Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83 based; site homxa.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!houxm!homxa!gds
From: gds@homxa.UUCP (Greg Skinner)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Fear and Loathing in ...
Message-ID: <284@homxa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Jul-84 13:50:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: homxa.284
Posted: Mon Jul 16 13:50:37 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Jul-84 01:44:21 EDT
References: <2297@hplabsb.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 47

I'm probably over 300 articles behind here too, but here goes ...

From: pc@hplabsb.UUCP (Patricia Collins)
	
>	Why do women continue to pursue low paying jobs, you ask?

>
>	Young children are very susceptible to programming.  MOST children's
> books still show women as nurses and men as doctors, women as secretaries
> and men as managers, women as teachers and men as professors, women as
> housekeepers and men as peacekeepers (law officers), women as homemakers
> and men as decision makers.  And as long as "reality" is that low-paying
> jobs are dominated by women and ethnic minorities, the image is reinforced.
> It takes pretty powerful counterprogramming to change those strong
> stereotypes.

My parents continued to program my sister when she entered college.  She wanted
to take courses in economics right away, but my father insisted that she take
an art course.  The art course did her absolutely no good but the economics
course would have put her one step closer to graduation all the sooner.

> Perversely, our 
> society says it is OK for boys to be immature and socially unaware at 16,
> but girls are supposed to be (and generally are) very sensitive about 
> their social interactions.  I suspect boys are traumatized by their teen 
> years too, but adult expectations of boys is generally lower in the area 
> of social awareness and maturity.  So, the boys are not hit with the 
> double-whammy of failing themselves AND failing their parents/mentors 
> expectations if the are unsure of their aspirations. 

I wouldn't necessarily say that.  For example, in the young teens, a father's
son is expected to be in competition with other father's sons in athletic
acheivements.  I have heard numerous tales (and also been in one) where a
father punished his son for striking out in a baseball game, or dropping a
touchdown pass.  (I know these are just trivialities, and don't compare against
what women have to go through, but it is possible for a young man to fail
his parents and himself if he does not perform up to par athletically.)  Then,
there is also the story of the young man who doesn't want to follow in his
father's footsteps -- say, the father owns a grocery store and the son is
expected to run the store after the father is too old.  The son may have other
plans, though, and become a shame to his family.

-- 
Those who know me have no need for my name.

Greg Skinner (gregbo)
{allegra,cbosgd,ihnp4}!hou2e!gregbo