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Attitudes toward female professionals: A unique perspective
4 comments- TAGS:women
- IT TOPICS:Management
I received an e-mail yesterday in response to my two most recent Editor's Notes about the dismissive attitude that female IT professionals all too often encounter ("Getting Old, Indeed" and "Using Women"). The reader, who asked to remain anonymous, wrote from the perspective of a male IT project manager whose wife has earned at least twice his salary for 15 years. Here is the full text of his e-mail:
Well, your last two "Editor's Notes" have certainly provided a lot of fodder for discussion, haven't they?
I'm in an interesting position as my better half is the executive in the family and she has consistently out-earned me by at least a 2:1 factor for the last 15 years. In fact, as her remuneration is now approaching seven figures, I'm starting to work more and more on my golf game! She is in another male-dominated industry (Oil & Gas) while I've been in IT project manager positions.
This has given me a perspective that most males don't get to see. I believe the attitudes you heard in your responses show that men aren't consciously derailing women's careers, but we've moved onto the subconscious stage of this battle. Women, as you correctly point out, are now able to work in every job out there, short of fatherhood and priesthood (at least Catholic). However, working a job and feeling fulfilled, paid the same or accepted in it, are very different things.
My better half recently delivered a speech that addressed "Women in Leadership," and her research led her to an article in the Harvard Business Review (I believe the September '07 edition). This article pointed out that women aren't fighting to enter the workforce, but they are losing the battle on the way up the corporate ladder. And I believe the attitudes you witnessed are a big part of the problem. The article cited a couple of incredible statistics. One was that at corporate entry level it's about 48% / 52% women/men. Even through entry management it's still women in the 40% range and men in the 60% range. But get to executive management and C-level jobs and all of a sudden it's single digits for women and 90%+ for men. And at the CEO level for the S&P 500 it's 2% female.
Combine this with research that shows that corporations with three or more women in the executive suite have outperformed male-dominated companies by 20%-30% over the last 10 years (sorry, can't remember the source for that one). Which, of course, argues for more inclusion, but what my better half has seen over the years is that the top of most corporate cultures will allow some women, but the "good 'ol boys club" still calls the shots, many of these decisions being made outside of work events (drinks, golf, etc.) that the women aren't invited to. The article also stated that having one or two women in an area can be counterproductive; when the number reaches three or more, the women become significantly more influential, so having token women in higher positions really doesn't solve the problem, either.
However, the one telling statistic was an experiment done in '68 where essays were sent to graders at several colleges. Multiple copies of the essays were used, with the only difference being a male or female name attached as the writer. The results showed that the male-headed essays were consistently graded higher than the identical essay with a female name attached (except, ironically, when the topic was of a feminine nature). This experiment was recently redone as part of the Harvard Business Review article. Guess what, the results were statistically identical to the '68 version! So conscious attitudes have changed significantly since the 60's but subconscious ones are still stuck where they were.
So, from my perspective, what you saw at the ITXpo 2007 isn't unusual, but it is a total indifference to gender issues that pervades many companies. A few companies are "getting it" and one can assume that by including in a meaningful way the other 50% of the workforce they will prosper. I think what you discovered in your Note is that there needs to be more education to show people how different styles can achieve greater results (and I'm assuming that mostly men responded, but I wouldn't be surprised if some were women as other studies have shown that women are also harder on women leaders than on men leaders).
I'm not sure this would be a sign of progress, but maybe next year, Vanco will have two scantily-dressed men boxing (who are also models, so the same talent level as this year's participants). It would be interesting to hear your readers' reactions to that! Unfortunately, I can see hundreds of homophobic messages coming your way, so on second thought ...
Sorry this is such a long missive, but as a male, I've witnessed first hand the attitudes expressed to you and, well, you have to hope that someday people will recognize talent for what it is: talent. Not black talent, not female talent, not tall grey haired white male talent or whatever, just plain great talent. Here's hoping.
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