Notice how none of the women are the scowling, "ain't I tough" ball-breaking bitches that were lauded as "successful business women" when I was growing up. These women look, well, nice! Like maybe the kind of women that one might actually want to work with, or for. Most importantly, the models are portraying women leaders who're being themselves. Like the coffin-nail says, "you've come a long way, baby!"
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That's pretty great - I like the fact that the ad is portraying women who are successful *and* quite feminine looking. In the eighties and even nineties, women could only be successful in business by taking on the "ball-breaker" persona or in other ways adopting "male" codes of behavior. And of course their professional success came at a price - they basically rendered themselves angry and/or asexual. I realize I'm making some serious generalizations and that it wasn't true in all cases, but it was prevelent enough to effect everything from politics, the women's movement, sexual and gender issues and even fashion (remember power suits, anyone?) Anyway, it's nice to see that it is now generally believed that women can be successful in business and still remain themselves and that womanhood or feminity is not something that needs to be overcome in order to obtain professional advancement.
Amen!! Now if we can only break the barrier on earning potential differences in the corporate world...
That's a more complex (which I've followed for some time, actually). It turns out that this's easily achievable if, as a woman, one chooses not to have a family. Childless women of equal job histories actually earn very slightly more than their male counterparts -- presumeably because women who're that motivated in their work lives are more motivated than the majority of their male peers, for whom work/life flexibility is about choosing between work and work.
Many people (mostly women) think that women should be able to take time off and still earn the same amount as their male peers. Most males and careerist women tend to reply "tough, work more" instead.
The biggest divide seems to be between most women, who feel that having to make such an extreme choice is unfair to their sex, and most men, who tend to think women don't appreciate the fact that they have a choice in the first place.
Very true, however, that issue seems to unravel now that many "family" men are being granted paternity leave and more flexible schedules in order to help care for the children in the family.
On the other hand, one can't really find too much fault in the argument when a woman who does 10 reports completes the task in 3 hours because she has to go get her son at daycare earns the same as a man who does the same 10 reports in 5 hours. This example, of course, doesn't really match the reality of the situation, nor does it answer the argument that the man is available in those 5 hours to do other work in addition to the 10 reports, whereas the woman is not. Hence, the man is perceived as more valuable to the company.
So....is there ever going to be a resolution?
I don't think so. The best that I'm aware of is day-care and after-school facilities taking care of kids until after general working hours so that the parents (mother most of the time, but not always) can pick the kid up after school. This chunk of time is generally being treated as a combination of Phys-Ed and study-hall, and the kids who do it see it as perfectly natural that their days are as long as their parents'. If this becomes standard economic practices (which is an open question, since it's too expensive for many lower-middle-class budgets), then salaries will tend to equalize, since the value gap caused by maternity leave varies from trivial to non-existent (depending on the difficulty of the pregancy & delivery, health complications, etc). But there's a huge open question as to who would pay for such health care. Over here in socialist-central, the answer is "the government", which really means "get the money from the rich", but since the rich have tax shelters that just don't apply to everyone else, that really means the middle and upper-middle classes, which are already besieged by other pulls on their incomes.
Honestly, though, women being pervasive in the (middle-class) economy is 35 years old or thereabouts; it's still too early to prognosticate.
oops -- substitute "child care" for "health care" above.
From my experience with corporate America, and many of my scientist colleagues who have left it, it is now obvious that having a life outside of work will kill your chances of "leadership", and it doesn't matter if your a man or a woman, having a family that you're really willing to spend time with WILL kill any chance of getting promoted into "high leadership".
Not that ANYTHING that calls itself leadership from large corporate America is leadership. It's cold-hearted, brutal, machivellian management which dehumanizes labor (blue and white collar) into a resource to be refined, spent, and discarded - and nothing more. Only in small companies that truly have to fight to survive do you see real leadership from men and women, with families, along with happy employees.
The whole day care issue is another long discussion altogether, and I don't think it is healthy for us as a society.
Agreed on both counts.
I watched lower high-level managers (folks who were clearly in the running for MD slots) talk about hiring women, b/c as soon as a gal got pregnant, you'd hear behind closed doors "well, we've lost her..." about three years later I realized that they were right. 80% of the gals I saw get pregnant never came back.
And because I agree wholeheartedly with Alex about how the corporate world uses its labor pool, I can't say I blame them one bit.
Not to be enterly off the subject, but this title reminds me of a song I heard played on the Ron and Ron show back in Savannah.
"Chicks, your our equals now".
Oooooooooo, that got a slight response. Just imagine it sung like the Brat pack would sing it.
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