The Psychology of Women at Work Three Volumes : Challenges and Solutions for Our Female Workforce (Women's Psychology)

Volumes 1-3 1: Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium 2: Obstacles and the Identity Juggle 3: Self, Family, ...

Author: Michele A. Paludi

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Volumes 1-3 1: Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium 2: Obstacles and the Identity Juggle 3: Self, Family, and Social Affects

The Psychology of Women at Work

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Recent Titles in Women’s Psychology ‘‘Intimate’’ Violence against Women: When Spouses, Partners, or Lovers Attack Paula K. Lundberg-Love and Shelly L. Marmion, editors Daughters of Madness: Growing Up and Older with a Mentally Ill Mother Susan Nathiel Psychology of Women: Handbook of Issues and Theories, Second Edition Florence L. Denmark and Michele A. Paludi, editors WomanSoul: The Inner Life of Women’s Spirituality Carole A. Rayburn and Lillian Comas-Dıaz

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

The Psychology of Women at Work Challenges and Solutions for Our Female Workforce

Volume 1 Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

Edited by MICHELE A. PALUDI

Praeger Perspectives Women’s Psychology

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The psychology of women at work : challenges and solutions for our female workforce / edited by Michele A. Paludi p. cm. — (Women’s psychology, ISSN 1931-0021) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-275-99677-2 ((set) : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-275-99679-6 ((vol. 1) : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-275-99681-9 ((vol. 2) : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-275-99683-3 ((vol. 3) : alk. paper) 1. Women—Employment—Psychological aspects. 2. Work and family. 3. Women—Job stress. 4. Women—Psychology. I. Paludi, Michele Antoinette. HD6053.P75 2008 158.7082—dc22 2008004119 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright

C

2008 by Michele A. Paludi

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008004119 ISBN: 978-0-275-99677-2 (set) 978-0-275-99679-6 (vol. 1) 978-0-275-99681-9 (vol. 2) 978-0-275-99683-3 (vol. 3) ISSN: 1931-0021 First published in 2008 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8

7 6 5 4 3

2 1

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

For Antoinette and Michael Paludi, who encouraged me to deﬁne what women’s work is for myself

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

xi

Chapter 1: Transforming Organizations and the Quality of Life of the People Who Work in Them: In My Own Voice Linda Gordon Howard

1

Chapter 2: Speaking in a ‘‘Man’s World’’: Gender Differences in Communication Styles Susan Basow

15

Chapter 3: On Work-Life Balance: In My Own Voice Michelle Wildgrube

31

Chapter 4: When the Boss Is a Woman Joan Chrisler and Sarah K. Clapp

39

Chapter 5: Women Who Started Up: The State of Women in Entrepreneurship Presha E. Neidermeyer, Emily Buenn, and Robert Edelman

67

Chapter 6: Leadership and Women Karen Duff-McCall and William Schweinle

87

Chapter 7: Feminist Competing Values Leadership: An Investigation of the Roles Played by Men and Women Nancy Miller Frank and Alan Belasen

101

Chapter 8: Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Krystle C. Woods and Nicole T. Buchanan

119

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Contents

Chapter 9: Uncovering and Countering Sexual Harassment in Israel: A New Career Path Ayelet Giladi 133 Chapter 10: Career Preparation Programs in High Schools: How Do Schools Ready Students for Life and Work? Beatrice Hall

137

Chapter 11: Shifting the Load: Personality Factors and Women in the Workplace Jennifer L. Martin

153

Chapter 12: Women Supporting Women in the Workplace: In My Own Voice Carrie Turco

201

Index

205

About the Editor and Contributors

211

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Acknowledgments

I thank Debbie Carvalko at Praeger for her encouragement and support throughout the writing of these three volumes. It is an honor to work with her. I also thank the graduate students in my human resources classes for their comments about the changing nature of work for women. I am conﬁdent that they will make a difference in the lives of the next generation of women employees and their families. I am grateful to Carrie Turco and Sharon Butler for their comments on earlier versions of the introduction. The following family, friends, and colleagues have been invaluable during the preparation of these three volumes. Thank you to Rosalie Paludi, Lucille Paludi, Presha Neidermeyer, and Paula Lundberg Love. I especially acknowledge Carmen Paludi, Jr., for his friendship and sage advice. Together we continue to make the dreams of our grandparents on Weaver Street into realities. Finally, I wish to thank William Norton Dember, my advisor and mentor in graduate school, who, like my parents, told me to seek my own career path and be tough-minded and kindhearted at the same time. I started drafting these books after I last saw Bill in May 2006, when we discussed my career since graduate school (it had been 26 years since I received my PhD). He reminded me that I came to work with him as a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati because I was interested in the psychology of women’s work and achievement motivation. Moreover, he inquired why I hadn’t written or edited a book in that ﬁeld during the course of my career. These three volumes are in response to Bill’s question. Bill died in September 2006. These books are in tribute to him as a psychologist, mentor, professor, colleague, and friend.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Introduction

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, ‘‘She doesn’t have what it takes.’’ They will say, ‘‘Women don’t have what it takes.’’ —Clare Boothe Luce

Clare Boothe Luce’s sentiment was once again highlighted during the preparation of these three volumes of The Psychology of Women at Work: Challenges and Solutions for Our Female Workforce, when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Throughout the initial part of Senator Clinton’s candidacy, comments about a woman president received media attention. Polls from CNN.com (July 24, 2007) and YouTube (January 21, 2007; March 5, 2007) reported the following quotations: ‘‘Hillary Clinton needs to wear a dress or skirt now and then. Her always making public appearances in pants gives a sense she is trying to ‘ﬁt in’ with the boys, which is never going to be the case.’’ ‘‘Hillary is cute. Those are her qualiﬁcations for prez.’’ ‘‘It’ll be nice to have a woman president but you know white America won’t let her.’’ ‘‘Women, above all, should reject hillary. Missus clinton is the biggest misogynist of all.’’ ‘‘hillary clinton running must be a joke! A woman for president! Ha! Now that[’]s a joke.’’

Elizabeth Edwards, whose husband, John Edwards, also declared his candidacy for president, joined the chorus in criticizing Hillary Clinton. Elizabeth Edwards stated the following: She [Hillary Clinton] and I are from the same generation. We both went to law school and married other lawyers, but after that we made other © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Introduction choices. I think my choices have made me happier. I think I’m more joyful than she is.

Elizabeth Edwards also stated, ‘‘Sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women’s issues.’’ Mrs. Edwards’s comments prompted a comparison of the two women—one perceived as ‘‘feminine’’ and the other ‘‘masculine.’’ Responses from a CNN.com poll (July 24, 2007) included the following: ‘‘It would be awesome if Hillary was more like Elizabeth. But Hillary lacks the compassion and realness Elizabeth possesses.’’ Tucker Carlson, host of MSNBC’s Tucker, asked a guest, ‘‘I mean, let’s take this critique [by Elizabeth Edwards] seriously—is Hillary Clinton too manly to be president?’’ This is in direct contrast to the view that many people had of Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, who, when she dropped out of running for U.S. president in 1984, cried. This raised the question of whether a woman was too ‘‘emotional’’ to be president. Schroeder (1998) wrote, ‘‘Crying is almost a ritual that male politicians must do to prove they are compassionate, but women are supposed to wear iron britches.’’ In 1870, when Victoria Woodhull, the ﬁrst woman to run for president, declared her candidacy, the New York Herald commented: ‘‘She is rather in advance of her time. The public mind is not yet educated to the pitch of universal woman’s [sic] rights’’ (‘‘Woman’s Idea of Government,’’ 1870, p. 6). In 2008 we are still hearing arguments that the United States is not ready for a woman president—a view expressed not only to Victoria Woodhull but also to other women candidates for president before Hillary Clinton: Margaret Chase Smith (in 1964), Shirley Chisolm (in 1972), Patricia Schroeder (in 1984), Elizabeth Dole (in 2000), and Carolyn Moseley Braun (in 2004). Similar comments were directed toward Geraldine Ferraro, the ﬁrst woman to be placed on a national presidential ticket (as Walter Mondale’s vice president in 1984). Ferraro was criticized for wearing short-sleeved dresses while campaigning because her arms wobbled when she waved (considered not ‘‘feminine’’). ‘‘The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ‘It’s a girl,’’’ Shirley Chisholm once noted. Gender-role stereotypes about ‘‘appropriate’’ and ‘‘inappropriate’’ occupations for women still abound. Gender stereotyping is a psychological process that illustrates a structured set of beliefs about the personal attributes of females and males (Ashmore & DelBoca, 1981; Doyle & Paludi, 1997; Fiske & Stevens, 1993). When asked to describe a woman, for example, individuals commonly cite ‘‘caring,’’ ‘‘nurturing,’’ ‘‘sensitive,’’ and ‘‘passive.’’ When asked to name a woman’s occupation, individuals cite ‘‘nurse,’’ ‘‘elementary school teacher,’’ or ‘‘social worker,’’ but not ‘‘president of the United States.’’ © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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I have frequently used the following riddle when students and trainees indicate that they believe that they themselves do not hold genderrole stereotypes about occupations: One afternoon, a man and his son go for a drive through the countryside. After an hour or so they get into a terrible car crash. The father dies instantly. The son is taken by a helicopter to the nearest hospital, where a prominent surgeon is called to help save the boy’s life. Immediately on entering the operating room and looking at the boy, the surgeon exclaims, ‘‘I can’t possibly operate on this boy . . . he’s my son.’’ How can this be?

The responses I have received to this question have ranged from ‘‘The father didn’t really die—he sustained only minor injuries and could perform the surgery’’ to ‘‘It was the boy’s stepfather who died, and his biological father was the surgeon’’ to ‘‘The boy’s adoptive father is the surgeon, and his biological father was with him in the car.’’ Individuals rarely solve this riddle: The surgeon is the boy’s mother. When the answer is revealed, these individuals are angry with themselves that they initially stated that they hold no occupational stereotypes for women and men. Individuals also usually ‘‘mark’’ an occupation if they believe that the gender of the person performing the job is atypical. Thus, they say ‘‘male nurse,’’ ‘‘female physician,’’ ‘‘female professor,’’ and ‘‘male model’’ (Paludi, Paludi, & DeFour, 2004). Markings alert listeners or readers to something atypical for the occupation—that it is held by an individual of the sex other than the one with which it is traditionally associated. An awareness of the contents of occupational stereotypes related to gender begins in the preschool years and is well developed by ﬁrst grade (Betz, in press; Gottfredson, 1981; Heyman & Legare, 2004; Hughes & Seta, 2003; Sczesny, 2003). Among 6-year-olds, there is research evidence of gender stereotypes in the kinds of occupations that children consider for future employment. Girls commonly choose the occupations of nurse, teacher, or ﬂight attendant. Boys, on the other hand, select police ofﬁcer, truck driver, architect, or pilot. Children’s ranges of occupations are difﬁcult to change once they are set (Betz, in press; Eccles, Wigﬁeld, & Schiefele, 1999). Levy, Sadovsky, and Troseth (2000) reported that a stereotypic view of the world reinforces many of the common gender-role stereotypes and is a factor in prompting young boys’ interest in more than twice as many occupations as that of young girls. Girls thus restrict their occupational aspirations. In addition, girls have a more limited concept than boys do of the career possibilities available to them in math- and computer-related occupations (Burger et al., 2007; Creamer & Laughlin, 2005; Naua, Epperson, & Kahn, 1998; White & White, 2006). Girls focus © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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on occupations that are associated with less status, less satisfaction, and less pay than the occupations considered by boys (Heyman, 2000; Richardson & Sandoval (2007). Siegel and Reis (1998) reported that although teachers perceived gifted girls as working harder and doing better work than gifted boys, these teachers gave higher grades to the boys. Similarly, Fennema and colleagues (1996) found that teachers perceived that boys are better than gifted girls at math and science. Kerr, Colangelo, and Gaeth (1988) reported that gifted girls are concerned about the negative effects of being gifted on their peers’ attitudes toward them. The researchers found that, by the sophomore year of college, most gifted women changed their majors to less intellectually challenging ones. Furthermore, Kerr, Colangelo, and Gaeth found that, by their senior year, these gifted women reduced the level of their career goals. Brody (1977) reported a decline in self-esteem among girls but not boys in elementary, middle, and high school. For example, 55% of elementary school girls agreed with the following statement: ‘‘I am good at a lot of things.’’ This percentage declined to 29% in middle school and 23% in high school. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) (1992) reported that girls who pursued math and science courses and participated in sports maintained their self-esteem from elementary school through high school. Hall and Sandler (1982) and Allan and Madden (2006) argued that, for girls and women, the educational system is a ‘‘chilly climate.’’ Girls and women are discouraged from classroom participation, are sexually harassed by teachers as well as peers, receive a lack of mentoring, and are advised by guidance counselors to lower their expectations for a career (AAUW, 2001; Paludi, Martin, & Paludi, 2007; Richardson & Sandoval, 2007). As can be seen from this brief review, an important manifestation of gender-role stereotyping is a progressive decrease in girls’ and women’s career aspirations (Betz, 2007; Farmer, 1997). ‘‘The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of your chromosomes,’’ Bella Abzug once protested. Lacampagne, Campbell, Herzig, Damarin, and Vogt (2007) reported that gender differences are signiﬁcant in math-related careers and in career aspirations. For example, of students who took the SAT in 2005, 5% of boys and 1% of girls reported planning to major in computer science. In addition, 10% of boys and 2% of girls were planning to major in engineering (College Board, 2005). Career education programs continue to be gender-segregated; 90% of women in training programs are in traditionally female ﬁelds—for example, ofﬁce technology and health care (AAUW, 2002). More than 90% of teachers (preschool, elementary, and special education), secretaries, childcare workers, waitresses, hairdressers, speech therapists, occupational © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Introduction

xv

therapists, dental hygienists, and teacher’s aides are women (U.S. Department of Labor, 2003). Betz (in press) reported that women remain underrepresented in technical and scientiﬁc ﬁelds as well as in managerial positions in education, government, business, and the military. In a recent study conducted by Catalyst (2007), gender-role stereotyping was linked to women’s participation as leaders in business. According to this report, ‘‘Gender stereotyping, one of the key barriers to women’s advancement in corporate leadership, leaves women with limited, conﬂicting and often unfavorable options no matter how they choose to lead.’’ Catalyst found that women constitute more than 50% of management and professional occupations but are only 15.6% of Fortune 500 corporate ofﬁcers and 14.6% of Fortune 500 board directors. Ilene Lang, president of Catalyst, comments on this as follows: When companies fail to acknowledge and address the impact of gender stereotypic bias, they lose out on top female talent. . . . Ultimately, it’s not women’s leadership styles that need to change. Only when organizations take action to address the impact of gender stereotyping will they be able to capitalize on the ‘‘full deck’’ of talent.

Women earn less than 20% of the bachelor’s degrees in ﬁelds such as engineering and physics and less than 10% of the graduate degrees in engineering (Betz, 2007). Women represent only about 14% of engineers, 30% of computer systems analysts, and 25% of computer programmers (U.S. Department of Labor, 2003, 2005). Women account for 8% of physicists and astronomers, 7% of air trafﬁc controllers, 5% of truck drivers, 4% of pilots, 5% of ﬁreﬁghters, and 2% of carpenters and electricians (Betz, 2007). Equally important, women are paid less for full-time employment than men are; women make only 77% as much as men do when both are employed full-time (U.S. Department of Labor, 2005). This income disparity is greater for Black, Asian, Native American, and Hispanic women than for White women, and for middle-age and older women than for younger women. ‘‘We haven’t come a long way,’’ noted Elizabeth Janeway, ‘‘we’ve come a short way. If we hadn’t come a short way, no one would be calling us baby.’’ These realities of the psychology of women at work require an indepth look at not only the barriers to women’s success but also the strategies for empowering women at the individual, organizational, legal, and societal levels. These three volumes provide an overview of the scholarly research on the issues related to women and work. Volume 1, ‘‘Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium,’’ provides an overview of research on comparisons of men and women © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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in gender-relative (i.e., stereotypical masculine and feminine) communication styles, women as bosses, women as entrepreneurs, personality factors that impact women in the workplace, feminist competing values leadership, career preparation programs in high school, and sexual harassment. Volume 2, ‘‘Obstacles and the Identity Juggle,’’ offers reviews on the double standard for women in the workplace; sexual harassment; women and leadership; the glass ceiling; pay inequalities; incivility toward women in the workplace; women in the sciences, technology, engineering, and math; and the economics of women in the workplace. Volume 3, ‘‘Self, Family, and Social Affects,’’ discusses women and self-esteem, the impact of work on women’s physical health, mental health issues for women in the workforce (especially women who have experienced discrimination), women’s relationships with male co-workers, and religion and women at work. In addition to the scholarly reviews of research on the psychology of women at work, I have included women’s personal accounts of their career development, especially their experiences in the labor force. A variety of careers is represented in these personal accounts—attorney, human resource manager, college president, chiropractor, and psychologist—as well as students who are pursuing careers. For many years researchers have deﬁned for women what success is, what work is, and what achievement striving should be. These deﬁnitions have typically contained masculine biases (Paludi & Fankell-Hauser, 1986). Thus, these personal accounts of women’s experiences recognize that women differ in the strength of their striving for achievement and in the roles that elicit their striving, taking into account the effects of family, friends, role models, and partners. It is the goal of these volumes that these personal accounts stimulate additional research, legislation, and advocacy on behalf of female students and employees so that a woman running for the United States presidency will be accepted and encouraged.

REFERENCES Allan, E., & Madden, M. (2006). Chilly classrooms for female undergraduate students: A question of method? Journal of Higher Education, 77, 684– 711. American Association of University Women (AAUW). (1992). The AAUW report: How schools shortchange girls. Washington, DC: Author. American Association of University Women (AAUW). (2001). Hostile hallways: Bullying, teasing, and sexual harassment in school. Washington, DC: AAUW Educational Foundation. American Association of University Women (AAUW). (2002). Title IX at 30: Report card on gender equity. Washington, DC: Author.

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Ashmore, R., & DelBoca, F. (1981). Conceptual approaches to stereotypes and stereotyping. In D. Hamilton (Ed.), Cognitive processes in stereotyping and intergroup behavior. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Betz, N. (2007). Women’s career development. In F. L. Denmark & M. Paludi (Eds.), Psychology of women: A handbook of issues and theories (2nd ed.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 717–752. Brody, J. E. (1997, November 4). Girls and puberty: The crisis years. The New York Times, p. B8. Burger, C., Abbott, G., Tobias, S., Koch, J., Vogt, C., & Sosa, T. (2007). Gender equity in science, engineering and technology. In S. Klein (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp. 255–279). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Catalyst. (2007). The double-bind dilemma for women in leadership: Damned if you do, doomed if you don’t. New York: Author. College Board. (2005). 2005 College-bound seniors: Total group proﬁle report. Available online at www.college-board.com Creamer, E., & Laughlin, A. (2005). Self-authorship and women’s career decision making. Journal of College Student Development, 46, 13–27. Doyle, J., & Paludi, M. (1997). Sex and gender: The human experience. New York: McGraw-Hill. Eccles, J., Wigﬁeld, A., & Schiefele, U. (1999). Motivation to succeed. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional and personality development (pp. 1017–1095). New York: Wiley. Farmer, H. S. (1976). What inhibits achievement and career motivation in women? Counseling Psychologist, 6, 12–14. Farmer, H. S. (1997). Diversity and women’s career development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Fennema, E., Carpenter, T. P., Franke, M. L., Levi, L., Jacobs, V., & Empson, S. (1996). A longitudinal study of learning to use children’s thinking in mathematics education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 27, 403–434. Fiske, S., & Stevens, L. (1993). What’s so special about sex? Gender stereotyping and discrimination. In S. Oskamp & M. Costanzo (Eds.), Gender issues in contemporary society. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Gottfredson, L. S. (1981). Circumscription and compromise: A development theory of occupational aspirations. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 28, 545–579. Hall, R., & Sandler, B. (1982). The classroom climate: A chilly one for women. Washington, DC: Project on the Status and Education of Women. Heyman, J. (2000). The widening gap. New York: Basic Books. Heyman, G., & Legare, C. (2004). Children’s beliefs about gender differences in academic social domains. Sex Roles, 50, 227–239. Hughes, F., & Seta, C. (2003). Gender stereotypes: Children’s perceptions of future compensatory behavior following violations of gender roles. Sex Roles, 49, 685–691. Kerr, B., Colangelo, N., & Gaeth, J. (1988). Gifted adolescents’ attitudes toward their giftedness. Gifted Child Quarterly, 32, 245–247. Lacampagne, C., Campbell, P., Herzig, A., Damarin, S., & Vogt, C. (2007). Gender equity in mathematics. In S. Klein (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp. 235–253). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Levy, G., Sadovsky, A., & Troseth, G. (2000). Aspects of young children’s perceptions of gender-typed occupations. Sex Roles, 42, 993–1006. Naua, M., Epperson, D., & Kahn, J. (1998). A multiple-groups analysis of predictors of higher level career aspirations among women in mathematics, science and engineering majors. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 45, 483– 496. Paludi, M., & Fankell-Hauser, J. (1986). An idiographic approach to the study of women’s achievement strivings. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 10, 89– 100. Paludi, M., Martin, J., & Paludi, C. (2007). Sexual harassment: The hidden gender equity problem. In S. Klein (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp. 215–229). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Paludi, M., Paludi, C., & DeFour, D. (2004). Introduction: Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose (The more things change, the more they stay the same). In M. Paludi (Ed.), Praeger guide to the psychology of gender (pp. xi–xxxi). Westport, CT: Praeger. Richardson, B., & Sandoval, P. (2007). Impact of education on gender equity in employment and its outcomes. In S. Klein (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp. 43–58). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Schroeder, P. (1998). 24 Years of housework . . . and the place is still a mess: My life in politics. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel. Sczesny, S. (2003). A closer look beneath the surface: Various facets of the think-manager-think-male stereotype. Sex Roles, 49, 353–363. Siegel, D., & Reis, S. M., (1998). Gender differences in teacher and student perceptions of gifted students’ ability and effort. Gifted Children Quarterly, 42, 39–47. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2003). Facts on women workers. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2005). Women in the labor force: A data book. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. White, M., & White, G. (2006). Implicit and explicit occupational gender stereotypes. Sex Roles, 55, 259–266. Woman’s idea of government. (1870). New York Herald, p. 6.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 1

Transforming Organizations and the Quality of Life of the People Who Work in Them: In My Own Voice Linda Gordon Howard

I have had extraordinary good fortune, abundant opportunities, and remarkable experiences in my career. Many experiences were literally dreams that came true. This is my attempt to share my experiences, as a woman, of working. I have not spent much time considering my career as the career of a woman, although it obviously is. It is obvious, for example, that I chose to specialize in employment discrimination law and particularly in sexual harassment law—a specialty that focuses on the rights of traditionally disenfranchised groups, including working women. This choice was clearly affected by my view of women’s work. As a child and a young woman, I heard a lot of opinions and advice about what women could and could not do. I ignored most of it because it was patently silly. I was extremely lucky to have had educated parents who encouraged me and my two brothers to pursue whatever we wanted to do and who never suggested that there was anything we could not do. My mother is a retired a math professor and college administrator. My father, who was a biology professor and the chairman of his department, supported my mother’s professional ambitions. I grew up hearing stories about my feisty grandmother, a schoolteacher who took her youngest child to school with her in a baby carriage. In the fall of 1970, when I arrived at the University of Virginia (UVA) Law School, I was so happy that I was unable to contain my © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

2

Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

complete joy. I had wanted to be a lawyer since I was 9 years old, and I was ﬁnally well on the way toward making that dream a reality. The 1970s were a heady and exciting time. The group of women who began law school at UVA that year did not think we were making history; at least, I did not think I was making history. We were living our lives and starting a great adventure. That year, 1970, is considered to be the ofﬁcial beginning of the women’s movement marked by the ﬁrst publication of Ms. magazine. Women had been admitted to University of Virginia’s undergraduate program under federal court order the previous fall. The ﬁrst Black woman, Elaine Jones, had graduated from the law school that June, just a few months earlier. In my law school class of about 300 students, 17 were women and 12 were Black. Three of these were Black women: myself, Stephanie Valentine, and Gloria Bouldin. Stephanie and I had been nursery school classmates. Gloria Bouldin’s mother and my mother had attended Virginia State College (now Virginia State University) together and had lived in neighboring dormitory rooms. It has been reported that the fall of 1970 was the ﬁrst year that the total number of women law students at UVA reached double digits. I was excited, in part, because we were destined to be the governors, senators, judges, law ﬁrm partners, and leaders who would run the country and the economy in the next 20 years. I knew that these ﬂeeting years would forge friendships, bonds, and alliances whose impact would be important and far-reaching. In my second year, my fellow students elected me ‘‘president of the law school,’’ the university’s impressive title for law school’s student body president. Soon after the election, the press reported that I was the ﬁrst woman and the ﬁrst Black student to be elected to that position. That year was magical, fun, and productive. The election itself, however, led to hundreds of new friendships with students at UVA and at schools around the country, law school alumni, and government ofﬁcials. Interviewing with law ﬁrms in my third year of law school was a difﬁcult and disappointing experience. I felt fortunate to have been selected for interviews by several ﬁrms. The interviewer from one large law ﬁrm asked me what kind of birth control I used. I was shocked. I thought it was an entirely inappropriate question. I declined to answer and ended the interview. Another interviewer, from an Atlanta law ﬁrm, told me that the ﬁrm was willing to hire me, but it could not announce my arrival with the customary written announcement. It was ready to hire its ﬁrst Black lawyer, he explained, but the clients had asked the ﬁrm not to ‘‘broadcast’’ it. I had other similarly strange interactions with law ﬁrm interviewers. I never reported the incidents to law school ofﬁcials (which, in hindsight, I know would have been the correct action). For many years, I did not share these experiences with © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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anyone. I had decided that these interviews were a taste of the kind of degrading behavior I would have to deal with if I chose to work in a law ﬁrm. I abandoned my search for a law ﬁrm job and used other resources to ﬁnd a job with a government agency or an academic institution. I know now that the interviewers’ comments did not necessarily indicate what my future would have been with those ﬁrms. I had four job offers in the spring of 1973. One offer, from the Virginia attorney general’s ofﬁce, was to represent educational institutions in the state of Virginia. The second offer, from the University of Delaware at Newark, was to serve as chairperson of the Black Studies Department. The third offer was to serve as instructor of law at the University of Detroit Law School. The fourth offer was to serve as a staff attorney at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Although I very much wanted to teach law, I dismissed the Detroit offer. I learned that I would be the only person on the instructional staff of the law school with the rank of instructor, and the dean could not explain this low rank to my satisfaction. Sallyanne Payton, a Black lawyer who was about to move from President Richard Nixon’s Domestic Policy staff to become chief counsel of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) at the DOT, invited me to be her special assistant. I knew Sally from having taken a law school course she taught as an adjunct professor. I reasoned that I could trust her to train me as a lawyer and to take a personal interest in my career. MY FIRST JOB The staff at UMTA was small but diverse. We were seven lawyers: two Black women (Sally and me), one White woman (another new lawyer), a gay Black man, and three White men. I was very aware of, and somewhat uncomfortable with, the distinct difference in status between the clerical support staff, who were all women, and the lawyers. At UMTA, I learned how to write a memorandum about the impact of proposed government actions, how agencies work with Congress, and how private lobbyists can wield signiﬁcant power in the legislature. Our work was largely to make sure that applications for federal funding for metropolitan bus and subway systems met the requirements of our enabling legislation. My major accomplishment at UMTA was to organize, edit, and publish Developing Mass Transit Systems, a manual on how to create and ﬁnance mass transit systems. We had a lot of contact with the lawyers and ofﬁcials who had developed the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) in San Francisco and the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA); they contributed heavily to the publication. In the spring of 1974, it was time for me to leave the DOT, but I didn’t know what was next. The opportunity came when I was attending © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

a dinner at the LBJ Ranch in Texas hosted by Lady Byrd Johnson. I had met Mrs. Johnson through Chuck Robb, the husband of Lynda Byrd Johnson; he was a law school classmate of mine and a good friend. I was seated next to Arthur Krim, a longtime friend of the Johnsons’ and a former assistant to President Johnson. Arthur had become chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, chairman of the board of Columbia University, and chairman of the board of United Artists, which he later left to form and head Orion Pictures. Arthur asked me how my job was going. I considered giving the usual answer of ‘‘ﬁne,’’ but it would not have been the truth. I thought to myself, ‘‘Here is this terriﬁc man asking about my job. I want to have a real conversation with him, not an ordinary, fake conversation.’’ So, I said, ‘‘The people are very nice, but I’m bored.’’ He asked what I really wanted to do, and there was no question. I wanted to work at the U.S. Senate. That’s where the action was, and I wanted to be where the action was. So that’s what I said. About 2 weeks later, I received a call from Bill Wright, another of President Johnson’s former assistants. Bill said he understood that I wanted to work at the Senate. There is very high turnover in these ofﬁces, he explained. He instructed me to go to Senator Lloyd Bentsen’s ofﬁce every day at lunchtime and after work. I was to introduce myself and get to know the staff. ‘‘Eventually someone will leave, and you will be right there—known, familiar, and able.’’ He added, ‘‘You do that, and we’ll take care of the rest.’’ I did exactly as he instructed, and in about 6 weeks one of the staffers left his job to return to graduate school in Texas, creating an opening. Soon thereafter, I was hired as Senator Lloyd Bentsen’s new legislative assistant, responsible for Judiciary and Commerce matters. THE UNITED STATES SENATE I started my new job at the U.S. Senate in the spring of 1974. Senator Bentsen, who later served as President Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary, was the junior senator from Texas, having defeated George H. W. Bush for the seat. One of my ﬁrst actions was to propose an amendment to the Federal Rules of Evidence that would limit the admissibility of an alleged rape victim’s sexual history in rape trials in federal jurisdictions. Defense attorneys commonly used evidence about the alleged victim’s sexual history, ostensibly to prove that she had consented to have sex with the defendant. The practical effect was to damage the alleged victim’s credibility as a witness, making a rape trial such a difﬁcult ordeal that many women refused to testify, thereby making it exceedingly difﬁcult for prosecutors to get convictions in rape cases. I suggested in a staff meeting that the senator sponsor a federal ‘‘rape shield’’ law. My male colleagues laughed at and ridiculed the proposal. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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I had distributed a two-page memo that exceeded the ofﬁce’s one-page limit on memos to the senator, and it became famous as ‘‘Linda’s magnum opus.’’ I persisted in advocating for what I thought was an important measure. The senator ultimately cosponsored the bill. I accompanied him when he spoke at a conference on rape in Austin that was attended primarily by women constituents, and he received a great deal of positive press attention back home in Texas related to the proposed new law. In the summer of 1974, as the House Judiciary Committee pressed on with the impeachment of President Nixon, the Senate was gearing up for the trial that would have proceeded had Nixon not resigned. I was asked to write a ﬂoor speech in which Senator Bentsen would propose that the cost of Nixon’s defense be paid by the federal government. This was a crisis of conscience for me. I wanted Nixon out of ofﬁce, and having the government pay for his defense seemed to me to be a bad idea. My assignment was to make a clear and convincing case that my boss would present on the Senate ﬂoor. I spoke to colleagues, friends, and constitutional experts at length, until I ﬁnally realized that no expert would make the case. I had to make the case. I reasoned that if the president were to be tried before the Senate, the prosecution would bring the full weight and resources of the U.S. government against him. If he were to have an adequate defense, and if the outcome of the trial were to have any credibility, especially if he were to be convicted, the government had to bear the cost of his defense. There could be no room whatever for an argument that Nixon’s ability to defend himself had been limited by the size of his own personal fortune. Even if Nixon’s friends and associates could raise adequate private funds for his defense, which I had to assume they could, the appropriate decision had to be applicable to any president, not just to this president. When I was ﬁnished, I was satisﬁed that the senator’s position was solid and right. It was my ﬁrst experience doing a work assignment that I initially found distasteful, based on my personal political convictions.. I was delighted that I had completed the assignment with my own integrity intact. I was able to stand by every word in that speech. I also worked on the voluminous bill that became the Copyright Act of 1976. The bill dealt, in part, with the rights to televised baseball games and the emerging cable industry. During this time, I attended a meeting with Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, whose arrival at the ofﬁce was a very big deal. The men on the staff were far more excited about the opportunity to meet the baseball commissioner than I was. In early 1975, Senator Bentsen announced that he was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. One day in the spring, I and my small group of friends, who lunched together almost every day and © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

thought of ourselves as the hearty band of liberals on the staff of the moderate Texas senator, were all ﬁred—the men in the morning and the women in the afternoon. Later the same week, I received a telephone call from Professor Jack Slain from Ohio State University College of Law, asking whether I was interested in ‘‘academic law.’’ I was about to transfer the call to the staff member who was responsible for issues that affect academic institutions when Professor Slain said that he was calling about a job. OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW By August 1975, I had moved from Washington, DC, to Columbus, Ohio, to start my third job: assistant professor at Ohio State University College of Law (now Moritz College of Law). I loved teaching, and I adored my students. Dean Orin Slagle, who later became dean of Florida State University School of Law and who passed away late in 2006, was a supportive guide. In addition to me, there was one woman on the faculty, Kathryn (Katie) D. Sowle, who was married to fellow professor Claude Sowle (Claude Sowle later served as president of Ohio University in Miami, Ohio.). Katie and I were granted tenure in the fall of 1978; we were the ﬁrst women to receive tenure at the law school. I discovered many years later that I was one of the ﬁrst three Black women to receive tenure at a predominantly white U.S. law school. In 1975, when I joined the Ohio State faculty, women made up almost 25% of law school students nationally. I taught courses on evidence, legislation, and gender-based discrimination. I was the sole woman among the ﬁve new faculty members. Each of the four men had been invited to play on one of the student-faculty softball teams. I had not even been approached. I repeatedly reminded my students in my gender-based discrimination class of this fact. It was gender-role stereotyping, I explained at length, resulting from an assumption that, as a woman, I either could not play softball or was not interested in playing. One day, to my surprise and delight, one of my students invited me to play on his team. Immediately this created a problem. I had to admit to my students that even though there had been genderrole stereotyping, in my case the stereotyping was accurate. I had never played softball before, but I was not backing down. On the following Saturday morning, I suited up and hit the ﬁeld. A sympathetic male student offered to meet me an hour before game time and introduce me to batting practice. Batting practice is, as it turns out, an opportunity to practice hitting the ball before you actually have to hit it in a game. Thanks to this student and to everyone’s surprise, I got a base hit. Unfortunately, when asked what position I played, I said I would play the same position my brother, Roscoe, had © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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played in high school—third base. The young men snickered. I had unknowingly selected one of the most difﬁcult and dangerous positions on the ﬁeld. Early in the game, a hard line drive headed straight toward me and made a loud crack as it hit my shin. The ball bounced off my shin into my glove. I made the play but limped off the ﬁeld. On the last day of class, my students awarded me with a softball that they had all autographed. I share this story because it demonstrates what has characterized a lot of my work experiences: taking on a task I didn’t know how to do, doing it anyway, and learning what there was to learn to get the job done. In addition to teaching the course in gender-based discrimination, I also taught courses in evidence and legislation. The legislation seminar was a wonderful adventure. I cotaught the course with a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, who arranged internships for the students. Our students worked for both Republicans and Democrats, on committee staffs and for lobbyists. The students had a full view of the legislative process from virtually every perspective. Occasionally, I gave testimony before the legislature based on research by and in collaboration with my students. As the only Black professor and as one of only two women professors at the law school, I was in great demand for speaking engagements and media events. At this time, President Jimmy Carter’s proposal to include women in a national service program was receiving wide attention. One day after class, one of my students came back into the classroom and said a news crew was waiting for me in the hallway. I opened the door of the classroom and saw only a bright light and a microphone. A voice from behind the microphone said, ‘‘Professor Howard, do you have any comment on President Carter’s proposal to require women to register for national service?’’ I said, ‘‘Aren’t you going to at least say ‘hello’ and introduce yourself?’’ My politician-colleague grabbed my arm, pulled me back into the classroom, and closed the door. He said, ‘‘If you are going to speak to the press, you have to be nice.’’ I got the message and returned to the interview with a neat sound bite. My colleague said I was a natural. Shortly thereafter, I debated the head of the Ohio State ROTC on whether women should be drafted into military service. THE WHITE HOUSE I received an invitation in February 1980 to visit the White House as part of a delegation from the group Ohio Democratic Women. This was when American hostages were being held in Iran, and President Carter stayed in the White House to work on their release, even as the presidential campaign was moving into high gear. I called the RSVP © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

number to accept the invitation, and the voice that answered said, ‘‘Linda Howard! Well, we ﬁnally found you. Come to Washington. We need you here.’’ The voice belonged to a woman with whom I had worked in Senator Bentsen’s ofﬁce. During those 2 days in Washington, I met the women who were making history in the Carter administration: Women’s Bureau Director Alexis Herman, Assistant to the President Sarah Weddington, Assistant Housing and Urban Development Secretary Donna Shalala, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chairwoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, and several others. Sarah Weddington interviewed me for a position in her ofﬁce on a Sunday at 8:30 A.M. About 6 weeks later, I was driving my Mazda from Columbus, Ohio, back to Washington to start my fourth job: a member of President Jimmy Carter’s White House staff. I took a leave of absence from Ohio State to serve for a year as executive director of the Interdepartmental Task Force on Women. My 35member staff conducted research, created legislative proposals, and educated the public about issues affecting women. A major focus was to develop a new Small Business Administration (SBA) program that provided technical services, access to capital, and guidance for doing business with the government for women who were business owners. That year was marked by many speeches, meetings, brieﬁngs, and dinner parties. While working at the White House, I completed a law review article about the rights of women who were being ﬁred or demoted from high-paying manufacturing jobs that exposed them to toxic chemicals that could damage their ability to bear healthy children. In the fall of 1980, I sat in a Georgetown restaurant with Donna Shalala, who, by then, had been named president of Hunter College of the City University of New York. Donna offered me the job of counsel of the president at Hunter. INTERNATIONAL SPEAKING TOUR In the spring of 1981, I left Washington and returned to Columbus for a semester to fulﬁll my commitment to return to law teaching at Ohio State and to prepare to fulﬁll yet another dream. In April and May 1981, I traveled to New Zealand, Japan, and India to give presentations on American civil rights law. I delivered the paper ‘‘Civil Rights and Remedies’’ at the New Zealand International Conference on Law at the invitation of my law school mate Bruce Robertson (now Justice Robertson of the High Court of New Zealand). I was a featured speaker at the conference in the city of Dunedin about the legal basis for and technical operation of remedies that were available in civil rights cases in the United States but not in other parts of the world. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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The conference organizers were particularly interested in afﬁrmative action and in the attorneys’ fees that were awarded to the prevailing party in federal discrimination lawsuits. This was the ﬁrst year that women were allowed to attend the ofﬁcial conference dinner, and I was the ﬁrst woman to deliver the toast to the bench and bar, a highly anticipated traditional after-dinner speech. The New Zealand Human Rights Commission sponsored my visit to several other New Zealand cities. Early one morning, a group of Maori women who were not on my ofﬁcial itinerary arrived at my hotel room and requested a meeting. They took me to a sacred meeting house, where they spent several hours sharing their concerns. They spoke of the gradual but unmistakable loss of their culture and their mistrust of the mandatory Pakeha (the Maori word for White New Zealander) educational system. They described how their children learned English but lost their facility with the native Maori language and learned the Pakeha’s version of history. They were also deeply concerned about the health care system, which ignored traditional Maori remedies, dismissed the healing skills of Maori women, and excluded Maori women from their traditional role as primary health care providers for their people. I doubt that a male visitor would have been granted this extraordinary access. My 2-week visits to Japan and India were sponsored by the United States Information Agency (USIA), which was headed at the time by John Reinhardt, a friend and colleague of my parents’ at Virginia State College (now University). My 2 weeks in Japan were beautiful and revealing. I addressed groups of lawyers, businessmen, and citizens in seven cities and was treated to an extraordinary visit with the board of trustees and faculty of Kyoto University. I saw few women in professional roles in Japan. India offered a number of encounters with women in professional and leadership roles. In visits to Ahmedabad and Calcutta, I met a young woman in a diplomacy-related position and a popular activist woman judge. At the Chester Bowles Seminar in Chail on challenges facing democracy, I spoke on social challenges. I met woman newspaper reporters and editors. In Bombay, I was treated to lunch by the Ladies Auxiliary of the Chamber of Commerce. I returned from my international experience with a new appreciation for and pride in the progress the United States has made in the arena of civil rights for women and other groups. I embarked on my trip armed with criticism of U.S. laws and policies. I returned understanding that despite the difﬁculties and inequities, the United States leads other nations in civil rights laws, including laws that protect access to employment, public accommodations, and political participation. Other nations look to the United States for guidance on and evidence for the design and workability of laws that protect traditionally excluded groups. I also returned with a new conﬁdence in and an excitement © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

about the opportunities we have in this country to experiment with new approaches. HUNTER COLLEGE OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK I went directly from my round-the-world trip to my new job at Hunter College, the next great adventure. Hunter’s new president, Donna Shalala, had the reputation of being a great manager, and I wanted to work for a great manager. This job was also a terriﬁc opportunity to put into practice through my writings and speeches the ideas I had developed as a professor. Donna Shalala’s best attributes were that she had a ﬁerce intention to make Hunter a great institution, she related to every employee individually, and she was fearless. Donna was committed to revolutionizing Hunter College and set about doing so in every arena. In my role as counsel, I advised on a wide range of issues, from copyright law to governance to real estate ﬁnance. A major project was the addition of three stories to the School of Social Work, located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. I designed and implemented the college’s afﬁrmative action policy, which resulted in the hiring of anthropologist (and later Spelman College president) Johnnetta Cole, poet Audre Lourde, photographer Roy DeCarava, and a host of luminaries in the physical and social sciences who placed Hunter in the vanguard of progressive educational institutions that were building brilliant and diverse faculties. I also managed the process that resulted in Hunter’s sexual harassment policy and prevention program. The process and the resulting policy represented an innovative model of community collaboration. Hunter’s sexual harassment policy, procedures, and prevention activities had to address the actions and concerns of faculty members, administrators, staff, and students. Any member of the community could be a complainant, an accused, or someone seeking guidance in a situation involving possible sexual harassment. The procedures had to work for faculty-to-faculty harassment, faculty-to-administration harassment, faculty-to-student harassment, administration-to-faculty harassment, administration-to-student harassment, and student-to-student harassment. Complaints brought by students, faculty, and staff required different decision makers in different ofﬁces. The faculty and administrative staff were unionized, and we had to safeguard their speciﬁc procedural rights. Our initial objectives were to make the procedure simple and to give community members a choice of people with whom they could speak. After close consultation with the president of the college, the staff, and the faculty leadership, we decided to have one central receiving point for all complaints. We created a panel that included men and women, people of different ethnic backgrounds, faculty members from different © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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departments, administration and staff members of different ranks, and a student. All Sexual Harassment Panel members were designated to receive complaints. Our next objectives were to educate the members of the college community about their rights and responsibilities under the new policy, foster dialogue, and raise the community’s awareness about how to prevent sexual harassment. Community education would be a central theme, and it was decided that faculty members would lead the Sexual Harassment Panel. We consciously included women’s perspectives and men’s perspectives. We wanted to create a sharing of ideas with a view toward changing values. President Shalala appointed two faculty members, a man and a woman, as coordinators, thus allowing the educational and awareness program to be led by a male-female partnership. Every aspect of the program would reﬂect the blend, balance, and challenge of that partnership. The panel was the central group within the college community that was responsible for raising awareness about sexual harassment. I trained the panel members in sexual harassment law, investigative procedures, and other issues. The panel met regularly, stayed abreast of changing legal requirements, accepted responsibility for its own ongoing training, investigated complaints swiftly, shared with its own members and with the administration what it learned about the concerns of employees and students, and became a vigorous advocate for the policy and a harassment-free environment at Hunter College. The panel developed strong working relationships within the various administrative ofﬁces, spearheaded the addition of new support services for students, and became an important source of recommendations for further actions to improve the program. It enjoyed the respect and conﬁdence of the various campus constituencies. Our original coordinators, Professors Michele Paludi and Richard Barickman, breathed life into the plan and later contributed to the academic literature about sexual harassment on campus and its causes. The Sexual Harassment Panel fulﬁlls the same role at Hunter College as it once did, but now it is called the Sexual Harassment Awareness and Intake Committee. Today, the City University of New York requires each of its 20 constituent colleges to have a sexual harassment committee as part of its sexual harassment policy and procedures. It is a source of enormous pride to have created something that continues to serve its purpose well after 25 years. THE LAW DEPARTMENT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK In November 1989, David Dinkins was elected mayor of New York City. A few days before Thanksgiving, Victor Kovner, the well-known © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

12

Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

First Amendment lawyer and political presence on New York’s West Side whom Dinkins had named his corporation counsel (city attorney), called to ask if I was interested in joining the new administration. In late January 1990, I joined the corporation counsel’s ofﬁce (also known as the Law Department) as senior counsel and a member of the executive staff. There were two other woman executives, Lorna Goodman and Edith Spivack, who had worked in the department as lawyers since 1934. Lorna Goodman is now Nassau County attorney. At the time, two of the department’s 17 division chiefs were women. Mayor Dinkins was in the process of making changes in the leadership in several agencies, including the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Despite the temporary lack of leadership, action was necessary to address the growing backlog of complaints; this was my ﬁrst assignment. I had the challenging task of proposing, negotiating, and implementing the initiatives from outside the commission and with no management authority. The staff of the commission, whose cooperation was needed, was reluctant to act before the new commission chairperson was in place and while the incumbent was still in ofﬁce but not working on the new administration’s initiatives. In the end, we were successful in creating a program that allowed volunteer lawyers to represent complainants before the commission and that resolved individual complaints much more quickly. That was an important lesson in exercising power without force. Within a year, I took responsibility for new attorney hiring, attorney training, and the summer law student internship program. A few years later, I was named Equal Employment Opportunity Ofﬁcer. After 8 years, I created and managed a continuing legal education program that would serve the 700 attorneys in the Law Department and the approximately 1,000 attorneys working in other city agencies. In my previous jobs, I served as a counselor or ombudsman. I did the same at the Law Department, but I encountered special challenges. One of the areas in which I developed myself at the Law Department was investigating employment discrimination complaints. At Hunter College I had also investigated employment discrimination complaints; it was a role I had not enjoyed. Often, but not always, employment discrimination complaints are the result of misunderstandings, miscommunications, and misperceptions. I had tried to bring people together to understand the situation from another point of view. My early efforts were almost always unsuccessful. Eventually, I realized that I was having difﬁculties because I was not operating according to my role in the process. I was not doing my job as it had been designed. As a result, it was not working. I had been trying to bring people together, to conciliate, when my job was to investigate. Once I took on investigating, my work became easier. Instead of trying to get people to © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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13

understand one another, I mastered investigating. Once I mastered investigation, I had the perspective and the credibility to recognize the opportunities for bringing people together. Understanding the design of the process and my speciﬁc role helped me to be effective. I reasoned that if other people could understand my speciﬁc role and the process, then they could also participate more effectively. I incorporated an explanation of my role and an opportunity to ask questions into every conversation and interview in an investigation. My effectiveness in getting the facts and completing investigations soared. My skills as an investigator led one of my colleagues to suggest that I write a book, because my methods were not available anywhere in written form. That suggestion resulted in the publication of my book, The Sexual Harassment Handbook (February 2007). In The Sexual Harassment Handbook, I offer plain-English guidance to working people, supervisors, investigators, and business owners on how to deal with sexual harassment in their particular roles. I also advise people on the speciﬁc opportunities for dealing with sexual harassment when there is still a possibility of resolving the situation among the people involved. I launched other innovations at the Law Department, including the following: . A study course for new attorneys who had failed the bar exam. The course dramatically increased the number of our new attorneys who passed the bar exam. . An automated system for regular reporting of city cases. The system allowed the Law Department, for the ﬁrst time, to report cases by agency, by the legal unit handling the case, or by status, and it addressed a longstanding request from the agencies for written reports on the status of all their cases that were being handled by the Law Department.

PRIVATE PRACTICE AND CONSULTING I left the Law Department after 13 years of service, wrote The Sexual Harassment Handbook, and created a consulting business. I offer employers advice and training in employment discrimination, sexual harassment prevention, and management of a diverse workforce. My expertise also includes managing change in large institutions. My life as a writer and consultant is very different from my life as a lawyer in large public institutions. I spend many more days on my own, writing, marketing, planning, and organizing presentations. I work with different people in different organizations. I am having a broader impact and am offering new ways of operating to different organizations with different issues and concerns. I am committed to transforming organizations and the quality of life of the people who work in and for them.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 2

Speaking in a ‘‘Man’s World’’: Gender Differences in Communication Styles Susan Basow

At a weekly staff meeting, June said, ‘‘Maybe I’m off base here, but perhaps we could try some type of incentive program for the sales staff? Or something like that, something that will motivate them to sell more? What do you think?’’ After some polite murmuring, the staff members continued to discuss the problem of ﬂat sales. Later in the meeting, James said, ‘‘I know. Motivate the salespeople by giving them rewards based on how much they sell. That should get them excited!’’ Everyone exclaimed about what a great idea this was—everyone except June, who thought, ‘‘Didn’t I already suggest that?’’ What happened here? Was June guilty of ‘‘speaking while female’’ in a majority-male group? In this chapter, we will look at gender differences in communication styles: if, and to what extent, they exist; how they might affect women in the workplace; and communication strategies to improve women’s work experiences. GENDER DIFFERENCES IN COMMUNICATION STYLES: NOW YOU SEE THEM, NOW YOU DON’T Let’s consider the vignette at the beginning of the chapter. June’s way of presenting her idea was typical, in some ways, of women’s style of communicating: she was tentative in her language and content (‘‘maybe I’m off base,’’ ‘‘perhaps,’’ ‘‘or something like that,’’ and phrasing her statements as questions), wordy, and concerned about what the others thought (‘‘What do you think?’’, an afﬁliative question). In contrast, James’s utterance was more typical of men: © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

assertive (‘‘I know’’) and direct. Although such gender differences in verbal speech have been supported by research as well as anecdote (Leaper & Ayres, 2007; Mulac, 2006; Tannen, 1994), the magnitude of these gender differences is relatively small and is moderated by a host of other variables. Thus, although some generalizations can be made about how men and women ‘‘speak different languages’’ (Tannen, 1990), the actual picture is far more complex. Let’s examine the research ﬁndings on gendered patterns in speciﬁc types of communications. Afﬁliative Speech Afﬁliative speech refers to the use of words to connect with others, such as by expressing agreement, understanding, support, or acknowledgement. Tannen (1994) argues that such speech is typical of women’s more intimate and inclusive approach to communication. In a comprehensive meta-analytic review of research on gender differences in adult speech, Leaper and Ayres (2007) found that although women did indeed tend to use more afﬁliative speech than men did, the difference was very small. There is actually more than an 85% overlap between men and women in this type of speech. There are circumstances in which the gender difference in afﬁliative speech is more noticeable (i.e., sizable) than others. In particular, women are more likely to use afﬁliative speech when talking with other women as opposed to when in groups of both sexes; and also when talking about non-personal topics, self-disclosures, and deliberations rather than when talking about tasks, child-oriented activities, and disagreements. Also important to note is that in Leaper and Ayres’ meta-analysis, there was no condition in which the size of the effect would be considered large (d .8, indicating that the overlap between women and men was less than 53%). Even the largest gender difference in afﬁliative speech would be considered moderate (d ¼ .44) and that occurred in conversations about non-personal topics. Overall, then, there is more gender similarity than difference with respect to this aspect of speech, but when differences occur, they are typically in the direction of women being more likely than men to use language to connect with others. Thus in the workplace, gender differences in afﬁliative speech would be least likely in mixed-gender task-focused groups and most likely in women-only groups, when discussing non-personal topics, or when trying to come to a group decision.

Assertive Speech Assertive speech refers to the use of words to achieve a goal or advance one’s personal position, such as by giving information, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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offering directive statements or suggestions, and criticizing another. Tannen (1994) argues that such speech is the province of men, who tend to focus on issues of power and control in interactions with others. Indeed, in Leaper and Ayres’ (2007) meta-analytic review, men were found to use this speech style signiﬁcantly more than did women, but the gender difference was very small (d ¼ .09), meaning that there was much more gender similarity than difference on this aspect of speech. There were some circumstances in which the size of the gender difference was larger, however. Men were most likely to use this speech style (showing a moderate gender difference) when talking about nonpersonal topics and when talking with strangers as opposed to with people they knew well. In the workplace, then, we might expect men to be more directive and offer more suggestions than women when discussing a workrelated topic in a group of people, especially same-gender others, to whom they are not close. Talkativeness A strongly held cultural stereotype in the United States is that women talk more than men. Research, however, reveals the opposite: Men tend to talk more than women, at least under some circumstances. Leaper and Ayres (2007) found that men were signiﬁcantly more talkative than women. There appears to be no gender difference in the number of words that men and women speak per day (Mehl, Vazire, Ramirez-Esparza, Slatcher, & Pennebaker, 2007). The difference was greatest in discussions of impersonal topics or in disagreements and was reversed when self-disclosures were included—women talked more in those circumstances. Men also talked more than women in close relationships than they did with strangers, and they talked in mixed groups more than in same-gender groups. In the workplace, this could mean that men will try to dominate conversations when they are talking with one woman or several women. Other Verbal Behaviors There is some evidence that women, compared to men, tend to speak more formally and politely (e.g., ‘‘please’’) and to use less profanity (Henley, 1977; Kramer, 1974). Tannen (1994) describes women’s speech as more tentative than men’s (‘‘maybe I’m off base’’), often ending with a question (‘‘What do you think?’’) or a questioning tone (‘‘Maybe we should do this?’’), whereas men are less likely to ask questions, perhaps because doing so indicates a lack of knowledge or control. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Nonverbal Communication Communication occurs not only via words but also through body language (e.g., nods, gestures, body position), facial expressions (e.g., smiles, frowns), and paralinguistic cues (e.g., speed and timbre of speech). Like spoken language, nonverbal communication also shows gender differences, but again they tend to vary with a number of factors. In general, women tend to nod and smile more than men do, and their voices tend to be rated higher in warmth than men’s voices (Hall & Friedman, 1999; Johnson, 1994). These qualities enhance the relational aspect of communication; in that regard, they parallel the ﬁnding that women are more likely than men to use afﬁliative speech. Similarly, men’s vocal utterances are rated higher than women’s on dominance (Hall & Friedman, 1999), paralleling the ﬁnding that men are more likely than women to use assertive speech. Body movements too can reﬂect conﬁdence and dominance (e.g., relaxed gestures, taking up space, initiating handshakes, maintaining eye contact while speaking), and these behaviors are more common in men than in women (Henley, 1977). Smiling is a particularly gendered nonverbal behavior. Although even women in higher status positions tend to smile more than their male counterparts (Hall & Friedman, 1999), smiling is more related to positive affect for high-status and equal-status workers than it is for low-status workers. Indeed, in many low status service jobs (wait-staff, supermarket check-out people, airline attendants), smiling may be a job requirement, especially for women (Hecht & LaFrance, 1998; Hochschild, 1983). Women appear to have an advantage over men in accurately decoding the nonverbal cues of others, at least when such cues are not deliberately deceptive (Hall, 1978; Rosenthal & DePaulo, 1979). This skill can enhance women’s afﬁliative abilities and be related to their lower status. The issue of women’s status is important in examining gendered communication styles, because such styles do vary by status. Women in the workforce typically hold lower status jobs than men do. Thus, what appears as gender differences might actually be status differences. To examine this, we will next explore various explanations for gender differences in communication styles.

EXPLANATIONS FOR GENDERED PATTERNS OF COMMUNICATION Gendered patterns of communication can be attributed to socialization and/or contextual factors. Both types of explanations have received some research support. Socialization explanations emphasize the fact that boys and girls are raised in different ways and consequently learn the communication © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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style that is considered appropriate for their gender (Chodorow, 1978; Leaper & Ayres, 2007; Maccoby, 1998; Tannen, 1990). Because girls are usually raised by women and are viewed as future mothers, they tend to develop a sense of self in relationship to others. These afﬁliative tendencies are further reinforced in play with other girls, which tends to emphasize cooperation and connection (e.g., playing ‘‘house’’). Boys, who are also usually raised by women, must develop a sense of self by disconnecting from their female caretakers and forging their identity through autonomous activities. Play with other boys reinforces assertive acts, competitiveness, and dominance (e.g., ‘‘king of the hill’’). Furthermore, afﬁliative speech tends to be modeled by and reinforced for females, whereas assertive communication tends to be modeled by and reinforced for males. Thus, gendered communication styles are learned and perpetuated. This type of explanation is supported by the general pattern of gender differences and the relatively greater strength of these patterns in same-gender rather than mixed groups (Leaper & Ayres, 2007). Yet the fact that gender differences in communication vary by situation and can be over-shadowed by gender-role differences (i.e., the degree to which men and women actually possess gender-linked traits) suggests that this explanation is insufﬁcient by itself (Basow & Rubenfeld, 2003; Edwards & Hamilton, 2004; Leaper & Ayres, 2007). A contextual explanation emphasizes that gendered behavior depends on the speciﬁc social situation (Deaux & Major, 1987; Leaper & Ayres, 2007). For example, in situations with strangers, individuals might rely on traditional gender scripts as guidelines for behavior. This supports the ﬁnding that gender differences in afﬁliative and assertive speech are more likely when individuals are talking with strangers than with people they know. Gender also is confounded with status, and, as noted above, status affects communication styles (Henley, 1977). For example, individuals with more power in a situation (e.g., employer over employee, manager over subordinate) tend to use more assertive speech and body language and to talk more than those who have less power. In contrast, those who have less power tend to use more afﬁliative speech and submissive behaviors and be better at decoding nonverbal communication than those who have more power. These status differences parallel frequently found gender differences (Crawford & Kaufman, 2006; Kalbﬂeish & Herold, 2006; Wood & Karten, 1986). Thus, what looks like gender differences in communication styles might really reﬂect status differences, especially in the workplace, where men tend to hold higher status positions than women do. It is likely that both explanations contribute to gendered patterns in communication style, but gender is sometimes a stronger inﬂuence than status (Hall, 2006; Hall & Friedman, 1999). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

THE EFFECTS OF GENDERED COMMUNICATION STYLES IN THE WORKPLACE Unfortunately, most of the research on gender differences in communication focuses on college students or couples in intimate relationships. However, we can supplement the few workplace studies with extrapolations from other research settings to examine issues in the workplace related to gendered communication styles. Given the generally small and variable nature of gender differences in communication styles, it perhaps is not too surprising that direct studies of workers show a similar pattern of small to nonexistent gender differences in the workplace. For example, men and women in similar positions in the workplace are equally concerned about fairness (Hale, 1999; Lentz, 1986), the quality of communication with supervisors (Amason & Allen, 1997), and the need to understand the perspectives of others (Hale, 1999). Men and women in similar positions also show no difference in how they try to inﬂuence superiors (O’Neil, 2004) or in their views of the best way to cope with a job-related conﬂict (Mai-Dalton, Summers-Feldman, & Mitchell, 1979). Despite these similarities, there is some research that suggests that similar communication behaviors can have different effects, depending on the gender of the speaker, the gender of the person spoken to, and the nature of the interaction (e.g., same-gender or opposite-gender). Furthermore, men and women are typically not in similar workplace positions. Thus, gender is often confounded with status; what looks like gender differences can actually be differences in speech between highstatus and low-status individuals. Given the overlap, women in highstatus positions can face particular communication challenges because their organizational status conﬂicts with their gender-role status. Perceptions of Gendered Communication Patterns Given the tendency for women to use more afﬁliative speech and for men to use more assertive speech, it is perhaps not surprising that these behaviors have become stereotypic expectations. Thus, women whose communication style is not afﬁliative might be seen as violating gendered expectations, which is generally perceived as negative by others (Carli, LaFleur, & Loeber, 1995; Fiske, Bersoff, Borgida, Deaux, & Heilman, 1991; Friedman & Yorio, 2006). For example, speech and behavior that is seen as a sign of strength and conﬁdence in a man could be perceived as evidence of ‘‘bitchiness’’ in a woman. Yet if women do conform to more ‘‘feminine’’ modes of communicating, others may perceive them as lacking competence or leadership potential. This catch-22 becomes even more complicated when other variables are considered—for example, whether the perceiver is a man or a woman or what the nature of the task is. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Women who conform to gendered communication stereotypes (using afﬁliative speech, talking less, and using deferential nonverbal behaviors) tend to be liked by others and viewed as more sociable, but they are not necessarily viewed as competent (Carli et al., 1995; Juodvalkis, Grefe, Hogue, Svyantek, & DeLamarter, 2003; Kuhlenschmidt & Conger, 1988; Lindsey & Zakahi, 2006; Rudman, 1998). If women use a more dominant communication style, they might be penalized on likability and sociability ratings, but they are also more likely to receive higher competency ratings and make a better overall impression. Because career advancement is more keyed to perceptions of competence than likability, it is not surprising that the 1970s saw a surge of ‘‘management training’’ workshops for women that focused on teaching women how to change from an afﬁliative communication style to an assertive one (as well as how to ‘‘dress for success’’ and the like). Alas, communicating in the accepted male-stereotypic way does not always work for women in the ways that it works for men. Carli (1990) found that women were more inﬂuential with men when they spoke in a tentative style rather than in an assertive style, although the latter style was more effective with women. This pattern might reﬂect men’s greater tendency to hold traditional views of women and their discomfort with women who do not incorporate traditional ‘‘feminine’’ behavior. Similar results have been found in a variety of contexts in which men have been asked to evaluate women (Basow, 1998; Glick & Fiske, 1999). Because men are more likely to be in supervisory positions, in which the evaluation of subordinates is critical for job retention or advancement, it is not always the case that ‘‘speaking like a man’’ is the best communication strategy for women. Ann Hopkins found this out the hard way. In 1982, Ann Hopkins was denied partnership in the Price Waterhouse accounting ﬁrm because some of her evaluators thought that she was not ‘‘feminine enough,’’ especially in the ways she talked, looked, and acted (Fiske et al., 1991). The fact that she had demonstrated proﬁciency at her job—bringing in more business and accumulating more billable hours than her male counterparts and earning praise for being hardworking and exacting—appeared to matter less than her ‘‘macho’’ interpersonal style. Fortunately, in 1989 the Supreme Court, aided by an amicus curiae brief on gender stereotyping research ﬁled by the American Psychological Association, found that Hopkins had been a victim of gender-based discrimination. Still, the issue remains that women who work with men probably have to communicate differently than men do to be perceived positively. Let’s examine three key workplace issues in which gendered communication styles can be particularly important for women: applying for a job and negotiating one’s salary, making decisions and handling conﬂict, and serving as a supervisor or leader. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

Applying for a Job and Negotiating a Salary Given the ﬁnding that gender differences in communication styles are particularly noticeable with strangers and in discussions of impersonal topics, gender differences seem likely to occur when applying for a job and dealing with a speciﬁc job offer. Such differences, especially if combined with a less conﬁdent attitude, appear to make women less likely than men to negotiate a job offer, especially a salary offer. In fact, Babcock and Laschever (2003) found that much of the salary differential between women and men is related to women’s reluctance to negotiate their initial salary offer. These researchers found that women are more than twice as likely as men to feel apprehensive about negotiating. As a result, men initiate negotiations about four times as often as women do; consequently, their starting salaries are higher. Given that starting salaries serve as the basis for future raises, what starts out as a barely noticeable salary differential can add up to more than half a million dollars in lost earnings over a woman’s lifetime. Negotiating a salary offer or job conditions generally requires an assertive attitude and communication style. It is just this type of speech that men engage in more than women do, especially with strangers and regarding impersonal issues. Women’s greater afﬁliative tendencies in such situations can work to their detriment, because they might be more concerned about offending the person making the job offer or appearing self-centered or ungrateful than with their own career and ﬁnancial status. For example, Heatherington and colleagues (1993) found that women tended to be more modest about their achievements in public situations than in private ones because of self-presentation concerns. Although women certainly need to learn to negotiate job and salary offers in an assertive but nonaggressive manner, strong and assertive women are not always perceived positively, at least not by men (Carli, 1990; Carli et al., 1995; Wiley & Eskilson, 1985). Female employees, more than male employees, are expected to avoid conﬂict, maintain relationships, and facilitate interactions (Wilson, Lizzio, & Zauner, 2001). Still, assertive women are more likely to be hired. For example, in a simulated job situation (Juodvalkis et al., 2003), women who used a more dominant communication style, as opposed to a more submissive style, were rated as less likable and sociable but as more competent and hirable. For men, dominant communication styles were associated with positive ratings on all measures: likability, sociability, competence, and hirability. Rudman (1998) found similar results for the different effects of self-promotion in women and men. Thus, women often have to trade off being viewed as likable in order to be hired, especially at a salary that matches that of a male counterpart.

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Making Decisions and Handling Conﬂict Because women have a tendency to emphasize the afﬁliative style of communication and men the assertive style, it is perhaps not surprising that research ﬁnds that women and men tend to reach decisions by using different communication styles. Studies that examined the deliberation process consistently found small but signiﬁcant gender differences in afﬁliative and assertive speech in the expected directions (Leaper & Ayres, 2007). In addition, men tended to talk signiﬁcantly more than women did in such situations, whereas women were more likely than men to take turns when speaking. Tannen (1994), in her observations of different workplace conversations, concurs: Women tend to consider the viewpoints of others and the impact on others when making decisions, whereas men tend to focus more on their own viewpoints. Like June in the vignette at the beginning of this chapter, women in predominantly male work environments often report difﬁculty in having their ideas heard; indeed, many report feeling ignored (Hale, 1999). This might be the result of their male colleagues’ tendency to use (and prefer) assertive rather than afﬁliative speech during deliberations. Different dynamics can exist, depending on whether communication is in same-gender or mixed-gender groups. As Leaper and Ayres’ (2007) meta-analytic review found, afﬁliative and assertive speech may be greatest in same-gender groups, whereas talkativeness by men is greatest when at least one woman is in the group. Men’s need to assert dominance over women could be responsible for their greater talkativeness and for their greater use of patronizing language in mixed-gender rather than same-gender groups (Crawford & Kaufman, 2006). Women appear to use more tentative language and disclaimers than men when they are in groups with at least one man (Carli, 1990). Both men and women smile more with women (Johnson, 1994). Indeed, women in all-female groups have the highest rates of smiling, whereas men in all-male groups have the lowest rates. When we examine communications speciﬁcally geared to resolving disagreements, a familiar pattern is found: Men tend to talk more, and in a more assertive manner, than women do (Leaper & Ayres, 2007). Women do not, however, appear to use more afﬁliative speech than men do when discussing disagreements. Despite the fact that women are expected to avoid conﬂict and facilitate interpersonal relationships (Tannen, 1990; Wilson et al., 2001), men and women in the workplace appear to deal with conﬂict with their superiors in similar ways: smoothing over (i.e., minimizing differences), making compromises, and confronting (i.e., bringing the problem out into the open) (Renwick, 1977).

