I wasn’t able to make it to the Harold Ford thing because I had to go to a university event for sophomores (I’m an adviser for sophomores) and I wasn’t able to sneak out early. It’s interesting… since it wasn’t something students *had* to go to, it was all the good citizen types who came, which meant that about 80% of the students there were women, but the one table that consisted of the members of the student council was seven men and one woman.
This is pretty much what one always sees on campuses — any “good citizen” type event will attract mostly women, while student government is mostly men.
When it comes to real politics, of course, elected officials are even more overwhelmingly male, even though women are (slightly) more likely to vote, on average.
I wonder if things will always be this way. Even as a lot of things about gender have changed on campuses (most notably, that women outnumber men in colleges by an average of 57% to 43%), this is one thing that isn’t changing much.
Laura W
It’s because men suck and they want to keep women down.
DougJ
@Laura W:
That’s just one woman’s opinion.
r€nato
2/18 TRUTH!
(too soon?)
r€nato
57-43? I need to go back to college.
Dave
Women are simply better at life. They’re more engaged, practical, and responsible. Probably this is because men have been given too much, and have become lazy and complacent.
Joel
Off subject, but I just moved a cooler from the top rack of my bench and a swarm of dustbunnies came flying off. I inhaled one…
General Winfield Stuck
No comment
Linda Featheringill
The really interesting thing is that you say the proportion of participation by gender hasn’t changed, even though other things are changing. It has been my [unscientific] observation over the years that women like to sign petitions and men like to give speeches. That does not seem to have changed.
But regarding women and politics: My mother [born in 1906 and long gone] married a really domineering man, my father. Dad always believed in voting. They went to every election. He carefully explained to her his instructions on who to vote for and how to do it. She listened carefully.
The last time I saw her, shortly before she died, she told me that she always voted opposite of what she was told to do, thereby cancelling out Dad’s vote. The secret ballot is a wonderful thing.
But she would have NEVER made a public spectacle of herself over some political issue. If she disagreed with the Powers That Be, she would never do it publicly. If she rebelled at all, it had to be in secret.
Surely women are not still carrying that particular burden. Are they?
Anne Laurie
You’re trying to depress me, aren’t you, DougJ.
One of the factors that gives me the least hope for the immediate future is the number of women under 30 who preface every public statement less controversial than “I like puppies” with the phrase “I’m not a feminist, but… “
I’ve been fighting to get that particular Magical Modifier banned for almost 40 years now, since I was in high school, and it keeps coming back. It’s one of the earliest & most pervasive Zombie Lies, since 99.9% of the time either the user is a feminist who won’t own her own words, or it’s being used as a straw-banner by someone parroting this week’s right-wing lie.
Laura W
@DougJ: (I was just warming up Stuck’s seat.)
JK
Deeply disappointed. I was hoping you’d ask him one of James Lipton’s questions (favorite curse word, etc)
The trend you describe is deeply disturbing and hopefully it will be corrected in the future.
Napoleon
Well, for me I was student government vp in 83 to a woman.
burnspbesq
OT, the media chapter of the Cornell alumni association is having one bodacious cat-fight right about now. Olbermann (class of ’79) vs. Coulter (class of ’84). Don’t miss “not worst person in the world” tonight.
inkadu
What is the point of student government?
There is something very backwards about women’s representation in this country. I’m not entirely sure what the source of it is. Probably a lingering sense of false propriety. Girls shouldn’t box, play the saxophone, do math or get into politics.
Nellcote
Olbermann just called Coulter a man on Countdown. He said he supported her choice to live as a woman.
JK
Very interesting statistics on women officeholders, candidates and voters from the Center for American Women and Politics
http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/index.php
Cerberus
@Anne Laurie:
While that’s depressing, I do hearten when I hear what isn’t considered part of scary feminism. Full right for a woman’s right to consent, equal pay for equal work, the right to be taken seriously despite gender. Women of tomorrow just expect these. It isn’t perfect and what’s included and not in those items is still a bit of hodge podge, but while the word still retains all this fear-mongering, the actual goals of feminists have been slowly passing into the common world as “duh” which is awesome.
