Hanna Rosin: New data on the rise of women | Video on TED.com

Here is another reason why this is happening

George F. Will: Immature Men Won't Grow Up - Newsweek

I think Hanna Rosin is doing a wonderful job trying to portray that a woman's ultimate dream is not as grim as it was years ago. Especially with the concept of the "High Bridge". I love that she's optimistic about this new age of women on the rise, but I feel there are other factors that need to be addressed, that she leaves out.

(a) She mentions that women are the majority of the work force currently and are bringing in the dough. While yes, women are the majority of the work force and are working hard, women only earn 70 cents to every dollar a man earns. No matter what her job title maybe, or how the jobs are exactly the same. The man still brings in more. Hence making the depression worse on working women, because they make less then their male counterparts. Just because their working more, does not mean their bringing in more money.

(b) Her point on "young women making more money then young men" that is absolutely true, but unfortunately these young women come to a halt when the issues of marriage and family comes into play. In our society, the average age for a woman to get married, is not what it used to be years ago. Women have the opportunity to make more money now. But that stops the minute they decide to have a family. Majority of the corporations are not willing to have flexible schedules that will allow women to raise their children and go to work. This forces her salary to decrease, while the men she was working with salaries increase, because they do not have to be home with their children, to take days off for sick children. The men are allowed to work full time, while the women face a tough time and eventually the majority of women decide to cut down on work.

(c) Rosin and Will both mention that women are becoming more educated, that for every 2 men 3 women will have their bachelors degree and that the majority of graduate students are women. Again, when you look into these programs, women drop out more than men do. Leading you to have more doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. So while they do go in, they don't necessary come out of graduate programs.

(d) Rosin also states that women are the majority in "service jobs" such as counseling, being a care-taker, a teacher, or even food services. These jobs are low wage jobs. They hardly make a living wage. We all know that people that go into these professions want to because they love what they do, not how much they might make. Even the women that go into managerial jobs, what type of managerial jobs are they? Are they at big corporations or at small places? There's a major difference between the salary of someone working at Google vs. being a manager at McDonald's. So yes, women are working, and some are working at less desirable jobs then mentioned above because they need to survive. Not because, their breaking some kind of barrier or showing men that they can beat them in the job market.

(e) In the Will's article it mentions men not getting their bachelor degrees, as much as women, but the end that do- they go onto advancing their education. They don't stop, they'll get their Masters and eventually their Ph.D's. And at that point, women become the minority in those programs. Or in the workforce.


That's basically my two cents on those two journalists. I'm not making any of my information up. If you'd like sources, or want to learn more about this let me know and I'll forward you a few!

I agree with you for the most part. Hanna's talk was too optimistic but despite the set backs that you mentioned, in my opinion this trend will continue to increase. Over all the ratio of females to males born is also rising. Governments around the world are taking steps to make sure that females are given a preference and I wouldn't be surprised if the US has sarah palin for president next year. From the point of "popular history" this is called 'the rise of women' but despite what hanna says the reality is that over all the condition of people as a whole has been deteriorating because over all, the economy has been getting worse. The 1% of the population that controls more than two thirds of the wealth in the world, and the ones who build "consensus" are still 99% old white men.

people are using women just to make more money now lol, because men are like..oh nice girl and then they shop there.