Aren’t most of those male dominated jobs in the sectors that would be the most logical ones to stimulate in order to cause the economy to bounce back? Also shouldn’t the money go to companies who can do the job wheter it be minority owned or not?

Sometimes the minority companies that get the contracts are often just got the contract even though the company couldn’t do the job and it was known from the start they couldn’t do it. Sorry but giving jobs to the incompetance is an affirmitive action that needs to be gotten rid of.

The Supreme Court decision in this case was entirely consistent with conservative free-market ideology.  Basically, you (the consumer/worker/etc.) are expected to have perfect information about any transaction in which you take part, despite the best efforts of those with more power to conceal such information, and to have the freedom to act rationally on that information at all times, under any circumstance.  It’s the same argument they use on health care (just shop around while your femur is sticking out of your thigh) and pretty much everything else.

It’s taking the assumptions of free market economic theory - such as perfect information and readily available alternatives - and treating them as givens for real life, rather than simplifications for a theory.

You make a good point about the nursing shortage, but having represented a nurses union I can tell you I wouldn’t work as a nurse for any amount of money.  Sure the salary is spectacular, but you have to put up with a ton of shit from doctors and administrators.  Not all of them, mind you, but enough of them.

Otherwise I’d probably leave law and go to nursing school myself.  As well as I’m paid as an attorney, I could still do a lot better as a nurse.

Of course, if they pass the Employee Free Choice Act, nurses will be able to unionize and stand up to asshole doctors and administrators without fear of being discharged. 

“Of course, we could also create teacher training programs that give wannabe teachers on-the-job training so that they can contribute and get paid while getting their certifications. “

*blink* texas DOES this. region IV (houston) and region XIII (austin) alternative certification. /former teacher

Can you imagine what your nursing shortage would be like if it wasn’t for the many hundreds of Ontario nurses that went south in the 1990s when the neoconservative government of Mike Harris let them go by the truckload?  There were actually American recruiters waiting in the hallways for nurses as they emerged, stunned, from their termination interviews.

You

I think you’re missing a phrase here:

The Supreme Court claimed that Lily Ledbetter had missed the deadline to file because she filed her claim 6 months after her first paycheck.

I think you meant she missed the deadline to file because she failed to file her claim 6 months after her first paycheck.  That was the whole point of the case—she only found out years later that she’d been systematically discriminated against but was apparently supposed to have assumed that her employer would discriminate against her and filed her case immediately after she was hired..

Depending on local conditions, the stimulus money could also be a good way to get women and minorities into some of the traditionally white male fields. There will be shortages, and free training should be open to anyone.

wow, tootiredoftheright, spoken like a true conservative. examples of this insidious affirmative action, please?

also, sweetie? women are a majority. the problem is people want ignore that fact.

no, amanda, you seemed to be implying those programs didn’t exist. hence my confusion. i wouldn’t imply anything i can say directly, anyway.

This is an excellent idea, Amanda.  I think things would play out a little differently for the nursing profession under a universal health care plan.

First, as on the nursing shortage:  there is absolutely a shortage of RNs willing to work in an acute-care (i.e. hospital-setting) environment.  The nursing-school bottleneck is a big problem here.  As I understand it, much of that bottleneck is caused by a shortage of instructors, mainly caused by the big pay gap between a working, acute-care RN (which for a 1st-year RN can range from $15 to $30 per hour, depending on the area and on how many RNs there belong to unions) and a nursing school instructor.  But a huge part of the shortage is just a matter of RNs refusing to work in hospitals, where patients are much sicker than they used to be, patient loads are much higher, and other working conditions continue to deteriorate.  It’s not uncommon for new grads to quit within a few years of starting as RNs, because the nursing you actually get to practice in a hospital is often nothing like what they teach you in nursing school, and a job that should be rewarding and empowering is instead incredibly stressful, unpleasant, dangerous, and guilt-ridden.

That being said, part of the point of universal healthcare is giving folks access to primary care:  when you get a bad cough, you go to your doctor for antibiotics, rather than waiting until you can’t breathe and have to be admitted to the hospital with double pneumonia.  And RNs don’t do a whole lot of primary care.  In fact, direct-care nursing is focused on hospitals:  the reason you’re admitted to a hospital is that you need 24 hour nursing care.  If you don’t need an RN taking care of you around the clock, you don’t get admitted.  Furthermore, the sickest patients need the most intensive RN care.  So to the extent that universal health care allows Americans to get early interventions and effective, non-hospital care, the impact on hospitalizations—and on RNs—should be mitigated.

When the pressure is put on primary care, I think it won’t be RNs so much as on Nurse Practitioners and Physicians Assistants.  Unlike RNs, they can diagnose and also prescribe treatment, so they’re much better adapted to primary care settings.  I can’t find gender breakdowns for either profession, but all NPs are RNs and RNs are about 95% women.  I’d be shocked if women were less than half of PAs.  So I think those might be the professions that need to be expanded if 45 million Americans suddenly find that they’re allowed to go to the doctor when they’re sick.

So:  sending more new grads from nursing schools to hospitals where they hate their work and can’t take care of patients won’t solve the nursing shortage.  To do that, you also need to improve the conditions in the hospitals.  And that probably goes for all healthcare workers.  IMHO, one of the quickest ways to do that is for the healthcare workers to organize a union, which again points out the centrality of the Employee Free Choice Act in any economic recovery.

The article you link to mentions construction jobs which would be important since the infrastructure needs to be drastically improved in this country. Women make up less then 9% of the workers. Women when asked in studies do not see the field as a job they would like.

Other fields necessary to the economy such as alternative energy are largely male dominated as well. Guess what women also don’t want those jobs either.

Those two fields construction and alternative energy are the largest fields needed to be boosted to make America stronger. It’s a not matter of not thinking women can do the job or don’t need the jobs or that they don’t deserve the money. it’s just the woman don’t exist in the field and proclaiming the money needs to go to jobs that are women dominated won’t help the economy like the male dominated fields would.

“examples of this insidious affirmative action, please?
“

There were a few newspaper reports a few years ago about minority companies that won contracts for recyling or waste disposal knowning they couldn’t do the job but wanted the contracts for the companies because otherwise it would have gone to a non minority owned company.  Reverse discrimination lawsuits are won you know and a lot more of them then you would think.

Women when asked in studies do not see the field as a job they would like.

Just as an aside, I wouldn’t mind a construction job - especially if I wasn’t partially disabled.  Neither would a lot of the women I know.  It’s anecdotal, true, but consider that this is partially the result of a society that tends to skew certain jobs in a gender-based manner.

