First, a little background. I was over reading a post by MovieBob, one of my favourite movie reviewers. He also does some great nostalgia stuff... and occasionally ventures into political items that, really, he seems to have some obvious blind spots on. One of these blind spots, and one that's bothered me for a while about him, has been the "feminist movement." Please note the quotes, as who he supports in it is not really what I would call the feminist movement. If anything, they are some form of mutant, almost counter feminist movement looking to drive back the gender to a laughable stereotype instead of the valid, valuable voice that inequality still exists when it should not.
Now, I will readily admit that there are some issues still with women in the workplace, and certainly within politics. Hell, I can't even really say why there are issues with women in politics. There are good women there, but they seem to like selecting the most insane and/or stupid to shove out in front of the cameras, as opposed to letting the rational, intelligent ones step up and talk. But then, politics has people like George W. Bush in it too... so let's leave that alone...
No, the comments Mr. Bob took exception to were these:
I would not say it is a false equivalency. Are there still inequalities in pay? Yes, and that should change. But really, look at the female candidates that are coming up through the ranks. Very few are ones anyone would vote for. Most are Michelle Bachman-class insane, or Sarah Palin-stupid. True, there are some truly awesome women in politics, but by and large the big-ticket women are normally the worst choice.Risque stuff there, huh folks?
As for female CEO's, the major reason there are very few in positions of power is because they are women... who frequently wind up having a child or children or playing caretaker to their parents or family members. Because of this, they are often seen as weaker candidates for CEO positions because having your CEO ruled by swaying hormones or having random crying jags is not exactly beneficial to one's image, or they lose out of valuable facetime with the board because they are having to deal with family issues. The reality is that there's a reason it's an old boy's club, and it's got very little to do with keeping women out of power, and more that men and women don't have the same priorities.
In reality, it's the truth. When a man wants to have a family, he has the overwhelming convenience of the "Set It and Forget It" option. Sleep with the woman, then return to doing his corporate climb. Women don't have such a convenience if they choose to do the same. They need time off to have the child, and normally want to actually mother the child, then return to work.
Also, because guys have been conditioned by both nature and society to be more about themselves and being a provider that they have a harder time dealing with more delicate, emotional conflicts in their life. There are roots to that stereotype, and you can see it in how guys and girls grieve, both as individuals and as a group. We could go on all day about this differential, but at the end of the day, guys suck at dealing with issues in the midst of an emotional crisis.
Women, on the other hand, are beyond capable of coping, since they literally have an emotional crisis every 28 to 30 days. Seriously, for every guy reading this, just imagine that, once a month, your emotions fly wildly out of control, your body is racked with pain, and you bleed uncontrollably from your crotch. Now imagine dealing with this in puberty. Now imagine being in a room of people who are mostly emotional basketcases in the throws of their own hormonal rollercoasters.
Yea, they get coping skills guys will never have.
Girls are far more emotionally cruel than men, mainly because guys are the physical type, while women are more the emotional type. They know that an insult can slice to the bone just as well as a knife can, and while knife wounds heal, emotional scars are forever. So if you live in that kind of condition, you need to learn a lot more self-reliance than you would if you are, say, getting your ass beat and only need to hide long enough for the other guys to give up.
It is ironic that this sort of early conditioning would be totally amazing training for women to be natural born leaders, and allow them to be the bigger picture thinkers that we truly need in the world, yet women are rarely placed in this role. Now why is that? People like Bob and that women whose name shall not be mentioned because she gets plenty of press undeservedly as it stands would have you believe it's the Patriarchy, formerly the Old Boy's Club, the Glass Ceiling, and I'm sure a few dozen other names through history. And just like racial inequality in the workplace, it does have real roots that have since withered and died.
Back when women first entered the workforce, they were seen as a threat to hard-working, go-getter men, taking their jobs so they cannot provide for their house women and brood of children. Mind you, the women entered the workforce primarily in response to men dying at war, so I'm not sure how they were taking jobs from dead men... but hey... paranoia, right? And yes, women entered the work force prior to this, but the largest surges came in wartime, placing women in roles previously filled by men.
Over time, women became more accepted, if not totally accepted, into the workplace, but appeared to be subjected to an artificial limitation (the so-aptly-named Glass Ceiling) where women could not proceed further into higher levels of... well anything. However, women did eventually breach this ceiling, and began proving that they, too, could be ruthless, heartless bastards that could run a company and step on the heads of anyone below them to get further.
The reality these days is pretty much what I said. While there are still some glass ceilings, most of the issue of a woman advancing comes from the women themselves, either opting for a family, opting for caring for a family and therefore losing valuable face time with those in power, and the much more rare occasion where a women is stopped due to having a vagina and not a penis. Why do I say rare? The media is why. If a woman is truly blocked for being a woman, we'd have a social media revolt against the company. Lawsuits are a thing, you know. There are literally laws against it. And while some will say that women back off to not become a pariah, let's face it. If they are truly a ballbuster, they aren't going to let a few hurt feelings stop them from busting balls.
The truth, which apologist like Bob hate to admit, is that there is no grand conspiracy to hold women down, except in the minds of the women who use it to raise their media profile and garner undeserved praise for their bold manner. There are a myriad of reasons why women are not running the world, but the primary ones are that they choose not to. They decide that they cannot be as heartless, as unfeeling as men can be. They decide that their lives are more important than their jobs. They decide that, at some point, it's just not worth the amount of shit one must deal with to ascend into the halls of power.
In reality, I think women are, in general, smarter than men in that respect.
