Masculinity seems more important to many Americans than experience, and this applies to activities ranging from sports to business and politics.
Things are better than they were a hundred years ago, when women in many states could not vote and many jobs were not open to them. Similar biases applied to many ethnic groups.
Change began around that time, when a Constitutional amendment prohibited bias against women as voters, but bias continued against many other groups.
Perhaps equally important in bringing change was economics. Telephone companies initially hired only young men as operators to assist customers in making calls, but three factors led them to hire women instead.
One was the reality that women were -- and are -- more courteous. Second, their voices tend to be of a higher pitch, and were more easily understandable via the frequencies used. And the third was wages, which were -- and often still are -- lower for women.
Is all of this changing? Yes, but a more important issue is whether they are changing as quickly as they should.
America now has a woman vice president, and half the justices of the Supreme Court are women. Increasingly, women now serve in many state and federal elective and administrative offices, compared to the few in the years before the Second World War.
Many historians say that was when and why things changed. Men went into the military, which meant women filled the jobs they left behind. When the men returned home, they expected to take their jobs back and the women would go back to their household and child-raising duties.
But women had come to enjoy their independence and responsibilities, and resisted the demand that they simply do as they were told. Times have changed, but whether attitudes have changed sufficiently is another issue.
All this has to do with gender bias. Ethnic and color biases have also changed somewhat, but they remain problems that society must deal with.
Things are better than they were a hundred years ago, when women in many states could not vote and many jobs were not open to them. Similar biases applied to many ethnic groups.
Change began around that time, when a Constitutional amendment prohibited bias against women as voters, but bias continued against many other groups.
Perhaps equally important in bringing change was economics. Telephone companies initially hired only young men as operators to assist customers in making calls, but three factors led them to hire women instead.
One was the reality that women were -- and are -- more courteous. Second, their voices tend to be of a higher pitch, and were more easily understandable via the frequencies used. And the third was wages, which were -- and often still are -- lower for women.
Is all of this changing? Yes, but a more important issue is whether they are changing as quickly as they should.
America now has a woman vice president, and half the justices of the Supreme Court are women. Increasingly, women now serve in many state and federal elective and administrative offices, compared to the few in the years before the Second World War.
Many historians say that was when and why things changed. Men went into the military, which meant women filled the jobs they left behind. When the men returned home, they expected to take their jobs back and the women would go back to their household and child-raising duties.
But women had come to enjoy their independence and responsibilities, and resisted the demand that they simply do as they were told. Times have changed, but whether attitudes have changed sufficiently is another issue.
All this has to do with gender bias. Ethnic and color biases have also changed somewhat, but they remain problems that society must deal with.
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