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Why We Don’t See Women as Leaders and Why This Matters

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The number of women leaders in the largest companies in the United States declined by 25 percent this year, as reported by Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times. Because the number of female chief executives is small to begin with, the departure of even one, such as the recent departure of Denise Morrison as the CEO of Campbell Soup Company, has a big numerical impact. In fact, the number of female CEOs has dropped from thirty-two to twenty-four in the past year. Why does it matters that so few women are CEOs and that the numbers are declining? One reason is that unconscious assumptions about gender determine who gets seen as leadership material when managers need to hire or promote. In a study reported by Heather Murphy of the New York Times, both women and men almost always draw a man when asked to draw an effective leader. Murphy reports on another study where research participants were asked to listen in by phone to a fictional sales meeting. In some of the “meetings,” study participants heard “Eric” offer change-oriented ideas while other participants heard “Erica” read the same script. When research participants were asked to rate the speaker, either Eric or Erica, on how much he or she had exhibited leadership, the Erics were far more likely than the Ericas to be identified as leaders, even though the Ericas shared exactly the same ideas. Murphy cites Nilanjana Dasgupta of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, who explains that “when people are consistently exposed to leaders who fit one profile [male], they will be more likely to notice leaders who fit that same profile in the future.” In other words, even when a woman acts like a leader, her talents are less likely to be noticed or identified as leadership because the generally accepted profile of a leader is a man. This inherent bias is why it matters that the number of women in high visibility CEO roles in big companies is declining. Murphy points out that we need to see more women in leadership roles to expand our unconscious assumptions about who can be an effective leader—and instead the numbers are declining. In fact, depressingly, every female executive who stepped down during the past year was replaced by a man. Miller notes that the obstacles for female executives are rooted in biases against women in power. In fact, Miller cites two studies to make her case:

  • Both women and men have families, but caregiving is considered to be a woman’s problem and, therefore, limits the opportunities made available to women.
  • Leadership ability does not appear to be affected by gender differences. A study of 2,600 executives found no difference in multiple areas assessed, including interpersonal skills, analytical and managerial skills, and general ability. Yet women were much less likely to become chief executives.
This problem is clearly a vicious cycle. Because we don’t see women in executive roles, women don’t get the opportunity to be hired or promoted into executive roles. We have to keep challenging both women and men to examine their unconscious biases about who can be an effective leader. We must also continue to push for more women on corporate boards who will hopefully push for more women to be considered for CEO roles, and we need to elect women to office where they can raise these issues legislatively. Let’s keep asking, “Where are the women?”   Photo courtesy of Vector Open Stock (CC BY 2.0)]]>

Why Women Persevere When Men Don’t

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A very interesting gender difference emerged at the Boston Marathon this year. Lindsay Crouse of the New York Times explains that the Boston Marathon is “one of the most competitive marathons in the world.” In other words, this race is one of the toughest courses where thousands of the world’s elite runners and runners who have completed multiple qualifying races to gain the right to enter this race push themselves to complete the course. The weather this year had heavy rains and was the coldest in decades, and women endured to the finish at much higher rates than men did. Crouse notes that this year’s Boston Marathon provides an opportunity to consider why women were able to persevere in exceptionally miserable conditions at higher rates than men to finish the race:

