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Sheryl Sandberg and Technology's Female Leaders
AlistairCharlton writes "While the rest of the world continues to see men dominating, the technology industry seems set to change that. I investigate how Sheryl Sandberg, Marissa Mayer, Meg Whitman and Joanna Shields are paving the way for the rest of the business community. From the article: 'A glance at the male/female split of world leaders (178/17), Fortune 500 CEOs (96 percent/four percent) and FTSE 100 board seats (85 percent/15 percent) reveals there is a huge imbalance between the sexes, but in technology change is underway - and Sandberg is at the very forefront of it. Along with Meg Whitman, Marissa Mayer and Joanna Shields of HP, Yahoo and London's Tech City respectively, Sandberg represents a shift in what was not so long ago an all-male industry.'"
for being sociopathic, greedy CEOs and politicians, only then will we have equality.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Don't forget Carly Fiorina and her contributions to making HP and Compaq the successful companies they are today.
I'm betting Carly can't make a good sandwich ether.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Surprising that this article praises the disaster that is Meg Whitman, and completely omits Ginni Rometty the current CEO of IBM who has worked everywhere within the company over 30 years and has CS and EE degrees.
Teaching is female dominated because male teachers are automatically assumed to be pedophiles.
Job such as teaching is female dominated = women's brains have evolved to be better at certain things.
Negative role such as being in prison is male dominated = men's brains are different.
Positive role such as winning sole custody of one's children is female dominated = women will always be better are certain things.
Job is male dominated = men and women are equals.
It's femilogical, and you're being sexist if you don't agree.
Exactly. What this article seems to be preaching is "equal outcome", as opposed to "equal opportunity". In the U.S. and other western countries, women have the same *opportunity* as men to dominate in these fields. Opportunity is different than outcome. We don't "need" to have a perfect 50% men/women split in industries. We "need" to have the same opportunity available for both sexes.
Each gender is typically going to trend towards certain professions, and that is perfectly fine. The genders may be equal, bu they are certainly not interchangeable, as much as the P.C. cops would like you to believe. Your example of the education industry is valid.
Female executives for a company that just happens to be in tech, doesn't count to women in tech, just women in business.
... which has had all female CEOs since 2001.
Xerox is not as exciting as HP, but its CEOs have not done large, showy reorganizations that destroyed once-proud solid engineering traditions, so there's that.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
How about pat ourselves on the back when we feel there is equal opportunity and stop caring about ratios (outcome)? Equal opportunity != equal outcome.
It's not sexist to disagree with a poorly worded argument.
Crimey
Waaah, MM took away work-at-home so now she's the new evil IT emperor?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
'Worthy' is a highly subjective concept. Right now, people are not being treated equally, and men with the same qualifications and performance have a better chance of being hired and promoted then women. Even at companies that have women in senior positions men STILL have better chances then their female counterparts.
So yes, I do consider hiring more women to be a worthy cause because right now there are systemic problems that result in fairly poor representation of women in tech.
Yes, I agree that the goal should be to treat men and women equally, but we are a long way from that and it makes a rather poor argument for why we should not be trying to improve things.
And unfortunately, the 'innate' argument is just complete and utter bunk, yet it keeps getting trotted out as a rationalization for discrimination.
A significant amount of the smart, talented women I know despise working for other women because female managers can be awful to women in a way that many men cannot even dream of treating female subordinates. Even in college, I saw some of this as one female professor was known to be utterly ruthless to female students who slacked off to a degree she almost never, ever dished out to her male students.
So I look forward to this trend with amusement because it very well may lay the foundation for an implosion of female involvement in our fields. And then the cycle will repeat itself...
This morning on Morning Edition NPR broadcast a talk with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. (Probably because Sandberg has a new book out on the subject.) I thought it was quite interesting.
because of feminists stereotyping them..
Criticism of feminism, or rather, accusing it of hypocrisy is not hatred of women. You are categorically and definitionally incorrect.
Statistics like. "85% of board seats are held by men, so clearly there's a long way to go" are highly misleading.
The underlying premise is that all things being equal, the seats should be 50% female. But that premise is silly.
If 75% of women elect to raise families and focus less on their careers (not a real statistic, just an example) then it would stand to reason that 25% would not hold equally senior positions to their male colleagues who pursued only career. And if women more frequently choose majors like psychiatry, French language, Art History and women's studies, then their lack of representation on boards of tech companies would also be justified.
This is the general problem with numerical male:female ratios: They discount the other options which draw women of their own free will, and misrepresent the existing ratio as "repression" of some kind.
The goal is NOT equal representation. It is equal OPPORTUNITY. If board seats were 50% women, that would likely represent male oppression as there are typically more men pursuing careers applicable to those seats than women. When women complain about unequal ratios they are demanding their cake while wanting to eat it too. They are actually demanding unequal favorable treatment for themselves at the expense of men.
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