[toomuchtodo]

How do we get those doors open for women in order for them to have more opportunity? How do we make sure they have every opportunity available to them to experience a secure middle class lifestyle?

This issue strikes particularly close to home for me, as my mother took off for about a decade and worked odd jobs in Nevada while wrestling with mental health issues.

[DoreenMichele]

We need to get men and women engaging in conversation substantively with a default expectation that it is platonic. One of the problems is that men mostly don't really talk to women except to hit on them. I have run into this problem over and over that trying to engage men substantively often illicits romantic feelings on their part even though it's only a few replies in a public forum, never mind that I have been celibate 12.5+ years and I'm open about that.

My belief is that doors open for men based on two things: establishing trust and casually being exposed to a great deal more information pertinent to developing a career than women get exposed to. Both of these are rooted in the fact that most men can talk to other men a lot without sex interfering. Women can't really do that. Men either decide they aren't interested, and then barely speak to us, or they decide this is a negotiation for sex/romance if there is more than a tiny amount of conversation. It's a no win situation for a woman.

My experience has been that once a man is sexually or romantically interested in me, he's completely useless to me in terms of being a professional contact. I was romantically involved for a time with a man who had recently changed careers just a few months earlier. His previous career was the field I wanted to go into. No, he never read the paper I wrote that I asked him for feedback on.

Men who are romantically interested in me will not clue me, will not make vital introductions, will not give me meaningful feedback. Other men also mostly don't do those things for me because they barely know me, don't trust me (because they don't really know me), don't want to talk to me enough to get to know what I have to offer professionally, etc.

All of that boils down to I need men talking with me more with a strong assumption that it is platonic/professional, not romantic.

[rmah]

While I empathize with your situation, do you not seem to realize that the vast majority of men won't help other men in the way you want help either. Unless they're getting something they value in return. That's the key. When you ask for help, you have to provide the helper with the promise of something they want. Else why should they bother?

[DoreenMichele]

No, I realize that. I'm not expecting charity.

The problem I face is that the only thing men want in exchange is basically sex and there is a lot of value that I provide at times that people feel they can just get for free from me and to hell with me. I am very interested in figuring out how to make mutually beneficial exchanges. But you can't try to negotiate such if most business people will only really talk to you in hopes of getting laid.