Comments on: Today in “postfeminism”: career advice from your worst frenemy!

By: Holiday snaps, part I : Historiann : History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:24:28 +0000

[...] wage gap between women and men, and directs readers to this website.) Apparently in this country, they haven’t yet closed the wage gap between men and women, and the government presumes that the citizenry would like to do something about it! Sacre [...]

By: FrauTech

FrauTech — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 04:49:22 +0000

I’ve been reading Trunk for years, or rather finding her popping up all over the place and avoiding reading her. She’s started a few businesses, but nothing’s really taken off, so I suppose the only way she gets money is writing poorly written and researched sensationalist articles. She used to write for Yahoo for a while, and then started some career blog site for millenials that was ok and had some promising writers (not her) until she started trying to do things to get people to pay her money for it.

I find it humorous she mentions older male mentors since I’m pretty sure she’s admitted to having several relationships with men at work who were her superiors, and gave them credit for helping her career along. Maybe she never appreciated an older woman’s advice because it wasn’t sex in exchange for promotion. I just can’t work up any respect for her.

By: HT

HT — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:01:18 +0000

I have been lurking for while, and really enjoy reading both your posts and the comments.
I would not have delurked at all, except I’m tired of all the youngish women coming out with comments that you have detailed, attributed to Penelope whomever. Some background here, I was a middle manager in a multinational corporation for over 35 years, and I had to fight every year to maintain that position. I could not go beyond, for various reasons – a distinct disgust of pandering being the major one. #1: I mentored many younger women during those years – some of whom actually did go beyond the glass ceiling. Unfortunately their impact was short lived, and the cracks healed.
Vis a vis #2. Prioritize marriage and baby-making, because if you wait until 30 you’re doomed. That is so much patriarchial bunkum. When I had my children, I was 38 and 40, and in the clinics I was amazed to see many women who were older. I was and am a single mom, sole support. I had children because I felt that I could offer them a solid upbringing and education, and I have. And I worked throughout their upbringing by negotiating successfully to work at home. They are both in their 20s, both have uni education, and while one is continuing into grad studies, the other is busy working on building a business in promotion and performance – music of course.
#3 – only someone who has no clue would write that.
#4 – The Senuous woman? I suppose that alone says it all about this person. Guess that’s why Cambridge University U.K. is now allowing lessons in pole dancing to be offered.
Geez, I was in the forefront of equality now efforts in the 60′s. To watch all our efforts, and they were intense, to be tossed in the ditch is tough, but if that is indeed what women of today want, then by all means ignore older women. We dreamed of another reality – one where women were truly equal and have guarenteed rights. As the latest efforts in Nevada indicate, the clock is turning backward.
Sorry for the diatribe. I’ll go back to lurking.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:55:46 +0000

Thanks, Mark! (You’re a very diligent researcher.)

By: Mark K.

Mark K. — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:24:58 +0000

Historiann: It appears to be comment #87. I couldn’t find a way to link to it directly.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:26:41 +0000

Cassandra, that’s what “postfeminism” is! (And it’s why I always put it in quotation marks.) Postfeminism is the newer, sleeker version of antifeminism that was born when people got tired of screaming, “what are you women complaining about? Feminism is a solution to imaginary “problems” that spring from biology/women’s “natural” choices/men’s “natural” competitiveness, etc.” They just turned on a dime and claimed, “Now the problems are all solved! Things were bad once upon a time, but what are you women complaining about now?” Ergo “postfeminism.”

Shaz–to her credit, when Trunk commented in the comments thread, she said that the one exception to her claim that the wage gap doesn’t exist any more is academia! So, she must have seen the NYT article too. (Do you have a link for it? I missed that story, and that part esp. because as you say, it wasn’t what people wanted to talk about.)

I wish I had saved a link to her comment–but I didn’t. Apologies.

By: Shaz

Shaz — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 09:40:22 +0000

Belatedly re: wage disparities, or lack thereof:

It didn’t make headlines in the ‘lowest faculty salary increases in a billion years’ articles, but buried in that report was the finding that “At every type of institution in almost every class of faculty, men were paid substantially more, on average, than women.” (NYT)

Gee, who woulda thunk it (Not Penelope, apparently).

By: Cassandra

Cassandra — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 07:21:22 +0000

She doesn’t sound postfeminist to me. She sounds ANTI-FEMINIST.

By: hysperia

hysperia — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 06:56:30 +0000

I thought you might be interested in this article which shows that many women’s business careers never recover from their first bad bosses in their first jobs. It’s in the Harvard Business Review and it’s called “Delusions of Progress”. Ahem:

http://hbr.org/2010/03/women-in-management-delusions-of-progress/ar/1

By: Janice

Janice — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 03:18:20 +0000

You know, all this thwapping my head onto my desk is bad for both the furniture and my health. I wish people like Trunk would stop saying such idiotic things.

Personally, I find it better to judge advice by its content and not by the gender/relative age of the provider. But I’m just old-fashioned, that way!