Harvard researchers have discovered that voters, men in particular, feel prejudiced against women in power — ORLY? — but that prejudice is reduced with greater exposure to powerful women. In the study, the first women in powerful positions in a small village were given performance evaluations “that are lower than those of her men counterparts (even when they outperform the men),” but when the same group is exposed to another female leader in the future, her evaluations are on par with her male counterparts.
Which makes me wonder why the millions of powerful female school teachers, the most immediate long-term exposure we have with authoritative women as a nation, don’t have an effect on our collective prejudice. Or mothers. Maybe mothers and teachers have an adverse effect on our consciousness because of some reason or another (*cough* sexism *cough*). And maybe it’s time we acknowledge that we simply haven’t had enough female leaders on national and international levels to make a difference on the political sexism scale. And maybe, out of respect and deference, we should just let Palin take the fall on behalf of the next national female leader.
(Maybe not.)
There’s definitely a trailblazing effect in lowering prejudice and hurdles for future women — same is true for other groups. The “same as the old boss” naysayers are closet sexists who feel women have to be better than the existing imperfect crop of men to deserve to join them, and don’t understand the statistical fact that we will need more than a few “Thatcher” data points to determine whether women will bring something different.
I wish schoolteachers and moms could more effectively refute sexist beliefs about women in leadership. But we will need to demonstrate executive experience, managing adults, in percentages closer to those of men, to make that sale.
Boys and young men are educated and cared for through out life by mothers and educators, so it would make sense that women in power would not be a problem. The problem is that these jobs are not elevated to the same level of respect of typical men’s society positions. During the first class of a semester I can tell right off which male students are disappointed to see a woman in the front of the room. This has declined as I am teaching Gen-Y; they seem more open to women professors.
I think Hillary already did.
What I have learned as a parent is that kids take their cues from their parents: not from what they say, but from what they do. Perhaps mothers and female teachers don’t condition kids to accept women at leaders because the kids see that they are not treated as leaders. Perhaps in a home where dad talks over mom, the kids know that mom is not the boss, even if she is the boss of them. Perhaps is mom goes to meet with the teachers and dad’s the boss, they understand that meeting with the teachers isn’t that important.
The corollary to this is that, in our own homes, if we are to raise a generation beyond our limitations, if there are opposite sex parents, mom has to actually be the boss in the same sense that dad is. Maybe there’s some cis-het man out there for whom that’s easy. I was raised feminist, been married to a women’s college alum for a decade and I’m still learning to do my fair share of keeping track of household stuff and not to take up more than my fair share of conversation space.
Yes, definitely. Even though I knew my dad was a sexist jerk since I was a child, I now catch myself not respecting my mom because my dad kept putting her “in her place” all those years. This is despite the fact that I always sided with my mom.
Despite the empty rhetoric to the contrary, our culture trains us to view teaching and mothering as easy work that doesn’t require skill; one glance at the average teacher’s salary – and the vehement defenses of those low salaries – can attest to that fact. So, while mothers and teachers are technically in authority positions, kids pick up on the various cues that those women aren’t valued by society as a whole. And, of course, it’s a vicious cycle: those jobs aren’t valued because they’re primarily done by women, and because women do them, they’re not valued.
BadKitty, that hurts so bad. I hope you’re not right.
I don’t think any of us has enough power to have Palin do anything. All we can do is vote against or for her. Individual women have had power, but what are they do for women as a whole?
oh!press pass
“And, of course, it’s a vicious cycle: those jobs aren’t valued because they’re primarily done by women, and because women do them, they’re not valued.”
Partially. But let’s face it. They should be valued much more, both economically and in terms of respect (kind of redundant?), but even if that were the case, they wouldn’t appear on a reasonable CV for a leadership position.
Realistically, kids know how valuable parents are. But knowing someone is a parent does not tell us much about their ability to “lead” in the sense of leading a company or a geographical body. I know both women and men who are outstanding parents who could not and would not want to do these tasks, and also know people doing these tasks who are shitty parents.
Teaching — a similar analysis. There are some common skills to managing a class to other kinds of leadership, but as critical as teaching is, it’s not the same skill set as managing grown ups and taking responsibility for the economic performance of an entity.
Interesting.
In many Black households, the mother is the only authority.
Do Blacks respond differently to women in the workplace or are other social issues causing them to resent a woman who is in charge?
There is also the fact that teachers no longer wield the same authority or possess the same aura that they did when we were kids. The modern teacher, hamstrung by ridiculous rules set by school boards, legislatures, and district bureaucracies and constantly challenged by parents seeking greater and greater control over their children’s education, is frequently a drone working practically on remote control and it’s increasingly obvious to students. If no one else appears to respect their teacher, the students won’t either. So it will not help instill the attitude toward women discussed here.
I’m not going to go off on a long-winded tirade about the education system. Yet.
My two cents- if we elect Palin there won’t be another woman in power for a LONG LONG Time. Seriously, looking at the woman’s policies, she’s an honorary man. I’d rather have a woman president twenty years from now than a self hating woman vice president.