Forster N. - Maximum performance (2005)(en)

240 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

discriminating against women on three levels, attitudinal, structural and cultural.

Attitudinal discrimination includes beliefs that discriminate against women, or negatively stereotype women, simply because they are women. These attitudes are expressed in phrases such as: ‘Women are indecisive, inconsistent and constantly changing their minds’; ‘Women use their sexuality to get what they want’; ‘Women are too emotional’; ‘Women aren’t good team players’; ‘Women fall apart when the going gets tough’; ‘Women love to gossip and natter’; ‘Women are too soft to make the really hard decisions’; ‘Women let their families get in the way of their jobs’; ‘Women take things too personally’; ‘Women can’t take a good joke’; ‘Women complain too much about discrimination’; ‘Women get moody – especially at “that” time of the month’ and so forth (adapted from Manning and Haddock, 1995). The following examples illustrate how these attitudinal barriers still affect women in organizations.

‘Turning a blind eye’

An independent panel has urged the Pentagon to hold air force leaders accountable for rapes and assaults of female cadets at the US Air Force Academy, blaming them for a decade of inaction and failure at the service’s top school for officer training. The seven member panel said yesterday that the air force leadership had known at least since 1993 that sexual assaults on cadets was a serious problem at the Colorado school, but failed to take effective action [ ] The US Defense Secretary appointed the panel in the wake of reports that dozens of female cadets had been sexually assaulted or raped at the school, but were ignored by the school’s leaders and in some cases even punished for infractions of duty. The air force replaced the academy’s superintendent and other top officers in April in response to the scandal [ ] ‘From 1 January 1993 through 31 December 2002, there were 142 allegations of sexual assault at the academy, for an average of more than 14 allegations a year,’ the report said. ‘Academy and air force leaders knew or should have known this data was an unmistakable warning sign and quite possibly signalled an ever larger crisis’. Tillie Fowler, a former Republican member of Congress from Florida who chaired the panel, praised the quick response to the crisis by the US Air Force Secretary James Roche and Chief of Staff General John Jumper, but she said that the problems were ‘real and continued to this day’.

(AFP, 2003b)

‘Banking Blues’

One of London’s most senior Japanese bankers is facing an employment tribunal after accusations by his former personal assistant of sexual and racial discrimination. Yugi Ishida, head of Nomura’s equity [sic] division, is accused of bullying and harassing Annie McGregor, before her redundancy in August. The case is one of several to have hit Nomura in London. The

242 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

McLaurin Hall to honour Fay Gayle, who retired last year as ViceChancellor of the University of Western Australia and President of the Australian Vice-Chancellor’s Council. Gale proceeded to do something that Vice-Chancellors don’t usually do in public: dump on the many men who fought her every centimetre of the way during her career. From the time she was not told that she had been made a Professor at the University of Adelaide by the promotion committee, to the staffer who said her appointment as VC of the University of Western Australia was an affront to the University, the details spilled out. From the (male) colleague who turned to her at an awards dinner to ask ‘Who’s Dr. Gale?’ to the time she returned to her car after a long day and an evening function and had to scrape the dogfaeces off the windscreen so that she could drive home [ ] The extent of the nastiness that Gale encountered during her successful academic career, and her decision to reveal what until then had only been said privately, shocked the 100 executive women present.

(Abridged from Richardson, 1998; Illing, 1999)

The end result of traditional stereotypes is that, over time, negative attitudes and beliefs about women become deeply ingrained in the mindsets of male employees and organizations. They reach a point where they are totally taken for granted and operate at an unconscious level. Because of this, they become so embedded in men’s minds that they become, literally, part of their masculine identity, and this is the main reason why it is so difficult to change these attitudes after they have become established. Here are a few examples of how these might be expressed in male-domi- nated organizations (adapted from Powell, 1990):

‘His desk is cluttered – he’s obviously a hard worker and a busy man.’ ‘Her desk is cluttered – she’s obviously a disorganized scatterbrain.’

‘He’s talking with his co-workers – he must be discussing the latest business plan.’

‘She’s talking with her co-workers – she must be gossiping.’

‘He’s got a photo of his family on his desk – he must be a solid family man.’

‘She’s got a photo of her family on her desk – her family will come before the job.

‘He’s having lunch with the boss – he’s on the way up.’

‘She’s having lunch with the boss – they must be having an affair.’

‘He’s leaving work early to collect the kids from school – what a good family man.’

‘She’s leaving work early to collect the kids from school – you just can’t rely on women to put the hard yards in.’

‘His wife is having a baby – he’ll need a pay rise.’

‘She’s having a baby – she’ll cost the company money in maternity benefits.’

THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 243

‘He’s leaving to take up a better job – he knows a good opportunity when he sees it.’

‘She’s leaving to take up a better job – why are women employees so unreliable?’

And so on. You can probably think of some duets of your own.

In turn, these attitudes can become ingrained in cultural beliefs about women. This refers both to the culture of an individual organization and to the effects of different national cultures on beliefs about the ‘correct’ roles of men and women in society, and the freedom and opportunities that they have to pursue careers. These are barriers that pioneering woman in western societies have had to cope with for many years, and ones that women in industrializing countries are now having to deal with for the first time. These cultural beliefs can then lead to the creation of structural barriers such as antisocial hours, lack of flexi-time, no allowance being made for domestic responsibilities and the demarcation of jobs along gender lines. Here’s an example of all three barriers in operation at the same time:

Since the prettier candidate has already been blessed by God, it is only right that we should hire the uglier one,’ said Nik Abdul Aziz during a lecture to all government employees in the Malaysian state of Kelantan. ‘After all, if we do not choose the ugly candidate, who will?’ Aziz, Chief Minister of Kelantan (one of Malaysia’s most fervent Islamic states), explained the thinking behind his latest decree. ‘There are far too many pretty women in government offices at the moment, distracting male workers and lowering business efficiency with their pert and yielding tightness, But, when ugly women are employed in an office, then the work rate increases wondrously. Besides, we must be ever watchful for possible immoral activities. It is well known that pretty women cause unhealthy activities that lead to insanity, blindness, sickness and the bends. That is why, from now on, thorough ugliness must be considered a deciding factor at all job interviews.’

(Utusan Malaysia, 25 October, 1996).

When positions became vacant in government departments in Kelantan, the Malaysian state controlled by a fundamentalist Islamic party, attractive women need not apply. The ban on women with good looks was announced by the State’s Chief Minister, Nik Abdul Aziz. His announcement attracted widespread criticism but he said that he was only trying to be fair to women who were not attractive. ‘Normally, women who are blessed by Allah with good looks are married to rich husbands,’ he said. Since they would not need to work, there would be more job opportunities for women who were less ‘comely’. In March 1999, Aziz had upset women’s groups when he said that his government was considering a ban on women working. He later said that the ban would only apply to women whose husbands could not afford to support their family. He was condemned for his latest stand by Zainah Anwar, a member of Sisters in Islam, whose leaders are authorities on the Koran and regularly challenge decisions made by the all-male religious officials (ulama) that discriminate against women. ‘Beauty, or lack of it, should not be used as a basis of hiring or firing. This is a discriminatory practice that has no place in a modern democratic society.’

(Abridged from Stewart, 1999)

244 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

Most people in western industrialized countries, and many Malaysian women, would consider Aziz’s attitudes antiquated and some would find them offensive, and yet they are still widespread in many countries. This example also shows that attitudes about what women ‘are’, and their capabilities, are shaped by national cultures. As we saw in Chapter 3, culture is something that is learnt; we are not genetically hard-wired with this at birth. We also know that there are considerable national variations in cultural attitudes about women’s capabilities, as illustrated in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1 Confidence in women*

* Percentage of men who agreed that they were confident in a woman’s ability to do these jobs.

Source: Wilson, 1995: 39.

Furthermore, if this survey was repeated today, we can be confident that attitudes towards women’s ability to do these jobs in the UK and Italy would have improved and, in Ireland, improved substantially as the influence of the Roman Catholic Church has steadily declined and the country has become more affluent, open and cosmopolitan. The existence of these culturally circumscribed views about women’s capabilities raises the important issue of the ‘nature/nurture’ debate, first addressed in Chapter 1. In this context, it is important to understand the critical difference between our sexuality, which is formed by our genetic and biological hard wiring, and our gender (derived from the Latin word genus, meaning race or type). This construct is quite distinct from sex, which refers to the innate genetic and biological characteristics of men and women. Gender refers to the historically, socially and culturally constructed understandings of the intrinsic natures of men and women. Furthermore, because perceptions of gender are socially and culturally constructed they are learnt, and can have a profound influence on people’s beliefs about the ‘nature’ of men and women. We will look at this issue in the next section.

THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 245

Boys will be boys and girls will be girls

Both men and women have approximately 30 000 genes, and if a single human genome were to be stretched out into a strand, it would stretch from London to Moscow. For six weeks after conception, the embryonic human is always female. At this point a single gene, SR1, may click on, releasing testosterone and triggering the creation of the male testes (and we don’t yet know why this happens). This means that the Christian myth about Eve being created from Adam is wrong; genetically, a man is actually a woman ‘gone wrong’ (Oakley, 1981: 41–63). Even more significantly, we now know from recent studies of mitochondrial DNA that almost every person of European background descends from just seven women who lived about 45 000 years ago. And all of humanity is descended from just 30 maternal clans, the original tribes of Homo sapiens that spread out from Africa during the last ice age and proceeded to colonize the entire planet (Bryson, 2003: 393).

Furthermore, the genetic differences between men and women are based on a single chromosome (men have 1Y and 1X chromosome and women have 1Y and 2X chromosomes). Why does this matter? Well, take testosterone. This is widely regarded as a very ‘male’ substance and affects the masculinity of both sexes. It signals male brains to build muscle and promotes faster, more intense action in men, compared to the slower, more durable actions associated with oestrogen in females. It also gives men thicker skulls, a fact not lost on most women. It is regarded as an important genetic factor that helped to differentiate male and female evolution, after the emergence of our earliest hominid ancestors about three million years ago. It is one reason why men were physically stronger and, therefore, the hunters and the ‘weaker’ women-folk stayed at home to look after the cave and the kids.

However, the most recent evidence suggests that old stereotypes about hunters and nurturers may be inaccurate. The latest research in archaeology has prompted some scientists to question the long-held view that men had the primary responsibility for hunting, while the women looked after the children and, literally, tended the home fires. According to this research, there is little hard archaeological evidence to show that men were the primary food providers in early human societies. It now appears that early hominids and humans were not hunters of big game, but scavengers living primarily on a diet of roots and starchy tubers, occasionally enlivened by the leftovers from other larger and more powerful predators. This new evidence suggests that women hunted small game, gathered roots, nuts and fruits and were also involved in many other tribal and clan leadership activities, including religious ceremonies. There is also some evidence that

246 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

ancient man could be just as lazy as his modern counterpart (Este, 1999). The myth of the dominant male hunter was something that was simply taken for granted by the male-dominated archaeological profession of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Having said this, recent genetic research indicates that the roles men and women adopted in earlier times have led to the development of some innate differences that continue to influence our behaviour today. For example, women generally have more symmetrical brains and more connections between the left and right hemispheres, and this has been associated with their ability to multitask and communicate more effectively than men. Men appear to have the edge when it comes to spatial abilities, and this is associated with their ability to read maps better than women (something that many couples can relate to). Even so, the only thing we can say with absolute certainty about the influence of genetics on men and women is that, genetically, I am more like a woman in my own gene pool than a man in another gene pool, and cultural imperatives still mean that most men are brought up to believe that they should be the warriors and hunters, or at least be the dominant breadwinners and wage workers. The consequence of this conditioning means many believe that they still have to behave like ‘real men’: independent, in control, tireless, emotionless, achievementoriented, task-focused and the primary family provider.

To come full circle, other research evidence indicates that, as women have started to adopt more aggressive and competitive working styles, they are producing more male hormones, with thousands of young women losing their hair because of ‘testosterone overload’ as a direct result of taking on traditional male roles in the workplace (Norton, 1997).3 There is also some evidence that the Y chromosome (which determines if a child is male or female) is in rapid decline. When this chromosome first appeared, more than five million years ago, it controlled some 1500 ‘male’ genes. That number has now declined to about 40. This may mean that males may die out, or evolve into something else. If this sounds far-fetched, remember that, in the recent past, there were two distinct species of human, Neanderthal and CroMagnon (our modern ancestor) and it is possible that the human race could split again. The human male already has the weakest recorded sperm count of any mammal apart from the gorilla (abridged from Callaghan, 2002c).

