The Unsinkable Generation: How we’re going to make 2012 the best year for women in decades.
Picture Melanie Griffith in her corner office in the final scene of the 1988 movie Working Girl. Carly Simon’s “Let the River Run” blares in the background as the camera zooms out over the towering skyscrapers and possibilities for ambitious women. This scene exemplifies the optimism and empowerment workingwomen felt in the late ‘80’s and ‘90’s. For the first time, women had faith that they could advance to high-level positions just as men could.
According to November’s Economist special report, “Closing the Gap: Women and Work,” the spirit and enthusiasm of the 1990’s working woman has today turned into frustration.
2012 hasn’t marked the progress previous generations hoped for in us: only 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. In parliaments across the world only 20% of the seats go to women— 15% to women in Congress in the United States. Women are also paid less, with the difference in income especially exaggerated in top positions where the inequality averages out around 18%. The decreased progress for working women could be attributed to the nature of economic growth; however, perhaps women could benefit from a little push to help them find their true place in the business world.
The rate of progress for female success in the working world is slowing. If one looks at this issue from an economic perspective, this decrease in growth could be explained by natural forces.
Women in the 1980’s and 90’s had a lot to gain in the working world; it was a time when women were starting to be considered for jobs that they had never previously been considered qualified for. There was a lot of room for progress to be made. Today, we have filled these initial openings for women; there is less of the “new frontier” for women to pioneer. Think of it this way: if a poor country is given one unit of capital when previously they had very little, their growth rate of capital will be huge. However, if a rich country with millions of units of capital is given that same unit of capital, its growth rate will be much smaller. Women of the 80’s were in the position of the poor country, whereas women today are somewhat closer to the richer country. Our growth rate of progress is going to be smaller and perhaps less noticeable, but that does not mean that we are not still moving forward.
If we continue exploring the analogy of the poor country and the rich country, it’s the case that the rich country can still avoid a slowing growth rate, if it changes certain parameters within the country— the savings rate or population growth rates, for example.
In just the same way, women can change some of our self-imposed parameters in order to again progress in the working world at a faster pace. I say self-imposed because I believe that women sometimes psychologically and socially trip themselves up. We need to focus on attitudes and perceptions that we can change ourselves, and that we can change now.
Women tend to under-value themselves—or if they’re not undervaluing, they’re under-representing their own understanding of themselves. Sheryl Sandberg in an oft-viewed TED talk posits that women often underestimate themselves, whereas men tend to think they’ve performed better than they actually did. Self-confidence is essential to the way people perceive each other. When someone exudes confidence, people perceive her in a better light. In her book, “Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman,” Gale Evans points out that part of getting ahead is just getting noticed in the first place. Women aren’t as comfortable with self-promotion as men are. If no one knows about a candidate’s accomplishments, they will go unnoticed. Women need to look out for themselves so that co-workers perceive them in the way they want them to. This usually means telling them – tactfully.
Ms. Evans also argues that women need to continue to raise their hands. For instance, women need to be more assertive and confident when they have an interesting idea at a morning meeting, or a dynamic question in an interview. When people don’t hear someone speak up, they often assume that that individual has nothing to say. Women should challenge themselves to make their voices heard and value themselves enough to know that their opinions matter. In addition, how much a woman values herself also comes off in the way she dresses. Wearing a too-short skirt or a too-low blouse to work is like wearing a sign that says, “Look at me, because my ideas aren’t worth hearing”. We need to help give ourselves the advantages we deserve, not disadvantage ourselves.
Planning ourselves out of success
Another interesting point Ms. Sandberg argues in her TED talk is that women have a tendency to plan out their lives (especially the part of the plan that includes having babies) very early. She reminds women not to leave before they leave—“Lean in,” she urges, as an alternative to mentally checking out of a job in preparation for leaving a job.
Women’s maternal instincts and the socialized expectations that they act self-effacing and overly humble often lead them to consider the concerns of others before their own. Although this altruistic trait is generally a wonderful quality, if it means that women aren’t trying for promotions or switching to a stronger career path, it could be standing in the way of our continued progress in the workplace. A professor of mine at Columbia noted briefly during Intermediate Macroeconomics that there is a notable lack of women in higher-level positions. He joked that when two people decide to start a family, first the man offers to quit work. Then the woman feels bad and says, “oh no, I’ll quit work”, to which the man replies “OK!” and the matter is settled. He then added that in reality, the stupider of the two should quit work, which we all thought was very funny.
Despite the light-hearted nature of my professor’s story, he does bring up a very good point: women often feel that by not giving up their career for their offspring, they are being a bad parent. However, according to a study published in the December issue of the Journal of Family Psychology, mothers who have jobs are healthier than those without employment.
There is a certain attitude in our society that it is nearly impossible to be both successful at work and at home. This is a belief that women have the power to break. A study conducted by researchers at University College London and published by The Economist indicates that maternal employment actually often improves the chances of having well-adjusted children. Yet when I type “career women happy child” into Google, links such as “don’t marry career women” and “happily childfree” are among the top hits.
Sheryl Sandberg argues that when men and women both work and split helping out at home, they face lower divorce rates and more fulfilling relationships. With all of these positive studies, women can change society’s view of the working mother into a positive, caring, and empowering image.
A nudge in the right direction
Women need to learn to help each other. Peggy Klaus, a leadership coach from Berkeley, California wrote an editorial in the New York Times, which was referenced in the Wall Street Journal, arguing that women are often their own enemies at work. She believes that one of the last remaining obstacles for women in the workplace is their mistreatment of one another.
A study by the Workplace Bullying Institute found that female bullies aim at other women more than 70% of the time, whereas male bullies are indifferent towards the sex in which they abuse. Ms. Klaus finds that there are several reasons for this behavior.
First, women are afraid that because there are so few spots at the top, another woman could come take their position. But this is a vestige of harder times for female professionals. Women hold a minority share of board seats and C-suite titles, and there’s plenty of room for growth on all levels of the professional world.
Another reason is that women sometimes bring their emotions to work and hold grudges against other women over minute differences. Sometimes women simply think that because they made it to the top by themselves, other women should too. But these behaviors, too, are vestigial—we live in a society that is far friendlier to the idea that women can add value and productivity to business than was the society of our foremothers. The begrudging sentiments are more and more obviously a distraction from more important competitions, such as who can create the most valuable revenue stream.
There seems to already be movement in the right direction—we have role models like Sheryl Sandberg, Dina Powell, Gina Bianchini, and Marissa Meyer. We have sites like The Levo League. We are setting positive examples for women. By forming bonds that suggest sisterhood and trust, women may become more likely to help one another.
2012 will be a year for increased progress for working women. We should channel the frustration expressed in 2011 to productivity and change in 2012. Women have all of the tools to help themselves and one another. It is still very much an exciting frontier for career-oriented women who are willing to challenge themselves to have it all.
