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Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that challenged powerful interests, the conventional wisdom, status quo, social norms, cultural traditions, and contemporary institutions, through lectures and literature as independent women working outside the system

Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

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Page 1: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that challenged powerful interests, the conventional wisdom, status quo, social norms, cultural traditions, and contemporary institutions, through lectures and literature as independent women working outside the system

Page 2: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Barbara Kellerman, Harvard Univ. Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Leadership Studies:

“James Mac-Gregor Burns stressed the impact of intellectual leaders.”

Burns quote:“I consider thought leaders to be the most important. Is there a greater power than the power of a big idea? Is there a person with greater influence than one who can convey an idea differently?”

Page 3: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Waves of Liberation

The “first wave” of the feminist movement in the United States began in the summer of 1848 after the publication of the Declaration of Sentiments, which arose from the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY.

For the next seventy-two years, until the passage of the nineteenth amendment, the women of the first wave worked tirelessly to achieve women’s suffrage.

Page 4: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

The second wave of the women’s movement also began with a publication, of Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique.

In 1963, it catalyzed the emotions and ideas of many white, middle-class women who felt that there must be more to life than child-bearing, housework, and the purchase of consumer products.

Page 5: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Betty Friedan (1921–2006). Her book The Feminine Mystique (1963) helped change American attitudes toward women's equality, popularized the phrase "sexism" and catalyzed the modern feminist movement.

In the 1940s and 1950s she worked as a left-wing labor journalist before focusing her writing and activism on women's rights.

She co-founded the National Organization for Women in 1966 and the National Women's Political Caucus (along with Gloria Steinem, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm) in 1971.

Page 6: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

This burgeoning awareness of the need forliberation came from the experiences manywomen had as valued workers in World War IIwar industries. When the men returned fromwar, the women were pushed aside and told togo back home to the kitchen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVtgEgw15mQ

Page 7: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

“In The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedanshe pointed to a problem that had noname—thereby inspiring and triggeringthe modern women’s movement.”

In answer to Freud’s classic question, “What do women want?” Friedan proclaimed, “We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: ‘I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.’”

Page 8: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Editorial in Look magazine that devoted itsOctober 1956 issue to the American woman:

THE AMERICAN WOMAN IS WINNING THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES.

LIKE A TEENAGER, SHE IS GROWINGUP AND CONFOUNDING HER CRITICS... NO LONGER A PSYCHOLOGICAL IMMIGRANT TO THE MAN'S WORLD, SHE WORKS RATHER CASUALLY, AS A THIRD OF THEU.S LABOR FORCE, LESS TOWARDS A "BIG CAREER“ THAN AS A WAY OF FILLING A HOPE CHEST OR BUYING A NEW HOME FREEZER. SHE GRACEFULLY CONCEDES THE TOP JOBS TO MEN.

Page 9: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

This wondrous creature also marries YOUNGER than ever, bears more babies and looks and acts more feminine than the "emancipated" girl of the 1920's or even 30's.

Steelworker’s wife and Junior Leaguer alike do their own housework. Today, if she makes an old fashioned choice and lovingly tends a garden and a bumper crop of children, she rates louder hosannas than ever before.(Friedan 52)

Page 10: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

In the forty years that have passed since Friedan’s manifesto, American society has experienced a transformation in gender-related attitudes, practices, and policies. About 16 percent of Fortune 500 corporate officers are now women; that percentage has doubled over the last decade. The percent of women holding top corporate positions—executive vice-president to CEO—quadrupled during the same period, up from 2 percent to over 8 percent. Eight Fortune 500 companies have a female chief executive, compared with only two in 1995.

Page 11: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

But progress has been partial and painfully slow.

With respect to leadership, in particular, women still have a long way to go.

Almost a sixth of the Fortune 500 companies still have no female officers. Fewer than 2 percent of corporate offices are held by African-American, Asian-American, or Hispanic women.

The vast majority of women in top jobs in corporate America hold staff jobs rather than the line positions that typically produce CEOs.

In academia, women faculty members earn 14 percent less than men.

Despite four decades of equal opportunity legislation, the workforce remains segregated and stratified by gender.

Women are over-represented at the bottom and under-represented at the top, even controlling for educational qualifications.

