For Everyone’s Benefit, Men Are Removing The Glass Ceiling
 
 
“Men are accelerating the women’s revolution,
because it’s good for their daughters and good for business.”
                        —Nancy Clark
 
 
I was asked recently what I thought was the major obstacle facing the working woman. There are a number of minor hurdles, but the major obstacle by far is Not Being Promoted As Fast As A Man.
 
What factors are causing this? It’s not education—women now earn 6 out of every 10 college diplomas. It’s not management skills—In Proof That Women Make Great Managers, I talked about studies that show women perform very well. It’s not family responsibilities—a woman returning from a leave to start her family does not dampen her aspirations to rise above middle management. What do the numbers show? How big is this problem?
 
Well, women are now half our workforce. You’d expect them to be half our upper management as well, but when you look at the occupants of Fortune 500’s top two tiers, fewer that 1 out of 5 are women. It appears men have a heck of a head start by being male.
 
Is this a deliberate slight to women? No, I don’t think it is. I think it’s been an oversight by men until recently. Companies are starting to ask how they can gain the loyalty of their female employees, because turnover is expensive. If you want time off to start a family, companies like IBM are willing to give a woman a sabbatical—because it saves money and earns loyalty. A company that overlooks the fact that men are on a promotion Fast Track—and women are not—will not gain the loyalty of its female employees. You can bet women know when they’re on the promotion Slow Track—it does not escape their notice. It will cost that company money and it will turn enthusiastic young women into disappointed employees within 5 years.
 
The fact that you’re the father of one of these enthusiastic young women shines a light on this problem. You begin to notice what’s happening at your company—perhaps for the first time. Take a lesson from Mike Cook of Deloitte and measure promotion rates and ask managers why they felt a woman “was not quite ready to be promoted.” This happens repeatedly because women don’t express their confidence as assuredly as men do. Let your managers know this is a behavioral difference and does not imply lesser talent.
 
Thirty years ago I never would have imagined that I’d be saying,
 
“Men are winning the women’s revolution for us—thank you.”  
 
 

Here’s the tip of the week.
 
Tip:
 
I’m advising you to make a difference for women at your company—using the words of men. Get a copy of a Harvard Business Review article by Douglas McCracken. It’s entitled Winning the Talent War for Women: Sometimes It Takes a Revolution. It’s related to the example of Mike Cook of Deloitte that I mentioned. Send a copy of the article along with an email to the highest ranking man at your company who you think has an interest in saving money. In the email, mention that if he’s interested you’d be willing to put together a taskforce of both men and women  to see if it’s possible to reduce female turnover at your company. Mention that Deloitte & Touche saves more than two million dollars a year with this strategy. It’s another win-win that’s good for women and good for business.
 
Further Reading:
 
Podcast (always less than 10 minutes), Working in Heels, by Nancy Clark, Are Women As Ambitious As Men? —Is Ambition Good For Men, And Bad For Women?
 
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Take That Interview Or Promotion Review —How To Improve Your Interviewing Skills
 
Website, WomensMedia, by Victoria Simon and Holly Pedersen,  Communicating with Men at Work —It’s Important To Recognize The Differences

 
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Tags: working, women, business, promotions, glass, ceiling

The Second Shift Is Up For Negotiation
 
 
“Men are changing when women are negotiating the second shift.”
—Nancy Clark
 
 
Richard Mbuthia says, “Housework, in all honesty, is believed by most husbands (read men) to be the sole responsibility of women. To many men, there is no doubt who should do all the housework, even daunting chores, come rain come shine–woman.”
 
When a woman comes home after a hard day at work, helping to support the family, she doesn’t have an excess of energy that’s necessary to work a second shift of housework, and possibly childcare as well. The Somewhat Good News is that for young couples, this second shift is being frequently discussed. The result is that men are helping out more. Housework is not something either a man or a woman looks forward to after a day at work, so it must be discussed—I mean negotiated—and shared.
 
The Really Good News is that young fathers often want to help with childcare—they want to be more involved in raising their children than perhaps their fathers were. They’re considering flexible schedules when selecting jobs, and they’re letting their bosses know when they want to attend school events. Two hundred men showed up at a local father-child school lunch. Ten years ago that would not have happened.
 
There’s more Good News still:  Working moms and dads are actually spending more interactive time with their children than they did in 1965 (when fewer moms were in the workforce). That goes against conventional wisdom, doesn’t it? Check out ATUS (American Time Use Survey) for the details. Women are going to work, yet children are getting more quality time, what’s the secret? The secret is that less time is spent on housework. Either homes are not as tidy as in the Father Knows Best days, or housework and cooking tasks are more efficient or are being outsourced.
 
