Women, Leadership, and the Natural Orderrepo.library.upenn.edu/.../2/wc34yd4a9zs7mq0c/1/Gender,_Leadership.pdfLeadership, and the Natural Order Rosalind Chait Barnett, ... Sirimavo

4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 1

Gender,

Leadership, and the

Natural Order

Rosalind Chait Barnett, Ph.D.

Community, Families & Work Program

Women’s Studies Research Center

Brandeis University

4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit

Friday, April 25, 2008, Iowa State University


Belief in the

Natural Order of Things


In the natural order, women

are uniquely endowed for

domesticity and nurture.


In the natural order, men are

presumed to be uniquely

endowed for leadership;

women are not.


• Males are dominant and natural

leaders

• Females are submissive and natural

followers.


“we have a tendency to see every

instance that confirms our stereotype

and we filter out all the

counterexamples.”

Diane Halpern, Ph.D.

Claremont-McKenna College


Chimpanzees


Bonobos


“Not everybody’s

comfortable with the idea

that arguably our last

common ancestor might

have been matriarchal,

maybe sort of aggressive

towards males”

Amy Parish, Ph.D., University of

Southern California biologist and

scientific advisor to the Bonobo

Conservation Initiative


Female power is very contrary

to our understanding of the

natural order of things.


“It’s not chivalry, it’s just that

females have the upper hand”

Dr. Amy Parish


Power Games


1. Politics

2. Business

Domains of leadership


Woman audacious enough to seek political power

are routinely dogged by gender-specific coverage

that focuses on their looks, fashion sense, familial

relationships and other feminizing details that have

nothing to do with their expertise.

Pozner, J. L. (2005, November 8). Commander in chic. Tom Paine Common Sense Retrieved

November 29, 2005, from http://www.tompaine.com/print/commander_in_chic.php

Women in Politics


Media Description of Harriet Miers

• Likes to play tennis, run, and take in a movie

• Not somebody who is a gossip

• Always remembers everybody’s birthday

• Her royal blue suit shined with a brooch her mother gave her

• Workaholic


If the media doesn’t focus on

candidates’ positions and on the

issues but only on their looks, it is

easy to dismiss them as credible

leaders.


Condoleezza Rice


• Her dress size is between a 6 and an 8

• Gushes Southern charm

• Captivating – without ever appearing

confessional or vulnerable

• She has a girlish laugh


The mind searches for ways to put it all

into context. It turns to fiction, to

caricature. To shadowy daydreams.

Dominatrix! It is as though sex and power

can only co-exist in a fantasy. When a

woman combines them in the real world,

stubborn stereotypes have her power

devolving into a form that is purely sexual.

Givhan, R. (2005, February 25). Condoleezza Rice's Commanding Clothes. Washington Post,


Elizabeth Dole


• Over-ambitious, tailoring her ideology to the

need to advance her career

• Chilly, nasty, ―syrupy‖ Southern accent

• Pearl chokers and color-coordinated outfit

• Too feminine

• Rehearsed, scripted, robotic, controlled, frozen,

a ―Stepford wife‖

• Speaking style was dubbed ―Tammy Faye Baker

meets the Home Shopping Network‖

• Speculation about her sex life and her hairdo


This sort of media marginalization reinforces

the regressive notion that women are more

emotional, less knowledgeable, less

qualified to lead – and, by proxy, less

electable – than their male counterparts.

Pozner, J. L. (2005, November 8). Commander in chic. Tom Paine Common Sense Retrieved

November 29, 2005, from http://www.tompaine.com/print/commander_in_chic.php

Media Marginalization



Politics 2008



Humanizing HillaryBoston Globe

v


Hard edge

shrill

queen of mean

cackle

v



v


v



Abreast of ageing

The Times (London)

v


4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 34Jane Swift

Governor of Massachusetts


Headlines read:

Campaigning for Office on the Mommy Track

The Year of the Stork

An Announcement: Candidate has Baby;

Massachusetts Delivers

A Mommy Track Derails, Mama’s Delicate

Condition

Jane Swift: Motherhood in the

Massachusetts Governor’s Office.


