My girlfriend, Casey, has been an activist for
women’s rights for as long as I have known her, but she became even more
invested in this subject after a conversation we had about ten years ago while
still living in Mississippi. We enjoy visiting museums and parks and one day we
were walking around the Agriculture Museum. One area of the museum is a
reconstructed old town. The town contains a doctor’s office, a church, a
school, a mill, a general store, a jailhouse, and even a blacksmith shop. As we
were walking around, she began to ask me various questions about where I
thought she would work if we lived in this town in the 1800’s. She threw many
suggestions around and finally decided that she would be the person who sat in
the fire tower to observe any nearby fires.
As she described how great she would be at her job,
I looked at her kindly and reminded her that she would not be able to work back
in those days. She looked at me a moment before she realized that she would not
have been allowed to work in the town. She then says adamantly that she would
have gotten a job. I told her in as nice a way as I could that she would have
either have been burned at the stake for being a witch and going against the current
culture or would have been remembered for starting the women’s revolution. I
thought she would take it badly but she looked at me and said it was one of the
nicest things I have said because I understood her in a complete way. We joke
about the conversation now, but it did open both of our eyes about how much
things have changed. Women were not allowed to work 120 years ago! Things have
changed since the days of the ‘old town’ we were in, but have they changed
enough?
This week I had the pleasure of watching a 2010 TED
Talk by Sheryl Sandberg discussing why women leaders are not more prominent in
the twenty-first century. I must admit that this is not the first time I
watched this video as Casey shared it with me several years ago. However, I have
been drawn to Sandberg’s thoughts and words since the first time I watched the
video. Sandberg (2010) stated “We still have a problem and it’s a real problem.
And the problem is this- women are not making it to the top of any profession
anywhere in the world” (0:40). Sandberg (2010) discussed some of the numbers
that back her statement as she described that only nine of the one hundred and
ninety heads of state are women and only 15% of board seats belong to women. Rowe
and Guerrero (2012) echoed the same opinion in questioning “why are women so
underrepresented in executive leadership roles” (p. 411).
I consider myself lucky to have worked with women in
a professional capacity since entering the workforce. When I started at a law
firm fresh out of school, the office manager and my supervisor were both women.
In my current department, two of the three directors are female, the Controller
is female, and the Chief Financial Officer is female. I work closely with the
college foundation which also has a female director. The former president was
female and the Chairperson of the Board is female. As I think about the message
from Sandberg (2010), I realized that I have been surrounded by women with
positional power but not women who are at the top of the profession. According
to Zarya (2016), there are only 21 women CEO’s in the Fortune 500- which is
just over 4%.
So, how do women get to the top of their profession?
Sandberg (210), offers three ideas in an attempt to help alter the messages we
tell women including (a) sit at the table, (b) make your partner a real
partner, and (c) don’t leave before you leave. Nosich (2012) discussed point of
view and assumptions as some of the elements of thinking. Sandberg used an
antidote to discuss the differing assumptions between men and women, which I
love.
Sandberg (2010) recalled the time that she was in a college
European intellectual history class with her roommate and brother. She stated
that her roommate read all of the novels in both English and the original
language, she read all of the books in English, and her brother didn’t do much
studying at all and leaned on them at the last minute for help. After the test,
they were all discussing how they think they did and both she and her roommate
thought they could have done much more to earn a better grade. Her brother then
stated that he knows he made the highest grade in the class. She did not reveal
the results for each student, but what is obvious is the assumptions that men
and women hold for themselves differs drastically. According to Sandberg (2010)
women have a habit of methodically underestimating their abilities where men
always overstate their abilities. Women need to begin to believe in themselves
if progress is going to be made.
Another point that Sandberg (2010) made is that
women tend to leave before they leave. Sandberg (2010) stated that women have
the tendency to start thinking about having a family and it gets in the way of
the promotion they may one day receive. In my department, there have been two
women who have been pregnant in the last several years. However, their point of
view of what the pregnancy meant to their work differed. Both women pushed
themselves at the workplace. They were always reaching for more in a
professional manner. When one of the ladies got pregnant, she quit reaching.
She was no longer interested in going for the promotions. She was no longer interested
in advancing herself professionally.
On the other
hand, another coworker continued to reach after her marriage and pregnancy. She
did not give up the fight and kept her will to advance in the department. She
is now a director with a three-year-old little girl. Sandberg (2010) stressed
how difficult it is to leave the baby to come back to work so you need to
advance as much as you could before you leave for maternity. One of my
coworkers continued to push which led to a promotion and the other stopped
reaching and is no longer my co-worker. Sandberg (2010) advises not to take the
foot off of the pedal until you are ready.
One form of subtle sexism is unequal expectations
regarding marriage and children (Flynn, 2015). According to Tims (2010), over
half of the headhunters looking to fill a salary of 150,000 pounds or more
expect women to go back to work immediately after giving birth. As a male, I
cannot begin to act like I know the struggles of wanting a family while also
pursuing a profession. Men are expected to go back to work immediately and
women are expected to go back but looked down upon if they do. This is a
societal fail which has created a culture with unreal expectations. A woman’s
body does not immediately heal after having a child and to think it is a
possibility is absurd. Women need to stay at the table until they are ready to
leave, but we also need to change our views on what is possible. A woman not
moving up in the workplace because they may have a child one day and take a
full maternity leave is wrong and it must be stopped.
Though things have changed since the days of the old
town mentioned at the beginning of this post, they have not changed near
enough. Women represent half of the world’s population, but the percentage
they hold in professional leadership is abysmal. Sandberg (2010) stated that
men believe that they accomplish things because they are awesome but women
believe they accomplish things because they were lucky or assisted. It is time
for women to change their assumptions and point of view and not only grab a
seat at the table but grab a seat at the head of the table.
References
Flynn, C. (2015, December 05). 7 Kinds of subtle sexism women encounter.
Retrieved from https://www.bustle.com/articles/127626-7-kinds-of-subtle-sexism-women-encounter
Nosich, G. M. (2012). Learning To Think
Things Through: A Guide to Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum.Boston:
Pearson Education, Inc
Rowe, W. G. & Guerrero L. (2013). Cases in
Leadership. (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage Publications, Inc.
Sandberg, S. (2010, December). Why we have too few
women leaders. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders
Tims, A. (2010, October 22). Working mothers: why having a baby need not
mean the end of your career. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/oct/23/returning-mothers-flexibility-workplace
Zarya, V. (2016, June 07). The percentage of female CEOs in the Fortune
500 drops to 4%. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2016/06/06/women-ceos-fortune-500-2016/
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