I wasn’t kidding when I said the second shift is up for negotiation. As part of a pre-marriage discussion, who’s going to do what tasks should be discussed—perhaps in writing. Here are various scenarios (if you have others, I would appreciate if you add them to the Comments section of this blog):
 

• (Use this one if you don’t mind ending up in the second shift seriously exhausted bin.) Use traditional gender roles where the woman handles the childcare, cleaning, laundry, and cooking, and the man handles the outside work and the cars.
• Divide the tasks into two piles based on estimated hours per week. (Each week or month you’ll need to discuss if revamping is needed.)
• Assign certain tasks to days of the week for each person. (For example, he picks up the children and fixes dinner two days a week.)
• Do job-switching once in a while. It helps each person realize what the other is contributing. (It also has the added benefit of avoiding the, “Will you help me fix dinner?” which sends the message that fixing dinner is always one person’s job.)

 
 
Now if you’re a single parent (that’s one-third of households with children), you’re probably saying, “But what about me? Who’s going to help me with the housework?” The numbers show your household probably has less income, but I doubt if you have less cleaning, laundry, and cooking to do. I know you want to spend time with your children, but there’s less of that commodity available. Use a little bit of that valuable time to seriously consider my tip of the week. You need it most!
 
I have one thing to say to those of you who are single with no children: Plan, plan ahead! Situations can change quickly.
 
 
Tip of the Week:
 
I want you to make a plan for deserving and asking for a raise. Write an outline of new things you can do at work. Add a note about how you’ll make sure others—lots of others—know about your progress. Then, make an appointment with your boss to discuss “something of importance to you.” I talk about this in How To Ask For A Raise Even Though It’s Not The Perfect Time (it never is). Add to the end of you plan that you’ll use half of the additional income for help with the housework. Imagine how good that would feel! Make it happen.
 
Further Reading:
 
Podcast (always less than 10 minutes), Working in Heels, by Nancy Clark, Salary Negotiation: How To Ask For A Raise —How To Ask For A Raise Even Though Your Boss Is Presenting An Obstacle
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, How To Get A Handle On Time —Don’t Let Time Ruin Your Work-Life Balance
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Women Need To Ask! —Men Ask More, Men Get More
 
Website, WomensMedia, by Deborah M. Kolb, Judith Williams, and Carol Frohlinger, Negotiating Work/Family Issues, —Family-Friendly Workplace Policies Make Good Sense

 
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Tags: women, business, career, working, work-life, balance, second, shift

Who Says Women Can’t Do Numbers?
 
Why don’t we see girls filling half the seats in college math and science classes? And let’s include one of my favorites in the bundle as well—computer science.
 
We know from studies that boys and girls are equally interested in computers at school until about age ten. After that point, girls’ interest decreases . . . unless they’re in a girls-only school.  The same trajectory is seen for math and the physical sciences in coed classes. Now I’m not advocating separate schooling based on gender, but I want to know why this is happening. As I see it, here are the possible reasons:
 

• Girls veer away from what they think of as “boys’ courses,” or
• Boys hog the teachers’ attention in these subjects in coed classes, or
• Girls think they’ll be more attractive to boys if they dumb-down in the boys’ classes, or
• Stereotyping about what’s appropriate for girls is being picked up in most schools, or
• Maybe girls are more interested in subjects that relate more directly with people, or
• In the case of colleges, perhaps it’s because female instructors in these courses are not promoted as quickly to full professors, or 
• Perhaps it’s a combination of these factors.

When I was a physics student at Berkeley in the late 1960’s, I was well aware there were very few women in my classes. It was my belief that we’d see equal numbers of women and men by the 1980’s.  Women are capable, so what’s the problem? I have an interest in eliminating this trend, because I believe our daughters’ occupations are limited unnecessarily. On the bright side, there are things we can do. Elementary school teachers have found if they have girls’ computer classes separate from boys’, the girls stop thinking of computers as boys’ stuff. This also works well with after-school clubs. In England, a change in educational presentation worked equally well with both girls and boys. The trick is to catch the girls’ interest well before high school.
 
I profess women do not have an innate handicap when it comes to these subjects. Stanford University professors agreed in a 2005 forum that there is no evidence of innate gender differences in math and science.
 
“In fact, differences in performance between males and females have shrunk to nearly insignificant levels on most standardized tests, “ said Jo Boaler of Stanford University. “There is a huge belief that boys are better at math which is vastly out of proportion to any data that we have, yet people believe it. You go into schools and the children will tell you that.” Referring to changes in educational presentation in England, Boaler states, “When teaching approaches are changed, you get much higher rates of achievement and participation among girls and women.”
 