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Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

Serving as a Supervisor or Leader Being a supervisor, manager, or task leader is a nontraditional role for women, who typically hold subordinate positions in work and gender relations. Furthermore, the expectations that people have of managers—to be strong, decisive, assertive, and dominant—are traits that are more typically associated with men than with women (Eagly, 2007; Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & van Engen, 2003; Kalbﬂeish & Herold, 2006). Thus, women in such positions face particular challenges, especially if their subordinates are men. Given different gender socialization experiences and different sets of expectations for women and men, it perhaps is not surprising that women leaders, compared to male leaders, tend to show more positive affect and warmth (Hall & Friedman, 1999). They are more likely to emphasize communication, cooperation, and subordinate involvement (Cowan, Wilcox, & Nykodym, 1990; Fox & Schuhmann, 1999). In fact, a meta-analysis of 45 studies of different types of leadership styles found that women were more likely than men to use a transformational style (one in which the leader supports and empowers her followers, inspiring them to reach their potential) as well as provide contingent rewards for a subordinate’s satisfactory performance (Eagly et al., 2003). In contrast, male leaders were more likely than their female counterparts to use punishment to shape followers’ behaviors and to be uninvolved at critical moments (i.e., a laissez-faire style). Although the magnitude of these gender differences was small (meaning that men and women leaders were more similar than different), the pattern of results is in line with ﬁndings regarding gender differences in communication, with women leaders more likely than men leaders to express support and encouragement of subordinates, and men leaders more likely to use assertive and dominant communication styles. Although men often claim that they would not want to work for a woman because women are overly emotional (Eagly, 2007; Hale, 1999), when studies examine men who actually have women bosses, the picture is quite different. Men are as satisﬁed with a female supervisor as they are with a male, or they are more satisﬁed. The same picture appears for women subordinates. The greater satisfaction with female compared to male leaders is typically because of women leaders’ greater use of a democratic or transformational leadership style (Eagly 2007; Kalbﬂeish & Herold, 2006). Although different situations may require different types of leadership at different times, the meta-analysis by Eagly and colleagues (2003) found that the behaviors more typical of women than men leaders (i.e., a transformational leadership style and use of contingent reward) are exactly the qualities associated with maximum effectiveness. In contrast, the behaviors more typical of

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men leaders (i.e., a laissez-faire style or a focus on problems and failures) were either ineffective or had negative effects (see chapter 4 in this volume for more detail on women as bosses). Although men and women might be equally satisﬁed with their supervisors regardless of the supervisor’s gender, it is still possible that there are different communication styles whose effectiveness depends on both the gender of the supervisor and the gender of the subordinate. For example, in a simulated work environment, LaPlante and Ambady (2002) found that the productivity and work satisfaction of subordinates varied with the verbal and nonverbal behaviors as well as the gender of their supervisor. Male supervisors received the highest ratings for productivity and work satisfaction when they gave feedback in a positive tone, even if the content was negative (e.g., ‘‘Aren’t you through yet?’’). This was especially true with male subordinates, perhaps because men become particularly defensive if they feel put down by other men. In contrast, female supervisors received the highest ratings for productivity and work satisfaction when they gave feedback with positive content (e.g., ‘‘You seem like you’re getting it’’), even if the tone was negative. Wilson and colleagues (2001) found similar results when they examined the social rules for handling a ‘‘pushy’’ subordinate: It was viewed as more socially acceptable for male managers to use formal authority to put a subordinate in his or her place, whereas female managers were expected to avoid ‘‘putting down’’ the subordinate. Women managers were expected to avoid conﬂict and facilitate interaction. Renwick (1977), in her study of managers, found that female supervisors were perceived by their subordinates as less likely to resolve conﬂicts through force (i.e., using power to force acceptance of their point of view) than their male counterparts. On the whole, however, both male and female supervisors were perceived to handle conﬂicts in similar ways, through compromise and confrontation. These two strategies were associated with subordinates’ positive attitudes toward conﬂict. The gender composition of the workplace may make a difference in what behaviors are used or are effective. For example, in Renwick’s (1977) study of 100 middle managers, supervisors of both sexes were perceived as more likely to use compromise and smoothing over as conﬂict resolution strategies when dealing with female as opposed to male subordinates. Carli (1990) found that female speakers were more inﬂuential with men when they spoke more tentatively than assertively, but the reverse was true when the women speakers spoke with women (i.e., they were more inﬂuential when they spoke more assertively than tentatively). Interestingly, male speakers were equally inﬂuential regardless of whether they spoke in an assertive or tentative fashion, to women or to men. These ﬁndings help explain why women’s leadership effectiveness is rated lower than men’s only in © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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workplace environments that are male-dominated or traditionally masculine (Eagly, 2007). It is in just such situations that stereotyped gendered expectations play the greatest role. It is important not to overstate gender differences in the communication styles of male and female leaders, however. There is a considerable overlap between women and men in their communication and leadership styles because these are often moderated more by status, role, or situational requirements than by gender. COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES FOR WOMEN IN A ‘‘MAN’S WORLD’’ As the above review indicates, gendered communication patterns in the workplace are complex. In general, women and men communicate in ways more similar than different, although situational factors (e.g., type of communication, mixed- or same-gender group, or status) can exaggerate differences. Furthermore, what styles are most effective will vary as a function of the gender of the communicator, the target of that communication, and the gender-typing of the situation. What advice, then, would be useful for women who aspire to be successful in a workplace dominated by men? Dell (1992) argues that part of what has hindered women from reaching the top positions in organizations is that they do not adopt men’s style of communicating. Because men have been the traditional power holders in organizations, it is their style of communicating that has predominated. Thus, women who want to break through the ‘‘glass ceiling’’ have to adopt some of men’s communication characteristics— that is, they have to focus less on the needs of the listener and more on expressing their own opinions and ideas. Women (like men) must talk about their accomplishments with conﬁdence to achieve recognition for them. Babcock and Laschever (2003) concur that women have to ask for what they want in job assignments and especially in salaries. Negotiation is expected in the workplace, and when women do not engage in it, they suffer the consequences: lower salaries, lower job status, and slower advancement. Nevertheless, simply adopting men’s communication style will probably not work as well for women as for men. As Ann Hopkins found out in the famous Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins case, women who engage in the same behaviors as their male counterparts may be perceived negatively, especially by men (Fiske et al., 1991). Although women have to communicate in assertive ways to be perceived as competent and to be hired, unless they also use an afﬁliative communication style, they might not be liked, at least not by men (Carli et al., 1995; Juodvalkis et al., 2003; Kuhlenschmidt & Conger, 1988; Lindsey & Zakahi, 2006; Rudman, 1998.) © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Thus, women must master a ﬂexible style of communication, especially when dealing with men. Babcock and Laschever (2003) offer several strategies for women to ask for what they want in ways that consider the relationship as well. It is important to remember that true assertiveness involves putting one’s own needs, opinions, and desires on a par with that of others. It does not mean putting oneself above another person—that would be aggressive behavior—but it also does not meaning putting one’s own needs, opinions, and desires below another’s. Women who learn an assertive style and who accept the necessity to negotiate to achieve their objectives can be successful, at least in some organizational contexts (Tannen, 1994; Yoder, 2001). Unlike male leaders, however, women leaders have to work hard to ﬁnd ways to balance authority and friendliness (Carli et al., 1995; Friedman & Yorio, 2006; Heilman & Okimoto, 2007). Through verbal (e.g., afﬁliative speech) and nonverbal (e.g., smiling) cues, women must signal that they are sociable as well as competent. However, women must be wary of expressing too much emotion in the workplace. Because of gender-role stereotypes, ‘‘emotional’’ women are perceived very negatively (Friedman & Yorio, 2006; Hale, 1999). Simply understanding gendered communication styles may facilitate workplace dynamics. As Tannen (1994) describes, unless women understand that what appears to be hostile behavior by men (such as bantering, playful put-downs, jockeying for dominance) is simply part of men’s conversational rituals, women may become defensive and either hostile or alienated. If men do not recognize that when women downplay their own authority and avoid taking credit for their achievement they are engaging in a female-style conversational ritual, men may view women as less competent and accomplished than they are. Certainly, recent years have seen an increasing number of women climbing the career ladder, especially in middle management. And, as studies by Eagly and her colleagues (2007; Eagly et al., 2003) have shown, women typically are very effective leaders, managing in ways that empower their subordinates and achieve the organization’s objectives. Gender differences in actual communication and leadership behaviors are slight, although expectations of gender differences are strong. The situations that remain most problematic for women are the ones in strongly male-dominated or culturally masculine organizations, such as the military or high-status political ofﬁces, probably because these conﬂict most with stereotypes of women. Eagly (2007) notes, however, that favorable attitudes toward women as leaders have increased in the last 50 years, and it may just be a matter of time before the playing ﬁeld levels out even more for women in the workplace. Whether true gender equality or neutrality will be achieved remains to be seen. I appreciate Ashley Rieder’s research assistance for this chapter. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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REFERENCES Amason, P., & Allen, M. W. (1997). Intraorganizational communication, perceived organizational support, and gender. Sex Roles, 37, 955–977. Babcock, L., & Laschever, S. (2003). Women don’t ask: Negotiation and the gender divide. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Basow, S. A. (1998). Student evaluations: The role of gender bias and teaching styles. In L. H. Collins, J. Chrisler, & K. Quina (Eds.), Arming Athena: Career strategies for women in academe (pp. 135–156). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Basow, S. A., & Rubenfeld, K. (2003). ‘‘Troubles talk:’’ Effects of gender and gender typing. Sex Roles, 48, 183–187. Carli, L. L. (1990). Gender, language, and inﬂuence. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 59, 941–951. Carli, L. L., LaFleur, S. J., & Loeber, C. C. (1995). Nonverbal behavior, gender, and inﬂuence. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 68, 1030–1041. Chodorow, N. (1978). The reproduction of mothering: Psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Cowan, K. M., Wilcox, J. R., & Nykodym, N. (1990). A comparative analysis of female-male communication styles as a function of organizational level. Communications, 15, 291–309. Crawford, M., & Kaufman, M. R. (2006). Sex differences versus social processes in the construction of gender. In K. Dindia & P. J. Canary (Eds.), Sex differences and similarities in communication (2nd ed., pp. 179–192). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Deaux, K., & Major, B. (1987). Putting gender into context: An interactive model of gender-related behavior. Psychological Review, 94, 369–389. Dell, S. (1992). A communication-based theory of the glass-ceiling: Rhetorical sensitivity and upward mobility within the technical organization. Transactions on Professional Communication, 35, 230–235. Eagly, A. H. (2007). Female leadership advantage and disadvantage: Resolving the contradictions. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 1–12. Eagly, A. H., Johannesen-Schmidt, M. C., & van Engen, M. L. (2003). Transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles: A meta-analysis comparing women and men. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 569–591. Edwards, R., & Hamilton, M. A. (2004). You need to understand my gender role: An empirical test of Tannen’s model of gender and communication. Sex Roles, 50, 491–504. Fiske, S. T., Bersoff, D. N., Borgida, E., Deaux, K., & Heilman, M. E. (1991). Social science research on trial: Use of gender stereotyping research in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. American Psychologist, 46, 1049–1060. Fox, R. L., & Schuhmann, R. A. (1999). Gender and local government: A comparison of women and men city managers. Public Administration Review, 59, 231–242. Friedman, C., & Yorio, K. (2006). The girl’s guide to being a boss (without being a bitch). New York: Morgan Road Books. Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (1999). Gender, power dynamics, and social interaction. In M. M. Ferree, J. Lorber, & B. B. Hess (Eds.), Revisioning gender (pp. 365–398). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Hale, M. (1999). He says, she says: Gender and worklife. Public Administration Review, 59, 410–423. Hall, J. A. (1978). Gender effects in decoding nonverbal cues. Psychological Bulletin, 85, 845–857. Hall, J. A. (2006). Nonverbal behavior, status, and gender: How do we understand their relations? Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30, 384–391. Hall, J. A., & Friedman, G. B. (1999). Status, gender, and nonverbal behavior: A study of structured interactions between employees of a company. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1082–1091. Heatherington, L., Daubman, K. A., Bates, C., Ahn, A., Brown, H., & Preston, C. (1993). Two investigations of ‘‘female modesty’’ in achievement situations. Sex Roles, 29, 739–754. Hecht, M. A., & LaFrance, M. (1998). License or obligation to smile: The effect of power and gender on amount and type of smiling. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 1332–1352. Heilman, M. E., & Okimoto, T. G. (2007). Why are women penalized for success at male tasks? The implied communality deﬁcit. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 81–92. Henley, N. (1977). Body politics: Power, sex, and nonverbal communication. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Hochschild, A. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Johnson, C. (1994). Gender, legitimate authority, and leader-subordinate conversations. American Sociological Review, 59, 122–135. Juodvalkis, J. L., Grefe, B. A., Hogue, M., Svyantek, D. J., & DeLamarter, W. (2003). The effects of job stereotypes, applicant gender, and communication style on ratings in screening interviews. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 11, 67–84. Kalbﬂeish, P. J., & Herold, A. L. (2006). Sex, power, and communication. In K. Dindia & P. J. Canary (Eds.), Gender differences and similarities in communication (2nd ed., pp. 299–313). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Kramer, C. (1974). Women’s speech: Separate but unequal. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 60, 14–24. Kuhlenschmidt, S., & Conger, J. C. (1988). Behavioral components of social competence in females. Sex Roles, 18, 107–112. LaPlante, D., & Ambady, N. (2002). Saying it like it isn’t: Mixed messages from men and women in the workplace. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32, 2435–2457. Leaper, C., & Ayres, M. M. (2007). A meta-analytic review of gender variations in adults’ language use: Talkativeness, afﬁliative speech, and assertive speech. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 11, 328–363. Lentz, T. M. (1986). Communication difﬁculties in a large federal agency. American Behavioral Scientist, 29, 303–319. Lindsey, A. E., & Zakahi, W. R. (2006). Perceptions of men and women departing from conversational sex-role stereotypes. In K. Dindia & P. J. Canary (Eds.), Gender differences and similarities in communication (2nd ed., pp. 281–298). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Maccoby, E. E. (1998). The two sexes: Growing up apart, coming together. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Mai-Dalton, R. R., Summers-Feldman, S., & Mitchell, T. R. (1979). Effect of employee gender and behavior style on the evaluations of male and female banking executives. Journal of Applied Psychology, 64, 221–226. Mehl, M. R., Vazire, S., Ramirez-Esparza, N., Slatcher, R. B., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2007). Are women really more talkative than men? Science, 317, 82. Mulac, A. (2006). The gender-linked effect: Do language differences really make a difference? In K. Dindia & P. J. Canary (Eds.), Gender differences and similarities in communication (2nd ed., pp. 127–154). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. O’Neil, J. (2004). Effects of gender and power on PR managers’ upward inﬂuence. Journal of Managerial Issues, 15, 127–144. Renwick, P. A. (1977). The effects of sex differences on the perception and management of superior-subordinate conﬂict: An exploratory study. Organizational Behavior & Human Performance, 19, 403–415. Rosenthal, R., & DePaulo, B. M. (1979). Sex differences in eavesdropping on nonverbal cues. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 37, 271–285. Rudman, L. A. (1998). Self-promotion as a risk factor for women: The costs and beneﬁts of counter stereotypical impression management. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 629–645. Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation. New York: Morrow. Tannen, D. (1994). Talking from nine to ﬁve: How women’s and men’s conversational styles affect who gets heard, who gets credit, and what gets done at work. New York: Morrow. Wiley, M. G., & Eskilson, A. (1985). Speech style, gender stereotypes, and corporate success: What if women talk more like men? Sex Roles, 12, 993–1007. Wilson, K. L., Lizzio, A. J., & Zauner, S. (2001). Social rules for managing attempted interpersonal domination in the workplace: Inﬂuence of status and gender. Sex Roles, 44, 129–154. Wood, W., & Karten, S. J. (1986). Sex differences in interaction style as a product of perceived sex differences in competence. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 50, 341–347. Yoder, J. D. (2001). Making leadership work more effectively for women. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 815–828.

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Chapter 3

On Work-Life Balance: In My Own Voice Michelle Wildgrube

When I was initially approached to write this piece, I mentioned the task to my 11-year-old daughter. She responded, ‘‘You can’t do that, you don’t have the time.’’ I think her perception is right, but somehow I keep trying to squeeze the most time out of every minute, every hour, every day. I’m a wife, a mother, and an attorney. I have a great husband and two wonderful girls, ages 8 and 11. I am a partner in a small law ﬁrm in Niskayuna, New York. I have two law partners, both women, and our law ﬁrm is an all-women ﬁrm. I enjoy all my roles— mom, wife, and attorney—and I am constantly challenged to ﬁnd balance in my life to make it work. It’s not easy to be a mother and an attorney in private practice. Some days, I wish I’d chosen a different profession, maybe one that’s more family-friendly. Teaching or nursing might offer beneﬁts to my family, summers off or a ﬂexible schedule, that law does not. In college, I remember being encouraged by my mother to carefully consider my career choice and the effect it would have on my family. I also remember thinking, ‘‘This is the ’80s, it’s different now.’’ I remember thinking that times had changed since my mother graduated from college in the 1960s, and I was certain that life for women would be easier by the time I had children. In college I minored in women’s studies, and I knew that the research showed that more women than ever were working outside the home. It appeared to be a logical conclusion that my community would support my needs as a working woman. However, I completely underestimated the career that I was preparing to undertake. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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I graduated from Rutgers College in the winter of 1988 and started law school at the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law in the fall of 1989. At my law school, we had nearly equal numbers of men and women; I thought that boded well for my future career. I met my husband in law school, and we graduated together in 1992. After law school I accepted a position in a small law ﬁrm. My goal as a young attorney was to be a partner in the law ﬁrm—that seemed to be a reasonable goal, and it was not an unusual one for a young attorney. The ﬁrm culture dictated long hours for all attorneys—not just associates, but partners as well. I was expected to be in the ofﬁce early, and leaving before 6:30 P.M. was frowned upon. In addition, I frequently worked on Saturdays, which was also expected. The work never stopped. Private practice is very different from government or municipal practice, where the attorneys work a regular schedule, often 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. There are great beneﬁts with such work, but I have to say that I enjoy the networking of private practice, the ability to see clients and help them, and the opportunity to be involved with my community as part of my work. In order to represent my clients well, I spent long hours learning the intricacies of the law. I had learned much about the law and legal theories at law school; now I had to learn the process and the application of the law. In addition, I was required by my ﬁrm to maintain a heavy caseload to ensure that I would be proﬁtable for the ﬁrm. There was always pressure to bill the clients, and because I was new, not all of my time could be billed because much of my time was spent learning what experienced attorneys could rattle off from experience. Because of the learning curve, I had to put in long hours in order to bill a reasonable amount of time. These long hours were at the expense of my personal life. I gave up early mornings, early evenings, and weekends with friends and family so that I could get in my billable hours. My husband and I became engaged in March 1993. I remember struggling to put together our wedding while I was working. The week before the wedding, in October 1993, I requested an additional unpaid day off to prepare for the wedding and visit with out-of-town guests. My request was denied. I am certain that the concern was the loss of billable hours and the precedent that such an absence might set for the ﬁrm. I have to say that I’m still bitter about that; it’s a day I’ll never get back. It’s one of the things that I think of now as I consider requests from staff for days off. A couple years after getting married, my husband and I began to think about starting a family. I thought about the impact that pregnancy and childbirth might have on my work, but I assumed that I’d be able to manage a young family. I had some concerns because I had observed that it was not easy to be a pregnant associate attorney at the ﬁrm. I had watched a coworker struggle to work the expected hours © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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while good-naturedly managing a high-risk pregnancy. This coworker was also the ﬁrst female associate in the ﬁrm to have a baby, which is somewhat surprising, given the fact that the ﬁrm had been in existence for more than 80 years. Overall, it seemed to me that the ﬁrm was not supportive. I noticed a change in attitude toward my coworker: She was no longer included in discussions about long-term planning, and comments were made about her working fewer hours. No concessions were made because of her pregnancy, meetings were scheduled for her before and after work hours, and she was expected to be at those meetings. Despite this, I continued at the ﬁrm, hoping that my experience would be different, hoping that ground had been broken by my coworker and that my path would be easier. In 1995, I became pregnant with our ﬁrst daughter, Anna. When I became pregnant, I decided to wait as long as possible before telling the partners at my ﬁrm; after all, I didn’t want to suffer the same treatment as the last pregnant attorney in the ﬁrm. Fortunately, my daughter and my body aided me in this endeavor, because I wasn’t big at ﬁrst. I also had the help of a friend who loaned me all her clothes, which were just a little bigger than my clothes but were not maternity clothes. To the outside world, it just looked as if I’d gotten a new wardrobe. I waited and waited and waited to share my news while continuing to pretend that it was business as usual. Finally, my parents, who live in the same town and interacted with many of the same people that the partners in the ﬁrm did, begged me to tell the partners. At that point, I was nearly 6 months pregnant. I continued to work until the day I went into labor, 7 days past my due date, because I didn’t want to waste any valuable maternity leave time without a baby. The last few weeks of my pregnancy were the only time that any of the partners encouraged me to go home from work at 5 P.M.; I think I made them nervous, hanging out, almost ready to give birth. I took a 6-week maternity leave, followed by 1 week of ‘‘vacation’’ and 2 weeks of unpaid leave. Because the ﬁrm was small, the Americans with Disabilities Act did not apply, so I was unable to take any more leave. I also agreed, when I took the maternity leave, that I would continue to work at the ﬁrm for a year after the maternity leave ended, or else I would refund the ﬁrm the 6 weeks’ paid salary I’d received while I was on leave. When I returned from maternity leave, I found that it was challenging to be the working mother of an infant. I was nursing my daughter all night and working as hard as I could all day. I hated getting to work early and leaving late. I tried to curb my hours at work during the week, and I hardly worked on weekends. I was stressed out a lot of the time, either worrying about work or worrying about my family. Before having children, another female attorney had told me that she © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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had days when she felt sure she was doing nothing well. I could now understand the struggle and challenge involved in spending quality time with my family and doing my job in a competent manner. There were days when it seemed as if everyone was getting short shrift. After my daughter turned 1 year old and my year-long obligation to the ﬁrm was complete, I asked the partners if I could work part-time. I wanted to spend more time with my daughter and my husband. I proposed working 5 days a week until 3 P.M. I thought that would be a good compromise—I’d be in the ofﬁce for most of the day, and I could spend time with my daughter in the late afternoon, avoiding (I hoped) the evening rush of day care, dinner preparation, and bedtime routine. My request was denied. I started to consider my options. Unfortunately, at the time, which was 1997, I didn’t know of any attorneys in private practice law ﬁrms who worked part-time. The women who had the ﬂexibility were solo practitioners or worked for the government. I found it difﬁcult to put together a model of part-time private law practice, because there were no local examples to observe. Although I struggled with the ﬁrm culture, I knew that I still wanted a career in private practice. I liked the camaraderie with staff and clients, I liked being able to work with the people in my community. So I started to network, seeking support for my ideas. I hoped to work at a ﬁrm, because I appreciated the support that a ﬁrm could offer and I liked private practice. I also wanted to work with other attorneys because I saw the value of sharing ideas and legal theories with other attorneys in the ofﬁce; in addition, I thought that a ﬁrm offered clients more options. I shared my dream of part-time work with other attorneys with whom I worked in the community. One of the people I talked to was my friend, Deb Slezak, who was an associate at a small ﬁrm, Carpenter & Ciofﬁ, which was located close to my home. Deb suggested that I talk to the partners at her ofﬁce; she explained that there were a lot of part-time employees at Carpenter & Ciofﬁ. At a luncheon in the spring of 1998, I had the opportunity to speak with Cris Ciofﬁ, and I mentioned that I was interested in a part-time job. Cris explained that at the time, the ofﬁce of Carpenter & Ciofﬁ didn’t have the physical space for another person. I waited. A year later, Deb told me that the ﬁrm had expanded its ofﬁce space and had the space it needed to add another attorney. I called Cris Ciofﬁ again, and she invited me to the ofﬁce to meet with her and her partner, Howard Carpenter. By then, I was 8 months pregnant with my second daughter, Zo€e. Cris and Howard asked me what I was looking for in a job, and I said that I was looking to work part-time, 3 days a week. I suggested Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays; my theory was that Friday was a quieter day and people could excuse me for being out then. By the time I got home after the interview, there was a message on my © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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phone machine from Howard, and when I called back, I was offered the part-time job—my dream job. When I gave notice that I would not be returning after my (second) maternity leave because I’d been offered employment at Carpenter & Ciofﬁ, the ﬁrm asked me to consider staying and also offered me parttime employment. The ﬁrm’s proposal was for me to work from 9 A.M. to 4 P.M. every day, to be compensated at a reduced rate, and to take an additional pay cut because I wouldn’t be maximizing the ofﬁce space. In effect, the ﬁrm was proposing to rent my ofﬁce to me during the work hours that I wasn’t there. I thought that was an outrageous offer, and I declined it. In the summer of 1999, after taking nearly 4 months for a maternity leave (a glorious and memorable amount of time!), I started work at Carpenter & Ciofﬁ on a part-time basis. This was a launching point for me, embarking on part-time work as an attorney and ﬁnally getting to spend weekday time with my children. There were immediate surprises and rewards in working part-time. I found that I was more productive working on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays instead of for a full week. I am a conscientious employee, and I would never have questioned my productivity while I was working full time; after all, I work in a business in which we keep track of all our hours and everything we do, billable and nonbillable. I used to joke that before I worked at Carpenter & Ciofﬁ, I wrote down my hours when I blew my nose or went to the ladies’ room. So it was a surprise that even though I was working at a ﬁrm that was a bit more casual and relaxed, I was billing even more effectively. One of the reasons for my increased effectiveness was that working part-time created more deadlines. Because I am committed to returning phone calls and getting tasks done in a timely manner, the days at home created deadlines on a weekly basis. As a result, if I had a client in on a Monday, I’d work to have an answer by Tuesday, because if I didn’t, the client wouldn’t hear from me until Thursday, which, in my opinion, was too long to wait. By completing tasks before my days off, I ensured that my clients were happy and that it would be less likely that my ofﬁce would call me at home for emergencies. I’m sure that it also helped that I was better rested, more relaxed, and happier with my life than I’d ever been as a working mother. Because I was a nursing mom, just knowing that I could sleep in on Wednesdays and Fridays was a huge help. I was more focused and better able to concentrate at work. It is impossible to sustain a high level of intensity on a constant basis, and working full-time dilutes this ability. Working parttime, I could stay intensely focused for longer periods, because I had regular day-long breaks from the practice of law. My clients also had the beneﬁt of the rest, because I could use my downtime on days off to mentally work through some of their challenges. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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In addition, I was more effective because I was not distracted by home tasks while I was at work. Working full-time, I had no choice but to schedule doctor’s appointments, deal with child-care issues, and generally plan my life during working hours—distractions that were normal and not extreme, but distractions nonetheless. On the part-time schedule, I took care of these matters on my days off, so I received fewer workday interruptions. I remember a friend who had joked that she needed to go to work to ‘‘take care of business,’’ meaning her social life. As a part-time employee, those interruptions occurred infrequently, because I knew that within a couple of days I could take care of those matters at home. Furthermore, I noticed that my attendance at work was nearly perfect working part-time; I almost never missed a day of work as a result of a child’s illness. My husband and I had always divided the ‘‘sick duty,’’ and now that I was home 2 days a week, my husband always picked up the other days if a child was sick. For the mother of two young children, that was a great beneﬁt to my ﬁrm. What about my clients? I did not publicize my part-time schedule. I tried to make my part-time work as seamless as possible so that the clients weren’t inconvenienced or delayed because I worked part-time. Many of my clients didn’t realize that I was working part-time because I always returned calls and e-mails promptly. On my days off, the receptionist would send the call to my assistant, who could take a detailed message, give a status report, and answer basic questions. I had the constant support of a great team at work, and I am convinced that my part-time work would not have gone as well without that team. As technology advanced, I was eventually able to check my e-mail from home and work from home when necessary, just as if I were at my desk in the ofﬁce. There was also a silver lining to the part-time schedule: I found that I gained clients by working part-time. On my days off, I would have lunch or get together for play dates with other moms, some who worked part-time and some who stayed at home, and I found that these moms were becoming my clients and referring clients to me. A few years later, when I attended a seminar on building a law practice, the speakers recommended regular golf outings and entertaining of clients and acquaintances at least 2 afternoons a week to build a practice. It turned out that my part-time schedule facilitated this kind of networking with the moms of my community and ultimately worked to beneﬁt the ﬁrm. I can’t say that the part-time schedule was always perfect. There were some home days that I was on the phone for blocks of time, working out the details of a real estate closing or a corporate contract. I’d close myself in my home ofﬁce and work, letting the kids watch a little too much television or take longer naps. Once, when I was called © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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by a judge while my children were yelling for my attention, I walked into the playroom while I was on the phone and silently put down a box of cookies and slowly backed away, as if I were feeding the lions at the zoo. I was able to have a full, 15-minute conversation with no interruptions! Fortunately, that didn’t happen very often, and for the most part I was able to spend time with my children on my days off. As my children grew older and entered school, I picked up more hours at work. By the time both children were in elementary school, I was working 2 full days and 3 half days. In 2004, when my daughters were 8 and 5, I was asked to become a partner at the ﬁrm. At the time, Cris Ciofﬁ, Howard Carpenter, and Deb Slezak were partners, and Howard Carpenter was changing his status to become ‘‘of counsel’’ to the ﬁrm. Our new ﬁrm, Ciofﬁ Slezak Wildgrube P.C., was 100% woman-owned. Remarkably, I was a part-time partner working at approximately 80% of a full-time attorney’s position. Part-time partnership is almost unheard of in the legal community. I was thrilled that I had made my goal of partnership, and it was even sweeter to be able to do so while working part-time. I currently work what the ﬁrm considers to be a 90% schedule: full days on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and until 2 P.M. on Wednesdays and Fridays. I work additional hours in the evenings and occasionally on weekends, but I always get the kids off the bus on Wednesdays and Fridays, and I am grateful to be able to do that. My children look forward to those afternoons; it is a time to catch up with them and work on school projects. That time also allows me to get a head start on household chores and to run errands with the kids. I am lucky to have a lot of support, both at work and at home. The teamwork at the ofﬁce helps me ensure that my clients will have responsive, high-quality legal services. At home, I have the help of my husband and parents to care for the children. My husband is truly a partner with me in parenting, and he spends lots of time with the children—carpooling, going to their lacrosse practices and games, working with them on their homework, and just spending time with them. I also have the wonderful support of my parents, who live about 5 minutes away from my house and take care of the children after school when I’m working. It helps me to know that my children are spending valuable time with their grandparents when I can’t be there. In addition, my parents are always happy to pick up extra time when I have meetings that just can’t be moved or real estate closings that must take place on a Wednesday or a Friday. As a partner in my law ﬁrm, it is my goal to give my staff the same opportunities that I have had at the ﬁrm. We have 12 employees, 5 of whom work part-time, and 3 partners, 2 of whom work part-time. Our ﬁrm has found that part-time staff work well in our framework; we are © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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lucky to have a staff of very talented women who appreciate the concept of teamwork and who work together to provide excellent legal services to our clients. Because we are amenable to part-time schedules, we have been able to hire great people who want to work outside the home but also spend time with their families. It’s not a compromise to hire part-time employees, it’s good business.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 4

When the Boss Is a Woman Joan Chrisler Sarah K. Clapp

Images of women bosses in popular culture are rarely positive—think of Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, Sigourney Weaver in Working Girl, Helen Mirren in Raising Helen, Demi Moore in Disclosure, and Glenn Close in 101 Dalmatians. The most enduring cinematic and literary images show woman bosses as mean, if not outright evil, harridans who seduce their male employees and belittle their women employees. Women bosses are portrayed as envious of their woman employees’ potential, often stealing their ideas, taking credit for their successes, and trying to block their advancement. A current advice book (Friedman & Yorio, 2006) for women managers purports to show its readers how to be ‘‘a good witch’’ rather than ‘‘a bad bitch.’’ Are witch and bitch the only managerial types available to women? For nearly 30 years, Joan Chrisler has given the students in her psychology of women classes an assignment to survey their friends to ﬁnd out how many had ever worked for a woman boss, what the experience was like, and how many would like to work for a woman (or work for one again). In the early years, relatively few had worked for women, but in recent years more than half the people the students surveyed have done so; usually the women were small-business owners or mid-level managers in larger companies. Women are somewhat more likely than men to say that they would like to work for a woman in the future. The students are often shocked by the comments that their friends and relatives make about women bosses. For example, many more comments are made about the physical appearance and emotional state of female bosses than of male bosses. The women bosses seem to ﬁt

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

one of two stereotypes: (a) the motherly type, who is warm, nurturing, patient, and wants to befriend her employees, and (b) the ‘‘bitch on wheels,’’ who has a bad attitude and is on a power trip, like the women in the ﬁlms mentioned above. Women often say that the best thing about working for a woman is that there are no concerns about sexual harassment; men often say that the best thing is that they can ‘‘turn on the charm’’ and manipulate a women boss into ‘‘cutting them some slack’’ on the job. Both men and women prefer the motherly type of boss, although both often comment that she is not an authority ﬁgure and doesn’t command the respect of her employees. Over the years a common answer to the question of whether people would like to work for a woman is ‘‘Of course, if she’s competent.’’ However, women bosses must prove their competence to skeptical subordinates, whereas the competence of male bosses is assumed until proven otherwise. In 2002, U.S. businesses employed approximately equal numbers of women (46.5%) and men (53.5%), and women held approximately half (50.5%) of management and specialty positions. Nearly half (46%) of privately held businesses were owned by women, who, in recent years, have been starting their own businesses at a higher rate than men have (Catalyst, 2007). However, when we look at the higher echelons of major societal institutions, we ﬁnd far fewer women than the numbers above might lead us to expect. Women make up 15.7% of corporate ofﬁcers and 13.6% of corporate boards of directors, according to Catalyst, but they are only 2.6% of the CEOs of the 500 largest corporations headquartered in the U.S. (‘‘The Fortune 500,’’ 2006). Women constitute only 14% of the U.S. Senate, 15.6% of the U.S. House of Representatives, 24.8% of state governors, and 1 of the 9 Supreme Court justices (Center for the American Woman and Politics, 2006). Women are only 5% of the highest ranked ofﬁcers in the U.S. military (U.S. Department of Defense, 2006). It is still lonely at the top for women. These statistics are ample evidence that women who aspire to leadership positions must negotiate many barriers, and there is a considerable amount of research that describes how qualiﬁed women are blocked on their way to the top of their ﬁelds. However, it is important to look beyond this harsh reality to explore what happens to women who do make it off the sticky ﬂoor and through the glass ceiling to occupy positions of authority. In this chapter we focus on how women leaders are perceived by their subordinates and what can be done to increase the effectiveness of women leaders in uncongenial contexts. PERCEPTIONS OF AND REQUIREMENTS FOR SUCCESSFUL LEADERSHIP Early psychosocial research on leadership is based on what has become known as the ‘‘great man’’ theory, because researchers focused © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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on trying to understand how the personal characteristics of individual great leaders (all of whom were men, of course) contributed to their success (Chrisler, Herr, & Murstein, 1998). It was believed that leaders were born, not made; thus only those ‘‘great’’ people who possessed the required characteristics from youth would emerge as leaders (Northouse, 1997). An implicit assumption underlying this theory is that women cannot possibly be ‘‘great men’’ and thus are not ‘‘natural’’ leaders. Leadership has traditionally been portrayed as a masculine endeavor, and organizational positions that are high in power and prestige are considered to be especially masculine (Carli & Eagly, 2001; Heilman, Rivero, & Brett, 1991). A line of research (Brenner, Tomkiewicz, & Schein, 1989; Heilman, Block, Martell, & Simon, 1989; Powell & Butterﬁeld, 1979, 1989; Schein, 1973, 1975; Schein, Mueller, Lituchy, & Liu, 1996; Willemsen, 2002) known as the ‘‘think manager, think-male’’ studies has consistently shown that people in North America, western Europe, and east Asia believe that the characteristics of successful managers more closely resemble those of typical men than those of typical women, although recent data from the United States (Schein, 2001) and Germany (Sczesny, 2003) show this pattern to be shifting, especially among women. Traditional views of leadership exclude women as both incapable of effective leadership and undesirable in leadership positions. Despite these persistent stereotypes of the masculine nature of leadership, the characteristics recognized as relevant to successful leadership include a mixture: some stereotypically associated with men (e.g., self-conﬁdence, determination) and some stereotypically associated with women (e.g., integrity, sociability) (Cann & Siegfried, 1990; Chrisler et al., 1998). Leadership, by deﬁnition, takes place in a group; therefore, the situation in which the group ﬁnds itself and the patterns of interactions among the group members affect both who is perceived as a leader and how that leader is evaluated by the followers (Chrisler et al., 1998). It is now widely recognized that followers’ expectations and perceptions affect the process of leadership, and so do many situational elements (Hollander & Offermann, 1990). For example, one study (Cann & Siegfried, 1990) showed that stereotypical feminine characteristics are more highly valued in leaders by their subordinates, whereas stereotypical masculine characteristics are more highly valued in leaders by their superiors. The quality of the leader–follower relationship, which greatly inﬂuences leadership success, has been shown to depend on such factors as the perceived competence of the leader, the leader’s motivation, the leader’s personality characteristics, and the personality attributes of the leader’s followers (Hollander & Offermann, 1990). Stereotypical masculine (e.g., agentic) and stereotypical feminine (e.g., communal) traits and behaviors are valued in different situations and by different individuals. Effective leadership behavior has been © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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shown to include both agentic and communal traits and behaviors, which indicates that, despite the stereotypes, effective leadership is actually androgynous. Thus, traditional conceptions of masculine leadership ignore important dimensions that are used by successful leaders. ROLE INCONGRUITY Gender-role stereotypes are so well known that they are easily and automatically activated (Eagly, 2003). Therefore, if a woman occupies a position that requires characteristics that women as a group are not expected to have, she will typically receive a lower performance evaluation than her male counterparts. When people encounter particular women in positions that are not believed to be congruent with the abilities and characteristics of women in general, they tend to devalue the women’s work, attribute the women’s success to external factors rather than to their competence, or dislike and reject the women when their success cannot be attributed to external factors (Carli & Eagly, 2001). Service-oriented, communal traits are valued in women and are a central part of women’s prescriptive norms. Traits that are valued in men and considered de rigueur for successful leaders (e.g., assertiveness, toughness, ambition) conﬂict with women’s prescriptive behaviors (Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004). When women take on leadership roles, especially roles that require more agentic or ‘‘masculine’’ characteristics, observers are forced to evaluate those women in their conﬂicting roles as women and as leaders. That is, people have to work harder when they think about their woman bosses because they have to consider divergent sets of characteristics (those of women and those of managers), whereas when people think about their male bosses, only one set of characteristics comes into play because of the redundant expectations (i.e., think manager, think male) (Eagly & Karau, 2002). When people are in the minority of a group (e.g., the only woman manager, the only Black manager), more attention is focused on the aspects that cause them to stand out, and when token status is combined with other feminine personal qualities or characteristics (e.g., pregnancy, a short skirt, a low-cut blouse), it can be especially disadvantageous to women leaders because it reminds observers of the role conﬂict between gender and position. The more these roles seem to be in conﬂict, the greater the prejudice a woman leader will face. Society’s overall approval of agentic qualities in men and communal qualities in women leads to a general approval of men and disapproval of women in high-level leadership positions. Despite decades of behavioral science research that shows that women and men are more alike than different (Hyde, 2005), most people believe that men and women should differ (Eagly & Karau, 2002). This belief can lead to social © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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penalties for women and men who behave in ways that are distinctly counter to gender normative patterns, such as women who are not skilled at comforting a friend in distress (Holmstrom, Burleson, & Jones, 2005). Competent women are often depicted as cold and undesirable group members, and successful woman managers have been described as having much worse personalities (e.g., bitter, quarrelsome, selﬁsh, deceitful, devious) than successful male managers. Thus, women who achieve career success are often seen not as neutral parties but as hostile and counter-communal individuals (Heilman et al., 2004)—much like the characters in the ﬁlms mentioned above. When women are not in violation of their gender role, there is a tendency for people to react more favorably to women than to men and to report that they like women better than men (Carli, 1999; Heilman et al., 2004). When women occupy leadership roles that are considered feminine—that are believed to require interpersonal skills, such as the ability to get along well with others—they are often judged as more effective than men in the same roles (Eagly, Karau, & Makhijani, 1995). This suggests that male bosses may also be subjected to gender prejudice when they hold leadership positions that are judged to require stereotypically feminine traits. Gender Differences in Perceptions of Women Leaders Management research has shown that employees are often reluctant to have a woman supervisor (Lyness & Thompson, 1997); however, results are mixed about whether men and women are equally reluctant. Heilman et al. (2004) showed that women and men are equally biased in their ratings of woman managers, and the ‘‘think manager, think male’’ studies cited earlier have shown that people in North America, Europe, and Asia agree that men are perceived to be more qualiﬁed as managers than women are, although men report this perception more strongly than women do. Male subordinates have been found to react more negatively than woman subordinates to woman leaders, and men tend to favor competent men over equally competent women, whereas women respond similarly to equally competent candidates (Carli, 1999). Part of the reason for this discrepancy could be that men are less likely than women to have had a woman boss, and therefore they could be less likely than women to see leadership as an androgynous role (Eagly & Karau, 2002). Another potential reason for men’s greater prejudice against female leaders lies in the threat that female leaders present to men’s status and to their views of their own masculinity. One study (Sinclair & Kunda, 2000) showed that when a female superior gives a male subordinate a negative evaluation, he is likely to see her as less competent than a similarly critical male superior. Ratings of female managers and professors plummeted when their subordinates received a poor performance review; © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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however, the subordinates did not display gender-role stereotypes or bias when the performance review was favorable. A negative evaluation by a female boss emphasizes the superior position and power she holds over her male subordinates, who then prefer to consider her incompetent rather than to take responsibility for their own poor performance. Men often devalue a female leader’s competence by attributing her achievements to luck or effort (Lyness & Thompson, 1997) and by defaulting to stereotypes of incompetence in ambiguous situations in which cognitive distortion can easily occur (Heilman et al., 2004). Carli (1999) showed that participants in a group setting expressed more overt hostility toward a woman who disagreed with the group than they did toward a man who disagreed. Carli’s work has shown that male college students explicitly report feeling threatened by articulate, task-oriented women. Whereas men respond more favorably to other men who are competent, conﬁdent, and self-promoting than they do to those who are not. Women who display similar behavior patterns are not liked as well as humble women. This experience suggests that women might have to choose between being perceived as nice or as competent, which could explain the two types of female bosses that Joan Chrisler’s students routinely describe. Although the evidence for women’s bias against female managers is mixed, there is some data to suggest that female managers discriminate against their female subordinates in the same ways that male managers do. For example, one survey (Rosener, 1990) indicates that both male and woman bosses pay their woman employees roughly $12,000 less than their male employees with similar positions and titles. Thus, it seems that even though successful women have personally experienced career barriers to advancement due to their gender, they continue to hold stereotypical views of women in general and might see themselves (and certain others) as simply exceptions to the rule. On the other hand, gender-role stereotypes are so pervasive throughout society that even women who recognize that they have suffered from those stereotypes themselves have difﬁculty escaping their inﬂuence when they make judgments about their subordinates. POWER AND INFLUENCE DYNAMICS The dynamics of power within an organization play a large role in determining what types of leadership approaches will be most effective for women and for men. Organizational power can be described as power over (i.e., the ability to dominate subordinates), power to (i.e., the empowerment of self and others), and power from (i.e., the ability to resist the demands of others) (Hollander & Offermann, 1990). Although high status implies all three types of power, the dynamics of organizations can limit the way that women use the six classic © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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power bases deﬁned by French and Raven (1959): (a) reward (the ability to provide positive outcomes), (b) coercion (the ability to provide negative outcomes), (c) expertise (the possession of special knowledge or skills that others do not have), (d) information (the ability to persuade by argument, such as giving good reasons for the requested action), (e) referent (the ability to persuade by virtue of a personal relationship, e.g., ‘‘do it for me,’’ ‘‘we’re a team’’), and (f) legitimate (the ‘‘right’’ to inﬂuence by virtue of one’s position in a hierarchy). For example, the ‘‘motherly type’’ so often described by Chrisler’s students exerts her power through the reference, reward, and information power bases. However, her expertise and legitimacy are often questioned by her employees, who are also unlikely to believe her if she threatens them with coercion. Because the typical male boss has easier access to more of these power bases than the typical woman boss does, he is more likely to exercise power directly, whereas she is more likely to exercise it indirectly (Carli, 1999). Power exercised indirectly is often effective in the short term, but if subordinates do not realize that they have been inﬂuenced by their superior, they do not tend to see their superior as an effective leader. Follower Inﬂuences on Power Differences between female and male leaders’ social inﬂuence and choice of power strategies are inﬂuenced by the gender composition of the group; by the leader’s competence, dominance, and communality; and by the nature of the task (Carli, 2001). For example, Carli (1989) showed that men tend to disagree more when they interact with other men, whereas women tend to disagree more when they interact with other women. This suggests that both men and women have a tendency to match the behavioral expectations of those around them, which results in less stereotypical behavior in pairs of women and in pairs of men than in mixed pairs. Butler and Geis (1990) used a one-way mirror to observe participants in a discussion group with trained confederates. Male and female confederates who were assigned to play assertive roles were equally likely to be perceived by the other group participants as leaders. However, the researchers noticed that the participants smiled and nodded more often in response to male leaders than to female leaders, and the participants frowned more often when female leaders rather than male leaders were speaking. These subtle but certain differences in approval can enhance or reduce a leader’s conﬁdence. Men’s Greater Flexibility in Inﬂuence Strategies College men report the use of a wider range of inﬂuence strategies, especially direct strategies, than college women do (Gruber & White, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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1986), and men tend to have more latitude than women do to lead in a variety of masculine and feminine styles without experiencing negative consequences in their evaluations by others (Pratch & Jacobowitz, 1996). For example, as noted above, women can ﬁnd it more difﬁcult to exert inﬂuence through legitimate or expert means, especially early in their careers. As they gain legitimate and expert power, they tend to lose referent power, which can factor into the perception of women bosses as either competent or nice. Different situations require the use of different inﬂuence strategies. Although men have access to more power bases than women do— especially to legitimacy, expertise, and coercion—it should not be assumed that men will rely more heavily on those methods of inﬂuence. Research has shown that dominance and coercion are less likely to motivate subordinates than other more benevolent forms of power are, unless the subordinates believe that they have something important to gain; people generally dislike domineering individuals and resist them whenever possible (Carli, 1999). Both women and men tend to avoid direct disagreement and negative or aggressive inﬂuence strategies. Although men do use these strategies more than women do, most men prefer not to rely on them too often (Carli, 1999). Although men often might prefer to use referent power, the fact that they have access to all the power bases allows them greater ﬂexibility to function as leaders in any situation. This advantage results in a greater variety of positive outcomes for men than for women, including greater upward inﬂuence (Hollander & Offermann, 1990) and more credit for leadership success, even when subordinates are disadvantaged by particular actions. Power Versus Gender in Mediating Inﬂuence There is evidence that gender differences in inﬂuence strategies are determined by gender differences in power rather than by gender differences in personality. Both women and men tend to use more direct, assertive forms of inﬂuence when they feel more powerful (Carli, 1999). Ragins (1991) found that subordinates’ ratings of a leader’s power accounted for a greater proportion of the variance than the gender of the leaders did. This is an important result, because it suggests that simple interventions could lead to better evaluations of women bosses. Hogue, Yoder, and Ludwig (2002) showed that (at least in the laboratory) ratings of the performance of women leaders are higher when a reason that she is the leader is provided; explanations stressed the leader’s expertise and conferred legitimacy on her. In this way the researchers expanded the power bases that were available and provided the possibility of greater ﬂexibility in leadership strategies. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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HOW WOMEN BOSSES MEASURE UP The substantial amount of research that has been conducted on differences between female and male leaders shows more similarities than differences between them (Eagly, 2007; Hyde, 2005). An important meta-analysis by Eagly and colleagues (1995) showed that women and men do not differ overall in leadership effectiveness, except perhaps in circumstances in which the leadership is male-dominated and the subordinates are all men. Some recent data (Pratch & Jacobowitz, 1996; Sharpe, 2000) suggest that women make more effective leaders than men do, and this might reﬂect a cultural shift in how people think about leadership. Management texts and the popular press have begun to deﬁne good leaders as more like coaches or teachers than authoritarian bosses who issue orders to their subordinates, and this new image is more compatible with the feminine gender role than the traditional image is. Nevertheless, social science research and opinion polls still show that people prefer male bosses (Eagly, 2007). A trend in leadership research is the relationship between gender and level of leadership. Men are seen as more effective in the higher echelon (i.e., ﬁrst-level positions), whereas women are seen as more effective in middle management. One reason for women’s increased effectiveness in middle-management positions might be that these positions are thought to require especially good human relations; middle managers must deal effectively with both subordinates and superiors, and they need coaching and teaching skills in order to motivate and develop their subordinates. Research and popular culture suggest that women, on the average, are socially skilled, and therefore they would have an advantage in middle management (Eagly et al., 1995). These beliefs ﬁt well with the motherly type of boss described by Chrisler’s students; the bitchy harridans portrayed in ﬁlms inhabit the upper echelon of their respective hierarchies.

Ambition Ambition is a central aspect of the American dream, as codiﬁed in Horatio Alger’s popular series of 19th-century novels. In fact, his heroes (e.g., Ragged Dick, Tattered Tom, Paul the Peddler) had little to sustain them, yet their drive to succeed eventually made them both rich and successful. Generations of American boys were encouraged to emulate Alger’s characters, and to describe a man as ambitious is considered a compliment. However, the word ambitious applied to women is at best ambivalent. The word is often said in an acid tone that clearly suggests disapproval of a woman who has overreached. Today’s girls, unlike those of the 19th century, are encouraged to develop their talents and to set goals for themselves. They have no © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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difﬁculty competing with other girls in the classroom or on the playing ﬁeld, and more women than men are currently enrolled in American colleges and graduate schools to prepare for future careers. Yet to achieve success in the highest echelon requires a single-minded pursuit of one’s goals, or at least the willingness to give a high priority to the pursuit of one’s goals, and this does not comport with the traditional feminine gender role, which requires a woman to support others and to place others’ needs before her own. Approval of women who pursue their own goals comes ‘‘only if they have ﬁrst satisﬁed the needs of all of their family members.’’ This social requirement can lead women to scale back their careers or to leave the workforce when their children are young, only to show their true ambition later in life. Women who do not have families or who appear to others to neglect their families often ﬁnd that their ‘‘ambitions as well as their femininity will be called into question’’ (Fels, 2004, p. 58). In order to reach one’s goals, it is necessary on occasion to ‘‘toot one’s own horn’’ to let others know of one’s talents and achievements. It is much easier for men than for women to do this, for boasting is a masculine activity that is considered impolite when women do it. Yet if women do not bring their accomplishments to their superiors’ attention, their work will be overlooked when it is time to award raises or promotions. The ‘‘feminine modesty effect’’ (Berg, Stephan, & Dodson, 1981; Gould & Slone, 1982) is a form of causal attribution that some women use to explain their successes and failures. Two researchers (Crittenden & Wiley, 1980, 1985; Wiley & Crittenden, 1992) have demonstrated this effect and people’s reactions to it in several studies of faculty attribution patterns concerning their productivity. Their results clearly indicate that modest accounts of publication success (e.g., ‘‘I was lucky that my manuscript was sent to helpful reviewers’’) enhanced femininity but decreased professionalism in the eyes of colleagues. Similarly, self-serving accounts of publication failure (e.g., ‘‘My manuscript was sent to incompetent reviewers’’) decreased femininity but enhanced professionalism in the eyes of colleagues. Therefore, women, but not men, must choose between their gender and their professional role when talking about their work to colleagues. Once again, we can see this as a decision that determines whether women are viewed as competent or as nice, and, whichever presentation style women choose, they risk rejection by some of their colleagues. Furthermore, the women who showed the ‘‘modesty effect’’ in discussing their failures (i.e., blamed themselves rather than the reviewers or editor) were less likely to make attempts to publish their work elsewhere (Crittenden & Wiley, 1980). Thus, they preserved their modesty, or humility, but decreased their motivation, self-conﬁdence, and chances for career success. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Because women receive less support than men do in pursuing their goals, women are more likely than men to question whether their goals are rewarding enough to be worth the effort that is necessary to achieve them. The personal and social recognition that ambitious women receive for their accomplishments is quantitatively poorer, qualitatively more ambivalent, and less predictable than the recognition that ambitious men receive (Fels, 2004). Social sanctions and animosity, in addition to lack of reinforcement, can cause women to abandon their ambitions. This dynamic can limit some women to positions in middle management, where they work to maintain the status quo rather than developing new ideas and innovative directions for an organization. It can lead other women to drop out of unrewarding organizations and start their own businesses. Transactional Versus Transformational Leadership Men are more likely than women to describe themselves as exhibiting behaviors that characterize transactional leadership, the belief that job performance is a series of transactions with subordinates in which rewards are exchanged for good performance and punishments for poor performance. Research on transactional leadership suggests that offering rewards (e.g., pay increases, bonuses) motivates people to earn the reward but not to perform well over time (Herzberg, 2003). Women are more likely than men to describe themselves as enacting transformational leadership (Eagly & Johannsen-Schmidt, 2001; Eagly, Johannsen-Schmidt, & van Eagen, 2003; Pratch & Jacobowitz, 1996), the belief that a leader should encourage subordinates’ good performance by encouraging them to transform their own self-interest by ‘‘buying into’’ the group’s goal. Transformational leadership includes such components as vision, role modeling, intellectual stimulation, meaningmaking, appeals to higher order needs, empowerment, the setting of high expectations, and the fostering of collective identity (Yoder, 2001). When women do use their organizational power in a transactional way, they often do so in order to help their subordinates. Research (Eagly et al., 2003) has shown that women are more likely than men to deliver rewards to subordinates for good performance, which is a predictor of effective leadership. Transformational leadership can be equally effective for women and men in the right contexts; it is most appropriate during the birth, growth, or revitalization of an organization (Yoder, 2001). Although men have reported using transformational leadership somewhat less often than women have, a recent meta-analysis (Eagly et al., 2003) has shown this difference overall to be small, and it is possible that the participants in these studies over-reported leadership behaviors that align with prescriptive gender behaviors. For example, Eagly and © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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colleagues (1995) found that both women and men tend to emphasize task accomplishment when they occupy a gender-congruent leadership role in which most of their subordinates are of the same gender. The small gender difference in transactional versus transformational leadership style might be due to the fact that male bosses are more often found in gender-congruent positions, and female bosses are more often found in gender-incongruent positions, because most leadership positions are still considered to be masculine roles. Participative Leadership In follow-up interviews with respondents in a survey of leaders that was conducted by the Independent Women’s Forum, Rosener (1990) asked women who had characterized themselves as transformational leaders how they thought their style differed from traditional masculine conceptions of leadership. Rosener labeled these women’s style ‘‘interactive’’ or ‘‘participative’’ leadership, in which the women encourage participation in decision making, share power and information, and enhance others’ self-worth. Rosener’s respondents generally agreed that people perform best when they feel good about themselves and their work, and her respondents said that they try to create an environment conducive to this dynamic. Research has shown that a supportive social environment, increased responsibility and participation, and the perception that one’s work is valued all increase workers’ motivation (Katzell & Thompson, 1990). Successful leadership depends in part on reciprocity and the potential for two-way inﬂuence and power sharing (Hollander & Offermann, 1990). The women interviewed by Rosener (1990) reported that they try to make their subordinates feel involved with the organization by allowing them to have a say in nearly all aspects of their work and by providing them with the information that is necessary to understand and participate fully in the goals of the organization. Such participation increases support for managerial decisions and increases employees’ motivation. When employees believe that the boss trusts them and wants their input, it increases loyalty and information ﬂow in both directions. Subordinates readily communicate new ideas, and they let the boss know when there are problems. Furthermore, the delegation of some decision making to subordinates is associated with better employee performance (Hollander & Offermann, 1990). Although participative leadership has clear advantages, there are also potential disadvantages. The women interviewed by Rosener (1990) acknowledged that their efforts to include everyone in decision making could be seen as merely symbolic if the boss decides not to take the employees’ advice. It takes time to solicit input from employees, and giving up some power and control by delegating responsibility can leave © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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a leader vulnerable to gender-stereotyped criticism. Subordinates might view a female boss as less competent (e.g., as lacking her own ideas) if she regularly seeks input from others. Because information is a source of power and status, female bosses who openly communicate with subordinates can be seen as na€ıve or as constantly seeking approval from others. Finally, the enthusiasm that is characteristic of these female leaders can sometimes be misinterpreted by employees as ‘‘cheerleading,’’ which can undermine their credibility. Successful leaders must be able to use a variety of leadership behaviors, depending on the requirements of the situation (Goleman, 2004); however, there are a number of reasons that women particularly like the participative style. Women have traditionally been denied legitimate power, and thus many female bosses learned early in their careers to lead without formal authority. Even when they do possess organizational power, such as in middle-management positions, women must try to inﬂuence their male superiors as well as their male subordinates; thus they might refrain from asserting their own superiority or ‘‘pulling rank.’’ Male CEOs have said that they like to hire woman managers in part because they are ‘‘less turf-conscious’’ than men are and ‘‘seek less personal glory’’ than men do (Sharpe, 2000). Women have been socialized from an early age to be cooperative, sensitive, supportive, and vulnerable, whereas men have been socialized to be competitive, strong, decisive, and in control (Rosener, 1990). Thus, the qualities of participative leadership correspond more closely with the feminine than with the masculine gender role, and this increases the likelihood that women will be participative leaders. Female-Friendly Organizations Although women might have an advantage in participative leadership, Rosener (1990) pointed out that this style works well only in organizations that are willing to accept it. Only one of the women she interviewed worked in an established, major corporation; all the others worked in medium-size, fast-growing, and fast-changing companies. Such companies tend to employ large percentages of educated professionals who want to be involved and challenged and who might have specialized knowledge that their bosses do not share. This type of organizational environment requires collaboration between superiors and subordinates so that the company can utilize the full potential of all the workers. Fast-changing companies emphasize performance above all else, and they require ﬂexible and innovative leaders. Being part of an ‘‘old boys’’’ network is often irrelevant in those workplaces. Women who want to be participative leaders will ﬁnd it more difﬁcult to deviate from traditional leadership styles when they work in hierarchical, traditionally masculine organizations, such as investment © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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banking or the military. Participative behaviors such as information sharing could be detrimental to female leaders in such organizations. Furthermore, any leadership style that is unconventional will probably be rejected, especially if it is associated with women and thus can be derided as too feminine. The meta-analysis by Eagly and colleagues (1995) showed a weak tendency for several types of organizations (e.g., education, government, social sciences) to be places where female leaders are judged more effective than male leaders. The characteristics of organizations that tend to be more favorable to women include ﬂexibility for on-the-job training, closer leader-follower interactions, and smaller work teams, which allow for the development of deeper, more trusting relationships among employees (Yoder, 2001). Shifting Organizational Environments and Conceptions of Leadership The tendency to deﬁne leadership and management in masculine terms has begun to weaken (Eagly, 2007), and many organizations are now promoting styles of management that are less autocratic and more participative (Eagly et al., 1995); such changes should be more favorable to female bosses. In the past few decades, globalization has been shifting the nature of the western nations’ economies and, consequently, the nature of various organizations. Only about 20% of the workforce in the developed nations is involved in industrial pursuits (i.e., manufacturing and transporting things); the chief economic activity now is knowledge and service work (Drucker, 1991). As the workforce becomes better educated, managers will be dealing with employees who have specialized knowledge and skills and who insist on utilizing their potential. Thus, contemporary businesses must deal with the challenge of globalization and the need to empower their employees in a less stable and secure environment (Yoder, 2001); this increases their need for ﬂexible, transformational, and participative managers. The shift away from traditional conceptions of leadership requires the willingness of leaders to empower their followers and to pay closer attention to group effort and team spirit (Hollander & Offermann, 1990). Because of the pervasive belief, in traditional masculine organizations, that empowering others means losing power oneself, men might have a more difﬁcult time than women in shifting to this new focus. Women, many of whom have learned to lead without formal authority, could more easily adjust to these organizational trends, and some woman leaders might even be more comfortable operating this way. The shift to follower-focused leadership requires emotional intelligence, which includes an awareness of one’s own and others’ emotional states, emotional self-regulation, empathy, and social skills. One © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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study (Goleman, 2004) showed that 90% of the difference between star performers and average performers in senior management positions could be attributed to emotional intelligence rather than to cognitive abilities. Men in the United States are socialized to view most emotions as unacceptable and unmasculine (Kilmartin, 2007). Therefore, many men are not good at understanding their own emotions (let alone those of others), which makes critical components of emotional intelligence (e.g., self-awareness, empathy) difﬁcult for them. Women, on the other hand, have been socialized to pay close attention to emotions, both their own and others’, which gives them more opportunities to develop and practice the components of emotional intelligence. PROBLEMS UNIQUE TO FEMALE LEADERS A number of career problems are unique to female leaders. For example, women often lack mentors, and they tend to be excluded from informal communication networks such as ‘‘old boys’ clubs’’ (Chrisler, 1998; Sharpe, 2000). Women at the highest executive levels report a less comfortable ‘‘cultural ﬁt’’ and less organizational support than do men and lower-status women, and they are less satisﬁed than others are with their income and future advancement prospects. When matched with men in the same position, female managers have been found to have less authority (e.g., to supervise fewer subordinates) and fewer career-broadening opportunities (e.g., overseas assignments) (Lyness & Thompson, 1997). Despite the well-established ‘‘personalgroup discrimination discrepancy’’ (Crosby, 1984; Taylor, Ruggiero, & Louis, 1996)—in which women acknowledge gender discrimination in general but deny that they themselves have been affected by it—female executives often report that their career development has resulted more from overcoming obstacles (e.g., lack of organizational support) than from succeeding at challenging opportunities (Lyness & Thompson, 1997). Three other problems that provide unique challenges for women are balancing work and family, tokenism and preferential selection, and sexual harassment. Balancing Work and Family Men who dedicate themselves to high-powered careers often have a spouse who takes care of the children, manages the household, and entertains business associates. A woman rarely has a spouse who has the time and/or willingness to do these things for her; consequently, she has more roles to balance as her career advances. In a study of managers who worked long hours, Brett and Stroh (2003) found that all the managers juggled a variety of roles and reported that their spouses facilitated their ability to do so. Most of the male managers © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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had wives who were not employed outside the home; the smaller number of female managers had both paid (female) help and husbands who took substantial responsibility for child care. Women who lack the ﬁnancial and social resources of Brett and Stroh’s participants are unlikely to reach high management levels, and most woman managers cope with greater amounts of stress and role conﬂict than men, as well as with the sometimes hostile disapproval of coworkers who think that the women are letting their families down. Female executives are less likely than male managers to be married and to have children (Lyness & Thompson, 1997). Although seniorlevel men and women both stressed the need to work long hours and to put work ahead of family in order to succeed in certain careers, women, but not men, often believe that they must sacriﬁce family life altogether if they want to pursue careers that have been structured for men with stay-at-home wives (Fels, 2004). Woman managers who do have children report doing signiﬁcantly more hours of child care and housework than their male peers do; however, these women and men still devote a similar number of hours to their careers (Lyness & Thompson, 1997). These women must take care not to let the stresses of the work–family juggling act show on the job; any tense exchanges or episodes of shortness of temper could cause their subordinates to move them from the ‘‘motherly type’’ to the ‘‘bitch on wheels’’ boss category. Social psychology research has shown that the terms feminist and career woman are ‘‘synonymous with derogatory stereotypes of women who are not nice and not feminine enough’’ (Goodwin & Fiske, 2001, p. 361). Tokenism and Preferential Selection Tokenism refers to the effects of only a small proportion (at most 15%) of some category of people (e.g., women, African Americans) within an organization or job category. When women make up such a small proportion of an organization (e.g., the military) or a job category (e.g., senior management), gender-role stereotypes become more salient to other members of the organization, and women encounter more obstacles, such as exclusion from information networks, lack of recognition for their achievements (Lyness & Thompson, 1997), heightened visibility and resultant performance pressures (Yoder, 2001), and social isolation (Biernat, Crandall, Young, Kobrynowicz, & Halpin, 1998; Yoder, 2001). In addition, when women constitute a token percentage of a group, men tend to exaggerate the women’s differences from themselves by engaging in actions and conversations (e.g., telling sexual or sexist jokes) that emphasize those differences and exclude women in ways that do not occur when the number of women in the group is larger © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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(Lyness & Thompson, 1997). One study (Sackett, DuBois, & Noe, 1991) showed that women’s performance was rated lower than men’s when women made up less than 20% of a group, whereas women’s performance was rated higher than men’s when the percentage of women was above 50%. Thus, negative stereotypes of women seem to decrease as the percentage of women in a group or a job category increases. Tokenism can have negative effects on the way that the tokens perceive themselves as well as on the ways that they are perceived by others. The increased attention to and salience of tokens tends to result in an increased self-focus on the part of the token, which leads to anxiety and to unrealistic self-expectations of perfect behavior on the job (Biernat et al., 1998). Token women are particularly vulnerable to the perception that they were preferentially selected for their positions on the basis of their gender, which can cause subordinates to doubt a woman’s competence and to treat her disrespectfully. Rumors about reasons other than merit for a woman’s hiring or promotion can lead the woman herself to doubt her competence, devalue her own accomplishments and capabilities, shake her conﬁdence, and lower her motivation to succeed in her leadership role (Heilman et al., 1991). Unlike women’s competence, which is often in doubt until proven, a man’s competence is usually assumed until disproved, even in cases in which reasons other than merit are believed to account for his hiring (e.g., he’s the CEO’s son-inlaw). When people are unsure of their abilities, they tend to choose assignments that are easily within their reach (Bandura, 1977); thus, women managers whose self-conﬁdence has been shaken by fear of preferential selection might play it safe and not seek out challenging opportunities in which they can show the true extent of their abilities (Heilman et al., 1991). Sexual Harassment Sexual harassment is generally deﬁned in two categories: quid pro quo harassment, in which sexual conduct is required to receive or to keep a job, a promotion, or job-related beneﬁts; and hostile environment harassment, in which unwelcome sexual conduct interferes with an individual’s job performance and creates a hostile, offensive work environment. Most researchers have focused on women as the victims of sexual harassment and have assumed that such harassment can occur only if the offender has formal power over or higher status than the victim (McKinney, 1992). The very deﬁnition of quid pro quo harassment is based on a superior harassing a subordinate, for subordinates generally do not possess the organizational power to make sexual conduct a condition of a superior’s employment. However, anyone can create a hostile environment, and people in positions of © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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authority can be subjected to harassment by those with less organizational power (Grauerholz, 1989). This has been labeled contrapower harassment (DeSouza & Fansler, 2003: McKinney, 1992), and it can be a serious problem for woman leaders. Contrapower sexual harassment has been studied primarily in university settings, where the victims are faculty and the perpetrators are students. For example, one study (Grauerholz, 1989) showed that nearly half (47.6%) of the female faculty that was surveyed reported that they had experienced at least one of the sexually harassing behaviors on the list, and more than half (59.1%) of those reported that they had experienced two or more of the behaviors. DeSouza and Fansler (2003) showed that more than half of the faculty members that they surveyed had experienced sexually harassing behavior from students within the past 2 years. These surveys typically inquire about the following behaviors: sexist verbal comments, sexual comments written on course evaluations, obscene phone calls believed to be from students, physical advances, uninvited sexual looks or other body language, sexual bribery, and sexual assault. The most commonly reported contrapower harassment consisted of verbal and written sexist and sexual comments and inappropriate body language (Grauerholz, 1989; McKinney, 1992). In most societies, men as a group are ascribed more social status and power than women are, and it is the abuse of power on the basis of one’s status as a man that forms the basis of contrapower sexual harassment between subordinate men and their female superiors (Grauerholz, 1989). Contrapower harassment is often an attempt on the part of a male subordinate to reassert the dominance he expects to have based on his status as a male. Women who hold positions of authority in traditionally male-dominated workplaces can be especially vulnerable (DeSouza & Fansler, 2003), for they represent a threat to men who support traditional gender roles. Harassment of women managers, faculty, military ofﬁcers, and other women of high status is an attempt to undermine their authority and to remind them that they are ‘‘merely’’ women and, hence, gender objects. Sometimes subordinates direct hostility toward female leaders in anonymous ways, such as comments on evaluations or defacement of her property, to avoid the consequences of harassing a superior. Research shows that victims of contrapower harassment, like those of other forms of sexual harassment, are hesitant to report the harassment because they fear repercussions, such as rumors, poor performance evaluations, loss of respect, and even physical assault. Studies (Clapp, 2007; Grauerholz, 1989) have shown that woman faculty and military ofﬁcers most often report ‘‘doing nothing’’ or trying to take care of the problem themselves (e.g., by avoiding or confronting the perpetrator) because they feared the repercussions if the harassment became known to others. Some women choose to cope with the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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harassment by deﬁning it as ignorance, stupidity, or awkwardness on the part of the harasser (Grauerholz, 1989). Thus, contrapower harassment is rarely reported to formal authorities (McKinney, 1992), and women at the top of organizations might not even have anyone to whom to report it. Although both women and men can be victims of contrapower harassment, women are more likely than men to describe the experience as threatening, inappropriate, and distressing (DeSouza & Fansler, 2003). A male subordinate’s harassment of a female superior can realistically be perceived by her as a threat (both physically and psychologically), but a female subordinate’s harassment of a male superior is unlikely to be viewed by him as any type of threat. A typical female subordinate has no power base from which to work, either through gender status or legitimate position, and thus male superiors have no reason to feel threatened by her. Furthermore, men have been socialized to believe that they should always want, need, and be ready for sexual opportunities (Kilmartin, 2007), and they have been told that they should view sexual advances from women as conﬁrmation of their masculinity. Thus, they often respond to suggestive behavior from female subordinates with bemusement or a mixture of pride and embarrassment; they are unlikely to see it as reducing their authority in any way. WHAT CAN BE DONE TO EMPOWER WOMAN BOSSES The strategies that women and men use to lead effectively depend on the situational context in which they will be leading and are inﬂuenced by group composition, the nature of the task, whether task performance is valued above all else, the availability of resources, leader–follower relations, and available power bases (Hollander & Offermann, 1990; Yoder, 2001). Women might ﬁnd themselves in either favorable or unfavorable contexts, and what they must do to maximize their effectiveness depends on whether the situation is stereotypically masculine (i.e., unfavorable for women) or one that approves of transformational leadership (i.e., favorable for women). Yoder suggested three categories of interventions that can be used effectively for women to minimize the negative impact of masculine leadership contexts: things that women can do, things that organizations can do, and ways in which the context itself can be changed. What Woman Bosses Themselves Can Do Stereotypically masculine settings are generally male-dominated, task-oriented, and emphasize hierarchy and ‘‘power over’’ more than egalitarianism and ‘‘power to.’’ In such settings women must attempt © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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to enhance their own status and to minimize status differentials (Yoder, 2001). Women bosses can enhance their status by the successful completion of tasks, by rewarding (with compliments, challenges, and bonuses) employees who perform well, and by showing that they have the conﬁdence of their own bosses or boards of directors. Women bosses can minimize status differentials by treating their subordinates with respect, by talking and listening regularly to their subordinates, by avoiding dominant speech acts (e.g., commands), and by displaying a sense of humor (Troemel-Ploetz, 1994; Yoder, 2001). New group members can build credit for leadership by initially conforming to group procedures (e.g., ‘‘the way we do things’’), which shows loyalty to and trust in the group (Hollander & Offermann, 1990). If a woman boss is hired from outside the company or department she is going to manage, she should initially conform to the group’s expectations and values, and she should not try to change too much too soon. Initial conformity can form a basis for the use of referent power and provide her with more ‘‘credit’’ that can be used later to introduce new ideas and exhibit nonconformist behavior. Women who are extraordinarily competent compared to other members of the group are more inﬂuential than women who are less or equally as competent as other group members (and especially other male leaders). Research (Brett & Stroh, 2003; Carli, 1999) has shown that women are held to a higher standard of performance than men are, and they must outperform men to be considered equal (as the saying goes, like Ginger Rogers, who did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels). These women stars will be respected but might not be liked. Both extraordinary and ordinary women can increase their inﬂuence and their acceptance by the group if they also display personal warmth (Carli, 1999), such as by smiling, complimenting others, sharing credit for success, and remembering details about their subordinates’ personal lives. Although men who are agentic are often rated higher than women who do so, women who exhibit both agentic and communal traits are considered as hirable as their male counterparts (Carli & Eagly, 2001). This is an important point: Women bosses can ‘‘get away with’’ behaving in the stereotypically masculine manner that is expected in many organizational contexts as long as they temper that behavior with an obvious dose of warmth and communality. What Organizations Can Do Women bosses in stereotypically masculine organizations will be more effective if they receive organizational support. This support should be demonstrated from the start. A woman leader should be introduced by her superiors (or hiring committee) in terms that make it © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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clear that the organization values the woman’s experience and expertise and has conﬁdence in her abilities (Hogue et al., 2002). The announcement of a new leader’s hiring or promotion should contain a summary of that person’s credentials and accomplishments, so that a woman in that position will not have to run the risk of being denigrated for bragging if she shares that information herself. Future accomplishments could be announced in e-mail messages or in newsletters prepared by the human resources department so that everyone is aware that the boss (as well as her subordinates) is productive and deserving of respect. Organizations can help women leaders to succeed by providing them with the support and resources they need to do their jobs effectively, for the power of a leadership role can be enhanced or diminished by the resources that are available to the leader. This is related to the ﬁnding that women’s inﬂuence is enhanced when men are placed in situations in which they can beneﬁt from her competence (Carli, 1999, 2001). The more resources a woman has that can be used in the form of reward power, the more motivation her subordinates have to view her positively. Organizations must develop and enforce clear policies about gender equality to create a climate that is favorable to women at all levels of the organization. Furthermore, these policies should be integrated into employee training. For example, information about contrapower harassment should be presented in anti–sexual harassment training. Social psychology research (Goodwin & Fiske, 2001) shows that when people are speciﬁcally ‘‘instructed to be as accurate as possible’’ in rating job applicants or evaluating their managers or employees, ‘‘they can and do provide less stereotypic[al] impressions’’ than they would otherwise (p. 365). Thus, training for managers and hiring committees should include these instructions, and objective measurements (e.g., rating scales) that also include these instructions should be utilized at all levels of an organization. It has often been noted that the highest echelon of leadership in any organization sets the tone for the entire organization and creates the climate that pervades it. If the leaders at the top set an example of valuing and respecting female and male employees equally, their views will have a positive effect on the dynamics of the organization at all levels. Changes in the Leadership Context Often the context of leadership itself must change for female leaders to be as effective as their male counterparts. Contexts especially unfavorable to women include groups composed of 85% or more men (in which women can experience the effects of tokenism), situations in © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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which task accomplishment is the only valued outcome, short-term groups that do not get to know each other well, and groups that do not require complex social interactions (Yoder, 2001). Research (Collins, 1998; Tolbert, Simons, Andrews, & Rhee, 1995) suggests that groups must reach the level of 35%–40% women before the effects of tokenism are completely negated, at least in academic settings. Thus, increasing the percentage of women in male-dominated groups is one important way to make the context more favorable for women. Although it is not desirable to shift value entirely away from task accomplishment, other outcomes such as unit cohesiveness, employee satisfaction, and personal growth can also be considered when leaders’ (or potential leaders’) performance is evaluated. These accomplishments tend to be related to skills that are utilized by transformational and participative leaders, so increasing their importance makes the leadership context more favorable to women. Social psychologists such as Fiske and Neuberg (1990) have shown that interdependence decreases stereotyping because people know more about the individuals with whom they work closely and want to have accurate and positive evaluations of them. Therefore, stressing the importance of teamwork and interdependence can be helpful in reducing stereotypic evaluations of woman bosses by their subordinates and by their superiors, especially if the superiors are reminded that their own productivity outcomes depend in part on the success of woman middle managers (Goodwin & Fiske, 2001). Woman leaders should be aware of whether particular contexts are likely to be more or less favorable to them so that they can pursue opportunities at organizations in which they can thrive and so that they can understand the challenges of working in stereotypically masculine settings. Changing the context of a leadership situation is often very difﬁcult and is usually not within any one person’s control. For example, the U.S. military, which is recruiting ever larger numbers of women, cannot substantially increase the numbers of women in all job categories because of government regulations that prohibit women from direct engagement in combat. Furthermore, organizations that do make efforts to change the leadership context by increasing the numbers of women at all levels or by broadening the deﬁnition of successful leadership can inadvertently create other problems for women as a result. For example, the expansion of the number of women in a group or an organization might be seen by some employees as preferential selection, and the new women could be greeted with a backlash and stepped-up attempts to marginalize them (Collins, 1998). Women must be aware of these dynamics and take steps to help themselves as well as to work for changes in leadership contexts at their own workplaces and beyond.

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CONCLUSION Although it is discouraging that women fare poorly in highly masculine leadership contexts, it is encouraging that women fare somewhat better than men do when leadership is deﬁned in more androgynous terms. Men still have access to a wider range of power bases, and they are free to inﬂuence others by using any of those power bases without consequences. Women, however, are more likely than men to have developed the inﬂuence strategies that are required to excel in the emergent contemporary workplace. As the communal components of leadership become increasingly valued and the androgynous nature of effective leadership is increasingly recognized, the bias against woman bosses should diminish. In the meantime, there continues to be a ‘‘narrow band of acceptable behavior’’ that is allowed for woman leaders—‘‘behaviors that are somewhat feminine but not too feminine and somewhat masculine but not too masculine’’ (Eagly, 2003, p. 91). Women and men alike will beneﬁt from a new conception of leadership, because the traditional notion of the ‘‘great man’’ excludes not only women but also men who are not ‘‘born with’’ leadership ability. Effective leadership is both an art and a science; it requires a relentless dedication to the development of the skills and abilities that are necessary to move people toward a common goal. The cultural embrace of the androgynous leader will serve to access the large untapped potential of women as well as to enlighten current leaders of both sexes and increase the effectiveness of all who currently hold, or hope to hold, leadership positions. We look forward to the day that woman bosses are described, evaluated, and appreciated for themselves and their own leadership styles rather than for their adaptation to cultural stereotypes such as ‘‘good witch,’’ ‘‘bad bitch,’’ or ‘‘mother.’’ We hope that the wait will not be very long.

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Butler, D., & Geis, F. L. (1990). Nonverbal affect responses to male and female leaders: Implications for leadership evaluations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 48–59. Cann, A., & Siegfried, W. D. (1990). Gender stereotypes and dimensions of effective leaders behavior. Gender Roles, 23, 413–419. Carli, L. L. (1989). Gender differences in interaction style and inﬂuence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 565–576. Carli, L. L. (1999). Gender, interpersonal power, and social inﬂuence. Journal of Social Issues, 55, 81–99. Carli, L. L. (2001). Gender and social inﬂuence. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 725–741. Carli, L. L., & Eagly, A. H. (2001). Gender, hierarchy, and leadership: An introduction. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 629–636. Catalyst. (2007). Bureau of Labor Statistics current population survey annual averages 2003. Available online at www.catalyst.org/ﬁles/tid/tidbits04.pdf. Center for the American Woman and Politics. (2006). Fact sheet. Available online at www.cawp.rutgers.edu/Facts.html#cabinet. Chrisler, J. C. (1998). Teacher versus scholar: Role conﬂict for women? In L. H. Collins, J. C. Chrisler, & K. Quina (Eds.), Arming Athena: Career strategies for women in academe (pp. 107–127). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Chrisler, J. C., Herr, L., & Murstein, N. K. (1998). Women as faculty leaders. In L. H. Collins, J. C. Chrisler, & K. Quina (Eds.), Arming Athena: Career strategies for women in academe (pp. 189–209). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Clapp, Sarah K. (2007). Contrapower sexual harassment of military ofﬁcers. Unpublished master’s thesis, Connecticut College, New London, CT. Collins, L. H. (1998). Competition and contact: The dynamics behind resistance to afﬁrmative action. In L. H. Collins, J. C. Chrisler, & K. Quina (Eds.), Arming Athena: Career strategies for women in academe (pp. 45–74). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Crittenden, K. S., & Wiley, M. G. (1980). Causal attribution and behavioral response to failure. Social Psychology Quarterly, 43, 353–358. Crittenden, K. S., & Wiley, M. G. (1985). When egotism is normative: Selfpresentational norms guiding attributions. Social Psychology Quarterly, 48, 360–365. Crosby, F. J. (1984). The denial of personal discrimination. American Behavioral Scientist, 27, 371–386. DeSouza, E., & Fansler, A. G. (2003). Contrapower sexual harassment: A survey of students and faculty members. Gender Roles, 48, 529–542. Drucker, P. (1991, November/December). The new productivity challenge. Harvard Business Review, pp. 69–79. Eagly, A. H. (2003). Few women at the top: How role incongruity produces prejudice and the glass ceiling. In D. van Knippenberg & M. A. Hogg (Eds.), Leadership and power: Identity processes in groups and organizations (pp. 79–93). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Eagly, A. H. (2007). Female leadership advantage and disadvantage: Resolving the contradictions. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 1–12. Eagly, A. H., & Johannsen-Schmidt, M. C. (2001). The leadership styles of women and men. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 781–797.

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Eagly, A. H., Johannsen-Schmidt, M. C., & van Eagen, M. L. (2003). Transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles: A meta-analysis comparing women and men. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 569–591. Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109, 1–45. Eagly, A. H., Karau, S. J., & Makhijani, M. G. (1995). Gender and the effectiveness of leaders: A meta-analysis. American Psychologist, 117, 125–145. Fels, A. (2004, April). Do women lack ambition? Harvard Business Review, pp. 50–60. Fiske, S. T., & Neuberg, S. L. (1990). A continuum model of impression formation: From category-based to individuating processes as a function of information, motivation, and attention. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 3 (pp. 1–108). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. The Fortune 500: Our ranking of America’s largest corporations. (2006). Fortune. French, J., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social power (pp. 150–167). Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research. Friedman, C., & Yorio, K. (2006). The girl’s guide to being a boss (without being a bitch): Valuable lessons, smart suggestions, and true stories for succeeding as the chick-in-charge. New York: Morgan Road Books. Goleman, D. (2004, January). What makes a leader? Harvard Business Review, pp. 82–91. Goodwin, S. A., & Fiske, S. T. (2001). Power and gender: The double-edged sword of ambivalence. In R. K. Unger (Ed.), Handbook of the psychology of women and gender (pp. 358–366). New York: Wiley. Gould, R. J., & Slone, C. G. (1982). The ‘‘feminine modesty’’ effect: A selfpresentational interpretation of gender differences in causal attribution. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 477–485. Grauerholz, E. (1989). Sexual harassment of women professors by students: Exploring the dynamics of power, authority, and gender in a university setting. Gender Roles, 21, 789–801. Gruber, K. J., & White, J. W. (1986). Gender differences in the perception of self’s and others’ use of power strategies. Gender Roles, 15, 109–118. Heilman, M. E., Block, C. J., Martell, R. F., & Simon, M. C. (1989). Has anything changed? Current characterizations of men, women, and managers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 935–942. Heilman, M. E., Rivero, J. C., & Brett, J. (1991). Skirting the competence issue: Effects of gender-based preferential selection on task choices of women and men. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 99–105. Heilman, M. E., Wallen, A. S., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M. M. (2004). Penalties for success: Reactions to women who succeed at male gender-typed tasks. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 416–427. Herzberg, F. (2003, January). One more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard Business Review, pp. 87–95. Hogue, M. B., Yoder, J. D., & Ludwig, J. (2002). Increasing initial leadership effectiveness: Assisting both women and men. Gender Roles, 46, 377–384.

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Hollander, E. P., & Offermann, L. R. (1990). Power and leadership in organizations: Relationships in transition. American Psychologist, 45, 179–189. Holmstrom, A. J., Burleson, B. R., & Jones, S. M. (2005). Some consequences for helpers who deliver ‘‘cold comfort’’: Why it’s worse for women than men to be inept when providing emotional support. Gender Roles, 53, 153–172. Hyde, J. S. (2005). The gender similarities hypothesis. American Psychologist, 60, 581–592. Katzell, R. A., & Thompson, D. E. (1990). Work motivation: Theory and practice. American Psychologist, 45, 144–153. Kilmartin, C. T. (2007). The masculine self (3rd ed.). New York: Sloan. Lyness, K. S., & Thompson, D. E. (1997). Above the glass ceiling? A comparison of matched samples of female and male executives. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 359–375. McKinney, K. (1992). Contrapower sexual harassment: The effect of student gender and type of behavior on faculty perceptions. Sex Roles, 27, 627–643. Northouse, P. G. (1997). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Powell, G. N., & Butterﬁeld, D. A. (1979). The ‘‘good manager’’: Masculine or androgynous? Academy of Management Journal, 22, 395–403. Powell, G. N., & Butterﬁeld, D. A. (1989). The ‘‘good manager’’: Did androgyny fare better in the 1980s? Group and Organization Studies, 14, 216–233. Pratch, L., & Jacobowitz, J. (1996). Gender, motivation, and coping in the evaluation of leadership effectiveness. Consulting Psychology Journal, 48, 203–220. Ragins, B. R. (1991). Gender effects in subordinate evaluations of leaders: Real or artifact? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 12, 259–268. Rosener, J. B. (1990). Ways women lead. Harvard Business Review, pp. 119–125. Sackett, P. R., DuBois, C.L.Z., & Noe, A. W. (1991). Tokenism in performance evaluation: The effects of work group representation on male–female and White–Black differences in performance ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 263–267. Schein, V. E. (1973). The relationship between gender role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics. Journal of Applied Psychology, 57, 95–100. Schein, V. E. (1975). Relationships between gender role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics among female managers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60, 340–344. Schein, V. E. (2001). A global look at psychological barriers to women’s progress in management. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 675–688. Schein, V, E., Mueller, R., Lituchy, T., & Liu, J. (1996). Think manager—think male: A global phenomenon? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 17, 33–41. Sczesny, S. (2003). A closer look beneath the surface: Various facets of the think manager-think male stereotype. Gender Roles, 49, 353–363. Sharpe, R. (2000). As leaders, women rule. Available online at www.businessweek.com/common_frames/ca.htm?/2000/00_47/b3708145.htm. Sinclair, L., & Kunda, Z. (2000). Motivated stereotyping of women: She’s ﬁne if she praised me but incompetent if she criticized me. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1329–1342. Taylor, D. M., Ruggiero, K. M., & Louis, W. R. (1996). Personal/group discrimination discrepancy: Toward a two-factor explanation. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 28, 193–202.

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Tolbert, P. S., Simons, T., Andrews, A., & Rhee, J. (1995). The effects of gender composition in academic departments on faculty turnover. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 48, 562–579. Troemel-Ploetz, S. (1994). ‘‘Let me put it this way, John’’: Conversational strategies of women in leadership positions. Journal of Pragmatics, 22, 199–209. U.S. Department of Defense. (2006). Active duty military personnel by service rank/grade. Available online at http://siadapp.dior.whs.mil/personnel/ MILITARY/Miltop.htm. Wiley, M. G., & Crittenden, K. S. (1992). By your attribution shall you be known: Consequences of attributional accounts for professional and gender identities. Gender Roles, 27, 259–276. Willemsen, T. M. (2002). Gender typing of the successful manager: A stereotype reconsidered. Gender Roles, 46, 385–391. Yoder, J. D. (2001). Making leadership work more effectively for women. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 815–828.

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Chapter 5

Women Who Started Up: The State of Women in Entrepreneurship Presha E. Neidermeyer Emily Buenn Robert Edelman

Because women constitute more than 51% of the U.S. population and 47% of the workforce (Lowrey, 2006), women’s concerns are becoming increasingly important as the business world seeks to obtain and retain a qualiﬁed workforce. Given that women provide the majority of labor within the home, alternate types of employment are becoming increasingly popular as individuals, particularly women, seek to balance their work and family commitments. Among these alternative business arrangements is entrepreneurship, which is attractive to many because of its potential ﬂexibility compared to the conditions of a traditional working environment.

THE U.S. PERSPECTIVE Woman-led businesses increased at a substantial rate in the most recently reported 5-year period. Although these ﬁrms are generally smaller in scale than their male-controlled counterparts, they experienced signiﬁcant growth. There was nearly 20% increase in the number of independent contractors in general, whereas woman-controlled ﬁrms with employees increased more than 8%. Compared to their

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Table 5-1. U.S. Firms, by Gender of Owner and Sales, 2002

U.S. Firms (total) Female-Owned Male-Owned Equally Female- and Male-Owned Other

Number of all ﬁrms

Percentage of all ﬁrms

Sales and receipts ($ trillion)a

22,974,655 6,489,259 13,184,033 2,693,360

100.00% 28.25% 57.39% 11.72%

22.60 0.94 7.06 0.73

983,852 144,784 535,574 271,660

494,399

2.15%

13.82

27,953,368

Average sales per ﬁrm ($)a

a

Not inﬂation-adjusted.

men-owned counterparts, woman-owned ﬁrms increased more than 4% (or 7% in ﬁrms with employees). During this time, ﬁrms owned by women added 70,000 jobs to the economy, whereas their counterparts decreased employment by 1 million, according to the Ofﬁce of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration (Lowrey, 2006). Despite the overall magnitude of jobs added, the smaller number of employees led to smaller sales from woman-led ﬁrms. There were approximately 6.5 million woman-owned businesses, which accounted for about 28% of all businesses. These numbers are half of what men-owned ﬁrms generated. Moreover, the average man-owned business generated more than 3.5 times as much in sales and receipts ($535,574) as the average woman-owned business did ($144,784). Table 5-1 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006c) shows the 2002 statistics for American ﬁrms. Focusing on those ﬁrms that have employees (see Table 5.2), woman-owned businesses also lag behind man-owned businesses. Although they employ 7.1 million people, only about 14% of all female-owned businesses in comparison to 27% of male-owned businesses act as employers. Also, the average number of employees per employing ﬁrm, as well as the average sales per employee, or the average payroll per employee, are smaller for woman-owned than for manowned ﬁrms. The category ‘‘Other’’ in both tables contains publicly traded companies, which explains the signiﬁcantly higher numbers of average sales than those for either female- or male-owned ﬁrms. Figure 5-1 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006c) shows the main industries for female-operated businesses. It shows that the vast majority (64%) of women were involved in services; 14% in retail trade; and 8% in real estate and rental and leasing. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Table 5-2. U.S. Firms with Employees, by Gender of Owner and Sales, 2002

Sales and Number of Percentage receipts Number of ﬁrms of ﬁrms ($ trillion)* employees U.S. Firms (total) Female-Owned with Employees Male-Owned with Employees Equally Female- and MaleOwned with Employees Other

Average number of employees per ﬁrm

Average Average sales per payroll per employee ($)a employee ($)a

5,524,784 916,657 3,524,969 717,961

24.05% 14.13% 26.74% 26.66%

21.84 0.80 6.60 0.63

110,766,605 7,141,369 42,428,508 5,664,948

20.05 7.79 12.04 7.89

197,137 112,423 154,709 110,716

34,419 24,299 31,108 22,895

352,720

71.34%

13.80

55,398,389

157.06

249,050

39,453

a

Not inﬂation-adjusted.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Figure 5-1.

Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

Percentage of Female-Owned Businesses by Type, 2002

FEMALE AND MALE ENTREPRENEURS: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH The information shown in Figure 5-1 leads one to question the differences between the intentions of women and men in starting their own businesses. Why, for example, are there still fewer woman-owned than man-owned businesses in the United States? Is it because woman entrepreneurs encounter more hurdles in founding and developing a business, or is it because women have less aspiration than men to develop their businesses or to become entrepreneurs at all? We interviewed 10 entrepreneurs of small ﬁrms in various industries to discern their motivations and experiences. We will integrate the responses of these women with reports on the research. There are two main themes in the research on gender differences in entrepreneurship. The ﬁrst contrasts gender differences in entrepreneurship after venture creation. The topics that are often addressed in studies that make those comparisons are the following: differences between female and male entrepreneurs in psychological traits; obstacles to and qualiﬁcations for founding a business; objectives for the business and reasons for its foundation; and myths and perceptions of woman entrepreneurs that prevail in their environment. The second theme addresses gender differences in the desire to become an entrepreneur before venture creation. Overall, there is little gender difference; it certainly exists, but the question is really whether the difference accounts for the supply of potential entrepreneurs and the size differences of the businesses. In most cases, contradicting ﬁndings have occurred, but these might be the result of different research methodologies, samples, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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and geographical and cultural issues (Menzies, 2004). The following section discusses factors in entrepreneurship that are often thought to differ between men and women. CAREER ASPIRATIONS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP Zhao, Seibert, and Hills (2005) found, in a sample of students seeking a master’s degree in business administration (MBA), that women have signiﬁcantly lower entrepreneurial intentions than men have, which would explain the statistics that there are fewer women entrepreneurs than men entrepreneurs. This research also showed that women had the same level of entrepreneurial self-efﬁcacy as men had, suggesting that women feel as capable as men in being entrepreneurs. One possible explanation for this combination of results is that women, compared with men, evaluate an entrepreneurial environment to be harder or less rewarding than working for someone else. In our current research sample, not a single interviewee expressed an explicit desire to become an entrepreneur after ﬁnishing her education; rather, each worked for an employer initially, then decided to start her own business after concluding that being an employee was unacceptable to her. Motivation to Become an Entrepreneur Income generation is an important motivation for female entrepreneurs as well as men entrepreneurs in starting a business (Coughlin, 2002). However, there are also gender differences in motivations for starting a business redundant. Women often become entrepreneurs for a better work–life balance—to have more ﬂexibility in combining their family responsibilities and professional accomplishments (LeeGosselin & Grise, 1990). One of our survey participants responded as follows: The greatest challenge I face is in trying to integrate my family life with being a surgeon (and running a successful plastic eye reconstructive business). I am not only a surgeon, but also a wife and a mother of three. Being female makes running this business three times as difﬁcult.

Whereas women tend to start businesses to better balance their different life roles, men entrepreneurs mostly report economic and ﬁnancial reasons as their motivators (Brush, 1992). This was echoed by one of our survey participants, who stated, ‘‘I opened my legal services business after working for other lawyers when I saw that otherwise the majority of my labor would continue to beneﬁt my employer (ﬁnancially) more than me.’’ The motive for entrepreneurship goes beyond mere income generation; entrepreneurship can contribute to self-fulﬁllment and provides © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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room for personal development and success. This is particularly important for women, who in many societies are given less respect for their accomplishments than men are (Coughlin, 2002). Another one of our survey respondents said the following: I think that running your own business and being your own boss has tremendous satisfactions and real beneﬁts that are never or have not been extolled. You are always told [that] it is difﬁcult and [that] you may have losses, but [you] are not told of the wonderful beneﬁts of running your own business. I enjoy working for myself. It provides me with the ﬂexibility I need and the creative expression necessary to run a successful business.

Entrepreneurship is sometimes said to be a promising way to escape discrimination in the formal labor market, especially for women. The wage gap between the sexes still exists, and the management level is still harder for women to achieve than it is for men. Those circumstances can lead women to found a business to tap their full economic potential and to avoid the ‘‘glass ceiling’’ in the formal labor market (Weiler & Bernasek, 2001). Two of our survey participants said the following: ‘‘I decided to open my own business when it became apparent that I was not going to move up anymore where I was employed. It was disturbing, because I had worked there since graduating from college’’ and ‘‘I left the legal profession because there was too much negativity.’’ Nevertheless, other ﬁndings (Allen, Langowitz, & Minitti, 2007) point in another direction: One way to classify entrepreneurship by the motivation to become an entrepreneur is to distinguish necessity from opportunity. Those who become entrepreneurs by opportunity choose entrepreneurship among several career options, because this is what they want to do. On the contrary, entrepreneurship by necessity is chosen because of a lack of alternatives in existing and satisfying employment (Allen et al.). In Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Allen et al. display data about the amount of opportunity-and necessity-driven entrepreneurship, which allowed calculation of the opportunity to necessity ratio differentiated by country and gender. In the United States, Allen and colleagues found, 9.75 women chose entrepreneurship as an opportunity for every 1 woman who chose it out of necessity. For men the ratio was signiﬁcantly lower (5.22:1). Therefore, women in the United States are less likely than men to become entrepreneurs because of necessity. This contradicts the theory that women start a business primarily to escape the glass ceiling. This could be due to the demographics involved in the evolving entrepreneurship environment. Growth Intention The statistics on woman-owned businesses show that a lot of them tend to be small. Researchers do not agree on whether this is the result © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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of higher obstacles for women entrepreneurs or to fewer growth intentions of women entrepreneurs. Some argue that woman entrepreneurs do not have the same intention to enlarge their businesses as their male counterparts do, but that they are content with a small and stable company. Lee-Gosselin and Grise (1990) suggest the development of an entrepreneurial model that reﬂects their ﬁndings that the vast majority of women entrepreneurs have only modest objectives for growth. According to their study, founding a business, for female entrepreneurs, is often a means to achieve more ﬂexibility for and a better balance of professional and personal needs, especially regarding their family responsibilities, and not a means to achieve above-average ﬁnancial success. However, newer studies ﬁnd that female business owners’ growth orientation is increasing. According to the Center for Women’s Business Research (2003), the ‘‘new generation’’ of women entrepreneurs— women who started their businesses in the 1990s—are more growthoriented and more similar to male entrepreneurs than their predecessors were. Whereas only 25% of women who have been in business for 20 years or more report that they seek growth for their businesses over the next years, 42% percent of the new generation has this objective. This compares to 49% of all male entrepreneurs. The study also indicates that the new generation of women entrepreneurs is not only seeking growth but actually achieving it, for the revenue gap between this group of women entrepreneurs and their male counterparts is less distinct. When asked about satisfaction with their businesses, the 10 entrepreneurs we queried stated that they were intent on increasing the magnitude of their business sales. One woman said the following: I could not be more thrilled by the performance of my business, yet I am never satisﬁed so am constantly inventing and growing. I feel that complacency is the beginning of death, so you always have to have a fresh page every day of your life.

Some studies even ﬁnd that the modest growth intention of women business owners is a myth that represents a hurdle for them, in terms of acknowledgment of their entrepreneurial activity, but especially when seeking funding for their venture (Brush, Carter, Gatewood, Greene, & Hart, 2001; Menzies, 2004). Access to Capital A lack of access to funds to ﬁnance their venture is often mentioned as an obstacle for women entrepreneurs. Although improvements in access to capital are also reported, women business owners do in fact acquire less funding than their male counterparts do. In 1998, 54% of women entrepreneurs had bank credit, compared to 46% in 1996. Of © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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those women with bank credit, only 34% had credit higher than $50,000, compared to 54% of male business owners with bank credit. Even more striking is the low number of venture funds received by women. In 2003, only 4.2% of the $19 billion of venture capital was invested into woman-owned businesses (National Women’s Business Council, 2005). All the entrepreneurs in our study personally ﬁnanced their new business venture through either family capital and personal savings or credit cards. It was not until the business was up and running that access to more traditional lending sources, such as banks, became available. Insufﬁcient funds are a plausible reason that prevent women’s businesses from growing. However, this is not necessarily the result of gender-based discrimination by suppliers of capital; there are studies that show that female and male entrepreneurs are equally likely to receive funding when they apply for it, but that women seek capital less often than men do (De Bruin, Bush, & Welter, 2006). One possible reason for this is that women’s businesses operate mainly in the service sector, which usually is not very capital-intensive. Moreover, service companies tend to have few assets that can be used as collateral for loans (Cleaver, 2004). According to the Center for Women’s Business Research (2003), only about 25% of woman entrepreneurs (except African-American women, among whom this percentage is signiﬁcantly higher) stated that they have encountered hurdles when searching for funding for their venture. Woman entrepreneurs in the same study reported that the reasons for the difﬁculties in funding their business were personal risk aversion, gender discrimination, and hesitant investors because of a weak economy. Qualiﬁcation for Entrepreneurship Although men and women achieve similar levels of education, the ﬁelds of education differ widely. Men are more often enrolled in technological study programs such as engineering or computer science, and this is reﬂected in a higher percentage of men creating high-tech ventures (Menzies, 2004). Previous work experience is also a factor of entrepreneurship that differs between men and women business owners. Whereas the women most often had experience in teaching, retail sales, or ofﬁce administration, the men had more experience in managerial, technological, and scientiﬁc positions. Moreover, the men tended to have more previous entrepreneurial experience when they founded a business (Brush, 1992). Family Responsibilities and Ties Women still adopt more family responsibilities than men do for child care, dependent care, and responsibility for the household © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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(Coughlin, 2002). One fact that highlights this is the gender difference in the numbers of single parents who are raising children under the age of 18: In 2004 about 8.3 million single mothers (i.e., in almost 25% of U.S. families) were doing so, but only 2.3 million single fathers were doing so (Lowrey, 2006). Family is often argued to play a more important role for women than for men. Women not only still tend to carry the main proportion of domestic responsibilities, they also tend to build their social network in a way that is more dependent on family ties; this links them closer to the family than men, who were found to have more diverse networks outside the family (Brush, 1992). For many women entrepreneurs, the family played an important role in the decision to found a business—for example, to achieve a higher ﬂexibility in work–life balance, such as in combining family responsibilities and professional achievement (Jome, Donahue, & Siegel, 2006; Lee-Gosselin & Grise, 1990). This ﬁts well with the ﬁnding that the presence of young children in the household increases women’s likelihood of founding a business (Caputo & Dolinsky, 1998). Networks One factor affecting entrepreneurship that is different for men and women is networks and the social capital inherent in them. Although no signiﬁcant differences in the process of making contacts and building networks have been found between the genders, differences in the composition of male and female networks have been discovered. Compared to men, women tend to have smaller social networks as well as networks with a higher proportion of women, which was found to be disadvantageous in entrepreneurship (Brush, 1992). Because many business networks are still male-dominated, favoritism shown toward men is likely to create difﬁculties for women in the traditional labor market as well as in entrepreneurial networks, such as with customers, suppliers, or investors (Weiler & Bernasek, 2001). Renzulli, Aldrich, and Moody (2000) conﬁrmed that the composition of social networks differs among the genders; however, they did not ﬁnd that this leads to disadvantages for women entrepreneurs. They suggest that, because of the empowerment that women have experienced in the last few decades, the social capital of women’s networks has become more valuable for business. Virtually all of the interview participants cited a member of their own family as their mentor, mainly their parents. The sole individual who cited someone else as a mentor named a spiritual ﬁgure on whom she had based her beliefs. Though certainly helpful, these mentors, by and large, cannot open doors in the same manner that a business mentor can. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Myths and Perceptions For every woman entrepreneur (as for every entrepreneur in general), the environment’s perception of her is important for her success, because her business depends on how her customers, suppliers, and business partners, including investors, view her. Baron, Markman, and Hirsa (2001) revealed that the environment perceives women entrepreneurs more positively than it perceives women managers and that this effect does not occur for men entrepreneurs and managers. People rated women entrepreneurs higher in personal traits such as assertiveness, decisiveness, or ambition as well as in the causes of their success; that is, their success was more likely to be attributed to internal causes like effort than to external causes like luck. Other studies, however, draw a less positive image of perceptions of female entrepreneurs. Brush and colleagues (2001) came to the conclusion that many of the differences that have been argued to be inherent in women entrepreneurs are a common perception but are not actually true. Some of the myths they identify are that women entrepreneurs do not seek high growth for their businesses, that they have neither the right education nor the necessary experience to start a successful venture, and that they do not submit business plans. Menzies (2004) widely conﬁrmed, by investigating a sample of Canadian women entrepreneurs, that those myths do not apply to women entrepreneurs. It is argued (Brush et al., 2001) that those myths impede women from doing business, especially when they are seeking capital for their venture.

Minority Women as Entrepreneurs In addition to gender, race is a factor that inﬂuences entrepreneurial activity and leads to structural and experiential differences for the women entrepreneurs who are generally the subjects of research (Harvey, 2005). Minority women who are entrepreneurs, or women entrepreneurs of color, are non-White and/or Hispanic women entrepreneurs. The general trend for minority women–owned business is an ampliﬁed version of that for the overall women-owned business. The growth rates are even higher than those for women entrepreneurs in general, but the success of the businesses, measured in terms of revenues or numbers of employees, tends to be lower. The number of businesses owned by women of color has grown even more signiﬁcantly than that of women entrepreneurs in general. According to the Center for Women’s Business Research (2007), the growth rate of minority women–owned businesses reached an astonishing 120% from 1997 to 2006. Figure 5-2 shows that in all categories women outpaced men in business ownership. The U.S. Census Bureau (2006a, 2006b) describes the status quo for minority women–owned businesses for the 2002. Table 5-3 depicts how many © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Women Who Started Up

Figure 5-2. Growth in Minority-Owned Firms by Gender businesses were owned by each minority and how many of these were owned by women of that minority. In every minority category, the percentage of businesses owned by women of that minority was higher than for White women. Whereas only about 28% of all White business owners were women, almost 46% of all Black business owners were women. However, when we look at the average performance of womenowned businesses in terms of receipts per ﬁrm, we see that there is a large gap between, on the one hand, the Black or African-American, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian and Other Paciﬁc Islander businesses and, on the other hand, the White and Asian businesses. As depicted in Table 5-4 (U.S. Census Bureau, 200b), Table 5-3. Ownership of Firms by Gender and Race

Race

Percentage of Total number of Number of female-owned ﬁrms (male- and female-owned ﬁrms for all ﬁrms female-owned) ﬁrms of that race

White Black or African American Asian American Indian and Alaska Native Native Hawaiian and Other Paciﬁc Islander Hispanic or Latinoa

19,899,839

5,580,162

28.04%

1,197,567 1,103,587

547,032 339,554

45.68% 30.77%

201,387

78,292

38.88%

28,948

10,582

36.56% 33.4%

a

No absolute numbers found.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium

Table 5-4. Female-Owned Firms by Race

Race White Black or African American Asian American Indian and Alaska Native Native Hawaiian and Other Paciﬁc Islander

Number of female-owned ﬁrms

Receipts ($1,000)

Receipts per ﬁrm ($1,000)

5,580,162 547,032 339,554

862,590,849 20,670,616 53,652,929

154.58 37.79 158.01

78,292

5,763,268

73.61

10,582

795,963

75.22

the average White and Asian women entrepreneurs have annual receipts of $150,000–$160,000, whereas the average Black or AfricanAmerican women entrepreneur reaches only about $38,000 in annual receipts. American Indian and Alaska Native as well as Native Hawaiian and Other Paciﬁc Islander women entrepreneurs reach about $74,000 and $75,000, respectively. Thus, although the number of minority women’s businesses is increasing at a tremendous rate, the performance of most subgroup businesses is below average in terms of receipt size and employment. This is especially true for Black, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian and Other Paciﬁc Islander women business owners. One factor that contributes to this development is the higher level of discrimination against minority women than against women in general, which puts more pressure on them to ﬁnd creative ways to reach success. Minority women often ﬁnd themselves at the bottom of the labor pool, where they are offered little economic stability, income, status, or opportunity for enhancement (Harvey, 2005). Lewis (1999) found that race and/or gender discrimination was a main motivation for AfricanAmerican women entrepreneurs to start a business. Discrimination also explains the higher percentage of women entrepreneurs among all entrepreneurs in every minority group. With the prevailing discrimination, it seems more attractive to found a business than to be employed because the opportunities in the labor market are so limited. Another factor in these statistics is the increasing level of education among minorities, especially Black women. Historically, they have been excluded from many institutions of higher education (Harvey, 2005). Because this has changed, and Black women are earning a greater percentage of bachelor’s and master’s degrees, they have the knowledge that is necessary to found a business, and they make use of this knowledge (Hopkins, 2006). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Nevertheless, entrepreneurship for minority women entrepreneurs does not necessarily represent an end to economic problems and discrimination. As the numbers above have shown, Black women business owners especially, but also American Indian and Alaska Native as well as Native Hawaiian and Other Paciﬁc Islander women entrepreneurs, lag behind White and Asian women entrepreneurs (in terms of receipt size and percentage of employing ﬁrms). The literature on minority women business owners suggests that they are more disadvantaged than White women in entrepreneurial options such as occupational choices and entrepreneurial resources like access to capital (SmithHunter, 2004). For example, African-American women business owners report a much higher percentage of obstacles when searching for access to capital than other racial groups do (Center for Women’s Business Research, 2003). Those ﬁndings closely relate to the lower performance of minority-owned businesses described above. As long as minority women have fewer entrepreneurial opportunities and less access to entrepreneurial resources than White women have, their businesses will encounter greater obstacles to success. Although the high growth rates of minority women entrepreneurs are promising, the situation still requires improvement. Speciﬁc afﬁrmative action is suggested to help deploy the full entrepreneurial potential of society.

INTERVENTIONS, SUGGESTIONS, AND SUPPORT TO EMPOWER FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS Although women’s entrepreneurial activity has experienced a tremendous growth over the last 30 years, women still lag behind their male counterparts in size of business, number of employees, and funding of the venture. The research is not clear whether this is caused by external obstacles inﬂicted on women by the economy and society, by less motivation for entrepreneurship inherent in women, or by the socialization process since birth. Regardless of the cause, there are reasons to encourage and support women for entrepreneurship. If women’s entrepreneurial potential lies idle, that means unrealized wealth creation, job creation, and innovation for U.S. society and the economy. It also means unrealized opportunities for investors (Brush et al., 2001). Furthermore, it prevents women from tapping the full potential of economic well-being. Governmental and nongovernmental initiatives, organizations, and programs exist to empower female entrepreneurs. We will discuss different starting points, how to facilitate entrepreneurship for women, and implementation in the United States. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Laws and Regulations The government can facilitate the position of women business owners by implementing laws and regulations on their behalf. Laws against discrimination, such as the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 (which prevents creditors from basing credit decisions on gender, race, or other factors that do not directly inﬂuence creditworthiness), are aimed at achieving more equality (Federal Trade Commission, 1998). The Women’s Business Ownership Act of 1988 (House Resolution 5050) was established to provide support for female entrepreneurs. It provided further protection from unjustiﬁed credit rejection, for example, by allowing commercial loan applicants to request a written statement in case of denial (Myler, 1989). Moreover, it inﬂuenced the entrepreneurial situation for women in the United States by supplying seed funding for women’s business centers. These centers provide technical assistance, entrepreneurial education, and other resources for women entrepreneurs. In 2006, about 100 women’s business centers were providing support to women entrepreneurs (Langowitz, Sharpe, & Godwyn, 2006). Since this concept has proved to be successful, the Women’s Small Business Ownership Program Act of 2006 granted more money for the foundation of new women’s business centers and supported successful centers with renewal grants (Center for Women’s Business Research, 2007).

Access to Capital There are several ways to ease the access to capital for women entrepreneurs. First, measures like the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 can be implemented to facilitate the regular process of getting credit. Second, there are attempts to make it easier for women to obtain venture capital. An important factor that makes it difﬁcult for women to obtain venture funding is limited access to male-dominated venture capital networks. Contacts with advisors, like accountants, attorneys, or fellow business owners, are a means by which women business owners get venture funding (Wells Fargo, 2000), and attempts are being made to institutionalize such access (Sherman, 2002). One essential source of support for women entrepreneurs (and small-business owners in general) is the loan programs of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). These provide guarantees for loans made by private and other institutions. In 2003, the SBA backed women-owned businesses with $2.4 billion (National Women’s Business Council, 2004). Furthermore, private institutions are increasing their support of women business owners. Realizing that this group has a strong economic base, several banks started programs with the intention of © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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backing women-owned businesses with credit. For example, Wells Fargo and First Union have rolled out programs tailored speciﬁcally to women-owned businesses (Guttner, 2000). Mentoring Another way to facilitate entrepreneurship for women is to provide them with a mentor. A mentor for a women entrepreneur is a business owner or an experienced person from a ﬁnancial, legal, or other profession who gives advice, support, guidance, and training to the mentee. The mentor can be viewed as a trusted counselor, and, often even more important, acts as a role model for the mentee (Coughlin, 2002). It has been shown that people are more likely to ‘‘do what they see’’; for example, it was found that people who have an early exposure to an entrepreneurial relative or close friend are more likely to become entrepreneurs themselves (Jones, 2002). However, it is still harder for women than for men to ﬁnd an entrepreneurial role model who is in a similar life situation, because there are still fewer female than male entrepreneurs. Mentoring institutionalizes the process of ﬁnding such a role model and provides learning opportunities, coaching, and networking. Education Formal education on entrepreneurship makes entrepreneurial activity more likely (Zhao et al., 2005). Besides entrepreneurship classes in colleges and universities that target everybody regardless of gender, institutions that speciﬁcally aim at educating women on entrepreneurship are a means by which to enhance female entrepreneurial activity. Women’s business centers play an important role in entrepreneurial education, training, and technical assistance for women (Langowitz et al., 2006). In the United States, about 2,200 entrepreneurship courses are offered at 1,600 colleges (De Bruin et al., 2006). In terms of general education, the achievements of certain educational levels are similar for both sexes. However, the educational backgrounds of women and men vary. Women obtain fewer degrees than men in technological subjects such as science and engineering. Moreover, the number of high-technology ventures is signiﬁcantly higher among male entrepreneurs, making the venture more likely to be funded by venture capitalists. If we may assume that the former is a cause of the latter, then it is clear that programs that encourage women to study computer science and engineering are an important step in improving women’s position in entrepreneurship (Menzies, 2004). Networking Being part of a network is important for entrepreneurs—for example, to obtain business, capital, or information. With a network in © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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which resources, knowledge, or information can be shared and business decisions can be made, the process of founding and running a business is facilitated for female entrepreneurs (Coughlin, 2002). Networks that link female entrepreneurs to each other, or to institutions that can facilitate access to male-dominated networks for women, serve this purpose (Ryann, 2006; Sherman, 2002). An important step in the improvement of networking opportunities for women is the current development of empowering women: The more that women are in high positions, the easier it will become for them to be part of useful networks (Renzulli et al., 2000). Special Programs for Minority Women Entrepreneurs As the section on minority women entrepreneurs has shown, certain minority women are doubly disadvantaged. Therefore, in addition to the above-mentioned measures to empower female entrepreneurs, there are special actions that target minority women entrepreneurs. The Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) has the objective to support entrepreneurs who belong to a minority (regardless of gender). The MBDA is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce and helps minority business owners through minority business development centers, Native American business development centers, and business resource centers. These assist minority business owners in the development of business plans, marketing, management, and ﬁnancial planning (MBDA, 2005). INTERNET RESOURCES Finally, for readers who want additional information on women entrepreneurs or for those who are seeking support while founding or running a business, the following Internet resources can be helpful. The list is not exhaustive, but is a good starting point for further research. . Association of Women’s Business Centers (www.awbc.biz) . Center for Women’s Business Research (www.cfwbr.org) . Minority Business Development Agency (U.S. Department of Commerce), (www.mbda.gov) . National Association of Women Business Owners (www.nawbo.org) . National Women’s Business Council (www.nwbc.gov) . Online Women’s Business Center (U.S. Small Business Administration) (www.onlinewbc.gov) . U.S. Small Business Administration (www.sba.gov)

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REFERENCES Allen, E., Langowitz, N., Minitti, M. (2007). Global entrepreneurship monitor: 2006 Report on women and entrepreneurship. Babson Park, MA: Babson College. Baron, R. A., Markman, G. D., & Hirsa, A. (2001). Perceptions of women and men as entrepreneurs: Evidence for differential effects of attributional augmenting. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86 (5), 923–929. Brush, C. G. (1992). Research on women business owners: Past trends, a new perspective, and future directions. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 16, 5–30. Brush, C., Carter, N. Gatewood, E., Greene, P., & Hart, M. (2001). The Diana Project women business owners and equity capital: The myths dispelled. Kansas City, MO: Kauffman Center. Caputo, R. K., & Dolinsky, A. (1998). Women’s choice to pursue self-employment: The role of ﬁnancial and human capital of household members. Journal of Small Business Management, 36, 8–17. Center for Women’s Business Research. (2003, August 25). Growth is a key focus for all women entrepreneurs: Women making a difference. Los Angeles Business Journal. Center for Women’s Business Research. (2007, February 20). Firms owned by women of color outpace all ﬁrms in growth in numbers: Yet revenues and employment are lower than average. Available online at www.cfwbr.org/press/ details.php?id¼147. Chun, J., Grifﬁn, C. E., Phillips, D. (1996). Women & minority entrepreneurs [special report]. Entrepreneur, 24 (1). Cleaver, J. (2004, June). On the money: Women entrepreneurs are experiencing greater success ﬁnding ﬁnancing for their business, but is it enough? Entrepreneur, 32 (6), 44. Coughlin, J. H. (2002). The rise of women entrepreneurs: People, processes, and global trends. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. De Bruin, A., Brush, C. G., & Welter, F. (2006). Introduction to the special issue: Towards building cumulative knowledge on women’s entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 30 (5), 585–594. Federal Trade Commission. (March 1998). Facts for consumers: Equal credit opportunity. Available online at www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/ ecoa.shtm. Guttner, T. (2000). Finally, credit where credit is due: After years of ignoring women business owners, banks and other lenders are beckoning. Business Week. Available online at www.businessweek.com/2000/00_26/ b3687149.htm. Harvey, A. (2005). Becoming entrepreneurs: Intersection of race, class, and gender at the Black beauty salon. Gender & Society, 19 (6), 789–808. Hopkins, J. (2006, August 24). African-American women step up in business world: More women of color take lead on path to entrepreneurship. USA Today, p. B3. Jome, L. M., Donahue, M. P., & Siegel, L. A. (2006). Working in the uncharted technology frontier: Characteristics of women Web entrepreneurs. Journal of Business and Psychology, 21 (1), 127–147.

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Jones, M. A. (2002). Empowered by choices of entrepreneurship: An intervention for female African American high school students through the My Entrepreneurial Journal (MEJ) Program. Dissertation Abstracts International, 63 (5-B), 2632. Langowitz, N., Sharpe, N., & Godwyn, M. (2006). Women’s business centers in the United States: Effective entrepreneurship training and policy implementation. Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 19 (2), 167–182. Lee-Gosselin, H., & Grise, J. (1990). Are women owner-managers challenging our deﬁnitions of entrepreneurship? An in-depth survey. Journal of Business Ethics, 9, 423–433. Lewis, K. M. (1999). African-American female adult development: The journey from employee to business owner (women entrepreneurs). Dissertation Abstracts International, 60, 1897B. Lewis, P. (2006). The quest for invisibility: Female entrepreneurs and the masculine norm of entrepreneurship. Gender, Work and Organization, 13 (5), 453–469. Lowrey, Y. (2006). Women in business: A demographic review of women’s business ownership. Available online at www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs280tot.pdf. Menzies, T. (2004). Examining venture-related myths concerning women and entrepreneurs. Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, 9. Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA). (2005, March 31). The basics of MBDA. Available online at www.mbda.gov/?section_id¼2&bucket_ id¼643&content_id¼3143&well¼entire_page. Mueller, S. L. (2004). Gender gaps in potential for entrepreneurship across countries and cultures. Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, 9 (3), 199–220. Myler, K. (1989, April 23). Business ownership by women grows. Houston Chronicle, p. 7. National Women’s Business Council. (2004). SBA lending improves to womenowned businesses: Full spectrum of loan options contributes to success. Available online at www.nwbc.gov/documents/SBA-Loans-FINAL-4.20.04.pdf. National Women’s Business Council. (2005). Key facts about women business owners and their enterprises. Available online at www.nwbc.gov/ResearchPublications/documents/key_facts_about_women_business_owners_2005_03-05.pdf. Ofﬁce of Management and Budget. (1997, September 7). Recommendations from the Interagency Committee for the review of the racial and ethnic standards to the Ofﬁce of Management and Budget concerning changes to the standards for the classiﬁcation of federal data on race and ethnicity. Available online at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg/directive_15.html. Ofﬁce of Management and Budget. (2000, March 9). Guidance on aggregation and allocation of data on race for use in civil rights monitoring and enforcement. Available online at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg/direc tive_15.html. Renzulli, Aldrich, & Moody. (2000). Ryann, A. (2006). Women TIES brings female entrepreneurs together online. CNY Business Journal. Seck, K. (2006). Snowe, Kerry introduce bill to expand women business ownership. Available online at www.sbc.senate.gov/recprd.cfm?id¼258761. Sherman, A. P. (2002). Big plans: Today’s generation of women entrepreneurs displays a newfound love of growth. Entrepreneur, 30 (2), 24.

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Smith-Hunter, A. E. (2004). Determinants of economic success for women entrepreneurs: An analysis across racial lines. Journal of the Academy of Business and Economics, 3 (1), 210–219. U.S. Census Bureau. (2006a, October 2). Characteristics of businesses, 2002 (Table B). Survey of business owners. Available online at www.census.gov/csd/ sbo/cbsummaryofﬁndings.htm. U.S. Census Bureau. (2006b, September 14). Statistics for all U.S. ﬁrms by kind of business, race, and gender: 2002. Survey of business owners. Available online at www.census.gov/csd/sbo/ccbsummaryofﬁndings.htm U.S. Census Bureau. (2006c). Women-owned ﬁrms: 2002 economic census. Survey of business owners. Available online at www.census.gov/csd/sbo/ women2002.htm. U.S. Small Business Administration. (n.d.), Financial assistance: SBA loans. Available online at www.sba.gov/services/ﬁnancialassistance/sbaloantopics/ index.html. Weiler, S., & Bernasek, A. (2001). Dodging the glass ceiling? Networks and the new wave of women entrepreneurs. Social Science Journal, 38, 85–103. Wells Fargo (2000). Women-owned ﬁrms attract investors for business growth. Available online at www.wellsfargo.com/press/womenﬁrms20000718? year¼2000. Zhao, H., Seibert, S. E., & Hills, G. E. (2005). The mediating role of self-efﬁcacy in the development of entrepreneurial intentions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90 (6), 1265–1272.

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Chapter 6

Leadership and Women Karen Duff-McCall William Schweinle

Female leaders are rare, at least if you believe the history books. For instance, in Axelrod’s (2003) encyclopedic biography of historical leaders, women are greatly outnumbered by men. Furthermore, the few women who are mentioned are well known—for example, Joan of Arc, Theodora, and Queen Elizabeth I—whereas several of the men who are mentioned are fairly obscure—for example, Bajan, leader of the Avars; Samudragupta, the ‘‘Indian Napoleon’’; and Toussant Louverture, a Haitian independence ﬁghter. This historical gender-based imbalance in leadership appears to still be the case today. Simply put, women are underrepresented in leadership roles (Eagley & Johnston, 1990). Why are women so underrepresented in leadership? Is it because their leadership styles differ from those of the men in their respective eras? In this chapter, we begin with a discussion of leadership styles and why men and women might lead differently. We follow with an examination of historical women leaders and their leadership styles through the lens of leadership theory. MODERN LEADERSHIP Most of the recent literature on managerial leadership cites two primary types of leadership: transactional and transformational (Eagley & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001; Ridgeway, 2001; Walumba, Wu, & Ojode, 2004). A third type—laissez-faire leadership—also appears in some of the leadership literature.

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Transactional Leadership First we must understand the traditional view of the leadership role. Leadership roles, especially those in the workplace, have long been held by men. Therefore, it is understandable that, when seeking historical knowledge of leadership, one will focus on the study of male leaders, who tend to have had a transactional leadership style (Eagley & Carli, 2004; Eagley & Johnston, 1990; Walumba et al., 2004). Walumba and colleagues (2004) describe a traditional, or transactional, leadership style as being focused on task structure, accomplishment, and the exchanges that occur between a leader and his or her followers. The relationships between leaders and followers are deﬁned as transactions in which the leader communicates the desired outcomes to the subordinate(s) and uses a contingent-reward system to bring about the desired behavior. Transactional leadership can be divided into three subtypes: contingent-rewards leadership, active management-by-exception leadership, and passive management-by-exception leadership. Contingentrewards leaders emphasize the relationship between rewards and effective performance. The active management-by-exception leader monitors the subordinates to prevent any deviations from the desired outcomes. Passive management-by-exception leadership is characterized by intervention when mistakes have been made by the subordinates (Walumba et al., 2004). A primary disadvantage of transactional leadership is the Skinnerian contingency itself; employees will perform well only as long as they are adequately compensated and recognized, and un-reinforced employee behaviors will dissipate. This has the added negative effect of strongly tying employee motivation to whatever the company or organization is willing to offer as a reward. By this line of reasoning, leaders will have great success as long as they have the resources to adequately compensate their subordinates, and transactional leaders with fewer resources will be less successful. This limitation in performance as a result of leadership style has great implications for less resourceful or wealthy organizations. However, it is the form of leadership that most people are familiar with, and it is arguably the most comfortable, given its long tradition. The social psychology of transactional leadership is centered on the idea of transactions—that is, interactions that are bound by a social contract between the leader and the subordinate in which the leader deﬁnes the desired outcome and its rewards. This contract does not lend itself to any negotiation between the leader and the subordinate, nor does it encourage group cooperativeness. Instead, this leadership style creates an autocratic environment in which the leader calls the shots and the subordinates race for the rewards. An individual who is competitive, self-conﬁdent, aggressive, dominant, and forceful has a

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distinct advantage in this situation. Such an individual would be comfortable issuing demands and would thrive as an autocratic, or directive, leader (Walumba et al., 2004). What is it that makes transactional leadership ‘‘masculine’’? In an attempt to answer this question, researchers have studied three possible explanations that are not necessarily exclusive of one another: gender-role expectations, agentic versus communality, and the interaction of leadership-role expectations with gender-role expectations. We will examine each of these explanations in order. Gender-Role Expectations According to Eagley and Wood (1991), gender differences in behavior can be explained by gender-deﬁned roles—the limitation of each gender to those traits and behaviors that society labels masculine or feminine. Societal expectations create, reinforce, and subtly change these roles over time. Gender-role conditioning for males includes encouraging competitiveness, assertion, dominance, independence, and aggression. Because men have long held leadership roles in this society, it is unsurprising that masculine, or male gender-role, characteristics have become associated with leadership. These role expectations pervade the workplace and inﬂuence behavior to various degrees, which explains why men are expected to be more directive, aggressive, and independent in the workplace. Eagley and Johannesen-Schmidt (2001) demonstrated that these qualities were expressed by men more often than women, especially in terms of a desire to manage competitively and assertively. Agentic Versus Communality Men tend to be agentic in their social interactions—that is, they are more likely than women to act in their own interest and participate in a social interaction as if it were a negotiation (Walumba et al., 2004). The agentic qualities that have become associated with masculine leadership include aggression, ambition, dominance, forcefulness, independence, daring, self-conﬁdence, and competitiveness (Eagley & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). These qualities are also reinforced by gender-role expectations in situations where communal qualities, such as concern for others, would be socially unacceptable. The Interaction of Leadership-Role Expectations and Gender-Role Expectations Forging congruence between leadership roles and gender roles is not difﬁcult for men; after all, the agentic qualities of a good transactional leader are considered to be masculine in nature, so there is little need for © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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men to adjust their leadership style to be congruent with the accepted male role. Leading, especially in the managerial ﬁeld, also includes role expectations of the job itself; a person in the management role is conﬁned by what is expected from that speciﬁc role, and gender role activity may be limited by managerial role activity. Those in leadership positions, especially in organizations, have very clear behavioral guidelines, which may or may not integrate gender expectations. On the other hand, certain differences in leadership style, such as aggressiveness and competitive nature, could be explained by personality differences ingrained in the sexes through gender roles. Young boys are encouraged to be rough, rowdy, and aggressive. These personality differences, including a tendency toward agentic behavior, do not differ from transactional leadership role expectations; there is no need to adjust personality/gender differences for male leaders (Walumba et al., 2004). In summary, a transactional leadership suits the masculine social interaction and leadership style, because men internalize the male gender role, which supports an agentic desire for competition, aggression, and assertion (Walumba et al., 2004). Transactional leadership, developed alongside the male gender role because men were leading, also utilizes and rewards competition (through forcing subordinates to ‘‘compete’’ for rewards), aggression (leading in an autocratic, deﬁnitive manner), and assertion (maintaining a position of power through transactions with subordinates) (Eagley & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001; Ridgeway, 2001; Walumba et al.). Men are also encouraged, through gender role socialization, to make use of and strive for the agentic qualities that describe transactional leadership, and they are socially reprimanded for acting communally. Finally, transactional leadership suits the masculine social interaction style because there is no incongruence between transactional leadership and cultural masculinity. Transformational Leadership The alternative to transactional leadership is transformational leadership, which is characterized by a focus on individualized interactions, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and inﬂuencing subordinates positively (Walumba et al., 2004). Transformational leaders encourage teamwork and attempt to change their subordinates’ motives, beliefs, and capabilities to raise performance beyond self-interest or reward. Transformational leaders tend to focus on beneﬁting the organization and are less concerned with individual power and recognition. They are more interested in successful group dynamics. The key distinction between transactional and transformational leadership is focus: Transactional leadership focuses on the individual power of the leader, whereas transformational leadership focuses on the success of the group. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Transformational leadership is thus intuitively effective for organizations of varying sizes and resources, because leaders are not restricted by the organization’s ability to provide tangible rewards. By fostering intrinsic motivation for success, as transformational leaders do, employees and followers are encouraged to perform at a higher level for the reward of group cohesiveness and the success of the group as a whole. How is transformational leadership associated with feminine qualities? We will address this notion of ‘‘feminine ¼ transformational’’ within the same framework that we associated transactional leadership with masculinity: gender role, agentic versus communality, and the interaction between leadership roles/expectations and gender roles/ expectations. Gender-Role Expectations Gender-role beliefs are both prescriptive and descriptive (Rudman & Kilianski, 2000). They tell men and women how they should act in dayto-day life (descriptive) and how they will act (according to role restrictions) in certain situations (prescriptive). Eagley and Wood (1991) discuss several aspects of the stereotypical female gender role and describe gender differences that exist in several areas of social interaction, including social behavior, nonverbal communication, and groups. According to these researchers, the female role is characterized by the social roles that women have historically held—especially childrearing and domestic duties. Normative expectations for women include being friendly, expressing concern for others’ welfare, and being emotionally expressive. Agentic Versus Communality Whereas transactional leadership is associated with agentic qualities, transformational leadership is associated with communal qualities (Walumba et al., 2004). Communal characteristics include a primary concern with the welfare of others as well as affection, kindness, sympathy, nurturance, gentleness, and interpersonal sensitivity. Historically, these qualities have been used to describe women and are considered feminine qualities. For example, women more than men tend to agree with other people in group settings. This demonstrates support for the group and increases group cohesiveness (Eagley & Wood, 1991). Women are encouraged, through gender-role expectations, to behave communally. How does transformational leadership make use of these communal qualities? The ability to intrinsically motivate subordinates to succeed requires substantial ‘‘people skills’’—cooperation, interpersonal dependence, appreciation, and support for subordinates. These interpersonal © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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skills, along with group support and a keen understanding of nonverbal communication cues from subordinates, allow women to lead more democratically, i.e., transformationally (Eagley & Johnston, 1990; Eagley & Wood, 1991). The Interaction of Leadership-Role Expectations and Gender-Role Expectations Women face a different situation when leading others: Gender roles and expectations create women who are ‘‘nice’’; they are expected to behave communally with others, by being kind, supportive, etc. Meanwhile, traditional leadership qualities are masculine and agentic (aggressive, independent, competitive, etc.). Women are in a bind; acting agenticly is the traditional style of leadership, but women who act agenticly violate a stereotypic expectation of female gender role behavior (Rudman & Glick, 2001). There is a clear role incongruity between traditional, transactional leadership, deﬁned by agentic behaviors and traits (Walumba et al., 2004) and behaving in a communal fashion, as women are expected to do (Rudman & Glick, 2001; Eagley & Wood, 1991). What’s a woman to do? Rudman and Glick (2001) argue that women faced with this paradox have two options: act agenticly to be considered competent for leadership roles, or act communally and be liked by their peers but not respected or considered for leadership promotions. Queen Elizabeth I, who will be discussed in more detail later, dealt with this paradox by assuming both roles. In her most famous speech to her army (Axelrod, 2000), she showed masculine (agentic) traits, but she tempers those traits by asserting that she would suffer the same fate as her troops—a distinctly feminine (communal) assertion. Yoder (2001) suggests changes that women can make to become more effective leaders. She does not describe these changes as transformational; rather, she lists them as methods to make women more effective in masculinized contents. The suggestions Yoder makes have a distinctly transformational air. First, Yoder suggests that women ‘‘camoﬂag[e] dominant speech acts . . . [to] effectively enact leadership dominance. . .’’ (p. 820). She also suggests women develop grouporiented, as opposed to self-oriented, management, which is a key feature of transformational leadership (Yoder; Walumba et al., 2004). Transformational leadership eases the role incongruity that women face when confronted with gender expectations (of communality) and traditional leadership expectations (of agentic behaviors) by replacing masculine leadership traits with feminine ones. Transformational leadership thus eases the role incongruity that women face when they are confronted with gender-role expectations (of communality) and © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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traditional leadership-role expectations (of agentic) by replacing masculine leadership traits with feminine ones. FEMALE LEADERSHIP IN A HISTORICAL CONTEXT To more fully understand the nature of modern women leaders, it is helpful to examine women leaders of the past. The women in this discussion all led in distinctive ways. We are not able, in this limited space, to provide a timeline of all women leaders, but we hope to elaborate on some of the most recognized historical female leaders, noting differences and similarities with modern leadership styles. We discuss two leaders, Joan of Arc and Theodora, who led in arguably transactional manners, and Queen Elizabeth I, who led in an interesting mix of transactional and transformational styles. It is interesting to note that, during the research phase, we were unable to identify a prominent, pre-modern female leader who appeared to lead in a purely feminine, transformational manner. Joan of Arc Leadership did not come to Joan of Arc through the conventional paths that were available in her era—i.e., birth, education, or marriage. Instead, she assumed a leadership position as her ‘‘divine right’’ by claiming to hear the voices of angels. These angels told Joan of Arc what was necessary for victory over the English during the Hundred Years’ War. By following these divine instructions and leading the French army accordingly, she was a successful military leader. However, to gain her many victories, she had to defy the male military leaders of the time and assert herself. Through her deﬁance, perseverance, and belief in a divine mandate, she inspired her followers to action—despite her genderincongruent behavior (Axelrod, 2003). After she was captured by the English, however, the popular sentiment toward her changed. She was imprisoned, burned at the stake for heresy—speciﬁcally, for insisting on wearing male clothing (Wirth, 2006)—and eventually canonized as a saint (Axelrod, 2003). Her claim of direct communication with God, which was the purview only of male clergy at the time, and her masculine clothing suggest that she led and behaved in a ‘‘masculine’’ manner. Her issuance of military orders is also distinctly transactional in nature; so too was the assertiveness required to see that her orders were followed. Theodora Theodora was an actress in the 6th century, when actresses worked as prostitutes or in vulgar forms of entertainment. She married the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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emperor of the Byzantine Empire, Justinian, and was immediately crowned empress. In some historical accounts, Theodora is considered the dominant partner in her marriage and is thought to have had control over some of Justinian’s actions, especially regarding marriage laws. She was decisive and outspoken, according to historical legend, and acted in an ‘‘improper, masculine’’ fashion, including insisting upon being greeted as an equal with the emperor. She even insisted on having followers prostrate themselves to her. She also promoted changes in religious structure and in prostitution operations (Garland, 1999). Like Joan of Arc, Theodora appears to have led in a ‘‘masculine’’ style by being assertive, independent, and aggressive in her actions.

Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was born in the 16th century into privilege and the potential for leadership. Despite this, her ascendancy was difﬁcult because she was renounced as illegitimate because of her father’s indiscretions and divergence from Roman Catholicism. After the death of her father, Elizabeth was accused of treason and imprisoned by her half sister, Queen Mary I (daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon), who later died of cancer without having declared an heir. By default, Elizabeth became queen of England (Axelrod, 2003). Queen Elizabeth I’s subjects were especially wary when she rose to power, due in part to her sister’s bloody reign. People of the time believed that women were intellectually inferior to men and unable to lead because of their feminine temperament. Men were rulers and leaders, and that was believed to be the way of God (Axelrod, 2000). Despite these obstacles to her ascendancy, Queen Elizabeth I led England through a combination of leadership abilities and her femininity. This combination of roles, as a monarch and a woman, is exempliﬁed in a speech she gave to her army on the eve of an invasion by the Spanish Armada (Axelrod, 2000): I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king—and of a King of England, too! . . . [that] any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which, rather than dishonour should grow by me, I myself will take up arms—I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the ﬁeld.

In supplication, Queen Elizabeth I acknowledges what the common man believed about the inequality of women by declaring her body to be ‘‘weak’’ and ‘‘feeble.’’ She then follows with very masculine statements, wherein she claims that she has the ‘‘heart and stomach of a king’’ and that she will be the army’s general. In essence, it seems as © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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though Elizabeth I feels she must ﬁrst acknowledge her gender constraints on behavior and strength so that she can make such masculine statements. Throughout her reign, Queen Elizabeth I led with a similar mix of feminine and masculine leadership ideals. For instance, Axelrod (2000) describes a speech that Elizabeth made in front of an all-male university in which she showed respect for her subordinates by speaking in Latin, the academic language of her day. She also acknowledged the academicians’ good works and inquired what she could do as queen to support the university. These actions could be described as communal in nature because she was concentrating on acknowledging and rewarding teamwork. (Axelrod notes that successful leaders in the business world should acknowledge the talents of their subordinates, speak with them, and show support.) Queen Elizabeth I also walked with the men of the armed forces and spoke to them directly, asserting her leadership as a judge of the men’s actions. She said that she would share the fate of the soldiers, be it glory or death. These statements are distinctly agentic in that they are assertive, demanding, and ﬁnite. (Axelrod notes that leaders today need to ensure that their subordinates believe that their leader can be both a leader and a comrade.) Queen Elizabeth I also maintained her leadership power by carefully cultivating an image of herself as a Virgin Queen, much like Mary, the Blessed Virgin, in Catholicism. She perpetuated this image by never marrying and never producing an heir to the throne. Elizabeth knew that if she married a man, power would shift away from herself and onto her husband or male heir. Through this virginal image Elizabeth also united England’s Catholics and Protestants with her emphasis on piety, which further helped preserve her power. A particularly feminine aspect of Queen Elizabeth I’s leadership was her continued reliance on others: the privy, her advisors, her friends, and her family all contributed to her decisions. She believed that the key to success was evolution, not revolution. Therefore, she appointed new advisors to help the country make advancements, while retaining old and trusted advisors to maintain a sense of history and prevent revolution. Elizabeth encouraged her followers’ loyalty by showing loyalty to her country. She was also unafraid of criticizing the actions of others, although she did so without attacking personal or private faults. This tempered forwardness of reprimands is a distinct feature of her blend of communal and agentic leadership qualities. In summary, Queen Elizabeth I exhibited a more feminine, communal leadership style when interacting with her people in more private settings. As a monarch, she led in a more masculine, autocratic style, especially when the situation called for a strong hand. Perhaps it was this curious but effective combination of feminine and masculine © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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leadership that led to Elizabeth’s success. Her mixture of agentic and communality might well have paved the way for transformational leadership—women’s leadership—to take root. She created a climate in which femininity and leadership could coexist in one person. WHICH LEADERSHIP STYLE IS BETTER? Now that we have deﬁned transactional and transformational leadership and associated them with masculinity and femininity, respectively, the following questions remain: Which is better? Which of these two leadership styles yields greater results? Several investigators have addressed this question with a number of different methods, which have yielded varying results (see Eagley & Johnston, 1990, for a much more comprehensive discussion of these studies). Eagley and Johnston addressed these discrepancies in a thorough meta-analysis of 162 empirical and non-empirical published reports, including non-technical books on management. The non-empirical reports seem to agree that men behave more autocratically, with hierarchal levels of power, and problem-solve with little or no emotional involvement. Women leaders, they argue, lead more democratically, with more collaboration between leaders and subordinates, and solve problems with intuition and empathy. On the other hand, the experimental research of social scientists maintains that there is no signiﬁcant difference between the leadership styles of men (transactional, autocratic) and women (transformational, democratic) (Berkowitz, 1953; Butterﬁeld & Powell, 1981; Day & Stogdill, 1972; Lee & Alvares, 1977; Rice, Instone, & Adams, 1984). Eagley and Johnston (1990) surmised that the opposing conclusions were arrived at from different methods of data gathering and processing. Writers who insisted that there is a gender-based difference in leadership style tended to base their ﬁndings on personal experience, interviews with managers, and impressions derived from different organizations. Social scientists, who argued that there is no gender difference in leadership, tended to gather data through questionnaires and laboratory observations. It is tempting, for someone with a scientiﬁc background, to discard the anecdotal evidence provided by popular writers and focus only on experimental evidence. However, both kinds of data offer valid information about possible differences in leadership style, and both should be considered. In summarizing their ﬁndings, Eagley and Johnston (1990) concluded that gender differences probably exist but that they are less pronounced in organizational settings than in laboratory or assessment studies. The strongest evidence of a gender-based difference in leadership was in the tendency for women to behave more democratically than © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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men and for men to behave more autocratically than women. Eagley and Johnston (1990) noted that even when female and male leaders satisfy the same selection criteria (e.g., work history, experiences, education), they might differ in personality and behavioral tendencies. Speciﬁcally, they noted that women’s interpersonal social skills would enable them to manage more democratically than men do. Foels, Driskell, Mullen, and Salas (2000) suggest that democratic leadership is more satisfying to group members than autocratic leadership is. In particular, they report that democratic leadership elicited a stronger positive affect in laboratory groups as group size increased. Furthermore, a group’s gender distribution affected satisfaction with leadership style: Predominantly male groups were more satisﬁed with an autocratic leader, whereas predominantly female groups were more satisﬁed with a democratic leader. However, the gender composition of the group was a factor only in real-world groups; all of the artiﬁcial groups reported higher satisfaction with democratic leadership. Although Foels and colleagues (2000) found greater group satisfaction with democratic leaders, they point out that these ﬁndings are limited in real-world applications and practicality. Businesses that are changing to a democratic leadership style will probably not notice any appreciable difference in productivity or worker satisfaction. These ﬁndings support Eagley and Johnston’s (1990) assertion that gender differences do exist in the workplace and inﬂuence leadership style, but only to a small degree. SUMMARY We have not entirely answered the question of which leadership style is better. In short, the answer, unfortunately, seems to be, ‘‘It depends.’’ It depends on group size, setting, goals, gender distribution, etc. There is no clear answer on the superiority of transformational leadership or transactional leadership. So what can we conclude? We may conclude that, there are distinctive styles of leadership, each leadership style seems to be gender-speciﬁc, and both leadership styles, transactional, and transformational, are effective. There is no doubt that people lead in different ways; these differences are not only individual in nature but are inﬂuenced by gender expectations. Historically, there are exceptions: Joan of Arc and Theodora both appear to have been masculine in their behavior and leadership qualities, whereas Queen Elizabeth I seems to have created an effective mix of leadership styles. However, as women have entered the workforce and have more frequently assumed leadership positions, they have discovered that the prescribed female gender role and transactional leadership are incongruent. As a result, a new form of leadership has begun to take shape. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Integrating effective leadership with feminine, communal qualities has led to transformational leadership. This leadership style, which is heavily inﬂuenced by gender-role expectations, ease the incongruence between being a woman and being a leader and allow women leaders to earn the respect they deserve. Research has shown that people respond positively to transformational, democratic leaders as well as to transactional, autocratic leaders. Time will tell if one leadership style becomes signiﬁcantly more effective than the other. It seems that the more important consideration is not the leader but the leadership context.

REFERENCES Axelrod, A. (2000). Elizabeth I CEO: Strategic lessons from the leader who built an empire. Paramus, NJ: Prentice Hall Press. Axelrod, A. (2003). Proﬁles in leadership. New York: Prentice Hall Press. Berkowitz, L. (1953). Sharing leadership in small, decision-making groups. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 48 (2), 231–238. Butterﬁeld, D. A., & Powell, G. N. (1981). Effect of group performance, leader gender, and rater gender on ratings of leader behavior. Organizational Behavior & Human Performance, 28 (1), 129–141. Day, D. R., & Stogdill, R. M. (1972). Leader behavior of male and female supervisors: A comparative study. Personnel Psychology, 25 (2), 353–360. Eagley, A. H., & Carli, L. L. (2004). Women and men as leaders. In J. Antonakis, A. T. Cianciolo, & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The nature of leadership (pp. 279–301). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Eagley, A. H., & Johannesen-Schmidt, M. C. (2001). The leadership styles of women and men. Journal of Social Issues, 57 (4), 781–797. Eagley, A. H., & Johnston, B. T. (1990). Gender and leadership style: A metaanalysis. Psychological Bulletin, 108 (2), 233–256. Eagley, A. H., & Wood, W. (1991). Explaining gender differences in social behavior: A meta-analytic perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17 (3), 306–315. Foels, R., Driskell, J. E., Mullen, B., & Salas, E. (2000). The effects of democratic leadership on group member satisfaction: An integration. Small Group Research, 31 (6), 676–701. Garland, L. (1999). Byzantine empresses: Women and power in Byzantium A.D. 527–1204. London: Routledge. Lee, D. M., & Alvares, K. M. (1977). Effects of gender on descriptions and evaluations of supervisory behavior in a simulated industrial setting. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62 (4), 405–410. Rice, R. W., Instone, D., & Adams, J. (1984). Leader gender, leader success, and leadership process: Two ﬁeld studies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69 (1), 12–31. Ridgeway, C. L. (2001). Gender, status, and leadership. Journal of Social Issues, 57 (4), 637–655. Rudman, L. A., & Glick, P. (2001). Prescriptive gender stereotypes and backlash towards agentic women. Journal of Social Issues, 57 (4), 743–762.

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Rudman, L. A., & Kilianski, S. E. (2000). Implicit and explicit attitudes towards female authority. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26 (11), 1315–1328. Walumba, F. O., Wu, C., & Ojode, L. A. (2004). Gender and instructional outcomes: The mediating role of leadership style. Journal of Management Development, 23 (2), 124–140. Wirth, R. (Ed.). (2006). Primary sources and context concerning Joan of Arc’s male clothing. Historical Academy for Joan of Arc Studies. Available online. Yoder, J. (2001). Making leadership work more effectively for women. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 815–828.

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Chapter 7

Feminist Competing Values Leadership: An Investigation of the Roles Played by Men and Women Nancy Miller Frank Alan Belasen

If effective managers are more successful than less effective managers in handling novel or exceptional situations and generally exhibit greater behavioral and cognitive complexity (Denison, Hooijberg, & Quinn, 1995; Hart & Quinn, 1993), do men and women alike manifest these behaviors in their organizational leadership roles across hierarchical levels? Are there any signiﬁcant differences between men and women across managerial levels? To answer these questions, we used the competing values framework (explained below) to categorize the roles that managers play and to identify gender differences. Also relevant, however, is the question of whether women actually manage in accordance with the predictions of feminist theory. Given present-day attention to feminist theories of leadership, it is appropriate to ask whether women align with traditional feminist role strengths within the competing values framework compared to men. For example, in spite of the apparent connection between transformational leadership and feminist theories of leadership (Alimo-Metcalfe, 1995; Barker & Young, 1994), are we correct in assuming that women in particular are more likely to demonstrate transformational behaviors? The results of a ﬁeld study, though intriguing, led us to suggest that access to higher managerial levels for women remains elusive and that women frequently ﬁnd themselves shifting into a state of hypereffectivity to advance their careers. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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In the next section we examine recent developments in research and applications. We then review feminist theories and studies relating to gender differences in leadership roles. Next, we identify the research objectives and propositions for our study, examine the results, and suggest a number of explanations for the interesting ﬁndings. We conclude the study with a discussion of the hypereffective woman. THE COMPETING VALUES FRAMEWORK Originated by Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1983), the competing values framework (CVF) highlights the contradictory nature of organizational environments and the complexity of choices faced by managers when responding to competing tensions. These responses include a variety of managerial roles that differ by situation. The CVF displays the repertoire of leadership roles by aligning pairs of roles with speciﬁc organizational environments (Figure 7-1). For example, the innovator and broker roles rely on creativity and communication skills to bring about change and to acquire the resources necessary for change management. The monitor and coordinator roles are more relevant for system maintenance and integration and require project management and supervision skills. Although the director and producer roles are geared toward goal achievement, the facilitator and mentor roles are aimed at generating a motivated work force driven by commitment and involvement.

Figure 7-1.

The competing values framework. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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The upper part of the framework contains transformational roles, whereas the lower part contains transactional roles (Quinn, 1988). Denison and Spreitzer (1991) pointed out that when managers overemphasize one set of values (or play certain roles extensively without considering the other roles), the organization can become dysfunctional. High-performing managers, on the other hand, display behavioral complexity that allows them to master contradictory behaviors while maintaining some measure of behavioral integrity and credibility. The concept of paradox reinforces the idea that the structure of this behavioral complexity is not neat, linear, or bipolar but must take a more complicated form (Denison et al., 1995). Support for this framework was found in a study (Buenger, Daft, Conlon, & Austin, 1996) that showed that giving priority to certain organizational environments (e.g., internal processes) might impede the accomplishment of goals in other areas (e.g., human relations). Recently, the CVF has received renewed attention from organizational researchers and leadership development scholars. Much of this attention has focused on the wide applicability of the CVF as a diagnostic and developmental tool, especially for cultural variables (Cameron & Quinn, 1999; Garman, 2006; Igo & Skitmore, 2006), human resource development (Belasen & Frank, 2004; Panayotopoulou, Bourantas, & Papalexandris, 2003), and the relationships between leadership roles and management education (Belasen & Rufer, 2007). Other directions of research came from investigations that set out to modify the CVF conﬁguration to include an additional role (Vilkinas, 2000; Vilkinas & Cartan, 2001), justiﬁcation for the reordering of the CVF roles within each quadrant (Belasen & Frank, 2005; Denison et al., 1995), and variation in emphasizing particular roles depending on the situation (Hooijberg, Bullis, & Hunt, 1999). A related question is how managers actually choose appropriate roles to play and how cognitive styles, reﬂected in personality traits, affect these choices. The interplay of traits and leadership roles, for example, is a well-known tool for selecting individuals and matching them with organizational positions (Belasen & Frank, 2008; Dastmalchian, Lee, & Ng, 2000). An interesting question is how managers at different hierarchical levels classify their behaviors across the CVF levels. To answer this question, the results of a study of managers in a large ﬁnancial institution are reported in Tables 7-1, 7-2, 7-3, and 7-4 (Belasen, 1998, 2000). One central ﬁnding of these surveys is that there are many striking similarities in the importance of the roles played by managers at different levels. Overall, the evidence suggests that the managers at each level were able to identify with all eight CVF roles. The results suggest that ﬁrst-level managers can be classiﬁed as committed intensive. These managers place a greater emphasis on the importance of the innovator, broker, and producer roles than on all © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Table 7-1. Similarities and differences in motivating employees and setting goals Level

Producer

Director

All managerial levels

. Maintains a high level of energy . Shows motivation and effort . Motivates others

. Makes important work decisions . Sets goals . Sets objectives for accomplishing goals . Deﬁnes roles and expectations for employees

First level

. Focuses on results and accomplishments . Gets others to excel in their work . Uses time and stress management . Uses strategies to handle delays and interruptions

. Assigns priorities among multiple goals

Middle level

. Creates high-performance . Garners support for goals expectations in others from managers at lower . Focuses on results and levels accomplishments . Considers individual differences in motivating employees

Top level

. Creates high-performance . Establishes a context for expectations in others decision making at lower . Considers individual differenlevels ces in motivating employees . Gets others to excel in their work

the other roles. These managers serve as the primary point of contact for providing ﬁnancial products and services to business clients within the assigned market area. Committed intensives are characterized by the high intensity that they bring to their work. They are almost obsessive about personal productivity for themselves and others, to the point that they might have difﬁculty understanding, and even tolerating, individuals who are not willing to work as hard as they do (Quinn, 1988). The middle-level managers in the sample can be described as conceptual producers. These managers work well in developing and selling new ideas. This is consistent with the fact that these managers have a © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Table 7-2. Similarities and differences in controlling work and tracking details Level

Coordinator

Monitor

All managerial levels

. Ensures that work is going according to schedule . Reallocates resources to accommodate the needs of work units . Coordinates tasks and people

. Disseminates information about policies and procedures . Relies on reports from others and ensures the ﬂow of information to necessary personnel and units . Sets up and maintains necessary communication channels

First level

. Anticipates work ﬂow problems

. Oversees compliance with procedures . Plans workload adjustments as needed

Middle level

. Anticipates work ﬂow problems . Schedules work ﬂow of tasks and projects

. Interprets ﬁnancial and statistical reports

Top level

. Determines subordinates’ assignments on the basis of individual skills and abilities . Coordinates units as well as individual employees

. Carefully reviews the work of others

higher level of formal education than ﬁrst-level managers do. These individuals perceive themselves as being conceptually skilled, production-focused, effective managers even though they pay little attention to details. This is supported by evidence that the managers in our sample emphasized the high importance of the innovator, broker, producer, facilitator, and director roles at their level. The coordinator, mentor, and monitor roles were assessed to be of less importance as indicated by lower mean scores relative to the overall proﬁle mean for middle-level management. Upper-level management appears to emphasize the external and human interaction roles. Thus, upper management appears to be characterized as open adaptive. These managers scored highly on the importance of the innovator, broker, producer, director, facilitator, and mentor roles. It was evident that upper-level managers placed less emphasis on the coordinator and monitor roles. This is consistent with research that suggests that upper-level managers spend more time dealing with the institutional environment and the well-being of the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Table 7-3. Similarities and differences in mentoring and facilitating interactions Level

Mentor

Facilitator

All managerial levels

. Gives credit to subordinates for their work and ideas . Maintains an open, approachable, and understanding attitude toward subordinates . Takes a personal interest in employees

. Works to enhance employee participation . Creates a cohesive work climate in the organization . Creates a sense of belonging to the organization

First level

. Helps employees work toward . Fosters a sense of teamand prepare for promotion work among employees . Does on-the-job training . Facilitates and leads meetings

Middle level

. Does on-the-job training . Creates opportunities for ﬁrstline supervisors to challenge themselves

. Fosters a sense of teamwork among employees . Involves subordinates in discussions about work matters

Top level

. Advises lower level managers on how to handle difﬁcult employee situations . Creates opportunities for lower level managers to challenge themselves

. Involves subordinates in discussions about work matters . Facilitates and leads meetings

organization as a whole and are less concerned with internal processes at the micro level. Now we will explore the questions we asked at the beginning of this chapter. FEMINIST THEORY Although indications of feminist leadership approaches appeared in early 19th-century social movements, what became known as feminist theory actually emerged in the social turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s (Rusaw, 2005). Feminism is composed of several themes, but one of the most prominent is that gender differences in behavior, cognition, and perception derive from a combination of nature and nurture, from biology and life history. We see these differences demonstrated in personalities, occupational preferences, social role identities, family role expectations, communication preferences, and approaches to interpersonal relationships. Feminism also promotes beliefs in caring and compassion for others in the form of social responsibility and social justice © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Table 7-4. Similarities and differences in managing change and persuasion Level

Innovator

Broker

All managerial . Supports changes imposed . Builds coalitions and networks levels on the organization among peers . Nurtures contacts with exter- . Represents the unit to clients nal people even when disand customers agreeing with the changes First level

. Helps employees deal with . Interacts with people outside ambiguity and delay the organization . Assesses the potential impact . Presents ideas to managers of proposed changes at higher levels . Comes up with ideas for improving the organization . Assesses the potential impact of proposed changes

Middle level

. Turns problems into . Represents the unit to others opportunities in the organization . Encourages creativity among employees . Helps employees deal with ambiguity and delay . Helps subordinates see the positive aspects of changes

Top level

. Turns problems into . Represents the unit to others opportunities in the organization . Encourages creativity among employees . Personally helps individual employees adjust to changes in the organization . Exerts lateral and upward inﬂuence in the organization . Helps subordinates see the positive aspects of changes

issues (Gilligan, 1982; Helgeson, 1990). Feminist critiques of what they considered masculine models of leadership appeared throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Fine & Buzzanell, 2000; Rusaw, 2005). Historically, feminist approaches to leadership theory have roughly paralleled the growth in applications of the CVF. In addition to beliefs in fundamental differences between the genders, staunch adherence to social justice issues, and condemnation of masculine leadership models, arguably the dominant theme of © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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feminism is its manifest belief that male authoritarianism dominates institutions and that this authoritarianism leads to discrimination and institutional injustice (Barton, 2006; Irby, Brown, Duffy, & Trautman, 2002; Chin, 2004; Rosener, 1990). Feminist critiques of management and leadership models argue that management theories and models emphasize power and rational-legal approaches while failing to recognize differences between the genders in terms of motivation, communication styles, work preferences, cognitive styles, and managerial style strengths. Among these differences, for example, is the feminist preference for collegial decision-making approaches and for pluralistic leadership that works toward shared goals and purposes (Barker & Young, 1994). Feminist theory argues that power does not derive from hierarchy and received authority, but rather from shared experience, combined viewpoints, and joint strengths. It should not be surprising that the preponderance of feminist criticism of management theory seems to emanate from academia and the ﬁeld of education, institutions dominated for centuries by male-based hierarchies (Barton, 2006; Irby et al., 2002; Fine, 2007). The literature on women and leadership often seeks to identify unique attributes that distinguish the styles of male and female leadership, suggesting that gendered leadership styles reﬂect the power differentials in society as a whole (Fine, 2007; Fine & Buzzanell, 2000) and that masculine qualities—such as task focus, assertiveness, authoritativeness, and lack of emotionality—are virtually synonymous with leadership within the United States and Europe (Fine & Buzzanell, 2000; Izraeli & Adler, 1994; Schein, 2001). Meanwhile, as organizations reinforce these qualities through rewards and incentives (Chin, 2004), images such as the ‘‘glass ceiling’’ and the ‘‘glass cliff’’ (Ryan, Haslam, & Postmes, 2007; Weyer, 2007) continue to reﬂect reality. Growing interest in transformational leadership signals a promising shift in attitudes, however. Mounting evidence that transformational leadership contributes to increased employee motivation and performance has encouraged research into the mechanisms behind its achievements (Alimo-Metcalfe, 1995; Barker & Young, 1994; Eagley, Johannesen-Schmidt, & Van Engen, 2003; Kark, Shamir, & Chen, 2003; Rosener, 1990; Trinidad & Normore, 2005). There is new support that the success of transformational leadership can be attributed to interpersonal abilities to engender personal identiﬁcation of the follower with the leader and to promote social identiﬁcation with the work unit (Kark et al., 2003). The transformational leader affects the feelings of the follower, creating a positive identiﬁcation with both the leader and the work unit. Ironically, this interaction is characterized by both dependence and independence: an interpersonal dependence between the leader and the follower and an empowering independence that encourages work-group identiﬁcation (Kark et al., 2003). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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FEMINIST THEORY AND COMPETING VALUES LEADERSHIP ROLES In spite of the apparent connection between transformational leadership and feminist theories of leadership (Alimo-Metcalfe, 1995; Barker & Young, 1994), however, are we correct in assuming that women in particular are more likely to demonstrate transformational behaviors? To answer this question, we sought evidence in the literature that men and women demonstrate different or similar managerial styles. The argument that men and women are biologically and socially different would certainly suggest basic dispositional and personality differences between male and female managers. Research streams support the existence of basic personality differences between males and females (Judge, Higgins, Thoresen & Barrick, 1999; Senykina & Linz, 2007; Xie & Whyte, 1997). For example, typically, women managers see themselves as being more agreeable while men see themselves as being agreeable at times and assertive at other times. Women often score signiﬁcantly higher than men on conscientiousness and national cultures often signify this. In Russia, for example, men exhibit internal locus of control, while women were found to have external locus of control (Senykina & Linz, 2007). In an interview-based study that was speciﬁcally designed to develop leadership training programs that included a feminist perspective, the researchers (Irby et al., 2002) studied perceptions of effective leadership skills. Women were seen as giving more attention to detail, being more emotional, and being more likely to seek input from others. Men were seen as more likely to delegate detail work to others. In Prediger’s (1982) people–things dimension, women leaned more toward the people side and men leaned more toward the things (task) side (Lippa, 1998). However, although relation leadership was associated with agreeableness and task leadership was associated with openness and conscientiousness (Won, 2006), there was no support for gender differences in relationship versus task orientation (Toren, Konrad, Yoshioka, & Kashlak, 1997; Won, 2006). Although the connection of feminist themes with transformational skill-related differences between men and women seems to be well documented (Eagly et al., 2003), the relationship of feminist beliefs to the eight CVF gender roles, particularly the four people-focused roles, bears exploration. A feminist viewpoint would predict the strengths from female managers shown in Table 7-5. Unfortunately, these predictions are unsubstantiated, because research on gender differences within the CVF is scarce, the methodologies vary widely, and the results are mixed. For example, self-assessments of retail sales managers place women higher than men in mentor and broker roles (Kim & Shim, 2003); female communication and information technology managers preferred the producer role (Parker, 2004); and ﬁnally,

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Table 7-5. Transformational and transactional roles Transformational

Feminist theme

CVF focus

Human Relations

Caring Empowering Collegial Responsive

Mentor Facilitator Broker Innovator

Transactional

Feminist theme

CVF focus

Rational Goal

Consultative Inclusive Fair Equitable

Director Producer Coordinator Monitor

Open Systems

Internal Process

360 assessments of both men and women found no signiﬁcant differences in perceptions of role performance (Vilkanis, 2000). Research often focuses on how women lead while rarely examining the dispositional underpinnings that would explain why their leadership styles might differ (Fine, 2007). Style and skill theories look at how managers manage, but only recently have traits (the dispositional why) been causally connected to managerial styles (Belasen & Frank, 2008). Table 7-6 lists the causal relationships between traits and CVF roles. Because trait research reports both male and female differences but does not tie the traits to the CVF managerial role behaviors, this research provides a unique opportunity to test for male–female differences in traits and their corresponding styles. Because women are often seen as more emotional and people-oriented, it would seem that their behaviors would align closely with their basic dispositions and personality traits, consistent with the belief that women are temperamentally different from men. Belasen and Frank (2008) found direct inﬂuences of traits on managerial styles, thus indicating that gender differences in traits should correspond to gender differences in managerial styles. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND RESULTS Because previous research supports women’s preferences for transformational roles, we proposed the following research questions: 1. Women would prefer the transformational CVF leadership-role quadrants: human relations and open systems.