Another perspective on this contentious issue is provided by Alan and Barbara Pease in their best-seller, Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps. This contains a self-evaluation exercise, designed to identify which innate masculine or feminine traits men and women

THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 247

have, ranked on a scale from minus 40 (highly masculine) to plus 330 (highly feminine). According to the authors:

Most males will score between 0–180 and most females 150–300. Brains that are ‘wired’ for mainly masculine thinking will usually score below 150. The closer to zero, the more masculine they are, and the higher their testosterone level is likely to be. These people demonstrate strong logical, analytical and verbal skills, and tend to be disciplined and well-organised [ ] The lower the score for a woman, the more likely she will have lesbian tendencies [ ] Brains that are wired for mainly feminine thinking will score higher than 180. The higher the number, the more feminine the brain will be, and the more likely the person is to demonstrate significant creative, artistic and musical talents. The higher the score is above 180 for a man, the greater the chance he will be gay [ ] Scores between 150–180 show compatibility of thought for both sexes, or a foot in both sexual camps.

(Pease and Pease, 1998: 73)

I’ve used this questionnaire several times with MBA students and the results have been remarkably consistent. The aggregate questionnaire scores from eight classes during 2000–2003 are presented in Figure 6.2 (N = 146 men and 55 women). Their scores have been rounded to the nearest ten. The results are noteworthy because these MBA groups were a typical demographic sample of managers and professionals in Australia, and each class would have contained, at most, three or four gays or lesbians. These results suggest that, far from men and women leader/managers being fundamentally different, there is evidence of considerable overlap between the two groups. Every time this exercise is used with MBAs, there are several reactions. First, many of the men in the groups express disbelief about the results, or question the validity of the questionnaire. Another reaction is to simply ignore the results as being unreliable or inaccurate. However, for others there is another reaction: a Eureka moment, when the blinkers start to come off and a realization that the views they have about both their own masculinity and the ‘nature’ of women may be about to change. Of equal importance, women in MBA groups usually have far fewer concerns about having some ‘male’ traits. This exercise also highlights an extremely important but often overlooked fact in the ongoing ‘battle’ between men and women. It demonstrates that sexuality/gender is a continuum, from very ‘masculine’ males to very ‘feminine’ women, with a considerable area of overlap in between these two extremes.

For those who might still not be convinced that things might be changing, another way of moving beyond male/female stereotypes is by looking at the many contributions women have made in history, and the remarkable inroads that women have made in recent years in jobs and occupations that only a few years ago were strictly no-go areas for women. Some examples of these can be found in the next exercise.

THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 249

Every Microsoft product has a Certificate of Authenticity attached to it: a watermark with a picture of a woman on it. Who was she and why does her face appear here?

What do these giants of 19th and 20th-century thinking and literature have in common: Simone de Beauvoir, Gertrude Stein, Doris Lessing and Germaine Greer?

Can you guess what the following comments, made in the Australian Parliament in 1983, were about? ‘This is a stupid bill that most women won’t understand. It will rot the social fabric; will force women into work against their will. It will be a deterrent to those who seek to create employment opportunities and will cause a large increase in male unemployment.’

Can you name ten (or more) women heads of state in the last 30 years?

Can you name ten (or more) women CEOs or vice-presidents of international companies?

How many EEC countries allow women to fly as front-line fighter pilots?

What is Dhammanada Bhikkhuni’s claim to fame?

What is Christina Sanchez’s claim to fame?

What are Valentina Tereshkova, Dr Sally Rides and Eileen Collins’ claims to fame?

What was Babe Zaharias’s claim to fame?

Last, and from a rather different angle, what do the following people have in common: former Presidents George W. Bush Snr., Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the actors Samuel L. Jackson, Meryl Streep and the singer/actor Madonna?

The answers can be found in note 5 and below.

Very few people (men or women) do manage to answer all these questions. However, this exercise does emphasize an important point. Until very recently you could be forgiven for believing that history is something entirely created by men, and that women played no significant role in this – other than child-rearing and looking after the family home. This is a myth. For example, women have fought in wars and battles throughout recorded history. In World War II, up to 20 per cent of the Red Army’s front-line troops were young women and, until very recently, this was hardly ever portrayed in western films about the Russian front. At times, up to 30 per cent of the Vietcong’s front-line troops were young women during the Vietnam War. From medical research to law, politics, civil rights and literature, the contributions of women were systematically devalued and marginalized by male historians during the 20th century. Even more remarkable are the rapid inroads that a ‘New