Abstract
It is as children that we are first taught to be consumers, and for young girls perhaps the most important influence is blonde and less than a foot tall, namely, Barbie. Dolls are an important part of introducing little girls to their future roles as consumers, and their importance lies not in the doll itself, but in the huge array of outfits and props that can be bought for her. This is also true for other toys directed at girls: infant dolls are marketed with diapers, clothes, and carriages; dollhouses are incomplete without elaborate miniature furniture and appliances; play kitchens must be equipped with pots, pans, and cake mixes. In fact, nearly every traditional play activity for little girls is packaged to include lessons in incipient household consumerism. Although boys are also encouraged toward consumerism, the carryover to adult life is not as broad: buying laser guns may only have later relevance for those who work for the Pentagon.
We haven’t come a long way, we’ve come a short way. If we had come a long way, no one would be calling us “baby.”
Elizabeth Janeway
When money talks, there are few interruptions.
Herbert V. Prochnow
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Endnotes
Information about percentages of managers and professionals comes from either EEO-1 forms provided (1994 was the latest available—1993 and earlier were used when a later one was not available) by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (which federal contractors have to provide) or from the companies directly. Percentage of female managers does not distinguish among levels of managers. The number of women in senior management, defined as vice president or above, used in Category 2, was obtained either from the company or from other sources (e.g., annual reports, SEC reports). The percentage of senior female managers is extremely small. Therefore, percentages typically reported on the EEO-1 form represent primarily junior- and middle-level managers. Some researchers have argued that the figures corporations provide for female managers are very inflated, because of the broadness of the Equal Employment Opportunity office’s reporting requirements. Thus, secretaries are often listed as managers, and there may have been a general proliferation of managerial titles with no significant status or authority. For discussion of this, see Jerry A. Jacobs, “Women’s Entry into Management,” Chapter 6, in J. A. Jacobs (ed.), Gender Equality at Work, Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1995.
Based on Job Patterns for Minorities and Women in Private Industry, 1994, U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1995.
How much lower would depend on the actual distribution of scores since all ratings were based on the frequency of scores actually obtained. Thus, a raw score of 0 would not necessarily translate into a rating of 0 unless it was very unusual. Raw scores of 0 more normally were transformed into low positive numbers for the category.
J. Fierman, “Why Women Don’t Hit The Top,” Fortune, 122, pp. 40–62, 1990
U. S. Department of Labor, A Report on the Glass Ceiling Initiative, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1991. In 1990, women made up less than 1 percent of Fortune 500 managers, but more recent figures (1995) show an increase to about 3 percent.
“Women in Management: The Spare Sex,” The Economist, March 28, 1992.
Figure from Steve Lawrence, “Introduction,” The Foundation Grants Index 1995. Given the multiple problems faced by women (e.g., domestic violence, breast cancer, poverty), the allocation is woefully inadequate. According to a report prepared in 1995 by The National Council for Research on Women (Who Benefits, Who Decides, edited by Mary Ellen S. Capek and Susan A. Hallgarth), funding for women has increased only one-tenth of one percent since 1989 and so-called “generic” program funding does not meet the needs of girls and women.
Cited in Tamar Lewin, “Working Women Say Bias Persists,” The New York Times, October 15, 1994.
Femlin is a contraction of feminist and gremlin.
Another possible area that could have been included in this factor is the way in which the company’s advertising depicts women. We decided not to include this, however, because it is subject to rapid change and is already in the public domain—you can see the ads yourself on TV or in magazines—to a much greater degree than the factors we do rate.
There were a few rare exceptions with scores somewhat higher than 20, which generally meant that the company was off the continuum—statistically above the 99th percentile.
We were able to obtain this comparative salary data for states, but not, unfortunately, for most individual companies.
Data based on elected positions were current as of August 1996 in the ratings. Where significant changes occurred after November, they are mentioned in Chapter 7. Other information was based on 1995 data, from a National Directory put out by the National Women’s Political Caucus every 2 years.
The World’s Women: 1970–1990 Trends and Statistics, Social Statistics and Indicators, Series K, No. 8, New York: United Nations, 1991.
Interestingly, a recent survey conducted by The 9 to 5 National Association of Working Women (Revitalizing the EEOC, 1995) found considerable general discontent with how discrimination complaints were handled. These included insensitivity and long delays in response. Sixty-five percent of the survey’s respondents rated their contact with the agency as negative. Part of this may reflect the underfunded nature of this agency.
This is based on both correspondence and phone calls with various officials at the Department of Labor. They base it on their interpretation of several court decisions. A reading of some of these decisions suggests considerable variability, but the authors did not have the considerable financial resources that would be required for a legal challenge.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Katz, P.A., Katz, M. (1997). La Crème de la FEMME. In: The Feminist Dollar. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6030-6_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6030-6_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-306-45563-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-6030-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive