Some More Thoughts on Gender Stereotypes

[equusregia]

desdenova replied to my last post by describing the gender inequalities in the science world. Since she is a Scientist!, she knows whereof she speaks. I did my time in the world of science, but mostly at a women's college, and in biology, so I can't speak to the gender issues there. However, my time in The Theatre School sure taught me a thing or two about

Comments

[kmriley]

I wanted to reply to your first post, but I didn't have time until now. So, I'm responding to this one.

But, I have a question regarding this one. Knowing nothing about theatre, I find it fascinating that with such a huge fraction of women trying to work in the field acting, that there has not been more bleed into the directing and playwrite roles. Do all the women just give up? Or try and go elsewhere? I would just expect with such large interest from women that they'd have penetrated the male dominated portions a bit more thoroughly.

I have found it fascinating working in a local bubble of the physical sciences (an amalgam of sciences) where there are few of these gender issues. I give credit to the cumulative leadership of my two primary workplaces. I have worked with arrogant schmucks of all sorts - but not one of them been dismissive because someone is a woman (not since '99). Part of this is that I am not competing for a tenured academic spot. But, I am competing and winning research topics in a world of all men manifesting my arch-nemesis-trait: 'computer/geek boy syndrome'. While they have a bloated sense of their own skill and worth, I've never believed they thought I was less because I was female just that I was less because I wasn't them. I do notice when people are particularly explicitly misogynistic in interviews or at conferences and I tend to dismiss them or call them on it based on situation. (And, I'm more prone to notice it in older men, or, well, eastern european men.)

There is a direct connection with your current post. I love being a woman - I wouldn't want to be a guy - but, I don't think I ooze femininity. There's a slight conflict between me thinking of myself as distinctly female but I don't think of myself with much gender at all. Tieing it to work - there is a "Women in Science" group, I get nothing out of the suppoort mechanism for it but I like the people and it is good to exercise my 'socialize with women' skill which is lesser at times.

So - that was just to place some context and I realize there are some conflicts in what I'm saying. Here's the point. We were interviewing a guy. Before he came my way, my female coworker told me that he oozed misogyny. He might be okay giving orders to a woman, but not taking them. His potential working relationship would be similar to all of us. I thought the man oozed hideous, destructive arrogance. He was too arrogant to every consider hiring but I drilled him - nothing seemed sexist. (Seriously - 45 minutes of drilling to tangentially get to any sexist tendencies.) But, I got nothing. The woman after me did. So - 2 for sexist, 1 against (me).

My weak point - I can't help but wonder if I didn't pick up on his crap because gender plays so little role in my day-to-day and I put off some of it as just hideous arrogance. The other two women are great - they are not rampant feminists but I think being a woman plays more of a role in their day to day. Is part of being perceived a misogynist by perspective of the person, or is it an absolute?

[kmriley]

I jjust realized misogyny might be a little strong on my post. A lot of places 'sexist' might work just fine.

[kmriley]

That's fair enough. I have quite a few of those shirts that are just men's button down shirts, polos, etc. I ask about it and it is too expensive to buy 2 types and women can wear mens clothing. Hah. Never mind it makes me look like a tank. But, I've never felt pressure to wear the damn things once I'm issued them.

While I am not saying you are wrong, I will observe again that I feel very lucky. I'm don't think there is anything in my work environment that assumes male-ness for success. Again, connected to my point, maybe I'm just missing something.

[equusregia]

It is interesting that in certain work or professional environments (the sciences, directing, the roleplaying industry), women are discouraged from being feminine if they want to be taken seriously. In some other professional environments, women are harassed for not being feminine enough -- not wearing makeup, hose and heels, not styling their hair or losing weight. I suppose it boils down to what image the people in each work environment are trying to convey, or live up to.

I'm glad your work doesn't have an atmosphere of sexism. That kind of thing can be insidious and hard to pin down (Theatre School was both insiduous and overt in its sexism), which is why a lot of women will put up with things they don't like, because they can't quite make these things seem bad enough to complain about. Then sometimes they lose their shit and overreact, and everyone thinks they are crazy, but they usually arrive at that place because of a long buildup of problems that nobody else noticed or took seriously.

[reesei]

What I've found, through a number of work-places that are heavy in the sciences, is that there are very few things you can overtly point to and say "this is sexism, in this day-to-day event". However, there are a large number of things you can point to and say "In this group, there is a long history of women dropping out at a greater rate than men not because of any particular event, but because of some pervasive attitude".

This runs the gamut from the MIT women in science study (in which women were found to be given less lab space per grant dollar, fewer grant dollars per publication, and more committee roles per service quota), to the research group down the hall where the advisor felt he had to be _nice_ to the women and therefore never pulled them aside for informal chalk-talks that might become confrontational.

Or the institution where it was found that across the board, female graduate students were supported as GTAs (teaching assistants) at a statistically greater rate, while male graduate students were supported as GRAs (research assistants).

Or other stories that might become personally identifiable about people other than me, that I shouldn't mention.

I'm currently serving on our college's diversity committee (because I'm our department's diverse faculty member, dontcha know), and my background reading for that has just been fascinating.

And I could do an entire post about how gender ties into my role in the classroom... but that would be a completely different post, and I'm not sure how I feel about it myself at this point, so it probably wouldn't be very coherent.

[equusregia]

But, I have a question regarding this one. Knowing nothing about theatre, I find it fascinating that with such a huge fraction of women trying to work in the field acting, that there has not been more bleed into the directing and playwrite roles. Do all the women just give up? Or try and go elsewhere? I would just expect with such large interest from women that they'd have penetrated the male dominated portions a bit more thoroughly.

Oops, I didn't answer this question yet.

As far as I know, the answer is that most actresses want to act. Same for actors. There is a very different sort of mind set for directors, and even more so for writers. There are also different sorts of rewards and attention meted out to those in the different professions. Which is not to say that there isn't any crossover, but I think many actors of both genders are drawn to acting, not writing or directing. Most writers and many directors went straight into their chosen field, not bleeding from the ranks of actors. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that some female actors down through the years would have liked to write or direct, but were discouraged or ignored.

I will point out that in Hollywood they have the same problem. Loads of actresses, few really good female roles, especially roles that fall outside of accepted stereotypes. And much of that is because the vast majority of the writers, directors, producers, and financers are men. Progress has been made, but we still see phenomena like the Oscars a few years back when all the Best Female Lead nominees played a prostitute -- except for the one playing a nun. How's that for upholding the angel/whore stereotype of women? And clearly, men would rather see the whore than the angel.

desdenova mentions the same problem in her posts about the show Heroes.