“Guess what women also don’t want those jobs either.”

And never, ever could.

Electrical wiring? Plumbing? Woodwork? Tile setting?

What pretty little thing would want to learn how to do that stuff?

I’ll betcha they’d be more interested when they find out the pay. And the joy of being in demand as a highly-skilled craftswoman.

If anyone would care to spend a dime to teach these frail things how to do more than nurse or teach.

But never mind. They don’t really want to do anything but tend to you and your kids. Riiiight.

Nance

“examples of this insidious affirmative action, please?”

Who needs facts when you create your own reality?

Sure, most women wouldn’t want to work in construction, because it’s a job that requires a lot of physical strength.  But if we’re going to build bridges and roads we’ll need lots of architects, inspectors, budgeters, etc. and there’s no reason women couldn’t do those jobs.

The nursing-school bottleneck is a big problem here.

Another part of the problem is that a lot of colleges eliminated their nursing programs—too labor-intensive and costly without a lot of rewards in the form of alumni donations.

I can’t find gender breakdowns for either profession, but all NPs are RNs and RNs are about 95% women.  I’d be shocked if women were less than half of PAs.

IIRC, PAs and NPs are essentially the same thing, except they called the other position “physician’s assistant” to get more men into the profession.  Same reason why an orderly is usually male and a nursing assistant is usually female even though they do very similar jobs.

There were a few newspaper reports a few years ago about minority companies that won contracts for recyling or waste disposal knowning they couldn’t do the job

Well, one thing we know beyond a shadow of a doubt:  a white-owned company would NEVER try to get a contract for a job they couldn’t do.  Never ever! ! !

“Otherwise I’d probably leave law and go to nursing school myself.  As well as I’m paid as an attorney, I could still do a lot better as a nurse. “

You must live in a large city. It’s not that way everywhere. Most nurses in my state make around 40K a year or less.  This is more than, say, an administrative assistant, but less than your average computer programmer. Most hospitals won’t negotiate pay for individuals, either (which is why unions are so important—and most of us DON’T work in a union setting; setting up a union is a great way to get fired and blacklisted); you make the same amount as every other nurse who’s been there as long as you have been, regardless of how good you are. I’m convinced we’re paid less than we’re worth because it’s a female dominated field.

Nursing is hard work, and there are never enough of us.

Nance, who said exactly what I meant.

Those two fields construction and alternative energy are the largest fields needed to be boosted to make America stronger.

Actually alternate energy and biotech are the fields of the future.

Oh, and “Al Gore”? Nursing requires a lot of physical strength…one of my jobs involved moving a quadriplegic (who outweighed me by 60 lbs) from bed to wheelchair to shower chair to wheelchair, as well as drying and dressing this person who was unable to move or help me in any way, and without any mechanical aid, just my physical strength..

It’s not that women can’t do construction; it’s that women are actively discouraged from working construction from a very young age.

IIRC, PAs and NPs are essentially the same thing, except they called the other position “physician’s assistant” to get more men into the profession.

I think they’re different educational routes to a very similar destination.  NPs are all RNs who pursued further education (IIRC, NPs need to have a masters degree, plus some other stuff), but I don’t think PA’s are generally RNs.  That definitely supports your gender hypothesis.  And I think in some states NPs and PAs might have slightly different scopes of practice.

Same reason why an orderly is usually male and a nursing assistant is usually female even though they do very similar jobs.

The hospitals I dealt with as a union organizer had done away with “orderly” entirely, and weren’t using “nursing assitant” much, either (although you still need a Certified Nursing Assistant certification to do things like drawing blood or taking temps).  Everyone is now a “Patient Care Associate”.

hmmm…we really should have an anti-celebrity tag rule on the intertubes.

Anyways, Pesto, we need more hospitals.  Reduce crowding, import doctors however the AMA might hate it, and that will also help job satisfaction for nurses.  We need more immediate care clinics for your basic stuff that gps, nps, and pas can do.

Minority preferences contracting abuse do not result in legit reverse discrimination lawsuits, nor are they won.  Minority preferences contracting abuse is typically when there is a minority firm that bids on a project, and then subcontracts it out to a white owned or corporate firm.  More common is to have a minority (or woman) face as “boss” with other people being the real power and profiters.

“Minority preferences contracting abuse do not result in legit reverse discrimination lawsuits, nor are they won. “

Reread what I typed. I wasn’t implying one lead into the other. Reverse discrimination lawsuits do occur and they are won but they aren’t reported on.

“then subcontracts it out to a white owned or corporate firm.”

Because they couldn’t do the job. Cities need to just to hire who can do the job regardless of wheter it is minority owned or not and get rid of the minority quota.

“it’s that women are actively discouraged from working construction from a very young age.
“

Of course when asked these same women who said they weren’t interested admitted there was no discourgement at all. They just don’t consider it a job field they are interested much like men regard teaching kindergardners.

Other fields necessary to the economy such as alternative energy are largely male dominated as well. Guess what women also don’t want those jobs either.

It has nothing to do with being punished for finding the wrong things interesting as a child. Of course not.

/bitter

Many female dominated professions are exactly the most important ones. Education needs to be radically improved. The medical profession employs a lot of women and is absolutely key to a functioning society as well.

Even if you want society to focus on, say, alternative energy, there is no way to make that shift without educating people.

I’m not sure I share your optimism that this will pass the Senate. Why exactly do you think the Republicans won’t filibuster the Ledbetter bill this time?

Also, Americans don’t want to make shoes, and won’t pick lettuce in fields even for $50 an hour.

“there is no way to make that shift without educating people.
“

Aren’t the educators most responsible for teaching the enginners and technicians in the alternative energy fields at the University and College level? Last time I checked those teachers were largely male especially if they had work experiance in the fields.

::sighs and pinches bridge of nose::

Tootiredoftheright, you seem to think that females just biologically dislike those jobs, instead of, say, being discouraged from them at an early age, and being discouraged from them as adults, in fact.

Maybe, then, you can explain why, when I was a kid, people asked my parents why they let me play with trucks.  Or why it is that, when my daughter decided to play with cars in a room she was in, a lady hustled over to get her “girl toys that she would enjoy more.”

Seriously!  Permaybehaps this is a chance to actually let women into these jobs?  The friends I have who are utterly disinterested in jobs like that are a minority.

Last time I checked those teachers were largely male especially if they had work experiance in the fields.

Sure, the people actually designing alternative energy systems will need to be engineers, and most of those are men. My point was less about that and more about the necessity for an educated workforce if the plans designed by these engineers are to be understood, paid for, integrated into society, and carried out. It seems to me that a societal shift to alternative energy would have to be the result of a society-wide change and of society-wide efforts, and not just a plan carried out by a few smart people. You may see the situation differently, however.