Frankly, as an out feminist, I’ll gladly take another 50 years of being a villain if at the end of it, it’s just expected that the rape culture be absent or that women have full right to autonomy and humanity.
And so I’m heartened when even after they say “I’m not a feminist, but…”, they are still horrified by what a woman’s life looked like even 20 years ago.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
If you could do a political science experiment, it would be interesting to set up a 57%-43% female male ratio of candidates and see how it turns out. What is the ratio of the people who actually run for office.
The Main-Gauche of Mild Reason
@Anne Laurie:
I feel the same way, and I’m 27 and male. I’ve taken to responding with “I don’t know why not, even I’m a feminist”… which, I have to say, usually throws people for a loop.
General Winfield Stuck
I would like to say to bolster my feminist creds, that in 1971 as a senior in High School me and a football buddy decided to go rogue and signed up for the FHA club and took all the classes and baked cookies and all that shit. It started out as a gag, but blew the minds of the faculty, especially the Principle. Mind you, this was the south, and dudes, specially football players didn’t join the FHA,. Just wasn’t done.
We got lectured to quit, and me being the ornery SOB I still am to a degree said hell no, we won’t go. So we baked our cookies and got more than our share of support from the female students, lots of support that year, yep. I even baked a cake./
demo woman
@DougJ: Make two opinions.
demo woman
OT I was reading my home town paper’s comments on Stack and the folks that commented seem to think he his rantings were fair. We are so screwed.
The Main-Gauche of Mild Reason
@demo woman:
Local paper site comments generally bring out the craziest, most retrograde fucks in existence. Atrios points this out a lot.
Mark
Doug,
It’s going to take another couple of generations to equalize. Think about it this way: men have always been able to do what they want. It’s a very recent thing that women have had that luxury, and very few women have lived the entirety of their lives without restrictions.
So naturally, intelligent women have gravitated to medicine, a career with high pay and lots of respect (med schools are now >50% female and residencies are 48% female), and also to law, a career that potentially offers high pay and respect (rarely simultaneously.) But not to engineering (where you get zero respect and your co-workers end up burning down their houses and crashing a plane into the IRS building) or to politics (which seems to involve not sleeping and having to listen to republican rantings.)
inkadu
@The Main-Gauche of Mild Reason: When women say they are not feminists, they mean they shave their legs, wear bras and put on makeup. They almost always are for equal employment, education, rights, etc.
That’s why it’s a good rule to never trust anything that comes out of some broad’s mouth.
Mayken
@Nellcote: Ugh! I really wish that this meme would go away. Seriously, she’s a vicious, lying sack of shit but why do we have to get into issues of gender when insulting her for being such?
Mayken
@The Main-Gauche of Mild Reason: Applauds. Love it!
Laura W
@inkadu:
I laughed. Loudly.
scarshapedstar
@Mayken:
Okay. From this day forward, I will no longer mock Ann Coulter’s transgendered status. I hope everyone else will join me.
Anyway, the reason guys don’t go to Official Fun events is… drum roll, please… they’re boring and they suck. Nobody ever got drunk and/or laid at the Student Council ice cream social. If these events featured body shots and bikinis, you’d see a lot more guys. You might not see females anymore, but hey, you asked.
inkadu
@Mark: And, of course, now that women are edging out men in higher education, it’s suddenly some sort of enormous national crisis. What about all those men who are not getting PhD’s anymore? Will they be relegated to crappy, dead-end service jobs, or worse, staying home and taking care of the children? When will this cruel and orchestrated manipulation by women be put to a stop?
My favorite story of sexism in the workplace is from a small American-Italian dominated law firm. During college basketball season, all the lawyers (men) left to watch the game and took the one male paralegal with them while the rest of the paralegals (women) stayed and finished the work.
Then there was the time one of the attorney’s wives came in and yelled at a paralegal for fucking her husband; the para was fired soon after.
inkadu
@Laura W: Hearing that my blog comment made someone laugh is the only thing my pleasure center responds to anymore. It’s especially nice because I was prepping myself for outrage… it’s probably a good thing for mental health that I stopped posting on GOS.
demo woman
@The Main-Gauche of Mild Reason: PHEEW! I just need to stay away from government offices in GA.
danimal
I’m confused now. Is inkadu the chauvanist and stuck the feminist in this thread. Are y’all just messing with us today?