2001, the governor of Rhode Island was laid up at home for more than a month, recovering from surgery for prostate cancer. No one demanded he surrender his powers.

As one journalist asked: ‖Who knows how many male governors

have children, or who takes care of them?‖

Cellucci’s predecessor, Bill Weld, was often criticized for spending lots of time away from work. In Weld’s words, ‖Getting to be governor is the hardest part, I used to go on vacation for a week at a time and I wouldn’t even call in.‖

Swift’s predecessor, Governor Paul Cellucci underwent heart surgery while in office.

Moreover, these two were men with their fingers on the proverbial button.

Dwight Eisenhower suffered a heart attack, a bout with ileitis,

and a minor stroke.

Ronald Reagan recuperated from a gunshot wound while president.

v


What was the real situation?


‖Does anybody know why they are

following me?‖

One boy ventured the answer,

‖Because they want to know what you

stand for?‖

An amused Swift responded, ―I only

wish that were true. It’s because I am

pregnant and all of these guys think

that it’s a great big deal.‖


Lessons Learned

She ―could not successfully

juggle the increasing — and

often competing —duties of

gubernatorial candidate, chief

executive, and mother‖.


Female Heads of State


In the 1970s

Sirimavo Bandaranaike Indira Gandhi Golda MeirIsabel Peron

Elisabeth Domitien Margaret Thatcher

Simone Weil


In the 1980s

Vigdis Finnbogadottir Gro Harlem Brundtland Milka Planinc

Corazon Aquino Benazir Bhutto


In the 1990s

Mary Robinson Violeta Chamorro Carmen Lawrence

Rita Johnston Khaleda Zia Edith Cresson

Hanna Suchocka


Michelle Bachelet

Chile

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

Liberia

Angela Merkel

Germany

In the 2000s



Business

Growing numbers of

women in management,

but not at the highest

levels.


1. Women don’t want powerful careers

2. Women who have obtained power,

drop out


Brenda Barnes


• May have made the choice of a new

generation: personal interests over

professional ones.

• The news sent shockwaves through

company boardrooms.

• Companies may be forced to change their

corporate cultures.


Brenda Barnes


• Secretary of Labor Robert Reich

• Talk Show Host Phil Donahue

• Governor Paul Cellucci

• House Speaker Newt Gingrich

• Senators Fred Thompson, Phil Gramm

• Representative Joe Scarborough

Prominent Men Who Have

Left Their Jobs


Patricia Russo

Chairman, Chief Executive,

Lucent Technologies


No mention was made of the

obvious --

women can clearly lead

successfully in highly

competitive business

environments.


-Patricia Sellers, Power: Do

women really want it.

Fortune, October 13, 2003.


Research data on women

and leadership


According to a 2003 study by Catalyst,

women today cite the same barriers to

senior leadership levels as women did

way back in 1966:

• lack of managerial experience

• exclusion from informal networks

• stereotyping

• preconceptions of women’s roles and

abilities


Many theories:

• women are channeled into HR positions and have little profit and loss or line responsibilities that are critical for advancement

• persistent discrimination – often hard to quantify


Maybe women don’t have what it

takes for leadership:

• Hormones

• Brains

• Motivation


One way out of the paradox is

to see women who succeed

as ―unfeminine‖.

• unlikable

• aggressive

• intimidating


Research studies:

1. In general, studies conducted with

samples of college students tend to show

that men are given higher ratings than

women in leadership abilities.

Ratings in these cases, not surprisingly,

reflect gender stereotypes


2. When the study participants are

employees who have had actual

experience working for male and female

managers, the findings are very different,

In comparisons of men and women leaders

in organizational settings, few gender

differences in leadership abilities or style

emerge.



By and large, several studies show

that women executives, when rated

by peers, subordinates, and bosses,

score higher than their male

counterparts on a wide variety of

measures including:

• producing high-quality work

• goal setting

• mentoring employees


Using elaborate performance

evaluations of executives,

researchers found that women

got higher ratings than men on

almost every skill measured.


Although the gender differences

were small and sometimes men

earned higher marks than

women, ―overall, female

executives were judged more

effective than their male peers.‖


―Women are scoring higher on

almost every thing we look at‖

according to an industrial

psychologist who led a major

study.