There were a few newspaper reports a few years ago about minority companies that won contracts for recyling or waste disposal knowning they couldn’t do the job but wanted the contracts for the companies because otherwise it would have gone to a non minority owned company.  Reverse discrimination lawsuits are won you know and a lot more of them then you would think.

White contractors are, of course, never incompetent, nor do they benefit from the old boys network or no bid contracts.

Oh, wait…

Cities need to just to hire who can do the job regardless of wheter it is minority owned or not and get rid of the minority quota.

Cities should hire people who can do the job instead of hiring their brother-in-law’s or big campaign donor’s company, too, but that ain’t happening anytime soon. 

Tell you what—once you figure out how to prevent companies from being given contracts because of their personal or political ties with politicians, then we can get rid of quotas for minority-owned businesses since they’re meant to counteract those kind of ties.

You know what might derail recruiting more teachers?  Baby-boomer era teachers with their “got mine, fuck you” attitudes toward bringing in new people in large enough numbers to tip the power balance, that’s who. 

MA had training programs, yeah right.  Towns making up shit as they went along, more like.  Some federal oversight would be more than welcome by new folk, but we’d never hear the end of whining from the unions dominated by lifers who like to complain about all the things they actually do have that other professionals don’t. 

Epic whine: we can’t have accountability and job reviews - we have to be treated like professionals!  (clue - somebody have a clue for this person?)

I guess you are just not tired enough of the right if you are swallowing and spitting up essentialist bullshit wholesale!  Put it in comic sans while you’re at it!

I would totally be interested in working construction, if I didn’t think I would get harassed all the time. Since I can’t walk by a construction site without having something gross said to me, why would I want to work on one?

So men aren’t kindergarten teachers?  That’s funny, I could have sworn that the dude standing second from right in the right hand top picture on this page: http://www.dyestat.com/3us/college/choices07/photos5.htm taught kindergarten for both my boys.

Or was I just seeing things ... like reality ... like OMFG a 2m Tall Bermudan Black Guy taught my sons kindegarten and the police didn’t stop him!!!!!!!  Quick! Get him a dress!

I actually know something about the demographic breakdown of NP’s and PA’s, because I used to work for a mailing list for NP’s and PA’s.

NP’s, like nurses, are in fact 95% female. (Which plays holy hell with maintaining a mailing list over time, because women CHANGE THEIR NAMES, and could they all please stop, now?) PA’s are about 55% male, 45% female. They come out of a military background originally, actually, which makes it encouraging that there are in fact so many women among PA’s.

“So men aren’t kindergarten teachers?”

Obviously you haven’t bothered to do any investigating or talk to teachers who were male. You would have found out that the school districts tell any male teacher not to apply for the kindergarten positions since no male would be hired.

“without having something gross said to me, why would I want to work on one? “

You need the Construction worker to English guidebook then. It’s not gross in their native dialect.

I’ve been a repair tech for 8 years now, one of 2 women in a group of about 140 techs. I am also tech support for the other techs. Still, there are people out there who are constantly amazed that 1. a woman would be in the job I have, and 2, that a woman would want to be in the job I have.

But when I gave my 3 yr old niece a great wooden tool set for Christmas, she LOVED it. (Course, she tried to take the doll’s head off with the wrench, too.) Her other favorite toy is a train set. My brother and SIL have never told her “you can’t do that, you’re a girl”. I have found that a lot of kids are told what to play with, they’re not allowed to make that decision for themselves.

As a side note, the Ledbetter decision kills me. How is one supposed to find out they’re being paid less, exactly? At my company, we are express forbidden to discuss our salaries with our co-workers. If I were to find out I was paid less, management would want to know how I found out, and I would be putting one of my co-workers on the line as well!

Oh, I see. I didn’t realize “I want to know what your snatch tastes like” is actually a nice thing. My bad.

My feeling disgusted and violated for not enjoying something that by regular standards no one would feel comfortable with someone they know saying to someone else they know must be the problem.

Thanks tootired. I am going to go live a completely different life now. I feel so free!

Good call ohsohappy…

Discussing your pay grade with co-workers was grounds for dismissal at a job I had in early ‘08.
I was one of 2 women in a group of men with the job. After a few of us became good friends, I asked them about their pay anyway. Luckily(?) we were all being paid so little there was no real difference. But had I seen a difference, what could I have done without getting someone else in trouble?

Oh, look, another faux-gressive male who, despite having been a regular on a feminist blog for a while now, thinks nothing of opening his yap and spewing out essentialist bullshit. I suggest you change your handle to
“tootiredoftherightexceptwhenicanuseittovalidatemysexistbeliefs.”

Tolametothink, mr. King had that experience at three districts ... or was that just because he is BLACK and MALE and teaches kindergarten?

Asshat.

In grad school I worked on a project for women in construction ... so shut the fuck up because you know not shit about what these women had to deal with in their careers - and these are the ones who stayed!

Um, the court’s ruling in this case had nothing to do with a “technicality.” The law in question had an explicit statute of limitations. It ran out before Ledbetter filed her suit. That’s it. That may make it a poorly constructed, unfair law. However, “fixing” a “bad” law is not the court’s job, it’s the job of our legislators in Congress. 

Though helping a victim may be a fine thing, that’s not what the Supreme Court is for. It should (though it doesn’t always) make judgments based not on a subjective sense of fairness or rightness, but based on the laws that legislatures pass. If you think the law is a bad one, the way to address is is to get the governing statute changed, as Congress is trying to do now.

The court ruled absolutely correctly in this case, even though many perceive that it sided with the bad guy against a victim. As Scalia once said, “We are governed by the laws that Congress passes, not the laws it intended to pass.”

As numerous economists have pointed out what is needed to bring this country and btw on this very blog is the transportation industry such as trains and subways. Also bridges and roads need workers. That is a very male dominated field and women are not found to be interested in going into construction and maintanenace.

Pragmatically the FDR style programs are going to hire lots more men just because those fields have historically and socially been found more attractive to women. Btw a lot of opposition to women getting involved is from other women.

Oh as for recession proof wasn’t the porn industry said to be recession proof yet the porn industry is asking for billions to be bailed out?

Drinking isn’t recession proof either lots of bars are closing as are restaurants something else that was said to not be affected either.

Infrastructure is a huge priority that needs the most money as is the alternative energy fields. Both require huge amounts of starting captial and workers. Workers that largely are male dominated. It does no good to improve the health care industry when our roads are breaking down and our energy supplies are low.

