Today program discussion on women and the glass ceiling

[MMMarmite]

It was on the 30th december but I only just listened to it : news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9669000/9669316.stm

They mention the criticisms of the Today program, but don't go into it in much depth. I thought they made some insightful points. But I didn't like how one woman at the end was blaming women not pushing themselves forward enough without discussing the ways in which society encourages us to be modest and unassuming.

I'm always reluctant to blame society for this one. Having observed my own 'modest unassuming' son and tried in vain to turn him into more of a go-getter, I think innate character traits are very difficult to change.

From my experience of business I also don't think women are struggling especially with confidence or modesty. I think a lot of the time we're simply being realistic about our abilities and shortcomings. I once attended a course where candidates were asked in advance to get 360 feedback forms completed by colleagues about their personalities, attitudes and skills and also fill one in about themselves. A graph comparing the two was provided at the start of the course. Most of the female candidates' opinion of themselves closely matched the opinion of others - the graphs were very similar and no big surprises. Some of the male candidates' graphs were wildly different. Their self-image and the opinion of their colleagues was so far apart that they came across as borderline delusional. Some of the men were so shocked and upset at the feedback that they even needed to spend time with a counsellor.

I still think that any women, conscious that they tend to be modest and unassuming, should make an effort to get around it, but I also think that those recruiting for top roles should appreciate that many men have a tendency to exaggerate.

I think at least part of this is a result of society though. I think women who are pushy and overconfident risk being judged a lot more harshly than men. For example this interesting article talks about a number of studies of simulated job applicants and so on, that found that men tend to judge harshly women women who negotiate for more money, and be less likely to want to work with them.

So, perhaps on your course, the men had wildly exagerrated self-image partly because they could get away with this in society, whereas women who have an over-inflated view of themselves are more likely to be punished for it.

I agree that those recruiting for top roles should be aware of this and I think different styles of recruitment could be part of the solution. But telling women to be more pushy will only work if they are not penalised for that pushyness.

Intriguingly, from the same article:
"In a final set of studies, Bowles's team had 367 volunteers play the role of job candidates and left it up to them to decide whether to ask for more money than they were offered. Women were less likely than men to negotiate when they believed they would be dealing with a man, but there was no significant difference between men and women when they thought a woman would be making the decision. The applicants, in other words, were accurately reading how males and females were likely to perceive them. "

So how can this be solved? Maybe men should have to be tested for bias before they're allowed to conduct interviews.

Also, it's interesting that the women somehow know how they will be perceived, without presumably most of them knowing about this kind of research. Personally I've never negotiated a higher starting salary because it seemed kind of rude and ungrateful - I never heard of this research till recently. Does this mean I've internalised they way men view women, so that I subconciously knew what was expected of me?

Was this the article about surgeons?

I found it infuriating. The surgeon at the end claiming she knew of no consultant in the land who would discriminate on the grounds of gender and that women chose not to persue surical careers. Grrrrrrr.

Nah, not about surgeons greythorne. It's a general article summarising different studies, from the washington post a few years ago.

Quite a few of the women I was at uni with have gone on to top roles and none of them, from what I remember, were what you call shrinking violets. I think there's a difference between being pushy and knowing you're being pushy... and being so delusional about yourself that you need counselling when you realise that everyone thinks you're a shit.

Your point about not wishing to negotiate a higher starting salary is more likely because you're british (wild guess) than because you're female. It's very untypical of british culture to haggle over the price of anything, ourselves included... you're right, we think it's impolite. But I have negotiated personally so it's not a universal trait. That US study implies that there's a degree of deference at play when women don't want to haggle with a man but I think the US is behind the UK in quite a lot of respects when it comes to the work/life balance. They haven't had 20 years of European policies making the workplace more family-friendly for a start.

BTW... I'm not saying that there isn't a glass ceiling. There are still a disturbing number of people sitting at the tops of companies that struggle to take women seriously and a lot of corporate life is institutionally 'ladsy' However if we sit down and do a self 'SWOT' analysis those things are external 'T's to recognise, manage and campaign against. But if we know that one of our internal 'W's is that we could push ourselves forward more .. then that's an objective to work on.

I'm guessing next time you're offered a job you'll be haggling the package. IME rather than putting your employer off, it works in your favour because it says 'I know my worth'. :)