We're not there, yet.
Apr. 20th, 2005 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sevI'm taking an accounting class. Really basic stuff. We're in chapter three of the nine-ish chapters we'll cover by the end of the quarter.
As I've read these three chapters I notice some things.
The sample companies in the examples and problem sets are pretty much all sole proprietorships. I get a warm fuzzy from this -- oh, look at all the small businesses! The names of the proprietors indicate what I would consider an appropriate quantity of diversity -- just about equal numbers of men and women, and at least some variety in the geographic origins of surnames, as best as I can estimate (which, admittedly, isn't a skill I have).
But we have not arrived, yet.
When mocking up financial reports for these companies, the account that contains the owner's equity in the company is usually called something like "Initial-Surname, Capital". Like "R. Neal, Capital" from the first example I ran across.
A handful of the examples spell out the first name instead of providing an initial.
Can you guess where I'm going with this?
Of 40 sole proprietorships in the first three chapters, twelve of them spell out a first name on the actual financial documents. While a full half of the proprietors whose gender is specified are female, of those twelve whose first names appear on the financial reports....nine of them are women.
I mean...sheesh. These companies in these examples are very obviously contrived; it's not like they're pulling examples from real life. So in these completely made-up companies: forty-five percent of the women, but only fifteen percent of the men. This ongoing linguistic power game makes me sick to my stomach. I'm tired of ranting about it but I can't not-notice.
As I've read these three chapters I notice some things.
The sample companies in the examples and problem sets are pretty much all sole proprietorships. I get a warm fuzzy from this -- oh, look at all the small businesses! The names of the proprietors indicate what I would consider an appropriate quantity of diversity -- just about equal numbers of men and women, and at least some variety in the geographic origins of surnames, as best as I can estimate (which, admittedly, isn't a skill I have).
But we have not arrived, yet.
When mocking up financial reports for these companies, the account that contains the owner's equity in the company is usually called something like "Initial-Surname, Capital". Like "R. Neal, Capital" from the first example I ran across.
A handful of the examples spell out the first name instead of providing an initial.
Can you guess where I'm going with this?
Of 40 sole proprietorships in the first three chapters, twelve of them spell out a first name on the actual financial documents. While a full half of the proprietors whose gender is specified are female, of those twelve whose first names appear on the financial reports....nine of them are women.
I mean...sheesh. These companies in these examples are very obviously contrived; it's not like they're pulling examples from real life. So in these completely made-up companies: forty-five percent of the women, but only fifteen percent of the men. This ongoing linguistic power game makes me sick to my stomach. I'm tired of ranting about it but I can't not-notice.