Also a lot of married men would be employed men with families that means more money into the economy.

“you’re right, it’s not gross.  It’s even worse… “

Never said it was pretty.

“We know you can get more work for less money out of women”

Only if the company is stupid if they are smart they can get a 100 hours of work out of their male employees and only pay for 35. Lots of men are putting up with lower pay in order to keep their jobs.

We know you can get more work for less money out of women

More work != more productivity

“mr. King had that experience at three districts ... or was that just because he is BLACK and MALE and teaches kindergarten?

Asshat.

In grad school I worked on a project for women in construction”

http://www.journal-news.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2007/01/25/hjn012507maleteachers.html

“Men are in short supply in elementary education — and even harder to find on the staff of elementary schools, according to recent data from the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union.”

http://www.record-eagle.com/features/local_story_008094640.html?keyword=topstory

“At a time when the percentage of male elementary teachers is at the lowest level in four decades—9 percent—Hood is an anomaly. At national kindergarten meetings, he is sometimes outnumbered by female colleagues 80 to one.”

http://www.weac.org/GreatSchools/2006-07/sept06/males.htm
“According to NEA research, as of 2004, just 21% of the nation’s
3 million teachers were men. And over the last two decades, the ratio of males to females in teaching has steadily declined. The number of male teachers now stands at a 40-year low.

The percentage of male teachers in elementary schools has fallen regularly since 1981 – that year, it reached an all-time high of 18%. Today, a scant 9% of elementary school teachers are men. Likewise, the percentage of males in secondary schools has fluctuated over the years, but now stands at its lowest level – 35%.”

http://www2.imms.com/news/newscon_3301.asp?news=newscon_3301

Tell me did this grad school project of yours mention the unique health and safety issues that women in the construction field face? Namely the equipment not being suitable for them to use due to size as well as poor on the job training?  That such problems are often due to the small number of women in the industry so the construction equipment makers don’t consider it worthwhile to make equipment suitable for women?

I’m a truck driver. Women make up about 10% of my profession. And only 2% of women drivers solo as I do.

I know first hand how much work needs doing on infrastructure and repair. I can’t discourage that.

What I can do is encourage girls to go to an engineering school, to go to truck-driving school and to go into construction. If you aren’t interested in a field that pays, don’t complain about your $500/every two weeks with that library paraprofessional job which your English degree got you. (you know, the one I quit and went to truck driving school)

Thanks for the info, Alara!  That’s very interesting about the military origin of PAs—IIRC, Paramedics and Physical Therapists also originated in the military/VA.

“What I can do is encourage girls to go to an engineering school”

That is an uphill battle trust me on that. Just go to any high school class and talk to the females in it. You won’t find one out of a 100 that would want to go to an engineering, truck driving, scientific fields. It’s going to be decades before you get a decent percantage of women who want to go into the technical and engineering fields. The discourgement comes largely from themselves and other women not men.

Of course, tootired; it couldn’t possibly be because those messages are hammered into their heads by their parents’ generation when they are still figuring out things like gender.  No, no, even if we raised them perfectly gender-neutral, the sniping little bitches would shut each other down.

Tootiredoftheright, size issues and equipment is an issue for some women, but it isn’t an issue limited to women - it is the result of stereotypes about what a construction worker looks like.  The guy who rebuilt my chimney is 5’6” and small, and had every bit as much trouble finding size 7 boots as women did.

One big reason that women don’t go into construction in our area: they are automatically steered into “female” professions if they go to vocational schools.  For example, one electrician I talked to was expected to take over her father’s business, but was told that there was no space in the high school vocational track and wouldn’t she rather learn to cut hair?  She did get in when her father complained, but how many girls have that advantage?  Why should they need special reasons to learn to work a trade?  This is why only the most determined women make it - constant obstacles.

ps - most of the women I interviewed (and the small men on the big dig project) bought Japanese tools because they fit - so it isn’t a gender issue at all, really - it is an issue of inappropriate ergonomic adjustability and size ranging.  In any case, it doesn’t keep women out of the field, it just complicates things.

Jesus H Christ, that must be why, in 1987, MIT admitted a class that was nearly 40% women!  Girls don’t want to do icky math stuff!

Uh huh.  Must also be why girls are kicking male math butt these days on standardized exams.  They hate math.

“why, in 1987, MIT admitted a class that was nearly 40% women!  “”

So why is that the only year you can point that out? Is the 40% a standard now or was that an aberration?

“

Must also be why girls are kicking male math butt these days on standardized exams.  “

Last time I looked at the standardized exams they were downright laughable in difficulty. Took less then two minutes to do and Ace if I felt like it. Way things are going I expect the number of questions to be reduced down to basic addition and subtraction with only ten questions being asked. The exit exams were also pathetic basically a toilet paper sheet that only took ten minutes if you had a brain.

As for the girls kicking males in math didn’t those studies that claimed that disputed because of the sample sources?

” but was told that there was no space in the high school vocational track “

There often isn’t room at all since if the high schools offer said track they usually only have twenty people and women by and large don’t apply. When asked women don’t want to do it.

“guy who rebuilt my chimney is 5’6” and small”

Well chimney sweeps have to be small.

“so it isn’t a gender issue at all, really “

It is in the states since the standards used by the equipment manufactorers are devised around standard sized men or larger men. Also some women for some reason want pink construction hats and refuse to wear the standard ones even if they fit. Some things are in a standard color for a reason and a standard size.

The law in question had an explicit statute of limitations. It ran out before Ledbetter filed her suit. That’s it.

Nice try.  Yes, it did have a specific statute of limitations, but, no, it did not run out before she filed the lawsuit.  That’s it.  The statute of limitations was clearly meant to start once the person discriminated against found out about the discrimination.  The Court chose an interpretation that suited them and that no one who cared about the intent of the law would have decided.  Aren’t those strict constructionists supposed to care about original intent above all else?

Try again.

That is an uphill battle trust me on that. Just go to any high school class and talk to the females in it. You won’t find one out of a 100 that would want to go to an engineering, truck driving, scientific fields. It’s going to be decades before you get a decent percantage of women who want to go into the technical and engineering fields. The discourgement comes largely from themselves and other women not men.

One in 100 do not want to go into scientific fields? If you want to comment purely on engineering fine. Seriously though, women account for 60% of gradutes in 2008 with degrees in biology. Women make up 49.5% of first year medical students.

The discourgement comes largely from themselves and other women not men.

Smells like opinion, not fact. Anything to back this up? You keep saying it.