When women do choose to take these courses, they do as well as the men. The problem is that in the U.S. they are not choosing these fields—and this is limiting their occupational choices.
 
We have to thank Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University, for making us raise our voices when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. I profess we should look into why only 4 of 32 tenured job offers went to women at Harvard last year. Knowing that 6 out of every 10 college graduates are now women—maybe something else is hampering women’s success in the tenure process.
 
Ten years ago, Lawrence Summers’ comment would have been considered a minor misstep. It would not have reached the level of a politically incorrect gaffe. Today, times are a-changing. And to prove the point, due to an uproar, Summers stepped down from his post and the new president is Drew Faust—a woman. 
 
 
Tip:  If you live near a college or university, collect statistics on what percentage of tenured positions are offered to women. Let your news media know if you see a disparity that should be looked into. Nancy Hopkins, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began turning things around when she exposed problems in how much lab space they had granted to women compared to men. I have to hand it them—they acknowledged their mistake and expanded the investigation into other areas as well. And . . . MIT now has a new president, Susan Hockfield.
 
 
Further Reading:
 
Podcast (always less than 10 minutes), Working in Heels, by Nancy Clark, 3 Steps To Gain More Authority —Take These Steps Towards Leadership & Authority
 
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, How Successful Women Use Power —Hint, It’s Not An End In Itself
 
Website, WomensMedia, by Kimberly Wiefling,  How to Get Out of Your Own Way
—5 Strategies for Thinking Outside the Box
The New York Times, For Women in Sciences, Slow Progress in Academia, by Sara Rimer, April 15, 2005
 
Stanford University, No Evidence of Innate Gender Differences in Math and Science, Stanford Report, February 9, 2005
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Tags: women, math, science, technology, gender, differences

Those Little Put-Downs Add Up
 
 
We all recognize overt hostile behavior toward women:
 

• Using humor in a hostile manner.
• Engaging in negative body language or behavior (for example, men rolling their eyeballs) when women speak.
• Ridiculing women who raise women’s issues.

 
But what about those subtle acts that diminish women? Those very minor put-downs that happen every day? When pointed out, you’ll usually hear,  “Oh, I didn’t mean anything by that.”  Mary Rowe of Massachusetts Institute of Technology has termed these “microinequities.”  When these microinequities occur over and over, they serve to reduce a woman’s self-confidence, self-esteem, and her aspirations.
 
Bernice Sandler, the woman behind Title IX, pointed some of these subtle behaviors. You may notice these actions among your peers or, unfortunately, from your manager—male or female. If you think it might make a difference, perhaps a copy of this article should show up in your workplace. People are often unaware of their subtle actions.
 
Pay Attention to the Top 12 Put-Downs to Women in the Workplace
 

• Making less eye contact with women.
• Frowning when women speak.
• Grouping women in ways which indicate they have less status or are less capable.
• Valuing and praising women for their physical appearance, not for their intellectual ability. (This often occurs during casual introductions.)
• Responding more to men’s comments by making additional comments, coaching, and asking questions, and responding more often to women with “uh-huh.”
• Calling on males more frequently in meetings and in conversations.
• Coaching men but not women: “Tell me more about that.”
• Crediting men’s comments to their owner or “author” (”As Bill said…”) but not giving authorship or ownership to women. Sometimes a comment made by a woman is later credited to a male.
• Giving men more detailed instructions for a task.
• Giving women less feedback—less criticism, less help and less praise. (This is one of the critical ways in which women and men are treated differently.)
• Giving women less encouragement to take on harder tasks.
• Engaging in more informal conversation with men than with women.

 
 
Tip:  Is there anything you can do? Yes, you can start by noticing more often when these little put-downs occur. Decide which ones are the most damaging in your business or industry. Sit down and discuss them and possible solutions with others. Help them to become more aware. Then—and I know this may surprise you—you should discuss it with one or two men you think will want to help you. Women, along with men, can do a lot to change the business climate!
 
Further Reading: 
 
 
Listen to this Podcast (always less than 10 minutes), Working in Heels, by Nancy Clark, Gender Communication: Nature Or Nurture? —Why Do We Have Mars-Venus Communication, And Why Is Mars More Powerful?
 
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Powerful Body Language For Working Women —Women, Change Your Body Language, Change Your Message
 
Website, WomensMedia, by Debra Meyerson, Gender in Business: How You Can Handle Demeaning Comments
 
Website, Bernice Sandler, http://www.bernicesandler.com.
 
Book, by Irene Padavic and Barbara Reskin, Men and Women at Work
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