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Table 7-6. Traits associated with CVF roles Traits

CVF Quadrant roles

Agreeableness

Human relations Mentor Facilitator Open systems Innovator Broker Rational goal Director Producer Internal processes Coordinator Monitor

Openness to new ideas

Assertiveness

Conscientiousness

2. Women would prefer the four transformational CVF leadership roles: mentor, facilitator, broker, and innovator. 3. Trait differences would correspond to the preferred quadrant’s role differences (in accordance with Table 7-6).

A representative sample of successful mid- and upper-level managers was selected from a pool of nearly 300 managers who were participating in an online MBA program. The respondents generally represented higher levels of management within their organizations. More than half represented large organizations. Finally, they represented a wide range of experience within their present positions. The ﬁnal 60-item research instrument was a consolidation of two separate instruments that assessed competing values skills and work-related personality traits, as measured by a new instrument. Our ﬁndings failed to support the proposition that women would demonstrate stronger role strengths in the four CVF transformational leadership roles of mentor, facilitator, broker, and innovator. The CVF quadrant of internal processes and its associated role, monitor, were signiﬁcantly different for men and women, however. Among the explanations for the failure of our ﬁndings to support the proposition that women would display stronger scores in the transformational roles, several possibilities must be considered. First, because our sample population came from an MBA program rather than from helping or service organizations, it is possible that the women who took part in the study were not strong advocates of feminist theory. Self-selection into the business management ﬁeld could indicate a subset of women who are less feminist in thinking. Second, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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it is also not inconceivable that the men in our sample, because of the educated and diverse nature of its population, yielded to behaviors that were compatible with feminist theory and were more transformational in managerial styles than we might have anticipated. As suggested by Eagley et al. (2003): ‘‘Self-deﬁnitions of managers may thus reﬂect an integration of their managerial role and gender role, and through self-regulatory processes, these composite self-deﬁnitions inﬂuence behavior, thereby shading the discretionary aspects of managerial behavior in gender-stereotypic directions’’ (p. 572). Third, although unlikely, it is possible that the CVF roles do not correspond as strongly with transformational managerial behaviors as we might have anticipated. In fact, while Figure 7.1 shows a conﬁguration of the transformational/transactional roles split between upper and lower parts, the women in our sample showed stronger bias toward the left side versus the right side of the CVF conﬁguration displaying behaviors that are closely associated with the socio-technical systems (left side) more so than performance systems (right side). Operationalization of these roles might not reﬂect the same constructs as previous research on transformational leadership. A fourth possibility is that differences in perceptions of conscientiousness and monitoring would lead women to score themselves higher than men even when there is actually little practical difference in their behaviors (Costa, Terracciano, & McCrae, 2001). Finally, we must consider the possibility that differences in the nature of the sample might account for the previous failures to ﬁnd a strong monitoring role for women. Ultimately, we are left with the conclusion that, despite the fact that the other three quadrants have been represented as showing distinctions between women and men in the CVF in previous studies, women have not shown internal-process quadrant strengths in previous research. This is surprising, because traits can inﬂuence CVF role behaviors and studies have shown gender differences in conscientiousness (Cavallo & Brienza, 2006a; Gelissen & de Graaf, 2006), analytical cognitive styles (Hays, Allinson, & Armstrong, 2004), and detail orientation (Irby et al., 2002). According to Costa and colleagues (2001), personality variations between the categories, compared to variations between the genders, are actually fairly small. Because variations between the genders are small, and reports of gender differences in personality rarely lead to actual differences in managerial effectiveness (Xie & Whyte, 1997), perhaps we should search elsewhere for our unexpected results. Proven, successful managers are tested and honed by experience and education. The managerial process may be viewed as evolutionary; that is, upper levels of management are populated with higher proportions of well-balanced, emotionally mature managers. Strong trait and behavioral differences, gender-related or not, are ﬁltered out along the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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way. Evidence of this leveling process is seen in the differences in role strengths at the different levels of management, as well as by Xie and Whyte (1997), who found that gender differences decreased as managerial levels increased. Indeed, Xie and White found that gender differences in personality and needs were stronger than differences in managerial attributes, indicating that although men and women might start from different dispositions and tendencies, only those individuals who adapt to (and allow themselves to be molded by) the requirements of the next level in the managerial progression will increase their chances to climb the corporate ladder. THE HYPEREFFECTIVE WOMAN Why, with so much support for the effectiveness of transformational leadership styles and the tendency of women to display these leadership styles, do we not ﬁnd this in the CVF? One plausible answer lies in the need for women to demonstrate value-maximizing behaviors in areas that have been traditionally dominated by men (Irby et al., 2002). The old style of management, which was based on trade (rather than communication) relationships and which focused on short-term goals and competition among subordinates, stands in stark contrast to the transformational style generally preferred by women, with its focus on shared responsibility and distributed leadership. This style ﬁts well with the changing environmental conditions that allow women to perform their leadership roles by using their networks of social interactions and through inclusive decision-making processes that encourage participation and ownership. Already playing the CVF roles effectively, the women in our sample seemed to shift their energy from personal, non–value-maximizing behaviors to performance-enhancing activities, thus becoming hypereffective. Belasen, Benke, DiPadova, and Fortunato (1996), who examined the reactions of middle managers to downsizing, found that managers have become hypereffective in performing their roles. The signiﬁcant increase in seven of the eight roles, including the critical producer and director roles of the competing values framework, suggested that the sample of managers studied might have become not only more effective but also what the researchers labeled hypereffective. Movement toward efﬁciency was not conclusive, but the pattern of change in the tasks and responsibilities underlying the roles suggested a severe loss of discretionary time and an increase in the sense of powerlessness among the managers surveyed. Furthermore, the in-depth interviews conducted by the researchers supported these preliminary ﬁndings. The reason that transactional roles (e.g., director, producer, coordinator) increased was that the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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managers had been working much longer and harder. Increased organizational efﬁciency came about only, in part, as a result of changes in work processes (reﬂected in part by shifting roles within the competing values framework). The larger source of productivity gain was most likely the result of the vastly increased allocation of managerial activity from personal (non–value-maximizing) activities to activities enhancing organizational effectiveness (Belasen et al., 1996). A later study of the impact of hypereffectivity led the researchers to conclude that this process is unsustainable, requiring top executives and human resources directors to pay close attention to the work context that breeds conditions of hypereffectivity and to develop possible remedies (Belasen & Frank, 2004). Reminiscent of the Hawthorne Effects and the dynamics that lead female employees to exceed expectations, it is not too uncommon to conclude that the women in our sample, wanting to demonstrate their superior skills over their male counterparts, resorted to the overemphasis of the CVF internal-process quadrant and its accompanying roles, in particular the monitor.

CONCLUSION Today’s women are emmanently qualiﬁed for executive responsibilities. Taking advantage of their strengths in interpersonal and social skills, for example, they excel in leveraging rewards power through the granting of implicit rewards, such as personal expressions of appreciation, and information power through the explicit reward distribution of information. However, access to higher managerial levels remains elusive, and women frequently ﬁnd themselves shifting into a state of hypereffectivity to advance their careers. Human resource recruiters and trainers should take this risky tendency into account in their selection processes and in their design of executive development programs. Diversity is not achieved by pressuring women to overachieve in those CVF roles outside their core strengths. A more suitable approach would be to help women maximize all of their skills while simultaneously helping them learn to recognize the risks of hypereffectivity. One approach, for example, might be to help women identify potentially demanding projects and recommend that they set time limits on overly demanding job assignments to prevent possible burnout. Another approach might be to help them learn to overcome their weaker areas by leveraging their strengths or by bringing in others with compensating strengths. By focusing on continued improvement while tempering the drive for success with an astute allocation of innate strengths and energy, women can reach their full potential at the executive level.

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REFERENCES Adler, N. (2005). Leadership journeys: The courage to enrich the world. In L. Coughlin, E. Wingard, & K. Hollihan (Eds.), Enlightened power: How women are transforming the path to leadership (pp. 3–13). San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass. Alimo-Metcalfe, B. (1995). An investigation of female and male constructs of leadership and empowerment. Women in Management Review, 10 (2) 3–8. Barker, A. M., & Young, C. E. (1994, October). Transformational leadership: The feminist connection in postmodern organizations. Holistic Nurse Practitioner, 9 (1), 16–25. Barton, T. (2006). Feminist leadership: Building nurturing academic communities. Advancing Women in Leadership On-Line Journal, 222. Available online at http://awnettech.advancingwomen.com/awl/fall2006/barton.htm. Belasen, A. T. (1998). Paradoxes and leadership roles: Assessing and developing managerial competencies. Management Development Forum, 1 (2), 73–98. Belasen, A. T. (2000). Leading the learning organization: Communication and competencies for managing change. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Belasen, A. T., Benke, M., DiPadova, L. N., & Fortunato, M. V. (1996). Downsizing and the hyper-effective manager: The shifting importance of managerial roles during organizational transformations. Human Resource Management Journal, 35 (1), 87–118. Belasen, A. T., & Frank, N. M. (2004). The perceptions of human resource managers of the shifting importance of managerial roles in downsizing organizations. International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, 4 (2), 144–163. Belasen, A. T., & Frank, N. M. (2005, August). Roles managers play: A deeper look at the competing values framework. Paper presented at the Academy of Management, HI. Belasen, A. T., & Frank, N. M. (2008). Competing values leadership: Quadrant roles and personality traits. Leadership and Organizational Development Journal, 29 (2) 127–143. Belasen, A. T. & Rufer, R. (2007). Building a competency-based MBA from the ground up: Curriculum design and program delivery. Proceedings of the Academy of Management (pp. 1–6), Philadelphia. Buenger, V., Daft, R., Conlon, E., & Austin, J. (1996). Competing values in organizations: Contextual inﬂuences and structural consequences. Organization Science, 7 (5), 557–576. Burke, S., & Collins, K. M. (2001). Gender differences in leadership styles and management skills. Women in Management Review, 16 (5/6), 244–256. Cameron, K. S., & Quinn, R. E. (1999). Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: Based on the competing values framework. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley. Cavallo, K., & Brienza, D. (2006a). Emotional competence and leadership excellence at Johnson & Johnson: Emotional intelligence and leadership study. Available online at www.corpconsultinggroup.com. Cavallo, K., & Brienza, D. (2006b). PsyD corporate consulting group. Available online at www.corpconsultinggroup.com.

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Chin, J. L., (2004). Feminist leadership: Feminist visions and diverse voices. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 28, 1–8. Costa, P. T., Jr., Terracciano, & McCrae, R. R. (2001). Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising ﬁndings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81 (2), 322–331. Craik, K. H., Ware, A. P., Kamp, J., & O’Reilly, C. L. (2002, June). Explorations of construct validity in a combined managerial and personality assessment programme. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 75 (2), 171. Dastmalchian, A., Lee, S., & Ng, I. (2000). The interplay between organizational and national cultures: A comparison of organizational practices in Canada and South Korea using the competing values framework. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11 (2), 388–412. Denison, D. R., Hooijberg, R., & Quinn, R. E. (1995). Paradox and performance: Toward a theory of behavioral complexity in managerial leadership. Organizational Science, 6 (5), 524–540. Denison, D. R., & Spreitzer, G. M. (1991). Organizational culture and organizational development: A competing values approach. In R. W. Woodman & W. A. Pasmore (Eds.), Research in Organizational Change and Development, 5, 1–21. Eagley, A. H., & Johannesen-Schmidt, M. C. (2001). The leadership styles of women and men. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 781–797. Eagley, A. H., Johannesen-Schmidt, M. C., & Van Engen, M. L. (2003). Transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles: A meta-analysis comparing women and men. Psychological Bulletin, 129 (4), 569–591. Eagley, A., & Johnston, B. (1990). Gender and the emergence of leaders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 233–256. Fine, M. G. (2007). Women, collaboration, and social change: An ethics-based model of leadership. In J. L. Chin, B. L. Lott, J. K. Rice, & J. Sanchez-Hucles (Eds.), Women and leadership: Visions and diverse voices. Boston: Blackwell. Fine, M. G., & Buzzanell, P. M. (2000). Walking the high wire: Leadership theorizing, daily acts, and tensions. In P. M. Buzzanell (Ed.), Rethinking organizational and managerial communication from feminist perspectives (pp. 128–156). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Garman, A. (2006). Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: Based on the competing values framework. Personnel Psychology, 59 (3), 755–757. Gelissen, J., & de Graaf, P. M. (2006). Social Science Research, 35 (3), 702. Mueller, G., & Plug, E. (2006). Estimating the effect of personality on male and female earnings. Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 60 (1), 3–22. Gilligan, C. (1981). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hart, S. L. & Quinn, R. E. (1993). Roles executive play: CEOs’ behavioral complexity and ﬁrm performance. Human Relations, 46 (5), 114–122. Hays, J., Allinson, C. W., & Armstrong, S. (2004). Intuition, women managers, and gendered stereotypes. Personnel Psychology, 33 (4), 33. Helgeson, S. (1990). Women’s way of leading. New York: Doubleday. Hooijberg, R., Bullis, C. R., & Hunt, J. G. (1999), Behavioral complexity and the development of military leadership for the twenty-ﬁrst century. In J. G. Hunt, G. E. Dodge, & L. Wong (Eds.), Out-of-the-box leadership:

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Transforming the twenty-ﬁrst-century army and other top performing organizations (pp. 111–130). Stamford, CT: JAI Press. Igo, T., & Skitmore, M. (2006). Diagnosing the organizational culture of an Australian engineering consultancy using the competing values framework. Construction Innovation, 6, (2), 121–139. Irby, B. J., Brown, G., Duffy, J. A., & Trautman, D. (2002). The synergistic leadership theory. Journal of Educational Administration, 40 (4/5), 304. Izraeli, D. N., & Adler, N. (1994). Competitive frontiers: Women managers in a global economy. In N. Adler & D. N. Izraeli (Eds.), Competitive frontiers: Women managers in a global economy (pp. 3–21). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Judge, T. A., Higgins, C. A., Thoresen, C. J., & Barrick, M. R. (1999). The big ﬁve personality traits, general mental ability, and career success across the life span. Personnel Psychology, 52 (3), 621. Kark, R., Shamir, B., & Chen, G. (2003). The two faces of transformational leadership: Empowerment and dependency. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88 (2), 246–255. Kezar, A. (2002). Reconstructing static images of leadership: An application of positionality theory. Journal of Leadership Studies, 8, 94–109. Kim, H., & Shim, S. (2003). A gender-based approach to the understanding of leadership roles among retail managers. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 14 (3), 321. Konradt, U., & Hoch, J. (2007). Work roles and leadership functions of managers in virtual teams. International Journal of E-Collaboration, 3 (2), 16–19. Lippa, R. (1998). Gender related individual differences, and the structure of vocational interests: The importance of the people-things dimension. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74 (4), 996–1009. Panayotopoulou, L., Bourantas, D., & Papalexandris, N. (2003). Strategic human resource management and its effects on ﬁrm performance: An implementation of the competing values framework. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 14 (4), 680–699. Parker, K. L. (2004). Leadership styles of agricultural communications and information technology managers: What does the competing values framework tell us about them? Journal of Extension, 42 (1). Available online at www.joe.org/joe/2004february/a1.shtml. Prediger, D. J. (1982). Dimensions underlying Holland’s hexagon: Missing link between interests and occupations? Journal of Vocational Behavior, 21, 259–287. Quinn, R. E. (1988). Beyond rational management. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Quinn, R. E., & Rohrbaugh, J. A. (1983). A spatial model of effectiveness criteria: Toward a competing values approach to organizational analysis. Management Science, 29, 363–377. Rosener, J. B. (1990). Ways women lead. Harvard Business Review, 68 (6), 119–125. Rusaw, C. (2005). Proposed model feminist public sector leadership. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 27 (2), 385. Ryan, M. K., Haslam, S. A., & Postmes, T. (2007). Reactions to the glass cliff: Gender differences in the explanations for the precariousness of women’s leadership positions. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 20 (2), 182. Schein, V. E. (2001). A global look at psychological barriers to women’s progress in management. Journal of Social Issues, 57 (4), 675–688.

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Senykina, A., & Linz, S. J. (2007). Gender differences in personality and earnings: Evidence from Russia. Journal of Economic Psychology, 28 (3), 387–410. Toren, N., Konrad, A. M., Yoshioka, I., Kashlak, R. (1997). A cross-national cross-gender study of managerial task preferences and evaluation of work characteristics. Women in Management Review, 12 (6), 234. Trinidad, C., & Normore, A. H. (2005). Leadership and gender: A dangerous liaison? Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 26 (7/8), 574–590. Vilkanis, T. (2000). The gender factor in management: How signiﬁcant others perceive effectiveness. Women in Management Review, 15 (5/6), 261. Vilkinas, T., & Cartan, G. (2001). The behavioral control room for managers: The integrator role. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 22 (4), 175–185. Weyer, B. (2007). Twenty years later: Explaining the persistence of the glass ceiling for women leaders. Women in Management Review, 22 (6), 482. Won, H. (2006). Links between personalities and leadership perceptions in problem-solving groups. Social Science Journal, 43 (4), 659–672. Xie, J., & Whyte, G. (1997). Gender differences among managers and nonmanagers: An analysis of assessment data. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 14 (3), 340.

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Chapter 8

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Krystle C. Woods Nicole T. Buchanan

Bonnie enters her ofﬁce building and apprehensively looks around to see if her coworker Carl has arrived. When there is no sign of him, she breathes a sigh of relief and hurries to the break room. While pouring her coffee, she suddenly feels him directly behind her, and her body goes cold. In a feigned attempt to reach for a cup, he presses against her and whispers, ‘‘Excuse me’’ with a wry smile. Bonnie grabs her coffee and hurries for the door, feeling embarrassed and humiliated, as if she were somehow responsible for Carl’s behavior. Despite Bonnie’s attempts to avoid him, Carl has found a way to corner her two or more times a week for several months. After realizing that she will have to face him in a meeting later that afternoon, she becomes increasingly ill. She can no longer concentrate on her work, and she develops a headache that requires her to leave for the rest of the day. This scene depicts workplace sexual harassment, which will be experienced by 50% of women at work (Fitzgerald & Shullman, 1993; Ilies, Hauserman, Schwochau, & Stibal, 2003) and will cause a variety of negative health, work, and psychological consequences (Dansky & Kilpatrick, 1997; Munson, Hulin, & Drasgow, 2000; Rospenda, Richman, Ehmke, & Zlatoper, 2005; Schneider, Swan, & Fitzgerald, 1997). This chapter provides an overview of current theories and research on workplace sexual harassment. Legal and psychological deﬁnitions of sexual harassment, legal jurisprudence history, and the organizational antecedents and consequences of workplace harassment are reviewed. Emphasis is placed on the work, health, and psychological problems experienced by sexually harassed women and the coping

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strategies they use. The chapter concludes with a discussion of concerns speciﬁc to minority women, directives for preventing sexual harassment in organizations, and directions for future research.

WHAT IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT? Sexual harassment has been deﬁned as both a psychological and a legal phenomenon. Psychologically, sexual harassment is deﬁned as unwanted gender-based comments and behaviors that are considered offensive by the people who are targeted, that exceed their available coping resources, or that threaten their well-being (Fitzgerald, Swan, & Magley, 1997). Three types of sexual harassment behaviors have also been identiﬁed (Fitzgerald, Gelfand, & Drasgow, 1995; Fitzgerald, Shullman, Bailey, Richards, Swecker, & Gold, 1988). The ﬁrst is gender harassment, which includes negative, non-sexual, gender-based comments and behaviors, such as statements that women are less intelligent than men or that they cannot do certain jobs because it is ‘‘men’s work.’’ Unwanted sexual attention includes verbal and nonverbal unsolicited comments, gestures, or attempts at physical contact, such as attempts to touch or kiss someone or repeated requests for dates. Sexual coercion encompasses any job-related threats or beneﬁts that are contingent upon compliance with sexual demands, such as a supervisor promising to promote a worker only if she is sexually cooperative, or terminate employment if she refuses. Contrapower sexual harassment is another form that may include any of the above subtypes, but involves a subordinate sexually harassing his or her superior (Rospenda, Richman, & Nawyn, 1998). Legal deﬁnitions address two forms of sexual harassment: quid pro quo and hostile environment. Quid pro quo is the legal equivalent of sexual coercion; it addresses any attempt to coerce sexual interactions by threatening another’s employment. A hostile work environment is created when unwanted gender-based behaviors become sufﬁciently pervasive that an employee perceives the general work environment to be hostile and/or her job performance has been negatively affected (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC], 1980). Frequently, hostile environment charges result from behaviors that would fall under the behavioral deﬁnitions of gender harassment or unwanted sexual attention.

INFLUENTIAL COURT DECISIONS IN SEXUAL HARASSMENT JURISPRUDENCE Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (1986) was one of the most inﬂuential cases in sexual harassment jurisprudence. This was the ﬁrst U.S. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Supreme Court ruling that declared that sexual harassment is a form of gender discrimination and a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Determining which behaviors constitute prosecutable harassment has been an evolving process. In this ﬁrst ruling, the Supreme Court held that sexual misconduct can constitute sexual harassment even when there are no tangible economic costs, thus establishing the theory that a hostile environment can constitute gender discrimination when its severity or pervasiveness creates an abusive work environment (Hogler, Frame, & Thornton, 2002). Additional cases, such as Ellison v. Brady (1991) and Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. (1993a) extended conceptualizations of a hostile environment by focusing on the subjective experience of a reasonable woman or a reasonable person. In these cases, the jurors were urged to judge the plaintiff’s experience against what a ‘‘reasonable woman would consider sufﬁciently severe or pervasive’’ (Ellison, p. 879) and from ‘‘the perspective of a reasonable person’s reaction to a similar environment under essentially like or similar circumstances’’ (Harris, pp. 21–22). The ‘‘reasonable woman’’ standard had important judicial and organizational ramiﬁcations. Most important, its use increased the likelihood of a court ruling in favor of the plaintiff by more than 26% (Perry, Kulik, & Bourhis, 2004). As a result, organizations found further motivation to not only set objective standards of what constitutes harassment but also to assign meaning to the subjective experience of women. WHY SEXUAL HARASSMENT OCCURS: SOCIOCULTURAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL THEORIES Sociocultural theory asserts that sexual harassment is an extension of the general gender-role socialization process. Men are socialized and rewarded for ‘‘dominance, sexual initiative, and self-interest,’’ whereas women are socialized for ‘‘submissiveness, sexual gatekeeping,’’ and self-sacriﬁce (Tangri & Hayes, 1997, p. 121). These socialization processes, as well as sexual harassment, function to maintain male economic power by intimidating women in the workplace. Conversely, organizational theories that focus on gender-role ‘‘spillover’’ and organizational power and climate have also been posited. Gender-role spillover theory suggests that gendered expectations of behavior are brought into the workplace (Gutek & Morasch, 1982), making a woman’s gender more salient than her work identity. This in turn causes women to be treated differently from their male coworkers and to be exposed to sexually harassing behaviors. Such dynamics are exacerbated in male-dominated workplaces, which increases both hostility toward and sexual harassment of women who defy gendered work norms (Berhdahl, 2007; Morgan & Gruber, 2005). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Formal and informal differences in men’s and women’s status and organizational power can also be used by men to sexually intimidate female workers (Cleveland & Kerst, 1993). Formal power, which includes the hierarchy of positions held within the organization and the relevance of such positions to the central mission of the organization, is usually held by men. Furthermore, men frequently have more informal power than women with comparable positions in the organization; this is created and maintained by their access to greater support from peers, mentoring, and decision-making power (DiTomaso, 1989; Ragins & Sundstrom, 1989). According to this theory, sexual harassment is an extension of an organizational culture that grants male workers organizational power over their female colleagues. The above theories explain the function of harassment in some cases, but not all. For example, sociocultural theory cannot account for harassment that occurs outside the workplace; gender-role spillover does not explain why some men harass and others do not; and theories of formal and informal organizational power do not fully account for the fact that women are harassed by colleagues and subordinates as well as by supervisors (Wayne, 2000). Because no one theory explains all types of sexual harassment, a comprehensive model that addresses all these layers is appropriate. THE INTEGRATED PROCESS MODEL OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN ORGANIZATIONS Figure 8-1 illustrates the theory that workplace sexual harassment is the result of the organizational climate and job-gender context and leads to detrimental work, mental health, and physical health outcomes (Fitzgerald, Drasgow, Hulin, Gelfand, & Magley, 1997; Fitzgerald, Hulin, & Drasgow, 1995). Organizational climate refers to the degree to which an organization is tolerant of sexual harassment (e.g., harassment is modeled by superiors; harassers are not reprimanded). Jobgender context refers to the job-gender ratio of the work group and whether the job is traditionally considered a male or female occupation. A number of negative consequences of harassment have been documented, such as lowered work satisfaction, increased absenteeism, depression, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and gastrointestinal problems (Dansky & Kilpatrick, 1997; Munson et al., 2000; O’Connell & Korabik, 2000; Schneider et al., 1997; Willness, Steel, & Lee, 2007). Further research on the sexual harassment process has uncovered additional factors that inﬂuence the perceived severity of the experience. Women who had a history of sexual harassment or who were harassed by someone of higher status were more distressed by the sexually harassing experience (Langhout, Bergman, Cortina, Fitzgerald, Drasgow, & Williams, 2005), and women who experienced interracial © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Figure 8-1. The Integrated Process Model sexual harassment appraised their harassment as more severe (Woods & Buchanan, 2007). According to theories of stress and appraisal (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), subjective appraisal leads to differences in the distress level that various individuals experience in response to similar situations. Accordingly, the target’s appraisal of harassment has been found to mediate the relationship between sexual harassment and negative work, health, and psychological consequences (Langhout et al., 2005; Swan, Fitzgerald, & Magley, 1996). WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT? Experiences of sexual harassment have been linked to work-related problems for those who are targeted. Studies have found that sexually harassed women report lower job satisfaction, work productivity, and supervisor satisfaction, as well as increased absenteeism (Langhout et al., 2005; Lapierre, Spector, & Leck, 2005; O’Connell & Korabik, 2000; Stockdale, 1998). Targets have also reported higher turnover rates and lower levels of organizational commitment (Munson et al., 2000; Schneider et al., 1997). Physical and emotional distress are also common after harassment. Among sexually harassed female federal employees, reports of negative emotional and physical consequences of harassment were seen in the thousands (U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board [USMSPB], 1981, 1987). Among victims of sexual harassment who sought help from the Working Women’s Institute, 63% reported negative physical symptoms, and 94% reported emotional distress (Crull, 1982). Other physical consequences of sexual harassment include appetite changes, headaches, gastrointestinal distress, and sleep disorders (Fitzgerald, Drasgow et al., 1997). Although the link between sexual harassment and negative physical health is clear, it is suspected to be a secondary effect of increased psychological distress (Fitzgerald, Drasgow et al., 1997). The negative effect of sexual harassment on mental health has also been well documented. Speciﬁcally, sexual harassment has been © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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associated with lower overall psychological well-being and higher rates of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress symptoms (Dansky & Kilpatrick, 1997; Glomb, Munson, Hulin, Bergman, & Drasgow, 1999; Richman, Rospenda, Nawyn, Flaherty, Fendrich, & Drum 1999; Schneider et al., 1997; Shupe, Cortina, Ramos, Fitzgerald, & Salisbury, 2002). Some sexually harassed women also show an increased use of prescription drugs, drinking to intoxication, and escapist drinking motives (e.g., to decrease tension, escape problems, feel better, or forget painful memories or worries) (Richman, Rospenda, Flaherty, Freels, & Zlatoper, 2004). Victims of sexual harassment sometimes turn to prescription drugs and alcohol to self-medicate, which places them at increased risk for alcohol abuse or dependence and more serious psychological problems over time. These negative effects frequently persist long after the harassment has ended. For example, in a longitudinal study on the effects of harassment, Glomb and colleagues (1999) found that even after 2 years, sexual harassment was associated with lower psychological well-being, less satisfaction with life, and more posttraumatic symptoms than in women without this history. COPING WITH SEXUAL HARASSMENT Coping refers to any cognitive or behavioral strategy that is used to reduce the stress of a traumatic event (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) such as sexual harassment. The Lazarus and Folkman model suggests that someone who is confronted with a stressful situation will employ either problem-focused or emotion-focused coping strategies. Problemfocused strategies are attempts to manage or change the situation (e.g., reporting the incident); emotion-focused strategies are attempts to manage one’s thoughts or feelings about the event (e.g., avoiding thoughts about the event or reframing the situation in a more favorable manner). Sexual harassment researchers have built on this model to better understand the coping strategies that are frequently used by sexually harassed women (Fitzgerald et al., 1995; Magley, 2002). Knapp, Faley, Ekeberg, and Dubois (1997) proposed four categories of coping methods: avoidance-denial (avoiding physical proximity with the perpetrator or avoiding any thoughts of the event); social support (relying on others for emotional support and advice; confrontationnegotiation (approaching the perpetrator directly and insisting that the harassment cease); and advocacy seeking (reporting the incident to organizational authorities). One study found that the type of coping method that is used is inﬂuenced by the characteristics of the target, the harassing event, and the culture (Cortina & Wasti, 2005). For instance, avoidance-denial coping was used more frequently by women in collectivist, patriarchal cultures. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Women who experienced higher levels of unwanted sexual attention were more likely to utilize coping methods from each category. Buchanan, Settles, and Langhout (in press) found that their sample of Black women commonly used avoidance and denial, but as the harassment increased in frequency and severity, they utilized additional coping strategies, including confrontation. These ﬁndings follow Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) theory that coping strategies diversify as stressor severity increases and might also reﬂect that coping with sexual harassment is a dynamic process in which women adapt their strategies over time, depending on the strategies’ usefulness in ending the harassment (Magley, Fitzgerald, & Buchanan, 2000). Many different coping methods have been employed by harassed women, but do any methods lead to positive results? One study of African-American women serving in the U.S. armed forces found that the women who used confrontation coping had the best psychological outcomes, whereas those who used advocacy seeking (e.g., ﬁling a complaint) experienced the worst work outcomes (Buchanan et al., in press). Although this study does provide valuable insight, more research is necessary to determine how the various methods of coping lead to positive or negative consequences. The study’s focus on African-American women does, however, begin to highlight some of the issues speciﬁc to the sexual harassment of ethnic minority women. SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND WOMEN OF COLOR Harassment has been studied in both academic and work settings, but few researchers have considered the role that race plays in these settings and its effects on sexual harassment. Theoretical and empirical work addressing the sexual harassment experiences of women of color is emerging (Adams, 1997; Berdahl & Moore, 2006; Buchanan, 2005; Buchanan & Fitzgerald, in press; Buchanan & Ormerod, 2002; Cortina, 2004; Cortina, Fitzgerald, & Drasgow, 2002; Martin, 1994; Mecca & Rubin, 1999; Moradi & Subich, 2003; Muliawan & Kleiner, 2001; Rederstorff, Buchanan, & Settles, 2007; Texeira, 2002; Whitson, 1997; Wyatt & Reiderle, 1995; Yoder & Aniakudo, 1996, 1997), but remains sparse. This body of research theorizes that factors such as being both a minority and female (double jeopardy; Beal, 1970) and sexual stereotypes inﬂuence the prevalence and type of sexual harassment experienced among minority women. Consistent with theory, empirical studies have found that the harassment experiences of ethnic minority and Caucasian women do differ in a number of ways, including higher prevalence (Berdahl & Moore, 2006; Cortina, Swan, Fitzgerald, & Waldo, 1998), greater severity (e.g., gender harassment versus unwanted sexual attention; Cortina et al., 1998; Nelson & Probst, 2004), and racialized content (e.g., racially sexualizing behaviors; Buchanan, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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2005; Buchanan & Ormerod, 2002; Woods & Buchanan, 2007) associated with the sexual harassment experiences of women of color. Minority women experience sexual racism (Essed, 1992) and racialized sexual harassment (Buchanan, 2005; Buchanan & Ormerod, 2002; Texiera, 2002) as unique forms of harassment that combine race and gender simultaneously. Although much of the harassment literature has described sexual and racial harassment as distinct, actual experiences of harassment are often fused in such a way that the two forms become indistinguishable (Buchanan & Ormerod, 2002; Collins, 2000; Essed, 1992). Studies of Black female ﬁreﬁghters and police ofﬁcers, Filipina women, and Latina working women offer evidence for the presence of these behaviors (Cortina et al., 2002; Welsh, Carr, MacQuarrie, & Huntley, 2006; Texiera, 2002; Yoder & Aniakudo, 1996, 1997). These examples call upon sexualized stereotypes of minority women (e.g., being called ‘‘mamacita’’ or a ‘‘geisha’’) and physical features thought to vary by race (e.g., comments about a Black woman’s ‘‘large Black behind’’). Although the negative work and psychological consequences of sexual harassment have been well studied, the consequences of racialized sexual harassment are less well known. Nevertheless, the evidence asserts that it is present in a variety of institutions and can merge to target other marginalized populations, such as lesbians (Bowleg, Huang, Brooks, Black, & Burkholder, 2003; DeFour, David, Diaz, & Thompkins, 2003). SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND THE ORGANIZATION: PREVENTION AND INVESTIGATION Independent of litigation expenses, the cost of sexual harassment for organizations is in the millions of dollars annually, in terms of absenteeism, reduced productivity, and job turnover (Faley, Knapp, Kustis, & Dubois, 1999; Sims, Drasgow, & Fitzgerald, 2005). Given the negative work outcomes, psychological distress, and increased litigation associated with harassment, it is in the organization’s best interest to develop sexual harassment prevention methods. Employers can limit organizational liability in sexual harassment cases by using ‘‘reasonable care’’ to prevent or address incidents of harassment (Burlington Industries v. Ellerth, 1998). For legal purposes, reasonable care includes creating an antiharassment policy, training employees in sexual harassment recognition and penalties, promptly investigating any charges of harassment, and taking corrective action in harassment cases (Paludi & Paludi, 2003). An antiharassment policy should include a statement of the organization’s commitment to a harassment-free environment, a legal deﬁnition of sexual harassment, and a description of disciplinary procedures for perpetrators (Levy & Paludi, 2002). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Sexual harassment training involves educating employees on the antiharassment policy and providing instructions for confronting and reporting a harasser (Flynn, 1991). When such practices are enacted, they can effectively reduce harassment within an organization (Williams, Fitzgerald, & Drasgow, 1999). Furthermore, because distress after harassment is exacerbated when the organizational response is poor (Bond, Punnett, Pyle, Cazeca, & Cooperman, 2004), effective complaint procedures decrease the likelihood of litigation and can even limit an organization’s liability if the case is litigated (Hogler et al., 2002). When harassment has not been prevented, harassment investigations should be conducted by an impartial party whose goal is to interview the target, the perpetrator, and any witnesses. Ideally, the investigator should be trained in sexual harassment policy and draft a report that is presented to an organizational panel. The panel makes a decision, and either side is allowed to appeal the ruling (Gutek, 1997). Disciplinary actions may include an organizational transfer or a requirement that the perpetrator attend sexual harassment counseling (Bell, Cycyota, & Quick, 2002). As studies of the sexual harassment process have shown, an organization’s tolerance of harassment, whether communicated formally or informally to its workers, is associated with a higher frequency of sexual harassment (Glomb et al., 1999). This suggests that proactive prevention strategies have real power. CONCLUSION Sexual harassment research has sought to deﬁne harassment, explain why it occurs, and explore the associated risk factors and outcomes. Lower job satisfaction, work productivity, and supervisor satisfaction, as well as increased absenteeism, turnover, depression, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and health problems have all been associated with sexual harassment, making it costly to the women who are targeted as well as to the organizations in which they work. Women who have been harassed use a variety of methods to cope with their experiences and continue to adapt their responses; this indicates an active intent to end their harassment, even when their responses appear to be passive, such as ignoring the behavior. Although guidelines for the prevention of sexual harassment in organizations have been outlined by the courts and by researchers, the need for studies on the efﬁcacy of these prevention programs remains. In addition, greater attention to the needs of marginalized workers, such as women of color and lesbians, who often experience double or triple jeopardy, is long overdue. Future research must begin to concentrate on these issues to provide proven solutions and a secure working environment for all working women. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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REFERENCES Adams, J. H. (1997). Sexual harassment and Black women: A historical perspective. In W. O’Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment: Theory, research, and treatment (pp. 213–224). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Beal, F. M. (1970). Double jeopardy: To be Black and female. In T. Cade (Ed.), The Black woman: An anthology (pp. 90–100). New York: Signet. Bell, M. P., Cycyota, C., & Quick, J. C. (2002). Afﬁrmative defense: The prevention of sexual harassment. In D. L. Nelson & R. J. Burke (Eds.), Gender, work stress, and health: Current research issues (pp. 191–210). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Berdahl, J. L. (2007). The sexual harassment of uppity women. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 425–437. Berdahl, J. L., & Moore, C. (2006). Workplace harassment: Double jeopardy for minority women. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91 (2), 426–436. Bond, M. A., Punnett, L., Pyle, J. L., Cazeca, D., & Cooperman, M. (2004). Gendered work conditions, health, and work outcomes. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 9, 28–45. Bowleg, L., Huang, J., Brooks, K., Black, A., & Burkholder, G. (2003). Triple jeopardy and beyond: Multiple minority stress and resilience among Black lesbians. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 7, 87–108. Buchanan, N. T. (2005). The nexus of race and gender domination: The racialized sexual harassment of African American women. In P. Morgan & J. Gruber (Eds.), In the company of men: Rediscovering the links between sexual harassment and male domination (pp. 294–320). Boston: Northeastern University Press. Buchanan, N. T., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (in press). The effects of racial and sexual harassment on work and the psychological well-being of African American women. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. Buchanan, N. T., & Ormerod, A. J. (2002). Racialized sexual harassment in the lives of African American women. Women & Therapy, 25, 107–124. Buchanan, N. T., Settles, I. H., & Langhout, R. D. (in press). Black women’s coping styles, psychological well-being, and work-related outcomes following sexual harassment. Black Women, Gender and Families. Burlington Industries v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 775, 118 S. Ct. 2275 (1998). Civil Rights Act, P.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241, Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 2000e 2(a) (1964). Cleveland, J. N., & Kerst, M. E. (1993). Sexual harassment and perceptions of power: An under-articulated relationship. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 42 (1), 46–67. Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Cortina, L. M. (2004). Hispanic perspectives on sexual harassment and social support. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30 (5), 570–584. Cortina, L. M., Fitzgerald, L. F., & Drasgow, F. (2002). Contextualizing Latina experiences of sexual harassment: Preliminary tests of a structural model. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 24, 295–311. Cortina, L. M., Swan, S., Fitzgerald, L. F., & Waldo, C. (1998). Sexual harassment and assault: Chilling the climate for women in academia. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22, 419–441.

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Cortina, L. M., & Wasti, S. A. (2005). Proﬁles in coping: Responses to sexual harassment across persons, organizations, and cultures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90 (1), 182–192. Crull, P. (1982). Stress effects of sexual harassment on the job: Implications for counseling. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 52, 539–544. Dansky, B. S., & Kilpatrick, D. G. (1997). Effects of sexual harassment. In W. O’Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment: Theory, research and treatment (pp. 5–28). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. DeFour, D. C., David, G., Diaz, F. J., & Thompkins, S. (2003). The interface of race, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity in understanding sexual harassment. In C. A. Paludi & M. Paludi (Eds.), Academic and workplace sexual harassment: A handbook of cultural, social science, management, and legal perspectives (pp. 31–45). Westport, CT: Praeger. DiTomaso, N. (1989). Sexuality in the workplace: Discrimination and harassment. In J. Hearn, D. L. Sheppard, P. Tancred-Sheriff, & G. Burrell (Eds.), The sexuality of organizations (pp. 71–90). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872 (9th Cir. 1991). Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). (1980). Guidelines on discrimination because of sex. Federal Regulations, 43, 74676–74677. Essed, P. (1992). Alternative knowledge sources in explanations of racist events. In M. J. Cody & M. L. McLaughlin (Eds.), Explaining oneself to others: Reason-giving in a social context. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Faley, R. H., Knapp, D. E., Kustis, G. A., & Dubois, C.L.Z. (1999). Estimating the organizational costs of sexual harassment: The case of the U.S. Army. Journal of Business and Psychology, 13, 461–484. Fitzgerald, L. F., Drasgow, F., Hulin, C. L., Gelfand, M. J., & Magley, V. J. (1997). Antecedents and consequences of sexual harassment in organizations: A test of an integrated model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 578–589. Fitzgerald, L. F., Gelfand, M. J., & Drasgow, F. (1995). Measuring sexual harassment: Theoretical and psychometric advances. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 17, 425–427. Fitzgerald, L. F., Hulin, C. L., & Drasgow, F. (1995). The antecedents and consequences of sexual harassment in organizations. In G. Keita & J. Hurrell, Jr. (Eds.), Job stress in a changing workforce: Investigating gender, diversity, and family issues (pp. 55–73). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Fitzgerald, L. F., & Shullman, S. L. (1993). Sexual harassment: A research analysis and agenda for the 1990s. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 42, 5–27. Fitzgerald, L. F., Shullman, S. L., Bailey, N., Richards, M., Swecker, J., & Gold, Y. (1988). The incidence and dimensions of sexual harassment in academia and the workplace. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 32, 152–175. Fitzgerald, L., Swan, S., & Fischer, K. (1995). Why didn’t she just report him? The psychological and legal implications of women’s responses to sexual harassment. Journal of Social Issues, 51, 117–138. Fitzgerald, L. F., Swan, S., & Magley, V. J. (1997). But was it really sexual harassment? Legal, behavioral, and psychological deﬁnitions of the workplace victimization of women. In W. O’Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment: Theory, research, and treatment (pp. 5–28). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

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Flynn, K. (1991). Preventive medicine for sexual harassment. Personnel, 68, 17. Glomb, T. M., Munson, L. J., Hulin, C. L., Bergman, M. E., & Drasgow, F. (1999). Structural equation models of sexual harassment: Longitudinal explorations and cross-sectional generalizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 14–28. Gutek, B. A. (1997). Sexual harassment policy initiatives. In W. O’Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment: Theory, research, and treatment (pp. 175–184). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Gutek, B. A., & Morasch, B. (1982). Sex-ratios, sex-role spillover, and sexual harassment of women at work. Journal of Social Issues, 38, 55–74. Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U.S. 17 (1993a) Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 114 S. Ct. 367 (1993b). Hogler, R. L., Frame, J. H., & Thornton, G. (2002). Workplace sexual harassment law: An empirical analysis of organizational justice and legal policy. Journal of Managerial Issues, 14, 234–251. Ilies, R., Hauserman, N., Schwochau, S., & Stibal, J. (2003). Reported incidence rates of work-related sexual harassment in the United States: Using metaanalysis to explain reported rate disparities. Personnel Psychology, 56 (3), 607–631. Knapp, D. E., Faley, R. H., Ekeberg, S. E., & Dubois, C.L.Z. (1997). Determinants of target responses to sexual harassment: A conceptual framework. Academy of Management Review, 22, 687–729. Langhout, R. D., Bergman, M. E., Cortina, L. M., Fitzgerald, L. F., Drasgow, F., & Williams, J. H. (2005). Sexual harassment severity: Assessing situational and personal determinants and outcomes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 35 (5), 975–1007. Lapierre, L. M., Spector, P. E., & Leck, J. D. (2005). Sexual versus nonsexual workplace aggression and victims’ overall job satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 10, 155–169. Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. New York: Springer. Levy, A., & Paludi, M. (2002). Workplace sexual harassment (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Magley, V. J. (2002). Coping with sexual harassment: Reconceptualizing women’s resistance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 930–946. Magley, V. J., Fitzgerald, L. F., & Buchanan, N. T. (2000, April). Assessing coping with sexual harassment over time. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, New Orleans, LA. Martin, S. E. (1994). ‘‘Outsider within’’ the station house: The impact of race and gender on Black women police. Social Problems, 41, 383–400. Mecca, S. J., & Rubin, L. J. (1999). Deﬁnitional research on African American students and sexual harassment. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 23, 813–817. Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986). Moradi, B., & Subich, L. M. (2003). A concomitant examination of the relations of perceived racist and sexist events to psychological distress for African American women. Counseling Psychologist, 31, 451–469. Morgan, P., & Gruber, J. (2005). In the company of men: Rediscovering the links between sexual harassment and male domination. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

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Muliawan, H., & Kleiner, B. H. (2001). African-American perception of sexual harassment. Equal Opportunities International, 20 (5–7), 53–58. Munson, L. J., Hulin, C., & Drasgow, F. (2000). Longitudinal analysis of dispositional inﬂuences and sexual harassment: Effects on job and psychological outcomes. Personnel Psychology, 53, 21–46. Nelson, N. L., & Probst, T. M. (2004). Multiple minority individuals: Multiplying the risk of workplace harassment and discrimination. In J. L. Chin (Ed.), The psychology of prejudice and discrimination: Ethnicity and multiracial identity (pp. 193–217). Westport, CT: Praeger. O’Connell, C. E., & Korabik, K. (2000). Sexual harassment: The relationship of personal vulnerability, work context, perpetrator status, and type of harassment to outcomes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 56 (3), 299–329. Paludi, C. A., & Paludi, M. (2003). Developing and enforcing effective policies, procedures, and training programs for educational institutions and businesses. In M. Paludi & C. A. Paludi (Eds.), Academic and workplace sexual harassment: A handbook of cultural, social science, management, and legal perspectives (pp. 175–198). Westport, CT: Praeger. Perry, E. L., Kulik, C. T., & Bourhis, A. C. (2004). The reasonable woman standard: Effects on sexual harassment court decisions. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 9–27. Ragins, B. R., & Sundstrom, E. (1989). Gender and power in organizations: A longitudinal perspective. Psychological Bulletin, 105, 51–88. Rederstorff, J. C., Buchanan, N. T., & Settles, I. H. (2007). The moderating roles of race and gender role attitudes in the relationship between sexual harassment and psychological well-being. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 50–61. Richman, J. A., Rospenda, K. M., Flaherty, J. A., Freels, S., & Zlatoper, K. (2004). Perceived organizational tolerance for workplace harassment and distress and drinking over time. Women’s Health, 40 (4), 1–23. Richman, J. A., Rospenda, K. M., Nawyn, S. J., Flaherty, J. A., Fendrich, M., & Drum, M. L. (1999). Sexual harassment and generalized workplace abuse among university employees: Prevalence and mental health correlates. American Journal of Public Health, 89 (3), 358–363. Rospenda, K. M., Richman, J. A., Ehmke, J.L.Z., & Zlatoper, K. W. (2005). Is workplace harassment hazardous to your health? Journal of Business and Psychology, 20 (1), 95–110. Rospenda, K. M., Richman, J. A., & Nawyn, S. J. (1998). Doing power: The conﬂuence of gender, race, and class in contrapower sexual harassment. Gender & Society, 12, 40–60. Schneider, K. T., Swan, S., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (1997). Job-related and psychological effects of sexual harassment in the workplace: Empirical evidence from two organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 401–415. Shupe, E. Cortina, L. M., Ramos, A., Fitzgerald, L. F., & Salisbury, J. (2002). The incidence and outcomes of sexual harassment among Hispanic and non-Hispanic White women: A comparison across levels of cultural afﬁliation. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 26, 298–308. Sims, C. S., Drasgow, F., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (2005). The effects of sexual harassment on turnover in the military: Time-dependent modeling. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 1141–1152.

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Stockdale, M. S. (1998). The direct and moderating inﬂuences of sexual harassment pervasiveness, coping strategies, and gender on work-related outcomes. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22, 521–535. Swan, S., Fitzgerald, L. F., & Magley, V. J. (1996, March). So what? Why did it bother her? Factors affecting women’s perceptions of the severity of sexual harassment experiences. Paper presented at the Association for Women in Psychology, Portland, OR. Tangri, S., & Hayes, S. M. (1997). Theories of sexual harassment. In W. O’Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment: Theory, research, and treatment (pp. 112–128). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Texeira, M. T. (2002). ‘‘Who protects and serves me?’’ A case study of sexual harassment of African American women in one U.S. law enforcement agency. Gender & Society, 16, 524–545. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (USMSPB). (1981). Sexual harassment in the federal workforce: Is it a problem? Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (USMSPB). (1987). Sexual harassment in the federal government: An update. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. Wayne, J. H. (2000). Disentangling the power bases of sexual harassment: Comparing gender, age and position power. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 57, 301–325. Welsh, S., Carr, J., MacQuarrie, B., & Huntley, A. (2006). ‘‘I’m not thinking of it as sexual harassment’’: Understanding harassment across race and citizenship. Gender & Society, 20 (1), 87–107. Whitson, M. H. (1997). Sexism and sexual harassment: Concerns of African American women of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Violence Against Women, 3 (4), 382–400. Williams, J. H., Fitzgerald, L. F. & Drasgow, F. (1999). The effects of organizational practices on sexual harassment and individual outcomes in the military. Military Psychology, 11, 303–328. Willness, C. R., Steel, P., & Lee, K. (2007). A meta-analysis of the antecedents and consequences of workplace sexual harassment. Personnel Psychology, 60, 127–162. Woods, K. C., & Buchanan, N. T. (2007).The sexual harassment of African American women: Experiences and outcomes of cross- vs. intra-racial sexual harassment. Manuscript submitted for publication. Wyatt, G. E., & Reiderle, M. (1995). The prevalence and context of sexual harassment among African American and White American women. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 10 (3), 309–321. Yoder, J. D., & Aniakudo, P. (1996). When pranks become harassment: The case of African American and women ﬁreﬁghters. Sex Roles, 35, 253–270. Yoder, J. D., & Aniakudo, P. (1997). ‘‘Outsider within’’ the ﬁrehouse: Subordination and difference in the social interaction of African American women. Gender & Society, 11 (3), 324–341.

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Chapter 9

Uncovering and Countering Sexual Harassment in Israel: A New Career Path Ayelet Giladi

When I wrote a paper on gender and sexual harassment (SH) in the workplace in Israel in one of my master’s degree courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1996, I had no idea what effect it would have on my career. This was a period of growing awareness and initiatives against SH. I chose to study the topic in Jerusalem hotels, focusing on the behavior of male guests toward chambermaids and waitress, whom I interviewed. While I was writing a chapter on the theoretical background, the question arose of whether SH occurs only in high schools, universities, and workplaces or starts earlier in the socialization process. Almost all references I found at that time related to SH in the workplace. Since then, I have been directing my attention to the roots of SH in Israeli society. In 1998, I submitted my paper on SH of young children between 4 and 7 years old, the ﬁrst study in this ﬁeld in Israel. At that time, I was working as a manager in the life insurance department of a large insurance company. I became hooked on discovering the roots of this phenomenon. Within a month, I decided to quit my job and devote the next few years to sociological research for a PhD dissertation on when and how SH occurs for the ﬁrst time in the course of one’s life. I realized that this would make life more difﬁcult for my family because we would have to do without my salary, but I was not aware that this decision © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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would lead to a challenging career with opportunities to take public action. Later that year, the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) passed a law against SH. The law deﬁnes SH and sets down rules to prevent it in the workplace, including the army and the police. It aimed to restore personal respect, honor, freedom, and privacy and advance equality between the sexes. This law reinforced my feeling that speaking to young children and their educators about SH from the viewpoint of respect and equality was important. In my extensive reading, I came across the name of Dr. Susan Strauss, who was among the ﬁrst to report on SH in young children. She helped me—ﬁrst by giving me a great deal of moral support and telling me about methods and other material by e-mail, and later by coming to Israel and lecturing on SH to the top professional staff at the Ministry of Education. This empowered me to continue my work and made me understand how important networking is for helping women. This work connection with Susan led to a very special friendship despite the long distance between us. I could always count on Susan to give the much-needed moral support whenever I felt like a fox in the desert in my pioneering research on SH of young children. After realizing that there was no one in Israel who could help me with my speciﬁc research topic, at the Hebrew University’s recommendation, I asked Prof. Janet Moyels in London, England, who does qualitative applied sociological research on this issue in young children, to be my supervisor. To complete my thesis, I had to make the very difﬁcult decision of being away from home for long periods, with my youngest daughter only 1 year old at the time. Looking back, it was like being infected with a virus I had to overcome. Nobody could stop me. With a great deal of help from my family—Oren, Nufar, Nir, and Tal—I managed to accomplish this innovative research project in 4 years and then go on to promote awareness of this phenomenon in Israel. Meanwhile, in 2000, Mr. Itzik Mordechai, Minister of Defense at the time, was found guilty of SH. This phenomenon became more and more widely recognized. At that time, it was still taboo to speak to children in kindergartens or primary schools about SH. At the time of this writing, Mr. Ramon, Minister of Justice, has just been found guilty of indecent acts, and the President of Israel is facing trial for rape, SH, and indecent acts with several women who worked under him. It is difﬁcult to believe that such progress in considering petting as sexual harassment has been made so soon. Clearly, the younger generation understands the implications of the law against SH, while the older generation, especially men over 50, are still having problems with it and ﬁnd it hard to change their behavior patterns. On the contrary, the younger generation, now becoming parents, does not tolerate undesirable behavior with their children and want © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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them to ﬁnd out how to avoid being sexually harassed. For this and other reasons, I am heading a new group, ‘‘Voice of the Child Association’’—for the prevention of sexual harassment among young children. We are working with the media to raise awareness and promote a law relating to SH in children under the age of 13 years. Last year, I started teaching a seminar on SH in young children at the Kibbutz College. The students in their fourth year of training as kindergarten teachers and teachers carry out research on this phenomenon in ﬁrst- and second-grade kindergartens. I ﬁnd it rewarding to teach the sensitive methodology I developed in my thesis, based on the signs appearing in a young child prior to harassing behavior of his or her friend and the expression of SH. The students are given a full set of tools for asking about SH and examining and interpreting their observations relating to sexual violence and for equipping children to avoid SH. At the end of the academic year, students submit seminar papers about their work, and, in this way, are ‘‘ambassadors’’ for this important cause. It is amazing to see the students realizing that they have been ‘‘blind’’ toward certain behaviors. This underlined for me the importance of the relation is between theory and ﬁeld work for understanding the motivation behind such behavior, identifying the different stages and learning to use the various available tools. Thus, our work is highly signiﬁcant and is only the beginning of a long process. During the last 4 years, it has become clear to me that I that my task is to make people aware of this new form of behavior. In my research, observing children’s games in kindergarten and the ﬁrst grade of school, I found that 20% of the children had experienced SH. Although it has always been there, most educators and parents did not refer to it as SH, but rather accepted it as a curiosity among young children, which is undesirable and should be prevented—boys will be boys, etc. The next stage was to provide SH prevention tools for kindergarten and school teachers based on strategies developed by Dr. Strauss. Two prevention programs were devised, focusing on gender and equality between the sexes and referring to violence, in general, and SH, in particular: (1) for young children from kindergarten to second grade (between 4 and 8 years old) and; (2) for ﬁfth- and sixth-grade pupils (between 11 and 13 years old). These programs are now being taught in various places in the country. We are currently seeking funding in Israel and abroad to extend this program to special-needs, Arab, Druze, Ethiopian, and Russian populations in the appropriate mother tongues. This shift in my career has led to two main directions: Specialization in this ﬁeld, including teaching, lecturing and research, and taking the initiative to increase awareness of this phenomenon both in Israel and worldwide. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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The commitment to raise awareness of SH among children has turned to into a lifetime goal. However, pioneering a new ﬁeld is accompanied by feelings of isolation, frustration, and many hurdles to cross. At the same time, if such programs had been available and implemented in kindergartens and schools years ago, many SH cases perpetrated by politician, public ﬁgures, and men in the workplace, which often make the news headlines, may have been prevented.

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Chapter 10

Career Preparation Programs in High Schools: How Do Schools Ready Students for Life and Work? Beatrice Hall

It has now been more than half a century since the U.S. Supreme Court wrote its eloquent paean to public education (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954): Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.