I’m an engineer. Computer programmer, with a degree in Electrical Engineering. The men I work with are mostly older and decent to me, but I slogged through a lot of shit in EE school. 99.9999% of the hostility against me in school came from males. Male students, male teachers, males I dated.

(BTW, that “Nerd Girl will get all the Nerd Guys” meme? Not true, in my experience. We had Hawt EE girls who couldn’t get the time of day - the EE guys were obsessed with chasing the women at the local hair dressing school. No comment or judgment, just facts.)

Also some women for some reason want pink construction hats and refuse to wear the standard ones even if they fit.

Oh. My. God.

Alright, that’s a troll flag if there ever was one. I’ll stop feeding now. Sorry, blogmasters for the troll feeding.

Just go to any high school class and talk to the females in it.

They’re called “girls,” asshat. Doesn’t surprise me to see you referring to them as “females,” however. And note the previous remarks about how gender roles are pushed onto children well before high school. In fact, that starts happening right after birth, with all the pink and blue shite, and different expectations as soon as the baby’s sex is announced.

As for those catty bitches discouraging one another, that can’t have anything to do with how patriarchy encourages women to suck up to teh menz and “police” one another, can it?

by the equipment manufactorers are devised around standard sized men or larger men. Also some women for some reason want pink construction hats and refuse to wear the standard ones even if they fit.

Huh?

Also some women for some reason want pink construction hats and refuse to wear the standard ones even if they fit.

Incidentally, this is a huge problem with the homosexual community as well. Gay men just refuse to wear construction hats that aren’t purple or rainbow colored. They’d rather be beaned in the head and killed. It’s cost the construction industry millions in accidental death lawsuits.

(Couldn’t resist.)

“So men aren’t kindergarten teachers?”

Obviously you haven’t bothered to do any investigating or talk to teachers who were male. You would have found out that the school districts tell any male teacher not to apply for the kindergarten positions since no male would be hired.

Bullshit.  School districts do not tell male teachers not to apply for jobs.  Cites, or STFU.

Men do not go into preschool/kindergarten/elementary teaching b/c it is seen as women’s work and paid appropriately—i.e., much less than high school and university teaching positions.  Professors are respected, kindergarten teachers not so much.  And kindergarten is much more important: reading is taught in kindergarten now, and if kids don’t learn to read then, according to a study released just alst month, they fall behind and NEVER catch up.

Primary education is crucial, but it’s treated like babysitting and paid accordingly.

The same sort of salary stratification happened in England with NHS:  suddenly doctors were not paid as much, and the jobs went to women.  The more women in a field, the less it is valued, and the lower the pay.

That has to do with our fucked up patriarchal systems, not with whether or not women are genetically predispositioned to like math or to think it’s hard. 

The only field that has become more feminized over the years without a concurrent decrease in salary is obstetrics, and that’s b/c women are more comfortable going to other women for, well, women problems. 

TooTired, all you’re doing is fighting for the status quo.  Yes, construction is a male dominated field.  Yes, politicians hire their relatives.  That’s why there are minority-owned and woman-owned requirements: they give a slight edge up to the people who are struggling against discrimination.  And it’s a SLIGHT edge, since minority/women contracts requirements are usually only for 10% or less of a project.  But that edge is an encouragement to minorities and women to fight the fight.

Women should be pushed into the trades.  They are the ones stuck with raising children most of the time, and having a well-paid job would help that immensely.

90% of your jobs are still being filled by white, male, racist, misogynistic assholes.  That’s still not enough?

Essie FTW.

I was going to take it a step further with race stereotypes, but you can all fill in for yourselves.

“how patriarchy encourages women to suck up to teh menz and “police” one another, can it?”

You obviously have never studied matrichial societies or the ones in which men and women were treated gender neutral. It wasn’t some paradise like feminists claim it would be. It was often worse or just as bad. There is no patriarchy.

“They’re called “girls,” asshat”

Funny I have seen feminists scream bloody murder at being called “girls” because it’s a sexist word.

I still want to know about the whole pink hats thing.

OK, I promised I wouldn’t feed, but can I still enjoy?

Seriously, did a man just inform us that, contrary to our own personal experiences, we’re all being kept downtrodden by other women, never by men?

Awesome. Does anyone have any popcorn?

Really, pink hats? Please tell me somebody was sock puppeting you.

“Bullshit.  School districts do not tell male teachers not to apply for jobs.  Cites, or STFU.”

One of the links did have mention that male teachers were told not to apply for kindergarten jobs. Other male teachers I have talked to throughout the years were told by their female superiors as well as their female colleagues to not bother applying for an elementary or kindergarten job because males were not desirable or would never be hired even if there was a shortage.

“they give a slight edge up to the people who are struggling against discrimination.  “

Of course they actually engage in discrimination by doing quotas. Also when the minority owned business is a relative of the mayor it’s a lot more easier to pay far more then what would occur on a merit or open system of contracts.

The law in question had an explicit statute of limitations. It ran out before Ledbetter filed her suit.

Funny how every single other court that Ledbetter won in interpreted the law as saying you had to file your lawsuit within 18 months of finding out it occurred, not within 18 months of beginning employment with the company.

However, now that I know that, I’m heading out to the courthouse tomorrow and filing suit against my current employer just in case they decide to discriminate against me in the future since I’ve been here almost 14 months.  That is what Scalia is arguing in favor of, right—every employee filing a pre-emptive lawsuit against their employer in case they’re discriminated against at some point in the future, because the statute of limitations starts ticking as soon as employment begins, not when the discrimination is discovered.

Given how many workers we have in this country, that won’t clog up the court system or anything.  Thanks, Justice Scalia!

My mother went to engineering school in the 80s, and I’m pretty sure that’s why she’s a feminist. Because she was told, her first day of college in the engineering program, by her adviser, that she didn’t belong there and never would. So, she busted her ass to get A’s in all of the classes he taught, and went on to be very successful.

I know she’d like it if I was an engineer myself, but I just don’t think that way. I’m going to be a doctor. Well, surgeon.

Keshmeshi,

You seemed to have missed my point entirely. It doesn’t (and shouldn’t) matter what the law intended to say, or what Congress “meant.” It matters what it does say.

“A charge under this section shall be filed within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.”

Notice that it doesn’t say “within one hundred and eighty days after the plaintiff noticed the alleged unlawful employment practice.”

That may be a crappy law that’s very hard to enforce given the difficulty in noticing pay discrimination, but it nonetheless is the law. And it’s quite unambiguous.  See the quote I posted above.

CTD,

That might kind of be a problem if all her wages were paid up-front, when first hired, on, say, January 1st and she filed in October.