The best-trained women are still concentrated in different kinds of jobs than men—jobs with less pay, status, and power.

As for politics and government, the United States ranks fifty-ninth in the world in electing women leaders.

Page 12: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

A recent meta analysis study (statistical method of combining the results of a number of different studies in order to provide a larger sample size for evaluation and to produce a stronger conclusion than can be provided by any single study) evaluating transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire styles of male and female leadership demonstrated:

•Female leaders more often exhibited transformational aspects of leadership and therefore were more likely to….• •Convey a vision of the future and commitment to long range plans and attendant goals that will excite and convert potential followers.

•Inspire followers’ commitment and creativity by gaining their trust and confidence.

•Help followers develop their potential by empowering and mentoring them.

•Innovate

Page 13: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

AND female leaders were more likely to engage in the contingent reward behaviors of transactional leadership:

•Incentivize success and achievement by positively recognizing followers’ satisfactory performance

Page 14: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

•Male leaders were more likely to display two other aspects of transactional leadership: •Active management by exception: attending to followers’ mistakes and failures to meet standards •Passive management by exception: waiting for problems to become severe before intervening AND more likely to exhibit laissez faire leadership •Characterized by lack of involvement and interaction with followers

Page 15: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Conclusion of Study Authors: “In view of these findings, the tendency of women to exceed men on the components of leadership style that relate positively to effectiveness (i.e., transformational leadership and the contingent reward aspect of transactional leadership) and the tendency of men to exceed women on the ineffective styles (i.e., passive management by exception and laissezfaire leadership) attest to women’s abilities.

Page 16: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Women remain underrepresented in positions of leadership in part because of the mismatch between the characteristics traditionally associated with women and the characteristics traditionally associated with leadership.

As Rakesh Khurana has observed, the “great man” model of leadership—the heroic savior—is still with us. And the term “man” is not used generically.

Although recent theories of leadership stress interpersonal qualities commonly associated with women, such as cooperation and collaboration, most qualities associated with leaders are still masculine: dominance, authority, driving ambition, unflinching decisiveness, fierce determination, etc.

Page 17: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Such expectations of leaders confront women with a double standard and a double bind. They may appear too soft, unable or unwilling to make the tough calls required in positions of greatest influence. Or if they mimic the male model, they are often viewed as strident and overly aggressive.

An overview of more than a hundred studies confirms that women are rated lower when they adopt stereotypically masculine authoritative styles, particularly when the evaluators are men or when the woman’s role is one typically occupied by men.

Since other research suggests that individuals with masculine styles are more likely to emerge as leaders than those with feminine styles, women face tradeoffs that men do not.

Even in experimental situations where male and female performances are objectively equal, women are held to higher standards, and their competence is rated lower.

Page 18: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

“Any female advantage in leadership style might be offset by disadvantage that flows from prejudice and discrimination directed against women as leaders.

…the communal qualities that people associate with women, such as warmth and selflessness, diverge from qualities, such as assertiveness, that people perceive as characteristic of successful leaders.

In contrast, the predominantly authoritative qualities that people associate with men are similar to the qualities perceived to be needed for success in high status occupations, which would include most managerialoccupations.

Stereotypes about women and men, like other stereotypes of social groups, appear to be easily and automatically activated.”

Page 19: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Is the Feminine Mystique Still With Us Today?

“Despite doubts about women’s competence as leaders, one might expect that highly agentic (assertive) female leaders would be able to overcome such difficulties. However, people may perceive women who demonstrate clear-cut leadership ability as insufficiently feminine. Thus, a female leader can be rejected because people perceive her to lack the agentic qualities associated with effective leadership or because she possesses too many of them. This rejection as ‘‘too masculine’’ results from injunctive or prescriptive gender role norms—that is, consensual expectations about what men and women ought to do—that require women to display communal (selfless) behavior and not too much agentic behavior.”

Page 20: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/theories/contingency_theory.htm#des

Friedan example of leader who was very successful in inspiring and leading grassroots movement as outside agitator but in a different situation, leading an organization like NOW, her style of leading met resistance and was not as effective-classic example of contingency theory influenced by the context of the situation

Page 21: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Successful female leaders generally work hard and seek leadership styles that do not unnecessarily elicit resistance to their authority by challenging norms dictating that women be egalitarian and supportive of others. Given these constraints, transformational leadership may be especially advantageous for women because it encompasses some behaviors that areconsistent with the female gender role’s demand for supportive, considerate behaviors.

