In the world of the media elite, it’s still 1975 as far as women on the job are concerned. Take this reaction from the Washington Post’s “business” columnist Amy Joyce to the good news that slightly more than 50 percent of all management and professional positions these days are held by women, although women hold only 8 percent of the very top jobs at Fortune 500 corporations (which stiill sounds like good news to me compared to the situation 30 years ago):
“Is that because women aren’t ambitious or willing and eager to take over the top spots? Or is it because they aren’t groomed for positions beyond middle management or human resources or other ‘typically female’ jobs because they are the caregivers of the office, not the leaders?”
Yes, to Joyce and her Big Media sisters, the reason there aren’t more female CEOs isn’t because many women with children would rather be with their children and instead of putting in the 80-hour workweeks that lead to the very top slots No, they’re simply victims of gender “stereotyping”:
“In recent years, a notable number of Gen X women (who have been told by their mother’s generation they can have it all) opted out of the workforce to raise a child. But considering the fact that gender stereotypes are still so prevalent in the workplace, researchers and women’s advocates question the reasons some (of course not all) of the working women decide to stay home full time.
“‘You have to ask yourself, if that many women are choosing to do that, is it really a choice?’ [National Council of Women’s Organizations official Alison]’ Stein said.
“One has to wonder, indeed.”
One has to wonder, indeed, why Amy Joyce and her sisters believe that highly educated women have no free will and are incapable of making decisions about work and personal time that they think will benefit themselves and their families. But in the world of the media elite, it’s always 1975.
The National Council of Women’s Organizations, by the way, is the outfit whose former president Martha Burk screamed and hollered a few years ago about the all-male membership policy at the Augusta Golf Club but was able to dig up only 40 women throughout the nation to picket the club along with her.