emotions

New York Times in April 2013, entitled “Women in a Man’s World,” female executives on Wall Street were interviewed and asked why so few women had made it to the senior ranks. In interview after interview, the female executives blamed themselves for not trying to change the status quo. One of the executives, Irene Dorner, the chief executive of HSBC USA, explained that throughout her career she had “kept her head down, focusing on her own career.” She acknowledged that she and the other female executives in the financial industry had not been very good role models and had not spoken out or complained about misogynistic comments and discriminatory practices. The executive women interviewed for the New York Times article were usually the only women at their levels in their companies. Having limited spaces at the top means that the few women who are there can’t change things alone, so the status quo can continue undisturbed. The junior women in a company may believe a senior woman is choosing not to do anything to help other women when the truth is that the senior woman may feel that her hands are tied. The pressure for lone women who make it to the top to keep their focus on proving themselves to the men, while not being perceived as threatening, is intense. An excerpt from my book, New Rules for Women, available at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982056982/).]]>

You see the successful women as your competition. You don’t really see the whole pie or all the people out there as your competition. I think it’s easier to compete one on one with a woman than with a man. Scholars have described the mind-set reflected by Cherry and Laurie as “a dearth mentality,” or the feeling that there is not enough to go around. This mind-set could explain why we can sometimes feel that other women are our competition. Marissa, a white government supervisor in her fifties, explained:

Very sadly, I see it a lot in the upper levels of government that women try to do each other in. Women, when they are promoted, will tend to be appointed at the lower end of the salary scale for their position, while the men almost always come in at the top of the scale. Women will try to do each other in at that upper level if another woman starts at a higher salary than they did. You certainly don’t want some other woman doing better than you.

You’re playing a game with men because there are no women at the top—so you can’t get too buddy-buddy with women because that takes away from your ability to climb the corporate ladder. She went on to explain that because there are few women at the top, men need to see you as a team player. In other words, they need to feel comfortable that you are going to be able to fit in as “one of the boys” and will not threaten the established order. Shantel, another research participant, explained why she does not participate in women’s support activities at her company:

I work in a very male-dominated profession, and my goal is to learn to operate within that environment. I have trouble being interested in “the women’s this” and “the women’s that” because my life is focused on how can I get recognized and rewarded by the guys.