WHERE FEMALE EXECS DO BETTER: A SCORECARDNone of the studies set out to find gender differences. They stumbled on them

while compiling and analyzing performance evaluations.

Sharpe, R. (2000, November 20). As leaders, women rule: New studies find that female managers outshine their

male counterparts in almost every measure. Business Week, 75-84.

SKILL (Each X denotes which group

scored higher on the respective studies)

MEN EQUAL WOMEN

MOTIVATING OTHERS X X X X X

FOSTERING COMMUNICATION X* X X X

PRODUCING HIGH-QUALITY WORK X X X X X

STRATEGIC PLANNING X X X* X

LISTENING TO OTHERS X X X X X

ANALYZING ISSUES X X X* X

*In one study, women's and men's scores in these categories were statistically even


If women are so great, why

aren’t there more of them

running major companies?



Are there conditions at work under

which women are given less credit

for the success they achieve when

they work jointly on tasks with

male colleagues?


How do evaluators assign

responsibility for work products

produced by teams?


Men are perceived stereotypically

as agentic, possessing traits such

as:

• ambition

• confidence

• self-sufficiency

• dominance, and

• assertiveness


Women, in contrast, are

considered to be communal,

possessing traits such as:

• kindness

• helpfulness

• concern for others

• warmth, and

• gentleness


These gender stereotypes are

pervasive, and they affect evaluative

behavior, especially when situations

are ambiguous.


Evaluators’ dilemma:

Imagine that they are confronted by

an outstanding work product completed

by a team comprised of women and

men.

The quality of the work product is

consistent with their expectations for the

men, but inconsistent with their

expectations for the women.


What are they to do?


If they give more credit for the

product’s excellence to the men than

the women, they maintain their gender

stereotypes.

But the women get less credit for

high-quality outcomes and thus their

work competence is belittled and their

task effectiveness devalued as

compared to the men with whom they

are working.


The team produced a joint product known

to be of a very high quality, and the

evaluators rated the team members in

terms of:

• competence

• degree of influence on the task

• leadership behavior


Group-level feedback creates

ambiguity about each

member’s contribution.


8.13 8.22

7.29

5.64

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2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Com

pete

nce

Individual Feedback Group Feedback

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&

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Heilman, M. E., & Haynes, M. C. (2005). No credit where credit is due: Attributional rationalization of women's

success in male-female teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(5), 905-916.


7.20

6.40 6.13 4.73

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Individual Feedback Group Feedback%

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Heilman, M. E., & Haynes, M. C. (2005). No credit where credit is due: Attributional rationalization of women's

success in male-female teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(5), 905-916.


Whenever it was possible to

attribute responsibility to men,

it was so attributed.


―Unless there was clarity about

individual contribution to the successful

group outcome, thereby precluding the

attribution of responsibility for success

to the male team member, women were

once again rated as being less

competent and as having been less

influential and less likely to take the

leadership role than were men‖. (p. 911)


Male and female evaluators did

not differ in their ratings of any

of the three measures.


Implications of the Study1. Don’t assume that every evaluation you receive is a

direct reflection of your competence.

2. Remember that gender stereotypes make it easy for managers to ―see‖ women subordinates as stereotypical members of their sex and not as individuals.

3. Be alert to the possibility that your managers may not have complete information about your contributions.

4. Be sure to make your contributions, past and present, fully known to your peers and supervisors.

5. If you feel that a male co-worker is getting more than his fair share of the credit for joint work, speak up.


• Clearly women have what it takes to be effective leaders.

• The playing field for women in politics and business is uneven. Gender stereotypes expose women’s success to more scrutiny than men’s.

• It is crucial to remember and to teach the next generation of men and women that women have held and currently hold the highest positions of power and leadership.

Overall Conclusions


Same Difference

Rosalind Barnett

and

Caryl Rivers

www.same-diff.com

Women, Leadership, and the Natural Orderrepo.library.upenn.edu/.../2/wc34yd4a9zs7mq0c/1/Gender,_Leadership.pdfLeadership, and the Natural Order Rosalind Chait Barnett, ... Sirimavo

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