29 Apr Women Ambition
-By Caleb Jones
The COO of Facebook spoke at the World Economic Forum and she said some very interesting and brave things. You can watch the video above to see what I’m talking about, but I’ll summarize. Her basic point was although women have been getting college degrees as much or more than men for decades now, the number of women at the top of the business world is still only at 15%, and it’s been that way for longer than 10 years.
So women are going to college, getting degrees, but they still aren’t pushing themselves to achieve in the business world.
As a guy who has been in the corporate / business word for 20 years, this is no surprise to me at all. However before I get into that, let me preempt any objections to what I’m about to say first.
YES, sexism in the workplace is absolutely real and does exist. It can and does explain some of the fact women don’t achieve as much in business as men do. Agree, agree, agree.
Moreover, I can state emphatically that this anti-women sexism in the workplace is often initiated by other women, not just men. TONS of working women out there prefer male bosses and men in power rather than women in power. Women tend to avoid talking about this (since it’s much easier to blame men), but it’s absolutely true. Women can not and should not point at men as the sole cause of gender-based discrimination in the workplace.
This goes all the way back to the complaint that women have about how “Hollywood expects me to be so skinny!”. Um, it’s not “Hollywood”. It’s mostly female casting agents and female fashionistas pushing this image, not dudes. Hell, guys will fuck anything, as all of us guys know. Jenny McCarthy has a fantastic story about how she could not get acting and photography gigs back in the day because the all the female casting people said she was “too fat”. Of course the men thought she was smoking hot, which she was, but that didn’t matter.
Women should look to their own sisters just as much as they look to men regarding this problem.
Alright, to my points.
– The woman in the above video (Ana Kasparian) is completely wrong in that she says men are not born more ambitions than women. They certainly are. Us guys have aggressive DNA built into us for 100,000 years that women have less of. That’s without question. Of course women can be aggressive and ambitious, but on average men are more so.
– She is also wrong when she says the way women are raised has nothing to do with their lack of ambition. Of course it is. How could it not be? I have also showed how chick logic is taught to women very early in life, and other factors, such as ambition levels, are certainly effected
– Going to college does not equal success. Just because women go to college more than men and get degrees more than men doesn’t mean shit. I have found that women LOVE going to college, but once they get out of college, they tend to float around in terms of their careers and life direction.
Generally speaking, and I know there are exceptions, women (including college-educated ones) work for a while, move back home with their parents for a while, then go back work for a while, have a baby and stop working, then go back to work part-time, then go on unemployment for a while, then back to work, etc, etc. If you follow that kind of life program, and millions of women do, then it doesn’t matter if you have a college degree or not, your income prospects will still suck.
When women become just as motivated to put their heads down and bust their asses at a career for 30 years straight with no breaks as they are to go to college and do homework for four years, then you’ll see more women CEOs.
Not until then.
(And if you think I’m a misogynist or anti-woman, please read this.)
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eek
Posted at 01:30 pm, 29th April 2012Polarization between men/females is a natural thing, and it’s built into us – so I’m not sure if that’s even a “problem”? I guess it *is* for ugly feminists or masculine women, hah. Does Ana want all women to take charge in bed too, lol?
Just out of curiosity, what do you think is the “ideal”/natural feminine role as far as these things go?
akismet-7e82b62708660a881c8616b2386b99cc
Posted at 02:35 pm, 29th April 2012I love the looks in women’s faces when you discuss anything remotely truthful about gender relations. They’re ambitious when it comes to tying a man into monogamy.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 03:27 pm, 29th April 2012@ Eek – The “ideal” feminine role is for women to do whatever they want to do as long as they don’t infringe on the rights of men or other women. For example when I’m in a relationship with a woman she’s allowed to do pretty much whatever she wants with no orders or drama from me…as long as she doesn’t give me drama or orders. As far as women’s “natural” role, that’s a little more complicated. I could write an entire blog post on that one. The summary would be that obeying one’s biological urges is fine as long as it’s conducive for your long term happiness. Too often women’s (and men’s) “natural” desires make them happy in the short run but miserable (or at least very bored) in the long-term.
lovergirl
Posted at 07:23 am, 30th April 2012There are an awful lot of lazy, unambitious, men in the world today and also some very ambitious Hilary Clinton types. However, overall I would say ambition is a masculine trait. Its very sexy in a male but people tend to have a negative view of ambitious women and they get seen as bitchy and controlling. Also, women typically have a huge, long detour to take on the way to accomplishing career goals that comes when they have a baby. The drive to nurture and care for her offspring is much stronger and takes precedence over her other goals in life, even for working mothers. Her kids are still more important than her job. Now if you are talking ambition when it comes to competing for a successful man to have babies with that is a different story. 😉
Jon
Posted at 10:20 am, 18th June 2012That description of the typical female post college life sounds like my ex-wife.
She had two bachelor degrees when we married and no job. She threw a temper tantrum when I suggested that she get one (because I was a pussy I backed down). After a year or two (or three?) of sleeping in, going to the gym, and then having lunch with a friend she decided it was time to have kids. After a little while, she changed her mind and decided she needed to get an MBA. Since I was tired of paying for the student loans she already had, I made it clear (at least I thought I did at the time) that if she was going to get an MBA that I’d expect her to use it when she was done. A few months before graduation…”I’m not sure if I want to do this anymore. I think I’ll be a personal trainer…” 😡
Hmmm…now why is it that I don’t want to get married again? 🙂