Are Women Catching Up To The Wrong Men?
by Miki SaxonThere’s a lot of talk that women wouldn’t have taken the same risks if they had been running Wall Street. According to Betty Spence, president of the National Association for Female Executives, that’s because “women don’t tend to bet the farm because their children live there.”
Don’t be too sure.
Perhaps women just haven’t been in a position to bet it, but they’re getting there.
“As early as this week, though, an American start-up company, AltaRock Energy, will begin using nearly the same method [that caused earthquakes in Basel, Switzerland] to drill deep into ground laced with fault lines in an area two hours’ drive north of San Francisco.”
Susan Petty, a veteran geothermal researcher, founded Alta Rock to do geo-thermal research.
“In a report on seismic impact that AltaRock was required to file, the company failed to mention that the Basel program was shut down because of the earthquake it caused. AltaRock claimed it was uncertain that the project had caused the quake, even though Swiss government seismologists and officials on the Basel project agreed that it did.”
Am I the only one who is reminded of the expert warnings that were disregarded from people such as Warren Buffet regarding derivatives 5 years before they blew up or Harry Markopolos warnings a decade before the lid blew off Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme?
Maybe Bella Abzug’s comment that “our struggle today…is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel” is finally coming true.
Image credit: doug88888 on flickr
June 29th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Scary that a “veteran geothermal researcher” is ignoring a seemingly solid fact and risking public safety. I hope no one is harmed as a result of her experimentation.
On the other hand . . . they used to think the world was flat and you’d fall off the end so – if people didn’t take risks where would we be? It is a dilemma isn’t it?
June 29th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Hi Julie, they did try it and it caused earthquakes. So it’s going to be tried again in the most seismically fragile area of the country?
But it’s especially ironic to me because it’s a woman CEO making the decisions. If that’s not ‘betting the farm’ I don’t know what is.
But I’ve always said that given the opportunity women could (would?) act just as stupidly as men. Not all, but some—just as it’s not all men, just some.
I think ‘stupid’ is equal opportunity.
November 12th, 2012 at 1:16 am
[…] I’ve always found it amusing to hear it claimed that “a woman wouldn’t [X], they are different.” […]