sundries

[rm]

Signups have begun for therealljidol. I will not be competing. To be frank, I feel a little pissy that it's such a no-go situation for me. But, eh. I hope the people who play have fun.

The New York Times asserts that in the workplace women are doing better, because men are doing worse. The assertion is unsettling, especially if you read the article, which is more about the fact that women are more likely to be maintaining a financial status-quo in the downturn because they are less expensive hires (still earning $.77 on the dollar) and perceived as being non-assertive and "willing to settle." Those are the disturbing conclusions of the piece, so why they front-and-center this sinister idea of women capitalizing on the failures of men instead, I am not sure.

Donor's Choose has always been one of my favorite charities, and in mentioning it to Patty, she mentioned to me a fundraising initiative related to it sponsored by one of her favorite blogs.

So I'm going to do NaNo this year, just to try to bang out a draft of the chick-lit novel. It needs a title and a summary which I should sit down and come up with at some point. I'm terrible at titles, but the thing I call it in my head (since it's a chick-lit novel set in the world of SF/media conventions) is ConSweet. I know, awful! Apologies in advance to anyone I have ever spent time with at a con, the city of Chicago (where I am setting this thing), and the entire public relations profession (you can't write chick-lit without a character who works in PR. You just can't!). Anyway, I'm full of shame, but this should be a funny lark and a good exorcism, since it's been kicking around my head for over a year.

France is considering requiring warning labels on photoshopped images.

Comments

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

To me, the NY Times article didn't seem to give a message that women were capitalizing on the failures of men, just that a lot of companies are taking advantage of a more pliant workforce. I think that pliancy may also apply to the men in the workforce who are concerned about losing their jobs--I haven't seen any studies, but trying to put myself in their shoes and recognizing how scared people are of being laid off or fired, I can imagine that anyone, male or female, would make more compromises either regarding the orders they take from managers or regarding their employee benefits, anything to keep their employed status.

But speaking as a woman who is unemployed and pretty desperate, I would take a huge drop in pay if it meant having AN INCOME right now. I don't care if I wait tables for $2 an hour and barely any tips, if I ring up stock at the register for $7.50 an hour, or if I answer phones for $8 an hour...even though my highest paying position paid me $12.11 an hour. It's better than the zero balance in my account. I know that's a little different from a professional who may be accustomed to earning $30-40k a year, but I can still understand how anyone unemployed and looking for work, male or female, would take a smaller salary just to be able to pay for groceries and bills.

The author may be right, though, in assuming that just because the numbers look good for women right now, the working/hiring conditions are not. I would not be surprised if hiring managers felt they could pay women less because of a conscious or subconscious assumption or bias. There are all sorts of biases in the workplace that aren't supposed to be there, yet still are.