  • For men, the dropout rate was up almost 80 percent from 2017.
  • For women, the dropout rate was up only 12 percent from 2017.
  • Overall, 5 percent of men dropped out versus 3.8 percent of women.
Crouse discusses some theories about why women may have more physical endurance than men:
  • Differences in body fat composition
  • Decision-making tendencies
  • Pain tolerance, including the experience of childbirth where quitting is not an option
The body fat composition argument says that women can deal with cold weather better because essential body fat composition is about 3 percent for men and 12 percent for women. The subcutaneous fat layer is twice as thick for women, thereby insulating women from cold and increasing their ability to finish the race in conditions of extreme cold. Crouse points out the flaw in this argument, though, when she notes that “in 2012, on an unusually hot 86-degree day, women also finished at higher rates than men,” which was not the case in the years between 2012 and 2018. The gender difference then is not explained by body fat composition. Differences in decision-making traits may provide at least part of the explanation for the differences in finishing rates for women and men in races. Dropping out of a race is a decision. Previous research has shown gender differences in decision-making that are just as applicable to business situations as to running races. Crouse also lists psychological differences:
  • Women are better at pacing themselves.
  • Men start out more aggressively and take more risks—and can lose steam before the end.
  • Women are better at recalibrating behavior and adjusting their goals and expectations to keep going.
  • Men see “succeed or fail” as the options and drop out if they think they will fail.
Crouse cites psychologist Adam Grant’s research to offer another possible explanation of gender differences in finishing versus dropping out. Grant suggests that there exists a “biological and social tendency for women to tend toward caregiving.” He goes on to state that “when the going gets tough, the men either quit or they double down and say, ‘I’m just going to push through,’ whereas women are more likely to reach out to runners next to them and offer support and seek support. Sharing pain and being part of a group can make it easier to withstand pain.” In fact, Crouse offers several stories of women running the Boston Marathon in pairs or small groups and encouraging each other to keep going. In one case, a woman who wanted to quit kept going to support her friend and then ended up winning the race herself when she got a burst of energy toward the end. While no one has a definitive explanation of why women endured at higher rates than men in 2012 and 2018 in extreme weather conditions, the fact that this did happen—and the possible supporting theories of why—should encourage women to persevere. It can also add fodder to the argument that women can add value to any endeavor. Let’s hope that the old stereotype of women being fragile and unreliable is finally collapsing under the weight of all the evidence to the contrary.   Photo courtesy of Patrik Nygren (CC BY-SA 2.0)]]>

Why Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Is So Difficult to Stop

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Susan Fowler, writing for the New York Times, notes that it is now abundantly clear that sexual harassment is pervasive in every industry. While getting rid of it will not be easy, we now know some facts that will help:

  • We have to stop the practice of forced arbitration as a condition of employment. Forced arbitration takes away our rights to sue in court and can legally bind us to keep silent about what has happened to us. A recent Supreme Court decision confirming that employers can continue this practice means that we need new federal legislation to make this change.
  • We need legislation at the state and federal levels to protect employees.
    • Some progress has been made at the state level in Washington state and California.
    • We need much more progress at the federal level, including new legislation to eliminate forced arbitration as a condition of employment.
Jodi Kantor of the New York Times notes that there exists “giant holes in the federal laws meant to protect women from harassment.” These can come in several different forms:
  • Existing law only covers workplaces with fifteen or more employees.
  • Federal statutes of limitations for filing a claim can be as short as 180 days.
  • Damages can be capped at $300,000.
Kantor goes on to explain that harassment has flourished partly because structures intended to address it or protect against it are missing or broken:
  • Weak laws fail to protect women.
  • Corporate policies and procedures protect the company but not the employees.
  • Secret settlements protect offenders and keep patterns of abuse out of the public eye.
  • Human resources departments focus on protecting organizations from legal liability rather than protecting employees.
  • No consensus exists on how to report a repeat offender who goes from job to job or to address more minor infractions with measures short of suspension or firing.
  • Low wage workers are now more willing to speak up about sexual harassment, but it’s not clear who they should tell.
Even some of the most powerful women in the United States have so far been unable to get protections for congressional staff. All twenty-two female members of the Senate—Republican and Democrat—have pushed for an overhaul of the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, which provides more protection for members of Congress who are accused of sexual harassment than it does for the victims. #MeToo and #TimesUp are important movements to keep the pressure on for change. We must support and vote for candidates in the upcoming elections, at the state and federal levels, who are committed to passing legislation to protect women. Support candidates who support women.   Photo courtesy of Phil Roeder (CC BY 2.0)]]>

