I talk a lot...
Mar. 6th, 2006 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
levertovfanSince my life is kind of at a stand-still right now, a good stand-still but a stand-still nevertheless, I'm feeling some confusion over whether I ought to just up and move to Seattle or Minneapolis because it will be easier to search for jobs once I'm there, or if it will ultimately be more advantageous to stay here and get some more professional development before moving out to those places. I get these vivid visions of mountains and bodies of water and kayaking and foliage in bloom (Seattle/Bay Area) or else about wandering through the Arb in the winter or driving down the highway in MN and watching the stark Midwestern landscape (Northfield/the Twin Cities). Two very different environments to choose from, but at least they are both natural. Same with the West Coast and Minnesotan attitude, as opposed to that in DC. I feel somewhat confined in the semi-sterile existence I have right now living in a 16 story apartment building and wandering between my computer and my bed and my kitchen and through the commercial area where I live into the concrete caves of the metro and emerging out in other high-density places.
I've sent out letters of inquiry within the DC area and no one seems to get back to me. Silly HR departments, and non-profits in general, taking time to make decisions. Which means that if I stay here and continue to search for temporary jobs, it will take time and I will stay here even longer. Not that staying here is terrible, but I don't want to become another one of those focused young women in pea coats and conservative professional attire getting on and off the metro with frowns on their faces. Which is funny, because I fit all of the above except that my attire is a little less conservative. At most times, I even have the frown. I want to maintain some amount of good humor and high spirits and ability to smile. I don't want that frown to become permanent.
I've been doing some research on demographics, collecting information on employment and the economy and crime in Seattle and Portland and, partly as points of comparison, the Twin Cities and DC. One of the things that's interesting to me in light of my experiences in DC is that such little research has been done on the sociology of gender demographics. DC has many more women than men. One book I saw from 1996 put it at 84 men for every 100 women over the age of 18. A more recent stat from 2005 puts it at 86.1 adult men: 100 adult women. I can't find it, but I'd guess that the national average is somewhere in the region of 95-98 adult men: 100 adult women. Seattle and Portland are in that range. Oddly, Minneapolis has 100.1 adult men: 100 adult women, while St. Paul has 89.1 adult men: 100 females. Even though some of that is a function of the population of St. Paul being older, it still makes me imagine women streaming over bridges from St. Paul to Minneapolis at night.
The DC gender disparity is partly a function of there being so many administrative jobs at non-profits, idealistic lobbying groups, and the federal government, which tend to be filled by women. More men work for the military and in politics and at the higher levels of the federal government. Men tend to have high stress jobs with long hours, while women tend to have slightly less stressful jobs with slightly shorter hours, women working as bureaucrats in the federal government at the extreme of this. All of these things are very broad generalizations of course, with lots of women in the military and lots of men in the non-profit world, but the general imbalance between men's and women's professions and ideological outlook is strange. I'm interested in the micro-demographics of this: do men and women tend to live and work in different areas, or is my perception of this a unique result of DC's culture, where the available jobs tip the gender balance more than in most places? How does age factor in? I got the sense that many, many more women my age than men my age worked in Rosslyn, even in spite of all the military uniforms. I don't know if that's because there are a lot of media and marketing type organizations in Rosslyn or not, but it would be an interesting theory to test.
Other stuff:
-I finally saw the Battlestar Galactica mini-series. It was good. I will watch the series.
-I wandered into yet another temporary job until I have a temporary job, doing English conversation with a friend of my roommate.
-Andy is coming on Friday. Excellent!
I've sent out letters of inquiry within the DC area and no one seems to get back to me. Silly HR departments, and non-profits in general, taking time to make decisions. Which means that if I stay here and continue to search for temporary jobs, it will take time and I will stay here even longer. Not that staying here is terrible, but I don't want to become another one of those focused young women in pea coats and conservative professional attire getting on and off the metro with frowns on their faces. Which is funny, because I fit all of the above except that my attire is a little less conservative. At most times, I even have the frown. I want to maintain some amount of good humor and high spirits and ability to smile. I don't want that frown to become permanent.
I've been doing some research on demographics, collecting information on employment and the economy and crime in Seattle and Portland and, partly as points of comparison, the Twin Cities and DC. One of the things that's interesting to me in light of my experiences in DC is that such little research has been done on the sociology of gender demographics. DC has many more women than men. One book I saw from 1996 put it at 84 men for every 100 women over the age of 18. A more recent stat from 2005 puts it at 86.1 adult men: 100 adult women. I can't find it, but I'd guess that the national average is somewhere in the region of 95-98 adult men: 100 adult women. Seattle and Portland are in that range. Oddly, Minneapolis has 100.1 adult men: 100 adult women, while St. Paul has 89.1 adult men: 100 females. Even though some of that is a function of the population of St. Paul being older, it still makes me imagine women streaming over bridges from St. Paul to Minneapolis at night.
The DC gender disparity is partly a function of there being so many administrative jobs at non-profits, idealistic lobbying groups, and the federal government, which tend to be filled by women. More men work for the military and in politics and at the higher levels of the federal government. Men tend to have high stress jobs with long hours, while women tend to have slightly less stressful jobs with slightly shorter hours, women working as bureaucrats in the federal government at the extreme of this. All of these things are very broad generalizations of course, with lots of women in the military and lots of men in the non-profit world, but the general imbalance between men's and women's professions and ideological outlook is strange. I'm interested in the micro-demographics of this: do men and women tend to live and work in different areas, or is my perception of this a unique result of DC's culture, where the available jobs tip the gender balance more than in most places? How does age factor in? I got the sense that many, many more women my age than men my age worked in Rosslyn, even in spite of all the military uniforms. I don't know if that's because there are a lot of media and marketing type organizations in Rosslyn or not, but it would be an interesting theory to test.
Other stuff:
-I finally saw the Battlestar Galactica mini-series. It was good. I will watch the series.
-I wandered into yet another temporary job until I have a temporary job, doing English conversation with a friend of my roommate.
-Andy is coming on Friday. Excellent!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 02:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:sneaky women
Date: 2006-03-07 08:52 pm (UTC)And yay for me coming on Friday!