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30 years ago, two Harvard Business School professors had a plan. They wanted to change the world. Start filling the pipeline with female managers, they predicted, and in 10 or 20 years at most, those women would shift into senior positions. Once that took place, could an end to sexism in the workplace (and maybe everywhere else too) be far off? Anne Jardim and her partner, Margaret Hennig, wrote one of the first books of career advice for pigeonholed secretaries and ambitious assistants:
When it was published, in 1977, just 2.3 percent of the executives in U.S. firms were women. The book—a “groundbreaking” bestseller, according to the New York Times—was onto something big. Now, three decades later, 52 percent of all middle managers are women.
Poof! Sexism in corporate America—gone.
A very interesting start. I have worked with women in all capacities, as colleagues, as my bosses and as someone who reported to me and even though I think I have handled my professional relationships quite well, I have never had any inclination of any sort that there was sexisim in the companies I worked. I cannot say the same for executives positions in the companies I worked in, which is why I found this article really interesting. I was curious to know what the status of women is in the executives positions.
But by the 4th para this authour lost me. I mean, what kind of hog-wash is this :
But sexism didn’t end. Now we dread having to bring it up again. Why? Maybe because our failure stirs up fear and embarrassment at the idea that it will never go away. These thoughts are always with us but never more so than today, thanks to Senator Hillary Clinton’s tumultuous presidential campaign. She was the “inevitable” Democratic candidate—until she wasn’t. Once there was a charismatic male contender, we as a nation had to once again face our true feelings about gender and power. Suddenly the question is whether we are more gender-blind or color-blind.
Absolute and utter bullshit. This is the kind of garbage that puts me off from “mainstream” writers. No checking of facts just spitting out shit as reported to them.
Hillary did “lose” but more people voted for her than they did for Obama. She lost the electoral college but not the popular vote. Does that not fly in the face of “sexism” against Hillary? It is the wonky electoral college system used in the US that pushed Hillary off the democratic race and not because everyone woke up one day and said that they’d rather vote for a black MAN than a white WOMAN.
And the reason why her jauggernaut stalled was because her message reeked of someone who has lost touch of why she was running in the first place. She was kind of the John McCain of the democratic party i.e. she should win the democratic nomination because it was her due. It was nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman.
From a conservative viewpoint, the whole thing was *kind of* fun to watch. (also kind of sad) We felt like identity politics was ironically blowing up on a party that uses it to gain political loyalty. Suddenly the democrats were either going to reject a BLACK man because America was still not ready or they were going to reject a white WOMAN because misogyny is still in our bones. It’s incredible to me the extent to which people are not seen as individuals in their own right by the people who claim the banner of fighting for them to be treated as individuals regardless of their identity. It’s become so counterproductive.