Linnea Ista (lkista at unm.edu) writes
> A few years ago we had two seniors in
> out lab. One was an African American woman with a 4+ GPA (we give A+'s at
> UNM). The other was an pretty smart but average white male. The young
> woman, I'll call her Celia, got interview after interview at some pretty
> high tech power companies, while the young man got a handful at some so-so
> places. His comment to someone visiting and talking about their job search
> was going was "Well, you know why CELIA is getting all those interviews.
> Us white guys don't have a chance with all this preferential treatment."
>> I am afraid I lost it and asked what they would think if Celia's name was
> Bob, was blond haired and blue eyed and had a 4+ average. To what would
> they attribute a multitude of interviews then???? The answer was that well
> in that case, the guy clearly would be the best candidate. I asked them to
> think about what they were saying VERY carefully. They then told me I just
> didn't "get" how hard it was to be a white male these days.
Yes, this is where I really wring my hands. If a woman is considered
for a position, she must be getting it for tokenism or "affirmative action"
reasons. If a man is considered, he must be the best for the job.
There is a strong tendency to deny that a woman can ever be the
best. I saw a really sleazy example
of this one day when two postdocs (men) were discussing a seminar.
The guy giving the seminar had prominantly featured the name of
his star postdoc, a woman. The message the two postdocs got:
"he must be sleeping with her". C'mon guys.
Why can't they admit that women can be as smart
or as talented as they are? The negative response is SO ingrained
I doubt it can ever be overcome. And it is apparent even in young
men, college student age, whose mothers should have been the example
that
it is NOT true.
(Pause to consider that if women had such an easy time of it getting
jobs, why aren't there more women faculty? HEre the guys
say "because they aren't good enough", thus being inconsistant but
reinforcing their resentment. ARGH!)
> > Part of the problem is that women are so few and have such high visibility
> > as a result that any failing stands out, whereas who notices the
> > guy who is having difficulty, since he is one among so many? He gets
> > to be the exception. The women are made the rule.
>> Exactly. And I know that I am very sensitive to this and just CRINGE when
> a woman does something really dumb, because I know it is going to either
> reflect on me, or be thrown in my face.
Yes, I don't know why *I* am held personally responsible for every defect
of any woman. If some poor fool does try to succeed through sex, it's
used to dismiss the thousand women who didn't.
I find it incredibly exhausting not only to be trying to
keep my own career going but being a "role model" (how I hate that term)
and a representative of every woman who ever tried to achieve anything,
and to blame for every woman who ever failed.
The amount of baggage heaped on the few of us who have scrambled into
their precious heirarchy is enough to crush us right out of it again.
> That whole "walking on eggshells" has to take its toll as well.
> The question is, how do we change this?
I have increasingly come to despair that we ever shall. It is so
ingrained and so self-perpetuating that I don't see how we will
escape.
To this end, I find the MIT report quite intriguing. In 2 years,
will they find that anything has REALLY changed?
--
-susan
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S L Forsburg, PhD forsburg at salk.edu
Molecular Biology and Virology Lab
The Salk Institute, La Jolla CA
http://pingu.salk.edu/~forsburg/lab.html
Women in Biology Internet Launch Page
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