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Linda Carli,
Ph.D.: Women face obstacles to achieving leadership roles
(January
2008 Issue)
In 1986, the Wall Street Journal wrote an article about the unwritten
barriers imposed on women in business, the so-called "glass ceiling"
that keeps women from getting into top management positions. Today,
more than 20 years later, some may say that that ceiling has been
shattered, with women in top positions in every facet of the business
world. But, that doesn't mean it's a cake-walk for women who aspire
to leadership. Instead of the ceiling, Linda Carli, Ph.D., a visiting
associate professor of psychology at Wellesley College, believes
women have to find their way through a "labyrinth" full of obstacles.
It is possible to get ahead and many women have done so, but it
is not as direct a path as a man might face.
With a woman taking the lead in the race for the Democratic nomination
for U.S. President, New England Psychologist thought it would
be a good time to investigate the special concerns a woman has to
face to take a leadership role. Catherine Robertson Souter spoke
with Carli about her recent book (with Northwestern University's
Alice Eagly, Ph.D.), "Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How
Women Become Leaders" and the issues a woman still must face in
the workplace and beyond.
Q: You talk about the special burdens women must deal with.
Explain.
A: The idea of a glass ceiling is no longer appropriate because
there is not one monolithic obstacle preventing women's rise to
the top but lots of obstacles. For instance, stereotypes affect
women and make it more difficult for them to achieve leadership.
Research shows that men are seen as more "agentic" which is assertive,
confident, knowledgeable, competent, in charge. Women are assumed
to be communal - warm, kind, thoughtful, generous, nurturing. The
description of women has become prescriptive so that women are not
only thought to be nice and warm but they are expected to be this
way. If they are not, they are construed to be bitchy, hard, difficult.
In order to be an effective leader, women have to prove their competence
and establish themselves as warm and communal. They have to be cognitive
of both concerns at the same time which is a challenge men don't
have to meet. That creates a double bind.
Q: What types of studies have been done on this topic?
A: There are studies that show what happens to women when they
are not particularly nice and warm. There was one study done in
a work setting that examined the effect of being helpful. When men
are helpful, people give them a lot of credit. When women are helpful,
no one was impressed in any way. But when she was unhelpful, they
thought she was below average and problematic. The same exact behavior
helps men and doesn't have any benefit for women.
In terms of competence, there have been studies done on reactions
to a resume. They create a resume that is identical in all respects
except you have a male or female name. It turns out that men are
preferred for all jobs except for the very "feminine" ones, like
daycare worker or kindergarten teacher.
There is research where people are asked to describe the ideal
manager and then to describe the typical man and the typical woman.
The ideal manager has many "masculine" traits and relatively few
communal ones. So, the ideal manager is a man. There is only one
class of people who doesn't see it this way and see men and women
as equally able to manage: American women. They don't find it with
any other women or with men anywhere, only with American women.
Q: We've come a long way? We're fighting for ourselves?
A: Well, I guess. That's why it's not really a glass ceiling.
There are women in positions of authority, who have gotten through
and once a ceiling that's made of glass is broken, it's broken.
So our idea is that this labyrinth exists where the twists and turns
are created by these various obstacles. Some women can get through
to the center where leadership lies but not everybody because they
get waylaid or they get lost or they hit a dead-end. It's possible
but it's more difficult than the path that men take which is pretty
straight and unobstructed.
In the book, we also talk about other issues that women have to
confront. One of these issues is that there is still a gap between
men and women's income and women advance more slowly. In studies,
they control for various human variables, things that sociologists
and psychologists believe are predictive of one's promotion and
income: education, years on the job, part-time or full-time, whether
there have been any breaks in the employment. They controlled for
all those measurable variables and there is still a gap in income
and in the rate of promotion.
This existing gap suggests the presence of discrimination. One
of the obvious obstacles is that women do have more family responsibilities.
So, they have to balance everything. There are national studies
that show that working women today spend as much time one on one
with their children than the stay-at-home mother of the 60s.
The consequence is that the contemporary working woman has no
leisure time. Men are beginning to embrace childcare more than before
but mothers are still doing a huge amount more.
Q: So, what can women individually do?
A: First, establish absolutely how good you are because there
can be no doubt about your competence. You have to work twice as
hard to be considered half as good.
Then, temper your brilliance with warmth and communion, niceness.
It's not fair. People sometimes say to me, "how dare you tell me
to do this?" and I say, "I'm not telling you to do anything at all."
This is how the game is set up.
Some say women don't have the personalities it takes to be a good
leader but that simply has not been shown to be the case. The personality
characteristics that best predict leadership, like extroversion
and conscientiousness, men and women have in equal doses. So, there
is no reason to obstruct women from being leaders.
Q: And that brings us to Wellesley grad Hillary Clinton and
her bid for the White House.
A: Hillary Clinton is an interesting character. When her husband
was first running, there was this compulsion to talk about her in
very stereotypical ways. There was one question asked about if she
baked cookies. These are things that are not raised when it comes
to men.
Hillary's gender is very important. To suggest otherwise is naive
- the way she is being scrutinized, as front runner true, but also
as a woman. The cleavage issue, her toughness, her hardness, her
relationship with her husband. Her being a woman does change things.
There are going to be people who will not vote for her solely because
she is woman. But we do have data that show that something like
92% would consider voting for a woman if she was of their party.
That's the highest percentage ever. But, Hillary has all this baggage
no matter what people say on a poll.
Q: Do you think she could make it?
A: It will be very interesting to see how this will play out.
The more women you have in positions of authority, the more people's
conception of leadership shifts to be more inclusive. Every time
you see a woman who is accomplished and warm, an Oprah-like figure,
you see a resolution of this double-bind and a new image of leadership
emerges. As this happens, this will ease the stereotypes, make it
easier for women. People will consider voting for a woman, will
be less hostile working for a woman.
A lot can happen between then and now.
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