In 1992, psychotherapist and relationship counselor Dr. John Gray penned his book Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus. The Mars & Venus franchise is lucrative and the narrative has dominated conversations about romance, relations, and what we humans want out of life.
But does the Mars vs. Venus narrative account for the continued gender imbalance in upper-level management in modern American businesses? Of the Fortune 500 companies, only 3% have a female CEO today. A survey of 60 major companies by McKinsey shows women occupying 53% of entry-level positions, 40% of manager positions, and only 19% of C-suite jobs.
Do men and women want different things out of their jobs? Are women simply choosing not to climb up the corporate ladder? Or is there a persistent bias and insidious set of obstacles that women face, as they work their way up?
On Wednesday, May 2nd the Wall Street Journal hosted a conference on Women in the Economy. Former CEO of General Electric Jack Welch addressed a room full of female executives and stepped squarely into that tangle of questions.
John Bussey, with the Wall Street Journal, reports:
Mr. Welch and his wife and writing partner, Suzy Welch, told a gathering of women executives from a range of industries that, in matters of career track, it is results and performance that chart the way. Programs promoting diversity, mentorships and affinity groups may or may not be good, but they are not how women get ahead. “Over deliver,” Mr. Welch advised. “Performance is it!”
In his article, “Women, Welch Clash at Forum” Mr. Bussey noted the infuriated and offended responses. Mr. Welch had, at the very least, insinuated that institutional bias plays little to no role in the gender imbalance. Women are either choosing other options, or failing to measure up to their male colleagues.
Over the past ten days since the conference, other women have had plenty to say, in response.
Jenna Goudreau, with Forbes penned the piece “Why Jack Welch Is Spectacularly Stupid When It Comes To Women” and made the following case:
Furthermore, according to a recent survey of 5,000 U.S. workers by workplace research firm theFIT, women work more than men. In fact, 54% of women vs. 41% of men reported working 9 to 11 hours a day, and 7% of women vs. 5% of men reported working more than 11 hours a day. Women are also more likely to work 6 to 7 days a week (11% vs. 7%), more willing to do work on vacation (68% vs. 62%), and less likely to lie about a “sick day” (14% vs. 20%).
Women say they need to work harder than men to prove themselves, that they feel constant pressure to never make a mistake and always show their value to the organization. And yet…the leadership gap.
But Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, brought a different point of view in her op-ed “The fallacy of ‘having it all’: Jack Welch tells hard truths to working women.”
Jack Welch upset these women (a lot) because he was asking them to own their life choices. You want to be CEO? Fine. You want to work, but not all the time? Fine. You want to work for yourself with more flexibility? Fine. But you can’t… escape the consequences of choices.
Bias of any sort is difficult to quantify and it may serve Mr. Welch well to spend more time on the subject. But one thing is decidedly certain. There is no “woman’s point of view” regarding gender disparity in the upper echelons of corporate America.
As Dorothy Sayers once quipped:
Are women really not human, that they should be expected to toddle about all in a flock like sheep? …I prefer to think that women are human and differ in opinion like other human beings. This does not mean that their opinions, as individual opinions, are valueless; on the contrary, the more able they are the more violently their opinions will likely to differ. It only means that you cannot ask for ‘the woman’s point of view,’ but only for the woman’s special knowledge—and this, like all special knowledge, is valuable, though it is no guarantee of agreement
