that's certainly not the case here in the States, at least not the part i'm from.
I realise that. America's innate conservatism is easily discerned here, where we get Australian, British and American TV in roughly equal proportions.
As for managing guest lists, the women I hear the use of obscenities from most are not necessarily on mine, but work around me ... highly educated (in some respects) but, as my dear old mum, who's dead at the moment would say, they weren't brought up, they were dragged up backwards through a gorse bush.
Although I've probably mentioned it before, you have to realise that women's lib got taken very seriously here in Zild and with a few exceptions on that malleable list of general demands which libbers failed to burn along with their bras, has succeeded. That includes, apparently, the right to say exactly what they want to say and to say it exactly how they want to say it!
Really, though, it goes much deeper than just language, it's the philosophy of life behind the language. Most of the women in their twenties who work for our company are the daughters of women who are my age. Those women imparted the 60's/70's female ideology to their kids with perhaps predictable results.
For a lot of my female contemporaries, it was an attitude adopted to make a point, for their daughters it's just normal behaviour. Where once only men prowled the bars looking for one-night stands, women have not only taken up the hobby but are quite comfortable announcing to all within earshot that that is their intention. One female colleague from a few years ago announced then that when she wanted a child, she'd find a suitable father and has since just done that - but she never intended that the relationship should extend beyond the donation of sperm, and it didn't.
And the luxury of being able to take this attitude stems from their high disposable incomes. In Zild, women professionals negotiate and receive salaries at the same level as men. They often expect to have their babies and within a month or two return to work. Or, as in one rather memorable case at our firm, intend to stay home permanently but get bored and come back to work within a couple of WEEKS. Babies are minded by grandmothers, nannies or creches. The incidence of fathers giving up work and staying home to do the child-rearing in on the increase as well.
The skills some of these women have are such that most firms, including mine, subsidise creche care and expect that mum will just pop out to feed Junior. One creche in central Wellington is apparently chock full with the offspring of IT professionals. The mothers, who are from different and often competing firms, network and, oh, dear!
So there has been some "defeminisation". The female professionals work hard and play hard, with or without the men. They work in the same high pressure environments and suffer the same kinds of frustration that their male counterparts do. The rest, as they say, is history!
[/rant]
