#8 Post: Summary of Research on Feminism

When I chose the topic of feminism, I wanted to assess how far women have progressed in their quest to be treated with equality. I have grown up in a household where my Mother had a career as well as my Father. I have observed how she has worked extra hard to move into higher positions of responsibility and authority while she and my Dad have run a large household and raised a family with 3 children. She has educated me on the struggles of women to be treated equally in the workplace as well as handle a full time job and still enjoy her family. All the topics I chose and the research I performed was backed up with the real life examples of my Mother.

The video survey on the streets of New York revealed that even in this modern day and age, people don’t understand what feminism is. However, my Mother told me that people in her company do not openly disparage the cause of feminism or the goal of women to be treated equally in the workplace. She says that is largely because they are trained to treat everyone equally with respect. Companies have learned that if they do not help to change people’s attitudes towards workplace diversity, productivity is impacted negatively and the company can be sued for large amounts of money. Her company’s training on workplace ethics sites many of these lawsuits and the large amounts of money that were awarded to the people discriminated against. My Mom said that it would be interesting to see a more scientific survey conducted in the workplace.

In the article entitled “Five Signs of Stalled Progress on the Gender Wage Gap”, I discovered that there is still a wage gap based on current statistics. Women do indeed receive less pay for the same job today. They make about 77% of what men make for similar work. In my mother’s case, she shared with me a current story. One of her male colleagues has the same job duties and the same amount of consultants reporting to him as she does. They both have similar backgrounds, experience, and skills. My Mother was highly rated on her last job performance review. Given all this information, she should be at the same level as this man. In fact, she has a title one level below this man and she thinks she makes less money based upon what others have told her. Her story validated one of the main points of the article. Because she is not able to know for sure the male colleague’s salary, it makes it difficult for her to remedy the situation.

In the video “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders Video”, I was pleased to see a woman in a top leadership role at Facebook. She shared her thoughts on why the percentage of women in top level positions is still so low. In my Mother’s case, she took some maternity leave to have her children but returned back to work within 9 months in each case. This was one of the arguments Sheryl Sandberg made as to why it takes women longer because they disengage from their ambitions too quickly while they are having children. My Mother thinks if she didn’t continue to be involved with work or if she had taken a longer time off her career to be with her children, she would not have gotten as far as she did. She also believes that women need to believe they can do it and fight as hard as men do to get the top positions. She also believes they need to support each other more. She found a way to still be involved in her children’s lives as well as be successful in her career but it wasn’t easy.

In the website about the Biography of Gloria Steinem, Gloria talked about how she had to fight much harder than the men for the good job assignments. My Mother had the same fight in the traditionally male role as a Telephone Company Engineer. She experienced managers in lead roles who held discriminatory beliefs about the ability of women to lead projects. She had to prove herself over and over again to get the same respect of the men in the same job. She also wholeheartedly agreed with Gloria’s statement “The truth is that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it”. Without my Dad helping as much as he does at home, she would have had a much more difficult time focusing on her job at the same level as her male colleagues.

In the article “Is the Female Brain Innately Inferior?” both my Mother and I were shocked that people today still held such beliefs. My Mother attended Georgia Tech which is one of the top 5 Engineering schools in the country. At the time she went there, there was a ratio of 4 men to every 1 woman attending Engineering school. She believes it is because her parents encouraged her in Math from an early age. She had the same chance to do as well as the men in her school because she believed she had the ability. Today, the number of women attending technical schools has increased since she went there which further proves that women are not inherently less capable than men in Math.

Lastly in the video “Women in the Military” the atmosphere of male superiority and dominance has made it tough for women. Each panel member said how important it was for the military leadership to have a firm no tolerance attitude to discrimination against women in their ranks. They also discussed how important it was for military leadership to be the role model for treating everyone equally. Again, my Mother shared with me how difficult it was for her working with mostly male workforce in the phone company. She told me that these attitudes became less prevalent in the workplace when corporate policy started making it mandatory for people to be treated equally and everyone was given training on workforce ethics. She told me it has definitely improved work life for women. Also in the video, the panelists spoke about how important it was to have standard criteria and training for positions. This same approach has also helped to equalize entry into various positions in corporate life.

I believe that progress has been slow but we are starting to see improvement in the equality of women in all walks of life. It has been a difficult struggle for women before us to get to this step and it will take my generation of women to get it to where it needs to be – where people are treated the same and provided equal opportunity no matter what their sex, race, religious affiliation, etc. I am encouraged by this research that we can work together to make changes in society. It takes people banding together to fight for what is right and proving that it benefits everyone when members of a society are treated equally.

Video Post #7: Women in the Military

In this video, 3 very distinguished women provide keen insights into the subject of women in the military – specifically Women serving in combat positions.

1. Erica Borgren – Director, Department of Veterans Affairs

2. Rebecca Hannagan – Professor of Political Science, Northern Illinois University

3. Kimberly Mitchell – Deputy Director, Dixon Center with 17 years of service in the US Navy including Surface Warfare Officer

There was a recent change in the US Armed Forces last Spring that lifts a ban and allows women to serve in combat positions. All these women feel this was long overdue. In fact, women have been serving for over a decade in combat roles already – e.g. as medics, in transportation, etc. One considered it a great recognition of how women have proved themselves. Another pointed out that it enables more women to be considered for the top Commander positions.