The transformational repertoire, along with the contingent reward aspect of transactional leadership, may resolve some of the inconsistencies between the demands of leadership roles and the female gender role and therefore allow women to excel as leaders. Fortunately for women’s progress as leaders, this positive, encouraging, inspiring style appears to have generalized advantages for contemporary organizations.”

Page 22: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Fortunately for women’s progress as leaders, this positive, encouraging, inspiring (leadership) style appears to have generalized advantages for contemporary organizations.”

Style of leadership was envisioned and articulated by Mary Parker Follett in early 1900’s

Page 23: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

In an article on the topic of leadership,

Follett describes “the leadership quality” as

“the ability to organize all the forces there are in an enterprise and make them serve a common purpose.”

Page 24: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

This process creates “a group power rather than [an expression of] personal power”

(Follett in Graham, 1995, p168).

Page 25: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Follett goes on to say that the integrative process creates a situation where those that we think of as “leaders” along with

those that we might think of as “followers”

together follow “the invisible leader—the common purpose.”

Page 26: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

The best leaders “put this common purpose clearly before their group... [so] that common purpose becomes the leader”

(Follett in Graham, 1995, p. 172).

Page 27: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

.

Follett advocated giving greater responsibility to the people within the organization with the leader’s task to coordinate, define the purpose, and set the vision.

She encouraged leaders to train followers to become leaders.

Page 28: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

She encouraged leaders to train followers to become leaders and recognized the power of the individual in group settings.

Mary Parker Follett said: “I believe we shall soon think of the leader as one who can organize the experience of the group, make it available and most effectively available, and thus get the full power of the group.”

(Follett, 1941, p. 258)

(

Followers are really leaders and the great leader should aspire to be a leader of leaders

Page 29: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Rachel Carson, writer, scientist, and ecologist, grew up simply in the rural river town of Springdale, Pennsylvania. Her mother bequeathed to her a life-long love of nature and the living world that Rachel expressed first as a writer and later as a student of marine biology. Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College) in 1929, studied at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and received her MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932.She was hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to write radio scripts during the Depression and supplemented her income writing feature articles on natural history for the Baltimore Sun. She began a fifteen-year career in the federal service as a scientist and editor in 1936 and rose to become Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Page 30: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

She wrote pamphlets on conservation and natural resources and edited scientific articles, but in her free time turned her government research into lyric prose, first as an article "Undersea" (1937, for the Atlantic Monthly), and then in a book, Under the Sea-wind (1941). In 1952 she published her prize-winning study of the ocean, The Sea Around Us, which was followed by

The Edge of the Sea in 1955. These books constituted a biography of the ocean and made Carson famous as a naturalist and science writer for the public. Carson resigned from government service in 1952 to devote herself to her writing.

She wrote several other articles designed to teach people about the wonder and beauty of the living world, including "Help Your Child to Wonder," (1956) and "Our Ever-Changing Shore" (1957), and planned another book on the ecology of life. Embedded within all of Carson's writing was the view that human beings were but one part of nature distinguished primarily by their power to alter it, in some cases irreversibly.

Page 31: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

Disturbed by the profligate use of synthetic chemical pesticides after World War II, Carson reluctantly changed her focus in order to warn the public about the long term effects of misusing pesticides. In Silent Spring (1962) she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government, and called for a change in the way humankind viewed the natural world.

http://www.rachelcarson.org/

Page 32: Rachel Carson, Betty Friedan, and Mary Parker Follett were intellectual leaders who inspired and effected change by communicating their BIG ideas that

““A fanatic defender of the cult of A fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature” the balance of nature”

Title quote from the President of the Montrose Chemical Company, Manufacturer of DDTLear, L. Rachel Carson, Witness for Nature, 1997.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls-JY74M2Ik&feature=related

Priestess of nature Antihumanitarian crank Bird-lover Hysterical

“I thought she was a spinster. What’s she so worried about genetics for?”