Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!agate!unisoft!gethen!abostick@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
From: unisoft!gethen!abostick@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Alan Bostick)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Women Wizards?
Message-ID: <12113@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 15 Jul 88 01:33:23 GMT
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In article <12002@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> patterso@hardees.rutgers.edu (Ross Patterson) writes:
>
>Strangely, in the IBM side of the business (where I hail from), women
>figure quite prominently.

[ much stuff on women involved with SHARE deleted ]

>Ross Patton
>Rutgers University
>Center for Computer and Information Services

But SHARE is on the users' end of IBM.  Within the corporation, when one
reaches a certain level, IBM as an institution is as hidebound and
patriarchal as you can find anywhere.  A woman of my acquaintance (whom
I decline to identify) is in the upper levels of management of a firm
acquired some time ago by IBM.  She has told me many times of how the
(almost entirely male, aged 50+) people from IBM at her level in the
hierarchy she encounters seem to live in an alternate universe in which
feminism never existed.  She says she is called "honey" and "dear" all
of the time, is frequently mistaken for her own secretary, and makes a
point not to take notes at meetings, lest she be elected by acclamation
as meeting secretary.

The glass ceiling is quite real at IBM, she says.

					Alan Bostick
					ucbvax!unisoft!gethen!abostick