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Monday, May 3, 2004
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VOLUME 1
ISSUE 10
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Ask Liz
Dear Liz,
What does the term "pink collar ghetto" refer to?
Peg
Dear Peg,
"Pink collar" jobs are those typically low-paying, low-opportunity-for-advancement positions that have historically been held predominantly or overwhelmingly by women. Think of stenographers, typing pools, airline flight attendants (although we're seeing more and more men aloft all the time) and receptionists and you'll have the idea. A ghetto is a [generally undesirable] place where people are pushed, and then confined, without access to the larger world.
So a pink collar ghetto is a job category that is typically filled with women and from which it's hard to "escape" or advance into other positions. Today in the developed world, the pink collar ghetto isn't as visible a place as it was twenty or thirty years ago, although it hasn't gone away. Government, academia, and hospitals are three of the places where you'll still see vast, low-paying departments staffed almost exclusively by women.
"Jobs for women" is not a dead concept by any means. Public Relations, Human Resources and Administration (in the sense of office management) staff positions and leadership positions are now considered areas where women greatly outnumber men and where it's okay (i.e. non-threatening) to have women in the top leadership jobs. I'm not knocking these roles - I was a corporate HR leader myself and I loved it. But we'd love to see more women in CEO, CTO, CFO and other roles typically reserved for guys.
In fact, if you know of a company with 1,000 employees or more, a female CEO, CFO and CTO or CIO and male heads of HR and Public Relations, write to us at laurenc@worldwit.org and we will profile the company in Thinking Aloud, and send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate in thanks.
The quest is on!
Cheers,
Liz
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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Copyright © 2004 WorldWIT, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Thinking Aloud is the weekly newsletter from WorldWIT, the global email discussion network for women in business and technology. Thirty thousand accomplished and resourceful women share business, technical, career, financial and 'life' advice on connected local email discussion groups like AustinWIT, BangaloreWIT and VancouverWIT. Join a free, friendly, moderated WorldWIT discussion group in your area at http://www.worldwit.org Write to us at info@worldwit.org
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