But not just black/white. I’d like to see East Asian in there, and other races.

If you are interested I believe Charles Schwab does an annual report comparing black and white investors.

That’s all I meant.

This one line got to me a bit: "I also don’t believe in getting the job just because of race/ethnicity and gender, to fulfill some SILLY diversity quota." (emphasis mine)

I'll assume you don't think diversity in and of itself is silly (?) just requiring certain numbers is.

Still, I don't think people should ignore the factors that lead to certain people being more qualified or having more access to certain jobs. The easiest way, I think, to explain this is the concept of legacy admission. If your mom/grandma/dad/grandpa went to a certain college (or worked at a certain company) then it's easier for you to get in to the school (or get the job).

But it wasn't that long ago that people of certain races and genders weren't allowed into certain companies/schools so they don't have that extra benefit. Without accounting for that, or keeping that in mind, certain people are always at a disadvantage.

I also feel like a poster child myself. Or that people are harder on me because I’m a girl, and I’m not supposed to know about computers at all.

I didn’t know what I wanted, so that was my career for a long time in my head until I realized I had other choices.

No one wants a girl to be fussing with chemicals or hard stuff.. and it’s just SILLY to misdirect so much potential from both sides.

Men aren’t pushed into being anything, but if they wanted to be fashion designers and were straight, it’s a looked down upon profession for them as well.

Also, it really bugs me how women have been pushed into certain careers. I remember when I was young and I wanted to be a lawyer as I love debating and logic and even seeing how contracts can be read different ways. I'd probably make a great contract lawyer. But whenever I said anything about wanting to be a lawyer people said stuff like, "Now, good little girls like you shouldn't say such things! You don't want to be a lawyer!" No joke! And if I wanted to work on computers I couldn't because the guys were always hogging them and they or someone else would tell me that was more a guy thing and not something I'd be interested.

Instead I was told that I should be a teacher. Everyone wanted me to become a teacher even though the pay sucks here (last time I checked it starts at under $30k a year and doesn't go up much more than that). Everyone told me how great a job it was for women because "You get summers off with your kids!" It didn't matter that I didn't want kids, either. Everyone kept telling me that would change (it hasn't and didn't for my older sister, either). I even started going on the assumption that it would and probably would have had children just because it was expected had I not gotten out of that place.

As for teacher pay, in a class I took on the history of U.S. education, we discussed how teaching became a female field. Men were originally teachers and they were better educated at the time and could teach professionally for many years. Women, on the other hand, could only work a few years before they got married (and were very much chaperoned until then). They were young, inexperienced, and not highly educated. So how did teaching become a woman's job? The primary sources are very enlightening. It is pretty clear that communities pushed for female teachers for one reason, principally: they were much, much cheaper. And they didn't feel bad about that because they knew it was just a short-term job for extra cash before a woman settled down.

Unfortunately, that attitude still persists today. I remember back home when people would bring up the issue of teacher pay in our community. It seemed like there was always someone who'd chime in, "Well, that's what they have husbands for!" Never mind that that shouldn't even matter or that not all teachers were married and that many were struggling to provide for families after losing a husband! And of those who didn't bring up the husband argument, most would bring up children and say how good it is for the women to have a similar schedule to their children.

Anyhow, looking back I realize just how strong the social forces were on me back home. And it was hard to see and argue with. I was just a kid at the time and I didn't know any better. It's hard to see things are wrong when everyone around you says the same thing, even your family. But now I wish that I had spent more time studying other things. I'm trying to now, but it's hard to catch up.

So women take time off for their kids and don't negotiate, but the societal expectations are such that she is labeled a bad mother or a bitch if she strays from those norms. What's more telling, I think, is that women of child-bearing age are automatically paid less because of an expectation that she will be taking time off for kids. This isn't an issue of a woman's choice – we are pushed toward certain choices and are penalized for those things whether we do them or not.

In my experience, though, this isn't always a problem. I'm in a male-dominated field, and I'm paid the same as a man would be paid. I negotiated, and my boss specifically told me to. That said, I feel an enormous amount of pressure to be great – not just for myself, but because there are only 2 full-time female engineers in my group (of about 14 people) and I feel like I have to be the poster child for females.

The only thing I'd disagree a bit with is the 'sad to say' comment…

If a woman is truly as qualified as a man, doing the same job just as well, and isn't being paid the same because of her gender, then that's not just sad – it's a disgrace in 2010.

HOWEVER if *some/many* women are choosing not to make work/careers the focus of their life, and are getting more time at home, or more time with their children, or all kinds of other benefits that don't show up in the income per year measure, then I'd say it's a good think that society now offers this flexibility for people, personally.

Cheers!