But every paycheck she received represented a continuing unlawful employment practice. So as long as she filed within 6 months of her last received paycheck, she should be good.

Unless, of course, the Supreme Court is stacked with privileged assholes.

At least, that’s my humble understanding of the problem.

Notice that it doesn’t say “within one hundred and eighty days after the plaintiff noticed the alleged unlawful employment practice.”

As Essie pointed out, since it was an ongoing practice, your argument is basically that no one can file suit based on an ongoing pattern of harassment or discrimination since they would be required to file suit immediately after the very first incident even if they don’t know the incident occurred until after the 18 months expire.

In essence, you’re arguing that since she didn’t notice the discrimination in her very first paycheck, the fact that each of her subsequent paychecks were issued on the basis of the ongoing discrimination is meaningless—you can only file suit based on the very first instance even if the discrimination is ongoing.

But every paycheck she received represented a continuing unlawful employment practice.

That’s an interesting argument. It’s also an irrelevant one, as Ledbetter didn’t use it. Her claim was that the original (chargeable) intentionally discriminatory act took place long ago, but was still affecting her in the 180-day charging period, whenever she was issued a check. The court held that since Ledbetter presented no evidence of discriminatory intent in each of the paychecks she received during the 180 day charge period, the statute of limitations had run out.

Her claim was that the original (chargeable) intentionally discriminatory act took place long ago, but was still affecting her in the 180-day charging period, whenever she was issued a check. The court held that since Ledbetter presented no evidence of discriminatory intent in each of the paychecks she received during the 180 day charge period, the statute of limitations had run out.

Ah, so you (and the Supreme Court) are arguing that only the very first instance of discrimination can be sued over and all subsequent acts must be back-dated to that initial instance. 

Sure, let’s ignore 500 years of common law, not to mention common sense.  If you don’t realize at the very instant you’re being discriminated against that you’ve been discriminated against, tough cookies for you.

Um, the court’s ruling in this case had nothing to do with a “technicality.” The law in question had an explicit statute of limitations. It ran out before Ledbetter filed her suit. That’s it. That may make it a poorly constructed, unfair law. However, “fixing” a “bad” law is not the court’s job, it’s the job of our legislators in Congress. 
...
The court ruled absolutely correctly in this case, even though many perceive that it sided with the bad guy against a victim. As Scalia once said, “We are governed by the laws that Congress passes, not the laws it intended to pass.”

SCOTUS ruled, essentially, that Ms. Ledbetter’s lower paychecks were not violating the law. Since the law makes it illegal to pay women less for the same work, how is this ruling correct?

You would have found out that the school districts tell any male teacher not to apply for the kindergarten positions since no male would be hired.

Are you sure about that?  Because I’ve heard most schools *want* male teachers, since so many kids today don’t have a male role model at home.

Women want pink hardhats?  Um, no.  Standard “big” size in the states?  Um, dude, you have spent very little time with construction workers ... most are typical size people, if not smaller since certain trades favor small size people - sandhogs, masons tend to be smaller.  The cohort of operating engineers in ten states I analyzed data for NIOSH for?  Average height was 5’7 among the men.

My former construction worker father went to a conference and got “women working” stickers for the group I worked with.  They were orange, reflective, and the women put them on their yellow hats and white hats and orange hats with great pride.

I think it is time for Amanda to ban toobusysuckingthecockoftheright for the pink hard hat bullshit alone.

It’s not gross in their native dialect.

That’s so stupid

Ah, so you (and the Supreme Court) are arguing that only the very first instance of discrimination can be sued over and all subsequent acts must be back-dated to that initial instance.

Actually, what the court held was that the act with discriminatory intent must take place during the statutorily-prescribed 180-day charge period. This is what the law plainly says. It doesn’t matter a bit if it’s the “first” or not. The issuance of Ledbetter’s checks during that period may have had discriminatory intent, but she did not make that claim and presented no evidence to that effect. It’s not the court’s job to make arguments for the plaintiff.

We had Hawt EE girls who couldn’t get the time of day

Are they still single?

The court ruled absolutely correctly in this case, even though many perceive that it sided with the bad guy against a victim. As Scalia once said, “We are governed by the laws that Congress passes, not the laws it intended to pass.”

No, the court just made shit up.

That’s like saying that you can’t get a ticket for speeding because you started speeding hours before the police officer saw you, and he should’ve given you a ticket hours earlier.

She was still being discriminated at the time of the lawsuit.  The court decided she had to file six months after the first instance, not the most recent instance.  The written law made no such ‘first’ insistence.

-Crissa

Notorius Pat, he misunderstood.  They were fully aware of the situation ... but they just wouldn’t give him the time of day.  He’s too slow to understand the difference.

“Are you sure about that?  Because I’ve heard most schools *want* male teachers, since so many kids today don’t have a male role model at home.”

If they wanted the male teachers then they would be advertising for male teachers and recruiting them instead the percantage of male teachers shrinks every year. It’s dropped every year for the past fourty years.

Sorry but several male teachers will tell you flat out that they were told not to apply as kindergarten teachers instead they were told to do PE or the high school.

“Women want pink hardhats?  Um, no.”

http://www.moxietrades.com/ go fuck yourself now this is from a feminist company up in Canada who proclaimed women didn’t want orange hard hats or regular colored workboots.

Nursing requires a lot of physical strength…one of my jobs involved moving a quadriplegic

That’s right, women are just as strong as men.  We talked about this before.  There will probably be women as linebackers in the NFL soon.

Actually, what the court held was that the act with discriminatory intent must take place during the statutorily-prescribed 180-day charge period. This is what the law plainly says. It doesn’t matter a bit if it’s the “first” or not.

So, again, you’re arguing that when you’re dealing with an ongoing pattern of discrimination that involves multiple acts over the course of several years, you can only sue for the very first act.  Otherwise, the fact that Ledbetter’s paychecks continued to reflect ongoing discrimination would mean that the discrimination was, you know, ongoing and did not stop until she left the job, at which point she sued.

The issuance of Ledbetter’s checks during that period may have had discriminatory intent, but she did not make that claim and presented no evidence to that effect. It’s not the court’s job to make arguments for the plaintiff.

So the Supreme Court decided that because she didn’t answer an argument that they made up on the spot, she should lose the lawsuit?  After all, her entire argument was based on ongoing discrimination, not a single instance of discrimination, so, again, common sense says that you look at the length of the discriminatory action, not the first instance and only the first instance.  The fact that she did not file a separate lawsuit for every check she was issued in the course of 20 years doesn’t mean that the Supreme Court should only rule based on the very first check she was ever issued.

