There is still discrimination against American professional women. For instance, it's very difficult for many women to gain admittance to certain residencies in various specialities in medicine.
The old boy network ( i.e men older than 45 years of age ) have a problem with seeing women advance.
In many medical schools, today, women still comprise less thatn 50% of the enrolled students.
Women, who have gained status in medicine, such as Afro-American women have done so, by much hard work and a bit of luck.
I dunno, I dunno. I do see pendulum swinging. I see that a lot of the base inequities have been addressed, which is a good thing! And there are still inequities.
But apart from that, I do think that something complex has happened when it comes to the rights and living conditions of men in America. Women can wear pants; but men still can't really wear skirts. Women can be jocks and tomboys; but woe the boy labeled a sissy. Women can berate men without sanction in a way men can't berate women. It seems like in a lot of ways, women have busted out of their socially prescribed roles while men haven't been allowed to do the same. (Some exceptions, of course.)
Basically, I think the women's movement was proactive and accomplished a lot, and within that paradigm any kind of a "men's movement" was a joke. But I do think that things are out of whack at the moment, hopefully as a precursor to something more truly equal.
I've talked about this before, but the situation in my husband's field is an eye-opener for me -- if a woman and a man have the same skills, the woman will get more offers, at higher levels and with more perks than the man. Worse, if the woman is NOT as skilled as the man... same thing. I've seen this over and over and over again, with some of the women involved being skeptical at first and ending up sputtering "but that's not right!"
I do think it's a necessary step in his (historically overwhelmingly male) field. But as a snapshot of what's happening now, it's not fair. And what gets me is that so many of the women I've talked to stick to the rhetoric of oppression right as they are offered stupendous job packages. I cannot stand the victim mentality, and think it's counterproductive.
And whay is it that women, with a longer life expectancy, can collect full Social Security benefits at an earlier age than their male counterparts? Institutionalized discriminiation? *shrugs*
The same rights in paper, yes. The same rights in real life. no.
Some terrible things have changed, but it's far from enough.
When I was a child, Mexican nationality was acquired by: being born in Mexico; being born outside Mexico from Mexican parents; being born outside Mexico from a Mexican father; being born outside Mexico from a Mexican mother and an unknown father. This was changed in the 70's.
Until this XXI century it was not illegal for an employer to require a certificate of non-pregnancy to any woman who applied for a job.
Divorce laws are strongly pro-women (but not as much as in most of the US), yet it's only upper and middle class women who take advantage of them.
At this moment we don't have a single female governor out of 31 states and the federal district (We've had maybe half a dozen in the last 35 years); only 6% of C.E.O. s are women.
Law requires parties to give at least 30% of the candidacies to women. Often they get the hardest to win districts (and represent only 18% of Congress). Not long ago, 2 of the 3 national leaders of the most important parties were women. Now it's zip.
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There is national scandal for the killings of women in Ciudad Juárez, during the last decade.
270 women have been slain.
One serial killer was captured (6 victims), and a few of the murders have been solved, but most of the women have been killed by men they know: husbands, boyfriends, male acquaintances, and the justice has been very slow in prosecuting the perpetrators of the crimes.
Why is this? Because women in Juarez, specially poor women, have been empowered by the labor market. Jobs in the maquiladora industry go mostly to women. So it's women who have the money, women who buy the drinks, women who decide if they dump the unemployed, unsupportive, beer-gulping male with a wounded ego. A generation of uneducated resentful machos who copy the worst traits of both the Mexican and the American culture (machismo, gangs and drugs) is not being tamed by a justice system in which males still play a dominant part.
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Things are changing fast in education, which is the master key for true equality.
When I was a university student, in the 70s, there was one female for every six males in my school (economics).
When I was a teacher, in the 80s, the ratio was 3 males to 2 females.
Today, the ratio is 3 females for every 2 males.
55% of the University students are women, and they are also more girls that graduate from secondary schools, than boys.
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Miller wrote:As a professor, I've always felt that women students were discriminated against, especially in the fields of medicine and law.
In my experience as a law student, I never had the impression that female students were the objects of discrimination. In fact, for my class I believe that the ratio between men and women was close to 50:50.
Walter Hinteler wrote:Could you tell some of those, which made the situation in the USA better than in any other places on earth?
It's better
just because it's the USA. Really, I wouldn't expect a German to understand that.
I thought it's easier for a female to get into medical school in some cases, because they want to even the ratio out more.
THAT's, however, what I DO understand.
joefromchicago wrote:Miller wrote:As a professor, I've always felt that women students were discriminated against, especially in the fields of medicine and law.
In my experience as a law student, I never had the impression that female students were the objects of discrimination. In fact, for my class I believe that the ratio between men and women was close to 50:50.
Ratio in my law school class was closer to 67 male to 33 female. I suppose your mileage may vary.
Hi everyone!....
We're doing a debate at school about "Are women equal to men", but we're also really intrested in the topic. Could anyone help us with any info, websites or experiences you might have to share?
Thanks so much!
Hi everyone!....
We're doing a debate at school about "Are women equal to men", but we're also really intrested in the topic. Could anyone help us with any info, websites or experiences you might have to share?
Thanks so much!
Hi everyone!....
We're doing a debate at school about "Are women equal to men", but we're also really intrested in the topic. Could anyone help us with any info, websites or experiences you might have to share?
Thanks so much!
I've posted about this before on a2k, but when I was inquiring about medical schools in 1962, my junior year as a pre med, I got the mcat catalog - I think it was put out by mcat, perhaps not - which listed all med schools in the us and canada. Most of those took no woman the year before. Some took 1 - 3 out of a class of, say, 86, or 102. I think one or two took as many as eight. One was all women, a school in Philadelphia, the Medical College for Women. I believe things were similar re law school admissions then, though not quite as spare. The change started to happen after I was out of school - I have friends three years younger who made it in, so that would be around 1966.
Women were big risks, the idea went, because they would drop out and marry/have children. Actually that is why, when I was in my teens and wanted to be an md and went to a catholic girls' high school, that I decided my vocation must be to be "a single woman in the world", much as that single part didn't really appeal to me. That turned a curve when I was convinced that I could be a nun and an md, as in a maryknoll missionary.
I got over that and went to university, to run into the brick wall of few women admitted. There were other brick walls, such as money, but ne'er mind.
A friend's wife now is has an md and doctorate in molecular biology. She is about fifteen years younger than I am. She was amazed to hear of how recent to her own time the numbers were so different.
Bubble, you may get more answers if you ask a separate question.
Ossobuco - my mother graduated as a RN around '42 or '43. She went into the Navy as a Nurse, met my father, and the rest is history.
Many times as I was growing up she mentioned how much she wanted to be a Doctor, but back then it was almost impossible. Not being able to was one of the biggest regrets of her life.
