Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Ya Killin' Me, HuffPost.

The Huffington Post is on a role this week posting (in my opinion) not so great articles targeting women within their recently added headline subsection 'Women'.  Topics include: fashion, cooking/homemaking, diets, love, lust, marriage, etc. Because women aren't interested in anything else, right?  Oh, wait, there's an article about the gender wage gap, but they blame the issue on the inability of women to negotiate for what they want, and their answer is for women to be more like their male coworkers (but not too much or you'll seem pushy).  Classic double bind. But, my favorite is this one.  Watch out, ladies. If you have sex too early, you might never be able to hold onto a man, AND WHAT COULD BE WORSE THAN THAT?!

Happy reading,
Squid

1 comment:

  1. In South America, vendors constantly charge higher prices when they see a person who does not appear to be a local on the assumption that they a) can pay more and b)do not know how to negotiate (or possibly even speak Spanish). Women are particularly targeted seeing as they, like this article argues, seem to be generally less comfortable negotiating. My name isn't Carol Steele for nothing, and I was not putting up with that shit. (Just kidding, it was really difficult for me at first to negotiate and I was never exactly a pro. Also, please excuse the swearing on an otherwise classy blog.) Anywho, as soon as people saw that I was willing to call them out on charging me a ridiculously high price for something, they would promptly give it to me for less money. I see where Huffington is coming from on this one; I do think that women are generally less comfortable asking for what they want when they have the potential to make others uncomfortable, which kind of gets in to what the Prof was saying in her post. We feel the need to take care of others, to never discomfort other people, which often seems to result in ignoring at times our own comfort or needs.

    On the other hand, I agree with Squid that it is COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS to blame the pay gap in a large part because of women's unwillingness to negotiate. The problem goes a lot deeper than that, to the way our society is structured BY and FOR men. Women are constantly placed second, and one of the many manifestations of this is unequal pay for equal work.

    Also, Squid, I adore your sarcasm.

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