"The survey, conducted early this year, found a bonanza of stereotypes among those polled, with many using the optional comment section to label women "moody," "bitchy," "gossipy" and "emotional." The most popular term for woman, used 347 times, was "catty."
This is an excerpt from an excellent article on MSN.com, and the findings detailed within demonstrate, at least to me, that feminism hasn't won the fight yet. Men are still being perceived as better, more efficient leaders, and these stereotypes are, unfortunately, harbored by people of both sexes. Women are internalizing these (untrue) stereotypes, which diminishes their confidence in themselves and in other women in the workplace.
Luckily, researchers agree that the attitudes regarding women and leadership don't accurately reflect women's leadership abilities; numerous studies have shown that men and women are on par when it comes to leadership within the workplace. However, the perceptions are where the problem lies: When asked which gender would be a more effective leader, males were preferred by more than a 2-1 margin by both men and women — even though women got high marks for being problem solvers and providing more supportive work environments.
Yes, we've got aways to go. Equality won't truly have been achieved until people refuse to base their decisions on outdated stereotypes, and instead focus on the person themselves, regardless of their gender.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Men Rule; At Least in the Workplace
There are still few women in the corner office today, and the numbers appear to be declining. Our survey sheds light on one obstacle blocking women from the boardroom: negative attitudes about women leaders — attitudes women themselves still harbor."
Posted by Amanda at 9:17 AM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This is something I see a lot, at least anecdotally. Some of the most competent women I know have trouble viewing themselves in leadership positions, let alone other women.
It's a difficult scenario. On one hand, people can't help but internalize the world around them, and a lot of our actions and reactions are learned responses.
On the other hand, we each individually choose how we react to things and perceive ourselves. If you choose to perscibe a strength or shortcoming to yourself because of something you have no control over (gender, race, etc.), that's your own deal.
Example: I'm overweight, but my conveniently ingrained male over-confidence is happy to view myself as the buff 19-year I once was, and act accordingly. While this probably increases my chances of dying of heart disease, the resulting self-assuredness keeps getting me promoted. Go figure.
I'm disturbed by quotes like this: “I think that women, part of our DNA, is we have an inner critic,” Cornish says. “When we see other women be successful it causes us to feel even worse of our inability to rise to our own potential. Therefore we want to bring that other person back down to our level.”
That's fucked up. Seriously. Women have an uphill battle if you've got "The Man" keeping you down along with that kind of in-fighting.
The issue is another interesting example where what's right (equality) tends to work against what benefits me (undeserved gender based promotions, I suppose). Being a white male is a weirdly double edged sword in that respect.
Pragmatically, I've worked for women most of my career, and found it to be about the same as working for men, except lunch time chatter was a little less about sports and more about movies. I still fail to see how why my superiors' reproductive capacity matters to my job.
Also worth noting that the articles does say that more than half of the respondants said a person's sex makes no difference to leadership abilities. That's decent progress from what I would have expected 20 years ago.
In the meantime, I'm doing my best to instill the whole confidence thing in my daughters, even it does make them "bitchy" or "controlling". Work on the next generation. There's a whole movement of folks with the same principles. Interesting stuff. And since I'm self-referential to no end, I'll plug an earlier mildly-related rant of mine over here. :)
You make some very valid points, and for the most part, I agree wholeheartedly. However, while I agree that to some extent, we individually choose how to react to things and perceive ourselves, it's almost impossible not to perceive yourself according to the world's view of you, which makes it even more of an uphill battle (I know you touched on this, as well). I don't think anyone WANTS to say, "Hey, I'm a woman, I suck at leadership," but they can't help but get those subliminal messages from their own workplaces, other women, and even movies and media, even though those stereotypes are not true.
And yes, I'm glad that more than half had no preference at all, but I wish that absolutely ZERO had no preference! :) However, I realize this is probably an unrealistic goal. Still worth fighting for, though.
And I loved this comment: "I still fail to see how why my superiors' reproductive capacity matters to my job." Concise, to the point, and oh-so-true. And I'm glad you're passing this on to your daughters!
Post a Comment