Women Can't Win?

This article in the fashion section of the Times is about a lot more than fashion, or about fashion in its deepest sense. Yes, what you (if you are female) always suspected has been confirmed by the reasearch organization Catalyst:

"In 2006, Catalyst looked at stereotypes across cultures (surveying 935 alumni of the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland) and found that while the view of an ideal leader varied from place to place — in some regions the ideal leader was a team builder, in others the most valued skill was problem-solving -- whatever was most valued, women were seen as lacking it."

The title of the report says it all: "Damned If You Do, Doomed If You Don't!" The article is not all doom and gloom, however. It also has some practical tips --so if you are a woman in the workplace, check it out!

For a completely different view, see the article by Sara Sklaroff in "The Wilson Quarterly" (http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=286628), which claims -- largely based on college-enrollment statistics (but also on Hillary Clinton) -- that women "are taking over." What will that mean?

"Schoolteachers, most of whom are women, will finally get the higher salaries they deserve for nurturing the next generation, but it will suddenly become apparent that ­hedge ­fund managers, almost all of whom are men, don’t really need to make millions of dollars a year for moving some numbers around on a computer screen. There will be more police on the streets, so women can walk alone at night without fear. In public, it will be socially unacceptable to spit, litter, scratch oneself, shout, urinate, or wear shorts with ­loafers. "

Well...one can dream, right? But the article doesn't rest with such simplistic distinctions. Women, it seems, can be just as nasty as their mates (or fathers or brothers):

"In fact, there’s evidence that women aren’t that much less aggressive than men—they’re just better at hiding it. Psychologists have found that while men channel their aggression through purported “rationality” (interrupting, criticizing unjustly, questioning others’ judgment), women are more likely to use “social manipulation” (gossiping, backbiting, ostracizing) to get what they want."