| « Inspirational Women: Women’s 2.0 Conference – Beyond the Spark [Stanford Women in Business] |
| What we have here is a failure to communicate… » |
 |
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back |
| By:Linda Popky on Mon 12 May 2008 2:22 PM under Business, Career and Money, Careers and Job Search, Financial Independence, Management |
This week’s Business Week has a story about the fact that in this downturn most of the jobs being lost are held by men not women. (The Slump: It’s a Guy Thing, BW 5/19/08). This would be great for women if it weren’t such a bad thing.
Why? First, the reason that more men than women have lost their jobs over the last 6 months is because there are more men in manufacturing and construction to start with–industries where salaries tend to be higher than women-focused industries like education and health care. And that doesn’t include all those high-powered Wall Street types (overwhelming men) who will most likely be out of work soon due to the aftermath of the subprime mortgage mess.
This means there are still gaps in both the type of work women do and what they are typically paid to do them. We don’t live in a gender-segregated society. What impacts men impacts women, and vice versa. But until we are at the point where gender-related job losses and gains is no longer news or even relevant, Captain, we have a problem here.
One man’s loss is not another woman’s gain. We need to do a better job in looking at how to find win-win solutions so we can all move forward together.
