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"One key type of discrimination that women face is the expectation that "feminine" women will forfeit opportunities for recognition at work. Being silenced or being ignored often remains a baffling and frustrating barrier to women's understanding of how their lives are shaped. This is a "sin of omission" rather than one of commission, so it's hard to spot. It's not as obvious as being denied the right to vote or access to birth control. Women tend to feel foolish asking for appropriate acknowledgement of their contributions. They find it difficult to demand appropriate support - in the form of time, money or promotion - to pursue their own goals. They feel selfish when they do not subordinate their needs to those of others.
This subtle, incremental, but ultimately powerful dynamic militates against women's pursuit and attainment of goals in most fields. For them, or for anyone, the motivation to learn a skill or to pursue any endeavour, including an ambition, can be roughly calculated on the basis of two factors: how certain the person is that he or she will be able to attain the desired goal and how valued the expected rewards are.
The rewards aspect of this calculation is problematic for women. Although they may find mastery as satisfying as do their male peers, the social rewards that women can expect to reap for their skills are diminished. THe personal and societal recognition they receive for their accomplishments is quantitatively poorer, qualitatively more ambivalent, and perhaps most discouraging, less predictable.
Whoever said "insidious" up thread is dead on. To me, I find gender discourse based around the idea of patriarchy as an overt organised discriminatory force a little dated. Now this may be because I'm an outsider who doesn't see it in action.
But, assuming that's not the case, to me the idea that discrimination works through the kind of psychological mechanisms outlined above makes far more sense.
So if that is the case, it certainly makes sense to try to counter such forces somehow. I'd argue this has got far more to do with the education system than it does with the business world.
Here's why. The business world will always be about competition. It is a battle. And men just are more psychologically geared up for this kind of environment. So I honestly don't believe that as long as you have a business world based on competition, the situation there will change much. And if the business world is not going to be about competition, you're talking serious political change on a universal scale.
As far as change goes, my assumption is generally that meaningful, successful change happens gradually. Because people's minds change gradually.
A case in point is Asia (where I live). In the west women's attitudes changed, and they then forced society to change to accomodate them. Here in Asia, society changed to fit the western model of female emancipation. But attitudes have not yet changed. Because that takes much longer. So practically, women here are far more subservient than in the west, even though their legal and political status is identical. |
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