what y'all assume the author is talking about here. I've downloaded and read the article and will fill in a bit more in a sec.

First up, thought, we need some ground rules. When an article like this makes a statement about what "women" are like, what they mean is "the majority of women are more likely to behave in this way than the majority of men". What they do not mean is "this is what all women are like" or "this why women are bad". Any article based on surveys is, by necessity, talking about averages. Of course there are women who buck the trend. Lots of them. Of course there are men who buck the trend. Lots of them too. But if you compare the two populations statistically, you can see differences.

Secondly, there is a difference between an observation about differences and inferring a cause. To say "women are like this" is not the same as saying "women were born like this" so nature/nurture doesn't even enter into it on that level.

Finally - that snippet up top deeply misrepresents the article. The bulk of it is a presentation of some evidence about different behaviours of men and women in competitive and/or business situations. It is not some program for advancing women in the world - that bit is an afterthought.

Background - the author is a woman called Anna Feels and she is a psychiatrist. She is writing the article based on a combination of her experience as a psychiatrist, a qualitative study she did on women and ambition, and quite a lot of survey data.

In terms of observed effects she makes a number of points:

- Women tend to get less recognition in our society for achievements e.g. business success, scientific theories, art

- Women are less likely to want to claim attention from others for their achievements than men are

- American society (based on a US survey called the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI)) tends to assign different characteristics to men than to women

- Some of the characteristics seen as 'feminine' on the BSRI by the majority of Americans are in conflict with those commonly seen to be required in order to 'achieve'

A base level assumption made in the article is:

- In order to 'achieve' we need talent and also something which could be called 'will' or 'drive' but which is referred to in this article as 'ambition'

- A big part of using ambition to achieve is deliberately attracting attention to what you have done well

The thesis she draws from this is as follows:

Although there are factors in society which mitigate against women having as much success as men (e.g. ingrained patriarchy) it is also the case that women in general have less 'ambition' (as defined above) than men. This is a significant factor.

The reason for this (according to the article) is that, despite shifts in recent years, femininity is still associated with traits such as 'yielding', 'sensitive to the needs of others', 'soft-spoken' and 'gentle'. Because of this women pick up on subtle cues around them and feel they ought to act a certain way.

This causes women to feel that they are being selfish if they try to attract attention to their actions and accomplishments, which in turn leads to less success at those accomplishments (in terms of public recognition of one's talent).

She also makes some observations that women's achievements in school are less recognised that those of men from a fairly early age, and suggests that this may be a factor, but doesn't go into any detail as to why.

Basically, I think she points out some interesting observations, her analysis may not be 100% accurate but she's certainly not deserving of all the vitriol...