The Costs of Racism for Black Women: The Concept of Weathering

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I often wonder why so many of my black women friends have died so early. Specifically, I have had the joy of being a member of a black and white women’s support group for more than twenty-five years. During these years in our group of seven to nine members, all of the original white members remained healthy and three of the black members passed away. As a white woman, I not only miss my friends, but I have been bewildered by these differences in our mortality. Let me be clear—our members have very few differences in our backgrounds and life experiences other than race. We are all middle-class professional women raised in middle-class professional two-parent households. We are all college educated and about the same age. Race is what differentiates us. Recent studies on infant and maternal mortality in the United States reported in the New York Times Magazine by Linda Villarosa opened my eyes and gave me some language to explain what may have caused the early deaths of my black women friends. While none of the three women in our group died from causes related to maternity or childbirth, the findings in these studies seem to explain a lot more about health disparities between African American and white women than just higher rates of infant and maternal mortality. Infant and maternal mortality rates are, however, both shocking and what led researchers to their broader conclusions about the impact of race on health. Villarosa reports on several examples from recent studies:

  • Black infants in America are now more than twice as likely to die as white infants—a racial disparity that is actually wider now than it was in 1850, fifteen years before the end of slavery.
  • Education and income offer little protection. A black woman with an advanced degree is more likely to lose her baby than a white woman with less than an eighth-grade education.
Villarosa cites seminal research by Dr. Arline Geronimus, published in 1992, that first linked stress and black infant mortality in her theory of weathering. Villarosa explains that Dr. Geronimus “believed that a kind of toxic stress triggered the premature deterioration of the bodies of African-American women as a consequence of repeated exposure to a climate of discrimination and insults”—in other words, the lived experience of race in this country. In 1997 a team of female researchers from Boston and Howard Universities expanded on earlier studies showing the health effects of racism. Villarosa reports that their research concluded that “the bone-deep accumulation of traumatizing life experiences and persistent insults” results in the sustained, long term release of stress hormones, which can lead to wear and tear on the cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune systems, making the body vulnerable to illness and even early death. This wear and tear is the process mentioned previously called weathering by Dr. Geronimus. In 2006, Dr. Geronimus and her colleagues found that, even when controlling for income and education, African American women had the highest levels of stress-associated body chemicals—higher than both white women and black men. The researchers concluded that “persistent racial differences in health may be influenced by the stress of living in a race-conscious society. These effects may be felt particularly by black women because of [the] double jeopardy of gender and racial discrimination.” Deeply ingrained stereotypes about women and people of color are literally killing black women. I recently saw a sign that said “White Silence Is Violence.” As a white woman, I urge other whites to take action:
  • Become aware of the deeply ingrained stereotypes in our society about people of color.
  • Become aware of our own unconscious bias and white privilege and talk with other white people about what you are learning.
  • Watch for and speak out when you see discrimination or unfair treatment of a person in any minority group.
Change starts with each of us, and our society will change when we change.   Photo courtesy of James Palinsad (CC BY-SA 2.0)]]>

The Women of Nike Force Change

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The women of Nike, the sportswear company, got tired of their complaints to human resources about sexual harassment and discrimination falling on deaf ears. The women experienced retribution for filing complaints, and several high-level women left the company, sharing that they left because of frustration with the toxic company culture that they could not influence. So the women of Nike took matters into their own hands—and the public saw another example of employees bringing about change that would not have happened otherwise. Julie Creswell, Kevin Draper, and Rachel Abrams, writing for the New York Times, report that after years of complaining to human resources and seeing no evidence of change or accountability for bad behavior within the company, a group of women decided to covertly survey their female peers, “inquiring whether they had been the victim of sexual harassment and gender discrimination.” Those who had a complaint or a story to tell completed a questionnaire, sharing shocking and frustrating anecdotes:

