“There’s no substitute for personal experience, and both O’Connor and Ginsburg suffered sex discrimination in trying to get an education and a decent job practicing law afterward. O’Connor was offered only legal secretary positions after getting her law degree. Ginsburg was asked by the law school dean what it felt like to occupy a place that could have gone to a deserving man, and she was refused even an interview for law clerk after graduating. The stated reason? Her gender. Those kind of experiences undoubtedly played a role in Ginsburg’s consistently pro-woman rulings and O’Connor’s upholding of principles underlying women’s rights in the workplace.”
With Alito, there are justified fears that women (and minorities) will continue to be given the seats in the back of the bus- by business, government, and society.
Read the article from Alternet >>
Meanwhile, Gloria Steinem says:
“In a general way, women become more radical as they get older. The pattern is that women are conservative when they’re young. That’s when there’s the most pressure on us to conform, when we’re potential child bearers and sex objects. And we lose power when we get older. Which is a very radicalizing experience.” Men are the opposite, she said — rebels when they’re young, uptight when they’re grown-ups.”
I sort of agree with her.
The sad thing is that for business in the US, women are the key differentiators. Look at Japan – where women (for the most part) aren’t even allowed on the bus.
Treating women as second-class workers is just bad for business.
From Peter Drucker:
“Knowledge gives choice. It also explains why we suddenly have women in the same jobs as men. Historically, men and women have always had equal participation in the labor force — the idea of the idle housewife is a 19th-century delusion. Men and women simply did different jobs. There’s no civilization in which the two genders did the same work. However, knowledge work knows no gender; men and women do the same jobs. This, too, is a major change in the human condition.”
and
“The greatest competitive advantage of the United States is that it attracts top knowledge workers from around the world — not just because they earn more money but because they are treated as colleagues, not as subordinates. Knowledge workers don’t believe they are paid to work 9 to 5; they believe they’re paid to be effective. Organizations that understand this — and strip away everything that gets in their knowledge workers’ way — will be able to attract, hold, and motivate the best performers. That will be the single biggest factor for competitive advantage in the next 25 years.”
Too bad we’re turning our backs on this as a nation.
See also: Advice to Women who would be CEOs: “Stay away from HR”