Again, your argument (and that of the Supreme Court) is that employees should clog the courts with lawsuits since Ledbetter was supposed to file a separate lawsuit for every paycheck she received in her 20 years with the company.  Assuming that she was paid every other week, you (and Scalia) want her to file 520 separate lawsuits for each separate instance of discrimination and have each of those 520 lawsuits separately adjudicated.

That’s right, women are just as strong as men.  We talked about this before.  There will probably be women as linebackers in the NFL soon.

Wow, Pat.  Way to be an asshole and declare that the work nurses do isn’t “really” work since they do it with patients on a one-to-one basis and not on a football field with a helmet on.  Remind me to tip your nurses off the next time you’re in the hospital that you think their work is so easy anyone with even a modicum amount of physical strength could do it.

Interesting ... I have classmates who did extensive workplace evaluation and intervention with nurses in Washington State because of the serious and debilitating injuries they frequently experienced due to lifting and handling patients.

Oh, but it’s a wussy job.  Never mind that linebackers used to retire to work as orderlies in nursing homes, and damaged themselves moving patients, too.

Tootiredofyou, you understand that MoxieTrades is more about NYC barristas and Mommiebloggers than it is about women working in the trades.  Most places, it doesn’t matter what colour your boots are because they will be brown with white stains or plaster white within a couple of weeks.

Oh, and CDT, you seem to be operating under the mistaken impression that Ledbetter was refused a single raise that then impacted the rest of her career.  In fact, she was refused multiple raises and promotions.  So your argument is that she should have filed a separate lawsuit for each instance of discrimination and let each of them be decided separately by separate courts?

Mnemosyne, to paraphrase the next Senator from Minnesota, right wingers “support” Israel in the same way a four year old “supports” his mommy. Mommy never does anything wrong, ever, and can never be criticized! Mommy is always right.

Ignore the above post, wrong thread.

Ignore the above post, wrong thread.

That’s what I get for posting copiously once my boss’ back is turned—I end up at the bottom of all of the threads. 

” and Mommiebloggers than it is about women working in the trades.  “

Haha. Bother to read what they say especially to get business. My point still stands there are women who refuse to wear the standard construction stuff since they don’t consider it flattertering to females. They want pink colored hardhats instead of just regular hardharts.

“lawsuit for each instance of discrimination and let each of them be decided separately by separate courts? “

Well the advice given to winning such discrimination cases is to document each instance and have it be verified somehow that will stand up in court if needed.

“frequently experienced due to lifting and handling patients.”

What type of patients? Psych ward ones cause a number of injuries. What was the average weight of these patients if not on the psych ward?

Well the advice given to winning such discrimination cases is to document each instance and have it be verified somehow that will stand up in court if needed.

She did.  That’s why she won in every court up until the Supreme Court, where they decided that since she hadn’t filed her lawsuit within her first 18 months of employment with the company she was with for 20 years, she had lost her opportunity to file because, according to the Supreme Court, the first instance in a pattern of discrimination is the only one that counts.

There will probably be women as linebackers in the NFL soon.

Sure, should they decide to steroid the hell out of themselves.  Linebackers aren’t normal humans.

And it still doesn’t change the fact that nurses have to lift patients that often weigh more than they do as part of their job.  A physically demanding job.

TooTired must be a parody troll.  The pink hard hats seals it.  He utterly ignoring the fact that preschool and elementary are paid less and less well respected and *that* is why more women fill the roles.

I mean really, he claimed feminists don’t like it when children are called “girls” instead of “females”.

And note the previous remarks about how gender roles are pushed onto children well before high school. In fact, that starts happening right after birth, with all the pink and blue shite, and different expectations as soon as the baby’s sex is announced.

Or before birth, now that almost everyone (in the US) finds out the sex four or five months earlier.

PAs/NPs - my ex is a PA and her graduating class of about 40 (in 2004) was 85% women. She found this among PA students and younger PAs she met from other schools. It seems like the numbers will flip and there will be more women before long.

TTOTR - girls is appropriate for female humans under 18. Women is appropriate for female humans over 18, though not necessarily inappropriate for female humans a bit younger. Young women is often used instead of girls.

My sister is an elementary school teacher with a master’s degree from a highly-regarded university and several years of experience. When she moved to another state for her husband’s job and had to interview again, she said her heart dropped every time there was a man also interviewing for the position. Since there aren’t many male elementary school teachers, they almost invariably get hired for any job they apply for (and are qualified for). That’s not a complaint about diversity or hiring members of underrepresented groups as she, like I, believes that kids should have a variety of role models in their schools and it is good for kids to have both male and female teachers. It’s just an anecdote about both the rarity of male teachers at the elementary level and the seeming ease with which they find jobs if they want them.

“And it still doesn’t change the fact that nurses have to lift patients that often weigh more than they do as part of their job.”

So do paramedics. Just like nurses they are supposed to be trained in how to properly lift so they don’t injure themselves or the patients.

“rarity of male teachers at the elementary level and the seeming ease with which they find jobs if they want them.”

And yet many female and male teachers will tell you that male teachers are often not hired for the elementary schools in many states. I have had several male teachers complain about why it was easier to be hired as an elementary school teacher if you were a woman. In fact they were actually told by the school system heads not to apply for elementary or kindergarten because men weren’t suitable for teaching children.

“he claimed feminists “

Dig deeper into the feminist movement. Guess what there are number of crazy feminists in fact a lot of them.

Moi—

My mother went to engineering school in the 80s, and I’m pretty sure that’s why she’s a feminist. Because she was told, her first day of college in the engineering program, by her adviser, that she didn’t belong there and never would.

Well, I’ll bet she was demanding a pink slide rule and Hello Kitty pocket protector.  Right?  Right?!11?

“Tootiredoftheright, size issues and equipment is an issue for some women, but it isn’t an issue limited to women - it is the result of stereotypes about what a construction worker looks like.  The guy who rebuilt my chimney is 5’6” and small, and had every bit as much trouble finding size 7 boots as women did.”

My Dad, who was a construction worker, was a short man with a thickset fireplug body and very small hands and feet.  He used to run into this problem all the time.  His worklife was pretty much over before Japanese tools got introduced into the United States, but I bet he’d have loved them if he’d had them. 

Trust tootired to turn that into something to complain about…

My point still stands there are women who refuse to wear the standard construction stuff since they don’t consider it flattertering to females. They want pink colored hardhats instead of just regular hardharts.

Bullshit.

Anecdote is NOT data.

Only stupid people argue that way. I thought you weren’t stupid, but I guess I was misatken.