Given the lofty personal and societal expectations for education represented in this passage, few would argue that career preparation is the ﬁrst purpose for the nation to establish and maintain public schools. However, many, and indeed the Court itself, would assert that the ability to earn a respectable living is essential to the well-being of both the individual and the larger community. An association between schooling and career opportunities is justiﬁed both theoretically and experimentally. If, as some have said, education is more a journey than a destination, at this historical moment it appears that many students © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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in U.S. schools are making short, rough ‘‘trips’’—this at a time when much study points to the urgent need for longer, smoother ‘‘journeys’’ to prepare students for careers in a radically changed, globalized, information-driven workplace. This chapter will discuss trends regarding high school completion rates and student enrollment and persistence in postsecondary educational settings because now, more than ever, secondary and postsecondary attainment determine career choices and earnings levels. These graduation trends, like all complex social phenomena, reﬂect a mixture of good and bad news—for individuals, for racial groups, and for the nation. A selection of current ‘‘reform’’ policies and practices in high schools will then be discussed; these are innovations that offer some promise to make educational journeys more empowering and more useful for students’ lives and careers. Today, and for the foreseeable future, rigorous high-challenge learning will be essential to all aspects of a satisfying and productive life. EDUCATION LEVELS AND SALARY CATEGORIES The good and bad news is ‘‘told in bold’’ in Diplomas Count 2007, an annual report produced by the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center (2007); statistics from all 50 states document the inescapable trend that decent-paying careers require increased education or training. The analysis examines the U.S. Department of Labor’s statistical data on ﬁve job classiﬁcations, or ‘‘zones,’’ and the number of workers in those zones in each state. The ﬁve job zones are deﬁned on the basis of the education, experience, and training required to prepare for the various occupations. For example, job zones 1 and 2 call for a high school diploma or less and little in the way of training or experience. Occupations such as cashiers, taxi drivers, sheet metal workers, and bank tellers are classiﬁed as zone 1 and 2 jobs. The median income for zone 1 is $12,638, and for zone 2 it is $24,460. Zones 3, 4, and 5 generally demand substantial postsecondary education or training and typically pay more than $40,000 annually; the median for zone 5 is $59,113. Nationally, more than 76 million jobs in ﬁelds such as law, computer programming, teaching, and engineering fall into zones 3, 4, and 5 (EPE, 2007, pp. 15, 18, 20). Figures like these indicate that a person’s educational attainments can usually be accurately predicted when only his or her salary is known, and vice versa. EPE (2007) also contains survey and interview data from trade and business representatives, research groups, and college faculty. The goal of these surveys was to learn what speciﬁc kinds of learning were expected or sought by those who deal with students after high school and postsecondary training. The existence of state-level education ofﬁces makes the coordination of expectations for K–12 and higher © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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education institutions regarding student readiness somewhat more likely than a parallel coordination for highly varied businesses. Still, the high attrition rates, about 50% for community college students and about 25% at 4-year institutions (Kirst, 2004), suggest that many high school graduates who appeared ready for college were not, in fact. National and state-level reports from employer groups serve to identify at least some academic and personal skills (also called soft skills or applied skills) that business and industry seek in the people they hire. EPE (2007) summarizes several key areas that both college and business leaders identify as essential to success. In academic areas, the crucial skills include competence in reading and writing informational texts, oral communication and presentation skills, and facility with math reasoning and problem solving. There are disagreements about the signiﬁcance of advanced math courses such as Algebra 2, which has been associated with college and workplace success. The soft skills that were identiﬁed as necessary but often lacking include the following: personal accountability and work ethic, ability to work with others, time management, and attendance and punctuality. If employers and colleges found these academic and personal skills deﬁcient in large numbers of high school graduates, how much more alarming must the work readiness picture be for the 30% percent of adolescents who fail to graduate from high school? The EPE (2007) data clarify the consistent association between level of education and level of income that is our current employment reality. This is compelling information, and its main value may be to furnish a worthwhile starting point for problem-solving dialogues among schools, businesses, and civic institutions. Such dialogues should focus, with a fresh urgency, on consensus building about the content, sequence, duration, and context of the educational experiences that schools (and other institutions) provide to the nation’s young people. A one-size-ﬁts-all formula cannot be the goal of the stakeholder recommendations to enhance current and future educational effectiveness. Rather, given our complex societal needs and various human resources, planning should identify many ‘‘right mixes’’ for empowering students to enjoy decent lives and livelihoods. Because the careers in zones 3, 4, and 5 require college and/or technical training, an examination of how high school youth have been faring in recent years, and any evident trends among different groups, can offer valuable insights about high school-to-college transitions and perseverance. COLLEGE ENROLLMENT, GRADUATION, GENDER, AND GROUP IMPLICATIONS According to the Education Trust (1999), there is positive talk about continuing education even among very young students; 88% of eighth © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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graders believe that they will pursue some form of postsecondary education. Furthermore, 70% of high school graduates actually go to college within 2 years of graduating. However, low-income and minority students apply to different institutions and complete their degrees at much lower rates than their White peers do. Nationally, 20% of the college-going cohort, the wealthiest and best prepared high school applicants, attend the most selective 4-year colleges (Adelman, 2001), whereas the remaining 80%, including the majority of low-income high school graduates, enroll primarily in broad-access, 2- and 4-year institutions (Fry, 2004). Getting into a college of any kind is no guarantee of completing one’s education, however. More than 40% of students who have earned at least 10 college credits do not stay on to complete a 2- or 4-year degree. About 25% of the freshmen at 4-year colleges do not return for year 2, and, at community colleges that percentage doubles (Kirst, 2004). The rates at which students persist in college long enough to obtain at least a bachelor’s degree vary greatly by race and ethnicity. The highest success rate, 49%, is for Asian and Asian-American students (Education Trust, 2001). In 2000, only 10% of Latinos and 18% of African Americans nationally had earned a college degree, whereas the ﬁgure for European Americans was 34% (U.S. Department of Education, 2001). After several decades of increasing numbers, women now constitute the majority of enrollees at both undergraduate and graduate institutions, and they obtain approximately 60% of the degrees at the associate, bachelor’s, and master’s levels. Although the proportion of White females and males attending college is fairly equal, Latino and AfricanAmerican males are underrepresented at every level (U.S. Department of Education, 1999). CAREER-TRAJECTORY IMPLICATIONS OF STUDENTS’ COLLEGE PROGRAMS Whatever the socioeconomic, racial, or ethnic background of young people entering college is, these students join a highly gendersegregated culture. This is evident in the composition of the campus community, which, at most colleges, is an overwhelmingly female student body. However, only 20% of the full professors are female. Financial and status advantages continue for males: 72% of male professors are awarded tenure, compared to only 52% female professors; also, for more than 30 years, full-time male instructors have been paid higher salaries than their female peers (U.S. Department of Education, 1999). Although many school inequities based on gender have withered under the powerful inﬂuence of the 1972 Title IX legislation, which forbids gender discrimination in any education programs receiving © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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federal money, imbalances apparently unrelated to student aptitudes and aspirations persist. In recent years women have been earning approximately 40% of professional degrees (Sadker, 2002), but male– female divisions in the professions are pronounced. For example, male graduates outnumber female graduates in engineering and physical sciences 2:1 (National Science Foundation, 2000). More imbalances are evident in ﬁelds such as education, nursing, psychology, and social work, where women earn 75%–90% of the degrees. Gender-based career majors are also obvious in the paucity of men in elementary education (12%), social work (14%), and library science (12%) (U.S. Department of Education, 1999). Even when a woman has a college degree, she earns an average of $4,000 less annually than a man with a similar education. With or without degrees, women overwhelmingly work in low-paying occupations: More than 90% of hairdressers, secretaries, and bookkeepers are women (American Federation of Labor, 1997). In another example of gender-based contrasts in the work world, 99% of the chief executives of America’s 500 largest companies are men, but only 7% of nurses are men (U.S. Department of Labor, 1999). Both common sense and years of research attest to the inﬂuence of many complex personal, familial, and social factors that combine in countless ways to shape the academic experiences and choices of individual students. Such factors modify the results of one-size-ﬁts-all educational ‘‘ﬁxes.’’ However, the same research studies have identiﬁed the components of the educational experience that promote goals like academic achievement, persistence in school, and access to careers. The factors that contribute to more positive educational results for learners are the following: high student performance expectations by teachers; collaborative and inquiry-based instruction; meaningful, high-cognitivedemand curricula; and mentoring or modeling by parents or other signiﬁcant adults. Given the high school dropout rates and college noncompletion data referred to earlier in this chapter, it would appear that, for approximately 33% of our nation’s young people, family and/or school experiences do not provide a critical mixture of the identiﬁed learning supports. Again, it must be emphasized that learner motivation, aptitudes, needs, and resources make an idealized model of a good education not only impossible but also undesirable. Nevertheless, the changed employment realities reported by government and industry studies suggest the loss of the decent-wage jobs that formerly allowed millions of workers with a high school diploma or less to enter and rise in the middle class. We know that high school graduates will out-earn nongraduates by more than $500,000, and college graduates will earn $1 million more, on the average, than those with only a high school diploma. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Thus, while the pace of change suggests that today’s students must be educated for jobs that do not even exist yet and that those jobs will probably be in a constant state of evolution, it is inescapably clear that all students need to graduate after being schooled in the content, dispositions, and skills that will enable them to have full and satisfying lives and careers. SOME EXEMPLARY PROGRAMS This section provides a brief overview of some creative educational programs. They implicitly address the fact that the combination of diverse learner circumstances and predictions for a changing world of work means that we cannot actually know the best schooling models for all learners. We can, however, use instructional means and fashion learning communities that enhance student achievement by remedying some of the imbalances and inadequacies that have been identiﬁed as undermining children’s school experiences in particular ways or in particular communities. These programs can serve as models for other schools that are trying to improve the length and quality of education— especially for students from marginalized groups whose schooling, as the data suggest, is most negatively impacted by socioeconomic, racial, or sexual inequities. Humane Letters Requirement, Tempe Preparatory Academy Tempe, Arizona, is home to a high school that was founded on the principle that all students can be engaged by challenging academic content. The school, Tempe Preparatory Academy, is an open-enrollment charter high school that requires a daily, 2-hour liberal arts sequence for everyone in its racially mixed, middle- and lower-class student body. In the humane letters block, students grapple with reading, writing, and thinking about humanity’s enduring questions and issues, beginning with an examination of how those themes are addressed by a wide range of great writers such as William Shakespeare, Aristotle, and Henry David Thoreau (Schmoker, 2007). The intellectual work of analysis and evaluation, expressed in rigorous writing assignments and seminar-style discussions, promotes and reﬁnes the ‘‘argument literacy . . . central to being educated’’ (Graff, 2003). One indicator of the power of this humane letters immersion is that all Tempe Prep students meet the Arizona state language arts standards, which require clarity, inferencing, support of argumentation, and synthesis and evaluation, among other higher-order thinking skills. Students consistently score close to 100% on all sections of the state test battery, the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards, and their average score on the SAT is 1250 (Schmoker, 2007). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Tempe Prep is enacting a school reform that could be widely imitated: curriculum planning that coordinates 4 years of engagement with high-quality texts, authentic discussion and argumentation about humanity’s great questions, and numerous persuasive writing assignments. Such scaffolded intellectual challenge provides students with hundreds of hours of critical thinking experience—relevant and engaging cognitive work in the marketplace of ideas. Career Academies In contrast to emphasizing the liberal arts as the best preparation for tomorrow’s workers, there is a growing nationwide trend to increase the number and types of career and technical courses and extend them as requirements for all students who attend what were once traditional comprehensive high schools. From this perspective, increasing careerrelated content in the secondary schools is motivating for many students because it allows them to have more choices and to specialize in subjects they associate with meaningful future employment. Thus, thousands of schools have established ‘‘career academies,’’ which permit students to major in culinary arts, forensics, medicaltechnical training, and engineering, among other subjects. In fact, Florida, which has approximately 600 career academies, recently started to have all ninth graders pick from more than 400 possible majors and take at least four career-oriented classes in high school. To provide for an exploration of various careers, the students will be allowed to change their majors. In Florida, California, South Carolina, and other states, reconceptualizing career and technical education for all students forces an evaluation of the traditional comprehensive high school curriculum and graduation requirements. The expectation of states’ school policy planners is that this structured career and vocational requirement will sharpen all students’ awareness of the interdependence of educational preparation and employment opportunities. In addition to encouraging individual students to explore careers and life-enriching experiences, several other important civic, organizational, and educational beneﬁts may arise from changing high school course offerings and graduation requirements in ways the career academies are now modeling. For example, a school-career focus could lead to the following three improvements: closer communication between secondary-level educators and leaders in industry, the professions, and postsecondary schools to verify the appropriateness or usefulness of the high schools’ career-oriented courses; higher graduation rates as job-related courses give potential dropouts the motivation to stay in school; and increased impetus for school administrators and teachers to design challenging courses and sequences of study to © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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complement the variety of vocational majors that students pursue. All of these potential effects would beneﬁt individual students and enhance the democratic character and intellectual vitality of the schools. The High School Puente Project Latinos are the largest ethnic minority in the United States, but they are the least likely to gain the personal and economic beneﬁts associated with schooling. In 2000, approximately 34% of (non-Spanish) European Americans had earned a college degree, but only 10% of Latinos had done so (U.S. Department of Education, 2001). Moreover, Latinos’ education troubles start much earlier than the college years; 33%–50% of all Latinos drop out of school and never receive a high school diploma (Rumberger & Rodriguez, 2002). Even those who do make it to grade 12 seem to be limping along academically; 88% of that group fail to achieve reading proﬁciency (U.S. Department of Education, 1999, 2003). The High School Puente Project—puente means ‘‘bridge’’ in Spanish—is a model of combined interventions that is designed to provide Latino youngsters with the academically rigorous and culturally nuanced supports that are necessary to turn these disturbing statistics around. Much research indicates that Latino students are negatively inﬂuenced by their parents’ low education levels and socioeconomic status. These two factors tend to limit the parents’ access to schools and their knowledge of advocacy procedures for their children’s schooling, a phenomenon often referred to as lack of social capital. Furthermore, Latino children disproportionately attend poorly resourced schools (those with few guidance counselors and weak academic programs) (Betts, Rueben, & Dannenberg, 2000). To counter these factors, Puente provides three mediating interventions: rigorous instruction in English language arts; peer and adult mentors; and early, intensive college-prep counseling for students and their parents (Gandara, 2004). The High School Puente program evolved a decade ago from a program established in California to move Latino students from 2-year to 4-year colleges. The program starts with a deep knowledge of the cultural, socioeconomic, and academic factors that inﬂuence most Latinos’ school experiences. Multiple academic remedies are enacted in 9th and 10th grades, beginning with the special training of classroom teachers to carry out demanding instruction. The students read difﬁcult literature, including that of Latino authors, write daily in multiple genres, conduct research with multicultural sources, and create comprehensive portfolios of their best pieces—the antithesis of the skill-and-drill activities that characterize many disadvantaged students’ school assignments. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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A second area of intervention involves the enlistment of successful individuals from the business community and the professions who are trained by the program to mentor students. A mentor’s commitment is to maintain a relationship with a student and the student’s family, meeting with them at least monthly for a minimum of 2 years. This feature of the program counters a family’s low expectations or sense of possibilities for their children and encourages aspirations for a better life based on increased educational attainments. Puente has also tried to provide 9th graders, an age group with a very high dropout rate, with in-school guidance and community by pairing them with peer mentors from grades 11 and 12. The third distinctive component of Puente addresses the area of educational advocacy. Puente employs Latino guidance counselors to work with realistic numbers of students to ensure that the students are taking college-prep classes in the correct sequence, that the students have their academic problems addressed in a timely manner, and that the students and their families receive all necessary information to prepare for continuing the students’ education. These Latino counselors are especially helpful in mitigating the often negative results arising from the families’ lack of social capital. These school professionals offer other beneﬁts, as well—they understand the community’s language and culture and serve as an example of Latinos who have succeeded in college. The effectiveness of the Puente interventions was investigated in a survey of 2,000 program participants and nonparticipant peers. The outcomes were signiﬁcantly better for Puente students, who attended 4-year colleges at twice the rate of their non-Puente classmates (Gandara, 2002). It appears that this model points to one avenue of effective educational planning: paying attention to the speciﬁc needs and resources in a given community. Local language, culture, and talent should be regarded as strengths to be built upon rather than as differences to be overcome. The Advancement Via Individual Determination Program What about ‘‘middle performers,’’ students who attend school but do not work or learn to their potential? The Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) Center in California was started in 1980 by one determined high school teacher, Mary Catherine Swanson, who wanted to move her students to college readiness. Her focused effort to improve nonexcelling students’ access to substantive academic work evolved to become a multipart program that is now used in 2,700 middle and high schools nationally. AVID currently serves about 200,000 low-income students (Nelson, 2007). These are typically students whom teachers and guidance © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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counselors have identiﬁed as having the following four characteristics: the student is enrolled in undemanding or non-college-prep courses; the student’s grades are too low for admission to more difﬁcult courses or for future college admissions; there is little or no personal or familial expectation of the student continuing in postsecondary schooling or training; and although the student is in the academic middle, he or she is perceived to have the potential for much higher achievement. AVID is designed to nurture the students’ academic potential by changing the expectation and preparation deﬁcits that undermine school success for these youngsters. When students enroll in AVID, they commit to taking a sequence of rigorous courses to become college-eligible. To equip students to function in these high-challenge courses, AVID-trained teachers build up students’ learning skills and soft skills, such as personal organization and time management, note taking and synthesis of information, effective questioning, and group collaboration (Nelson, 2007). Other program components ensure that students will receive timely academic counseling; for example, AVID includes programs that guide 8th graders into essential gateway courses such as algebra so that they can take 4 years of advanced mathematics in high school. Peer tutors are used at both the middle and high school levels, and college student mentors trained in AVID strategies offer encouragement and remedial assistance. These younger mentors, usually from the same racial or ethnic communities as their mentees, guide the new students as their intellectual skills and stamina are increasing. The mentors also serve as accessible role models of academic achievement. Finally, special electives and after-school enrichment activities are offered to AVID students; these help maintain a peer culture that is focused on academic aspirations. The success of the combined program elements, especially for lowincome minority students, has been documented in recent studies of AVID schools and students. For example, several California-based studies (Hubbard, 1999, 2005; Mehan, Villanueva, Hubbard, & Lintz, 1996) concluded that because of AVID’s low dropout rates and structures that supported students for at least 3 years, the program was effective in enrolling a very large majority of its charges in college—students who were not likely to have enrolled otherwise. The AVID model of intervention for marginal performers appears to offer students experiences that are both personally and academically transforming—the very deﬁnition, many would say, of a good education. DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Despite some fear-inducing rhetoric, such as the innuendo found the A Nation at Risk report about ‘‘falling’’ test scores leading to economic © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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disaster (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), American schools have been educating a very competent workforce. In 2003, the World Economic Forum declared the United States number 1 in global competitiveness, including in an area called national innovation capacity. However, American public education has always had many more goals than simply training the nation’s workforce. As Brown v. Board of Education (1954) states so directly, education is required for the functioning of our democratic society and for the success of individual lives. Therefore, it is an ongoing responsibility of our society to be vigilant, making sure that schools teach more than just ‘‘the basics.’’ Thus, the recent studies that predict dire outcomes for students who drop out of schools, or who receive inadequate services while in school, are simply more urgent reminders to do now the kind of policy analysis and program evaluation of schools that a just, democratic America is duty-bound to do. The nation’s lawmakers must debate the renewal of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and its funding. This legislation requires that all public schools be judged with a yearly assessment of ‘‘basics’’ through standardized testing. The learning and teaching consequences of 5 years of such testing must be confronted in light of the other data discussed in this chapter: the need for a more highly educated citizenry and workforce, and the fact that 33% of the nation’s youth, especially minorities, are dropping out of school. National, state, and local leaders could combine these economic, societal, and educational realities in such a way that they identify goals and afﬁrm programs that foster both high-challenge academic curricula and career-based learning. With consensus on a few essential national goals identiﬁed by stakeholder representatives, state and local school entities should then be given the freedom and funding to enact educational models that address the needs of their students and draw on the resources of their communities. Accountability for good stewardship and school improvement would, of course, be required, but one-size-ﬁts-all testing should be eschewed because it is both pragmatically and psychometrically bad practice. Progress in engaging and retaining all students, improving communication skills, advancing problem-solving ability and critical thinking, improving responsibility and work habits, and other academic and career-related educational outcomes cannot be determined by ‘‘basics’’ tests; rather, they require a variety of authentic assessments administered over time. There is much work to be done to correct some of the unintended consequences of recent, test-driven accountability movements. Recalling the old adage that ‘‘what gets tested is what gets taught’’ might spur government leaders and policy makers to permit education professionals to align assessment with instructional goals. The complex behaviors, dispositions, and skills that are desirable for tomorrow’s © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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learners cannot be rated by inexpensive standardized tests. Artifacts such as extended writing and student research projects and models, performances such as debates and oral presentations, and cooperative learning experiences all demand ongoing, situated evaluation by a trained educator. Although the importance and complexity of assessment merits an examination beyond the focus and purpose of this chapter, these brief remarks about changes in assessment and accountability measures are made here because the role of high-stakes assessment in shaping what is emphasized in schools is so signiﬁcant that failure to align the assessments of the future with the revised educational goals of the future will doom the effort to boost life and career skills. For a majority of students, America’s schools are performing at least adequately, and many schools can build on what they already do well to improve teaching and learning in their local settings. The recommendations described below are presented as broad descriptions of ways to change aspects of the curricula, services, or teaching in the nation’s traditional middle and high schools. The research suggests that these changes, singly or in combinations, can bring about many of the goals identiﬁed by parents, postsecondary educators, business and industry spokespersons, and the students themselves. There is much evidence that the intellectual depth and personal skills and dispositions that American citizens desire for themselves and their children are the very same qualities that are essential for success in one’s work. Increase the number of guidance counselors and change their responsibilities. The role of guidance counselors seems more vital than ever, both for retaining students in school and giving them appropriate academic advice as they plan for careers or continuing education. Currently, guidance counselors work mostly in high schools and have 800–1,000 advisees. This is a situation of too many, too late. It is in middle school that youngsters and their families need direction from guidance counselors, because so many children become disaffected with school at that stage and because many high school alternatives depend on preparation courses in the middle grades. Therefore, it would be a great support to students and to their families if middle schools had guidance counselors working in a coordinated way with their colleagues in the secondary schools. Advisee numbers should be drastically reduced to approximately 33% of the current assignment. This manageable caseload would allow the counselors to make their expertise and knowledge much more available to neglected stakeholders. In this proposed model, every year counselors would set up workshops or seminars to provide the parents, peers, and teachers of their charges with up-to-date information on career paths, college entry requirements, apprenticeships, scholarships, and other planning fundamentals. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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This broadening of the guidance dialogue is a wise use of relationships and resources, because these three groups—parents, peers, and teachers—have been shown to exert great inﬂuence on youngsters’ aspirations and self-efﬁcacy, and the positive effects of home and school collaboration has long been established (Cummins, 1986; Herr, 1996; Kush & Cochran, 1993). Several of the models of intervention described in this chapter highlight the beneﬁts for students of explicitly expressed high expectations from their parents, teachers, and peers (Brown & Krane, 2000). Provide students with mentors and models. Teachers and parents regularly hear students complain that they ‘‘don’t know why [they] have to learn this stuff.’’ Numerous studies, including a survey of recent dropouts (Gates Foundation, 2006), capture the failure of schools to make clear, or the inability of students to accept, the relevance of what schools require to be studied. The most frequently cited reason for leaving school (47% of respondents) was that the students were bored, and the majority admitted to not being motivated or working hard. When pressed for what would have helped them remain in school, 81% said ‘‘real-world learning,’’ and many recommended that schools have some adults to whom students could talk about personal issues. It is clear that much learning is based on imitation of models, and in the large and diverse secondary schools that many students attend, it is very likely that speciﬁc efforts must be made to ensure that students are given access to appropriate models and mentors. Starting in middle school and continuing throughout their schooling, students should have the regular experience of diverse role models. Through guest presenters, job shadowing, career fairs, working internships, and service project assignments, students can have real-world encounters with successful individuals of different races, ages, and sexes who can speak directly to the need for a given kind of knowledge, skill, or work habit. Such modeling complements well-explained and thoughtfully orchestrated classroom instruction. Some schools have tapped volunteer mentors and trained them to give students long-term connections with accessible models who are matched with the students’ gender or race. It is well documented that these real-world experiences counter stereotypical thinking, such as the notion that science is a White male ﬁeld, and they can inspire aspirations that the student would otherwise have considered ‘‘not for someone like me’’ (Beane, 1985; Hill, Pettus, & Hedin, 1990; Malcolm, 1990). Institute a more ﬂexible schedule for the school day. Instead of nine 45minute classes, blocks of time that are ﬂexibly alternated with some longer and some shorter periods could allow in-depth work, such as full science laboratory experiments and extended opportunities to draft and revise writing pieces, as well as provide for briefer activities. Although students would take fewer classes in such a schedule, its © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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ﬂexibility would offer support for teachers’ and guidance counselors’ efforts to make concrete connections between schoolwork and careers, because there would be time to plan for visiting ‘‘teachers’’ from the professions to present units in academic classes. Time blocks could be realistically coordinated for cross-disciplinary ﬁeld trips to natural and business sites, and job shadowing or internships could more easily become aspects of academic programs as fewer courses are ‘‘interrupted’’ by the student’s off-campus interning opportunity. These are but a few of the possible beneﬁts of using the school clock to promote high-level student thinking, real-world and school interactions, and more individualized opportunities for students to study content and careers in some depth. Teach and require ample practice of soft skills. Many educators have been decrying the resurgence of skill-and-drill instruction, which is believed to be driven by NCLB’s high-stakes testing of math and reading basics. Ideally, schools should limit the amount of such instruction because it calls for lower-order recall thinking. Conversely, when students must brainstorm, present research, peer-teach, give feedback on written drafts, and carry out assigned parts of team-based cooperative projects, learning is necessarily active rather than rote. These types of instructional activities also require the students to learn and use the soft skills of collaboration, negotiation, multiple perspectives, oral communication, and interdependence, among others. These skills should be taught in the enactment of, and are necessary to sustain, assignments such as researching the proportions of the different food groups served in a given week in the cafeteria or discussing the possible motivations of different characters in a work of ﬁction. Communicating and problem solving among individuals with different points of view are essential interpersonal skills and require clear and ﬂexible thinking. Teachers can also explicitly teach students to be self-reﬂective. When teachers and mentors provide modeling and selfevaluation opportunities, students can be led to meta-cognitive analyses of their work habits, team contributions, content knowledge, and use of resources. These are but a few of the soft skills that support the daily essential tasks of learners, workers, neighbors, and citizens. Clearly, the mission of our public schools is multifocal. The heightened realization of the economic value of K–12 schooling and postsecondary attainment discussed in this chapter should not be interpreted as an invitation to redeﬁne education as job training. Nevertheless, the associations among individual aptitudes, appropriate work preparation, and successful employment experiences are inescapable. Therefore, the primary duty of the nation’s schools—to educate students for full lives as good citizens in a vibrant democracy—must also include educating successful workers. Indeed, we cannot do one without the other. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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REFERENCES Adelman, C. (1999). Answers in the tool box. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Adelman, C. (2001). Putting on the glitz. Connection: New England’s Journal of Higher Education, 53 (3), 24–30. American Federation of Labor. (1997). Trends in educational equity for girls and women. Washington, DC: Author. Beane, D. B. (1985). Mathematics and science: Critical ﬁlters for the future of minority students. Washington, DC: American University. Betts, J., Rueben, J., & Dannenberg, A. (2000). Equal resources, equal outcomes? The distribution of school resources and student achievement in California. San Francisco: Public Policy Institute. Brown, S. D., & Krane, N.E.R. (2000). Four (or ﬁve) sessions and a cloud of dust: Old assumptions and new observations about career counseling. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of counseling psychology (3rd ed.). New York: Wiley. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Cummins, J. (1986). Empowering minority students. Harvard Educational Review, 56, 9–36. Editorial Projects in Education (EPE). (2007). Diplomas count 2007: Ready for what? Preparing students for college, careers, and life after high School. Bethesda, MD: Education Week. Education Trust. (1999, Fall). Ticket to nowhere. Washington, DC: Author. Education Trust. (2001, Winter). Youth at the crossroads. Washington, DC: Author. Fry, R. (2004). Latino youth ﬁnishing college: The role of selective pathways. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Gandara, P. (2002). A study of high school Puente: What we have learned about preparing Latino youth for post-secondary education. Educational Policy, 16, 474–495. Gandara, P. (2004). Building bridges to college. Educational Leadership, 62, 56–60. Gates Foundation. (2006). The silent epidemic: Perspectives of high school dropouts. Available online at www.gatesfoundation.org/nr/downloads/ed/The Silent Epidemic3-06Final.pdf. Graff, G. (2003). Clueless in academe. New Haven: Yale University Press. Herr, E. L. (1996). Perspectives on ecological context, social policy, and career guidance. Career Development Quarterly, 44, 322–340. Hill, O. W., Pettus, W. C., & Hedin, B. A. (1990). Three studies of factors affecting the attitudes of Blacks and females toward the pursuit of science and science-related careers. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 27, 289–314. Hubbard, L. (1999). College aspirations among low-income African-American high school students: Gendered strategies for success. Journal of Negro Education, 68, 213–226. Hubbard, L. (2005). The role of gender in academic achievement. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 18, 605–623. Kirst, M. W. (2004). The high school/college disconnect. Educational Leadership, 51–55.

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Kush, K., & Cochran, L. (1993). Enhancing a sense of agency through career planning. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 40, 434–439. Malcolm, S. M. (1990). Reclaiming our past. Journal of Negro Education, 59 (3), 246–259. Mehan, H., Villanueva, I., Hubbard, L., & Lintz, A. (1996). Constructing school success: The consequences of untracking low-achieving students. New York: Cambridge University Press. National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk. Washington, DC: Author. National Science Foundation. (2000). Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science and engineering: 2000. Washington, DC: Author. Nelson, J. (2007). AVIDly seeking success. Educational Leadership, 64, 72–74. Rumberger, R., & Rodriguez, G. (2002). Chicano dropouts: An update of research and policy issues. In R. Valencia (Ed.), Chicano school failure and success (pp. 114–146). New York: Palmer Press. Sadker, D. (2002). An educator’s primer on the gender war. Phi Delta Kappan, 84, 235–240, 244. Schmoker, M. (2007). Reading, writing, and thinking for all. Educational Leadership, 64, 63–66. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics. (1999). The nation’s report card. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics. (2000). Trends in educational equity for girls and women. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Department of Education, National Center For Educational Statistics. (2001). The condition of education, 2001. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Department of Education, National Center For Educational Statistics. (2003). The nation’s report card. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (1999). Employed persons by detailed occupation, gender, race, and Hispanic origin. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce.

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Chapter 11

Shifting the Load: Personality Factors and Women in the Workplace Jennifer L. Martin

I know I have no problem in the area of ‘‘too sexy,’’ ‘‘too busty,’’ or distractingly beautiful, but it is clear that for any woman, of any age or condition, being female is something to compensate for. —Barbara Ehrenreich (2005, p. 105). It is important that a woman ﬁnd her own voice and that she discover ways of projecting it into the universe. A woman must learn how to express her views clearly and ﬁrmly without being afraid that this will offend, fatally injure, or drive her intimates away. —Phyllis Chesler (2001, p. 479)

Despite the occupational gains women have made in the past 50 years, women have still not achieved true equity within the workplace for a variety of reasons, one of which is the disconnect between the ways in which people view women and the ways in which women view themselves. Socially prescribed gender roles can lead to unrealistic expectations for both sexes, which often results in the essentializing of the sexes. As Chesler’s words above advise, women must see past these limitations and strive for success, which often involves taking risks, to achieve workplace equity. In this chapter I will examine these and other factors that prohibit equity in the workplace for women, and I will propose potential solutions. Psychologists and biologists agree that biological sex is separate and distinct from gender, which is a complex system of socially prescribed traits that sometimes, but not always, correspond to biological sex. This correspondence is more a matter of culture than of biology. However,

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traits such as agency and communion (and behaviors corresponding to these traits) are often stereotypically deﬁned as gender-related and thus inseparable from biology, according to many scholars (Abele, 2003). Culture, history, and the family all dictate gender stereotypes. What is deemed ‘‘appropriate’’ behavior for women and men inﬂuences individual self-concepts and personal expectations for the self related to gender. These factors, which later become personality traits, affect both women and men. Speciﬁcally, women’s adherence to stereotyped traits (or failure to adhere to stereotyped traits) not only affects their career advancement but also their personalities and how they are perceived by others. The percentage of women in management positions has risen from 15% in 1970 to 63% in 1995. However, despite this ﬁgure, women hold middle management positions only 6% of the time, and only 1.3% of women hold corporate ofﬁcer positions in Fortune 500 companies. Not only do women expect less for themselves, others expect less for them. For example, the percentage of women in the workforce has increased by almost 50% from the 1970s to the 1980s; however, this ﬁgure does not correspond to positions of power, such as positions of management, supervision, and leadership (Crampton & Mishra, 1999). Perhaps the most telling facet of women’s success in the workplace, or lack thereof, is this psychological precept: Observers perceive that the abilities, attributes, and personality factors that enable a person to succeed in a particular activity are somehow ‘‘natural’’ to that person (or group of people) (Eagly & Steffen, 1984). Thus, when women are absent from top positions of power and authority, society deems it to be a natural problem with women, that something within them is missing that would enable them to be good leaders. There are several theories to explain this phenomenon. Trait theory (or the person-centered view) (Crampton & Mishra, 1999) posits that women have not been granted access to top levels of management because of factors that are inherent to the feminine gender; that is, certain traits that women generally possess, or are assumed to possess, prohibit them from gaining promotions. For example, women have traditionally been perceived as more emotional and less rational; this belief can inﬂuence promotions for women. What are still considered to be masculine traits are valued more than stereotypically feminine traits in American society. Furthermore, if a woman possesses a stereotypically masculine trait, like aggressiveness, or even assertiveness, it is often looked upon negatively by others, whereas for a male it is viewed as positive in many instances. If women are assertive, they are often deemed ‘‘aggressive’’ and thus viewed negatively. However, the very same behavior exhibited by men is perfectly acceptable. Corresponding to trait theory (or the person-centered view) is the socialization of women, which inﬂuences gender differentiation in © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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personality characteristics and values. For example, women are often socialized to value other things before career advancement, such as home and family. Even if women do not hold these values as primary, they are often perceived as holding these values by corporations who do not want people in positions of authority who do not hold career as their main priority. To complicate this situation, women who do not hold these ‘‘traditionally feminine realms’’ sacred, as society deems they should, may be harshly judged by this ‘‘failure of femininity.’’ Women are still, to a certain extent, expected to value children and taking care of the home and family as a priority, and if they deviate from this convention they are often viewed with derision. Women are, to this day, ‘‘damned if they do and damned if they don’t.’’ The ‘‘plaster versus plasticity’’ debate deals with whether gender traits are malleable and can be altered in adulthood (plasticity). The majority of research supports the ‘‘plaster’’ view (Kirchmeyer, 2002). In other words, socialization of the gender into gendered roles contributes to personality development and dictates how many people ‘‘perform gender’’ for life. Kirchmeyer (2002) argues that gender has more to do with career choices than sex does. Thus, the ways in which people are raised in terms of gender socialization is a greater predictor of career choice than biological gender is. According to Goodman, Fields, and Blum (2003), women and men possess similar career aspirations and values, which suggests that women’s lack of prominence in positions of power must be explained by barriers to workplace advancement. Some scholars argue that women’s lack of aspirations and role conﬂict concerning their families lead to limited opportunities (Cotter, Hermsen, Ovadia, & Vanneman, 2001). Another aspect of the socialization process that women have to face compromises with aspirations and personal expectations: Women are often socialized to have lower expectations for leadership or management positions (Crampton & Mishra, 1999). In other words, women often feel less entitled to access these types of power. The factors contributing to these lowered expectations are a lack of role models, the potential impact of career advancement on family life, role conﬂict, societal discouragement, and a lack of female networks. Research suggests that no direct relationship exists between gender and job satisfaction (Phillips & Imhoff, 1997). Socialization has more to do with career choice and success than biological gender does. Although women are moving into the workforce and into traditionally male-dominated professions in increasing numbers, the converse is not true. Men are not moving into traditionally female professions. The reason for this could be that what is considered to be ‘‘women’s work’’ is not as valued by society as what is considered to be ‘‘men’s work.’’ Whatever the reason, women and men still differ in occupational © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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choices. According to Gati, Givon, and Osipow (1995), ‘‘Women’s preferences and perceptions . . . may reﬂect their multiple life demands, which include the responsibility for taking care of home and family needs in addition to their work role’’ (p. 214). Research suggests that women have not achieved workplace equity, in either pay or position, in part because of the expectations for their gender. Some critics and observers who are unwilling to face the depth of this issue ask, ‘‘Why can’t women simply rise above the negative expectations of them that still linger within the culture and pull themselves up by their bootstraps?’’ The answer to this question, in part, might be that women are still raised with these negative expectations and sometimes still believe them. Limiting gender expectations still affect women. The truth is that there is no simple answer here. BACKGROUND: IDENTITY, COMPENSATION, AND MINORITY STATUS Identity development and formation, as described by Erikson (1968), is used as a paradigm for successful growth to adulthood. However, identity and human development paradigms were often based upon male models, in which the male became the standard of a human being. Thus, women were often viewed as deﬁcient because societal expectations limited them from achieving certain levels of advancement. Life-cycle theories are inadequate in conveying the experiences of women and minorities; similar developmental tasks are completed, but at different points in the life cycle (Kerka, 1991). Kerka (1993) also cautions against the ‘‘essentialization’’ of women and men. Some researchers (Gilligan, 1982) have called for a separate approach to viewing women, suggesting that women have ‘‘different ways of knowing.’’ Kerka (1993) warns that focusing on the differences rather than the similarities between women and men can be dangerous. Instead, validating a variety of types of thinking can help different perspectives to be valued instead of just one (read: male). Women are socialized to focus on relationships and intimacy; because of this, women’s careers often do not follow a traditional or linear pattern (as is common for men). Homemakers differ from women who are not homemakers by having needs at both the high end and the low end of Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy of needs (Brown, Eisenberg, & Sawilowsky, 1997). Erikson (1959) has argued that work and work roles play an important part in identity construction. Career momentum has much to do with identity formation and thus with self-esteem; for example, women with high career momentum have more opportunity to achieve workplace success and thus tend to have more self-conﬁdence, higher self-esteem, and a heightened sense of independence (Roberts & Friend, 1998). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Expectations of success have much to do with the actual workforce success of women. Women in nontraditional ﬁelds experience more self-efﬁcacy and feelings of success than do women in traditional ﬁelds. Moreover, women in traditionally female occupations tend to exhibit less motivation for leadership positions and less ambition in general than women in traditionally male ﬁelds (Brown et al., 1997). Women historically have been linked to careers that deal with the health and education of children, such as child care and teaching; women who seek employment are often channeled into these occupations (Ranck, 1999). Because these ﬁelds are female-dominated, they receive less status and possess the characteristics of low status occupations, such as low salaries, limited beneﬁts, and limited opportunities for advancement. The historical relationship between mother and child, the belief that a woman is inherently maternal (the maternal instinct), and the notion that child care is her natural role and responsibility foster the idea that the care and education of children is the primary responsibility of women. Because these things are associated with women, they are viewed as simple; thus, societal resources, time and money, are not allocated to them. Ranck (1999) indicates that 77% of women are situated in female-dominated occupations. As Ferguson (1984) states, ‘‘The most common types of employment for women outside the home—the pink collar jobs, the service occupations, and the ‘helping’ professions—may involve women in outside activities, but they also further reinforce the conventional role’’ (p. 97). In the corporate world, women do not fare much better in terms of reaching economic equity. Only 2.5% of the highest earners in Fortune 500 companies are women. Women also infrequently appear on corporate boards and are underrepresented in business education (Bierma, 1999). Despite women’s better performance in college, upon graduating they make only 80% of what men make, and this ﬁgure drops to 69% of men’s earnings 10 years after graduation. Furthermore, the wage gap between women and men is widening for recent female graduates. These ﬁgures are lower for women than they were 10 years ago, and even lower for women of color (Oliver, 2007). The work world does not value women’s work on an equal basis to that of men’s. This fact transfers to the personal level as well. Many women do not value themselves and their own labor power as much as they value men’s. Major, McFarlin, and Gagnon (1984) found that when women are asked to ascribe monetary value to themselves and others, they consistently pay themselves less. In fact, women pay themselves less than they pay men for the same amount of work (Shinew & Arnold, 1998). These ﬁndings reveal two core issues that affect women in the workplace: personal entitlement and self-worth. Women often do not feel © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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entitled to power and monetary rewards on a level equal to men, perhaps because society tells them that they are less valuable and so is their labor. This contributes to a negative self-worth that can exist on a subconscious level. Both factors contribute to a vicious cycle in which women do not value their labor or feel entitled to advancement, which then contributes to not becoming personally invested in occupations, and it certainly contributes to women’s failure to take occupational risks that would promote their advancement. Ferguson (1984) states the following: The distortion of powerlessness affects women’s deepest psychic structures and cannot be dismissed as artiﬁcial externalities conﬁning the real person. We would not object so strenuously to oppression if it did not in part accomplish that which it is intended to do, to elicit the complicity of the oppressed in their oppression and to produce subjects appropriately readied for subordination. (p. 94)

To suggest that women are complicit in their own oppression is not to blame the victim but to suggest that all of us are somewhat complicit in going along with the status quo. The oppression of women is not simply the problem of women in general or of individual women because they do not try hard enough. The inequities that women face in career advancement and in compensation falls upon patriarchy, culture, and socialization. These things cannot be altered overnight. According to Shinew and Arnold (1998), women tend, more than men, to put other things ahead of work. In sum, researchers and commentators have suggested that the pay disparity between women and men could be caused by employers viewing women as ‘‘quitters’’ because they might take time off for childbirth and child rearing. New opportunities and additional responsibilities, such as trainings, promotions, and positions of leadership or management, are not assigned to women for fear that they will quit to marry, raise children, or follow their husbands in their careers (Stroh, Brett, & Reilly, 1996). Women and minorities continue to face more obstacles than males and Whites in career advancement and pay. The reasons for this are biased evaluation processes, attribution displacement (i.e., attributing some characteristics to people’s personalities and others to luck—most often, attributing characteristics positively to the group most like oneself), discrimination, and lack of networking opportunities and mentors (Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1993). Shih (2006) found that workplace inequity for women and minorities stems from three factors: gender and ethnic stereotyping, organizational segregation, and exclusion from information-networking or mentoring relationships. Moreover, organizations can do a lot to prevent advancement based on gender and race. Shih found that women and © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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minorities are often channeled into lower career tracks, resulting in ‘‘intra-organizational job segregation’’ (p. 180). These individuals then receive fewer opportunities for job training or differential (read: skilled) training and thus fewer opportunities for advancement or transference from the ‘‘de-skilled’’ track. Finally, Shih found that informal networking groups and mentoring relationships prevent women and minorities from advancing because of informal exclusion from these groups. Women and minorities are seen as ‘‘outsiders’’ within the (White-male majority) culture of the organization. When women are the minority in an organization (or have token status), they are likely to experience the following: anxiety and stress, alienation and isolation, and sexual harassment. They might also have less of a commitment to the work environment because of these factors (Miner-Rubino & Cortina, 2004). As the size of a minority group increases, however, stress is reduced. In addition, as the numbers increase, more support networks can be formed (Dreher, 2003). Although women are often divided by race and socioeconomic status, all women still face stereotypes particular to gender and sex. As Ferguson (1984) states, ‘‘Divided by lines of class, race, ethnicity, and so on, most of us nonetheless encounter a characteristic set of linguistic and institutional practices constitutive of the life experiences of the second sex’’ (pp. 158–159). In other words, although women can be divided by race, ethnicity, and income level, they still often share some experiences that could be used to unite them. Intersectionality, or interlocking oppressions, has an effect on career advancement and success, and it can produce low self-esteem. For example, Thompson and Keith (2001) found that dark-skinned women with low incomes often have low levels of self-esteem. When people possess more than one minority status simultaneously, it can contribute to further oppression and discrimination. Some women face the ‘‘triple oppression’’ of class, race, and gender, which can affect career opportunity and advancement. Minority status is complicated when members of a particular ethnic group discriminate against one another through ‘‘colorism,’’ giving preferential treatment based on the shade of the skin. Colorism has a stronger effect on women than on men. Gonzalez-Figueroa and Young (2005), in a study of professional Latinas, found that they felt marginalized from their professional group as well as from their social and ethnic group, which increased stress and loneliness. Latinas were also found to earn less than Latinos and less than other women in the same professions. Hite and McDonald (2003) found that White women have lower career aspirations than Black women. Among college women, these researchers found that women who desired to enter traditionally maleoriented ﬁelds had higher career aspirations than did women who planned to enter traditionally female work. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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The largest minority group in the United States is individuals who have disabilities, and there are more women than men within this group. Poverty is a common consequence for individuals with disabilities; there are more disabled women than men living in poverty. Women with disabilities often face harsher scrutiny than women without disabilities. They are often viewed as helpless, childlike, and incompetent (Noonan, Gallor, & Hensler-McGinnis, 2004). Brown and Barbosa (2001) examined the factors that affect lowincome women in achieving self-sufﬁciency. These include low selfesteem, unhealthy relationships with men, lack of family and peer support, lack of training, criminal history, and fear of success. There are things that women can do today to bring about small changes around them. First, they can become aware of these real oppressions. Second, they can raise the awareness of others and attempt to battle the status quo. Battling the status quo might mean creating women-centered support networks, mentoring, and assisting other women. Third, women must include women of various ethnic and racial groups and income levels in these networks. Fourth, women can try to develop a strong sense of self-efﬁcacy despite the oppressions that constrain them. Self-efﬁcacy, as deﬁned by Bandura (1995), is the belief that one can master situations and control events. If a woman attempts to master her life, despite the oppressions that are often beyond her control, then she might not internalize a lack of advancement and pay disparity—thus putting an end to the vicious circle. Finally, if the open discussion of salaries were more socially acceptable, it would not be a secret how much money people make. Women would know how much their coworkers were making and how much to negotiate for themselves, as opposed to simply accepting what they are offered. Women can work toward this end as well.

GENDER-ROLE SOCIALIZATION AND GENDER STEREOTYPES Ferguson (1984) writes the following: Even in the best of circumstances, women have tended to lack the sense of competence that comes from being able and entitled to act, to do, in the larger public world of strangers, and to have one’s projects and actions valued in the public currency. Their condition of powerlessness has been closely bound up in their role as caretaker, so that the latter is distorted by the former. (p. 26)

Stereotypes within the corporate and employment worlds often hinder women’s advancement (Crampton & Mishra, 1999). Women are thought to be not as tough as men; women are thought to lack commitment to their employment, for they might leave to raise children or © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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have babies; it is assumed that women cannot work long hours because of household responsibilities; women are thought to lack judgment in making difﬁcult decisions or in a high-stress situation. The prevailing feminine stereotypes promote the idea that all women are nurturing, soft, caring, emotional, and communal. Midgley and Abrams (1974) indicate that societal expectations and stereotypes have had negative effects on women’s motivation. Fear of success in women was ﬁrst attributed to the anxiety caused in women by competition with males. Women must ﬁght these stereotypes to compete and succeed. In general, men advance further, more quickly, and with higher compensation than women do (Phillips & Imhoff, 1997). Men are socialized to take on leadership roles more often than women are. Women are socialized to care about relationships, which is not a trait that is necessarily valued in the realm of leadership and management. Thus, women are thought to be incapable of leadership roles, or at least not as capable as men are. Society still prescribes roles that are deemed ‘‘natural’’ for women and for men. What becomes associated with women is then devalued (Kerka, 1993). Because women and men are still socialized differently, including the tendency to value different things, women’s workplace experiences continue to be very different from men’s. Gender stereotyping can lead to gender discrimination. No matter what the cause, gender discrimination is still a major problem for women in the workplace and in academe (Carr, Szalacha, Barnett, Caswell, & Inui, 2003). To be successful, women have to overcome more obstacles in a variety of areas simply by virtue of their gender. This fact is often compounded by racial, socioeconomic, and heterosexist biases as well. Despite the fact that ‘‘gender, like culture, is a human production that depends on everyone constantly ‘doing gender’’’ (Lueptow, Garovich-Szabo, & Lueptow, 2001, p. 3), people do not usually view gender as a construction. Many view gender as a ‘‘naturally’’ occurring system in which behavioral roles are determined on the basis of biology and are thus immutable. Gender socialization theory posits that gender differences in career attributes stem from stereotypes, which are handed down through socialization. Women and men unknowingly accept these traditional norms, values, expectations, and roles as ‘‘normal,’’ natural, and ‘‘their own’’ (Konrad, Yang, Goldberg, & Sullivan, 2005). Conformity to these norms is enforced by the culture; those who do not adhere to these behaviors are punished by isolation, lack of promotion, social exclusion, workplace exclusion, and ridicule. Because masculine and feminine stereotypes are still enforced for men and women, men often gravitate toward careers that relate to or represent the masculine role. The same is true for women and the feminine role. Kasen, Chen, Sneed, Crawford, and Cohen (2006) argue that women’s personality characteristics stem from societal expectations and are © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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subject to shifts in societal norms. Nevertheless, women and men are still socialized into different societal roles. Historically speaking, women have been socialized for homemaking and child rearing (communal traits), and men have been socialized for providing for (monetarily) and protecting their families (agentic traits). These historical prescriptions, have, over time, come to be seen as ‘‘natural.’’ Lueptow and colleagues (2001) state, ‘‘As males are disproportionately full-time workers in higher status jobs and family leaders, these characteristics account for the perception of males as agentic [sic] and females as communal’’ (p. 3). We still feel the effects of traditional gender-role socialization, which can have negative effects on career women. For example, even women who have highly demanding careers invest more time on household responsibilities than their male peers do (Cinamon, 2006). Moreover, women are often socialized to have different views of achievement and relationships than men are (Kerka, 1993). Some women are taught not to value competition but relationships. The traditional view that women are noncompetitive can cause women to fear being competitive out of a concern that their behavior will be viewed as unattractive (Crampton & Mishra, 1999). Because of these attitudes, and the reinforcement of them by cultural norms, women experience not only different societal expectations but also different workplace opportunities. Gender-role expectations exaggerate gender characteristics and minimize the individual differences between people. McGowen and Hart (1990) suggest that women’s and men’s developmental experiences affect both their professional and personal experiences. Kasen and colleagues (2006) found that traditionally masculine traits were higher in women who worked full-time, which suggests that adult personality traits (especially concerning agency) can be shaped by the environment: For women in a high-powered professional or business position, the increase in agentic [sic] traits may come at the expense of a decrease in communal traits, perhaps because expression of the latter by working mothers, especially those in demanding career-track occupations, may heighten others’ perceptions of lessened commitment to the workplace. (p. 954)

Gender-role socialization inﬂuences self-efﬁcacy, which in turn inﬂuences one’s career decisions (Cinamon, 2006). Because American women are socialized to pursue career and family simultaneously, this often results in women selecting less demanding careers that will allow more time for family and children. Because of this double workload and work–family conﬂict, women sometimes experience lower levels of self-efﬁcacy, which can reduce feelings of competency in both © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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realms, and then a vicious cycle is created. Ferguson (1984) states the following: The feminine role is inherently depoliticizing, in that it requires women to internalize an image of themselves as private rather than public beings. Women have largely been spectators rather than participants in public life, and the more ﬁrmly they have been integrated into the feminine role the more removed they have been from the public realm. Women are not powerless because they are feminine; rather, they are feminine because they are powerless, because it is a way of dealing with the requirements of subordination. (p. 95)

In sum, socialization and gender-role stereotypes contribute to internalized perceptions that people hold of women and that women hold of themselves that they are more effective within the home than outside it. The realities that women face in the workplace, such as discrimination, lack of networking opportunities and mentors, and the struggle for balance between family and career, also contribute to women’s continued career lag behind men. Women’s socialization into the feminine gender role results in their gaining less access to information, which results in lower career self-efﬁcacy in comparison to men, and thus fewer opportunities to develop their career potential (Sullivan & Mahalik, 2000). Although many women behave in nontraditional ways in the workplace and in the home (e.g., by expecting more from their male partners), the pressure exists to perform traditional femininity in a variety of areas (Kirchmeyer, 2002). Pressure to possess traditionally masculine behavior increases women advance in nontraditional ﬁelds; likewise, traditionally feminine traits decline in women with career advancement (Kirchmeyer, 2002). The dilemma for women is that many have to alter themselves to ﬁt into the work world, which is still organized around stereotypically masculine characteristics, or they have to strive to change the status quo to be more accepting of and accommodating to women and the needs of women (McGowen & Hart, 1990). However, even when women adopt stereotypically masculine characteristics to gain acceptance in nontraditional ﬁelds, they are judged more harshly than men, or they are deemed undesirable, for they are stepping outside their socially prescribed role. It is not surprising, then, that women sometimes avoid striving for career advancement (management or leadership roles), for if women do venture out or take these risks, they have to struggle to maintain a sense of positive self-worth when it seems that the deck is stacked against them. Kirchmeyer (2002) states the following: Women in such occupations often are required to prove themselves extensively to earn advancement . . . and according to social identity

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theory, if such pressures are perceived to threaten self-esteem, they can lead to defensive rigidity. . . . In comparison, men in traditionally male occupations may feel more secure and open to expand their behavioral repertoires following advancement. (p. 932)

In other words, a woman’s path for career advancement is not a clear one; even when traits like assertiveness are valued in a certain organization, they might not be accepted when they are exhibited by women. Women must be doubly careful to read the unspoken code of an organization to know how to behave in a manner that is acceptable to the organization and to ﬁgure out where her efforts will be rewarded. Shepard (1997) argues that women must pay attention to perceived employment characteristics regarding gender and genderrole expectations in the workplace to achieve success; such awareness allows women to present themselves in a positive light in their workplace environment and in a manner that will counteract negative expectations. Women can ﬁght such double standards (one code of conduct and expectations for men, another for women) in organizations, but to do so they must overcome the crisis of conﬁdence that will naturally result from going against the grain (of socialization and stereotypes). According to Kasen and colleagues (2006), gender-role socialization tends to inhibit characteristics in women that are traditionally associated with men, especially during the young adult years; during middle age, women are more likely to embrace facets of their personality that have been suppressed as a result of societal pressure; i.e., as women grow older and gain more experience, being accepted on an individual basis as opposed to being viewed merely in terms of societal stereotypes of expected behavior for women. Although research indicates that the gap is closing, gender stereotypes in the realm of personality traits do persist. For instance, when women are perceived as possessing less agentic, their careers can suffer (Abele, 2003). Focusing on differences rather than similarities is limiting and downplays the sociocultural basis of these supposed differences (Whiston & Bouwkamp, 2003). According to Williamson and Hudson (2001), a major issue regarding workplace socialization is the extent to which people challenge the norms. PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE ‘‘Since women’s psychology of dependence is tied to the reality of male power,’’ Ferguson (1984) notes, ‘‘women are not likely to view self-assertion as safe; assertiveness is always risky for the powerless’’ (p. 168). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Although women have made gains in the workforce, traditional stereotypes persist about appropriate feminine behavior and women’s role in the home. In the United States, more often than not, men are still perceived to be the principle breadwinners within the traditional nuclear family, and women are still perceived as the primary providers of home and family care. Those who deviate from these patterns are judged harshly (Marler & Moen, 2005). Traditional masculine characteristics include the following: adventurous, aggressive, ambitious, assertive, competitive, decisive, dominant, independent, individualistic, and self-conﬁdent. Traditional feminine characteristics include the following: affectionate, communal, emotional, empathic, expressive, gentle, submissive, sympathetic, and talkative (Kirchmeyer, 2002; Lueptow et al., 2001). Intrinsic qualities that contribute to career success include a strong sense of self, independence, self-efﬁcacy, assertiveness, persistence, and the ability to take risks (Hite & McDonald, 2003). Tomlinson-Keasey (1974) found conﬂict between societal expectations for women and women’s personal aspirations. Thus there is a disconnect between what some women want for themselves and what society expects of them. Hutri and Lindeman (2002) found that women experience more occupational crises than men do; these stem from trait anxiety, such as unexpressed anger and depression. Keim, Strauser, and Ketz (2002) found that women experience more anxiety and lower self-esteem than men do, which can affect career potential and prevent women from achieving as much as men achieve. In Finland, Pulkkinen, Ohranen, and Tolvanen (1999) found that extroversion in adult women led to a high career orientation. Lueptow and colleagues (2001) found that gender-typing personality characteristics as ‘‘typical’’ of men or women still continues—that nothing much has changed in this realm in the last few decades. If anything, such stereotyping is on the rise in the United States with the nation’s renewed climate of conservatism (Lueptow et al., 2001). In other words, many personality characteristics are still, to a large degree, thought to be gender speciﬁc. Characteristics that correlate positively with workplace involvement and success include emotional stability, independence, high selfesteem, self-efﬁcacy, an internal locus of control, assertiveness, and a lack of anxiety (Pulkkinen et al., 1999). These are also characteristics that are typically associated with men. Because of the societal tradition of essentializing the sexes into opposite and separate entities (e.g., yin and yang), when certain stereotypically masculine traits are associated with women they have a different connotation—or women are thought not to possess them at all. The explanation for why women exhibit more communal traits than men do is controversial. Some believe that it is a result of biology, of © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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evolution, and that it speaks to men’s and women’s essential or ‘‘natural’’ differences. Communal traits in women might not be related directly to occupational roles or to women’s lack of holding positions of power throughout history; they might stem from women’s role in the home. That is, women have traditionally played the nurturing role in the home, and although women are more prevalent in the workplace than they were 50 years ago, the role of primary nurturer in the home still predominantly falls upon the woman. Thus, although the communal style or group of traits is sometimes ascribed to biology, it is more likely caused by sociology. Roberts (1997) found that high levels of career advancement for women result in higher levels of agency, which is a traditionally masculine trait. The association between masculinity and career success and advancement has been found in both women and men (Kirchmeyer, 2002). Abele (2003) found that agency is more important to workplace success than is communion. Women tend to possess fewer agentic traits than men so (Eagly & Steffen, 1984). The reasons for this involve the perceptions of observers, or society in general: Women are more likely than men to hold positions with low levels of status and authority and are more likely than men to be in the unpaid labor force (i.e., working within the home). Thus, women are perceived by society to be less likely to enjoy positions of power, and this can translate to perceptions of women’s capabilities—which further leads to women’s perceptions of their own capabilities (and contributes to the vicious cycle that maintains women’s secondary status). Speciﬁcally, if women perceive their opportunities to be less than those of men, they might strive for less or not try for promotions or certain management positions for fear of failure. This fear can then cause a lack of motivation and thus perpetuate the cycle of there being few women in top management positions (Dreher, 2003). Moreover, when women take career risks or achieve success in nontraditional realms, they are sometimes viewed negatively by others. Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, and Tamkins (2004) note the following: A woman’s success in areas traditionally reserved for men can give rise to social penalties, causing them to be disliked and negatively viewed. These results also are suggestive [of] the nature of the negative characterizations likely to result. When women violate gender prescriptions by being successful in areas that are not traditionally part of their domain, they seem to be cast in a light that not only is negative but also is antithetical to the traditional stereotype of women and conceptions of how they should be. (p. 417)

To further complicate the societal prescriptions for women, a woman’s family and peers also inﬂuence her career expectations and career decisions (Guay, Senecal, Gauthier, & Fernet, 2003). Parental belief in © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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stereotypical roles can discourage girls and young women from pursuing nontraditional ﬁelds (Creamer & Laughlin, 2005). According to Pulkkinen and colleagues (1999), constructive activity in one’s childhood correlates with positive management of working life as an adult. Socially passive and anxiety-ridden behavior as a child are indicative of problems later—stressful situations as an adult are likely to be dealt with internally rather than confronted externally. Pulkkinen and colleagues note, ‘‘Previous research has shown that in stressful life conditions women tend to react by internalizing rather than externalizing their problems’’ (p. 54). It is more difﬁcult for women, especially those who are traditionally oriented, to be successful in male-dominated ﬁelds because they have to alter their personalities to be accepted as competent. There is social pressure on women to change within traditionally male ﬁelds (Kirchmeyer, 2002). Peplau (1976) presents a traditional view of women’s career development by arguing that women who ﬁnd themselves in competition with men fear losing their femininity, and women’s achievement may be impacted because women strive to maintain, at the very least, an illusion of male superiority. Peplau (1976) found that traditional women perform better in noncompetitive or team settings, whereas nontraditional women excel in competitive situations. Androgynous oriented women experience less fear of success than traditionally feminine women do (Kearney, 1982). Whiston and Bouwkamp (2003) found that career-oriented women possess more intrinsic needs, such as independence and achievement. According to Twenge (1997), communal traits have remained higher in women than in men, whereas agentic traits have increased in women over time. Twenge found that the gap between women and men is decreasing in terms of feelings of personal agency. Twenge (2001) found that assertiveness (an agentic trait) in women has been increasing in the past 20 years but that it varies with status and roles. Women in nontraditional ﬁelds, such as engineering, do not show gender differences in agentic and communality. Both women and men reported possessing agentic, or dominant, behavior when in positions of supervision; however, it was mainly women who reported communal, or submissive, behaviors when in positions of workplace subordination (Abele, 2003). Personal Expectations Personal expectations with regard to one’s career have much to do with how far one will advance. ‘‘The self-concept contains a number of ‘possible selves,’ which are deﬁned as conceptions of what we ideally will become in the future, what we expect we will become, and what © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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we fear we will become’’ (Chalk, Meara, Day, & Davis, 2005). According to Creamer and Laughlin (2005), women are more likely than men to seek advice from others about career decisions and are more inﬂuenced by others. Bizzari (1998) found that some women think that their values are not universal values; they also found that women put their personal needs on hold to ﬁrst serve the needs of the family. In other words, serving the needs of others, or putting others ﬁrst, whether at work or at home, is often common among women. Selﬂessness serves as an obstacle to workplace success for women. Bizzari found that responsibility for women was often synonymous with being ‘‘good,’’ providing for the family in a variety of ways, and that selﬁshness was deﬁned as meeting one’s own needs. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs might not be reﬂective of self-actualization for women, because self-fulﬁllment for women is directly tied to the nurturing of others—not for biological reasons, but as learned behavior. Expectations of Others Self-actualized, secure, and independent women are not nurtured and cultivated by our society. In fact, people ask what is wrong if a woman has chosen not to have children. Although women might be perceived as possessing the necessary (read: male) characteristics for an occupation, these characteristics are not considered to be what women ‘‘should’’ actually ‘‘be like.’’ There are consequences for women who do not ﬁt their prescribed role, such as social ostracism and receiving negative personal feedback. Women who behave in traditionally male ways are less well received than are men who deviate from traditional norms (Heilman et al., 2004). Competent women and women leaders can be viewed by others as cold, bitter, quarrelsome, and selﬁsh when they simply possess the same personality characteristics as their male counterparts (Heilman et al., 2004). Sometimes they don’t even possess the characteristics but are merely believed to possess them. According to attribution theory, the personality characteristics and accomplishments of women and men are explained differently. For example, women’s accomplishments are often attributed to luck or other external factors, and their advancement is attributed to afﬁrmative action and not to personal ability (as men’s accomplishments are) (Kirchmeyer, 1998; Lyness & Thompson, 1997). Moreover, women’s performance on traditionally male-oriented tasks is often attributed to luck or to effort, whereas men’s performance is attributed to skill (Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1993). The reason for the former is that such success violates people’s gender-role expectations; thus, to avoid cognitive dissonance, the observers attribute negative attributes to women, such that women are not responsible for their own successes—they just ‘‘got lucky.’’ © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Appearance Finally, another form of oppression that women must face within the workplace is the issue of appearance. According to Thompson and Keith (2001), the ‘‘pursuit and preoccupation with beauty are central features of female gender-role socialization’’ (p. 354). Women who are deemed unattractive are more vulnerable to bias within the workplace. Author Grant Bowman (cited in Ehrenreich, 2005) points out, ‘‘Marcia Clark . . . changed her hairstyle, dress and personal manner, became softer, more feminine, warmer and more open—in short, less like the aggressive trial lawyer she is and more like a stereotypical woman’’ (p. 108). To be accepted in the work world, women often have to spend more time and money on their appearance than men do. If women do not pay as much attention to their appearance as is deemed socially necessary, or if their appearance is seen as unfeminine, they will be judged harshly for it. Appearance and its judgment by others seem to affect all women in some way, but currently there is a lack of formal research in these areas.

WOMEN IN ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE According to one theory, skewed gender ratios in organizations create negative self-fulﬁlling prophecies for the nontraditional or token group (e.g., women). That is, the dominant or majority group (at the top) exaggerates the differences between itself and the token group, thus resulting in negative consequences for the token group. Lyness and Thompson (2000) state, ‘‘Men’s negative behaviors toward token women are also thought to be more likely when the women hold male gender-typed positions, that is, those typically held by men or thought to be more appropriate for men . . . such as senior management’’ (p. 87). According to Kanter’s (1977a, 1977b) research on tokenism, women experience many negative consequences for their secondary positions: believing that that they need to change to ﬁt in the organizational culture, being excluded from informal interactions, having less mentoring, being viewed as stereotypes, and receiving fewer developmental assignments. Token status also often leads to increased scrutiny of job performance, which in turn prevents women from gaining entrance to the higher levels of the organization (Goodman et al., 2003). The majority of corporate environments are created and controlled by men. In addition, corporate culture is perpetuated by a homogeneous group of White males (Bierma, 1999). For women to be successful, they must learn to navigate through this culture or attempt to change it. Lyness and Thompson (2000) found that women executives © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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experience more barriers to advancement and lower job satisfaction than their male counterparts do. Vinnicombe and Harris (2000) state, ‘‘The informally accepted deﬁnition of success in an organization tends more closely to match the one held by men. This often results in women being perceived as less ambitious’’ (p. 28). Corporate culture consists of beliefs, philosophies, language, rituals, traditions, and norms that perpetuate the traditional power structure (Bierma, 1999). The current corporate male hierarchy perpetuates the advancement of men and the stalling of women in positions that lack formal power and corporate inﬂuence. For example, decision makers report a conﬁdence level of 75% when promoting men, but only a 23% conﬁdence level when promoting women (Ruderman, Ohlott, & Kram, 1995). Bierma (1999) studied how women function within corporate culture and found that women go through stages of learning and development, including the following: compliant novice, competence seeker, and change agent. In the compliant novice stage, women attribute their learning to an external authority and consider themselves to be naı¨ve or overly grateful for what they receive in terms of pay and advancement. At this stage, women think that, if they simply cause no trouble, they will be rewarded. As women gain experience and ﬁnd that simply being nice and compliant will not in itself warrant promotion, they begin to focus on gaining competence. These women then attempt to develop their own peer networks and mentors to gain this organizational competence. The competence seeker stage presupposes being accepted in the current organizational structure and culture; this is crucial to being accepted by men. These women are often afraid of offending men and try to ﬁt in with them (thus, no overt feminism here, no attempting to change the status quo). At this stage, women adapt and assimilate to the culture; they do not try to change it. When feeling dissent, they express it through silence. As one participant states (cited in Bierma, 1999): A lot of women make mistakes by being too much pro-woman. I think that you have to recognize that you are bucking the old-boy’s network. It’s alive and well and kicking very strongly. If you ﬁght that in a negative way then you’re looked upon as a troublemaker and a women’s libber. [The men] don’t need that. (p. 111)

These women accept the male centrism of the organization without question, even though they are excluded from the informal networks or cliques. In the change agent stage, women transition out of the male-oriented stages and into an arena in which they feel comfortable challenging the status quo. This type of change is inspired when women realize that they are not advancing as their male counterparts are, despite their © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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competence and expertise. At this stage, women have gained more personal experience and have achieved some degree of personal power. They become empowered through their associations with women in similar positions, and they form networks geared to organizational change. These women view themselves as organizational change agents and seek to change the culture, either overtly or covertly. Bierma (1999) also found a lack of feminist identiﬁcation in the women she studied. Women believed that adopting the label feminist could be damaging to them in their career advancement. Nevertheless, they did adhere to many feminist beliefs and used feminist language. However, they refused to attribute their unfair treatment in the organization to discrimination or harassment, despite their knowledge, transformation, and progression through the stages. This set of beliefs contributes to an organizational culture in which gender discrimination and even gender harassment are unacknowledged and thus tolerated. This research highlights the importance of consciousness-raising for women in traditional male organizations or corporate cultures. It also addresses the importance of helping others who are excluded from informal networks and of the importance of mentoring other women (and other members of token groups) so that they can also achieve success and advancement within the organization. This research also implicitly raises the question of whether a feminist identiﬁcation is beneﬁcial to women in the workplace, especially women who are grappling with discriminatory environments. Vinnicombe and Harris (2000) found that many organizations are run as closed and informal systems in which opportunities for promotion and advancement are discussed and agreed upon through informal networks, many of which exclude women. These informal networks create and perpetuate the organizational culture. Career or job commitment, for example, is deﬁned through these informal networks; because these consist primarily of men, women’s deﬁnitions of commitment, which allow for conﬂicts (e.g., work-family balance, child care), are absent from these networks and thus from the boss’s perceptions and evaluations of women workers. In other words, women are often evaluated unfairly because of this omission and inconsistency. According to Dryburgh’s (1999) examination of Canadian workplace culture in engineering, it is more difﬁcult for women than men in this ﬁeld to achieve success because women have to make more of an adjustment to the organizational culture in terms of the perceptions of others and solidarity with others within the profession. She states the following: Women have to work harder than men, and they face obstacles not there for men of similar ability. Women . . . have to adjust [not only] to the

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occupational culture but also to the masculinity of that culture. They . . . have to portray themselves as competent [not only] to their employers and clients but also to male colleagues. Finally, women have to prove their solidarity to others in the profession, a more difﬁcult task for women than men, given engineering’s masculine identity. (p. 666)

Each profession has its own culture with which successful employees (members) must become acclimated. It is easier for men, with their informal informational networks, to successfully acclimate themselves. Women often have to compensate simply for being women. Women in nontraditional ﬁelds have to adapt not only to a workplace culture but also to the masculinity of that culture. This can produce anxiety. Group identiﬁcation leads to empowerment (Chronister & McWhirter, 2006), but when women do not possess identiﬁcation with a group—with the majority culture or with other women— workplace satisfaction is greatly reduced, and anxiety increases. In sum, women often face tremendous obstacles to gain acceptance in an organizational culture, especially in nontraditional ﬁelds. They must deal with negative expectations, gender-role stereotypes, and doing more than is expected to be seen as competent. They must try to ﬁnd a mentor or a way into the informal networks that are often closed to them so that they can learn to navigate the hostile waters of organizational culture. Women must also face the hostility that results when they advance into nontraditional realms. Heilman and colleagues (2004) note the following: Terms such as bitch, ice queen, iron maiden, and dragon lady are invoked to describe women who have successfully climbed the organizational ladder. . . . These characterizations provide some insight into why, despite their success, high-powered women often tend not to advance to the very top levels of organizations. (p. 426)

To achieve career advancement, especially in corporate culture, women must overcome the reluctance of those in power to ‘‘take risks’’ with women. Having a sponsor who has power within the organization is helpful in this regard (Lyness & Thompson, 2000). Finally, battling the status quo to change the perception that it is, in fact, a risk to hire or promote a woman is something that requires immediate attention.

PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT Because women have traditionally held less power, they are thought to be less deserving of respect and of positions with high status (or in © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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which power can be achieved) (Miner-Rubino & Cortina, 2004). Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1997) argue that women ﬁnd it more difﬁcult than men do not only to assert authority but also to consider themselves as authorities in their ﬁelds. Traditionally, women’s occupations have had less authority in general than men’s have (Lyness & Thompson, 1997), and traditionally masculine characteristics have been more valued in the ﬁeld of management than traditionally feminine characteristics (Crampton & Mishra, 1999). Women have to work harder to be seen as deserving of positions of leadership or management. Because of these realities, women leaders need not only mentoring and networking but also opportunities to shine so that others will acknowledge their leadership. This in turn will encourage women to believe in themselves as leaders. Women need opportunities to show their skills and to alter the faulty perceptions that their personalities are deﬁcient in the appropriate characteristics for leadership. Traditional masculine characteristics, such as assertiveness and individuality, are the preferred personality characteristics for managers. Male managers are perceived much more than women to possess the necessary personality characteristics to be successful leaders (Kirchmeyer, 1998; Lyness & Thompson, 1997). When female managers are perceived as not possessing these personality traits, they have to try harder to be viewed as competent. When women behave in traditionally feminine ways, they may be perceived as not being successful or as not ﬁtting into their positions as leaders. In fact, there is a perceived lack of ﬁt in general between the stereotypes of women and the characteristics of successful managers; there are also expectations for the failure of women in leadership and management positions. Lyness and Thompson (1997) found that there are more similarities than differences, overall, between female and male executives. The differences are merely perceived rather than real. According to Lyness and Thompson (1997), research on leadership has demonstrated that people are more reluctant to have a female supervisor, and this results in a less supportive environment for women to achieve success in management or leadership. Goodman and colleagues (2003) note the following: We found that women are more likely to hold top management jobs in establishments with higher turnover and lower average management salaries. To some extent, unfortunately, women appear to be securing top jobs in less desirable establishments, possibly as men seek top jobs in more stable, higher paying organizations. (p. 493)

Gender-role theory posits that people come to develop behavioral expectations for themselves and others based on the behavior that they © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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deem to be appropriate for women and men. Similarly, within organizations, people develop expectations for behaviors that they deem to be appropriate for managers or leaders (Eagly, Makhijani, & Klonsky, 1992). The theory of gender-role spillover is also relevant to this discussion, for it posits that people (e.g., leaders) are perceived simultaneously in terms of their gender and in terms of their role in the organization—thus, gender-role expectations for women and men carry over into their workplace roles. The consequences of this are vast. Because people’s expectations for leaders and managers are more consistent with traditional expectations for men in general, male leaders and managers are often perceived to be more effective than women are in similar roles. This results in another dilemma for female leaders and managers: Women must decide whether to fulﬁll people’s expectations for them as women or as leaders and managers. This is a no-win situation. Eagly and colleagues (1992) state the following about women: By fulﬁlling people’s expectations concerning leadership, they violate conventions concerning appropriate female behavior. As a consequence, women in leadership roles may be devalued relative to their male counterparts—that is, perceived as behaving less competently and as having less ability and effectiveness as a leader. (p. 5)

A third option would be for women leaders to do what comes naturally to them; however, they will be judged harshly for this if they violate traditional norms of femininity. Another explanation for why women have limited access to leadership roles and management positions is that women’s credentials and performances are not evaluated in a fair manner; similar leadership qualities, such as assertiveness, are viewed less favorably when shown by a woman. Eagly and colleagues (1992) found that women leaders were devalued compared with male leaders when the leadership was carried out in a stereotypically masculine manner. This devaluation was exacerbated when women leaders occupied male-dominated realms and when male evaluators were used. Eagly and colleagues also found that women leaders were more harshly evaluated when the evaluators were men: Because placing women in leadership positions upsets the traditional societal gender hierarchy, male subjects might, in a sense, have more to lose by approving female leadership because their status vis- a-vis women would decline. Thus, male subjects may be more prone than female subjects to reject female leaders. (p. 7)

Women also reported that their style of management (personality factors) were obstacles to their advancement (Shinew & Arnold, 1998). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Women leaders often describe their leadership styles as being fundamentally different from men’s. This is not because women are essentially different from men, but because they are perceived to be different and societal expectations for them are different. Thus, women often attempt to get their subordinates to come to a consensus. In sum, the way that management should be conducted is still viewed in terms of individualistic traits (rather than relational traits). Vinnicombe and Harris (2000) argue that this perception persists because of the processes (e.g., hidden attitudes and stereotypes) of the informal organization. ‘‘The balance of the sexes in management can still be summed up by the phrase ‘think manager, think male,’ just as it was in the 1970s’’ (p. 28). Schwartz (1989) found that there are two types of female managers and calls them career-primary and career-and-family. Williamson and Hudson (2001) found that women who possess what is perceived as a feminine leadership style will have their style questioned; for example, some women have had their sense of calm misperceived as weakness. Women in positions of leadership who possess a traditionally feminine style are often perceived as weak, wimpy, and wishy-washy. Women’s leadership goals include making a difference and personal fulﬁllment rather than ambition and power. In a study of female managers, Stroh, Brett, and Reilly (1996) found that women tended to leave management not because of marriage and children, which is the predominant perception, but because of a perceived lack of opportunities (i.e., a glass ceiling) within the organization. In fact, these researchers found that family created more stability for managers rather than less. ‘‘Job-hopping,’’ says Shih (2006), is a strategy often used by women to circumvent bias. Stereotypes of female managers include jealousy, micromanaging, inability to delegate, and being overly emotional. These are also traits of people without power (token status). Sometimes female leaders want to stay away from politics, for they are taught to value relationships. They fear that the political system of networking is damaging to valued relationships. However, ﬁnding personal power and developing political savvy is instrumental in achieving success within organizations (Crampton & Mishra, 1999). Sex-role stereotypes still exist and thus create a double standard that negatively affects the evaluation of women in management (Dreher, 2003; Pardine, Fox, & Salzano, 1995). The percentage of women in positions of management has increased since the mid-1970s; however, the perception still endures that women are unqualiﬁed or unable to perform in such capacities. Those women who do make it into positions of management do little to contribute to the change in perception or changes in stereotypes of women; on the contrary, these women are instead thought to be the ‘‘exception’’ to the stereotype. They are seen © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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as unrepresentative of women in general, so their accomplishments do not impact societal beliefs about the qualiﬁcations of women in positions of management. In the last 30 years, the percentage of women in positions of power in low and middle management has increased signiﬁcantly. However, the percentage of women in positions of power in top management is relatively small (Dreher, 2003). For example, in 2000, women made up 12.5% of corporate ofﬁcers in Fortune 500 companies, but less than 5% of the top earners (Catalyst, 2000). Education and Female Administrators Education is a ﬁeld that is still dominated by women, yet women do not typically pursue administration positions (Weller, 1988). Hensel (1991) found that women still experience gender discrimination in higher education; they experience higher attrition rates and have slower career mobility than men do. The gender discrimination in this ﬁeld, however, is more subtle: Women who do research on women are less valued, women’s performance is more critically evaluated, and salary differentials favoring men still exist. According to the American Association of University Professors equity study (West & Curtis, 2006), women hold only 24% of full professor positions in the United States. Despite the gains that women have made in higher education in the past few decades, they are highly underrepresented in tenure-track positions. Women face more obstacles to career advancement in higher education than they do in the corporate world. The areas with the fewest number of women in higher education are the most prestigious and most highly paid. Women make far less money than men in higher education because they are more likely to hold positions at institutions that pay lower salaries, and they are less likely to gain senior rank. The perceptions of others has much to do with whether female administrators will experience success, and it has been found that to reach success as an administrator is more difﬁcult for women than it is for men (Shakeshaft, 1987). Women administrators are more readily accepted when they possess certain personality characteristics; they are also more constrained than their male counterparts by cultural norms of appropriate behavior (Duncan & Skarstad, 1995). Women may be perceived differently based upon the ways in which they implement and use their power (Duncan & Skarstad, 1995). To achieve workplace success, female administrators often have to project certain characteristics of what is deemed to be appropriate feminine behavior. These characteristics include ways of speaking, dressing, interacting, and leading. Also, women administrators who possess the power to do something are more accepted than those who exhibit © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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power over others. In a study of female administrators, Duncan and Skarstad (1995) found that the expectations for these women were tremendously high. These expectations came from both the women themselves and from others. Women have to do more than men to be seen as competent. According to Weller (1988), successful female administrators strive for the following: to know oneself, to have shared goals, to have a mentor, to network, to be prepared and above reproach, and to not focus on gender. However, it is not the responsibility of individual women alone to change the status quo. Organization can do their part to increase equity for women in the workplace; they can be proactive to reduce organizational barriers for women and other minorities. In sum, women have to work harder to be taken seriously or to be seen as deserving of their positions. Despite the fact that more and more women are entering the workforce and positions of power, leadership is still, to a great degree, perceived to be a male realm (Boatwright & Egidio, 2003). Women should have knowledge of male– female issues within the workplace so that they can navigate through gender-role stereotypes and the perceptions of others instead of blaming themselves when their leadership styles are not readily accepted. THE GLASS CEILING AND OTHER BARRIERS TO WOMEN’S WORKPLACE SUCCESS The glass ceiling is a metaphor created to signify the artiﬁcial barrier that prevents women from advancing in the workplace because they are women (Anderson, 2005). Women of color report experiencing additional barriers to advancement because of race; thus, the term concrete ceiling was coined to describe the interlocking oppressions of gender and race. One real barrier to women’s advancement that falls under the metaphor of the glass ceiling is the lack of informal networks open to women in the workplace (i.e., a female counterpart to the ‘‘old boys’ network’’) (Cotter et al., 2001; Weiler & Bernasek, 2001). Such a network would be unnecessary if women did not experience workplace discrimination and exclusion from the existing workplace networks. Informal networks have been very beneﬁcial for men who are advancing in corporate America. It allows them to enjoy mentorship, learn the hidden rules of the organization, and learn of opportunities for advancement. Women are often left ‘‘out of the loop’’ because they are excluded from these networks and have none of their own. Women’s networks do not exist for a variety of reasons that stem from the problem of patriarchy: There are not enough women at the top to build them; the women who are at the top feel loyalty to the men who put them there and are thus hesitant to help the women © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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beneath them; and, because there are so few opportunities for women, they consider other women as competitors and fail to help them. Anderson (2005) cites the view that ‘‘the occupational behavior and status of women and men is determined not so much by the characteristics they bring with them into the workplace, but by the structures they encounter there’’—that is, being relegated to low-status jobs (p. 63). Therefore, women have fewer opportunities, resources, and access to power and resources than men do. However, individual mentors can assist in career advancement for women and minorities. Women in general experience both internal and external barriers to their workplace success (Whiston & Bouwkamp, 2003). Internal barriers to gainful employment and advancement for women include role conﬂict, low self-efﬁcacy, negative perceptions of women by others, low expectations, limiting gender-role identities, etc. External barriers include sexual harassment, lack of mentors, socioeconomic status, discrimination in education and occupation, and gender-role stereotyping (Noonan, Gallor, & Hensler-McGinnis, 2004). Men’s careers often follow a linear path (Sterrett, 1999). Women’s careers often progress in a nonlinear fashion, involving gaps that are related primarily to issues with child care (Pulkkinen et al., 1999). Women are more likely than men to experience an employment gap (Reitman & Schneer, 2005). Sterrett (1999) indicates that women tend to put less emphasis on pay and more on career satisfaction. Furthermore, if women are not oriented toward competition, they can be put off by the corporate structure. For example, women are often unwilling to make the personal sacriﬁces, such as less time spent with family, that are demanded by organizations. Despite these ﬁndings, more research is necessary on how women experience their careers. Another internal barrier that some women face is guilt. Women who want to advance in the workplace often feel bad about leaving their homes and families. Successful women have indicated that they had to put their careers ﬁrst at certain times. Men do this quite frequently in order to advance, but women are often judged negatively for it whereas men are not. Mentors are important for women in dealing with this and other issues (Crampton & Mishra, 1999). Women also report that they are provided with fewer opportunities for advancement and that women with children are directed into slower employment tracks (Shinew & Arnold, 1998). Women often compare themselves to other women and not to men within the workplace, so some might not analyze their experiences as resulting from discrimination or differential treatment (Sterrett, 1999). Women in the workplace report experiencing more discrimination and gender-based obstacles to advancement (such as sexual harassment), as well as lower career aspirations, than men do; women are also more likely to report © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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harassment and discrimination (Miner-Rubino & Cortina, 2004; Shinew & Arnold, 1998). Miner-Rubino and Cortina (2004) found that when women experienced gender-based discriminatory and/or harassing behavior, the health of all employees decreased. The same was true when employees perceived the organization to be tolerant of this behavior. As MinerRubino and Cortina (2004) state, ‘‘This raises the possibility that the legal deﬁnition of hostile work environment should extend beyond targets to include employees whose harassment experiences are ‘merely’ vicarious or indirect—for example, employees who have witnessed the sexual harassment of female coworkers but who have escaped direct harassment themselves’’ (p. 119). Miner-Rubino and Cortina (2004) found that working in an environment that is hostile to women affects the well-being of employees even if they do not personally experience this hostility directly. In other words, misogyny in the workplace affects everyone: bystanders, groups of workers, and the organization as a whole. Bystander stress can be caused from being in an environment where sexual harassment occurs: even if this type of harassment involves hostile environment or gender-based harassment (Miner-Rubino & Cortina, 2004). According to Miner-Rubino and Cortina (2004), ‘‘. . . ambient sexual harassment, or indirect exposure to harassment, contributes to negative outcomes among employees, over and above inﬂuences of direct exposure to sexual harassment and general occupational stress’’ (p. 108).

