General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "We raise girls to cater to the fragile egos of men." [View all]KitSileya
(4,035 posts)when it comes to women's participation in the public sphere. Research shows that we perceive a crowd consisting of 17% women and 83% men as having gender parity. If it consists of 33% women, then we perceive it as having a majority of women..... and the same goes for speaking turns and speaking time in classrooms, debates, discussions etc. In our culture, more than 33% women is considered as women taking over and pushing men out.
That means that a woman who takes half the turns in a dialogue, a woman presidential candidate that speaks an equal amount of minutes as her male rivals in a presidential debate, an organisation whose membership consists of 50% women is seen as unfair, as taking more than her share, as silencing men. Equality between men and women is considered unfair for men, is what these numbers seem to say.
So we have 20% women senators. 17% of tenured professors are women. 17% of cardiac surgeons are women. And we are taught unconsciously that equality is unfair....to men.