General Winfield Stuck
@danimal: Crazy, ain’t it!
Tax Analyst
Well, in general the change of mindsets is gradual. Old guard dies out, new guard steps up, but not necessarily in lockstep agreement with progress. A lot of “two steps forward-one step back, one step forward-2 steps back” and then occasionally you make that one step forward without the rear guard back step(s). Lather, rinse, repeat for several decades and maybe you have some real change in the numbers.
L Boom
@inkadu: That was pretty damn funny, actually. And agreed about the GOS. People seem to have their outrage meters there pegged 24/7 lately and I will /wrists before I use a /snark tag.
kay
Well, for me, personally, Pelosi was huge. Highest ranking woman in US history. I was all choked up. I may need a commemorative plate.
“They say ‘Madame,’ but you can call me Nancy.”
General Winfield Stuck
Best dem speaker of the house in my lifetime. Tops.
Tax Analyst
@kay:
I was very glad to see Pelosi get the Speaker position. She hasn’t disappointed me. She’s very savvy and knows when to push and when to pull. Would that Harry Reid had her talents we might be getting a whole lot more done.
Martin
Well, I work in a discipline where women are underrepresented, and part of my job is changing that.
Our foundational observation is that women are significantly more attracted to activities and careers where they feel they can make a difference to society. That doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in being computer programmers, but it does mean that if you want to make computer programming more appealing, find that societal hook and build out from there.
Government, even student government, isn’t seen as being terribly well connected to social change or improvement. You’re more likely to see the female students volunteering for more direct activities such as outreach or running events rather than doing the meta work (which is what government typically does).
At least, that’s our rather simplistic observations.
Church Lady
@Nellcote: I’m no fan of Ann Coulter, but Olbermann these days is nothing but a fat fuck blowhard. Although I do support his right to live as an absolute dick.
Bondo
Do you have any statistics on your assertion about student government representation? I was on the student government at my college and gender representation was fairly even and racial/ethic minorities were over-represented. The degree of representativeness varied a little based on which party was in power. There was a fraternity/sorority group that was whiter, often more male and more conservative and then their was the “diversity” ticket that was more female/minority and liberal.
As to that other conversation in the comments, I’m not a feminist because it is a sexist term. I’m an egalitarian.
kid bitzer
@bondo–
“I’m not a feminist because it is a sexist term.”
wow–really? is this what you learned in school?
i mean–doubtless someone *could* use the word “feminism” to mean a theory that was sexist rather than egalitarian. but that’s not how the vast majority of feminist do use it, or have used it over the centuries.
after all, you can always *misuse* other people’s labels. i could use “egalitarian” to mean “the theory that only white people are equal”, and then “egalitarian” would be a racist term.
using “feminist” as a sexist term is just as much a misuse as using “egalitarian” as a term of inequality.
as it is, your statement is like saying “i’m not an abolitionist because it is a racist term.” i.e., it strikes me as just bizarre.
q,
I’d say there are a couple of things:
– Guys, especially college guys, are more likely to be willing to stand up and spout off in public than are girls the same age. I wouldn’t have been caught dead saying half the stuff I say here when I was in my early 20s even though I was already pretty strongly feminist and not afraid to say it.
– Politics requires a huge amount of extra bullshit that’s difficult to do unless you have a wife who can help you pick up the slack. You have to go to pancake breakfasts and Rotary Club meetings and smile and shake hands until you want to scream. In the meantime, you still have meals that need to be cooked and dry cleaning that needs to be picked up, so you need someone who can pick up that slack while you’re making the opening speech at the county fair. Remember when Michael Huffington couldn’t even remember the name of the school his children attended and said, “Ask my wife”?
Note that Nancy Pelosi did not go into elected politics until her youngest child was a senior in high school. She was politically active behind the scenes, but she didn’t run for anything until she didn’t have any more child care on her plate.
(By the way, it’s me, Mnemosyne. I didn’t realize the kitten had erased my name when she went gallivanting on my keyboard.)