Men can also suffer negative consequences from sexual harassment and misogyny in the workplace, for the tolerance of these behaviors sends them the message that the organization does not value individuals or treat people equally (Miner-Rubino & Cortina, 2004). Organizational cultures that tolerate sexual harassment actually show an increase in incidents of sexual harassment (Welsh, 1999). Timmerman and Bajema (2000) found that unwanted sexual conduct is less of a problem in organizational cultures that are perceived as providing equal opportunities for both women and men. Furthermore, experiences of gender discrimination result in lower job satisfaction, decreased career selfconﬁdence and satisfaction, and increased isolation (Settles, Cortina, Malley, & Stewart, 2006). Role Conﬂict and Role Overload Role conﬂict occurs when family and career expectations are compounded by the behavioral expectations placed on women (Crampton & Mishra, 1999). Domestic circumstances are still very different for women than they are for men (Wajcman & Martin, 2002). For example, women usually have to deal with additional responsibilities at home © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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(i.e., they have dual roles), so they are unable to take on additional work that would assist them with future promotions. Feminists have discussed the concept of the double workload for decades. This term was coined to describe the many women who have entered the workplace and who come home from one full-time job to another full-time job: housework and child rearing. This concept corresponds to the lack of child care and housework that is taken on by husbands and boyfriends. The division of labor in the home between women and men is still unequal. Women spend twice as much time as men do on household tasks and on child care, despite working outside the home the same amount of time (Williams, Manvell, & Bornstein, 2006). This tradition is reinforced by the media. Television commercials and print advertisements typically portray only women using cooking and cleaning products—unless, of course, the role carries a certain amount of prestige, such as a chef. Williams and colleagues state, ‘‘The leveling off of women’s employment and men’s household contributions are likely related. Because most men do not carry an equal share of household work, women’s ability to accept promotions or to remain in good jobs is constrained’’ (p. 21). Women with children often take jobs with fewer responsibilities and less compensation or decline promotions in order to be in positions that are more ﬂexible so that they have more time for the family. Unmarried women in the workforce experience better health than their married counterparts; married women experience better health if their husbands contribute to household labor. Heavy workplace demands and a low level of personal control contribute to health risks (Long, 1995). The beneﬁts of motherhood (e.g., caring and nurturing) have been emphasized over the costs of motherhood, or what women have to give up to be considered ‘‘good mothers.’’ Role conﬂict and role overload are often used to dissuade women from entering the workforce or returning to it after giving birth to or while rearing children. The complications of paid employment, marriage, child rearing, and homemaking can cause social-role dissonance, psychological distress, physical stress, and strains on one’s health and well-being (Baruch, Biener, & Barnett, 1987; Cinamon, 2006). However, with more support from the employment realm (e.g., on-site child care) and the family (e.g., support from the husband in terms of shared responsibilities), women can be more successful in the workplace and less torn by their many roles. According to a study on work, marriage, and life satisfaction (Perrone, Webb, & Blalock, 2005), there are differences in how women and men spend their time, but no differences in what they value or how women and men wish they could spend their time. This study suggests © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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that if women and men structured their lives in terms of what they valued, there would be no gender differences in role participation in the major areas of life: work, family, and leisure. College women pursuing nontraditional careers reported desiring fewer children, held more feminist attitudes, and planned to share household responsibilities (Cinamon, 2006). Having a spouse that is supportive is related to less role conﬂict and heightened well-being (Kasen et al., 2006). Long (1995) found that, in terms of stress, employed women are better off than women who do not work outside the home. Lack of career progression for women can be a source of stress. Long suggests that women are subject to the same workplace stressors as men are; however, women are also subject to additional stressors, such as sexual harassment, gender discrimination, genderrole stereotyping, and role conﬂict. Evaluation Procedures Effective performance is often attributed to ability when the employee being observed is a member of the in-group rather than the outgroup; in the latter case, success is often attributed to luck. This does not just apply to gender; it also applies to race, class, and sexual orientation. White males are more likely to have their successes attributed to their own ability than are White women, Black women, and Black men (Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1993). Black women face increased discrimination because of the double bind they experience when facing both racial and gender discrimination. People who possess token status are more likely to be noticed in an organization and thus have their work more closely supervised (Miner-Rubino & Cortina, 2004). Employees who were thought to perform well because of ability were also judged more worthy of promotions than were those whose successes were attributed to luck or effort (Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1993). Women experience discriminatory evaluation procedures, have their competence denied, and have their performance devalued as a result of their gender (Heilman et al., 2004). These unfair processes perpetuate negative expectations of women, which result from the inconsistency in how women are viewed and the characteristics that are necessary to perform a particular job. Even when women are successful in traditionally male occupations, they are still often judged unfairly. Settles and colleagues (2006) examined the causes of levels of attrition in women in science-related ﬁelds. These high levels of attrition seem to suggest an atmosphere that is problematic for women in general. Women of color were found to have less inﬂuence in their departments than White women had. Women in the ﬁeld of science experience fewer opportunities for leadership and inﬂuence, slower © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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advancement, and heightened isolation. Settles and colleagues argue that, to be successful in science-related ﬁelds, women must realize three outcomes: job satisfaction, productivity, and a ‘‘felt inﬂuence.’’ Sexual harassment and sexist environments in general affect these areas. These factors and the tolerance of them within an organization hinder the success of women and are tied to lower productivity and career outcomes for women. Backlash The term opt-out revolution was coined in 2003 by journalist Lisa Belkin to convey the phenomenon of women who choose to leave the paid workforce to raise children full-time. This phenomenon created a media frenzy and was picked up by a variety of papers, including The New York Times. It is more accurate to say, however, that women are leaving the workforce because of the following: inﬂexible workplaces, discrimination and stereotypes, lack of support for working families, or workforce-workplace mismatch (Williams, Manvell, & Bornstein, 2006). These opt-out stories started a ﬁrestorm of antifeminist rhetoric in the media, where several false assumptions were made on the basis of quasiscientiﬁc data—for instance, that the pay gap was a result of women’s decisions and not as a result of discrimination. To make matters worse, many readers accepted these stories without question because they conﬁrmed the traditional stereotypes of women, many of which the readers already held. Williams and colleagues (2006) stated the following: Why is fuzzy data so uncontroversial in this arena? People tend to accept stereotype-afﬁrming information readily; data that disconﬁrm stereotypes are more likely to trigger demands for formal documentation. . . . This is just one of many ways the Opt Out story repeats and reinforces stereotypes about women. (p. 19)

Workforce-workplace mismatch occurs when an organization’s expectations of the workforce do not accommodate the needs of workers, such as workplaces being inﬂexible for working mothers who need a more ﬂexible schedule. This notion creates a more accurate picture of what was and is occurring with American women. Another problem with the opt-out news stories was that they focused on upper-class and upper middle-class White women who were in high-status, traditionally male-dominated careers. Williams and colleagues (2006) state, ‘‘Women married to the wealthiest men have lower levels of employment than any other group, but over half of even this group is employed’’ (p. 25). The opt-out stories do not reﬂect the experiences of the majority of working women in America. Rather, they convey an unrealistic picture of women’s chances of picking up their careers where they left off if © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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and when they choose to return to work after raising children. This further contributes to the backlash against women; it provides a false sense of encouragement to women by implying that they will not suffer any negative consequences from opting out—such as being unable to regain their positions. The opt-out articles also focus on a return to traditionalism or traditional values. However, this is truly not what is occurring. There has been a change in what women expect from men, and women’s roles have changed as well. Women are not extricating themselves from working altogether. Rather, they are removing themselves from the ‘‘all-or-nothing’’ workplace. This is quite different from what the opt-out articles are suggesting. Williams and colleagues (2006) state the following: American families are pressured into an all-or-nothing pattern in which fathers work very long hours, while mothers work very short ones and function virtually as single mothers—hardly an ideal pattern that should be celebrated as a return to traditional values. (p. 31)

The opt-out articles also imply that child care is inherently women’s work. Williams and colleagues (2006) state, ‘‘More often reporters take masculine privilege for granted and treat it as uncontroversial’’ (p. 34). One article in The New York Times (cited in Williams et al.) presented a more realistic view of this opt-out issue by noting that the majority of stay-at-home mothers stated that even though their husbands had expressed a willingness to help with the children and the house, ‘‘the men rarely lifted a ﬁnger unless they were speciﬁcally asked and given detailed instructions about the task at hand’’ (p. 34). The United States is only one of four countries worldwide that does not provide for paid parental leave. The other countries are Lesotho, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland (Williams et al., 2006). Opt-out stories ignore the discrimination against women that is still present in today’s workforce and that causes many women to leave their jobs and perhaps the working world in general (if they can afford to, that is). Finally, the opt-out stories penalize younger women because they provide them with an inaccurate picture of how things really are; young women might not be aware of the wage loss they will incur from taking a few years off. These stories minimize the economic penalties of leaving the workforce and make it seem easy to come back without penalty. ANECDOTAL FINDINGS I sent out an e-mail questionnaire to gather anecdotal data from female educators and university professors, women in law, and women in the corporate world for current perspectives on women’s workplace experiences, focusing speciﬁcally on personality characteristics. (The questionnaire can be found at the end of this chapter.) © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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I received a response from a district court judge who went to law school later in life, after she had had a child. She summarized some of her workplace experiences as follows: I’ve been approached for gender, ﬂirted with and sexually harassed. I’ve also been ignored and discounted, and my ideas and work [have] been passed off as someone else’s. I’ve been called ‘‘honey,’’ ‘‘dear,’’ ‘‘sweetie,’’ and ‘‘girl.’’ After I became an attorney, my male boss used to come in my ofﬁce at 6 P.M. and say, ‘‘Take a letter to _________; I need to get this done today and my secretary is gone.’’ And I would actually type his letter for him!

She described some of the challenges she faced in the workplace as follows: One, men mistake my being feminine or ‘‘nice’’ for being weak; two, I’ve had to turn down male coworkers and/or clients who asked me out on dates in a way that didn’t make them mad; three, some men don’t think I’m as smart as they are because I tend to be quieter and less assertive; four, men assume that because you’re a woman of childbearing years (and you might have children or be planning to have children), you’re not as dedicated to the job as they are; ﬁve, I believe (but I have no proof) that I was paid less than my male counterparts; six, juggling child care and work was very difﬁcult when I was a single mom and my son was young; seven, some men (many times, older men) feel more comfortable dealing with men than with women at work because, I think, they’re used to thinking of women in a sexual or maternal context and not as equals in the workplace; eight, many men don’t value what they consider ‘‘female’’ traits, such as good communication skills or the desire and ability to form consensus instead of ﬁghting, as much as they value ‘‘male’’ traits such as aggression and competition.

About female leadership, the judge had this to say: I do think women leaders face more scrutiny and are judged more harshly than their male counterparts. Women who are leaders, bosses, managers, etc., are expected to be beautiful as well as extremely good at their job, or they will be criticized, discounted, or laughed at. I’m not sure whether people want women [who are] leaders to be feminine or masculine. As I said before, if you’re too feminine, they think you’re weak; but if you’re too masculine, you’re a dyke or a bitch. It can be a no-win situation for the female. I think women need to combat their natural tendency to be quiet—they need to speak up as much as the men when they have something of value to say.

Finally, the judge ended her commentary with some suggestions: I think women are routinely given less responsibility than men. Sometimes, women who do not fulﬁll others’ expectations can be ostracized, or excluded, from real power. I think, above all else, that female leaders need to appear strong, or men will think they are weak. No hesitation is

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allowed for females! And they should never, never cry in front of anyone! They should have a superior command of the English language— good public speaking is essential.

Another response I received was from an elementary school teacher in an afﬂuent district. Working a female-dominated ﬁeld, she had many interesting observations to share, such as the following: I believe that if men dominated the ﬁeld of education, had as much responsibility, and were required to have as much education, the overall wages earned by educators would be higher. My school had a female principal for 5 years; teachers, in general, thought it was appropriate to comment negatively about how she dressed. They criticized her because they thought she spent too much money on her clothing. She always looked professional, in my opinion. This principal was generally able to accomplish what she wanted to accomplish, but sometimes had to ﬁght hard in order to do so. When she left rather abruptly, a male principal was hired to be the interim [principal]. I was unable to attend the staff meeting that was held on his ﬁrst day, but I arrived as it was letting out. The teachers were actually swooning as they walked down the hall after the meeting, each carrying a rose and a doughnut, indicating that they felt like someone was there who was really ready to listen to them. I never heard one word about his choice of clothing, and in my opinion, he was rather ineffective as a leader, but the staff was never happier. He never bothered to learn anyone’s name, just called everyone ‘‘dear,’’ ‘‘sweetie,’’ or ‘‘darling.’’ The staff at this school is almost entirely female. The custodian is male and would not do what the female principal asked of him. [Yet] he was at the male principal’s beck and call.

I also received a response from a high school teacher. She indicated that the majority of teachers in her building are female, but the majority of administrators are male. Prior to having children, she aspired to be an administrator, but now she thinks that it is too much of a time commitment: I see the administrators here from 7 A.M. until 10 P.M., working during the school day and supervising extracurricular activities in the evening. I do not want that type of work schedule. I want to do my job and be home with my family by 4 P.M. I think that many of my female colleagues feel similarly, which is one reason there are so few female administrators at the high school level. I know one woman who is interested in becoming an administrator. She is at a point in her life where her children are grown, and she is ready for another challenge. Maybe I’ll feel the same way in 18 years, but for now, I’m happy doing what I’m doing.

The following is from an assistant superintendent of a large school district, a woman who was formerly the ﬁrst female principal in the district: © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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I have noticed that women often have strength in the workplace that men in management sometimes lack. Women seem to be able to work through the personality conﬂicts that so often occur in the workplace. Women can forgive. Women can apologize. Women can get two people to recognize that they need to ‘‘get over’’ their past differences.

The assistant superintendent also recognizes the need for informal networks for women: ‘‘Finally, the only obstacle that still occurs is the informal, after-hours networking. Golf, ﬁshing, card games, etc., still tend to be male-oriented, and so you are often excluded.’’ Another response I received was from an aspiring leader. She had many interesting things to say about people’s perceptions of women in the workplace: I think that we still walk a ﬁne line between being assertive and being a ‘‘bitch.’’ It doesn’t seem that there is room for the more emotional, feeling side of women in the workplace. Many times it still feels like I need to be more like a man in order to succeed. I think women face greater scrutiny and are judged more harshly, particularly by men from the ‘‘old-school’’ way of thinking. As I stated above, women walk a ﬁne line between being assertive and being a ‘‘bitch,’’ and men who don’t like what they are hearing from their female leaders are likely to try to denigrate the woman by calling her names. It is a cop-out on their part, but it happens. I think that some women self-sabotage or fail to take the risks necessary to advance. Female bosses are highly visible, so their selfsabotage or lack of risk taking are more visible to others and can tend to lead others to conclude that all female bosses will act in a particular way. An assertive woman in particular needs to be certain to temper it somewhat so as to not appear aggressive, even though it is okay for men to be aggressive. Society still isn’t ready for that in women.

With regard to how women treat other women, this woman stated the following: I think our treatment of each other—snide comments to the face, mean snarky comments behind the back, spreading gossip, etc.—create the largest of obstacles. We no longer know who[m] we can trust within our workplace, and [we] must be constantly on guard against this type of slanderous attack. These attacks result in hard feelings, and then if one woman is put into a position of power, the others can and [will] attack her from below, resulting in her downfall (potentially). I think that women’s success will be increased the day that we stop ﬁghting one another with our snarky comments and petty jealousies. Women need to stand together and disagree because of facts, evidence, and data and not for the personal reasons that so often seem to enter female conﬂict. Men do this already, in large part. I’m not saying that we need to treat conﬂict like men or lead like men, but I do think that the ability to put aside the personal and focus on objective facts would serve women well.

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In sum, these ﬁndings indicate that women’s role conﬂicts often prevent them from entering leadership or management positions, that mentoring and networking are very important for women’s advancement, that women are still excluded from men’s information networks, and that there are still different expectations for women and men in terms of personality characteristics, which affects women’s advancement and the evaluation of women’s performance in positions of leadership. SELF-REALIZATION AND FEMINIST IDENTIFICATION ‘‘Many women tend to choose peace over conﬂict,’’ notes Chesler (2001). ‘‘This often means accepting the status quo and punishing anyone who dares challenge it’’ (p. 32). Men often view career success by position and pay. Women often have different standards by which to judge success, such as achievement, recognition, and inﬂuence (Vinnicombe & Harris, 2000). However, women value self-realization and personal freedom within the workplace just as much as men do (Whiston & Bouwkamp, 2003). Women can beneﬁt tremendously by having other women mentor them (Lockwood, 2006). Women, like men, also beneﬁt from group networking. When women enter nontraditional ﬁelds, such networks might not be open to them. The solution to this is to create a new networking system or to ﬁght the status quo and attempt to gain admittance to these seemingly closed systems. Having a mentor and/or a network for assistance can increase women’s workplace advancement and success and thus contribute to women’s self-realization. As Chesler’s (2001) words above indicate, women, especially middle-class women, are still, to a large degree, socialized to avoid conﬂict. This prevents many women from attempting to challenge the powers that be for fear of being labeled ‘‘difﬁcult,’’ ‘‘bitchy,’’ or ‘‘feminist.’’ If women are to recognize the need to create their own networking systems within organizations, consciousness-raising must occur ﬁrst. A woman must ﬁrst determine that a problem exists within her organization, then she must convince other women that this problem exists and to join her in her crusade: to start a new networking or mentoring system to beneﬁt women and transmit knowledge of the inner workings of the organization, or else to battle the status quo. Developing a feminist consciousness can assist women in these endeavors. Some people feel that to develop a feminist consciousness means to denigrate men. This is in no way the case. Dismantling the inequities and abuses of patriarchy is decidedly different from disparaging individual men. Bell Hooks (cited in Chesler, 2001) states the following: We must challenge the simplistic notion that man is the enemy, woman the victim. We all have the capacity to act in ways that oppress,

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dominate, wound (whether or not that power is institutionalized). It is necessary to remember that it is ﬁrst the potential oppressor within that we must resist—the potential victim within that we must rescue—otherwise we cannot hope for an end to domination, for liberation. (p. 474)

Women too can behave in sexist ways. Women harm other women all the time and can block their advancement. Women, like men, are inﬂuenced by and have internalized patriarchal norms. Chesler (2001) states that ‘‘women are so used to having their boundaries routinely violated at home by men and by other women that they often repeat such invasive behavior in business and professional relationships’’ (p. 364). Women within a patriarchy have been kept apart by the divide-and-conquer mentality. Women have been socialized to compete with one another for the attentions of men or for the token position instead of coming together to work for a common cause. Feminism has brought many women together, but even feminists can hold sexist attitudes. Several recent studies on feminist identiﬁcation suggest that women are hesitant to self-identify as feminists primarily because of the term’s perceived negative connotation. Some researchers indicate that young women tend to express feminist ideas without labeling themselves as feminists (Henderson-King & Stewart, 1994; Morgan, 1995; Percy & Kremer, 1995; Renzetti, 1987; Rupp, 1988; Stacey, 1987; Weis, 1990). Burn, Aboud, and Moyles (2000) found that even when women and men agree with the goals of feminism, they avoid self-identiﬁcation with the term for fear of being associated with a stigmatized label. The cultural messages that women receive from patriarchy are the devaluation of all things female. Instead of identifying with what is perceived as negative (i.e., female), women often choose to male-identify, to strive to be ‘‘one of the boys,’’ or an honorary man. This gives women a false sense of power, because they can never truly be what they seek to imitate or ‘‘put on.’’ This male identiﬁcation, or ‘‘performance,’’ is further revealed in their need to qualify the term feminist if they do in fact choose to use it as a self-identiﬁer. Aronson (2003) found that feminist identiﬁcation can be classiﬁed on a continuum: ‘‘I’m a feminist,’’ ‘‘I’m a feminist, but . . .’’, I’m not a feminist, but . . . ’’, ‘‘I’m a fence-sitter,’’ and ‘‘I’ve never thought about feminism.’’ This qualiﬁcation often stems from this need to male-identify: ‘‘I’m a feminist, but I don’t hate men,’’ ‘‘I agree with many feminist causes, but I’m not a prude,’’ or ‘‘I would be a feminist, but I’m not that uptight.’’ According to Aronson, most women are fence-sitters. Some researchers believe that this ambivalence toward feminism can be cultivated into active support for the feminist movement (Martin, 2006). If raising a feminist consciousness can, at the very least, promote individuals to see societal or systemic inequities as stemming from © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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discrimination as opposed to individual inadequacy, then the individual hesitation of women (and men) to embrace a feminist identity does not seem valid. Feminist identiﬁcation can also serve to heighten women’s self-esteem by cautioning women to be willing to attribute workplace ‘‘failure’’ not to a lack in themselves but to organizational (read: patriarchal) norms. To challenge workplace inequities, women must begin to view gender as a variable (i.e., as a potential cause for their lack of advancement). Feminist consciousness-raising can assist women in developing an awareness of discrimination and harassment and how to deal with it, in promoting the notion of mentoring and obtaining a mentor, and in creating women’s networks to assist women in organizational navigation. ‘‘Feminism is for everybody,’’ Hooks (2000) informs us. ‘‘Feminist change has already touched all our lives in a positive way. And yet we lose sight of the positive when all we hear about feminism is negative.’’ In sum, feminism is still important and relevant to our lives as women, and the issues of gender and sex are still relevant to research on women in the workplace. POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS Ferguson (1984) argues the following: Real androgyny, deﬁned not as simply adding together the misshapen halves of male and female, but rather as a complex process of calling out that which is valuable in each gender and carefully disentangling it from that which is riddled with the effects of power, is a political struggle. (p. 170)

Conscientization, a term coined by Freire (1971), is the process of developing a critical consciousness, or ‘‘learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality’’ (p. 19). This process involves analysis of self, of others, and of the relation of self to others to better understand one’s control of situations and one’s power to change the surroundings from oppressive to liberating. This phenomenon can assist in providing solutions to workplace inequities for women. Women can use this technique to raise awareness of the problems inherent in today’s organizations and in battling the status quo to create a more equitable workplace. To do this, however, one must possess courage. Hite and McDonald (2003) provide some insight into the hindrances to women’s career advancement, which include discrimination, failure to understand organizational culture (or the politics of the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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organization), lack of management experience, supervisors who do not support women, fewer opportunities for women to prove themselves, and fewer opportunities to gain visibility within the organization. Additional factors that inﬂuence women’s career progress include having mentors, being persistent and assertive, displaying competence (and having the opportunities to do so), performing well, and accepting risky assignments (i.e., assignments that stretch one’s abilities). Female counselors who work with women in the workplace should focus on self-efﬁcacy and autonomy to decrease career indecision (Guay et al., 2003). Counseling programs should focus on increasing the self-efﬁcacy of young people in combining work and family roles (and conﬂicts), especially with women who have experienced traditional parenting (i.e., women as primary caregivers who carry the majority of child-care and household responsibilities) (Cinamon, 2006). Counselors and practitioners must also focus on the role conﬂict that women experience and on the differences between societal expectations for women and women’s personal and career aspirations (TomlinsonKeasey, 1974). There are many things that women can do on an individual level to assist themselves and the women around them to heighten workplace success and advancement, such as the following: . Work to value yourself as a woman. . Have conﬁdence in your own abilities. . Have high expectations for yourself. . Do not fear politics. . Do not necessarily avoid conﬂict. . Do not be intimidated. . Develop relationships. . Be proactive in managing your own career. . Set career goals. . Accept challenging assignments. . Take career risks when possible. . Attribute your successes to your abilities, not to mere luck. . Encourage other women to take career risks. . Form alliances with other minority groups. . Develop consciousness-raising groups. . Network and strive to create networks for women. . Get a mentor. . Mentor another woman. . Do not fear feminism. Raise awareness about the beneﬁts of feminism for both women and men.

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. Find profeminist men to be allies. . Find a supportive partner who is a true partner in the home. . Work on developing an internal locus of control. . Work for the establishment of progressive gender-role identities. . Intervene when gender harassment and sexual harassment is witnessed. Report instances on the organizational level and support victims. Behavior such as this negatively affects the organization and everyone involved within it. Intervene for the health and well-being of all individuals and for the overall health of the organization. . Vote for legislators who value women and who will ﬁght for laws that promote equity for all people.

Despite the above prescriptions for individual women, the challenge of achieving workplace equity with men in both compensation and position must not simply fall on individual women. Organizations must also take part in egalitarian practices if women are to advance to a level equal to that of men. To do this, organizations must adapt to meet the needs of today’s women (e.g., child care). There are many organizational and societal changes that would contribute to workplace success and advancement for women. These include the following: . Paid leave, such as maternity, parental, and family . Child-care options, including ﬂexible work hours, staggered shifts, and child-care facilities within or sponsored by the organization or included in beneﬁts packages . Regulated working time, so that employees without children are not inadvertently rewarded . Health care for employees and their families . A tax system that does not penalize two-income families

Additional organizational and family changes that could be made to promote workplace equity include: . Equity in pay and beneﬁts for women . Bias-free job evaluations . Educational opportunities for women . Education for men on shared responsibilities in the home and in the care of children . Parental leave . Day care . Alternative work schedules for working families . Flexibility for women in order to manage work–family conﬂict

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. Education for women in leadership/management . Mentoring and networking . Educational opportunities for women on how to deal with politics in the workplace (especially when organizational culture is male-centrist).

FUTURE RESEARCH More research is necessary on how a woman’s appearance affects workplace success and advancement. This is an area that seems to affect all women in some way, but little research exists in this area. More research is also necessary on the question of what personality characteristics have to do with gender and with workplace success and advancement for women. The intersections of class, race, and gender should be examined for how they continue to affect women’s workplace experiences. An examination of race and gender and how these impact performance attributions and performance assessment would be useful in gauging how workplace discrimination affects employees. Socialization and gender-role stereotypes, sexual harassment, and sexist environments affect women, men, and the organization in general; these are areas that require further study. How organizations train employees to avoid these problems and how they deal with offenders also requires further study. More research in general is necessary on how women experience their careers and deal with workplace stress. Additional research is required in the area of feminist identiﬁcation. For instance, does overt feminist identiﬁcation inhibit advancement for women in general? Do women believe this to be so? How can individual and collective feminist identiﬁcation assist women in forming the networking relationships that are so crucial to success in an organization? Does the extent to which women challenge the status quo affect workplace success and advancement? Finally, is the failure to develop a feminist consciousness relevant to women’s success? Is keeping a feminist consciousness secret important to women’s continued workplace success and advancement? Attempting to ﬁnd the answers to these and other related questions would contribute tremendously to the study of feminism in the workplace and to the continued importance of feminist ideals for women today. CONCLUSIONS Ferguson (1984) wrote the following: Real social change comes about when people think and live differently. Feminist discourse and feminist practice offer the linguistic and

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structural space on which it is possible to think, live, work, and love differently, in opposition to the discursive and institutional practices of bureaucratic capitalism. At least it is a start. (p. 212)

Women in general face more obstacles to career success and advancement, in terms of pay and position, than men do. However, this does not mean that women are simply victims of the anonymous patriarchal bureaucracy. Women have more agency than this; women have made tremendous advancements in the past 50 years. Nevertheless, there are still institutional and systemic barriers to women’s advancement. Much has to be done within organizations to combat these obstacles, but women can participate in the creation of better realities for themselves. Women must often ﬁght the way they were raised—which can feel like ﬁghting themselves—to achieve workplace equity. For example, women have to learn to combat their silence and lack of voice. Women also have to ﬁght the tradition of hiding their intelligence for fear of seeming intimidating or threatening to both men and other women. Women are raised and socialized not to ‘‘show off.’’ Conﬁdent women are often accused of this. Finally, women are instilled with the desire to be liked—sometimes no matter what the cost. Women must not trade off their successes in order to be liked by the group. In short, if their workplace and home situations do not reﬂect what they want for themselves, women must work to create new patterns of how to work and how to live that best suit them. This might be a radical notion to some, but the truth is that women do not have to do what is expected of them. They can actually take risks, challenge the status quo, and create new visions of how to live in the world. Those who possess power and privilege will not readily give them up. Women will have to continue to ﬁght for every gain, but they will fare better if they have a say in creating the world in which they live.

QUESTIONNAIRE 1.

What experiences or challenges have you (or women you know) had in the workplace speciﬁc to your gender?

2.

What are some obstacles women still face in the workplace?

3.

In your experience, are the leadership styles of women with whom you are acquainted inherently different from those of men?

4.

Do female leaders face greater scrutiny than male leaders do, in your experience? Why or why not? Are female bosses, supervisors, and leaders judged more harshly than their male counterparts? Why? What can be done to combat these harsh judgments?

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How are expectations for women in the workplace different from those of men in terms of personality characteristics? In terms of workload? In terms of responsibility?

6.

What are the consequences for women who do not fulﬁll others’ behavioral expectations?

7.

What personality characteristics do successful female leaders need to possess? Are these characteristics different from those of their male counterparts?

8.

Describe how women’s personality characteristics can interfere with workplace politics. What challenges in terms of personality factors do women face?

9.

Is there a counterpart to the ‘‘old boys’ network’’ that can assist women in the workplace to navigate through organizations?

10.

Are women in the workplace perceived to have less power in general than their male counterparts? Why? Is this true for bosses and supervisors? What does personal power have to do with success for women in the workplace? How is this achieved for women?

11.

How can role conﬂict interfere with career success for women? How can personal perceptions of role conﬂict interfere?

12.

Can feminist identiﬁcation assist with any of these workplace issues for women? If so, how? Is feminist identiﬁcation important for workplace success for women?

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Chapter 12

Women Supporting Women in the Workplace: In My Own Voice Carrie Turco

Presently employed as a ﬁnance analyst, I create reports for higher management on invoice and discount information. I am the functional owner of a third-party auditing project and of banking management applications. I have been in my present position since January 2007. Previously, I worked for 6 years as a manager with various corporate restaurants. My most recent restaurant position was as a training manager. In this position, I trained newly hired managers in all areas of the restaurant, ensuring that they were trained to uphold corporate business standards. I also worked as a kitchen manager, controlling 70% of the restaurant’s resources. I helped raise more than $5,000 for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital by encouraging my employees to volunteer their time and efforts to help those in need. In each of my jobs, I incorporated voluntary community service projects with the employees. I truly believe that the success of any company lies in its ability to give back to the community that supports the company and its employees. Without a strong local community, most companies would not last. I also have experience working for the Walt Disney Company as a photographer and retail intern, and then as a campus recruiter for its internship program. My experience working for Walt Disney World was the most inﬂuential in my career thus far. Upon the completion of the internship program, I was more focused on and driven in my career and education. As an undergraduate at Plattsburgh State University of New York, I majored in management and minored in accounting, economics, and business analysis. While attending school © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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full-time, I also worked full-time as a manager, played collegiate women’s tennis, and was president of my dorm. I also volunteered with the local chapter of Project Help and was actively involved in the Omnicom Delta Kappa National Leadership Honor Society. I am currently in the last year of my MBA and human resources certiﬁcate programs from Union Graduate College. To complement my education, I have also attended several conferences throughout my career, with a focus on educating managers on all aspects of human resources. Throughout my professional experiences, I encountered several people who truly impacted the outcome of my education and my career. Each of these people was instrumental in helping me learn about who I am, not only as a person and a colleague but, most important, as a businesswoman. While interning at Walt Disney World, I took two courses at the Disney Institute: Organizational Leadership and Human Resource Management. My professors helped me develop a better understanding of my potential as a business student and as a human resource professional. More recently, a previous boss taught me to stand up for myself and for what I believe in, even if I was standing alone. Working in the restaurant industry as not only a young manager but also a woman proved to be the biggest challenge to my character and my ethical standards. As a moral and ethical person and manager, I was constantly challenged because of my beliefs as well as my age and gender. I am grateful that I was raised with a high level of ethical and moral standards and to believe in myself and stand up for what I believe is right. During my 6-year career in restaurant management I was challenged to confront higher management, employees, and regional directors to ensure the moral standards of the environment in which I worked. I tackled sexual harassment lawsuits at the age of 20, even before I completed my business degree. I have been in predicaments that resulted in my immediate boss being ﬁred for illegal conduct, theft, and harassment. Finding my place among male management teams was challenging, but equally as challenging was ﬁnding my place as a manager among employees who were mostly my age. Proving yourself as a leader when you are the same age as, or even younger than, your employees can be difﬁcult. Doing it as a female can make it even more strenuous. In the end, not only did I grow and evolve as a great manager, I also became one of the most respected managers in the region. Each restaurant that I left tried for several months to convince me to come back; effective female managers are few and far between in the restaurant industry. In the end, quality of life is what is most important. Female managers bring an entirely different perspective to the table. Not only do women think differently from men, they tend to be more detail-oriented. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Presently, I have encountered a professor who truly knows the value of being a great educator. Far too often, colleges and universities focus on everything except the students. Today’s students, particularly business students, are tomorrow’s leaders. Professors are instrumental in the development of business students, thus impacting the development of the business world of the future. My current professor has allowed me the opportunity to work on special projects, like this one, to share my experiences and knowledge to other women and students. She has helped me stand up to the administration of our university and challenge it to treat all students fairly and equally. It is rare to ﬁnd faculty members who are willing to help the students when there is no direct beneﬁt to themselves. I am grateful to have encountered each of the mentors I have had through my career. I look forward to their guidance and assistance as I continue to grow professionally. Women have to ﬁght hard to establish themselves in any career, but without women, most industries and businesses would fail. Some men might still openly ridicule women as leaders and employees, but deep down they know that their job security relies on the hard work and dedication of a woman. It is for these reasons that I was honored to be included in Who’s Who of Executive Women. Working with women can also be challenging and difﬁcult. Women, in general, are more competitive and sensitive by nature. My ﬁrst experience working with women was not what I thought it would be, however. Having worked with all-male management teams in the restaurant industry, I was excited to work with women, particularly women my age. I thought I would ﬁnd a camaraderie that I had never experienced before. I thought that for the ﬁrst time in my life I would actually be able to make friends at work and to have allies in making the working environment an ethical and successful place. What I found, however, was the complete opposite. Women can be spiteful and will go out of their way to get ahead, even at the expense of their female colleagues. With my advanced education and 6 years of management experience, I thought I could share my knowledge, both professional and personal, with the people I worked with on a team. Synergy is the success of any team. Having female coworkers pit themselves against one another rather than joining forces was discouraging to me. Women have had to work so hard to establish themselves in all areas of business. It is sickening that we fought so hard and for so long (although we still have such a long way to go) just to compete with each other, in my opinion. In 5 years I hope to be working in managerial human resources. I enjoy my current ﬁnance position and would like to ﬁnd a way to incorporate this experience into a human resource career. Human resources has so many functions, and the technical/analytical side of it is of great interest to me. I believe that human resources is a growing © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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and developing ﬁeld that will evolve as the business world of today and tomorrow grows. My extensive background in all areas of business strengthens my understanding of how a corporation as a whole succeeds. It is for this reason that I believe I can beneﬁt any human resources department or team. To all the women out there—young and old, educated and not, professionals and students—I want to say the following: To truly rise into the next era of business, we must stick together for what is right, not only for the people we work with and the company we work for, but for each other.

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Index

Page numbers followed by f indicate ﬁgures; t indicates tables. Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) Program, 145–46 Afﬁliative speech, gender differences, 16 Afﬁrmative action policy, Hunter College, 10 Agentic qualities: society’s expectations in men, 42; in transactional leadership, 89; in transformational leadership, 91–92 Ambition, women bosses, 47–49 American civil rights law, Howard, Linda Gordon, 8–9 Americans with Disabilities Act, 33 Appearance: future research, 192; women in the workplace, 169 Applied skills, 139 Assertive speech, gender differences, 16–17 Association of Women’s Business Centers, 82 Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), 3 Barickman, Richard, sexual harassment policy and prevention, Hunter College, 11

Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART), San Francisco, 3 Bentsen, Lloyd, Senator, Howard, Linda Gordon and, 4–6 Bitch on wheels, women bosses, 39–40, 54 Body language, gender differences, 18 Broker role, in CVF, 102–7 Brown v. Board of Education, 137 Burlington Industries v. Ellerth, 126 Career academies, 143–44 Career-and-family managers, 175 Career choices, work-life balance, 31–38 Career preparation programs: discussion and recommendations, 146–50; high schools, 137–52; trajectory implications of college programs, 140–42 Career-primary managers, 175 Career woman, term as derogatory stereotype, 54 Carter, Jimmy: Howard, Linda Gordon, 8; women in national service program, 7 Center for Women’s Business Research, 82

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Index

Change agent stage, in corporate culture, 170 Coercing, as a classic power base, 45 College: career preparation and, 139–40; career-trajectory implications of, 140–42 Committed intensive managers, 103–4 Communal qualities: society’s expectations in women, 42; in transactional leadership, 89; in transformational leadership, 91–92 Communication: gender differences in, 15–30; gendered patterns of, 18–19; gendered styles in the workplace, 20–26; perceptions of gendered patterns, 20–21; strategies for a woman in a man’s world, 26–27 Competence seeker stage, in corporate culture, 170 Competing values framework (CVF), 102–6, 102f; controlling work and tracking details, 105f; feminist theory and, 109–10; hypereffective woman, 113–14; managing change and persuasion, 107f; mentoring and facilitating interactions, 106f; motivating employees and setting goals, 104f; research objectives and results, 110–13, 111t; traits associated with, 111t; transformational and transactional roles, 110t Compliant novice stage, in corporate culture, 170 Conceptual producers, 104–5 Concrete ceiling, 177–83 Conﬂict resolution, gender differences in communication, 23 Conscientization, 189 Contextual factors, in gendered patterns of communication, 19 Contrapower sexual harassment, 56–57, 120 Coordinator role, in CVF, 102–7 Coping mechanisms, sexual harassment, 124–25 Copyright Act of 1976, Howard, Linda Gordon, 5

Decision-making, gender differences in communication, 23 Developing Mass Transit Systems (UMTA), Howard, Linda Gordon, 3 Director role, in CVF, 102–07 Discrimination, minority women as entrepreneurs, 78 Double workloads, dual roles for women, 180 Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center, 138 Education: anecdotal ﬁndings, 185; exemplary programs, 142–46; female administrators and, 176; gender differences in qualiﬁcation for entrepreneurship, 74; minority women as entrepreneurs, 78; salary categories and, 138–39 Ellison v. Brady, 121 Employment discrimination complaints, Howard, Linda Gordon, 12–13 Empowerment: changes in leadership context, 59–60; interventions, suggestions and support for entrepreneurs, 79–82; what organizations can do for women, 58–59; what women can do for themselves, 57–58 Entrepreneurship: career aspirations in, 71–79; comparative approach, 70–71, 70f; internet resources, 82; interventions, suggestions and support for women, 79–82; minority women, 76–78, 77–78t, 77f; women in, 67–85 Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, 80 Equal Employment Opportunity Ofﬁcer, New York City, Howard, Linda Gordon, 12 Ethnicity, career preparation and, 139–40 Evaluation procedures, gender differences in, 181–82 Evidence course, Howard, Linda Gordon, 7

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Index Expectations of others, women in the workplace, 168–69 Expertise, as a classic power base, 45 External barriers, workplace success, 178 Facial expressions, gender differences, 18 Facilitator role, in CVF, 102–7 Family. See Work/family balance Federal Rules of Evidence, amendment to, Howard, Linda Gordon, 4 Female-friendly organizations, leadership in, 51–52 Female leaders. see Women bosses Female-owned business by type, 70f Feminist, term as derogatory stereotype, 54, 171 Feminist competing values leadership, 101–18 Feminist identiﬁcation: future research, 192; self-realization and, 187–89 Feminist theory, 106–8; CVF roles and, 109–10; research objectives and results, 110–13, 111t; transformational and transactional roles, 110t Financing: to empower women entrepreneurs, 80–81; for minority women entrepreneurs, 79; women entrepreneurs and, 73–74 Followers, inﬂuences on power, 45 Gender-based discrimination, Howard, Linda Gordon, 6–7 Gender differences: career preparation and, 139–40; communication, 15–30; communication strategies for a woman in a man’s world, 26–27; communication styles in the workplace, 20–26; entrepreneurship, 70–71; law school, 1970s, 2; in mediating inﬂuence, 46; nonverbal communication, 18; perceptions of women leaders, 43–44; potential

207

solutions, 189–92; race and, in ownership of ﬁrms, 77t; role stereotypes, 42; serving as a supervisor or leader, 24–26; versus status differences, 18, 19; in transactional leadership, 89; in transformational leadership, 91; U.S. ﬁrms, 68–69t Gender harassment, 120 Gender ratios, in organizational culture, 169–72 Gender-role expectations, interaction with leadership-role expectations, 89–90, 92–93 Gender-role socialization, 160–64 Gender stereotypes, 160–64 Glass ceiling, 177–83 Great man theory, 40 Growth intention, women entrepreneurs, 72–73 Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 121 Herman, Alexis, Women’s Bureau Director, Carter Administration, 8 High School Puente Project, 144–45 Historical women leaders, 87, 93–96 Hostile environment harassment, 55, 120 Humane Letters Requirement, Tempe Preparatory Academy, 142–43 Hunter College of the City University of New York, Howard, Linda Gordon, 8, 10–11 Hypereffective woman, CVF and, 113–14 Identity, development and formation, 156 Independent Women’s Forum, 50 India, visit by Howard, Linda Gordon, 9 Inﬂuence strategies, 44–46; power versus gender in mediation of, 46 Information, as a classic power base, 45 Innovator role, in CVF, 102–7 Interdepartmental Task Force on Women, Howard, Linda Gordon, 8 Internal barriers, workplace success, 178

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208

Index

Interviewing, law ﬁrms, 1970s, 2–3 Israel, sexual harassment, 133–36 Japan, visit by Howard, Linda Gordon, 9 Joan of Arc, 93 Job applications, gender differences in communication, 22 Job-gender context, in sexual harassment model, 122–23, 123f Johnson, Lady Byrd, 4 Kovner, Victor, Law Department, City of New York, 11–13 Krim, Arthur, 4 Law career, work-life balance, 31–38 Law Department, City of New York, Howard, Linda Gordon, 11–13 Laws and regulations: to empower women entrepreneurs, 80; sexual harassment in Israel, 133–36 Leadership: anecdotal ﬁndings, 184–86; changes in context, 59–60; deﬁnition of role, 41; education and female administrators, 176; female-friendly organizations, 51–52; feminist competing values, 101–18; follower-focused, 52; gender differences in communication, 24–26; gender differences in perceptions, 43–44; historical concept, 93–96; identiﬁcation in masculine terms, 52; participative, 50–52; perceptions and requirements for success, 40–42; personality characteristics of women, 172–77; problems unique to females, 53–57; sexual harassment and, 55–57; tokenism and preferential selection, 54–55; traditional portrayal, 41, 52; transactional versus transformational, 49–50, 87–89; which style is better, 96–97; women and, 87–99; women supporting women, 201–4 Leadership-role expectations, interaction with gender-role expectations, 89–90, 92–93

Legislation course, Howard, Linda Gordon, 7 Legitimate, as a classic power base, 45 Maternity leave, 33 Mentoring, for women entrepreneurs, 81 Mentor role: in CVF, 102–7; selfrealization and, 187 Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 120–21 Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), 82 Minority women: as entrepreneurs, 76–78, 77–78t, 77f; sexual harassment and women of color, 125–26; special programs for entrepreneurs, 82 Monitor role, in CVF, 102–7 Motherly type: power dynamics, 45; women bosses, 39–40, 54 Motivation, for women entrepreneurs, 71–72 Myths and perceptions, for women entrepreneurs, 76 National Association of Women Business Owners, 82 National Women’s Business Council, 82 Networks, for women entrepreneurs, 75, 81–82 New York City Commission on Human Rights, Howard, Linda Gordon, 12 New Zealand Human Rights Commission, Howard, Linda Gordon, 9 Nixon, Richard M., impeachment and resignation, 5 Nonverbal communication, gender differences, 18 Norton, Eleanor Holmes, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Carter Administration, 8 Ohio Democratic Women, Howard, Linda Gordon, 7–8 Ohio State University College of Law (now Mortiz College of Law), Howard, Linda Gordon, 6–7

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Index Online Women’s Business Center, 82 Open-adaptive managers, 105–6 Opt-out revolution, 182–83 Organizational climate: prevention and investigation of sexual harassment, 126–27; in sexual harassment model, 122–23, 123f; women in the culture, 169–72 Organizational power, 44; shifting environments and conceptions of leadership, 52 Organizational theories, sexual harassment, 121–22 Paludi, Michele, sexual harassment policy and prevention, Hunter College, 11 Paralinguistic cues, gender differences, 18 Participative leadership, 50–52 Part-time employment, 34–37 Payton, Sallyanne, 3 Perceptions: anecdotal ﬁndings, 186; gendered patterns of communication, 20–21; for women entrepreneurs, 76; women leaders, 43–44 Personal expectations, women in the workplace, 165–68 Personality factors, 153–200; future research, 192; women in leadership and management, 172–77; women in the workplace, 164–69 Plaster versus plasticity, 155 Power and inﬂuence, 44–46; follower inﬂuences, 45; men’s greater ﬂexibility, 45–46; power versus gender, 46 Power from, 44 Power over, 44 Power to, 44 Preferential selection, female leaders, 54–55 Pregnancy, effects on work-life balance, 32–33 Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins case, 26 Private law practice and consulting, Howard, Linda Gordon, 13 Producer role, in CVF, 102–7

209

Qualiﬁcation, for women entrepreneurs, 74 Quality of life, 1–13 Queen Elizabeth I, 94–96 Quid pro quo harassment, 55, 120 Racial differences, law school, 1970s, 2 Rape shield law, Howard, Linda Gordon, 4–5 Reasonable woman standard, in sexual harassment cases, 121 Referent, as a classic power base, 45 Reward, as a classic power base, 45 Robb, Chuck, 4 Role conﬂict, 179–81 Role incongruity, 42–44 Role overload, 179–81 Salary categories, education levels and, 138–39 Salary negotiation, gender differences in communication, 22 Self-realization, feminist identiﬁcation and, 187–89 Sexual coercion, 120 Sexual harassment: consequences, 123–24; coping, 124–25; court decisions, 120–21; deﬁnition and types, 120; female leaders, 55–57; future research, 192; Hunter College policy and prevention, 10–11; integrated process model, 122–23, 123f; Israel, 133–36; prevention and investigation in the organization, 126–27; why it occurs, 121–22; women of color, 125–26; workplace, 119–32 The Sexual Harassment Handbook (Howard), 13 Shalala, Donna: Hunter College, 8, 10; Urban Development Secretary, Carter Administration, 8 Slagle, Orin, Dean, 6 Smiling, gender differences, 18 Socialization: future research, 192; in gendered patterns of communication, 18–19

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210

Index

Sociocultural theories, sexual harassment, 121–22 Soft skills, 139 Sowle, Kathryn D., 6 Speaking while female, 15 Stereotypy: female managers, 175; feminist and career woman as derogatory terms, 54; future research, 192; gender differences in communications, 17; gender-role, 42; gender-role socialization and, 160–64; leadership, 41–42; perceptions of gendered communication patterns, 20–21 Supervisory role, gender differences in communication, 24–26 Talkativeness, gender differences, 17 Theodora, 93–94 Tokenism, 54–55, 169 Traits, gender-role stereotypes, 42–44 Trait theory, 154 Transactional leadership, 49–50, 87–89, 96–97, 110t Transformational leadership, 49–50, 87–91, 96–97, 110t University of Virginia (UVA), Law School, 1–2 Unwanted sexual attention, 120 Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA), Howard, Linda Gordon, 3 U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), 3 U.S. Information Agency (USIA), sponsor of Howard, Linda Gordon, 9 U.S. Senate, Howard, Linda Gordon, 4–5

U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA): Howard, Linda Gordon, 8; internet resources, 82 Venture funding, obtaining for women entrepreneurs, 80 Verbal behaviors, gender differences, 17 Weddington, Sarah, Assistant to the President, Carter Administration, 8 Women bosses, 39–65; empowerment of, 57–60; how they measure up, 47–53; problems unique to, 53–57 Women in national service proposal, President Jimmy Carter, 7 Women-led businesses, 67–85; U.S. perspective, 67–69, 68–69t Women’s Business Ownership Act of 1988, 80 Women’s Small Business Ownership Program Act of 2006, 80 Women’s treatment of other women: anecdotal ﬁndings, 186–87; support in the workplace, 201–4 Work experience, gender differences in qualiﬁcation for entrepreneurship, 74 Work/family balance: female leaders, 53–54; role in women as entrepreneurs, 74–75 Work-life balance, 31–38 Workplace issues: anecdotal ﬁndings, 183–87; gendered communication styles, 20–26; women supporting women, 201–4 Workplace success, barriers for women, 177–83 Wright, Bill, 4

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About the Editor and Contributors

Michele A. Paludi, PhD, is the author or editor of 27 college textbooks and more than 140 scholarly articles and conference presentations on sexual harassment, the psychology of women, gender, and sexual harassment and victimization. Her book Ivory Power: Sexual Harassment on Campus (1990), received the 1992 Myers Center Award for Outstanding Book on Human Rights in the United States. Dr. Paludi served as Chair of the U.S. Department of Education’s Subpanel on the Prevention of Violence, Sexual Harassment, and Alcohol and Other Drug Problems in Higher Education; she was one of six scholars in the United States to be selected for this subpanel. She was also a consultant to and a member of former New York State Governor Mario Cuomo’s Task Force on Sexual Harassment. She is the series editor for Praeger’s Women and Psychology Series. Dr. Paludi serves as an expert witness for court proceedings and administrative hearings on sexual harassment. She has had extensive experience in conducting training programs and investigations of sexual harassment and other equal employment opportunity issues for businesses and educational institutions. In addition, Dr. Paludi has held faculty positions at Franklin & Marshall College, Kent State University, Hunter College, Union College, and Union Graduate College, where she directs the human resource management certiﬁcate program. She teaches the following courses in the School of Management: Foundations of Human Resource Management, Managing Human Resources, and International Human Resource Management. Susan Basow is Charles A. Dana Professor of Psychology at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where she helped found the women’s studies program and chaired the psychology department for 6 years. Dr. Basow has taught courses on the psychology of gender since 1974 and

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212

About the Editor and Contributors

is the author of the textbook Gender: Stereotypes and Roles. A licensed psychologist, she also has published the results of many of her studies of gender issues in course evaluations and of women and their bodies. She has been a member of the executive committee of the Society for the Psychology of Women since 2000. Alan Belasen is an associate professor of management at the State University of New York–Empire State College and chairman of the MBA program. For more than 15 years Professor Belasen has taught leadership and organizational communication topics in the Department of Communication, University at Albany. Professor Belasen has also taught leadership and human resource management topics in the MBA program of Union Graduate College in Schenectady, New York. Professor Belasen has provided management development consulting and training to government, nonproﬁt, business, and academic institutions. His books include Leading the Learning Organization: Communication and Competencies for Managing Change (2000) and The Theory and Practice of Corporate Communication: A Competing Values Perspective (2007). Nicole T. Buchanan, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University. Her research examines the intersection of race and gender in workplace and academic harassment, racialized sexual harassment, coping and resilience among women of color, and gendered-based bullying among adolescents. Her work appears in scholarly journals such as Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law; Psychology of Women Quarterly; Journal of Vocational Behavior; Journal of Occupational Health Psychology; Women and Therapy; and Black Women, Gender and Families. Dr. Buchanan has also contributed chapters to books addressing harassment and multiculturalism, such as P. Morgan & J. Gruber (Eds.), In the Company of Men: Re-Discovering the Links between Sexual Harassment and Male Domination, C. M. West (Ed.), Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black, and Blue, and A. R. Gillem & C. A. Thompson (Eds.), Biracial Women in Therapy: Between the Rock of Gender and the Hard Place of Race. Dr. Buchanan was also the 2007 recipient of the Association of Women in Psychology’s Women of Color Award for empirical research publications that ‘‘contribute signiﬁcantly to the understanding of the psychology of women of color’’ and Michigan State University’s 2007 Excellence in Diversity Award in the category of Individual Emerging Progress for outstanding research and teaching accomplishments in the areas of diversity, pluralism, and social justice. Emily Buenn is ﬁnishing her studies in engineering management at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. She holds an MBA from Union Graduate College in Schenectady, New York. During her studies she did several

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

About the Editor and Contributors

213

internships and supported freelance business consultants through work at a student consultancy, where she worked as a freelance consultant herself. Joan Chrisler, PhD, is a psychology professor at Connecticut College. She has published extensively on the psychology of women and gender and is especially known for her work on women’s health, menstruation, weight, and body image. She has served as president of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, the Society for the Psychology of Women, the Association for Women in Psychology, the New England Psychological Association, and the Connecticut State Conference of the American Association of University Professors. She recently completed a 5-year term as editor of Gender Roles: A Journal of Research and is editor or coeditor of seven books, including Women over 50: Psychological Perspectives (2007), From Menarche to Menopause: The Female Body in Feminist Therapy (2004), Arming Athena: Career Strategies for Women in Academe (1998), and Lectures on the Psychology of Women (2008). Sarah K. Clapp earned her BS in behavioral sciences and leadership from the U.S. Air Force Academy and her MA in psychology (with a concentration in social psychology) from Connecticut College. She is currently serving as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. Her research has focused on gender roles, leadership, and sexual harassment. Karen Duff-McCall is a psychology student at Boise State University (BSU) and works with Dr. Will Schweinle in the BSU Social Interaction Lab. Her research interests include empathic accuracy, women’s leadership, and abnormal psychology. Robert Edelman holds a BA from Union College in Schenectady, New York. He works for New York Sports Clubs and has many passions; when he is not writing he enjoys creating art and going to the beach. Some of his work can be seen in Schenectady and Long Beach Long Island, New York. Nancy Miller Frank, PhD, is an assistant professor at the State University of New York–Empire State College MBA program. She has also taught at the School of Management, SUNY-Albany. Dr. Frank has extensive experience in the area of personality traits assessment. Her consulting and research activities focus on the relationship between personality trait proﬁles and managerial competencies. Ayelet Giladi, PhD, is a pioneer and recognized expert on the harassment of young children in Israel. Dr. Giladi, a professor at Kibbutz College, teaches her students how to recognize sexual harassment of children, conduct qualitative research, and report on the phenomenon. In addition, she

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214

About the Editor and Contributors

conducts research on the issue, consults with a variety of organizations, and conducts training about sexual harassment at an early age. She has authored two prevention programs for use with children ages 4–7 and 11–13, entitled Getting Along and Getting Along in Big, which are widely used in kindergartens as well as public and private schools throughout Israel. She is the chairwoman of the Voice of the Child Association: Prevention of Sexual Harassment Among Young Children. Clients served by the association are young children with visual impairments, children from various religious backgrounds, and new immigrant children, especially from Ethiopia. She is the author of a book chapter and several articles in Israeli professional journals about the sexual harassment of young children. She has been featured on Israeli television, radio programs, and newscasts and in Israeli newspaper articles. Dr. Giladi has spoken about sexual harassment at an early age to the Knesset (Israeli parliament) and at international conferences in the United States and England. She trains family judges, physicians, nurses, psychologists, educators and school administrators, social workers, parents, and children about the phenomenon. Dr. Giladi has a doctorate in sociology education from England ARU university, a master’s degree in sociology and education, and a bachelor’s degree in education. She has been an activist in developing awareness about sexual harassment at early ages since 1996. Beatrice Hall is a clinical professor and associate dean in the School of Education at Union Graduate College in Schenectady, New York. Her responsibilities include the admission, advisement, instruction, and supervision of prospective teachers in the college’s intensive, 1-year master’s program in the art of teaching, as well as close work with public school teachers and administrators in the Albany capital district. As a clinical professor, Ms. Hall also teaches classes in pedagogy, assessment, organization of schools, and literacy. For these duties, she draws on more than 20 years of classroom teaching in grades 4–12. She is currently completing her doctoral work in curriculum and instruction at State University of New York at Albany, where she graduated summa cum laude in English; she also holds a master of education administration degree from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. Her research interests include literacy skill building for adolescents, instruction to support critical thinking, and models for mentoring teachers. Linda Gordon Howard is an attorney and consultant in workplace diversity issues, including sexual harassment. She has spent the last 30 years successfully practicing, advising, counseling, and teaching in the areas of employment discrimination and sexual harassment law. Ms. Howard has trained thousands of employees in how to understand and comply with

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About the Editor and Contributors

215

the difﬁcult and confusing laws regarding sexual harassment. Her original and proven methods communicate the logic behind the laws and illustrate how to deal with sexual harassment as it happens. Her book, The Sexual Harassment Handbook (2007), is a practical, street-smart guide for working men and women. Ms. Howard received her law degree from the University of Virginia Law School and her undergraduate degree from Reed College. She is a former law professor at Ohio State University, member of the White House staff, college legal counsel, and senior attorney for the City of New York. She serves as a trustee of Reed College and a director of the nonproﬁt group A More Perfect Union, Inc., and she leads transformational programs for Landmark Education. Ms. Howard practices law in New York City. Jennifer L. Martin is the head of the English department at a public alternative high school for at-risk students in Michigan and holds a PhD in educational leadership. Dr. Martin is also a lecturer at Oakland University, where she teaches in the Departments of Educational Leadership and Women’s Studies. She is a past cochair of the Girls’ Studies Interest Group for the National Women’s Studies Association. Her research interests include peer sexual harassment, feminist identiﬁcation, teaching for social justice, and the at-risk student. Presha E. Neidermeyer, PhD, CPA, is an associate professor of accounting at West Virginia University’s College of Business and Economics. She has published numerous articles in behavioral accounting, focusing on the way that gender and culture affect decision making. Her nonresearch activities include involving business students in philanthropic activities, harnessing the students’ unique skills to assist various African charities in their quest to resolve the AIDS pandemic. William Schweinle, PhD, is an assistant professor of quantitative psychology at Boise State University. He has published several research articles on men’s empathic accuracy, empathic bias, and the maltreatment of women, including inter-partner aggression and sexual harassment. Carrie Turco is currently completing her MBA and certiﬁcate in human resource management at Union Graduate College. Her career goals include becoming a director or vice president of human resources in the private sector. She enjoys photography, tennis, and volunteering for the St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Michelle Wildgrube has been a principal attorney at Ciofﬁ Slezak Wildgrube P.C. since 2004, and has been with the ﬁrm since 1999. Before

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216

About the Editor and Contributors

joining the ﬁrm, Ms. Wildgrube worked for a general practice ﬁrm that provided a broad foundation for her law practice, which now concentrates on estate planning and administration, corporate and business law, and real estate. Ms. Wildgrube holds a BA in English from Rutgers College and a JD from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law. Krystle C. Woods, MA, is a clinical doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University. Her research examines the inﬂuence of perpetrator race on sexual harassment outcomes, racialized sexual harassment, and depression in African-American women. Ms. Woods was the 2005 recipient of the Michigan State University Enrichment Fellowship ‘‘recognizing academic achievement, research goals, contribution to a diverse educational community, and a record of overcoming obstacles.’’

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

The Psychology of Women at Work

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Recent Titles in Women’s Psychology ‘‘Intimate’’ Violence against Women: When Spouses, Partners, or Lovers Attack Paula K. Lundberg-Love and Shelly L. Marmion, editors Daughters of Madness: Growing Up and Older with a Mentally Ill Mother Susan Nathiel Psychology of Women: Handbook of Issues and Theories, Second Edition Florence L. Denmark and Michele A. Paludi, editors WomanSoul: The Inner Life of Women’s Spirituality Carole A. Rayburn and Lillian Comas-Dıaz

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

The Psychology of Women at Work Challenges and Solutions for Our Female Workforce

Volume 2 Obstacles and the Identity Juggle

Edited by MICHELE A. PALUDI

Praeger Perspectives Women’s Psychology

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The psychology of women at work : challenges and solutions for our female workforce / edited by Michele A. Paludi p. cm. — (Women’s psychology, ISSN 1931-0021) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-275-99677-2 ((set) : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-275-99679-6 ((vol. 1) : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-275-99681-9 ((vol. 2) : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-275-99683-3 ((vol. 3) : alk. paper) 1. Women—Employment—Psychological aspects. 2. Work and family. 3. Women—Job stress. 4. Women—Psychology. I. Paludi, Michele Antoinette. HD6053.P75 2008 158.7082—dc22 2008004119 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright

C

2008 by Michele A. Paludi

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008004119 ISBN: 978-0-275-99677-2 (set) 978-0-275-99679-6 (vol. 1) 978-0-275-99681-9 (vol. 2) 978-0-275-99683-3 (vol. 3) ISSN: 1931-0021 First published in 2008 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8

7 6 5 4 3

2 1

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For Antoinette and Michael Paludi, who encouraged me to deﬁne what women’s work is for myself

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

xi

Chapter 1: Explaining Too Few Women in STEM Careers: A Psychosocial Perspective Bianca L. Bernstein and Nancy Felipe Russo

1

Chapter 2: Women as Leaders: From the Lab to the Real World Florence L. Denmark, Erika M. Baron, Maria D. Klara, Janet Sigal, Margaret Gibbs, Dorothy Wnuk

35

Chapter 3: My Life as a Woman Psychologist: In My Own Voice Marilyn P. Saﬁr

57

Chapter 4: Workplace Incivility, Sexual Harassment, and Racial Micro-Aggression: The Interface of Three Literatures Eros R. DeSouza

65

Chapter 5: Sexual Harassment and Male Dominance: Toward an Ecological Approach Phoebe Morgan and James Gruber

85

Chapter 6: Challenges for Women of Color Darlene C. DeFour

109

Chapter 7: On Being a Woman Chiropractor: In My Own Voice Patricia Campbell

121

Chapter 8: Relationships with Men ~eda and Breena E. Coates Donna Castan

125

Chapter 9: What I See Is What Matters: In My Own Voice Sharon Butler

149

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viii

Contents

Chapter 10: Women in Ethiopia: The Sound of Hope: In My Own Voice Haimanot Kelbessa

151

Index

155

About the Editor and Contributors

161

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Acknowledgments

I thank Debbie Carvalko at Praeger for her encouragement and support throughout the writing of these three volumes. It is an honor to work with her. I also thank the graduate students in my human resources classes for their comments about the changing nature of work for women. I am conﬁdent that they will make a difference in the lives of the next generation of women employees and their families. I am grateful to Carrie Turco and Sharon Butler for their comments on earlier versions of the introduction. The following family, friends, and colleagues have been invaluable during the preparation of these three volumes. Thank you to Rosalie Paludi, Lucille Paludi, Presha Neidermeyer, and Paula Lundberg Love. I especially acknowledge Carmen Paludi, Jr., for his friendship and sage advice. Together we continue to make the dreams of our grandparents on Weaver Street into realities. Finally, I wish to thank William Norton Dember, my advisor and mentor in graduate school, who, like my parents, told me to seek my own career path and be tough-minded and kindhearted at the same time. I started drafting these books after I last saw Bill in May 2006, when we discussed my career since graduate school (it had been 26 years since I received my PhD). He reminded me that I came to work with him as a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati because I was interested in the psychology of women’s work and achievement motivation. Moreover, he inquired why I hadn’t written or edited a book in that ﬁeld during the course of my career. These three volumes are in response to Bill’s question. Bill died in September 2006. These books are in tribute to him as a psychologist, mentor, professor, colleague, and friend.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Introduction

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, ‘‘She doesn’t have what it takes.’’ They will say, ‘‘Women don’t have what it takes.’’ —Clare Boothe Luce

Clare Boothe Luce’s sentiment was once again highlighted during the preparation of these three volumes of The Psychology of Women at Work: Challenges and Solutions for Our Female Workforce, when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Throughout the initial part of Senator Clinton’s candidacy, comments about a woman president received media attention. Polls from CNN.com (July 24, 2007) and YouTube (January 21, 2007; March 5, 2007) reported the following quotations: ‘‘Hillary Clinton needs to wear a dress or skirt now and then. Her always making public appearances in pants gives a sense she is trying to ‘ﬁt in’ with the boys, which is never going to be the case.’’ ‘‘Hillary is cute. Those are her qualiﬁcations for prez.’’ ‘‘It’ll be nice to have a woman president but you know white America won’t let her.’’ ‘‘Women, above all, should reject hillary. Missus clinton is the biggest misogynist of all.’’ ‘‘hillary clinton running must be a joke! A woman for president! Ha! Now that[’]s a joke.’’

Elizabeth Edwards, whose husband, John Edwards, also declared his candidacy for president, joined the chorus in criticizing Hillary Clinton. Elizabeth Edwards stated the following: She [Hillary Clinton] and I are from the same generation. We both went to law school and married other lawyers, but after that we made other © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Introduction choices. I think my choices have made me happier. I think I’m more joyful than she is.

Elizabeth Edwards also stated, ‘‘Sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women’s issues.’’ Mrs. Edwards’s comments prompted a comparison of the two women—one perceived as ‘‘feminine’’ and the other ‘‘masculine.’’ Responses from a CNN.com poll (July 24, 2007) included the following: ‘‘It would be awesome if Hillary was more like Elizabeth. But Hillary lacks the compassion and realness Elizabeth possesses.’’ Tucker Carlson, host of MSNBC’s Tucker, asked a guest, ‘‘I mean, let’s take this critique [by Elizabeth Edwards] seriously—is Hillary Clinton too manly to be president?’’ This is in direct contrast to the view that many people had of Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, who, when she dropped out of running for U.S. president in 1984, cried. This raised the question of whether a woman was too ‘‘emotional’’ to be president. Schroeder (1998) wrote, ‘‘Crying is almost a ritual that male politicians must do to prove they are compassionate, but women are supposed to wear iron britches.’’ In 1870, when Victoria Woodhull, the ﬁrst woman to run for president, declared her candidacy, the New York Herald commented: ‘‘She is rather in advance of her time. The public mind is not yet educated to the pitch of universal woman’s [sic] rights’’ (‘‘Woman’s Idea of Government,’’ 1870, p. 6). In 2008 we are still hearing arguments that the United States is not ready for a woman president—a view expressed not only to Victoria Woodhull but also to other women candidates for president before Hillary Clinton: Margaret Chase Smith (in 1964), Shirley Chisolm (in 1972), Patricia Schroeder (in 1984), Elizabeth Dole (in 2000), and Carolyn Moseley Braun (in 2004). Similar comments were directed toward Geraldine Ferraro, the ﬁrst woman to be placed on a national presidential ticket (as Walter Mondale’s vice president in 1984). Ferraro was criticized for wearing short-sleeved dresses while campaigning because her arms wobbled when she waved (considered not ‘‘feminine’’). ‘‘The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ‘It’s a girl,’’’ Shirley Chisholm once noted. Gender-role stereotypes about ‘‘appropriate’’ and ‘‘inappropriate’’ occupations for women still abound. Gender stereotyping is a psychological process that illustrates a structured set of beliefs about the personal attributes of females and males (Ashmore & DelBoca, 1981; Doyle & Paludi, 1997; Fiske & Stevens, 1993). When asked to describe a woman, for example, individuals commonly cite ‘‘caring,’’ ‘‘nurturing,’’ ‘‘sensitive,’’ and ‘‘passive.’’ When asked to name a woman’s occupation, individuals cite ‘‘nurse,’’ ‘‘elementary school teacher,’’ or ‘‘social worker,’’ but not ‘‘president of the United States.’’ © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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I have frequently used the following riddle when students and trainees indicate that they believe that they themselves do not hold genderrole stereotypes about occupations: One afternoon, a man and his son go for a drive through the countryside. After an hour or so they get into a terrible car crash. The father dies instantly. The son is taken by a helicopter to the nearest hospital, where a prominent surgeon is called to help save the boy’s life. Immediately on entering the operating room and looking at the boy, the surgeon exclaims, ‘‘I can’t possibly operate on this boy . . . he’s my son.’’ How can this be?

The responses I have received to this question have ranged from ‘‘The father didn’t really die—he sustained only minor injuries and could perform the surgery’’ to ‘‘It was the boy’s stepfather who died, and his biological father was the surgeon’’ to ‘‘The boy’s adoptive father is the surgeon, and his biological father was with him in the car.’’ Individuals rarely solve this riddle: The surgeon is the boy’s mother. When the answer is revealed, these individuals are angry with themselves that they initially stated that they hold no occupational stereotypes for women and men. Individuals also usually ‘‘mark’’ an occupation if they believe that the gender of the person performing the job is atypical. Thus, they say ‘‘male nurse,’’ ‘‘female physician,’’ ‘‘female professor,’’ and ‘‘male model’’ (Paludi, Paludi, & DeFour, 2004). Markings alert listeners or readers to something atypical for the occupation—that it is held by an individual of the sex other than the one with which it is traditionally associated. An awareness of the contents of occupational stereotypes related to gender begins in the preschool years and is well developed by ﬁrst grade (Betz, in press; Gottfredson, 1981; Heyman & Legare, 2004; Hughes & Seta, 2003; Sczesny, 2003). Among 6-year-olds, there is research evidence of gender stereotypes in the kinds of occupations that children consider for future employment. Girls commonly choose the occupations of nurse, teacher, or ﬂight attendant. Boys, on the other hand, select police ofﬁcer, truck driver, architect, or pilot. Children’s ranges of occupations are difﬁcult to change once they are set (Betz, in press; Eccles, Wigﬁeld, & Schiefele, 1999). Levy, Sadovsky, and Troseth (2000) reported that a stereotypic view of the world reinforces many of the common gender-role stereotypes and is a factor in prompting young boys’ interest in more than twice as many occupations as that of young girls. Girls thus restrict their occupational aspirations. In addition, girls have a more limited concept than boys do of the career possibilities available to them in math- and computer-related occupations (Burger et al., 2007; Creamer & Laughlin, 2005; Naua, Epperson, & Kahn, 1998; White & White, 2006). Girls focus © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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on occupations that are associated with less status, less satisfaction, and less pay than the occupations considered by boys (Heyman, 2000; Richardson & Sandoval (2007). Siegel and Reis (1998) reported that although teachers perceived gifted girls as working harder and doing better work than gifted boys, these teachers gave higher grades to the boys. Similarly, Fennema and colleagues (1996) found that teachers perceived that boys are better than gifted girls at math and science. Kerr, Colangelo, and Gaeth (1988) reported that gifted girls are concerned about the negative effects of being gifted on their peers’ attitudes toward them. The researchers found that, by the sophomore year of college, most gifted women changed their majors to less intellectually challenging ones. Furthermore, Kerr, Colangelo, and Gaeth found that, by their senior year, these gifted women reduced the level of their career goals. Brody (1977) reported a decline in self-esteem among girls but not boys in elementary, middle, and high school. For example, 55% of elementary school girls agreed with the following statement: ‘‘I am good at a lot of things.’’ This percentage declined to 29% in middle school and 23% in high school. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) (1992) reported that girls who pursued math and science courses and participated in sports maintained their self-esteem from elementary school through high school. Hall and Sandler (1982) and Allan and Madden (2006) argued that, for girls and women, the educational system is a ‘‘chilly climate.’’ Girls and women are discouraged from classroom participation, are sexually harassed by teachers as well as peers, receive a lack of mentoring, and are advised by guidance counselors to lower their expectations for a career (AAUW, 2001; Paludi, Martin, & Paludi, 2007; Richardson & Sandoval, 2007). As can be seen from this brief review, an important manifestation of gender-role stereotyping is a progressive decrease in girls’ and women’s career aspirations (Betz, 2007; Farmer, 1997). ‘‘The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of your chromosomes,’’ Bella Abzug once protested. Lacampagne, Campbell, Herzig, Damarin, and Vogt (2007) reported that gender differences are signiﬁcant in math-related careers and in career aspirations. For example, of students who took the SAT in 2005, 5% of boys and 1% of girls reported planning to major in computer science. In addition, 10% of boys and 2% of girls were planning to major in engineering (College Board, 2005). Career education programs continue to be gender-segregated; 90% of women in training programs are in traditionally female ﬁelds—for example, ofﬁce technology and health care (AAUW, 2002). More than 90% of teachers (preschool, elementary, and special education), secretaries, childcare workers, waitresses, hairdressers, speech therapists, occupational © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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therapists, dental hygienists, and teacher’s aides are women (U.S. Department of Labor, 2003). Betz (in press) reported that women remain underrepresented in technical and scientiﬁc ﬁelds as well as in managerial positions in education, government, business, and the military. In a recent study conducted by Catalyst (2007), gender-role stereotyping was linked to women’s participation as leaders in business. According to this report, ‘‘Gender stereotyping, one of the key barriers to women’s advancement in corporate leadership, leaves women with limited, conﬂicting and often unfavorable options no matter how they choose to lead.’’ Catalyst found that women constitute more than 50% of management and professional occupations but are only 15.6% of Fortune 500 corporate ofﬁcers and 14.6% of Fortune 500 board directors. Ilene Lang, president of Catalyst, comments on this as follows: When companies fail to acknowledge and address the impact of gender stereotypic bias, they lose out on top female talent. . . . Ultimately, it’s not women’s leadership styles that need to change. Only when organizations take action to address the impact of gender stereotyping will they be able to capitalize on the ‘‘full deck’’ of talent.

Women earn less than 20% of the bachelor’s degrees in ﬁelds such as engineering and physics and less than 10% of the graduate degrees in engineering (Betz, 2007). Women represent only about 14% of engineers, 30% of computer systems analysts, and 25% of computer programmers (U.S. Department of Labor, 2003, 2005). Women account for 8% of physicists and astronomers, 7% of air trafﬁc controllers, 5% of truck drivers, 4% of pilots, 5% of ﬁreﬁghters, and 2% of carpenters and electricians (Betz, 2007). Equally important, women are paid less for full-time employment than men are; women make only 77% as much as men do when both are employed full-time (U.S. Department of Labor, 2005). This income disparity is greater for Black, Asian, Native American, and Hispanic women than for White women, and for middle-age and older women than for younger women. ‘‘We haven’t come a long way,’’ noted Elizabeth Janeway, ‘‘we’ve come a short way. If we hadn’t come a short way, no one would be calling us baby.’’ These realities of the psychology of women at work require an indepth look at not only the barriers to women’s success but also the strategies for empowering women at the individual, organizational, legal, and societal levels. These three volumes provide an overview of the scholarly research on the issues related to women and work. Volume 1, ‘‘Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium,’’ provides an overview of research on comparisons of men and women © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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in gender-relative (i.e., stereotypical masculine and feminine) communication styles, women as bosses, women as entrepreneurs, personality factors that impact women in the workplace, feminist competing values leadership, career preparation programs in high school, and sexual harassment. Volume 2, ‘‘Obstacles and the Identity Juggle,’’ offers reviews on the double standard for women in the workplace; sexual harassment; women and leadership; the glass ceiling; pay inequalities; incivility toward women in the workplace; women in the sciences, technology, engineering, and math; and the economics of women in the workplace. Volume 3, ‘‘Self, Family, and Social Affects,’’ discusses women and self-esteem, the impact of work on women’s physical health, mental health issues for women in the workforce (especially women who have experienced discrimination), women’s relationships with male co-workers, and religion and women at work. In addition to the scholarly reviews of research on the psychology of women at work, I have included women’s personal accounts of their career development, especially their experiences in the labor force. A variety of careers is represented in these personal accounts—attorney, human resource manager, college president, chiropractor, and psychologist—as well as students who are pursuing careers. For many years researchers have deﬁned for women what success is, what work is, and what achievement striving should be. These deﬁnitions have typically contained masculine biases (Paludi & Fankell-Hauser, 1986). Thus, these personal accounts of women’s experiences recognize that women differ in the strength of their striving for achievement and in the roles that elicit their striving, taking into account the effects of family, friends, role models, and partners. It is the goal of these volumes that these personal accounts stimulate additional research, legislation, and advocacy on behalf of female students and employees so that a woman running for the United States presidency will be accepted and encouraged.

REFERENCES Allan, E., & Madden, M. (2006). Chilly classrooms for female undergraduate students: A question of method? Journal of Higher Education, 77, 684– 711. American Association of University Women (AAUW). (1992). The AAUW report: How schools shortchange girls. Washington, DC: Author. American Association of University Women (AAUW). (2001). Hostile hallways: Bullying, teasing, and sexual harassment in school. Washington, DC: AAUW Educational Foundation. American Association of University Women (AAUW). (2002). Title IX at 30: Report card on gender equity. Washington, DC: Author.

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Ashmore, R., & DelBoca, F. (1981). Conceptual approaches to stereotypes and stereotyping. In D. Hamilton (Ed.), Cognitive processes in stereotyping and intergroup behavior. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Betz, N. (2007). Women’s career development. In F. L. Denmark & M. Paludi (Eds.), Psychology of women: A handbook of issues and theories (2nd ed.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 717–752. Brody, J. E. (1997, November 4). Girls and puberty: The crisis years. The New York Times, p. B8. Burger, C., Abbott, G., Tobias, S., Koch, J., Vogt, C., & Sosa, T. (2007). Gender equity in science, engineering and technology. In S. Klein (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp. 255–279). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Catalyst. (2007). The double-bind dilemma for women in leadership: Damned if you do, doomed if you don’t. New York: Author. College Board. (2005). 2005 College-bound seniors: Total group proﬁle report. Available online at www.college-board.com Creamer, E., & Laughlin, A. (2005). Self-authorship and women’s career decision making. Journal of College Student Development, 46, 13–27. Doyle, J., & Paludi, M. (1997). Sex and gender: The human experience. New York: McGraw-Hill. Eccles, J., Wigﬁeld, A., & Schiefele, U. (1999). Motivation to succeed. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional and personality development (pp. 1017–1095). New York: Wiley. Farmer, H. S. (1976). What inhibits achievement and career motivation in women? Counseling Psychologist, 6, 12–14. Farmer, H. S. (1997). Diversity and women’s career development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Fennema, E., Carpenter, T. P., Franke, M. L., Levi, L., Jacobs, V., & Empson, S. (1996). A longitudinal study of learning to use children’s thinking in mathematics education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 27, 403–434. Fiske, S., & Stevens, L. (1993). What’s so special about sex? Gender stereotyping and discrimination. In S. Oskamp & M. Costanzo (Eds.), Gender issues in contemporary society. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Gottfredson, L. S. (1981). Circumscription and compromise: A development theory of occupational aspirations. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 28, 545–579. Hall, R., & Sandler, B. (1982). The classroom climate: A chilly one for women. Washington, DC: Project on the Status and Education of Women. Heyman, J. (2000). The widening gap. New York: Basic Books. Heyman, G., & Legare, C. (2004). Children’s beliefs about gender differences in academic social domains. Sex Roles, 50, 227–239. Hughes, F., & Seta, C. (2003). Gender stereotypes: Children’s perceptions of future compensatory behavior following violations of gender roles. Sex Roles, 49, 685–691. Kerr, B., Colangelo, N., & Gaeth, J. (1988). Gifted adolescents’ attitudes toward their giftedness. Gifted Child Quarterly, 32, 245–247. Lacampagne, C., Campbell, P., Herzig, A., Damarin, S., & Vogt, C. (2007). Gender equity in mathematics. In S. Klein (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp. 235–253). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Levy, G., Sadovsky, A., & Troseth, G. (2000). Aspects of young children’s perceptions of gender-typed occupations. Sex Roles, 42, 993–1006. Naua, M., Epperson, D., & Kahn, J. (1998). A multiple-groups analysis of predictors of higher level career aspirations among women in mathematics, science and engineering majors. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 45, 483– 496. Paludi, M., & Fankell-Hauser, J. (1986). An idiographic approach to the study of women’s achievement strivings. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 10, 89– 100. Paludi, M., Martin, J., & Paludi, C. (2007). Sexual harassment: The hidden gender equity problem. In S. Klein (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp. 215–229). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Paludi, M., Paludi, C., & DeFour, D. (2004). Introduction: Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose (The more things change, the more they stay the same). In M. Paludi (Ed.), Praeger guide to the psychology of gender (pp. xi–xxxi). Westport, CT: Praeger. Richardson, B., & Sandoval, P. (2007). Impact of education on gender equity in employment and its outcomes. In S. Klein (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp. 43–58). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Schroeder, P. (1998). 24 Years of housework . . . and the place is still a mess: My life in politics. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel. Sczesny, S. (2003). A closer look beneath the surface: Various facets of the think-manager-think-male stereotype. Sex Roles, 49, 353–363. Siegel, D., & Reis, S. M., (1998). Gender differences in teacher and student perceptions of gifted students’ ability and effort. Gifted Children Quarterly, 42, 39–47. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2003). Facts on women workers. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2005). Women in the labor force: A data book. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. White, M., & White, G. (2006). Implicit and explicit occupational gender stereotypes. Sex Roles, 55, 259–266. Woman’s idea of government. (1870). New York Herald, p. 6.

