The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on July 14, 2011, 01:25:26 pm --- by the time I finished the article I felt vaguely annoyed with myself for wasting my time on the "issues" facing this enormously fortunate and privileged woman and the others like her mentioned in the article.
--- End quote ---
Wow, you read it differently than I did. Obviously she is fortunate. I thought that was the point -- she's an extreme anomaly.
In other words, what I thought was the "issue" is that so few women in general are able to become as enormously fortunate as she is by rising through the ranks in the technology industry, as the statistics mentioned early in the piece pretty clearly showed. The ones who have issues, consequently, are not the Sheryl Sandbergs, it's the ones we don't hear about because they don't have those jobs.
--- Quote ---I preferred the article about the bicyclists in Rwanda.
--- End quote ---
I skimmed that one. I like Philip Gourevitch, but it was pretty long and it didn't grab me right away.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on July 14, 2011, 08:41:40 pm ---Wow, you read it differently than I did. Obviously she is fortunate. I thought that was the point -- she's an extreme anomaly.
In other words, what I thought was the "issue" is that so few women in general are able to become as enormously fortunate as she is by rising through the ranks in the technology industry, as the statistics mentioned early in the piece pretty clearly showed. The ones who have issues, consequently, are not the Sheryl Sandbergs, it's the ones we don't hear about because they don't have those jobs.
--- End quote ---
Yes, I guess I did end up reading it differently. Part of my point was that Sheryl Sandberg was "enormously fortunate" from the get-go: Ivy League education, Lawrence Summers as her mentor, and so forth. For me, as a child of the Working Class, I ended up asking myself, Do I really give a flip whether women can rise to the top ranks of the technology industry? No. That's an issue for an extremely small, privileged group of people to begin with.
Do I really care who's in the top ranks of the technology industry, male or female? No.
Understand that I'm not denying the existence of a glass ceiling. I would just be more engaged, and more sympathetic, to an article, for example, about women trying to become middle managers at Walmart, rather than an article like this one, about a small handful of women becoming millionaires in the technology industry.
Front-Ranger:
I actually had similar feelings as you, Jeff, as I read the article. I wasn't able to finish it, either.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on July 14, 2011, 09:05:36 pm ---Yes, I guess I did end up reading it differently. Part of my point was that Sheryl Sandberg was "enormously fortunate" from the get-go: Ivy League education, Lawrence Summers as her mentor, and so forth. For me, as a child of the Working Class, I ended up asking myself, Do I really give a flip whether women can rise to the top ranks of the technology industry? No. That's an issue for an extremely small, privileged group of people to begin with.
Do I really care who's in the top ranks of the technology industry, male or female? No.
Understand that I'm not denying the existence of a glass ceiling. I would just be more engaged, and more sympathetic, to an article, for example, about women trying to become middle managers at Walmart, rather than an article like this one, about a small handful of women becoming millionaires in the technology industry.
--- End quote ---
I don't know for sure, and I could easily be wrong, but I would guess it's possible that by now it's not that hard for women to become middle managers at Walmart.
In fact, my feeling is that in most professional fields women are represented at many levels -- especially on the lower rungs, like middle managers at Walmart -- except at the very top, where they are still a tiny minority. And apparently the minority is even smaller in the tech industry, which isn't known for being particularly female-friendly in the first place. But it happens in other big companies, as well as in public office and other areas.
That doesn't directly affect me in any way I can think of (my own profession is fairly woman-friendly; the editor of the newspaper where I work is a woman; I'm not a millionaire; I'm not all that interested in the tech industry; I don't have daughters, etc.). But it's important to me in the same way, say, marriage equality is important to me even though it doesn't affect me directly, because I want everybody to have the same opportunities.
What's the solution, in this case? I think it's structural and institutional and societal. Sandberg thinks it's more personal -- that the problem is that women aren't stepping forward and grabbing the bull by the horns. I disagree with her, but I found it interesting to hear her side.
Jeff Wrangler:
Well, here's an odd one: I'm actually "ahead" of my New Yorkers!
I guess because that one issue had only one article (the piece on Harriet Beecher Stowe) that I wanted to read, and the last issue being a two-week issue, I've actually finished up all the issues in my queue. Today being a Friday, I'll read a newspaper at lunch, but after that, I don't know what I'll read until the next New Yorker arrives.
Incidentally, I've also started a file of editing/proofreading goofs in the magazine. Eventually I will send them to the editor. The last straw that made me start this file was actually the Sandberg article. Sombody's name went from Hewlett to Hewitt and back again within the space of two paragraphs.
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