Bondo
@kid bitzer
Feminism is sexist because it only includes one sex…it is right there in the name via the “fem” prefix. This is sexism in a literal, not normative sense. Feminist is to egalitarian as women’s studies is to gender studies. I don’t feel feminism properly accounts for the gender progress needs of men. I read a lot of gender studies material and feel that too often feminist writing is completely out of touch with the male experience when talking about men.
Mnemosyne
Thanks to the kitten, my comment is in moderation because WordPress thinks I changed my name to q,.
kid bitzer
so abolition was racist because it only strove to free black people?
i mean, if you want to complain about this:
“too often feminist writing is completely out of touch with the male experience”
then i’m sure you’ll be right. at least half of feminist writing will be crap, since at least half of everything is crap.
but this line is just too funny:
“Feminism is sexist because it only includes one sex…it is right there in the name.”
you know, sometimes the names of things do not reveal their entire essence.
slag
@Bondo: Life must be so hard for you.
Bondo
Sometimes names are important. After all, lesbians decided they needed a gender specific term (gay being gender neutral) and some feminists use the spelling womyn to avoid having “men” in the name. This may or may not be ridiculous, but if the different terminology makes them happy, why complain. To me the fact that the word origin of feminism is specific to females doesn’t make me feel included in a gender equality movement and thus I object. Considering how much feminists have objected to language that only includes men (i.e. “all men are created equal”), I don’t think this is too outrageous a complaint.
gwangung
Now y’all being an asshole here….
MNPundit
Well women should run more then.
Es-tonea-pesta
so abolition was racist because it only strove to free black people?
No, because it wasn’t called “black abolition”. We’re operating on the most superficial level possible here.
Bondo
@slag:
Go fuck yourself; don’t assume you know anything about my life. Nothing I’ve said would be the least bit objectionable if the gendering were reversed. There is such a double-standard when talking about gender issues in society…it isn’t all that easy to be a genderqueer man in society, and your snarky comment just reinforces how little consideration our challenges get because apparently gender concerns is something for women alone, a concept reinforced by the language of feminism and women’s studies.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@General Winfield Stuck:
By not making a comment you done did make one! My response? Only that comment. And that one. And that one plus the one after this.
Time to smoke another bowl.
@The Main-Gauche of Mild Reason:
Yes, the local rags bring out the crazy comments. Those local rags are all over the country.
We iz screwed.
Fix’t.
Saw that. T’was a thing of beauty and I fully concur with Keith.
Spork
“Even if a guy starts outvas a raving liberal if he has a bad divorce he’s going to end up on the libertarian/ant government/ republican side of the aisle. It is precisely at the break up of the patriarchal family that divorced men discover that they’ve always hated the courts, government, religion, education.”
Ouch, as a white raving liberal male getting a painful divorce, that comment really hurts. Anyone know a good place for flying lessons? Then again, maybe it’s just that losing your family and home and being rejected by the one you love is really fucking painful. Maybe it doesn’t have much to do with either the patriarchy or the IRS. Or being male.
Aimai, I did find this kinda offensive.
Can’t let a good fight die without my 2 cents, and I got here late.
General Winfield Stuck
@Bondo: egalitarian. Means “equal”. You are a bad man. A very bad man. The Horror, the horror.
Mark
@inkadu – nice story. I once dated a woman who was a finance director for a fire department. She had some solid stories. 40% of her job appeared to be fending off sexual harassment.
“And, of course, now that women are edging out men in higher education, it’s suddenly some sort of enormous national crisis…When will this cruel and orchestrated manipulation by women be put to a stop?”
I think no matter what distribution of women and men you end up with in any discipline, it is always to some extent the result of system-wide manipulation. It’s clear that we can build a higher education system that’s 60/40 female, and it’s also clear that we can build one that’s 90/10 male and 0% minority.
One irony I have always enjoyed is the effort to get young girls interested in science and engineering (see software engineer barbie…) It completely backfires: women are invariably drawn to areas like biology and medicine where they make up the majority already, while engineering has languished at 15% for decades.
Joel
Just for the record, what does feminism mean that humanism doesn’t? Serious question.
Mike Kay
Gee, seeing the 80% of the participants where young college chicks, ya’d think Harold would have stopped by.