Then they talked about the challenges and what will be needed to make it work.

1. Top down command policy must be there – so everyone is fully on board. It is the role of Military leadership to transition this effectively. It will take some fantastic women to break the ground because it will inevitably take a while for everyone to get used to it. Women will most likely have to deal with disrespect and harassment, much like they received when they 1^st entered into the military.

2. There must be standards so that the objectivity is removed - women can meet those standards and therefore not be questioned. Climbing over the 10 ft. wall – women may not be able to do this as well as a man but is this really an imperative feat? We must have standards that match the job – re-evaluate what is critical.

3. Training needs to be the same – male or female. They must train together – helps soldiers to bond with fellow soldiers. Also, males are given the opportunity to fail and re-take the training – should be the same for women.

4. They need Veteran’s services just like men when they return from military duty for successful transition and re-integration into civilian life. Just like men they do not want pity but recognition of their potential. The panel thought it would be good to have more women helping each other as more women go through service and come back – to deal with women’s issues like child care, continued relationships with their military friends, etc.

In my opinion, this is a great step to allowing women to advance in the military. Getting those tops jobs often depend on the person having served in a combat zone. If you are an operator, you are more likely to advance to the upper echelon than a career staff officer (traditional job for women). It is obvious to me that there is still a culture of masculinity that dominates the military. Also when people talk on TV about it, they often say “Yes I support women in combat BUT…”. I agree with the panel that we need to stop saying “BUT”. One of the critiques for this is “are women physically capable?” to stand side by side with males in battle. I think having standards will allow women to prove they can meet the standards required by the job and the same standards as men. It is also important to integrate them into the same activities as the men. Armies are all about oneness and team work – how to function as 1 unit working together. Another key issue is preventing sexual trauma in the Military. According to the panel, this has been and still is prevalent and may increase as more women play more roles in the Military. This needs to be addressed in veteran support services and the laws need to be more strictly and evenly enforced. There should be training of the leadership for no tolerance. Commanders should be held responsible and every complaint should be given due course of evaluation.

Article Post #6: Is the Female Brain Innately Inferior?

http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2011/is-female-brain-innately-inferior

Is the female brain innately inferior?

In this Website article, Susan Fisk, a graduate student in the Sociology Department at Stanford, looks at some common assumptions about the impact of gender on the human brain. In this article she interviews Josef Parvizi, an Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University Medical Center. These Stanford scholars bust some myths about the human brain. Susan calls them Gender Brain myths.

1. Brain size matters - Women are not less intelligent than men because they have smaller brains. Brain size depends mostly on your body size. Proportionately, men have the same size brains as women. And size does not dictate intelligence.

2. Women and men have different brains due to estrogen and testosterone – Some people believe that different hormones can cause men to be better leaders and thinkers. However, men and women have both of these hormones. In fact the male brain needs estrogen for normal brain development and function. Dr. Parvizi stated “even if estrogen and testosterone did shape the brain in different ways, it is an unsubstantiated and illogical leap to conclude that such differences cause men to occupy top academic positions in the sciences and engineering or top positions of political or social power, while women are hopelessly ill-equipped for such offices."

3. Men are naturally better at math – Research on differences in math and verbal scores on standardized tests from men to women is not direct evidence of biological differences in the brains of women and men. Other research reveals that these test scores are affected by social factors. People can be influenced by stereotypes about a group to which they belong. A great example was how Asian women scored higher on math tests when they were reminded that they were Asian as opposed to the group that was reminded they were women.

Dr. Parvizi explained “what we know about the neural basis of learning, one can argue that the map of associations in the brain is sculpted by our experience throughout our life. Even if the hard wiring of the brain remains unchanged, the function of the hardware is constantly altered by experience.”

I think this article makes sense. The human brain is very complex and we don’t know everything about it. What influences a person’s thoughts and behavior is much more than the brain they are born with. What they will choose to learn about and excel in is more likely based on both their innate intelligence and as well as their learned experience. How people are treated from the time they are born is a big factor. Consider how girls have been conditioned into believing that math and science are studies for men. Girls were not encouraged to pursue careers let alone these areas of study that open up more doors. They were told that they won’t have time to spend in the amount of school it would take to be able to use math in a big way like becoming an inventor. And the reason why is because they were told their job is taking care of a family. That is how it has been taught to the majority of girls since the beginning of intelligent thought. Now in this age more girls are taught the importance of math and science and that they can achieve anything a man can. They try harder and take difficult classes knowing they have just as good a chance as men to excel in these areas and do whatever they want in their lives. They also realize that many high paying jobs these days are technical and require a math background and aptitude. Same goes for men. They are just as able and likely to gravitate towards fine arts, literature, music and other creative pursuits. They have never been discouraged in these areas so they have not been conditioned into believing their brains can’t handle being creative and making the world a more beautiful place. Girls can do any of the above mentioned skills as well as men. They too can be the future great inventors or masters of industry and still appreciate a work of art. I connected this with feminism because many people have the perception that men are smarter and better at certain subjects than women. These studies clearly demonstrate the equality between men and women on the basis of intelligence and the 'ability to learn on both sides of the brain'.