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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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 3
In the natural order, women
are uniquely endowed for
domesticity and nurture.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 4
In the natural order, men are
presumed to be uniquely
endowed for leadership;
women are not.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 5
• Males are dominant and natural
leaders
• Females are submissive and natural
followers.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 6
“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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 9
“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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 10
Female power is very contrary
to our understanding of the
natural order of things.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 11
“It’s not chivalry, it’s just that
females have the upper hand”
Dr. Amy Parish
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 14
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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 15
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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 16
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.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 18
• 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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 19
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,
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 21
• 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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 22
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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 35
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.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 36
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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 38
‖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.‖
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 39
Lessons Learned
She ―could not successfully
juggle the increasing — and
often competing —duties of
gubernatorial candidate, chief
executive, and mother‖.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 41
In the 1970s
Sirimavo Bandaranaike Indira Gandhi Golda MeirIsabel Peron
Elisabeth Domitien Margaret Thatcher
Simone Weil
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 42
In the 1980s
Vigdis Finnbogadottir Gro Harlem Brundtland Milka Planinc
Corazon Aquino Benazir Bhutto
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 43
In the 1990s
Mary Robinson Violeta Chamorro Carmen Lawrence
Rita Johnston Khaleda Zia Edith Cresson
Hanna Suchocka
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 44
Michelle Bachelet
Chile
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
Liberia
Angela Merkel
Germany
In the 2000s
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 46
Business
Growing numbers of
women in management,
but not at the highest
levels.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 47
1. Women don’t want powerful careers
2. Women who have obtained power,
drop out
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 49
• 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.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 51
• 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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 52
Patricia Russo
Chairman, Chief Executive,
Lucent Technologies
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 53
No mention was made of the
obvious --
women can clearly lead
successfully in highly
competitive business
environments.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 54
-Patricia Sellers, Power: Do
women really want it.
Fortune, October 13, 2003.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 56
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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 57
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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 58
Maybe women don’t have what it
takes for leadership:
• Hormones
• Brains
• Motivation
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 59
One way out of the paradox is
to see women who succeed
as ―unfeminine‖.
• unlikable
• aggressive
• intimidating
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 60
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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 61
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.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 63
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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 64
Using elaborate performance
evaluations of executives,
researchers found that women
got higher ratings than men on
almost every skill measured.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 65
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.‖
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 66
―Women are scoring higher on
almost every thing we look at‖
according to an industrial
psychologist who led a major
study.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 67
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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 68
If women are so great, why
aren’t there more of them
running major companies?
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 70
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?
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 71
How do evaluators assign
responsibility for work products
produced by teams?
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 72
Men are perceived stereotypically
as agentic, possessing traits such
as:
• ambition
• confidence
• self-sufficiency
• dominance, and
• assertiveness
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 73
Women, in contrast, are
considered to be communal,
possessing traits such as:
• kindness
• helpfulness
• concern for others
• warmth, and
• gentleness
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 74
These gender stereotypes are
pervasive, and they affect evaluative
behavior, especially when situations
are ambiguous.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 75
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.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 77
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.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 78
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
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 79
Group-level feedback creates
ambiguity about each
member’s contribution.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 80
8.13 8.22
7.29
5.64
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Com
pete
nce
Individual Feedback Group Feedback
%
&
%
%
&
&
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.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 81
7.20
6.40 6.13 4.73
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Le
ad
ers
hip
Individual Feedback Group Feedback%
&
% % &&
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.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 82
Whenever it was possible to
attribute responsibility to men,
it was so attributed.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 83
―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)
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 84
Male and female evaluators did
not differ in their ratings of any
of the three measures.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 85
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.
4th Annual Iowa Women’s Leadership Summit 86
• 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