So Doug, digya get any phone numbers?
Luthe
@Joel: Humanism = humans are teh bestest, while feminism = women are people. That’s the short version, anyway.
Getting back to the original post, I think the disparity comes from the difference in how men and women are socialized when it comes to assertiveness. Assertive women are seen as pushy or loud-mouthed, while men are expected to behave that way. I know there have been studies on class participation that pinpointed the male-female ratio at which men begin dominating class discussions (I would cite, but Google is failing me because everything is behind a paywall). Assertive people are more likely to run for office, and to run roughshod over their opponent in a debate, which seems to be a requirement for politicians and pundits these days.
On the other hand, girls these days are being pushed to be overachievers. It’s not enough to just be on the honor roll, one must be on the honor roll *and* the track team *and* in band *and* read to little old ladies once a week. So going to a voluntary advisory meeting is a no-brainer. It’s another way to get ahead.
Of course, I have a slightly skewed perspective on things, as I went to a women’s college, which makes one much more aware of the participation gap and such in a co-ed classroom.
Luthe
@Bondo:
Men have been talking about the male experience for going on 6,000 years. In that time, they have also talked about the female experience, despite having very little idea of what it is actually like. I think women are due for a turn.
As for “feminist” being a sexist term, I think you are ignoring the fact that feminism is a two way street. By championing the idea that women are equal to men, it follows that feminists are also championing the idea that men are equal to women. Both are equally allowed to wear skirts or pants and engage in sports or domestic activities (or both).
You are also missing another essential tenet of feminism that has a massive impact on how one is allowed to perform gender in our society: the fight against sexism. Think about it. Men (of any orientation) who choose to participate in a stereotypically female activity are commonly maligned as “pussies” or “faggots” (with the implication being they take the passive role during sex). Anyone who uses these terms has bought into the underlying sexism of our society, where women are still inferior to men, and therefore implying a man is like a woman makes him inferior, too. If women were considered equal to men, then there would be no reason to question atypical gender performance, since it wouldn’t be seen as taking an inferior role in society.
Oh, and I really don’t appreciate your attempts to once again Make Everything About Men. Yes, society needs to expand its conception of what a man is, but that is not an excuse to complain that feminism is not doing enough for you. It’s not about you, so STFU.
kay
@q,:
Right. Absolutely. But she’s 66. I don’t know: I don’t look at it like she “put off” her career as a politician until her children were grown.
I look at it like she did two things, one after the other.
All in all, that’s a fuller life, right? Maybe even better than starting at 25 and doing the same thing for 40 years? In terms of an actual life?
Say she were a 66 year old man, ambitious, a politician. She might have missed raising children, right? Many of them do.
I think it would work better if everyone, men and women, had more leeway. That’s the big societal benefit to feminism, to me. That men and women have more liberty.
kay
@q,:
We could say that Michael Huffington missed out on raising his children. Or, we could say that his wife had to raise children because Michale Huffington couldn’t find the school with a map, so she missed out on the first half of a career. They both made some sacrifice, right?
What bothers me about this construct is that it makes raising children the less desirable work. First, I don’t know that it is, but more importantly, doesn’t setting it up that way just devalue her work,”raising children”?
She “lost” and he “won”, is the set-up. Didn’t he lose something of value too? I think he did. If he didn’t, aren’t we just reinforcing the notion that what he contributed was of much more value than her contribution?
I feel as if this starting point values “work” the way it’s traditionally been valued, in terms of prestige or money. But work is just work. We can and do assign value to it. So why apportion the value in such a way that makes her work less important? Why not just say they had two different jobs?
jeff
The student government of Northern Michigan University, from which I am a recent graduate, seems to be an exception to the rule cited by DougJ:
The assembly (legislative branch) contains nine women and seven men, the chair of the assembly (think speaker of the house but not voting) has been a woman for as long as I can remember, and while they never had a female president during my years there, the offices of vice-president and treasurer were both occupied by women at least once (though neither is at the moment).
Surly Duff
I think less women are in politics because they would rather contribute something productive to society as a whole.
HyperIon
@Surly Duff: less women are in politics
FEWER women. sheesh.