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Chapter 1

Explaining Too Few Women in STEM Careers: A Psychosocial Perspective Bianca L. Bernstein Nancy Felipe Russo

The explosion of research on gender differences and similarities (Eagly & Wood, 1999; Hyde, 2005, 2007), stereotyping processes (Steele, 1997; Prentice & Miller, 2006; Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002), and new forms of discrimination in the workplace (Cortina, 2008) provides a context for understanding the work and careers of women in a range of employment sectors and leadership roles. Nine out of 10 women can be expected to work outside the home during their adult lives, but the distribution of women continues to be skewed toward positions of lower pay, responsibility, and prestige (U.S. Department of Labor, 2007). Among the science and health professions, for example, 91% of registered nurses and 83% of social workers are women, compared to 32% of physicians and surgeons, 34% of chemists and materials scientists, 27% of computer scientists, 12% of civil engineers, and 7% of engineering managers (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007). The realities of gender stereotyping, pernicious barriers to advancement, and subtle as well as not-so-subtle forms of discrimination continue to mark the experience of women’s work (Benokraitis, 1997; Catalyst, 2007). We argue here that academic careers in science and engineering reﬂect these forces in particularly stark relief and that understanding academic career outcomes as a result of interactions between intra-psychic and environmental variables can substantially explain the severe underrepresentation of women in these high-stakes, nationally important ﬁelds.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Each new national report conﬁrms that the underrepresentation of women in academic science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers persists and that women are still the exception in many science and engineering departments (e.g., Committee on Maximizing the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering [CMPWASE] et al., 2006; National Research Council, 2001; National Science Foundation (NSF), 2004, 2007). The scarcity of women in academic departments of the physical sciences, mathematics, computer sciences, and engineering is more pronounced than in virtually every other employment sector for scientists and engineers or academic discipline for individuals with PhDs. The underrepresentation of women in academic STEM ﬁelds is found at multiple levels and is reﬂected in who is recruited and hired, gets promoted to higher ranks, receives rewards and recognition, and becomes appointed to academic leadership positions. The picture is particularly dismal at senior levels. Women comprise less than 5% of full professorships at top 50 departments in some ﬁelds (math and statistics, electrical, civil, mechanical, and chemical engineering), (Nelson, 2005). In 2000, women held only 2% and 4.6%, respectively, of department head positions in engineering and math and physical science departments at research extensive universities (Niemeier & Gonzales, 2004). Attributing the small numbers of women in academic science careers to lack of availability of women through prior pipeline leaks is no longer adequate. Recent years have seen steady increases in numbers of women with undergraduate degrees in STEM ﬁelds, with some ﬁelds like biology now reaching parity (NSF, 2007). Signiﬁcantly more women are entering graduate programs in science and engineering, although the attrition rates for women from STEM PhD programs are higher than for men in these ﬁelds (Anderson-Rowland, Bernstein, & Russo, 2007a, 2007b; Bernstein & Russo, 2007; Danecke, 2005). The proportion of women earning research doctorates among U.S. citizens has hit an historic high (51%) (Hoffer, Hess, Welch, & Williams, 2007). Yet, the ratio of women earning PhDs in a ﬁeld to the proportion of full professors at top 50 departments is around 4:1 or worse (biology, chemistry, physical science, math and statistics, civil, chemical engineering) (Nelson, 2005). And, there is growing evidence that even women who have the appropriate credentials and experience for entering STEM careers leave their positions signiﬁcantly more often than men. For example, one study estimated 6-year attrition in the information technology workforce at 40% for women compared to 25% for men (Stephan & Levin, 2005). Why pay special heed to the persistent phenomenon of male-dominated departments in academic science and engineering? The answers are varied and compelling. From the perspective of national economic, scientiﬁc, and security interests, the failure to retain women scientists and create environments that nurture talented women’s success © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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3

represents a serious erosion of intellectual capital. The loss of women from science research careers and the academy has even more impact locally and nationally when each woman is viewed as the embodiment of ‘‘knowledge value’’ (Bozeman, Dietz, & Gaughan, 2001), that is, ‘‘a walking set of knowledge, skills, technical know-how and, just as important, a set of sustained network communications, often dense in pattern and international in scope’’ (Dietz, Chompalov, Bozeman, Lane, & Park, 2000). As Dietz and his colleagues (2000) have suggested, the migration [or loss] of knowledge value produced by the job change [or attrition] of a scientist or engineer has a profound impact on scientiﬁc discovery, technological innovation, and economic development. Yet little is known about what leads to the post-appointment attrition of ‘‘survivors’’—women who have successfully earned PhDs and completed postdocs, overcome obstacles, and obtained academic positions. When women are scarce in academic science and engineering positions, students are deprived of their vital educational and motivational contributions. There is no more robust ﬁnding than the importance of successful women and minority faculty who serve as role models and mentors for future generations of women and minority scientists (Fort, 2005; Nettles & Millett, 2006). Although access to such role models and mentors is important for all academic ﬁelds and professions, they are in short supply in STEM ﬁelds. Further, gender and ethnic diversity in these ﬁelds advances the agendas of innovation, discovery, and useinspired research well beyond what can be accomplished by people with less diverse perspectives, interests, and worldviews. From an equity and social justice standpoint, the power and prestige associated with science careers is a fundamental reason to address the underrepresentation of women in STEM ﬁelds. As Fox (2001) summarized so aptly, science is a prototype of a professional claim to ‘‘authoritative knowledge,’’ deﬁnes what billions of world citizens take for granted, and provides the power base for controlling the future. The academic profession occupies a particularly privileged position among careers in that ‘‘its members train and allocate the people of all professions’’ (Hermanowicz, 2003). The proﬁle and quality of the future science and technology workforce depend on the expertise and effectiveness of diverse role models, teachers, and mentors. There is no dispute, then, about the level of continued underrepresentation of women among STEM faculty, especially at senior levels, or about the importance of the problem in terms of loss of intellectual capital and knowledge value, shortage of vital role models and mentors, and social justice concerns. The numbers of women with degrees in the sciences and engineering are increasing, so the availability of women for faculty positions is now less of an issue (albeit far from resolved) than before. However, we place new attention on the issue of why qualiﬁed women do not enter or why they actually leave faculty © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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careers in science and engineering. We ask how we can better explain the meager numbers of eligible women who enter, stay, and are promoted in academic science and engineering careers. We use a psychosocial perspective to illuminate the complex factors that lead women to continue in or eschew academic life. We propose that the key to understanding career persistence and outcomes from a psychosocial perspective is the individual’s perception about ﬁt with the work environment, her success in negotiating disjunctions to improve ﬁt, and the choices she makes as a result. In applying this paradigm, we focus on two drivers of career persistence in science— research productivity and personal satisfaction—and we draw on the literatures of social, vocational, and counseling psychology, as well as the sociology of science. CAREERS, CHOICE, AND CONSTRUCTION We begin with the view that careers are individual constructions that are dynamic in nature and nonlinear and idiosyncratic in form. Vocational psychologist Mark Savickas (2004) described it this way: ‘‘Careers do not unfold; they are constructed as individuals make choices that express their self concepts and substantiate their goals in the social reality of work’’ (p. 43). From a constructivist perspective, careers represent subjective processes by which individuals derive or impose personal meanings on their memories, experiences, and aspirations. Career construction theory (Savickas, 2004) is congruent with anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson’s (1989) description of women’s lives (and careers) as personal compositions: ‘‘Each of us has worked by improvisation, discovering the shape of our creation along the way, rather than pursuing a vision already deﬁned’’ (p. 1). Bateson observed that the model of a successful life as one of early decision and commitments to education and a certain career path with a single trajectory on an ascending ladder may be particularly outmoded, inappropriate, and even harmful for women (and men) who experience instead discontinuities, disruptions, and new opportunities. Findings congruent with this view come from a study by the Manhattan-based Center for Worklife Policy (Hewlitt, Luce, Shiller, & Southwell, 2005), The study reported that more than a third of highly qualiﬁed women were found to have left their careers for a time and almost 60% took ‘‘scenic routes’’ such as reduced-hour or ﬂexible work options to accommodate child or elder care. The evidence that women in science and engineering actively seek nonlinear pathways is compelling. Using a life-course approach to large datasets, Xie and Shauman (2003) concluded that, for women, ‘‘career processes are ﬂuid and dynamic, with exit, entry, and reentry all being real possibilities at any given point in a career’’ (p. 209). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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The realities of women’s lives stand in stark contrast to the masculine script that portrays a successful life as linear, singularly purposeful, and narrowly focused on career progression. This script, which continues to dominate the world of the academic sciences, is out of step with the more contemporary conception of a career as a ‘‘highway’’ with many on- and off-ramps (Hewlitt et al., 2005). We view women as active agents who assess their options and make choices in keeping with their values and preferences in navigating, avoiding, or leaving STEM careers. Therefore, understanding the psychosocial processes by which individual women make choices to persist in, exit from, or take a detour from their prior career choice may help us better explain the ‘‘brain drain’’ of talented women from academic environments and scientiﬁc ﬁelds. One way to understand the choices people make as they encounter opportunities, surprises, or obstacles is by considering the role of future-oriented notions of the self. Control theory (Carver & Scheier, 1982), for example, predicts that when people experience a discrepancy between their current selves and ideal selves, they are motivated to make changes that reduce the discrepancy. The concept of ‘‘possible selves’’ (Markus & Nurius, 1986) refers to the imagined future selves that ‘‘represent individuals’ ideas of what they might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming’’ (p. 954). These cognitive components of hopes, fears, goals, and threats function as incentives and motivators for future behavior and contribute to how the individual evaluates and interprets herself in the present. Understood as personalized representations of important life goals (Ruvolo & Markus, 1992), thinking about a lost possible self is related to regrets and distress (King & Hicks, 2007), and making changes in the present may be linked to avoiding anticipated future regrets. The construct of possible selves has been studied in the context of identity development and early career choice (career possible selves), particularly as applied to young women considering math and science. In Gottfredson’s (1981, 1996, 2004) model of the career development process, his fourth and last step is related to early career choice. This step involves compromise by having to select a career that is a best or ‘‘good enough’’ middle ground between the individual’s aspirations and avoidance of feared futures. Scholars are beginning to examine the implications of possible selves for later stages of career development, and what happens when individuals experience external threats (such as getting poor grades or being denied admission to a preferred program) to the viability of their desired career possible selves (e.g., Pizzolato, 2007). We believe that the construct of possible selves has considerable potential in explaining the changes in direction that women in science © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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and engineering make after they have completed advanced degrees and postdocs, embarked on their careers, and attained faculty positions. When eliciting possible self-narratives, researchers ask participants to imagine their ‘‘best possible life’’ or their ‘‘happily ever after’’ (King & Hicks, 2007). The Cinderella imagery notwithstanding, one can expect that many women might combine elements of brilliant careers and happy families in their visions of their ideal futures. However, as we elaborate below, the large majority of women in science have no role models, mentors, or guidance for crafting this ideal nor conﬁdence that they can accomplish it. Instead, their negative experiences may reinforce their ‘‘feared possible selves’’ that lead to choices that prevent anticipated regrets (King & Hicks, 2007). We propose that a dynamic model of possible selves that illuminates women’s constructions of ideal future selves in both career and personal realms would provide a useful framework for conceptualizing the choices STEM women make, remake, and alter as they encounter each new challenge in their career paths. We have found no studies in this area but believe it is a promising avenue of investigation. An agentic view holds that women create lives and careers in a progressive and often nonlinear fashion by deriving meaning, making choices, and taking action in relation to their environments and experiences to achieve their desired life goals. However, as noted above and elaborated below, the large majority of women aspiring to STEM careers ﬁnd themselves in highly competitive, male-dominated environments, with few female role models, mentors, or guidance for how to craft their ideals for their careers and personal lives, and declining conﬁdence in their ability to attain them. Thus, women’s agency must be considered in the context of the choices that are open to them, that is, in the context of environments in which the choices are made. From an environmental ‘‘deﬁcit model’’ perspective (Sonnert & Holton, 1996), the focus is on the elements of institutional and disciplinary culture that limit women’s opportunities and introduce obstacles that reduce success, satisfaction, and retention. These barriers include ambiguous and gendered expectations, inadequate access to resources, discriminatory practices, isolation, and a focus on individualistic achievement. We use research productivity and career satisfaction as organizing concepts for how women make their choices with respect to persisting in academic science environments. WOMEN AND PRODUCTIVITY IN ACADEMIC SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING ENVIRONMENTS Lotte Bailyn (2003) links the deﬁnitions of academic success in science and engineering ﬁelds directly to the gendered nature of these disciplines and institutions: ‘‘The academy is anchored in assumptions © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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about competence and success that have led to practices and norms constructed around the life experiences of men, and around a vision of masculinity as the normal, universal requirement of university life’’ (p. 143). The productivity that counts is research productivity. Indicators vary slightly by discipline, but in general, salary, rank, external funding, quantity of publications and patents, and scholarly awards comprise the traditional notions of career success in the academic sciences. Research productivity (primarily measured by number of publications, number of citations, and level of external grant funding) remains a central value in the academic sciences and continues to serve as the primary measuring stick for tenure and advancement. It is important to note that an individual’s products are subjected to the evaluations of others in the academy and do not automatically translate into achievement until they are recognized and valued as appropriate and meeting explicit and often implicit standards. There is a complex web of internal (institutional) and external (professional) gatekeepers whose subjective judgments determine the granting of status and prestige required for advancement in the academic environment. As Fox (2005) has argued, understanding what is recognized as productivity by gatekeepers is critical to the understanding and advancement of women’s status in the sciences and engineering because productivity functions both as a partial cause and an effect of that status. These gatekeepers—including tenured faculty, department chairs, deans, and upper administrators; journal reviewers and editors; study section members and granting agency staff; scientiﬁc and professional societies’ program and awards committees, among others—often have ambiguous, conﬂicting, and unrealistic expectations and demands. Sometimes what ‘‘counts’’ as productive is not clear until the tenure decision. For example, teaching may be lauded, and service on committees may result in expressions of strong gratitude and appreciation from one’s department chair. A woman may take on a teaching overload in response to departmental requests, serve as a member of numerous graduate student committees, and provide key leadership on a host of committees at the behest of the chair and higher administration. But in STEM disciplines in many universities, although this form of productivity is valuable to the institution, it is generally invisible and unrewarded at evaluation time. All these contributions will not ‘‘count’’ unless she ﬁrst has a sufﬁcient number of publications in the ‘‘right’’ journals and external funding for her research. Further, there is no one number of publications to shoot for—that depends on what others have done in one’s department or peer institutions (the fact that others may have more resources or be less productive in other ways is not relevant to the equation). The consistently high levels of research productivity that are expected at the top-tier universities require intense mental focus and © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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the dedication of most waking hours to research, publication, and grant proposal preparation. The key activities that are essential for recognition and validation of scientiﬁc productivity—gathering data, making presentations at conferences, publishing in peer-reviewed journals, and obtaining grants—are particularly taxing for women who are parents. One study found that almost half of the University of California faculty women surveyed, compared to a quarter of the faculty men, reported that doing ﬁeld work or ﬁeld research away from home, attending and giving papers at conferences, and writing and publishing placed stress on their parenting (Mason, Stacy, Goulden, Hoffman, & Frasch, 2005). The competitive environment combines with ambiguous and shifting standards of evaluation to provide a highly stressful context for pursuing a career, and the degree of stress may be heightened by the particular context in which the faculty member works. All young STEM faculty must learn to assess their environments, identify hidden or implicit weights among evaluation criteria, and weigh and negotiate among multiple expectations and demands at work and at home as they carve out their career paths. The hierarchical nature of science and the gendered nature of these expectations and demands mean that women in STEM ﬁelds have a more complex task that has been cited as contributing to the low proportions of women in the sciences (Fox, 2001; Corley, 2005). The speciﬁc context and environment where an individual scientist or engineer works frame the preferences, commitments, and choices she makes. Thus, it is useful to consider differences in the withinscience environments where academic scientists and engineers are employed. Hermanowicz (1998, 2003, 2007) has described three types of university physics departments and the corresponding aspirations of their faculty members: elite (most highly ranked in the National Research Council studies) where the greatest emphasis is placed on research productivity; pluralist (major public universities) where research is important but teaching and service are valued as well; and communitarian (usually lower ranked institutions) where teaching and service are emphasized more than research productivity. It should be noted that among science and engineering ﬁelds, there is a hierarchy of prestige as well: [Physicists] are regarded as having a kind of genius that sets them apart from ordinary mortals. Physics is taken as society’s science par excellence. . . . Because demigods are part of the direct professional parentage of those who enter the ﬁeld of physics, the mythiﬁcation of careers may be especially prominent in this ﬁeld.’’ (Hermanowicz, 2003, p. 50–51)

Through interviews with physics faculty from each institution type, Hermanowicz (1998, 2003, 2007) traces the meanings they attach to © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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their work, their satisfactions, and their self-doubts. According to Hermanowicz (2003), elite physics faculty aspire to be among the very best nationally and internationally and ‘‘appear in regular need of reassurance about their [professional] self-worth’’ (p. 55) and research standing compared to other eminent scientists. Communitarians emphasize teaching and service and consider their responsiveness to their institutions and local communities to be a shared responsibility of highest importance. They are more likely to frame their concerns within nonwork spheres and may question the value, meaning, and usefulness of research. Scientists in these settings who have been productive in their research express self-doubts about adequate achievement in relation to their scholarly aspirations. Pluralists contribute their unique talents and motivations to a mix of faculty who together meet the teaching loads and research and service needs of the local community and state; their concerns reﬂect their unique priorities. The top research universities described by Hermanowicz are fertile grounds for scientiﬁc advancement and discovery for top performers according to the traditional models of research productivity. These elite environments provide a rich mix of intellectual stimulation, resources, and recognition for elite faculty (Hermanowicz, 2003) and constitute the targets of aspiration for most people who enter doctoral programs in STEM ﬁelds. People who choose science over other careers are more often motivated by passion for the ﬁeld, their speciﬁc focus of interest, and their hopes for making a signiﬁcant contribution to the ﬁeld than are people who choose other professional ﬁelds, who are more often motivated by extrinsic professional rewards (Stephan, 2007). As Austin (2002) has noted, aspiring faculty begin their graduate programs ‘‘with enthusiasm and idealism about engaging in meaningful work’’ (p. 106) and sustain their hopefulness as they enter the academy (Trower, Austin, & Sorcinelli, 2001). Fort (2005) uses the term ‘‘inextinguishable commitment to science’’ (p. 167) to describe the strong motivation that characterizes women who enter these ﬁelds. As women and men pursue their education and careers, however, they begin to consider multiple priorities in their lives and must consider the extent to which they will balance their continuing passion for science and meaningful work with their commitment to other priorities. For women, especially, this consideration appears to deepen in graduate school (Bernstein & Russo, 2007). It is during this time the perceived incompatibility between meeting the demands of academic culture with fulﬁlling other life goals (such as family formation or community service) may account for the choice that many talented PhDlevel women make to pursue positions outside of research universities. Women faculty’s preferences and patterns of employment are congruent with this conceptualization. Female scientists are signiﬁcantly less likely than men to set their sights on a position in the top research © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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universities, select their research topics on the basis of scientiﬁc curiosity alone, and believe they will be a leading researcher (Corley, 2005). Women comprise less than a quarter of full-time faculty at public research universities but almost half of the total full-time faculty at public two-year colleges. Almost three out of four female faculty members are non-tenure-track instructors (West & Curtis, 2006). Further, the preponderance of academic mothers is concentrated in comprehensive universities and four-year colleges (Mason & Goulden, 2004), career environments that allow a broader range of activities and commitment to both professional and personal roles (Hermanowicz, 2003, 2007). The interview ﬁndings of Hermanowicz, a sociologist of science, warrant multi-method replication as they hold promise for partially explaining why women scientists and engineers may choose to work outside of elite research universities. In these latter environments where the deﬁnition of success, tenurability, and advancement is narrowly focused on high levels of research productivity, it is reasonable to expect that multiplerole, multiple-commitment women (and men) would be fewer in number. The stressful overlap of the tenure clock and the biological clock of childbearing exacerbate the conﬂict of commitments that talented women face in elite universities and ﬁelds that have a constricted set of expectations and norms for achievement for tenure and promotion. SATISFACTION AMONG STEM ACADEMIC WOMEN Job satisfaction has been studied in an array of occupations and continues to be identiﬁed as a key factor in predicting retention and intention to stay in a position (Glomb, Richman, Hulin, Drasgow, Schneider, & Fitzgerald, 1997; Higgins & Thomas, 2001; Sourdif, 2004). The association between women’s satisfaction and their persistence in universities has prompted many universities to conduct climate surveys in tracking the mood of faculty and the impact of attempted interventions. A repeated ﬁnding in annual surveys of junior faculty at multiple universities through the Harvard University COACHE program (Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education) is that junior women faculty are signiﬁcantly less satisﬁed with their department and institution than men (e.g., Trower & Bleak, 2004). Clearly, tangible rewards and recognition for accomplishments are associated with satisfaction. However, it is important to recognize the central role of collegiality and positive relationships in determining women’s satisfaction in their immediate academic environment. In fact, women faculty job satisfaction is related more to their perceptions of relational supports and collegial and inclusive work environments than to the academic resources they receive (Bilimoria, Perry, Liang, Stoller, Higgins, & Taylor, 2006; Cross & Madsen, 1997). Women place more value on collegiality and positive interactions, opportunities to collaborate and interact professionally with senior © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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colleagues, and female representation on the faculty than do men (Barbezat, 1992; Trower & Bleak, 2004). Women are often uncomfortable with the prevailing culture of combative conversational styles, the climate of individualism and ﬁerce competition, the preference for curiosity-driven rather than use-inspired research, and apparent invisibility of and lack of recognition for their contributions. An interesting question for further study is whether men and women differ in the degree to which they perceive these characteristics of science environments as uncomfortable and incompatible with collegiality. One is reminded of the ease with which many men can move from tense and adversarial business negotiations to tee times without difﬁculty. People who are severely outnumbered by others in their environments often experience the adverse effects of being tokens (Kanter, 1977). As numerical minorities in physical science, mathematics, computer science, and engineering departments, women may experience a heightened pressure to conform, greater exclusion from group activities and conversations, expectations that they represent ‘‘all women,’’ and more discrimination. Effects of tokenism are consistent with the ﬁndings of Trower and Bleak (2004) that women reported less satisfaction with their perceived ﬁt in the department along with perceiving more pressure than their male colleagues to conform to colleagues in the department with respect to personal behavior, dress, and political views. In the natural sciences and engineering, where women faculty are the exception, the women’s experience that they don’t belong is reinforced at every turn (American Association of University Professors [AAUP], 2000). The concomitant disappointments, along with disruptions and conﬂicts, reduce job satisfaction (Reybold, 2005), and this association is strongest among those who are motivated primarily by passion and the ideals of science. The consequences of being ‘‘the only’’ extend beyond personal discomfort to actual interference with recognized productivity. Isolated women often lack the interpersonal contacts, which are sources of information, mentors, and role models for learning policies, getting resources and social support, learning of research opportunities, or receiving the feedback necessary to be successful (Smith, 2005). The forms of exclusion potentially most harmful for women and minority faculty are those that interfere with their acquiring the ‘‘tacit knowledge’’ of success patterns. Women faculty who are not part of the after-hours drinking group, basketball pick-up game, or faculty club buffet line may miss learning about how to get what they deserve. In a context with ambiguous, unarticulated, and shifting standards, knowing the differences between ‘‘soft’’ and ‘‘hard’’ money, what journals are ‘‘A list’’ versus ‘‘B list,’’ between power and authority in a hierarchy, and who the real decision maker is with respect to lab space (some examples from Rankin, Nielsen, & Stanley, 2007) can make or break the pre-tenure years. Although there are surely many © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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contributing factors, even at an elite institution such as MIT women scientists were found to have received less salary, space, awards, resources, and response to outside offers, despite professional accomplishments equal to those of their male colleagues (Committee on Women Faculty, 1999). Among the strategies that have been suggested to combat isolation, exclusion, and their effects, two are especially promising. The ﬁrst is to deliberately employ and co-locate multiple women in a department or research group through cluster or cohort hiring. There is strong evidence that as the proportion of women begins to be more equitable with men within the organizational unit, in-group/out-group distinctions break down, and the climate, collaboration, and ways of working become more satisfying and encouraging to women, as well as enhance their productivity. The other strategy is facilitating new bonds and communication between women and other individuals and groups that would not otherwise connect. Enhancing these ‘‘weak links’’ as named by Rankin and her associates (2007) can catalyze large and small institutional changes and help compensate for the exclusion and lack of vital information that isolated women experience in their home units. Both strategies can be undertaken if the university commitment to improving conditions for women faculty is strong and there is a cadre of ‘‘organizational catalysts’’ (Sturm, 2007). BARRIERS GONE UNDERGROUND For decades now, researchers have catalogued the characteristics of academic and work environments for scientists and engineers that women report as particularly repelling, discouraging, exclusionary, or obstructionist. Some of the more egregious legal, political, and social obstacles that excluded women from laboratories and benches have been reduced. Equal opportunity laws, articulation of discriminatory actions in hiring, prominent court cases, and the rise of strong advocacy groups have served to lower many of the structural barriers to women’s entry in STEM programs and positions. It is more difﬁcult now for search committees to invite only white males to an interview, and quid pro quo sexual harassment generally results in punitive actions against the aggressor. Nevertheless, despite the regulatory improvements in the 1970s and 1980s, later studies found almost three out of every four career women with PhDs in science or engineering reported that they experienced discrimination (Holton & Sonnert, 1996; Sonnert, 1995), and women, signiﬁcantly more often than men, have continued to report being discriminated against on the basis of gender (Corley, 2005). The ﬁnding that female natural scientists report more sexual harassment and a more negative department climate than social scientists (Settles, Cortina, Malley, & Stewart, 2006) is partially © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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expected because of differences in the proportions of women in each but should also provide caution in generalizing across all scientiﬁc ﬁelds. In a study of tenure-track and tenured faculty women in the natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences at one university, women scientists who reported more sexual harassment and gender discrimination experiences also reported having less inﬂuence in their departments and being less satisﬁed with their jobs (Settles et al., 2006). In contrast, women science faculty who perceived their departments as having a positive climate (more collaboration and cooperation, respect, and collegiality) reported higher levels of job satisfaction and productivity; effective leadership by the chairperson was positively related to felt inﬂuence (Settles et al.). The more egregious forms of discrimination that were visible and could be documented have now been replaced by more subtle and hidden forms of marginalization and discouragement of women in the sciences rooted in gendered stereotypes, perceptions, and assumptions (Rapoport, Bailyn, Fletcher, & Pruitt, 2002). The 2005 Beyond Bias and Barriers report calls attention to the elements of the current ‘‘meritocracy’’ that are particularly deleterious to women: The abilities and commitment of all women in science and engineering are continuously challenged, and while assertiveness and single-mindedness are valued and celebrated, women are penalized for demonstrating them. Subtle, unconscious, and unintentional discrimination interferes with women’s success and promotion in science (Committee on Women Faculty, 1999). For women faculty in STEM, the under-the-radar discrimination manifests itself as an extreme form of the ‘‘damned if you do, doomed if you don’t’’ double-bind for women (Catalyst, 2007). Being viewed as having ‘‘feminine’’ traits (e.g., being gentle, warm, and helpful) can lead to perceptions of incompetence and devaluation (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2004); having ‘‘masculine’’ traits (e.g., being forceful and assertive; having a strong personality and leadership ability) can lead to disliking and sanctions, with ‘‘uppity women’’ at even higher risk for sexual harassment (Berdahl, 2007). The often imperceptible stereotyping that results in exclusion from inﬂuential committees, lack of feedback or advice from colleagues, and the necessity for self-promotion, can be the most harmful because it is difﬁcult to document and challenge. Virginia Valian (1998, 2000, 2007) has catalogued how gender schema are enacted, including identifying men as rising stars more often than women, early grooming and advocacy for the careers of men, and assigning more weight to the accomplishments and productions of men. She also describes how male decision makers make selections according to similarity to self. A large body of literature has documented a broad impact of this in-group © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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favoritism effect: People give their in-group members more positive evaluations, make more positive attributions for their behavior, give them more rewards, and ﬁnd them more persuasive compared to outgroup members (Brewer & Brown, 1998). As Faye Crosby (2007) has pointed out, ‘‘Often, those in positions of power (men) may not be as interested in keeping women out of good jobs as they are in bringing other men into their in-group. Discrimination in favor of men has the same effect as discrimination against women’’ (p. 50). It is important to note that benevolent stereotyping (where, for example, colleagues or a department chair assumes that a mother does not want to attend conferences) interferes with women’s career advancement as well. Similarly, professional neglect is not benign—the ‘‘null environment’’ (Betz, 1989; Freeman, 1979), which neither encourages nor discourages women, contributes to their sense of invisibility and not mattering. As Nancy Betz (1989) has argued, a null educational environment ‘‘is inherently discriminatory against women because external societal environments are different for men and women with respect to the amount of encouragement they receive for nontraditional career aspirations and achievements’’ (p. 136). The complex relationship between gender stereotyping and productivity is illustrated in a series of studies by Vescio and her colleagues (Vescio, Gervais, Snyder, & Hoover, 2005) that found powerful men who stereotype women in a weakness-focused manner (i.e., women are illogical and weak) in a male-dominated domain give fewer valued resources and more praise to subordinate women. That is, women mentored by men holding stronger gender stereotypes were likely to receive more verbal praise, but fewer professional resources and opportunities, than their male peers. Their ﬁndings revealed how the same event may lead to different responses on the part of women and men. When given devalued positions by a supervisor, both men and women felt angry, but this anger predicted better performance among men and lower performance among women. Thus, the argument ‘‘there’s no discrimination—he’s equally mean to everyone’’ rests on an inadequate analysis of the gendered effects of negative feedback (Steinberg, True, & Russo, in press). Perceptions of exclusion are strongly linked with lower job satisfaction and well-being for women and minorities (Barak & Levin, 2002). The effects may be cumulative; that is, early discouragement among junior women faculty who experience social isolation and embedded hints that they do not belong may set the stage for subsequent disillusionment and intentions to leave (Boice, 1993; Xie & Shauman, 2003). At MIT, it was tenured women in the sciences who were more likely to feel marginalized and excluded from signiﬁcant roles. Perceptions of marginalization increased as women progressed through their careers at MIT, and this pattern repeated itself in successive generations of women faculty (Committee on Women Faculty, 1999). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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A tendency not to perceive gender injustice in society as personally relevant contributes to the slow pace of change toward gender equality in the workplace. The ‘‘denial of personal disadvantage’’ (Crosby, Pufall, Snyder, O’Connell, & Whalen, 1989) refers to the failure to recognize that we as individuals face the same employment disadvantages as women in general. Crosby and her colleagues (1989) summarize emotional and cognitive mechanisms that help account for the denial of women’s disadvantage on the part of both women and men, including self-protective cognitions. Because people have difﬁculty in perceiving discrimination when data are presented on a case-by-case basis, it is important to identify with an oppressed group for discrimination to be perceived. Crosby and colleagues (1989) underscore that all people, whether gender-biased or not, have difﬁculty in perceiving gender bias in individual cases and that for both men and women information is needed in aggregate form before discriminatory patterns can be revealed. They conclude that the need for social reform should not be measured by how concerned people are with their personal situation— people do not have a well-developed sense of their personal disadvantage. Their advice: ‘‘Do not trust your own impressions any more than you trust the impressions of the women in your organization. Women may be motivated to deny their own disadvantage; but nobody . . . should trust conclusions based on unaggregated ﬁgures. Only by bringing all the data together can one see patterns’’ (p. 97). The subtlety of these patterns, the conﬁdential personnel practices of universities, and the diffusion of authority and oversight increase the likelihood that they will neither be detected as gendered nor targeted for action. Even when women and their employers recognize that they may be disadvantaged in some way, it is altogether too easy to ascribe the differences to special circumstances rather than to discrimination (Crosby, 1984). The experience of being ‘‘the only’’ in an environment, such as being the only woman and the only Latina in a department, makes it all the more difﬁcult to name the etiologies of some difﬁculties. The accumulation of slight disadvantages and micro-aggressions (Bernstein & Russo, 2007; National Academies, 2006; Sonnert & Holton, 1995; Valian, 1998) for an individual woman, especially in environments with masculine norms and where women are outnumbered by men, erodes women’s career satisfaction and impedes their productivity and advancement. Psychologists are tracing the intrapersonal mechanisms by which subtle sexism and unconscious bias interfere with productivity. The seminal research on stereotype threat by Claude Steele and colleagues (Steele, 1997; Steele & Aronson, 1995; Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002) has led to recognition that situational cues (such as a colleague’s portraying a task as a measure of ability rather than skills that can be learned or referring to gender) can trigger women’s concerns about © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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being judged via gender stereotypes; these worries in turn can negatively affect their performance in math and science and lower selfconﬁdence (Johns, Schmader, & Martens, 2005). Recent research on identity threat (Murphy, Steele, & Gross, 2007) suggests that one response of women and minorities to situational cues that trigger discomfort (e.g., a woman being outnumbered by men in a group) is allocation of more attention toward those cues. This redirection of attention and focus away from the tasks at hand may lead to a diminution of performance. In a study (Salvatore & Shelton, 2007) of responses by Black volunteers to subtle racism (unfair but ambiguous hiring decisions; e.g., candidate with superior resume rejected without reason) versus overt racism (reason for hiring decision is that the candidate belonged to too many minority organizations), Black participants performed more poorly on a cognitive task under the ambiguous condition when compared with the overt condition. The authors speculate that Black participants were applying their cognitive resources to diagnose the vague unfairness and that this cognitive burden interfered with a competing task. They reason that it is the constant and subtle micro-aggressions that actually interfere most with the cognitive processing necessary for optimum task performance, rather than the overt acts of discrimination that are more easily recognized and cognitively processed. Discouragement and discrimination, whether acute or accumulated, are particularly damaging for women who feel they have no good alternatives to withdrawing or leaving the institution altogether. The case of the women scientists at MIT is notable for the risk they took and exemplary in illustrating the power of mounting a group effort: Driven all their professional lives to achieve at the highest possible level, to many it seemed they were putting a lifetime of hard work and good behavior at risk. They feared being seen as radical troublemakers, as complainers. But the feeling of an injustice, the anger that accumulates from this recognition, and the strong desire to change things for themselves and for future generations of women propelled them forward (Committee on Faculty Women, 1999, p. 7). WOMEN . . . AND MEN . . . WANT MORE There is growing evidence that the majority of both men and women in the new and emerging generations of professionals seek more balanced lives, place heavier emphasis than ever before on their personal lives outside of work and careers, and wish to apply their talents and abilities through multiple roles (Barnett & Hyde, 2001; Gilbert, 2002). In a study of career changers among ‘‘30-something’’ young adults (Wise & Millward, 2005), both men and women, with or without children, valued employment that allowed time for personal lives. With © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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regard to the academic setting, a recent survey of 7,000 early career faculty were found to report even more dissatisfaction than the previous year’s cohort with the imbalance between their professional and personal time; women continued to express signiﬁcantly more dissatisfaction than men with respect to work/life balance and institutional support for having and raising children (COACHE, 2007). In a study of over 1,500 women in the chemical industry (Fassinger & Giordan, 2007), 63% reported balancing work and family responsibilities among the top two work-related stressors. Hewlitt and Luce describes a rise in the phenomenon of ‘‘extreme working’’ (2006), where excessively demanding careers exact a high toll from their members. In a series of studies by the Center for Work-Life Policy (Hewlitt & Luce, 2006), most women were found to decide against ‘‘extreme’’ jobs, and among the 20% of extreme job holders who are women, 80% of them do not want to work with the pressure or long hours more than a year, compared with 58% of the men. Research-intensive universities—particularly in the sciences and engineering as described by Hermanowicz (1998, 2003, 2007)—represent the epitome of extreme working organizations and what Coser and Coser (1974) termed ‘‘greedy institutions.’’ In contrast to the increased desire for more balance in work and other life roles on the part of new and aspiring faculty members, the expectations of faculty in research universities are increasing. Research universities, in a perpetual cycle of efforts to strengthen rankings and external support, set ever higher standards for judging the faculty for excellence in multiple academic roles. While perhaps effective in boosting effort in the short run, over time stressed and exhausted individuals experience diminished creativity and become at high risk for burning out. Cathy Trower (2007) of COACHE concludes from hundreds of interviews with talented junior faculty that the anxiety of junior faculty goes way beyond the usual worry about establishing their research programs; rather, the stress derives more from ‘‘the lack of resources, time, and support to be an excellent scholar and an outstanding teacher and a stellar colleague and campus citizen, all at once’’ (COACHE, 2007). But the expectation for faculty to excel at multiple roles within the academy is only a part of the picture. There is a strong albeit sometimes implicit expectation that faculty give their work roles their highest priority. There is little tolerance for decrements in research productivity or performance that result from the responsibilities that stem from competing professional or personal roles. Bailyn (2006) notes that the lack of clear boundaries between work and family in academic lives adds to the ease with which work crowds out family: The academic career . . . is paradoxical. Despite its advantages of independence and ﬂexibility, it is psychologically difﬁcult. The lack of ability

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Obstacles and the Identity Juggle to limit work, the tendency to compare oneself primarily to the exceptional giants in one’s ﬁeld, and the high incidence of overload make it particularly difﬁcult for academics to ﬁnd a satisfactory integration of work with private life. . . . It is the unbounded nature of the academic career that is the heart of the problem. (p. 61)

Commitments to work and family are viewed as essential for healthy adult development (Erikson, 1968; Levinson, 1978; Vaillant, 1977). However, it is still more acceptable for men to assert these commitments without assuming their concomitant responsibilities, such as routine tasks of domestic work, chauffeuring children to after-school programs, and making medical visits (Perna, 2005). Faculty men are more likely than faculty women to have spouses who pick up the responsibilities for house, home, and family. The ﬁnding that two of every three University of California faculty mothers compared with half of University of California faculty fathers reported slowing down their careers for parenting (Mason et al., 2005), likely reﬂects this imbalance of responsibilities. The differential in the pace of career progression may reﬂect the fact that women scientists may be more likely than men scientists to have a spouse with a demanding career that leaves little time for sharing domestic responsibilities. For example, one study found that in physics, more than two-thirds of women physicists had spouses who were scientists compared to 17% of men physicists (MacNeil & Sher, 1999). As Hewlitt stated poignantly (2007), ‘‘Only cosseted white males—many of whom have at-home wives and come from upper middle class backgrounds—can easily conjure up the 65-hour work-weeks that are increasingly needed for advancement in today’s competitive professional environments.’’ Gendered stereotypes related to motherhood magnify the detrimental effects of allocating time to family responsibilities for women. As one blogger put it, ‘‘The brilliant young mother appears stressed out and underproductive. The brilliant young father, no longer the obnoxious young nerd he might have seemed when he was hired, now seems all the more human and charming for his (discrete) family responsibilities’’ (Stansell, 2007). When working women become mothers, they become perceived as more warm but less competent (a tradeoff not experienced by men), which puts them at a disadvantage in ﬁelds where competence is highly valued (Cuddy et al., 2004). Indeed, discrimination against working mothers, characterized as the ‘‘maternal wall,’’ has emerged as the new frontier in the struggle for women’s equality in employment (Biernat, Crosby, & Williams, 2004; Steinberg et al., in press). For some women scientists, the answer is to avoid having children. Two out of three faculty women in research extensive universities do not become mothers (Mason & Goulden, 2004). Sonnert and Holton © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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(1995) found that among married women scientists who decided against having children, three out of four reported career considerations compared with fewer than half of the men. Academic careers in science and engineering require more time devoted to work than positions in industry and government (Hoffer & Grigorian, 2005). Women in academic careers, particularly those with children at home, are the most busy, spending more than 100 hours per week in professional, caregiving, and household responsibilities, while faculty without children at home report spending 85 hours a week on these responsibilities (Mason et al., 2005). As Bernstein and Russo (2007) calculated it, ‘‘If Mason’s faculty women sleep eight hours per night, they are left with an average of one hour and forty minutes per day to choose among exercise, spending time with partners or friends, leisure reading, or other worthy pursuits’’ (p. 106). Too many conﬂicting demands on one’s time raises stress levels and can undermine health and productivity. Time restrictions are stressful, but the psychological impact of multiple role demands can be more fully understood by considering the centrality of the respective roles that are presenting conﬂicts of commitment for the individual. One woman, quoted by Handelsman, Cantor, Carnes, Denton, Fine, Grosz, Hinshaw, Marrett, Rosser, Shalala, and Sheridan (2005), described the conﬂict well: I feel like my career is a constant gamble to strike the right balance between three things: (i) how much I must commit myself to my career in order to get tenured/remain a competitive scientist/earn enough clinical revenue; (ii) how much time and effort I give to my husband/household to stay married; and (iii) how much time and effort I give to my children to guide their growth and development.

There is considerable evidence that married women’s participation rates in science and engineering are becoming increasingly similar to men’s (Goldin, 2004). However, the evidence is also compelling that having children, particularly within 5 years after the award of a doctorate, hampers professional advancement for women faculty (Mason & Goulden, 2004). Faculty who are mothers and assume child-care responsibilities reduce their involvement with some productivityrelated activities such as having lunch with colleagues, putting in extra hours, and going to conferences (Preston, 2004). In one study, tenuretrack faculty men with children at home reported spending 41% more time on research than did the tenure-track faculty women with children in the home. The importance of time management is highlighted in interviews with scientists who are also mothers (Cole & Zuckerman, 1987): These women make especially ‘‘disciplined allocations’’ of time and attention to work and children, but little else. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Interventions that have been found to be effective in reducing the conﬂicts between work and family responsibilities in other employment sectors, such as introducing shorter work schedules (Anttila, Natti, & Vaisanen, 2005), are incompatible with the norms of science and research universities. Although COACHE surveys indicate that women and men view institutional policies and practices to support research and career success as important, opinions on policy effectiveness vary. Among women and men who viewed policies as ‘‘fairly important,’’ those related to assistance in obtaining grants and child care were rated as least effective (COACHE, 2007). Largely through the efforts of teams working with the support of the NSF ADVANCE program, signiﬁcant progress has been made in crafting an array of beneﬁts that constitute ‘‘family-friendly policies’’ at universities. These beneﬁts have included automatic tenure-clock extensions for new parents, part-time and modiﬁed duties options for pretenure faculty with special family or personal health circumstances, dual career hiring assistance, and paid leaves for graduate students for pregnancy and childbirth. PROMISING PATHWAYS Recent developments to improve the representation of women in the sciences and engineering have focused largely on ﬂexible work schedules, improved mentoring, and management training to address bias and equity in hiring and evaluation. There is much to be learned about other best practices from the strategic initiatives launched at the 28 institutions that have received major NSF ADVANCE grants for Institutional Transformation projects in these areas. A signiﬁcant shift is occurring in science away from the celebration of the individual genius; teamwork now characterizes much of science (Wuchty, Jones, & Uzzi, 2007). Research collaborations among scientists around a theme of interest, as opposed to the more traditional grouping by narrow topic, discipline, or methodology, are characteristic of the large interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research ventures now being supported by federal sponsors. These projects operate through research centers, training programs like IGERTs (NSF grants for Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeships), and the multiinstitutional projects geared toward ‘‘big science’’ questions. In many science and engineering ﬁelds, about 4 in 10 faculty members are afﬁliated with research centers in universities (Corley & Gaughan, 2005). Some scholars have suggested that these types of research groups are more likely to attract and favor women, but there has been little empirical attention directed at verifying or refuting this supposition (Rhoten & Pﬁrman, 2007). Following the psychosocial model proposed here that a person’s perception of ﬁt between one’s own preferences © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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and commitments with the environment is related to satisfaction, the critical difference for women might be in the conﬁguration, membership, and organization of the research group rather than by the research content. For example, research groups, whether in centers or in departments, that are characterized by more collaborative, collegial, and less individualistically competitive interactions may be more successful in attracting and retaining women. Some evidence is available that this may be the case. For example, Etzkowitz and colleagues identiﬁed ‘‘relational departments’’ as those with collegial and cooperative atmospheres that facilitate innovation, networking, and safety for taking risks (Etzkowitz, Kemelgor, & Uzzi, 2000). Their interviews with scientists identiﬁed several tenured women faculty who left prestigious, competitive, and hierarchical departments where they struggled for recognition and status to more relational departments to heal the isolation and anxiety they experienced. There is evidence as well that the presence of and ready access to other women are beneﬁcial. Hiring a critical mass of women from the start helps to inhibit patterns of gender segregation (Smith-Doerr, 2004), especially when the women have similar interests and frequent contact (Etzkowitz, Kemelgor, & Uzzi, 2000). The success of several initiatives that have purposefully recruited clusters of faculty women and students (e.g., at Carleton College in the sciences, Wilson, 2006; and Tufts University in engineering, Abriola & Davies, 2006) point to the power of focused strategies to build a critical mass of women role models, mentors, and colleagues. In our judgment, a valid test of whether women are more attracted to, satisﬁed with, or beneﬁt from participation in collaborative efforts cannot occur until women have comparable exposure and access to these new forms of working and until the mechanisms of collaborative efforts are better understood. Researchers have focused recently on describing the conditions that appear to enhance research productivity among women. The potential for women’s greater satisfaction with their careers in collaborative environments notwithstanding, the increasing evidence that collaborations, team science, and networked organizations enhance research productivity and advancement for participants suggests that these settings for faculty work might be particularly advantageous for women. Two variables associated with collaborations are viewed as critical for research productivity: access to information and resources, and time for research. The ﬁnding that women with young children and women who do not engage in research collaborations with other scientists are less research productive than both men and women who do collaborate (e.g., Kyvik & Teigen, 1996) supports this view. Similarly, the majority of married women in science are married to other scientists; the additional access to mainstream networks of information, funding, and © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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resources for research may contribute to the higher productivity of married scientists over single ones (Astin & Milem, 1997; Creamer, 1999). Citation frequency, often used as a proxy for research quality and as an indicator of impact of the researcher on a ﬁeld, is an important element in the gatekeepers’ evaluations of a scholar’s research productivity. There is evidence that in addition to patents obtained, research that is cited frequently is more likely to have been produced by teams than individual researchers (Wuchty, Jones, & Uzzi, 2007). It is important to note that the statistical association can be explained partially by the phenomenon that more members of a team can disseminate ﬁndings more widely and cite a particular publication more often than can a sole author. Similarly, co-authoring a publication with one or more highly regarded or highly cited scholars is likely to result in higher citation rates. Further, as Wuchty and colleagues (2007) have pointed out, it is possible that papers with multiple authors require less time by each contributor than does a solo publication, hence participating in team research allows more articles to be produced with higher citation counts for the body of work. The persistent differences in research productivity between men and women faculty (Cole & Zuckerman, 1984) continue to reﬂect the accumulated disadvantages (Cole & Singer, 1991) associated with less integration into professional networks, less access to research assistants, collaborators, professional contacts, and other resources, as well as less time available for research because of caretaking responsibilities that many women experience. It may be that participating in collaborative research teams with prominent scholars is a good strategy to maximize the number of well-placed publications and corresponding citation rates, key indicators for deﬁnitions of productivity for tenure and promotion. Viewed in this way, women’s access to and inclusion in research groups and the extent to which women are mentored and their contributions are valued will inﬂuence their actual productivity and their satisfaction. The possibility of bias in attribution for credit given the context of gender stereotypes of women as dependent and more suited for ‘‘helping’’ roles must also be considered. Just joining a team is insufﬁcient and may even impede a woman’s advancement if patterns of exclusion, marginalization, isolation, and subtle sexism continue unabated, attribution for collaborative efforts are denigrated, and collaboration is viewed as evidence for an inability to develop as an independent researcher. An alternative way to understand the conditions under which women are productive, recognized, and content with their work lives is to compare organizational environments that are hierarchical with those that are ﬂatter and have more permeable boundaries. Smith© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Doerr’s (2004) important work traced the experiences and pathways of women with PhDs in the life sciences who entered academia or biotech companies from 1992 to 1996. In Smith-Doerr’s analysis, the biotech companies are prototypical examples of ‘‘networked organizations,’’ where collaboration, cooperation, teamwork, role ﬂexibility, and open communication are essential to proposing, developing, and delivering the products of the network, not of a single investigator or research lab. In contrast, the levels of hierarchy and bureaucratic rules common in male-dominated organizations increase ‘‘the power and salience of informal hidden modes of operation’’ (Smith-Doerr) that characterize subtle sexism. In a dramatic illustration of the tangible beneﬁts to women of more fundible work settings, Smith-Doerr found that female scientists were eight times more likely to be supervisors in networked biotech ﬁrms than in hierarchical biotech organizations. The unit of analysis for performance evaluation remains one of the unchallenged sources of implicit sexism. The salience of individualistic forms of achievement and competition for status in universities is embodied in hiring the one ‘‘best’’ candidate, appointing one ‘‘x’’ and one ‘‘y’’ to a key committee, and comparing faculty by decimal points on teaching evaluations, numbers of publications in the ‘‘right’’ journals, and order of authorship. In a tantalizing suggestion about tenure, for example, Smith-Doerr (2004) asks her reader to ‘‘imagine if team tenure were an option, in which three or four academics would be evaluated on their collective productivity’’ (p. 151). We would invoke a similar challenge in asking, ‘‘What if administrators were evaluated not on how many women they hired but rather on the basis of their success in coaching women and minority faculty to tenure and full promotion?’’ In some academic settings, departments may recognize that the research productivity of their research-focused faculty is only possible because of the productive contributions of other faculty that take up the slack in meeting the teaching, mentoring, and service needs of the unit, and wish to recognize and reward all members of the ‘‘team.’’ Ironically, upper administration’s focus on the individual may lead to overturning recommendations for promotion and tenure based on failure to recognize the full range of productivity of the faculty member— and ultimately undermine the overall productivity of the unit. Evidence for the advantages that networked organizations in industry provide women suggests that new organizational forms may hold signiﬁcant potential for enhancing the satisfaction and productivity of women faculty. Networks broaden the number of people for interaction and enhance the collaborative connections among them. The elaboration of professional networks is a central component of success that NSF ADVANCE institutions name (Stewart, Malley, & LaVaque-Manty, 2007), and one that internal groups and organizations, like a faculty © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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women’s association, a local AWIS chapter (Association for Women in Science), or the women faculty in several departments can develop. CONCLUSIONS We have argued that the persistently low numbers of women in many science and engineering positions, particularly on the faculty of research universities, can be attributed largely to the clash between what STEM departments and universities offer and demand and what talented women (and more and more junior faculty men) want and deserve. University administrators as well as faculties have been slow to recognize and respond to what even some industry sectors have made central to their planning. Building an organizational culture that promotes and honors both the career satisfaction and personal goals of the individual along with the needs of the institution is becoming a necessary condition for attracting and retaining the most talented workforce. Bailyn (2006) noted that these matters pertain to all professionals now, not just to women: The assumption that work roles can engage the exclusive commitment of those who occupy them is no longer tenable. Nor can the difﬁculties of pursuing complex careers any longer be seen as individual dilemmas, to be solved in isolation. The issues transcend individual boundaries. They involve the very core of organizational processes and demand dramatic revision in a number of key underlying assumptions of organizational life. (pp. xvi–xvii)

We have gone beyond the time when gender stereotyping and discrimination were merely lamentable. We have a body of law that makes overt discrimination, sexual harassment, and hostile working environments illegal. However, overt discrimination, documentable in courts of law, has mutated into more subtle forms of discrimination— with their damage just as potent. The hierarchical structures of decision making, the purveyors of departmental rankings, the striving for inclusion in the disciplinary elite, the ambiguous and shifting standards of evaluation, and the adherence to an individualistic, linear, reductionist, and limited deﬁnition of productivity contribute to the circumplex that characterizes today’s research universities and that makes them such inhospitable and unforgiving environments in which to work. Research universities continue to be slow to consider the very real transformation that is occurring in the American psyche, and therefore among students and aspiring and current faculty. Talented people, whether women or men, scientists or artists, students or professionals, have choices about how to construct or re-construct their lives. Scientists and engineers, already elite by virtue of their educational and professional achievements, are typically not hindered by doubts © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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about what they can achieve if they set their sights in a given direction. They have the advantage of attractive options and the luxury to base their actions and choices more on what they want for their lives. As professional men and women shape their lives and careers today, they are more likely than their parents to consider careers and places of work that provide ﬂexibility, allow a blend of productive work with a satisfying personal and family life, and encourage creativity, collaboration, and connection. They seek environments that provide active support for professional success, demonstrate concern for the individual, and celebrate improvisation and change. Women who are talented and accomplished scientists and engineers make choices that help them progress toward their desired possible selves: productive, satisﬁed, and meaningfully connected to colleagues, family, and society. It is the challenge for universities to become the environments of choice for these women. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. REC-0634519 to Bianca L. Bernstein. Nancy Felipe Russo is a co-investigator. Any opinions, ﬁndings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reﬂect the views of the National Science Foundation. REFERENCES Abriola, L. M., & Davies, M. W. (2006). Attracting and retaining women in engineering: The Tufts experience. Cornell Higher Education Research Institute Policy Research Conference. Doctoral Education and the Faculty of the Future. Ithaca, NY. October 8–9, 2006. http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/ conf/chericonf2006/Abriola.pdf. American Association of University Professors (2006). AAUP faculty gender equity indicators 2006. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from http://www.aaup. org/AAUP/pubsres/research/geneq2006.htm. Anderson-Rowland, M. R., Bernstein, B. L., & Russo, N. F. (2007a). Encouragers and discouragers for domestic and international women in doctoral programs in engineering and computer science. Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) 2007 Annual Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 2007. Available from http://www.asee.org/acPapers/ AC%202007Full2403.pdf. Anderson-Rowland, M., Bernstein, B. L., & Russo, N. F. (2007b). The doctoral program experience in engineering and computer science: Is it the same for women and men? Proceedings of the Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network (WEPAN) 2007 Annual Conference, Orlando, Florida, June 2007. Available from http://www.x-cd.com/wepan07/ WEPAN2007_0055.pdf.

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of antecedents and consequences. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 71, 309–328. Goldin, C. (2004). The long road to the fast track: Career and family. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 10331. Available from http:// www.nber.org/papers/w-10331. Gottfredson, L. S. (1981). Circumscription and compromise: A developmental theory of occupational aspirations. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 28, 545– 579. Gottfredson, L. (1996). Gottfredson’s theory of circumscription and compromise. In D. Brown, L. Brooks, & Associates (Eds.), Career choice and development (pp. 179–232). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Gottfredson, L. S. (2004). Applying Gottfredson’s theory of circumscription and compromise in career guidance and counseling. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Career development and counseling: Putting theory and research to work (pp. 71–100). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. Handelsman, J., Cantor, N., Carnes, M., Denton, D., Fine, E., Grosz, B., Hinshaw, V., Marrett, C., Rosser, S., Shalala, D., & Sheridan, J. (2005). More women in science. Science, 309, 1190–1191. Hermanowicz, J. C. (1998). The stars are not enough: Scientists—their passions and professions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hermanowicz, J. C. (2003). Scientists and satisfaction. Social Studies of Science, 33, 45–73. Hermanowicz, J. C. (2007). Argument and outline for the sociology of scientiﬁc (and other) careers. Social Studies of Science, 37, 625–646. Heslin, P. A. (2005). Conceptualizing and evaluating career success. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26, 113–136. Hewlitt, S. A., & Luce, C. B. (2006). Extreme jobs: The dangerous allure of the 70-hour workweek. Harvard Business Review. Hewlitt, S. A., Luce, C. B., Shiller, P., & Southwell, S. (2005). The hidden brain drain: Off-ramps and on-ramps in women’s careers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Research Report. Available from http://harvardbusiness online.hbsp.harvard.edu/email/pdfs/9491p4_rev_Harvard_site.pdf. Higgins, M. C., & Thomas, D. A. (2001). Constellations and careers: Toward understanding the effects of multiple developmental relationships. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22, 223–247. Hoffer, T. B., & Grigorian, K. (2005). All in a week’s work: Average work weeks of doctoral scientists and engineers. InfoBrief NSF 06-302. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation. Hoffer, T. B., Hess, M., Welch, Jr., V., & Williams, K. (2007). Doctorate recipients from United States universities: Summary report 2006. Chicago: National Opinion Research Center. Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd Ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Holton, G., & Sonnert, G. (1996). Career patterns of women and men in the sciences. American Scientist, 84, 63–71. Hyde, J. S. (2005). The gender similarities hypothesis. American Psychologist, 60, 581–592. Hyde, J. S. (2007). New directions in the study of gender similarities and differences. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 259–263.

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Ostroff, C., Shin, Y., & Kinicki, A. J. (2005). Multiple perspectives of congruence: Relationships between value congruence and employee attitudes. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26, 591–623. Perna, L. W. (2005). Sex differences in faculty tenure and promotion: The contribution of family ties. Research in Higher Education, 46(3), 277–307. Pizzolato, J. E. (2007). Impossible selves: Investigating students’ persistence decisions when their career-possible selves border on impossible. Journal of Career Development, 33(3), 201–223. Prentice, D. A., & Miller, D. T. (2006). Essentializing differences between women and men. Psychological Science, 17, 129–135. Preston, A. E. (2004). Leaving science: Occupational exit from science careers. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Rankin, P., Nielsen, J., & Stanley, D. M. (2007). Weak links, hot networks, and tacit knowledge – Why advancing women requires networking. In A. J. Stewart, J. E. Malley, & D. LaVaque-Manty (Eds.), Transforming science and engineering: Advancing academic women (pp. 31–47). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Rapoport, R. L., Bailyn, L., Fletcher, J. K., & Pruitt, B. H. (2002). Beyond workfamily balance: Achieving gender equity and workplace performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Reybold, L. E. (2005). Surrendering the dream: Early career conﬂict and faculty dissatisfaction thresholds. Journal of Career Development, 32(2), 107– 121. Rhoten, D., & Pﬁrman, S. (2007). Women, science and interdisciplinary ways of working. Inside Higher Education. Retrieved on October 22, 2007, from http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/10/22/rhoten. Ruvolo, A. P., & Markus, H. R. (1992). Possible selves and performance: The power of self-relevant imagery. Social Cognition, 10, 95–124. Salvatore, J., & Shelton, J. N. (2007). Cognitive costs of exposure to racial prejudice. Psychological Science, 18, 810–815. Savickas (2004). The theory and practice of career construction. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Career development and counseling: Putting theory and research to work. Hobokon, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Settles, I. H., Cortina, L. M., Malley, J., & Stewart, A. J. (2006). The climate for women in academic science: The good, the bad, and the changeable. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30, 47–58. Smith, J. W. (2005). The inﬂuences of gender, race, and ethnicity on workplace experiences of institutional and social isolation: An exploratory study of university faculty. Sociological Spectrum, 25, 307–334. Smith-Doerr, L. (2004). Women’s work: Gender equality vs. hierarchy in the life sciences. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Sonnert, G. (1995). Gender equity in the academy: Still an elusive goal. Issues in Science and Technology, 12(2), 53–58. Sonnert, G., & Holton, G. (1995). Gender differences in science careers. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Sonnert, G., & Holton, G. (1996). Career patterns of women and men in the sciences. American Scientist, 84(1), 63–71. Sourdif, J. (2004). Predictors of nurses’ intent to stay at work in a university health center. Nursing and Health Sciences, 6, 59–68.

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Stansell, C. (2007). Women in academia. The New Republic, Open University, Feb. 23, 2007. Available from http://www.tnr.com/blog/openuniversity? pid¼83431. Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52, 613–629. Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 797–811. Steele, C. M., Spencer, S., & Aronson, J. (2002). Contending with group image: The psychology of stereotype and social identity threat. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 34, pp. 379–440). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Steinberg, J., True, M., & Russo, N. F. (in press). Work and family: Selected issues. In F. L. Denmark & M. A. Paludi (Eds.), Psychology of women: A handbook of issues and theories (2nd ed). Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. Stephan, P. E. (2007). Early careers for biomedical scientists: Doubling (and troubling) outcomes. Harvard University/NBER Science and Engineering Workforce Project. Retrieved on January 26, 2007, from http://www.nber.org/ sewp/Early%20Careers%20for%20Biomedical%20Scientists.pdf. Stephan, P. E., & Levin, S. G. (2005). Leaving careers in IT: Gender differences in retention. Journal of Technology Transfer, 30, 383–396. Stewart, A. J., Malley, J. E., & LaVaque-Manty, D. (2007). Transforming science and engineering: Advancing academic women. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Sturm, S. (2007). Gender equity as institutional transformation: The pivotal role of ‘‘organizational catalysts.’’ In A. J. Stewart, J. E. Malley, & D. LaVaqueManty (Eds.), Transforming science and engineering: Advancing academic women. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Trower, C. A., Austin, A. E., & Sorcinelli, M. D. (2001). Paradise lost: How the academy converts enthusiastic recruits into early-career doubters. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 53(9), 3–6. Trower, C. A., & Bleak, J. L. (2004). Study of new scholars, gender: Statistical Report. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Education. Trower, C. (2007). Tenure-track faculty job satisfaction survey highlights report. Cambridge, MA: The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (2007). Employment and earnings. Washington, DC: Author. Vaillant, G. E. (1977). Adaptation to life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Valian, V. (1998). Why so slow: Advancement of women. Boston, MA: MIT Press. Valian, V. (2000). Sex, schemas, and success: What’s keeping women back. In P. Murphy, P. G. Devine, V. Valian, K. D. Harper, T. DeAngelis, Z. R. Dowdy (Eds.), Prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping. Guilford, CT: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill. Valian, V. (2007). Women at the top in science—and elsewhere. In S. J. Ceci & W. W. Williams (Eds.), Why aren’t more women in science? Top researchers debate the evidence. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Vescio, T. K., Gervais, S. J., Snyder, M., & Hoover, A. (2005). Power and the creation of patronizing environments: The stereotype-based behaviors of

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the powerful and their effects on female performance in masculine domains. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(4), 658–672. West, M. S., & Curtis, J. W. (2006). AAUP faculty gender equity indicators 2006. Washington, DC: American Association of University Professors. Available from http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/63396944-44BE-4ABA-98155792D93856F1/0/AAUPGenderEquityIndicators2006.pdf. Wilson, R. (2006, May 5). A hothouse for female scientists: At Carleton, working closely with professors leads women to careers in science. Chronicle of Higher Education, 52(35). http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i35/35a01301.htm. Wise, A. J., & Millward, L. J. (2005). The experiences of voluntary career change in 30-somethings and implications for guidance. Career Development International, 10, 400–417. Wuchty, S., Jones, B. F., & Uzzi, B. (2007). The increasing dominance of teams in production of knowledge. Science, 316(5827), 1036–1039. Xie, Y., & Shauman, K. A. (2003). Women in science: Career processes and outcomes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Chapter 2

Women as Leaders: From the Lab to the Real World Florence L. Denmark Erika M. Baron Maria D. Klara Janet Sigal Margaret Gibbs Dorothy Wnuk

Barriers preventing women from becoming leaders in a wide variety of settings have been the focus of research for a number of years. The ‘‘glass ceiling’’ concept (Morrison, White, & Van Velsor, 1987) illustrated the idea that women could succeed in climbing the ladder to leadership positions only so far, until they reached the invisible glass ceiling; that is, the existence of barriers, both direct and subtle, have prevented women from achieving top leadership positions in professions as diverse as academia, the military, and the corporate world. Eagly and Carli (2007) argued that the appropriate metaphor is a labyrinth, not a glass ceiling; rather than a single barrier, women in their attempt to become leaders encounter a series of dead ends, detours, and unusual paths. Leadership studies in the laboratory examined a variety of theories explaining who becomes a leader, including the ‘‘trait approach,’’ which suggested that leaders are born, not made, and have tremendous inﬂuence based on their personality characteristics, and charisma (Zaccaro, 2007); the ‘‘situational approach,’’ which at ﬁrst claimed that situational factors outweighed the importance of the attributes of any particular leader, but subsequently changed to the ‘‘contingency © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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approach,’’ which focused on the types of leaders who are most effective in speciﬁc types of situations (Vroom & Jago, 2007); and ‘‘integrative theories’’ of leadership, which not only examined the contribution of speciﬁc characteristics of leaders and the impact of the situation, but expanded the analysis to include factors such as relationships with followers, and the role of the context and culture in determining effectiveness of leaders (Avolio, 2007). Many of these past and current theories appear to be more explanatory of how men achieve high positions rather than women. For years in business, academia, and the military, the majority of leaders were male, which can account for the research emphasis on men as leaders. More recently, however, women began to be promoted to middle-management positions in a variety of settings, including politics. Although the situation has improved somewhat for potential women leaders, it still appears that the glass ceiling exists with respect to the highest positions; for example, women are underrepresented as chief executive ofﬁcers (CEOs), on corporate boards, as presidents of universities, as generals and admirals in the Armed Forces, and as president and vice president in the United States. In the past 2 years, the gender imbalance in U.S. politics seems to be changing to some degree. Nancy Pelosi is the ﬁrst woman Speaker of the House, an extremely powerful political position; there are female senators; and Hillary Rodham Clinton is running for president of the United States. In this chapter, ﬁrst we will describe a model or approach to leadership that has considerable applicability to women in various ﬁelds. In subsequent sections, we will examine barriers preventing women from achieving leadership positions as well as the conditions that favor women leaders. Brief discussions of conditions in the corporate world, academia, the health professions, and blue-collar occupations, with accompanying barriers and recommendations to eliminate these barriers, will be presented. LEADERSHIP STYLES As described by Eagly (2007), Burns (1978) distinguished among three types of leadership styles: 1. Transformational style: Leaders adopting this approach are role models, are sensitive to followers’ needs, ‘‘mentor and empower their subordinates,’’ ‘‘creatively innovate,’’ and help organizations achieve their goals. Eagly stated that these leaders have been termed ‘‘charismatic leaders.’’ 2. Transactional style: Leaders reward subordinates for constructive behavior and criticize them for falling short of organizational goals. 3. Laissez-faire style: Leaders adopt a hands-off approach to leading, which generally is ineffective.

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Eagly described several studies that indicated that the transformational leadership style was most effective, although the rewarding aspect of the transactional style also was a positive factor. What is particularly pertinent for this chapter is that leadership styles seem to be intertwined with gender role characteristics. Women, on the one hand, in terms of sex-role stereotypes are considered to be ‘‘communal,’’ warm, sensitive to other people’s feelings and needs, inclusive, and rewarding. These characteristics, according to Eagly, seem to embody the qualities of transformational leadership styles, plus the positive rewarding aspect of transactional styles. Men, on the other hand, are considered to be ‘‘agentic,’’ which implies traits of conﬁdence, assertiveness, and toughness, qualities more associated with transactional than transformational styles. Therefore, according to Eagly, women should be more effective leaders than men because women embody the style that has been shown to be effective.

BARRIERS TO LEADERSHIP FOR WOMEN If the Eagly model, which asserts that transformational leadership is in fact more effective and that women are more likely to adopt this style, is accurate, women should have an easy road to leadership. However, there are a number of factors that prevent women from achieving high positions. One explanation advanced by Eagly and Karau (2002) is that the perceived incongruity between agentic leadership and female gender roles means that women are perceived as ineffective leaders regardless of their actual leadership performance. The authors also argued that even if women are agentic, their behavior is misperceived, and if they are identiﬁed accurately as agentic, they will be perceived negatively because their behavior is unfeminine. This paradox is referred to later as the ‘‘double bind’’ (Oakley, 2000, p. 323). Another viewpoint suggests that stereotyped associations may mediate between actual performance and evaluation of women leaders. Fernandes and Cabral-Cardoso (2003) provided empirical support for this explanation when they found that ‘‘man manager’’ and ‘‘manager’’ constructs are perceived as closer than ‘‘female managers’’ and ‘‘manager’’ in a Portuguese sample. In terms of power, Ridgeway (2001) suggested that one of the major components of gender stereotypes is status. Men are automatically accorded higher status, and when women are placed in high-status positions, there is a perceived incongruity. In fact, women also may feel uncomfortable at higher-status positions because of conﬂict with traditional gender norms. In an attempt to further resolve inconsistent ﬁndings on women and leadership, Yoder (2001) adopted an integrative approach. She stated © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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that the transformational approach to leadership, which is more consistent with traditional gender stereotypes associated with women than with men, should be effective in what Yoder called ‘‘a congenial setting.’’ In this type of situation, empowering subordinates is valued and the product or achieving the goal is not the sole or determining criterion deﬁning effective leadership. Yoder (2001) also asserted that the issue of women as leaders is inevitably associated with gender and gender stereotypes. She suggested that women can become more effective leaders (and overcome barriers caused by rigid or traditional sex-role stereotyping) through their individual efforts, such as being extremely competent, valuing group as opposed to individual rewards, or adopting some characteristics associated with male leaders (e.g., assertive speech patterns). However, Yoder argued that it is important not to place the burden of becoming an effective leader upon the woman. The organization should play a supportive role by legitimizing and encouraging women leaders and by ensuring that the male/female ratio of employees is not skewed in favor of male employees. Yoder thought that transformational leadership also may be more effective at certain times in the development of companies than at other times. It is apparent that barriers exist at several different levels. Women internalize cultural and institutional values, and often must ﬁght against feelings of lack of self-worth (Eagly & Carli, 2007). These selfperceptions may prevent women from seeking leadership positions. In addition, current practices may tend to favor agentic leadership, which is a less comfortable style for women to adopt than the transformational style. Most institutions also do not make it easy for women to devote time to their families, while at the same time condemning them if they do not have families. Some of the barriers to female leadership discussed in this section will become clearer in sections describing leadership within particular ﬁelds. Speciﬁcally, female leadership in the corporate world, in academia, in the helping professions, and in the blue-collar workforce will be discussed and case vignettes will be provided. This analysis, and further suggestions to be presented subsequently, may be conducive to developing strategies to enhance women’s abilities to achieve upper management and administrative positions. Lastly, future recommendations that are pertinent to all women leaders will be discussed, regardless of the speciﬁc ﬁeld of expertise. FEMALE LEADERSHIP IN THE CORPORATE WORLD Both Oakley (2000) and Kottke and Agars (2005) report that although women have achieved a signiﬁcant proportion of middle management positions in business (possible estimates are around 40%), © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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there is a much smaller percentage of women in top CEO management positions, particularly in large and prestigious companies such as the Fortune 500. Oakley (2000) analyzed some organizational processes and policies that may act as barriers or glass ceilings preventing women from achieving high leadership positions. One important factor preventing women from moving up the corporate ladder is what Oakley termed ‘‘lack of line experience’’ (p. 323). Because many women middle managers are in areas such as human relations, they have not had essential experiences in line jobs (e.g., production, sales, marketing). This lack of line experience often is used as a reason to prevent women from being promoted to higher administration positions in corporations. Another crucial factor in terms of guiding women’s work performance to achieve success and visibility is the lack of constructive performance-related feedback from their supervisors. This feedback is crucial in assisting women to alter their behavior appropriately, according to Oakley. Women also receive lower salaries and beneﬁts than men, and lack organizational support in many cases, which impedes their progress to the top of the management chain. Kottke and Agars (2005) suggest that another factor, ‘‘threat rigidity’’ (p. 194), represents a strong barrier for women in the corporate world. Men who have been favored in the past feel threatened by the idea that competent women will be competing for scarce jobs as they ascend the corporate ladder. These men have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, which always has beneﬁted men in these organizations. The authors also state that research has not been performed to illustrate concretely and adequately that hiring and promoting women to top corporate positions will have a positive impact on a company’s ﬁnancial future. Although these studies are difﬁcult to conduct, if advocates simply pressure companies to develop more woman-friendly (or at least gender-neutral) policies and practices because of past discrimination against women, prejudice and bias against women will continue to exist. In fact, as the authors indicated, male employees will see this gender afﬁrmative action policy itself as unfair to men. Both Oakley (2000) and Kottke and Agars (2005) emphasize the importance of gender issues and sex-role stereotypes in creating additional glass ceiling barriers for women in the corporate world. If women speak and act decisively and assertively, they may be seen as tough enough but unfeminine. This double-bind (Oakley, p. 324) situation is evident in some attacks against Hillary Clinton and other women politicians. Oakley also suggests that qualities seen as associated with femininity have been equated with incompetence by prejudiced people in the past. According to the author, ‘‘old boy networks’’ represent another major barrier preventing women from being promoted. These networks often operate in informal settings that are not © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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available to women, such as golf courses and squash courts. Some companies, including a major accounting ﬁrm in New York City, are attempting to eliminate this problem by teaching, on company time, all new employees to learn how to play golf. One other negative factor relates to the issue of tokenism. Being hired as a token is an isolating experience and puts tremendous pressure on the token to outperform her associates. In an academic situation, a Black female chair of a psychology department at a southern university complained to one of the authors (Sigal) that ‘‘everything I say or do is associated with Black people in general’’ at her university. Oakley claimed that it will be difﬁcult to change the corporate climate to make it more welcoming for women. It may be necessary to address and alter basic gender stereotypes as well as to change corporate practices before a corporation can become woman-friendly. Kottke and Agars (2005) expanded on the above recommendation by suggesting that, instead of making the corporate world more womanfriendly, the business world should be made more people-friendly by accommodating employees’ family needs (e.g., family leave policies, telecommuting, etc.), establishing open communication, providing successful mentoring, and empowering men and women to achieve their highest potential at work. In conclusion, although women have advanced to middle management positions in various corporations, several barriers still exist and prevent women from achieving high-level executive positions. This situation seems unlikely to change very quickly unless rigid sex-role stereotypes are altered and lose their impact on individuals’ attitudes and perceptions. Although many companies may claim that they have developed woman-friendly practices, unless the organization is supportive of women, and the practical advantage of having women in executive positions is demonstrated, women will continue to be frustrated by glass ceiling barriers in the corporate world and may opt out of ﬁghting these barriers to go into other professional ﬁelds.