Those two fields construction and alternative energy are the largest fields needed to be boosted to make America stronger. It’s a not matter of not thinking women can do the job or don’t need the jobs or that they don’t deserve the money. it’s just the woman don’t exist in the field and proclaiming the money needs to go to jobs that are women dominated won’t help the economy like the male dominated fields would.

My point still stands there are women who refuse to wear the standard construction stuff since they don’t consider it flattertering to females. They want pink colored hardhats instead of just regular hardharts.

Are you fucking kidding me!!!!!!!
As a fulltime, currently 100% in the field construction engineer, I can honestly say that:
a) I am the only engineer on the site who consistantly has ALL of my safety gear
b) I hate pink, for almost everything

I hate when you people all act like I don’t exist.  Both Tootireoftheright and you Amanda et al. 

You are really missing the point of shovel ready projects. 

The big advantage with infrastructure is that it is needed to do business (shipping of goods and material and people), employees people both directly and indirectly, and stimulates the materials markets all at once (triple bang or more for the buck).

Add to that that they are usually public works which means the government can more easily enforce hiring requirements.  Government and govenment contractors already employ the majority of those 9% of women that are in the fields of direct construction and are way more than 9% in the bureaucratic world required to run them.  Office personnel in the construction firms I work with tends to be more than 50% female as admin, finance, compliance, etc require specialized skills and knowledge, but not the advantage of greater average physical strength.

Somewhere in the world there are almost certainly two women who have said they would only wear pink hardhats. Are we all agreed that tootrollsometobelieve is within its rights not to hire them the next time it is managing a major construction project? There. end of problem.

“they’ve heard “construction isn’t for you” all their lives”

http://www.seattlewomanmagazine.com/articles/july05-1.htm

Maybe you should read that.

“It’s very physical work and a lot of women don’t want to get dirt under their fingernails or listen to foul-mouthed men, but that’s what a woman’s gotta do if she wants to make it. “

Guess what a lot of women don’t want to do physical work or anything labor intensive or when they get into the field they drop out. That doesn’t endear women to men especially when women complain about companies not hiring women to do physical jobs. When people demand to get into a job and don’t do the job dropping out it makes employers not want to hire similiar people since it’s a waste of the employer’s resources.

So here we all, feeding this delightful troll, where I came to a realization…

Some of you would be delighted to know that a (semi-profesional) japanese team drafted a tiny japanese schoolgirl…

because she struck out a bunch of players during using a wicked knuckleball.  Hope she does better than Ila Borders. 

Carry on…

Women when asked in studies do not see the field as a job they would like.

Yeah, that couldn’t have ANYTHING to do with having to work around people with attitudes like yours. Hell, I wouldn’t want to work with you either.

TooTiredoftheRight has violated the stick rule at least 3 times in this thread, imo.

“Also some women for some reason want pink construction hats and refuse to wear the standard ones even if they fit. Some things are in a standard color for a reason and a standard size.
tootiredoftheright “
As proof he gives us a webstore for a company that sells pink boots. The existence of pink workboots is proof someone believes there is a market for them. The sales of pink boots, assuming they sell, proves there’s a market for them (possibly a way for blue collar women to fight the presumption they are too butch). However, proof of a market does not mean the market would refuse to wear non-pink articles.

Then there’s the racist assumption minority-owned companies are all crap and his strawfeminist who objects to calling young human females girls.

Then TooTiredtothink gives us this: “It’s very physical work and a lot of women don’t want to get dirt under their fingernails or listen to foul-mouthed men, but that’s what a woman’s gotta do if she wants to make it. “ and ignores a core part of the sentence , or listen to foul-mouthed men. Because we were told earlier than construction men don’t mean any harm by sexually harassing (BULLYING!) any woman in earshot.

The first and last are definite violations of the stick rule and the others qualify as well. And then there was ignoring every single person bringing up details of how girls are steered from babyhood onward. One of my close friends in school graduated high school with me in 1987, and when she went to UC Davis, she wasn’t allowed to go into the major of her choice, archeology. Because it was a “man’s field” and she should study anthropology or sociology instead.

My hard hat is blue. All of the hardhats from my former company were blue.

I have encountered the “no males need apply” hiring rule at daycares, and frankly I approve. 95% of child molestors are heterosexual men. I seriously question any man who wants to be around small children. It sets off my predator alarms.

Nurses?  While they may be trained on proper lifting procedure, executing it is something else again. Nursing homes staff to fire code. That means they have enough staff to get everyone out. They don’t have enough to provide care and that includes proper lifting.  My mother strongly recommends keeping your weight under 300, under 200 if possible, just to make the nurses’ lives easier.

And yes, women are social enforcers. Every grandmother who says “Don’t make more than your husband.” Every mother that steers a daughter toward a pink-collar job. Every teacher and preacher’s wife and church lady who gives the “nice ladies don’t” talk to some enthusiastic woman. Every teen girl who trades her academic achievement for popularity sends a message.

The stuff from men is overt: informing the class that females don’t get As, no matter what level of work they turn in; demands on the CB to show my tits, orders to get back in the kitchen, etc. That I can snark back in kind or tak it the authorities. “My tits? oh honey, last person that saw men naked turned to stone. and while it might not hurt your crummy driving, it wouldn’t improve anyone else’s day out here.”

The stuff from other women is subtle, scowls and pursed lips and “do you really thinks” that are harder to fight.

I don’t know, Angelia, I got a mixed bag. I’m an engineer in a very specialized field. I got the scowls and pursed lips from people of both sexes growing up. I had a female maths teacher one year who really encouraged and pushed me, and another female match teacher that told me I was rubbish at mathematics (a couple of years later, I was in the 0.1th percentile on a standardized test, in both maths and science). I had a brilliant physics teacher (male) in my final year at high school who was a great support. Uni, again, mixed bag. This all happened in a country that would be regarded as very patriarchial , compared to the UK (where I now live).

I came to the UK, and realised that attitudes to women engineers were much worse here. Much lower percentage of participation (in my admittedly limited experience). My native country has an incredibly sexist culture, but it is much poorer, and people understand the drive to get ahead with the skills you have. Here, there is affluence, but women are pushed out of the best paid professions. It’s not like they’re going to *starve* doing teaching and nursing, why should they go into engineering? Er, ‘cos they would get more than twice the national average earnings. But nobody actually tells girls this when they are deciding what they want to be.

And the main reason I’m here is that I had a sister, also an engineer, and a mother who fought for her own education, trying to shield me from the bullshit attitudes, countering every sexist comment and drumming into me that I was worth it, I could do it, I was intelligent.

And that people like tootiredoftheright were utterly wrong, and we were right.