  • Explanations from several high-level women about why they had exited the company, including a pattern of watching men get promoted while equally or better qualified women were passed over.
  • A range of stories about demeaning behavior toward women, such as male superiors referring to women using a vulgar term for women’s genitals or being called a “stupid bitch” by a boss.
  • Stories of women being excluded from the inner circle of mostly male decision makers.
  • Examples of a culture belittling to women where male supervisors openly discussed their favorite strip clubs during work outings.
  • The story of a senior manager who mentioned a female employee’s breasts in an email to her.
  • The story of a manager who kept magazines on his desk with scantily clad women on the cover and bragged about his supply of condoms.
In most of the examples above, the women recounted going to human resources to file a complaint or ask for action to punish the offender. More often than not, human resource managers told these women that they were wrong or that corrective action would be taken—but it never was. In some cases after a complaint was filed, the offender was promoted and the woman complaining was laid off. Finally, when the package of completed questionnaires was put on the desk of the CEO by the women, things started to change. Several top male executives exited over the next few weeks, including the head of diversity and inclusion, and the exits are continuing. A major overhaul is taking place of the human resources processes and internal systems for reporting sexual harassment and discrimination. Nike is a huge company but huge companies can change quickly if the right kind of pressure is applied from within and made public. And clearly, without pressure change does not happen. Thanks to the women of Nike for taking the risk to tell their stories.   Photo courtesy of perzon seo (CC BY 2.0)]]>

Will Shame Close the Gender Pay Gap in Britain?

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Britain’s new law requiring all companies with 250 or more employees to publically report their salary data and identify their gender pay gaps went into effect in April 2018. The gaps identified surprised no one: gender-based pay disparities exist at a vast majority of businesses, and often by a wide margin, according to Liz Alderman of the New York Times. A number of Western countries have recently taken similar steps with requiring gender gap reporting, operating from the same assumption that transparency and shame will force change. Gaps exist at some notable British companies:

  • At Goldman Sachs women are paid an average of 56 percent less than men.
  • At easyJet men outearn women by 52 percent.
  • At WPP, the British advertising giant, women take home, on average, around one-quarter less.
  • Mills & Reeve, a British law firm, pays women an average of 32 percent less than men.
Alderman reports that while supporters of the new British reporting regulations acknowledge that shame and transparency alone are not likely to solve the pay gap problem, a recent study, “by the accounting firm PwC predicts that if nothing is done, it could take nearly a century for the divide to close entirely.” British regulators assume that transparency will create pressure on companies to address the pay gap. Alderman notes that one study reported by Jake Rosenfeld and Patrick Denice of Washington University found that transparency raised wages, in part because becoming aware of the pay disparity helped change organizational norms. While several Western countries, including Britain, Germany, the Nordic countries, and Australia have mandated gender pay gap reporting, the United States has taken steps backward. In 2017, the Trump administration rolled back reporting requirements put in place by an Obama-era initiative to close the pay gap. Women in the United States can take their own action:
  • Follow the example of British women who started a #PayMeToo campaign on Twitter to encourage employees to talk about how much they are paid.
  • Start their own collection of salary information within their companies and publish it to put pressure on their organization to close the pay gap.
  • Demand that their legislators pass laws at the state and federal levels to bring about transparency.
  • Vote for candidates who care about the gender pay gap.
Women are not going to receive equal pay for the same work as men unless we raise our voices and keep the pressure on.   Photo courtesy of Henry Hemming (CC BY 2.0)]]>

How Women Are Changing Mainstream Politics

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Women are running for office in record numbers since the 2016 election. Michael Tackett of the New York Times writes that Clinton’s loss triggered not only a surge of female candidates but also a surge of young women managing campaigns and “reshap[ing] a profession long dominated by men.” Many women running for office want female campaign managers who will shape winning messages and plan bold platforms and strategies. Tackett reports that this year, 40 percent of campaign managers for Democratic congressional candidates are women—a dramatic increase from the negligible numbers counted in a 2010 study conducted by Rutger’s University Center for American Women and Politics. Many of the campaign messages produced so far this year by both Republican and Democratic women are changing the rules of politics. Stephanie Ebbert of the Boston Globe notes that “running like a man often doesn’t work” for women. Women candidates are throwing caution to the wind and, according to Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, are “running very boldly.” For example:

