Single, smart , analytically minded women get the short stick – from everyone

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Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Can you believe it? Bloomberg News reports that single women who are analytical and smart are penalized in their careers – fewer promotions, etc. – more than any other type of worker, including single men and married women!

If you’re sharp-minded and not known for your people skills – as are so many men – you will be punished. And check out the paragraph about vacationing with friends versus with husband and kids! Just unbelievable. And, as they say, depressing.


Amazing – though maybe not – that smart single women are still such a threat to so many, male and female, in our society. The way some of the laws around reproductive rights and voting are changing makes me think the next thing you know, smart single women will start getting thrown into bodies of water to prove they’re actually witches.

Here’s the link. Read it and weep. 

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Barbara Payne, March 13th 2022 | Tags: , ,
Posted in abortion, Business, Chicago women, equal pay, executive women, female workers, feminine consciousness raising, gender bias, girls getaway, glass ceiling, go with the girls, hidden prejudice against women, independent women, performance evaluation, prejudice against single women, single lifestyles, single women in business, single women threatening, single working women in business, women in business

England ahead on female pay equality

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It’s already the law in England that equal work must receive equal pay, regardless of who is doing the work, according to an item from Ms. Magazine’s Summer 2018 issue. Now, it says, British law has just declared that large companies there (250+ employees) “must publish on their websites and submit to the government a reporting of the average salaries and bonuses of the women and men employed by them, revealing any gender pay disparities.”

Map of states that have/have not ratified (Used with permission of the Alice Paul Institute, www.equalrightsamendment.org)

Wow. That’s a good start to puttin’ your money where your mouth is. At least for giant corporations. Since the U.S. hasn’t even been able to pass the Equal Rights Amendment – though happily the State of Illinois did ratify it this past May – it seems unlikely we’ll see anything like that here anytime soon.

But Britain is a powerful ally, and it’s great they are acting as a good role model. Now if we could get them to mandate that kind of transparency regarding, first, pay gaps by race, and then pay gaps by single vs. married, we could really start getting somewhere!

Happy Single Working Women’s Week and Day coming up July 29 through August 4, 2018!

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Barbara Payne, July 19th 2018 | Tags: , ,
Posted in gender bias, gender pay equity, gender prejudice, women's wages

Book review: My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

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Just finished reading My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem at 70-something. A beautiful testament to her life – from her difficult childhood with a loving but somewhat looney, itinerant father and her lost-soul mother, to her many, many years traveling around the world writing for major outlets and organizing people in pursuit of women’s equality and reproductive freedom.

Beautiful stories of people she met, some of whom she developed very close relationships with, from the amazing Native woman who brought self-reliance and independence back to so many Native tribes that had lost their way, to the cab drivers and poor people and famous people and powerful people – including the then-pope – whose lives intersected with hers in some way, she gives the facts and reflects on their meanings in simple, fluid prose.

Another woman who fights for women's equality

Another woman who fights for women’s equality

My favorite parts are the ones where she speaks gently of her longing for a home when she was little and speaks tenderly about so many of the people she’s met and/or worked with. She has a clear eye and an open heart, and her book lets you know her in a way you never could from reading many of the often-harsh news stories about her battle for feminism and her long struggles to help make Ms. Magazine a force for good.

The book is a reflection on how a single courageous soul can create profound change by listening to people.

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Barbara Payne, August 11th 2016 | Tags: , ,
Posted in book review, connectedness, consciousness, courage, gender bias, gender pay equity, gender prejudice

Differences an excuse for bias

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As a writer, I believe in the power of words to convey much more than literal meaning. And I tend to pay attention to the words people use to describe events, occurrences and other people. As a woman–and one who grew up during the women’s liberation decades–I also tend to notice subtle biases in how people talk about men and women.

So it was with interest I read an article this morning describing a researcher’s investigations into how men and women give directions differently. . This quote from Luc Tremblay, an assistant professor of physical education and health at the University of Toronto, who has led studies on the matter, demonstrates the quiet ways judgment can be rendered–and encouraged–by the way we choose our words.

“‘Women are more dependent on a surrounding frame,’ [he says]. If landmarks change, women are more apt to notice and question their sense of orientation. ‘Men are capable of relying on another source of information alone.'”

Notice the choice of “dependent” to describe women’s direction-giving abilities and the use of “capable of relying on” to describe men.

The rest of the article sounds more scientific–talking about inner ear canals and all that. But the set-up has been made: women are dependent, men are capable. Don’t you think most people will tend to filter the rest of the article through that lens?

I’m not playing scientist here (I do that enough in my bioscience blog). But what I do want to know is, has Luc ever asked a fellow guy how to get somewhere and had him totally make something up because he has only the vaguest idea–and doesn’t want you to know that he doesn’t know? Happens to me all the time.

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Barbara Payne, January 8th 2008 | Posted in gender bias, men giving directions, men superior, men vs. women