Is our world still male dominated? Or have females taken up the title?

I think that the majority of country leaders are male. So, in that respect, yes.

As far as rights, its far more equal than it used to be. (More equal… funny concept.) I think there is still a deep-rooted plethora of double standards.

The gap is closing, but still there.

Male dominated.

I don’t think women are on top. Nor do I think that we should strive for the top.I would just like to see equal footing for both sexes. Things like equal pay for job and equal rights in child rearing if couples are separated. I spent most of my 20s and 30s trying to prove that as a women I was equal to men in all respects. iIt was not til my 40s that I truly grasped that men and women are really different in so many respects and that we can compliment each other in so many ways. I would just like to see respect among the sexes rather than dominance.

Male domina-tricks

I think that men are still in more positions of power than women are. Chances are, it’s a male who’s deciding who to fire, to whom to award a lawsuit, or what material ends up being broadcast in the media. The status of females is improving, but that glass ceiling is ever-present.

Women still make $0.75 for every dollar a man earns in the same field.

So no.

It is of course still male-dominated but I don’t understand why any one gender has to dominate and I don’t get why people can’t get beyond the whole ‘if men don’t rule then women will rule ahhhhhhhh’ situation.

Does the word Dominatrix ring a bell?

Men still make more than women. The wage gap is ridiculous. Women make, on average, around 75% of what men make.

Yes, but women have made great strides in closing the gap both in leadership and senior level positions. Ten or fifteen years ago it would have been unusual to find a woman as the lead engineer/designer in a company, today I don’t even notice. Yet there are still clear prejudices out there and they are reflected in more than just pay.

- Feel free to ignore the following, it’s just a tale that helps to illustrate my belief. -

Recently I brokered an “signing & engineering” meeting for a small company whose technology I felt, after many positive discussions with the potential customers engineers and senior decision makers, was an excellent match for an urgent need. Several of the decision makers elected to attend the meeting to reinforce the point that the company was moving ahead with the solution and to ensure full understanding and cooperation in terms of resource needs from their respective areas. The small company sent their lead developer/engineer, who I had the pleasure of entertaining and getting to know for several days prior. I believe her to be very sharp and capable in her field and she is a far better team player than I’ll ever be, she has also become well versed in the environment into which her companies technology is to be deployed.

Everything went smoothly until she began her presentation. I noticed several of the decision makers discussing amongst themselves and as the presentation went on they seemed to be paying less and less attention, even when their engineers would ask questions. Their engineering team participated enthusiastically and clearly “got it” in terms of her explanation and view of the project as a whole. After the meeting one of the decision makers asked several very pointed questions related to non-engineering matters. She deferred to me and was quickly rebutted with the decision maker saying he wanted to understand if she could answer the question. She did but was unable to reach the depth he was looking for. Several similar questions later they adjourned the meeting and explained they felt the deal would no longer work as they believed her to have too little understanding of the project.

Now a bit of background. It had been agreed to in the contract that the project lead would be from the customers staff and our engineering lead would defer to their decisions in all cases short of those which would compromise the integration and roll out. All business and contract matters were my domain as were conflicts between both sides – I would act in all instances as the company representative for non-technical matters and would take the lead in negotiating technical matters which went beyond the scope/required changes/interpretation of the contract.

Things have been deadlocked until this week when it was suggested to me by one of the customers senior engineers that I should resubmit with her direct subordinate (a man) as our sides team leader. When I explained that we couldn’t justify his salary under the contract because of his inexperience I was told that it didn’t matter, that the cause of the concern had nothing to do with technical capability, but rather the fact that their senior decision maker didn’t believe a woman could fill the lead role. At the companies request I resubmitted with this male subordinate as the lead, last night I was told, the changes were acceptable and we will be signing the contract Monday morning.

They knew she was to be the lead, her name and resume were provided well prior to the meeting. It is my belief that they (or perhaps just the senior decision maker) waited until they had a chance to directly question her regarding issues they knew full well she wouldn’t have full knowledge of and use her answers as justification to have her replaced. Had their engineer not called me, I don’t believe I would have considered that as the cause, in fact I’m still finding it hard to swallow. Hopefully this won’t have a negative impact on her. I have no doubt the company is stable, particularly with this contract, and I will find her another lead position, but many people don’t always get a second chance and missing that piece of a resume can easily cost both her and her employer down the road.

There’s a dominant everything pretty much.

@holden Women make more than the oft-quoted .75/dollar men make. Using the usual data that compares all men and all women grouped in wide fields (e.g. ‘physician/surgeon’) and then averaged will yield something closer to .79. However, when you begin comparing women and men who have been in specific jobs for the same amount of years (and hours per week) (e.g. obstetrician, 40 hour work week, ten years continual practice) the gap goes into the .9s.

@Factotum This is true. Yet none of those numbers point to equality. And I can quote stats for hispanic and black women that go down to .58 cents for each dollar a man makes and that’s a damn shame.

I truly believe in equal pay for equal work (with the understanding that if person a asks for a raise and person b doesn’t then, duh, person a is more likely to get a raise).

It is wrong to pay one group more than another. On the other hand, if a company is truly into maximizing profits it would hire whoever would produce the most while working for the least.

We are getting closer to 50/50 which is a good thing for the world.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir That is indeed a shame.