  • One Republican congresswoman running for the Senate told her party in a campaign ad to “grow a pair of ovaries.”
  • Two Democratic candidates for governor have created ads to pitch their candidacies while breast-feeding on camera.
  • A Democratic woman asked in her campaign ad, “Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting?”
  • The Vote Me Too PAC is running ads that say, “51 percent of our population has vaginas. 81 percent of members of Congress don’t have vaginas. [This] leads to a culture where sexual discrimination and sexual violence are tolerated.”
Ebbert quotes Kelley Ditmas, assistant professor of political science at Rutgers University, who says that women are touting “their gender as a value-added, as a credential, as one among many merits that they bring to office-holding.” Susan Chira of the New York Times writes that women running for office are using motherhood not just as a credential but also as a weapon in some of the following ways:
  • They tell their own wrenching stories of sick children and their fears for them as they watch their government attack healthcare.
  • They tout their experiences with motherhood helping them to hone the skill of multitasking, which will help them cut through the gridlock in Congress.
  • They tell stories of their fears of gun violence in their children’s neighborhoods and schools as they support gun control measures.
  • In one campaign ad where the candidate was breast-feeding on camera, she linked her work as a state legislator to a bill she helped pass to ban BPA from baby bottles.
As part of the record-breaking surge of women running for office, Julie Turkewitz of the New York Times notes that a historic number of Native American women are running for elective office. No Native American woman has ever served in the U.S. Congress. Four are running for Congress and many more are running for seats in state government. This surge is partly the result of liberal energy unleashed by the 2016 election, the #MeToo movement, and a broader move of Native Americans into mainstream politics in recent years. Turkewitz shares the story of Deb Haaland of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, a Native American woman running for office. Haaland argues that many of the issues affecting native communities, such as low wage jobs, violence against women, and access to safe and affordable healthcare, affect everyone. In several states, the Native American population is large enough to sway elections. Having more women in elected office can create great change as issues concerning women gain more support. These are exciting times to support women candidates. Let’s encourage everyone to vote in primaries and the November elections.   Photo courtesy of Chris Tse (CC BY-ND 2.0)]]>

Sexual Harassment: New Research on the Numbers

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The #MeToo Movement has surprising momentum and appears to be reshaping our national dialogue and workplace cultures—at last! It seems that every week we read about high profile men (and some women) getting fired for sexual harassment. Almost every organization I work with as a consultant reports firing or disciplining employees in a variety of roles and levels for sexual harassment. Sexual harassment has been in the news at various times in the past, including in 1991 when Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his Senate confirmation hearing. But we have not been able to grasp the seriousness of the problem as a society, “believe the women” bringing accusations, or undertake research that can help us understand the depth and breadth of the problem. Susan Chira of the New York Times cites Holly Kearl, author of an important new study, as explaining why we must take this problem seriously: “Sexual harassment is a human rights violation—whether it takes place on the sidewalk of a street or in an executive boardroom—because it can cause emotional harm and limit and change harassed persons’ lives.” I can personally attest to that. The #MeToo Movement has provided an outlet for women and men to share their stories and finally be heard. The scope of the problem fueling and sustaining the movement has finally been documented in Kearl’s study. This study asks about a broader range of behaviors in multiple locations, not just in the workplace, over a longer time span and provides a clearer picture of the pervasiveness of this problem than we have had to date. Previous studies had a narrower focus, such as only in the workplace, only about rape or assault, or only during a narrow band of age, and did not give the whole picture. Chira notes that this well-designed study asked a nationally representative sample of one thousand women and one thousand men about verbal harassment, sexual touching, cyber sexual harassment, being followed on the street, genital flashing, and sexual assault in public spaces, in workplaces, in schools, online, and in homes. The findings from this study highlight the extent of this problem:

  • Eighty-one percent of women and 43 percent of men said they had experienced sexual harassment or assault over their lifetimes.
  • Seventy-seven percent of women and 34 percent of men said they had encountered verbal sexual harassment.
  • Fifty-one percent of women and 17 percent of men reported unwelcome sexual touching.
  • Forty-one percent of women and 22 percent of men said they were sexually harassed online.
  • About a third of women and one in ten men reported being physically followed, while 30 percent of women and 12 percent of men experienced genital flashing.
  • Twenty-seven percent of women and 7 percent of men reported sexual assaults.
  • Few differences were found by race or ethnicity among women who reported harassment. Hispanic men reported the most sexual harassment and assault in every category the survey recorded for men.
  • People who reported having a disability were much more likely to experience sexual harassment and assault.
  • Lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men were more likely to experience sexual assault than straight women and men.
Thanks to studies like this one, we can finally have an informed dialogue about the need for strategies to address this problem and stop it from being swept under the rug again. Let’s keep the pressure on for change.   Photo courtesy of Giuseppe Milo (CC BY 2.0)]]>

How Gender Bias in Medicine Affects Women’s Health: A Book Review

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Doing Harm by Maya Dusenbery, a new book recently reviewed in the New York Times by Parul Sehgal, is a rich collection of studies and statistics that reveal sexism at every level of medicine. Sehgal notes that the core message of the author is that the ancient distrust of women to be reliable narrators of their own experiences or their bodily pain is linked to the current “believe women” moment we are in as more speak out in the “Me Too” movement. The author also points out that this suppression of women’s voices is linked to how frequently women get interrupted in meetings and how rarely women are quoted as experts. Women’s voices are ignored or belittled and, in addition to the other challenges we face, this dynamic impacts our ability to get good medical care. Dusenbery offers multiple examples to make her point:

  • Women with abdominal pain wait in emergency rooms for sixty-five minutes compared to forty-nine minutes for men.
  • Young women are seven times more likely to be sent home from the hospital while in the middle of a heart attack.
  • Doctors rarely communicate (or understand) how drugs from aspirin to antidepressants affect women and men differently.
  • Autoimmune disorders have been understudied because a majority of the patients are women.
  • Women are consistently undertreated for pain: male patients are given pain relief while women are given sedatives and told their pain is emotional.
  • For women of color, especially black women, the situation is worse. Black patients are twenty-two times less likely to get any kind of pain relief in emergency rooms.
Sehgal suggests that the solution is not more female doctors because female doctors can have implicit bias, too. The best action we can take is to speak out about sexist and paternalistic experiences we have with doctors. We must share our stories. We can also put pressure on medical professionals to study women’s health. And we have to insist on having our voices heard. I remember when my mother kept going to her doctor and complaining that she “didn’t feel right.” The doctor told her that older women often experience aches and pains and sent her home. But my mother knew something was wrong and she kept going back to the doctor and insisting on tests. Finally, they listened to her and she was, in fact, about to have a massive heart attack. She needed open-heart bypass surgery. She saved her own life by refusing to be ignored. We must not allow ourselves to be silenced.   Photo courtesy of Wellcome Images (CC BY 4.0)]]>

Could the Ban on Asking about Past Salaries Backfire for Women?

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Recent changes in laws in New York, California and Delaware that were designed to end the gender pay gap by forbidding employers from asking about previous salary when interviewing candidates during the hiring process may have unintended negative consequences. Noam Scheiber of the New York Times writes that conscious and unconscious bias can still be at play and might even make the gender pay gap worse:

  • When employers cannot ask about salary, they might assume that a woman will accept less than a man and offer a particularly low salary.
  • Some employers offer a very low salary when they cannot ask about salary history and assume that applicants will speak up if they previously made significantly more. This can leave women worse off because they tend to be more reluctant to bargain than men.
It will take some time before we have enough data from these changes in the law to know their impact for sure. What does not bode well, though, are some recent studies reported by Scheiber on the impact of laws in some cities and states prohibiting employers from asking about criminal records during the job application process. These studies found that employers appeared to assume that young black and Hispanic men were more likely to have criminal records—and they hired fewer of them once the new policies were in place. It is too early to have any long-term results of these new salary laws, but we must keep trying ways to close this stubborn gender gap. Transparency or required reporting from companies on salary gaps determined by race and gender (at least) may still be the best avenue to pursue in terms of public accountability to close the pay gaps. Let’s keep the pressure on.   Photo courtesy of mohamed_hassan (CC0 1.0)]]>