tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3304705769796697820.post7409357509115105924..comments2013-02-11T20:01:58.555-08:00Comments on comments on life: How to tell when male is the default normalUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3304705769796697820.post-74895914681814835842011-08-14T14:38:25.662-07:002011-08-14T14:38:25.662-07:00I would highly recommend the book, Men & Women...I would highly recommend the book, Men & Women of the Corporation, because it explains all sorts of things about not just corporate culture and how it developed in the US, but how hierarchies work, and how they *don't* work if you are a person who always seems to be at the bottom -- intellectuals are not welcome, 'individual performers' not welcome, you can't be 'weird'; you have to be unoffensive and bland and have lots of loyalty to the company/mgmt, but that only pays off if the right people like you. (And for me, they didn't.)Laiimahttp://www.fiadhiglas.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3304705769796697820.post-51424708766936687552011-08-14T14:27:15.896-07:002011-08-14T14:27:15.896-07:00I have a great book originally written in the 1970...I have a great book originally written in the 1970s that talks about this phenomenon, Men and Women of the Corporation, by Rosabeth Moss Kanter. In the chapter that deals with tokenism she says: "People's treatment, then, is not automatically fixed by inflexible characteristics but depends on their numbers in a particular situation. Change in the behavior and treatment of women in token positions is strongly tied to shifting proportions. ... In the absence of external pressures for change, *tokenism is a self-perpetuating system*." (p. 241)<br /><br />Iirc, Moss Kanter also refers to 30% as the magic proportion but I can't find the cite right now.Laiimahttp://www.fiadhiglas.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3304705769796697820.post-17048316160657063332011-08-14T00:17:27.229-07:002011-08-14T00:17:27.229-07:00Literata- Wow. I have been propounding the 30% cri...Literata- Wow. I have been propounding the 30% critical mass number for years in terms of academia and science becoming less blindly sexist and more family friendly!julezymehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09481767799748727251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3304705769796697820.post-22177269213005089982011-08-12T04:01:59.070-07:002011-08-12T04:01:59.070-07:00When I was talking with some military officers a f...When I was talking with some military officers a few years ago, one of them made an interesting observation. He said that he saw a lot of difference between units that had 15% or fewer female members and units that had 30% or more female members. It was almost like once the female presence exceeded a quarter or so of the unit, that unit was tremendously much less likely to have gender issues. The unit culture would change to a point where female members were considered normal - not "just one of the guys" but normal in their own right. It's a rule of thumb that I have since observed as effective in other situations.<br /><br />Since obviously women artists are not uncommon, I wonder whether there are 30% or more women writers in the organizations that keep putting out these pieces.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com