A nice girl’s guide to getting ahead

By Rebecca Traister

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In the New York Times on Monday, University of Massachusetts and Amherst economics professor Nancy Folbre took on questions of what impact personality traits, as opposed to simple gender difference, have on the continuing salary disparities between men and women. Folbre points out that the recent bank meltdown, in which many of those destabilizing the country’s economic base were enjoying tremendous financial reward for it, demonstrates that those profiting hand-over-fist were not being paid for their intelligence or innovative ideas. Instead, they were being rewarded for self-interested or malevolent impulses to sell out others to profit themselves. Many of those impulses were exhibited by men, whom Folbre writes, “score significantly higher than women” when it comes to exhibiting aggressive and Machiavellian behaviors increasingly associated with personal economic success.

I have had a brief introduction into feminism during my college career. This “should a woman act like a man” debate has been going on for centuries. Such a refreshing look at the issue and where we stand in the workplace.