WOMEN LEADERS IN ACADEMIA In recent years, the number of women who have obtained professional degrees and occupied positions of leadership in academia has increased dramatically. However, individuals attempting to advance in a world that was previously male-dominated have been confronted with obstacles that are similar in nature and scope to those of the female blue-collar worker. The following section explores the history of women in academia, the barriers to leadership for women in academia, the steps toward strengthening the role of women in academia, and lastly, the progress that women have made thus far.

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HISTORY OF WOMEN AND EDUCATION Until the last half of the twentieth century, the majority of women obtained a formal education through high school. This was a time when women’s roles were rigidly deﬁned, and the conventional life path involved marrying and bearing children at a young age. Females began to question their traditional places as the United States saw an increase in various societal trends. These trends included expansion of public school systems, an increased desire for female teachers, the growth of other employment opportunities, a proliferation of literature for women, and the development of domestic labor-saving devices that afforded more leisure time. All of these factors served to further women’s interest in education and promote realistic opportunities for knowledge acquisition in secondary institutions (Women’s History in America, n.d.). The number of individuals who have enrolled in postsecondary institutions has increased dramatically over the past decades. From 1970 to 2001, women went from being the minority to the majority of the United States’ undergraduate population, increasing their representation from 42% to 56%. Female enrollment in degree-granting institutions is expected to rise to 57% by the year 2014. This increase in enrollment reﬂects the number of older women returning to pursue an education as well as the number of minority women attending degree-granting institutions (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], n.d.). Compatible with the rise in female enrollment, women have surpassed men in degree attainment over the past several decades. Among freshman who were enrolled in a college or university in the 1995–1996 school year, a greater percentage of females (66%) than males (59%) had earned a bachelor’s degree by the spring of 2001 (Freeman, 2004). In 2002 and 2003, women also earned the majority of master’s degrees, 48% of ﬁrst-professional degrees, and 47% of doctorate degrees. The NCES (n.d.) projects that, between 2002 and 2014, the number of women who earn associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate’s, and ﬁrst-professional degrees will increase by 21%, 22%, 39%, 28%, and 35%, respectively. The number of minority women who have enrolled in institutions of higher education accounts for a signiﬁcant portion of the overall growth. The NCES tracked enrollment of persons by race/ethnicity from October 1965 to October 1997 and found that the number of Black, non-Hispanic women entering college had increased by approximately 5.3% and the number of Hispanic women had increased by 3.0% (NCES, 1998). Furthermore, women comprised 63% of the African-American undergraduate population enrolled in college in the 1999–2000 school year. Examining the undergraduate and gradate degrees awarded to minority women reveals a similar pattern. By 2001, African-American

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women earned two-thirds of the bachelor’s and associate’s degrees awarded to African-American students. Additionally, 60% of the degrees awarded to Hispanic and American-Indian individuals and 57% of the degrees conferred on Asian individuals were earned by women (Peter & Horn, n.d.). The NCES projects that the number of minority women acquiring ﬁrst-professional, master’s, and doctorate degrees will continue to increase substantially (NCES, n.d.). The growth in the frequency of women obtaining doctorate and professional level degrees is important in women’s attempts to gain ground in academia. These achievements demonstrate that a growing number of women have the educational tools necessary to hold a highpowered position at a top-tier university. This, in addition to the change in national climate toward supporting more gender-equitable perceptions of women and men, has inﬂuenced the opportunities for women in academia. However, several barriers continue to exist that have hindered women from obtaining positions of leadership as frequently as their male counterparts.

BARRIERS Underrepresentation in Academia Some researchers suggest that women in the professoriate are underrepresented as compared to men because of the fact that they have only recently gained degrees. With predictions that the number of women who obtain professional degrees will continue to increase comes part of the solution that will likely ease the gender disparity problem. Contrary to this is data from the NCES, which indicates that, while the percentage of women who have obtained doctorates has grown signiﬁcantly, the percentage of women who have achieved tenured status at academic institutions has remained fairly consistent since the 1970s (Mason & Goulden, 2002). The Glass Ceiling and/or Leaky Pipeline Theory The glass ceiling theory emphasizes the notion that inherent patterns of gender discrimination in academia inhibit women from advancing to top positions. Data continue to show that advancement in the realm of academia is slower for women than for men, earnings are lower (except at entry level), there is a noticeable underrepresentation of women in positions at top-tier institutions, and fewer academically based national awards and prizes are given to women (Valian, 2005). Despite the fact that women receive a large proportion of PhDs in a variety of ﬁelds, the number of women in biological science, computer © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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science, engineering, and technology ﬁelds continues to increase at a much slower rate as compared to women whose expertise lies in social sciences (National Science Foundation, 2000). This phenomenon, termed the ‘‘leaky pipeline,’’ suggests that the sciences ‘‘selectively leak women’’—a trend that is likely the result of entrenched beliefs that women do not have the qualities and/or knowledge necessary to succeed in a male-dominated ﬁeld (Valian, 2005, p. 207). Research indicates that men in the sciences are more likely to be tenured than woman, even after controls are introduced for years working since obtaining a degree, discipline, and parental status (Long, 2001). Work and Family Conﬂict Another factor that is posited to make advancement in academia difﬁcult for women is the ‘‘work versus family’’ conﬂict. This phenomenon is thought to force women to have to make decisions that inﬂuence their ability to progress in their careers. A woman’s choice to have children is a factor that can often delay the desire to continue with and/or complete undergraduate and graduate schooling, both of which are often prerequisites for obtaining a position of leadership at an academic institution. Those women who acquire professional degrees and subsequently have children are often more likely to take time off and/or work part-time— both of which are obstacles that men probably do not have to overcome. If and when women make the decision to stay at home with their children for a predetermined amount of time, this can imply that they are more willing than men to remove themselves from such a career path at a potentially pivotal time (Mason & Goulden, 2002). Research conducted by Mason and Goulden (2002) examined family formation and its effects on the career lives of both women and men in academia from the time they received their doctorates until 20 years later. The study found that timing of babies mattered most, differentiating between ‘‘early babies’’ (one who joins the household prior to 5 years after his or her parent completes the PhD) and ‘‘late babies’’ (one who joins the household more than 5 years after his or her parent completes the PhD). Overall, there is a consistent and large gap in tenure achievement between women and men who have early babies. In the sciences and engineering there is a 24% gap between men’s and women’s rates of having achieved tenure 12 to 14 years after receiving a PhD. The same pattern exists in the ﬁelds of humanities and social sciences where researchers found a 20% gap in tenure achievement between men and women who have early babies. Remarkably, men across all ﬁelds who had early babies achieve tenure at a slightly higher rate than men and women who do not have early babies. When comparing women with children and women without, the study yielded an interesting ﬁnding that women who have late babies © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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and women without children demonstrated similar rates of achieving tenure—both of which were higher than the rate of women with early babies. Overall, women who achieve tenure across the various disciplines are unlikely to have children in the household. Approximately 62% of tenured women in the humanities and 50% of those in the sciences do not have children in the household. Furthermore, tenured women are twice as likely to be single as compared to tenured men (Mason & Goulden, 2002). Access to Resources Lack of access to career advice, resources, mentoring, and socialization of women faculty (i.e., being taught negotiation and self-promotion skills) is another variable purported to negatively impact the attainment of leadership positions for women. One woman’s experience working as a faculty member at a top-tier institution follows: I feel like there’s this system that is more likely to take these men under their wings. I’ve seen it. They take men under their wings, and they give them the inside scoop, and they ‘‘mentor them’’—tell them what they need to or have to do or put you on this paper, and I just don’t see that happening with the women. (Tracy, Singer, & Singer, n.d., slide 4)

Research also shows evidence of bias in hiring and CV reviews, postdoctoral fellowship awards, peer reviews, letters of recommendation, salary determinants, and teaching evaluations (Tracy et al., n.d.). Furthermore, marginalization is more likely to occur as women progress into better paying and higher level positions (Glazer, 1999). CAREER DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN IN ACADEMIA Research exploring the career development of women who progress to hold positions of leadership in academia is sparse. The most notable study conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education (2005) reported nearly 84% of female university presidents had doctorates (PhD, EdD, etc.), 7.2% had obtained professional degrees (JD, MD, PsyD, etc.), and 5.2% held a variety of master’s degrees. Furthermore, the women held positions such as provost, chief academic ofﬁcer, non-academic university vice president, and dean before beginning their presidency. In an effort to expand upon existent research, Madsen (2007) set out to understand the backgrounds, experiences, and perceptions of women university presidents via conducting in-depth, qualitative interviews with 10 U.S. women who served as president at various colleges and/or universities. Results pertaining to educational history reveal that ﬁve women received bachelor degrees in education, four in math, one in science, and one in social science. Seven presidents pursued master’s degrees © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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immediately after graduating from university, two started within two to four years, and one took a longer break as a result of child-rearing responsibilities. All presidents pursued higher education, with six receiving their doctorate degrees in education and four in non-educational areas. Throughout their careers, four women worked as teachers in a K–12 setting while another four worked in a postsecondary setting. Positions held just prior to serving as president included provost, vice chancellor of academic affairs, president of administration and ﬁnance, vice president of university relations, and a government agency leadership position. A primary ﬁnding was the fact that these women took nonlinear career paths and did not intentionally choose positions that would lead to eventual presidential status. Furthermore, none of the subjects expressed feelings of regret for taking an indirect path, citing that the diverse jobs that they held previously allowed them to develop the knowledge and competency imperative for success (Madsen, 2007). Overall, the educational backgrounds and career paths of the 10 women presidents illustrate a history of drive for continuous learning and development as well as an interest in taking on new and challenging responsibilities. Additionally, ongoing personal and professional development was reported to be facilitated by the diverse jobs that the women held previous to their presidency. It becomes clear that achieving a top position at an institution requires more than just mastery of one’s subject matter. It necessitates keen self-monitoring, judicious negotiation skills, the ability to empower oneself and those around her, and the capacity to support and inspire others (Eagly, 2007). DECREASING GENDER DISPARITY IN ACADEMIA The most recent movement emphasizes the importance of maximizing gender equity in positions of leadership in academia for several reasons. First, hiring women at a rate equal to that of men encourages underrepresented groups and minority students to achieve higher levels of education and feel conﬁdent that they have a promising future in a variety of professional ﬁelds. Equity in the realm of academia also ensures diversity in teaching, scholarship, and research. The varying experiences and interests of women and men are critical in a ﬁeld where collaborative work is the catalyst for innovation and change. Additionally, ‘‘equity creates a stronger and more viable institution via a reputation for fairness. Demonstrations of fairness and concern for fairness build loyalty from within, attract interest from outside, and increase the attractiveness of the institution to underrepresented groups’’ (Valian, 2005, p. 209). Overall, gender equity in initial opportunities for higher-level positions at academic institutions, in the likelihood of promotion, in salary, and in access to resources, is extremely important. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Collins, Chrisler, and Quina (1998) suggest the following principles for individuals as well as institutions that should guide efforts to improve the status and experience of women in academia. With regard to the individual, it is critical to have contextual knowledge of the institution; develop a master career advancement plan with objectives; build power through making your actions visible; use mentoring to get feedback as well as ‘‘unwritten’’ information; and be active through networking within the academic community. It is not just the individual who must work toward decreasing gender disparity in the leadership positions at academic institutions. The university or college itself must put signiﬁcant effort into creating an environment that welcomes and supports qualiﬁed females. Several suggested objectives for universities include installing accountability at all levels and across all employees, irrespective of one’s status, position, or gender; establishing a routine in terms of hiring as well as evaluative practices (i.e., developing search committees that seek out qualiﬁed women); broadening job descriptions to include nontraditional and/or interdisciplinary work; organizing interviews and orientations that portray the university as a welcoming and unbiased environment; and establishing faculty development committees for promotion and tenure that are comprised of both men and women. Female university presidents are on the rise, and it is clear that an increasing number of academic institutions are creating opportunities for women to advance to positions of leadership. The following section relays personal accounts of women who have ascended the ranks to become well-known ﬁxtures and strong leaders in the academic world. Judith Rodin Judith Rodin, former president of University of Pennsylvania, was the ﬁrst female president of an Ivy League university and served from 1994 to 2004. She is an alumna of the University of Pennsylvania and received her PhD from Columbia University in 1970. While president at Penn, the university rose from 16th place to 4th place in the U.S. News College Ranking. Furthermore, Dr. Rodin is credited with improving the atmosphere of the areas that surround the campus. In her ﬁnal year as president of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Rodin’s salary was $986,915, making her the highest paid university president in the country (Wikipedia.org, n.d.). Ruth Simmons Ruth Simmons is the 18th president of Brown University and the ﬁrst African-American president of an Ivy League institution. She graduated from Dillard University in 1967 and received her doctorate in © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Romance literature from Harvard University. Prior to her period in ofﬁce at Brown, Dr. Simmons served as dean at Princeton University from 1983 to 1990 and president of Smith College from 1995 to 2001. In 2001, she was named by Time as America’s best college president, and in 2002 Newsweek selected her as Ms. Woman of the Year (Wikipedia.org, n.d.). In the ﬁscal year of 2005, Dr. Simmons received $684,709 in total compensation (Kelleher, 2006). Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust Dr. Faust was named the ﬁrst female president of Harvard University and began her term on July 1, 2007. She will be the fourth of the eight Ivy League universities to name a woman as its president. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College and obtained her PhD in American civilization at the University of Pennsylvania in 1975. Upon graduation, she joined the University of Pennsylvania faculty and proceeded to teach American history there for more than two decades. Prior to becoming president of Harvard, Dr. Faust was dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the smallest of Harvard’s schools, which emphasizes the study of women, gender, and society (Finder & Rimer, 2007). A recent survey conducted by the American Council on Education revealed that the total percentage of female presidents more than doubled from approximately 10% in 1986 to 21% in 2001. However, the majority of those women were at 2-year institutions and liberal arts and women’s colleges. Furthermore, the study indicated that private and doctoral-granting institutions continue to have the smallest percentage of women presidents (9%) (O’Connor, 2004). Although, historically, men have dominated the leadership positions of academia, the fact that increasingly more women have been assuming similar, highpowered roles at top-tier institutions speaks to the radical shift that is taking place toward gender equality. However, although improvements have been made, there are still impediments that must be addressed in the journey toward gender parity in academe. HEALTH AND HELPING PROFESSIONS One of the authors (Gibbs) remembers the ﬁrst day she entered her PhD program at Harvard in 1963. There were equal numbers of male and female students, and the chair in addressing the students gave himself a pat on the back for this decision, because he said that we all know that most of the women would drop out of the ﬁeld to have families! In 1970, women made up just 20% of the graduates from PhD programs in psychology. In 2005, nearly 75% of the entering workforce in doctoral-level psychology were women (Cnkar, 2007). Women have © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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come a long way within psychology, but they still have not achieved leadership positions. Stereotypical roles operate in psychology as in other ﬁelds, and women are less likely to have attained leadership positions in academia or the professional association, the American Psychological Association (APA), than men. Although these ﬁgures are increasing, only about 25% of the full professors within U.S. graduate institutions of psychology are female. Only 11 of APA’s past presidents have been women, and in 2005 women held fewer than 38% of the editor and associate editor roles for APA journals (Cnkar, 2007). A similar pattern exists in the medical ﬁeld. Women made up 49% of the ﬁrst-year medical class in 2005, but in U.S. medical school faculties only one-sixth of the full professorship is female (Association of American Medical Colleges [AAMC], 2007). This ﬁgure has increased, but not dramatically in the last few years. Yedidia and Bickel (2001) asked clinical department chairs why there were not more women leaders in academic medicine. The authors received a variety of responses in their open-ended interviews with 34 chairs and two division chiefs. The responses tended to center on the following issues: . The constraints of traditional gender roles (e.g., women are less likely to have the time since they have more family responsibilities; it is harder for them to move to accept job offers; only superstar women can do it all) . Sexism in the medical environment (e.g., sexual harassment, lack of respect for women’s opinions, old-boy patterns of promotion) . Lack of mentoring

Yedidia and Bickel proposed interventions ranging from strategies to help individual female faculty ﬁnd a mentor or confront bias to more institutional change, for example extending the probationary period for tenure or establishing mentoring networks across the university. The authors concluded that institutional change is necessary to combat the problem. In 2002, the AAMC reviewed the data from past years of faculty surveys and concluded that the waste of talent from not allowing women to work at their full potential was critical. The report concluded that the ‘‘long-term success of academic health centers is thus inextricably linked to the development of women leaders’’ (Bickel et al., 2002, p. 1043). The authors developed recommendations that are relevant not only to the health professions but to various other ﬁelds. The recommendations to medical schools included the following: . Start using departmental reviews as a strategy for evaluating the effectiveness of departmental chairs in developing female faculty. Most advantage and disadvantage for faculty is created at the departmental level, and the

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chair plays a critical role. Deans can play a stronger role in training and monitoring their chairs. . A program for general faculty development should be created in institutions so that the professional development needs of women are addressed within this context. For instance, one criterion for evaluating faculty can be their skill in and experience of mentoring junior faculty, including women. . Institutional practices should be assessed to see which policies favor men’s over women’s professional development. For instance, the deﬁnition of professional success as a number of publications as sole author ignores contributions to local missions and collaborative research. In general, women faculty members’ more collaborative, relational work is less visible, and criteria may need to change to recognize and reinforce these activities. In addition, ignoring one’s family’s needs should not be seen as a sign of commitment to the profession. . Enhance the effectiveness of search committees in attracting female candidates. Committees should assess for unintended gender bias within their work. In addition, search committees need more than one female member. . Provide ﬁnancial support for programs that monitor the representation of women at senior ranks.

As noted, these recommendations are practical and resonate positively with our discussions in other sections of this chapter. These recommendations focus on institutional change rather than on blaming the victim or on cultural change that is difﬁcult to attain. The fact that women have shown gains within the leadership of the corporate world and academic, blue-collar professions as well as health professions indicates that there is an active movement to create more change and bodes well for the future. LEADERSHIP AND BLUE-COLLAR WOMEN WORKERS Leadership has many deﬁnitions, and there is no clear-cut agreement on a meaning of leadership that covers all circumstances. However, all leadership theories have one element in common, that is, that a leader is one who exerts more inﬂuence within a group than does any other member of the group (Denmark, 1977). Although leadership is important in any subgroup of society, it plays an especially important role in disenfranchised or underrepresented groups, in that leadership is essential in helping these groups gain more power. Through active and positive leadership, the group can work toward empowerment and change. Having a leader is not only essential in mobilizing a group, making it effective and productive, but a leader can also inspire individual members and show people what can be accomplished by example. Martin Luther King Jr. is a © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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prime example of someone who mobilized not only speciﬁc groups, but the nation, and who also exempliﬁed what can be done, instilling hope and inspiring others to continue to ﬁght. The discussion of leadership therefore must be inclusive of women working in blue-collar professions. Blue-collar positions are those ﬁlled by members of the working class who perform manual labor. Bluecollar work may be skilled or unskilled, and may involve factory work, building and construction, law enforcement, mechanical work, maintenance or technical installation, and so on. Although blue-collar women are not considered to be disenfranchised, per se, they do have a different set of concerns as opposed to women in white-collar positions; namely, pressing salary concerns, child care, and working conditions are three primary areas of note for blue-collar working women. Blue-collar positions are paid less than white-collar positions, and thus these positions are more difﬁcult to navigate than those reaping a higher market value. These positions have an inherent lack of ﬂexibility in terms of compensation, days off, and so on. Therefore, women in blue-collar positions frequently have more difﬁculty with child care, difﬁculty making enough to put food on the table, and hazardous health conditions on the job. Whereas a white-collar working woman frequently must pay for child care, this may not be possible for blue-collar working women; conditions in a mine are much more hazardous than those in an ofﬁce. Therefore, when discussing the topics of leadership and women, it is critical to examine the lives and roles of the leaders of female blue-collar working groups. In 1962, 36% of the workforce were blue-collar ‘‘production workers’’; in 1992, 26% of the labor force fell into the blue-collar category (DeLong, 1997). Thus, approximately one-fourth of all of the labor force is considered to be blue-collar. Although women represent approximately 46% of the working force (Einhart, 2001), only 10% of working women are employed in blue-collar positions as compared to 43% of working men (Bond et al., 2002). Women in these roles who want to assume leadership positions face a unique set of challenges. First, many of these positions are considered to be more stereotypically male than are other areas of work. Fireﬁghters, police ofﬁcers, welders, electricians, plumbers, and so on are male-dominated ﬁelds, and women entering these jobs face an array of obstacles. Many of these occupations have long constituted an old boys’ club, and breaking into this inner circle is difﬁcult as is remaining in the job because many men make it uncomfortable to do so. This is even more difﬁcult in the case of women who want to assume leadership roles and thus have the duty of supervising men. In traditionally male-dominated ﬁelds, blue-collar women workers do not escape pressure to perform stereotypical women’s roles within © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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the context of their work. Frequently women blue-collar workers are expected to perform tasks that are related to their duties at home, or to conduct responsibilities that mimic chores that service and support men. In this framework, women are still called upon to do housework. Tallichet (1995) quotes a female miner who complained that her job consisted of carrying cinder blocks and rock dust behind the male miners, ‘‘cleaning up after them.’’ Tallichet points out that women miners who wished to advance in their ﬁeld have had to maintain a strong and consistent work ethic, with little room for failure or mistakes. UNIONS In March 1974, more than 3,000 blue-collar women gathered in Chicago to form the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) (U.S. Department of Labor, 2000). The agenda included ways to end sex discrimination in wages and hiring and how to elect more female ofﬁcials to the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Unions (AFL-CIO). At the time, the CLUW was considered evidence of a new offshoot of the women’s liberation movement deemed to be ‘‘bluecollar feminism.’’ Feminism became an integral part of the working women’s agenda, and in blue-collar positions this took the form of advocating for day care, maternity beneﬁts, equal pay, and other issues important to working women. Despite many obstacles in the past, many women have organized themselves or joined with men to form unions to ﬁght for equal rights and beneﬁts on behalf of all workers. One of the earliest unions was the Collar Laundry Union of Troy, New York. The Knights of Labor, a national union founded in 1969, is another example. Unions such as the United Auto Workers have made consistent strides in protecting their female workers; it has endorsed equal pay, gender-integrated seniority lists, day care, and the Equal Rights Amendment. However, in the United States, only 7 million out of a total of 58 million working women (11%) belong to unions or professional organizations. Although union wages have not risen as fast as nonunion wages in recent years, union workers still earn more, on average, than their nonunion counterparts. Estimates of Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, for example, show that, in March 2001, wages and salaries for private industry union workers averaged $18.36 per hour, compared with $14.81 for nonunion workers (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2001). Similarly, data from the Current Population Survey show that, in 2000, median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers were $691 for workers represented by unions, compared with $542 for nonunion workers (U.S. Department of Labor, 2000). Finally, data from the 1999 National Compensation Survey show that union workers had © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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average hourly earnings of $18.31, compared with $14.76 for nonunion workers (U.S. Department of Labor, 1999). CASE VIGNETTES Despite barriers to women in blue-collar occupations, more and more women in the police and ﬁre forces are beginning to take on leadership positions, which were previously exclusively reserved for men. By 2004, there were four female police chiefs of major U.S. cities: Boston, San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Detroit, the ﬁrst women in each respective city to hold that position. Cathy Lanier In May 2007, Cathy Lanier was appointed the new Washington, DC, police chief. A high school dropout and a mother at 15 years old, Lanier has always faced challenging life situations and is someone who has succeeded and pulled herself up in the face of them. After earning her high school equivalency degree, she became a police ofﬁcer in 1990 and then went on to earn a bachelor’s and then a master’s degree in management from Johns Hopkins University. Lanier then completed another master’s degree in national security from the Naval Postgraduate School. A hard worker, she was promoted up through the ranks, but this was not without cost. Lanier reports being sexually harassed several times on the job, once by her supervisor (CNN, 2007). She stated that during those times she reminded herself of the other women who suffered from similar discrimination and continued to persevere. Joanne Hayes-White On Monday July 2, 2004, Joanne Hayes-White was sworn in as San Francisco Fire Department’s new chief; she was the ﬁrst female chief of the city. Additionally, Hayes-White will be a female chief of the largest urban ﬁre department headed by a woman, with Cobb County, Georgia, and the Tacoma, Washington, departments being second and third, respectively (West, 2004). Hayes-White graduated with a business degree from the University of Santa Clara and joined the ﬁre department in 1990. Impressively, by 1993 she was promoted to lieutenant and by 1996 was a captain. In 1998, she was promoted to assistant deputy chief. The San Francisco Fire Department only had its ﬁrst female ﬁreﬁghter in 1987, after a U.S. District Court Judge ruled that the department had to hire more women and minorities. Currently, in San Francisco approximately 12% of the 230 ﬁreﬁghters are women (West). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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In sum, blue-collar industries represent a segment of the population where women are becoming more vocal and are becoming strong and credible leaders. This ﬁeld, like many others before, is experiencing a transformation where gender stereotypes are being challenged and women are emerging as qualiﬁed and competent as their male counterparts. However, there is still much to be done. RECOMMENDATIONS Regardless of the progress that women have made in leadership in various occupations and settings, there is still much to be accomplished in the future. As Margaret Chesney stated regarding women and leadership: ‘‘The ceiling is breaking—but watch out for falling glass’’ (Chesney, 2007). Unfortunately, despite progress, there is still a vast amount yet to be achieved and other sets of concerns of which women must be aware. The following are some general recommendations suggested by Margaret Chesney at the 2007 Committee on Women in Psychology Leadership Institute meeting, which are geared toward helping women accomplish success in various ﬁelds, deal with discrimination, and become strong leaders. 1. Determine what type of leader you want to be: ‘‘Instrumental,’’ i.e., those dedicating their life to their job, or a ‘‘Balancer,’’ i.e., those who look for more of a balance in life. Women who seek more balance in their life must make personal choices about how much they can do, and work within those boundaries. 2. Identify what is valued at the workplace. Each work setting is different and a woman should identify not just what is ‘‘said’’ is important, but what the real messages are. 3. Seek mentors. Finding another female leader who will offer practical advice, give support, and show other women the ropes is important. This opens up vast networks and gives much-needed support and encouragement to women who are trying to succeed. Men can be helpful mentors as well, and may offer a different perspective, which can be valuable. 4. Become educated. Taking some form of leadership training or educational classes helps women advance. This will add knowledge and marketability. 5. Support other women. Women should work on keeping the lines of communication open by decreasing a cut-throat atmosphere between women, often found in the workplace. Helping other deserving women to be promoted is one step that can help increase the numbers and successes of female leaders. This also can include helping later career women reenter the workforce. 6. Do not be satisﬁed with modest gains—expect more. Women should not be satisﬁed with what they are given. Rather, they should work, not just for medium gains, but for all gains they truly deserve.

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Overall, women should band together and actively participate in groups that unite women. Whether this be a union or a group of women within a department, it has been through this action of uniting and supporting that women have made progress in the past and which provides a key to progress in the future. REFERENCES Association of American Medical Colleges (2007). Women in U.S. Academic Medicine Statistics and Medical School Benchmarking 2005–2006. Available from http://www.aamc,org/members/wim.statistics/Stats06/start.htm. Avolio, B. J. (2007). Promoting more integrative strategies for leadership theory-building. American Psychologist, 62, 25–33. Bickel, J., Wara, D., Atkinson, B. F., Cohen, L. S., Dunn, M., Hostler, S., Johnson, T.R.B., Monahan, P., Rubenstein, A. H., Sheldon, G. F., & Stokes, E. (2002). Increasing women’s leadership in academic medicine: Report of the AAMC Committee. Academic Medicine, 77, 1043–1061. Bond, J. T., Thompson, C., Galinksy, E., & Prottas, D. (2002). Highlights of the national study of the changing workforce. New York: Families and Work Institute. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2001, January). National compensation survey: Occupational wages in the United States, 2001, Bulletin 2552. Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row. Chesney, M. A. (2007, September). Women in leadership – the ceiling is breaking . . . but watch out for falling glass. Paper presented at the meeting of the Committee on Women in Psychology Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology: Qualitative Evaluation of Training Needs, Washington, DC. Cnkar, A. (2007). The changing gender composition of psychology. Monitor on Psychology 38, 46–47. CNN (2007). D.C.’s ﬁrst female police chief not afraid of challenge. Retrieved on August 12, 2007, from http://www.cnn.com. Collins, L. H., Chrisler, J. C., & Quina, K. (Eds.) (1998). Career strategies for women in academe. Thousand Oaks: Sage. DeLong, B. J. (1997). Assessing globalization as a cause of blue-collar wage decline. Retrieved from http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Politics/Global_Wages.htm. Denmark, F. L. (1977). Styles of leadership. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 2, 99–113. Eagly, A. H. (2007). Female leadership advantage and disadvantage: Resolving the contradictions. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 1–12. Eagly, A. H., & Carli, L. (2007). Through the labyrinth: The truth about how women become leaders. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109, 573–598. Einhart, N. (2001). Survival tactic: Recognize your female talent. Fast Company. Retrieved on August 10, 2007, from http://www.fastcompany.com. Fernandes, E., & Cabral-Cardoso, C. (2003). Gender asymmetries and the manager stereotype among management students. Women in Management Review, 18, 77–87.

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Finder, A., & Rimer, S. (2007, February 9). Harvard plans to name its ﬁrst female president. The New York Times. Retrieved on August 26, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/business/08cnd-harvard.html?ex¼ 1328677200&en¼86812ecb327aa651&ei¼5088&partner¼rssnyt&emc¼rss. Freeman, C. E. (2004). Trends and education equity of girls and women: 2004. National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved on August 10, 2006, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/quarterly/vol_6/6_4/8_1.asp. Glazer, J. (1999). Shattering the myths: Women in academe. Baltimore, MD: The Peters Hopkins University Press. Kelleher, K. (2006, September). Simmons’ compensation nears $700K. The Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved on August 26, 2007, from http://media.www. browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2006/09/06/Campus News/Simmons.Compensation.Nears.700k-2258413.shtml. Kottke, J. L., & Agars, M. D. (2005). Understanding the processes that facilitate and hinder efforts to advance women in organizations. Career Development International, 10, 190–202. Long, J. S. (Ed.) (2001). From scarcity to visibility. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Madsen, S. R. (2007). Women university presidents: Career paths and educational backgrounds. Academic Leadership, 5(1), 11–16. Mason, M. A., & Goulden, M. (2002). Do babies matter: The effect of family formation on the lifelong careers of academic men and women. Retrieved on August 25, 2007, from http://www.aaup.org/publications/Academe/ 2002/02nd/02ndmas.htm. Morrison, A. M., White, R. P., Van Velsor, E., & the Center for Creative Leadership (1987). Breaking the glass ceiling. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. National Center for Education Statistics (1998). Digest of education statistics tables and ﬁgures. Retrieved on August 10, 2006, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d98/d98t212.asp. National Center for Education Statistics (n.d.). Degrees conferred: Degrees, by level of degree and sex of recipient. In Projection of Education Statistics to 2014 (section 4). Retrieved on August 10, 2006, from http://nces.ed.gov/ programs/projections/sec_4b.asp. National Science Foundation Advance Proposal (n.d.). Retrieved on August 25, 2007, from http://www.case.edu/admin/aces. National Science Foundation (2000). Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science and engineering: 2000. Appendix, Table 5-24. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation. Oakley, J. G. (2000). Gender-based barriers to senior management positions: Understanding the scarcity of female CEOs. Journal of Business Ethics, 27, 321–334. O’Connor, L. (2004, September). Female college, university presidents are on the rise. The Daily Collegian Online. Retrieved on August 25, 2007, from http://collegian.psu.edu/archive/2004/09/09-30-04tdc/09-30-04dnews-05. asp. Peter & Horn (n.d.). Gender differences in participation and completion of undergraduate education and how they have changed over time. National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved on August 10, 2006, from http:// nces.ed.gov/das/epubs/2005169/gender_2.asp.

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Powell, G. N., & Butterﬁeld, D. A. (2003). Gender, gender identity, and aspirations to top management. Women in Management Review, 18, 88–96. Ridgeway, C. (2001). Gender, status and leadership. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 637–655. Rudman, L. A., & Glick, P. (2001). Prescriptive gender stereotypes and backlash toward agentic women. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 743–762. Tallichet, S. (1995). Gendered relations in the mines and the division of labor underground. Gender & Society, 9, 697–711. Tracy, E. M., Singer, M. I., & Singer, L. T. (n.d.). Gender issues in the path to academic leadership. Retrieved on August 15, 2007, from case.edu/admin/ aces/documents/Gender_Issues_in_the_Path_to_Academic_Leadership.ppt. U.S. Department of Labor (1999). National Compensation Survey (NCS). U.S. Department of Labor (2000). Current Population Survey (CPS). Valian, V. (2005). Beyond gender schemas: Improving the advancement of women in academia. Hypatia, 20(3), 198–213. Vroom, V. H., & Jago, A. G. (2007). The role of the situation in leadership. American Psychologist, 62, 17–24. West, P. (2004). San Francisco installs female ﬁre chief. Retrieved on August 12, 2007, from http://www.ﬁrechief.com. What presidents think about higher education (2005, November 4). Chronicles of Higher Education, pp. A25–A39. Wikipedia.org (n.d.). ‘‘Susan Hockﬁeld,’’ ‘‘Judith Rodin,’’ and ‘‘Ruth Simmons.’’ Retrieved on August 20, 2007, from wikipedia.org. Women’s History in America (n.d.). Retrieved on September 15, 2006, from http://www.wic.org/misc/history. Yedidia, M. J., & Bickel, J. (2001). Why aren’t there more women leaders in academic medicine? The views of clinical department chairs. Academic Medicine, 76, 453–465. Yoder, J. (2001). Strategies for change: Making leadership work more effectively for women. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 815–828. Zaccaro, S. (2007). Trait-based perspectives of leadership. American Psychologist, 62, 6–16.

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Chapter 3

My Life as a Woman Psychologist: In My Own Voice Marilyn P. Saﬁr

I began my psychology graduate studies in the 1960s—an exciting time. I quickly became involved with the budding civil rights movement. A major impetus resulted from my feelings of being discriminated against because I was a woman, and from my interest as a young girl in nontraditional areas. My love of science resulted from encouragement from my father, who, desiring a son, had train sets and trucks awaiting my birth. He happily accepted a daughter, and encouraged me to join him in taking apart and ﬁxing things—including his automobile. He fanned my interest in how things work and was happy to work on science projects with me. My early negative experiences in being a girl resulted from my father’s and my mother’s overprotection, so that I wished I had a boy’s freedom. I remember that around the age of 10, as an avid reader, I thought that if I were a boy, I would be a sailor and see the world. My ﬁrst experience with actual discrimination occurred in grammar school. I devoted a great deal of time and effort to my science projects in 7th and 8th grade and received scores of 100 on my work and tests, but only received a ﬁnal grade of 98. When I screwed up the courage to ask why a boy who had lower grades than I did was given 100, my male science teacher informed me that grades (in elementary school!) were important for boys who would go on to college—but not for girls. By the time I began college in 1955, I had decided to major in biochemistry and become a physician. It was in college that I experienced what I now understand was sexual harassment demonstrating that a woman’s place was not in the lab. My reaction was, Anything they can do, I can do better! However, I discovered that I was more interested in © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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interacting with people. Courses in psychology and the social sciences were far more interesting than my biology and chemistry courses and lab work, and my interest in medicine found a new focus in psychiatry. I joined the premed club, only to discover that women were judged by higher standards both to be accepted into the city colleges and to obtain references for medical school because of a limiting quota. If a man had to be in the top 15% of his class to be eligible for a recommendation, a woman had to be in the top 2% of her class. I also joined the psych club—where I was informed that it was more difﬁcult for women to be accepted. Hal Proshansky was the club advisor and he became a mentor. It also began to seem foolish to me to study medicine in order to become a psychiatrist. It made much more sense to major in psychology and continue in graduate studies to become a psychologist. Hal encouraged me and wrote letters of recommendations for me. I applied to graduate schools in the same universities and cities where my premed ﬁance was applying to medical school, without examining the programs—even though I was interested in majoring in personality and social psychology. Hal didn’t suggest that I pay more attention as I assume it was ‘‘obvious’’ to him that I would follow my partner to be. Thus I began my studies at Syracuse University in experimental psychology as there was no program in personality and social psychology. I discovered that a program that focused on animal learning using goldﬁsh and rats did not satisfy my interests. Having done well my ﬁrst semester, I was invited by Edward J. Murray (a student of Neal Miller) to become his research assistant and to move into the clinical psych program. My ﬁrst-year experimental psychology advisor had suggested what courses I take and advised me to take the advanced elective that Murray taught, as this would give me information on Freud’s approach to personality development. This elective, unknown to me, was one that second- and third-year clinical students took. He later told me that he anticipated that I wouldn’t be able to keep up and so would drop out of grad school sooner. This was yet another example of sexual harassment. Many psychology programs maintained (ofﬁcially or unofﬁcially, according to Hal Proshansky) quotas for women in psychology grad school in the 1950s and early 1960s, and women were never more than 10% to 35% of the students during this period. I was acutely aware of this discrimination, even though it was not out in the open. I joined the civil rights movement as a result of my personal experiences of discrimination because I was a woman (and also having heard of the discrimination my parents experienced as Jews). There were few students from psychology, as our department was very ivory tower. I became an resident advisor for a professor, Warren Hagstrom, in SW who brought a union organizer, Sol Olinsky, to work with us in developing community organization skills that would help us empower © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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community people. I considered transferring to SW because of the more hands-on approach, but decided that these skills could beneﬁt me in my practice of psychology. I became more and more disillusioned with the discrimination that women experienced within the civil rights movement. The proverbial straw for me was hearing Stochley Carmichael in Canton, Mississippi, in 1966, blame Black women for emasculating Black men, and state that the only place in the movement for women was prone. This took place in a rally attended by Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and Jesse Jackson, who overlooked these female discriminatory statements. At that point Israel beckoned to me—not because I was a Socialist or a Zionist—but because here was a country where women had obtained equality with men. They did manual labor—building roads, draining swamps. They established kibbutzim that destroyed the division of labor created by the traditional patriarchal family. Women even served in the army! I arrived in Israel in 1968 with a new PhD in psychology and the expectation to work in a modern egalitarian society that had dealt with the ‘‘woman question’’ during the 1920s. My ﬁrst impressions supported my original beliefs. Israeli women moved and spoke in a less feminine fashion than American women. They used less makeup and wore less jewelry. However, in discussions, it became obvious to me that they were far more traditional in family and social roles than my compatriots in the United States. When I raised the issue of equality, both women and men said that I had come 50 years too late and that women themselves decided to retreat to the traditional social roles. As a social scientist this explanation seemed very unlikely. What was most signiﬁcant was that Israelis believed in the same myths that had brought me to Israel. To develop awareness of the inequality within Israeli society, Marcia Freedman and I began two consciousness-raising groups in 1970 at the University of Haifa. Many of those who joined with us came from abroad and had also believed that Israel was far more advanced in granting equal rights to women and that both sexes shared power in Israel in contrast to their former homelands. The contrast between our expectations and women’s actual situation in Israel resulted in dissonance that produced, through participation in consciousnessraising groups, the impetus for the new movement. We were joined at ﬁrst by sabres—native Israelis—many of whom were children of earlier ‘‘Anglo Saxon’’ immigrants. (By immigrating to Israel, I became an ‘‘Anglo Saxon.’’) The ﬁrst women to call themselves feminists were university lecturers and students. We decided to work to establish a new women’s liberation movement. We began to attract media attention. As a result, Martha Mednick, on sabbatical in Israel in 1972 to study kibbutz women, read about our group and initiated a meeting. She told us about the new feminist scholarship taking hold in the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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United States. Mednick planted the idea of women’s studies in fertile ground. It had never occurred to me that researching women was a legitimate focus for psychological research. Martha spent some time telling me about her kibbutz research. I decided to study diaries of women who immigrated at the turn of the century to join communes (Kvutsot and latter Kibbutzim). My earlier suspicions were conﬁrmed. The myths began to crumble. I discovered that the earliest communes grudgingly accepted women, if at all. They often accepted no more than 10% women members. The women were accepted as employees of the men. These women were then expected to do the cooking in huge vats over open ﬁres, bake bread in ovens built of stone, and do laundry in huge vats using lye and stirring them over these open ﬁres, putting themselves at great risk, but still conﬁned to traditional roles. Interestingly, when there were no women in the commune, the men rotated through these jobs. The work was grueling, exhausting, and not satisfying for many of the women. Women were further disadvantaged. Men had studied the Hebrew language for six or seven years for Bar Mitzvah and had the basics for communicating in Hebrew. Also overlooked was the fact that single women were a signiﬁcant minority in the early waves of immigration. These women decided to deal with their dissatisfaction by forming women-only communes. What I discovered was that women were free to move into traditional male roles. There was no role sharing. Unisex dressing, in masculine fashion, became the norm. Since the Zionist Socialistic values of these early settlers became the ideal for the budding new country, the types of behaviors I noted observing Israeli women, a minimization of external gender differences in the direction of being less feminine, was a carryover from that early time. This situation no longer exists. Martha Mednick has been an important mentor in my life. She introduced me to Division 35 in the American Psychological Association (APA), the International Council of Psychologists (ICP), and the Association for Women in Psychology. My ﬁrst experience in a womancentered organization was in ICP. I attended my ﬁrst exciting and heady international ICP conference in Paris in 1975, where I met Anne Steinman. We collaborated on several comparative studies of Israeli and U.S. students on male/female gender roles and developed a very close relationship. I had become a part of the newly developing international network of feminist psychologists. When I started to receive requests from Israeli colleagues in other ﬁelds about existing feminist research in psychology, it became obvious that interdisciplinary communication was lacking. I discovered that feminist scholars worked in isolation and were unaware of each other’s work because of the absence of a national network. Women’s studies was nonexistent and unknown in Israeli academia. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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In discussions with Mednick, it became obvious that lack of interdisciplinary communication was a problem in the United States as well. We continually discussed the need for an international, interdisciplinary congress that focused on scholarship on women. Finally, in 1979, we decided to do something about it. We proposed holding such a congress under the auspices of the APA’s Division 35—Psychology of Women Council. We also proposed holding this congress in Israel to create awareness and to create the groundwork to establish women’s studies programs at the Israeli universities. A congress seemed to be a way to bring the message of the importance and developing stature of the new scholarship to this isolated place, as well as to create both Israeli and international networks. Division 35 agreed to be a co-sponsor. We were fortunate, because among the executive committee members were Florence Denmark, president-elect of APA, Carolyn Sherif as the chairperson, and board members Matti Kubrick Gershenfeld, Martha Mednick, and Nancy Felipe Russo, who was the president of the Federation of Organizations of Professional Women, composed of 110 organizations with branches all over the world. Nancy proposed that the Federation become a co-sponsor. Jessie Bernard and Dafna Izraeli invited Sociologists for Women in Society to be another co-sponsor. That ﬁrst congress was held at the University of Haifa, which enabled an almost unanimous approval of the opening of the women’s studies program of which I was a founder and director for the ﬁrst 10 years. The Haifa program clearly evolved from the feminist movement of the 1970s, and it continues to combine activism with academic pursuits. It was also the largest women’s studies program through the beginning of the 1990s. Approved in the 1982–1983 academic year, it opened in 1983 with 13 courses. The 1993–1994 academic year saw an enrollment in the Introduction to Women’s Studies of almost 10% of the freshman class. The students included women and a few men, who came from different backgrounds: Christian and Moslem Arabs, Druze, Jews from Western and Eastern worlds, each different, according to her cultural background and experience, and how this relates to double oppression. Although these issues are taken for granted in the United States and in many European countries, multiculturalism and diversity are matters that have only been considered by Israeli feminists and by women’s studies activists in the last 10 years or so. The women’s studies program at Haifa University serves as an efﬁcient bridge between academia and feminist grassroots organizations in the city. This interaction encourages feminist activists to begin their studies or to return to academia. It involves students in the different feminist grassroots organizations. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Another unique project at the University of Haifa that I have been involved in from its inception is named KIDMA, an acronym for The Project for the Advancement and Involvement of Women in Society. This project was created in 1984, and the major aim was to bring Women’s Studies topics to women who would not ordinarily be a part of the university community by actually bringing them to the university and by bringing the university into their communities. I served as its academic advisor from 1984 until 1996 when I became the director. KIDMA promotes personal advancement and social contribution. KIDMA aims to provide a supportive environment and to give information to women who do not have any other frameworks for personal and professional advancement. Furthermore, KIDMA is interested in maintaining this place of knowledge and consciousness as a lever for women’s involvement and contribution to their communities and for leading social change. The participants in KIDMA projects get a unique opportunity to familiarize themselves with the University of Haifa and to study in an academic environment as well. We have expanded our projects and provide leadership training courses for women students at the university and for community leaders and potential community leaders from the various sectors of Israeli society. We have developed courses for women employees of the Haifa municipality to teach the necessary skills in on-the-job advancement. KIDMA is my commitment to help bring about positive social change in Israeli society. Haifa, as a mixed city, provides an environment that enables much of this type of activity. An exciting and successful project was developed with the Women’s Army corp as we developed training courses to help young ofﬁcers break ‘‘the iron ceiling’’ and develop skills to crack the macho army systems. Unfortunately, because of the deteriorating economic situation, many of our projects must be put on hold at this time. In Israel in 2007, the situation for us feminists is very complex. We now see a renewed surge of traditionalism and nationalism, stemming from the impossible political situation. The call for unity at times of war has always come at the expense of women, and now, more than ever, we must stand guard to protect the achievements that have been made over the past decades and continue to strive for a better future for us all, men and women. In conclusion, being a ‘‘pioneer’’ in the battle for the advancement of the status of women in general, as well as in academia, has been a wellspring of personal satisfaction, leading to close relationships with feminist colleagues throughout the world and a chance to view the positive changes that are occurring for women in general and in our ﬁeld in particular. Having lacked mentors during the beginning stages of my career, I made choices that were not career-savvy. I was fortunate to learn how important these relationships can be through my close contacts with © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Martha Mednick, Florence Denmark, Anne Steinman, Jesse Bernard, and Nancy Felipe Russo—just to name a few. Thus, being a mentor to students and early career academics has been very important to me. I hope that I have been successful in providing the support and knowledge for smoother sailing in the workplace.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 4

Workplace Incivility, Sexual Harassment, and Racial MicroAggression: The Interface of Three Literatures Eros R. DeSouza

Sexual harassment has dominated the literature on interpersonal mistreatment at work. Recently, however, other types of mistreatment have gained attention by researchers, including mild forms of workplace mistreatment, such as incivility (e.g., Cortina, Magley, Williams, & Langhout, 2001) and racial/ethnic micro-aggressions (e.g., Deitch et al., 2003; Sue et al., 2007). Unfortunately, with a few exceptions (e.g., Berdahl & Moore, 2006; Krieger et al., 2006; Lim & Cortina, 2005), these behaviors have been investigated in isolation, as if they occurred in a vacuum. Moreover, research on sexual harassment has focused on the prototypical case of a superior (usually a man) harassing a subordinate (usually a woman) and has neglected the plurality of forms that sexual harassment may take, including same-sex sexual harassment (DeSouza & Solberg, 2004; DeSouza, Solberg, & Cerqueira, 2007). Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to integrate the separate literatures on incivility, sexual harassment, and racialized incivility and sexual harassment. Speciﬁcally, each of these concepts will be deﬁned. Then, empirical studies on frequency rates and consequences on employees’ physical and mental health as well as work-related outcomes will be presented. Finally, these central concepts will be integrated and implications will be discussed.

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CENTRAL CONCEPTS Incivility Workplace incivility is a mild form of workplace mistreatment, which also includes bullying, emotional, physical, and psychological abuse, tyrannical, deviant, and antisocial behavior. Andersson and Pearson (1999) deﬁned workplace incivility as ‘‘low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous (italics added) intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect. Uncivil behaviors are characteristically rude and discourteous, displaying a lack of regard for others’’ (p. 457). Ambiguity or lack of deliberate intent to do harm is a key element of incivility that differentiates it from other types of workplace mistreatment. Because the uncivil behavior is subtle, the perpetrator can easily mask his or her intent to do harm on another person, for example, by suggesting that he or she was just joking around or by using silence as a form of suppression and censorship; such silence may exclude or negate an important aspect of an individual’s identity (Ward & Winstanley, 2003). Because incivility is often linked to an employee’s ability to do his or her job, it promotes social isolation and withdrawal from one’s job and work (Pearson, Andersson, & Wegner, 2001). There are many potential causes or antecedents of workplace incivility suggested in the literature. According to Andersson and Pearson (1999), incivility is an interpersonal process dependent on personenvironment factors that create incivility spirals (e.g., a perceived act of incivility fosters further uncivil acts, forming a spiral of aggression and counter-aggression that permeates the entire organization). Incivility spirals may begin with a perception of interpersonal injustice (e.g., a slight to one’s self-identity or social identity) that causes an employee to feel aggrieved, which may result in anger and desire for revenge for the perceived organizational or societal norm that has been violated. Thus, perceived injustice is an important antecedent of incivility (Baron, Neuman, & Geddes, 1999). Andersson and Pearson (1999) argue that personal factors that predict incivility spirals include propensity to anger, impulsiveness (e.g., lack of self-control), reactivity (e.g., sensitivity to negative events), and rebelliousness (e.g., independence, self-sufﬁciency, and resistance to peer pressure). Individuals with these personality traits tend to handle the daily hassles of work by engaging in disrespectful or condescending behaviors. Furthermore, to handle occupational stress, individuals with the above personality traits may use alcohol and/or drugs while at work as coping mechanisms, which, in turn, further incites inappropriate behaviors (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). Although there is empirical evidence to support a ‘‘hot temperament’’ personality type as a © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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predictor of workplace aggression (e.g., Baron et al., 1999; Hepworth & Towler, 2004), more research on the interaction of personality traits and environmental inﬂuences is necessary, given the fact that there is also evidence that fails to support a ‘‘hot personality’’ type as a predictor of workplace aggression (e.g., Jennifer, Cowie, & Ananiadou, 2003). Another antecedent to workplace incivility suggested by Andersson and Pearson (1999) is an organizational culture that creates a climate of informality. Such organizational climate adds ambiguity to the boundary of acceptable behavior. Casualness at work may facilitate breaches of etiquette (e.g., calling someone by a nickname), disrespect, and thoughtless actions (e.g., hazing), which may create incivility spirals that spread throughout everyday interpersonal interactions at work (Pearson, Andersson, & Porath, 2005; Pearson et al., 2001; Pearson & Porath, 2002). Another factor that may increase incivility is emerging technologies (e.g., e-mail, text messaging), creating cyber-incivility spirals (Pearson, Andersson, & Porath, 2000). Such technologies remove the need for face-to-face interactions as well as bystanders who might otherwise intervene when incivilities occur. Furthermore, these new technologies are often fast-paced and may increase the pressure for more productivity than traditional methods that require face-to-face interactions, possibly contributing to higher levels of stress and misunderstandings (Vickers, 2006). Rather than ﬁghting technology, organizations should use it to personalize communication and lessen stress (e.g., working from home and communicating with colleagues through videoconferencing). Organizations also need to generate and disseminate a new cyber-etiquette, including having clear policies and procedures to protect complainants and punish perpetrators. Related to emerging technologies in the workplace, other antecedents to incivility include an increasingly diverse workforce (e.g., race/ethnicity, culture/ nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, and ability), economic changes (e.g., service-oriented economy), and organizational changes (e.g., down-sizing, outsourcing, and so on) (Hearn & Parkin, 2001; Neuman & Baron, 1998). Frequency rates and consequences Pearson et al. (2000) conducted 700 interviews and collected surveys from 775 employees throughout the United States. Pearson et al. found that perpetrators of incivility generally had higher status than their victims and were typically men. Interestingly, men were more likely to be uncivil toward subordinates than toward superiors, whereas women were as likely to behave uncivilly toward their superiors as toward their subordinates. The consequences of incivility included negative effects on victims and organizations, including impaired concentration, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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reduced organizational commitment and productivity, and increased intentions to quit; in fact, 12% of the sample reported having ultimately quit their jobs. In addition, 75% of the victims reported being dissatisﬁed with how their organization handled uncivil incidents, suggesting that the organization was tolerant of incivility. Pearson et al. (2000) concluded that there was scant attention by organizations to address incivility spirals. Some managers even reported that rudeness and disrespect were justiﬁed as being beneﬁcial to their organizations. In fact, it has been recently argued that there may be positive outcomes associated with incivility; that is, managers who use a Machiavellian leadership style may use strategic incivility (e.g., implicit threats) as a negative reinforcer to motivate ‘‘low maturity’’ employees to increase their productivity or to leave the organization (Ferris, Zinko, Brouer, Buckley, & Harvey, 2007). In the opinion of this author, a more appropriate response may be to entice ‘‘low maturity’’ employees to increase their productivity through positive reinforcement (e.g., praise). Cortina, Magley, Williams, and Langhout (2001) investigated the incidence and impact of incivility in a sample of 1,180 public sector employees (88% of whom reported to be White). The authors created the Workplace Incivility Scale (WIS), which has appropriate reliability and validity properties, to assess how often participants experienced incivility (e.g., disrespect, rudeness, and condescension) from superiors or coworkers. Participants also completed several job-related as well as psychological and health measures. The authors found that 71% of the sample reported having experienced at least one uncivil behavior during the previous 5 years, with women experiencing more uncivil acts than men. However, both men and women experienced similar negative effects: Those who experienced more uncivil acts were less satisﬁed with their employment (including their jobs, supervisors, coworkers, pay and beneﬁts, and promotional opportunities; they also considered quitting) and had greater psychological distress, especially men, than those who experienced less incivility. The above studies indicate that incivility is widespread. Moreover, incivility has negative outcomes and should not be ignored by organizations, as is frequently the case. Now we turn to another type of interpersonal mistreatment that is not only common, but also illegal in the United States and in many other countries as well (see DeSouza & Solberg, 2003, for a review of international deﬁnitions of sexual harassment). Sexual Harassment In the United States, sexual harassment is a type of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since 1980, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has deﬁned sexual harassment as follows: Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when (1) submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment, (2) submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such individuals, or (3) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment. (Code of Federal Regulations, 2000, p. 186)

Parts 1 and 2 refer to quid pro quo sexual harassment in which sexual favors are required to keep a job or receive job-related beneﬁts, whereas part 3 refers to a hostile work environment. Additionally, the EEOC (2007a) states the victim and the alleged perpetrator may be of the same sex. The victim does not have to be the direct target, but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct (e.g., a bystander). Further, the victim of sexual harassment does not have to show that she or he has suffered economic or psychological harm; however, the harassment must be unwelcome. Although men are also victims of sexual harassment, women are much more likely to be victims than men are. For instance, during 2006 the EEOC (2007a) received 12,025 charges of sexual harassment, of which 15.4% were ﬁled by men. Psychologically, sexual harassment is deﬁned as unwanted sexually offensive behavior that threatens one’s psychological health and wellbeing (Fitzgerald, Swan, & Magley, 1997). Fitzgerald et al. (1988) developed a behavior-based instrument, the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ), to assess sexual harassment by asking respondents if they had experienced a list of unwanted sexual behaviors. The authors reported that the factor structure of the SEQ revealed a tripartite model consisting of gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion. Gender harassment refers to sexist behaviors that do not appear to elicit sexual cooperation but rather convey hostile and offensive attitudes toward members of one gender. Unwanted sexual attention refers to sexual behaviors that are unwanted and unreciprocated. Sexual coercion refers to explicit or implicit bribes or threats in order to gain sexual favors. Gender harassment and unwanted sexual attention seem to parallel the legal deﬁnition of hostile work environment, whereas sexual coercion seems to parallel the legal deﬁnition of quid pro quo. Research indicates that gender harassment is the most common type of sexual harassment, followed by unwanted sexual attention, with sexual coercion being the least common (Pryor & Fitzgerald, 2003). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Also using a behavioral experiences approach, the U.S. Congress commissioned three large-scale studies to determine the prevalence of sexual harassment across representative national samples of federal workers. The ﬁndings showed that 42% to 44% of women and 14% to 19% of men reported having experienced at least one potentially sexually harassing behavior during the last 24 months (U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1981, 1988, 1995). The Department of Defense (DoD) conducted a survey in 1988 to assess sexual harassment among active-duty military personnel. The DoD survey was modeled after the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board survey. Of the 20,400 participants who completed the survey, 64% of the women and 17% of the men reported having experienced a potentially sexually harassing experience at least once during the last 12 months (Martindale, 1991). In 1995, the DoD surveyed active-duty military personnel’s experiences of unwanted sexual behavior based on adaptations of Fitzgerald et al.’s (1988) SEQ. Of the 28,296 participants who completed the 25item SEQ-DoD survey, 76% of the women and 37% of the men reported having experienced at least one potentially sexually harassing behavior during the last 12 months (Bastian, Lancaster, & Reyst, 1996). In 2002, the DoD again surveyed the active-duty military personnel’s experiences of unwanted sexual behavior during the last 12 months using a revised 19-item version of the SEQ; however, to be counted as sexual harassment, respondents had to have experienced a sexually harassing behavior at least once and had to have indicated that any of the behaviors experienced constituted sexual harassment (Lipari & Lancaster, 2003). The 1995 SEQ-DoD data were also re-analyzed according to this new procedure. Of the 19,960 participants who returned usable surveys in 2002, there was a signiﬁcant drop in sexual harassment between 1995 and 2002 for both women (46% vs. 24%, respectively) and men (8% vs. 3%, respectively). Overall, the ﬁndings reported by the EEOC (2007a), the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1981, 1988, 1995), and the DoD (Bastian et al., 1996; Lipari & Lancaster, 2003; Martindale, 1991) indicate that women are more likely to be victims of sexual harassment than men are. Same-sex Sexual Harassment Of those federal employees who reported at least one potentially sexually harassing experience in the 1980 survey (U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1981), 3% of the women reported having been harassed by one or more women, whereas 22% of the men reported having been harassed by one or more men. In the 1994 survey (the 1987 survey did not examine the gender of the harasser), the numbers remained about the same; only 1% of harassed women reported other © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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women as the harassers, whereas 21% of the men reported other men as the harassers (U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1995). Dubois, Knapp, Faley, and Kustis (1998) re-analyzed the 1988 DoD survey results. Of those military personnel who reported at least one potentially sexually harassing experience, only 1% of military women reported having experienced same-sex sexual harassment, whereas 35% of military men did. Next, the authors compared the impact of sameand cross-sex sexual harassment on the professional and personal lives of military men and women. They found that the impact of same-sex sexual harassment was much more harmful for men than for women. Dubois et al. concluded that same-sex sexual harassment of men is part of a masculine culture in which harassment is directed at those who violate traditional gender norms. Bastian et al. (1996) examined the 1995 SEQ-DoD survey results among military personnel who reported at least one potentially sexually harassing experience. They found that 51% of military men reported having been harassed exclusively by other men and another 16% reported having been harassed by both male and female perpetrators. However, only 2% of military women reported having been harassed by other women and another 6% reported having been harassed by both men and women. Furthermore, Stockdale, Visio, and Batra (1999) re-analyzed the 1995 SEQ-DoD survey results among military personnel who reported at least one potentially sexually harassing experience. The authors found that among those who completed a section that asked them to describe ‘‘the most distressing experience,’’ 53% of the men, as compared to 2% of the women, reported that the harasser was of the same sex. Next, Stockdale et al. compared the impact of same- and cross-sex sexual harassment. They found that men who had experienced same-sex sexual harassment rated their experience as more annoying, offensive, disturbing, embarrassing, and upsetting than did men who had experienced cross-sex sexual harassment. Similar to Dubois et al.’s conclusion (1998), Stockdale et al. concluded that same-sex sexual harassment induces ‘‘lesser’’ men to conform to hypermasculine gender role expectations, in which masculinity is related to dominance, whereas femininity is related to weakness and subservience. The 2002 SEQ-DoD survey results also showed that 51% of military men reported having been harassed exclusively by other men and another 27% reported having been harassed by both men and women (Lipari & Lancaster, 2003). However, only 1% of military women reported having been harassed exclusively by other women, and another 14% reported having been harassed by both men and women. The above studies suggest that men experience same-sex sexual harassment more often than women do. However, the surveys from the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1981, 1988, 1995) and those from © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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the DoD (Bastian et al., 1996; Lipari & Lancaster, 2003; Martindale, 1991) were originally designed to measure the experiences of women; hence, these surveys may not adequately account for the experiences of men, especially experiences that involve same-sex sexual harassment (Berdahl, Magley, & Waldo, 1996). Berdahl et al. (1996) suggested that men feel harassed by behavior that challenges current constructions of masculinity as a domain of qualities reserved for men (e.g., dominance, privilege, and success in the workplace), whereas women feel harassed by behavior that reinforces constructions of femininity as subordination in the workplace. Berdahl et al. discovered behaviors that were perceived to be harassing to men that were not identiﬁed as such for women (e.g., being harassed for engaging in ‘‘non-masculine behavior’’). These behaviors were then incorporated into a new instrument called the Sexual Harassment of Men (SHOM) (Waldo, Berdahl, & Fitzgerald, 1998). Like the SEQ, the SHOM (Waldo et al., 1998) uses a behavioral experiences approach to assess men’s experiences with sexual harassment. The SHOM has ﬁve subscales: three for gender harassment (lewd comments, enforcement of the traditional masculine gender role, and negative remarks about men), one for unwanted sexual attention, and one for sexual coercion. The SHOM has good internal reliability coefﬁcients across three diverse samples of men (378 men from a large public utility company in the northwest, 209 male faculty and staff from a large midwestern university, and about 420 men from western agribusiness food processing plants). Waldo et al. (1998) found that, during the past 24 months, between 40% and 53% of these men identiﬁed men or mostly men as the perpetrators of sexually harassing behavior, and these same-sex experiences consisted mostly of lewd comments and endorsement of masculine gender-role behavior. The authors concluded that ‘‘male–male sexual harassment is far more common than typically assumed by researchers, popular media, or the general public’’ (p. 72). Gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment Two meta-analytic studies of gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment found that the overall mean differences were between .30 and .35, which suggests that women perceive a broader spectrum of behaviors as sexual harassment than do men (Blumenthal, 1998; Rotundo, Nguyen, & Sackett, 2001). Furthermore, two recent studies on perceptions of same-sex sexual harassment indicated that U.S. college women consistently judged hypothetical sexual harassment cases between two women or between two men as being signiﬁcantly more sexually harassing, needing an investigation, and being punishable than did U.S. college men (DeSouza & Solberg, 2004; DeSouza © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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et al., 2007). College women were also signiﬁcantly more likely to endorse unwanted sexual behaviors between individuals of the same sex as constituting sexual harassment at work or in educational settings than did college men. The authors suggested that women are more likely to empathize with the victim, regardless of the victim’s sex or sexual orientation, because of women’s inferior position in society and of their greater personal experience with, and therefore greater knowledge of, the negative consequences of sexual harassment. Consequences A recent meta-analysis of 41 empirical studies with a total sample size of almost 70,000 employees, of which 59% completed the SEQ, examined three types of consequences of sexual harassment experiences: job-related, psychological, and health-related (Willness, Steel, & Lee, 2007). The ﬁndings showed that sexually harassing experiences had several negative outcomes, including decreased job satisfaction (especially with interpersonal aspects of work, such as with coworkers), lower organizational commitment, work withdrawal (e.g., missing work, neglecting tasks), ill physical and mental health, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which suggests that some types of sexual harassment may be considered traumatic events. The above ﬁndings indicate that sexual harassment is a work stressor to employees, which is costly to organizations. Willness et al. (2007) estimated that sexual harassment is costing organizations an average of $22,500 per employee in terms of lost productivity alone. In addition, unlike incivility, sexual harassment is illegal behavior that can cost organizations millions of dollars in litigation and monetary awards; for instance, during 2006, the EEOC (2007b) reported $59.8 million paid in monetary beneﬁts over and above litigation. Lapierre, Spector, and Leck (2005) conducted a meta-analytic study to compare the effects of sexual versus nonsexual workplace aggression (including incivility) on employees’ overall job satisfaction, which is one of the best indicators of employees’ attitude toward the quality of their overall work experience. The authors included in their analyses 25 studies on incivility and related constructs, representing a total of 28 independent samples (three of which completed the WIS), and 19 studies on sexual harassment, representing a total of 22 independent samples (12 of which completed the SEQ). Concerning sexual aggression, because there were only two samples that included women as well as men, the authors compared sexual to nonsexual aggression only among women in order to hold victims’ gender constant. Hence, gender comparisons were conducted only on nonsexual aggression. The ﬁndings showed that both types of workplace aggression negatively affected victims’ overall job satisfaction. When the authors compared the two © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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types of workplace aggression (among women only), they found that nonsexual aggression had a stronger negative relationship with overall job satisfaction than did sexual aggression. Further, nonsexual aggression had a stronger negative relationship with overall job satisfaction among women than among men. Such a ﬁnding is not in keeping with Cortina et al.’s (2001) study, possibly because Lapierre et al. (2005) used only a single outcome (i.e., job satisfaction), whereas Cortina et al. used several job-related measures, including other measures to assess psychological and health-related outcomes. The negative consequences of workplace mistreatment (e.g., incivility and sexual harassment) go beyond the direct targets, affecting bystanders’ professional, psychological, and physical well-being (e.g., Hoel, Faragher, & Cooper, 2004; Glomb et al., 1997; Miner-Rubino & Cortina, 2004, 2007). Hoel et al. (2004) and Miner-Rubino and Cortina (2007) suggested that the negative consequences on bystanders might be due to a perception that the organization is unjust by being tolerant of workplace mistreatment, fear of becoming the next target of mistreatment, empathy (they vicariously experience what the target is going through), and guilt for not intervening, supporting the victim, or reporting the perpetrator. Furthermore, ambient (indirect) sexual harassment negatively affects team- and organizational-level outcomes (Raver & Gelfand, 2005). Raver and Gelfand found that team ambient sexual harassment was associated with intragroup conﬂict, decreased group cohesion, and decreased team productivity, as mediated by group conﬂict and group cohesion, after controlling for general levels of stress, racial diversity, team size, and team gender ratio. Thus, workplace mistreatment is not just an individual problem, but is related to teams and ultimately organization productivity. The Escalation: From Incivility to Sexual Harassment Bernstein (1997) suggested that sexual harassment, especially gender harassment, ‘‘is a type of incivility or . . . disrespect’’ (p. 449). However, until recently, the literature on sexual harassment and incivility have not interfaced. In addition, organizations have typically focused on sexual harassment rather than incivility, because the former is illegal but not the latter. This is unfortunate because incivility is an interpersonal process that often facilitates other forms of workplace mistreatment, such as sexual harassment (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). One way to link the two literatures is to examine empirical studies that measured both workplace incivility and sexual harassment. Richman et al. (1999) conducted a study with 2,492 university employees. There were signiﬁcant gender differences for overall incivility only among faculty members, with female faculty members (68%) © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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reporting having experienced more uncivil acts than their male counterparts (52%). Concerning sexual harassment, there were signiﬁcant gender differences. Among the faculty, more women (40%) than men (29%) reported having experienced overall sexual harassment. However, more service men (46%) than service women (27%), as well as more clerical men (46%) than clerical women (31%), reported having experienced overall sexual harassment. There were no gender differences among student workers. When consequences of overall incivility and sexual harassment were examined separately, after controlling for race, age, and occupation, both men and women who experienced overall incivility and sexual harassment had worse mental health (i.e., depression, anxiety, and hostility) than those who did not experience incivility or sexual harassment. The association with drinking outcomes and prescription drug use was mixed. For women, both incivility and sexual harassment were related to drinking, but only sexual harassment was related to prescription drug use. For men, both incivility and sexual harassment were related to heavy episodic drinking and prescription drug use. Lim and Cortina (2005) investigated the relationships and outcomes of incivility and sexual harassment in two samples of women (Ns ¼ 833 and 1,425; 88% and 93% of whom reported to be White, respectively) employed within a large public sector organization. The authors used the WIS and SEQ to measure the frequency of incivility and sexual harassment during the past 5 years, respectively. They combined unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion items into a sexualized harassment composite. The ﬁndings showed that incivility and sexual harassment co-occurred. That is, in both samples, gender harassment was strongly related to both incivility and sexualized harassment. There was also a moderate relationship between incivility and sexualized harassment, even after controlling for the correlation between incivility and gender harassment. Almost all women who experienced gender or sexualized harassment also experienced incivility, but not vice versa. In fact, women rarely experienced sexual harassment in isolation (only 1%–3% did). In addition, conﬁrmatory factor analyses indicated that gender harassment linked incivility to sexualized harassment. Moreover, Lim and Cortina (2005) found an incremental worsening of both job outcomes and psychological/health outcomes even after controlling for behavior frequency, with women who experienced incivility, gender harassment, and sexualized harassment having the worst outcomes, followed by women who experienced both incivility and gender harassment. Even women who experienced incivility alone had signiﬁcantly worse outcomes than women who never experienced incivility, gender harassment, or sexualized harassment. Incivility spirals are often associated with sexual harassment. Such spirals may also trigger further victimization when victims complain © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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about workplace mistreatment. Cortina and Magley (2003) examined retaliation in the context of interpersonal mistreatment at work that occurred during the past 5 years by using the WIS and SEQ to measure the frequency of both workplace incivility and sexual harassment in a sample of 1,167 public sector employees (88% of whom reported to be White). Of these, 71% experienced some type of interpersonal mistreatment. Among mistreated employees, 27% spoke out about the mistreatment. The authors found that different coping mechanisms triggered different forms of retaliation (i.e., social or work-related), depending on the status (power) of the perpetrator over the victim. As expected, victims of work mistreatment had worse professional, psychological, and physical well-being compared to non-mistreated employees. Interestingly, those who coped with workplace mistreatment by having a ‘‘voice,’’ for example, by directly addressing the mistreatment (e.g., confronting the abuser or complaining to a supervisor) or indirectly by seeking social support, generally experienced more social retaliation victimization (e.g., antisocial behaviors like social ostracism and blame), especially when the perpetrators had more power than the victims, than did those who remained silent. This pattern was stronger when the victim sought social support from colleagues. Compared with silent victims, those who directly confronted the perpetrator also experienced more tangible work-related retaliation victimization (e.g., involuntary transfer, demotion, and so on), especially when the perpetrators had more power than the victims. Cortina and Magley (2003) also found health-related costs associated with enduring mistreatment in silence. That is, those who were frequently mistreated but remained silent had the worst psychological and physical well-being. Conversely, individuals who expressed ‘‘voice’’ and did not experience retaliation had the best psychological and physical well-being. Overall, these ﬁndings suggest that revictimization in the form of retaliation provides additional costs to organizations in terms of decreased employee performance, absenteeism, and turnover. Racialized Incivility and Sexual Harassment Uncivil acts may reach a tipping point that spirals into microinequalities that comprise the principal component for workplace discrimination by focusing the incivility on someone’s gender or race/ethnicity (Rowe, 1990). Thus, the uncivil act may become gendered by being aimed at some aspect of one’s masculinity or femininity, or it may become racialized by being aimed at some aspect of one’s race/ ethnicity, or it may combine both gender and race/ethnicity by becoming racialized gender micro-inequalities. For instance, Haslett and Lipman (1997) reported ﬁndings on everyday gender micro-aggressions in © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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a sample of 31 women lawyers, 84% of whom were White. The results showed that 71% of the respondents reported having experienced some form of micro-inequality. Their most disturbing micro-inequalities included exclusion, isolation, and being ignored. Women who experienced micro-inequalities reacted with frustration (35%), stress (23%), anger (17%), withdrawal (12%), avoidance (6%), depression (4%), and open hostility (3%). For women of color, the authors described a double jeopardy that included micro-inequalities based on both their racial/ethnic and gender identities, e.g., ‘‘joking around about my Spanish clients and their ‘relationship’ to me (or we all look alike)’’ (p. 46). Deitch et al. (2003) and Sue et al. (2007) deﬁne racial microaggressions as subtle and ambiguous verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities directed at people of color. For instance, Deitch et al. reported more everyday racial micro-aggressions (e.g., being ignored or treated as if one did not exist) directed signiﬁcantly more often against African-American workers than against White workers in a sample of 314 ﬁrst-line workers (study 1). In addition, AfricanAmerican workers reported more negative job-speciﬁc well-being outcomes than did their White counterparts. Deitch et al. also reported ﬁndings from 5,483 Navy personnel (study 2) and from 8,311 Army personnel (study 3) based on re-analyses of the 1995 SEQ-DoD survey dataset. The authors selected survey items that focused on everyday mistreatment (e.g., not being given the right information to do one’s job). The ﬁndings reﬂected the same patterns as those evidenced with civilians. Speciﬁcally, being African American was associated with mistreatment. In addition, being African American was associated with negative job-speciﬁc well-being, negative emotional well-being, as well as negative perceived physical well-being outcomes. Krieger et al. (2006) found widespread incivility, sexual harassment, and racial discrimination in a sample of 1,202 low-income women and men union workers (24% of whom reported to be White) in the greater Boston area. Speciﬁcally, 52% of the workers reported having experienced incivility during the past 12 months, 24% reported having experienced at least one potentially sexually harassing behavior, and 53% reported having experienced racial/ethnic discrimination, with 12% of the sample reporting having experienced all three types of workplace mistreatment. On the one hand, the results showed that White workers were signiﬁcantly more likely to experience uncivil behavior than workers of color, which is not in keeping with Deitch et al.’s (2003) ﬁndings, and gender was not a signiﬁcant predictor. On the other hand, Krieger et al. found that workers of color signiﬁcantly experienced more sexual harassment than White workers. Again, gender was not a signiﬁcant predictor—both women (26%) and men (22%) experienced similar numbers of sexually harassing experiences. However, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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sexual orientation was a signiﬁcant predictor. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered workers reported having experienced more sexual harassment than heterosexual workers did. In addition, workers of color (58%) experienced signiﬁcantly more racial discrimination than White workers (37%). Interestingly, compared to men, women were signiﬁcantly less likely to report having experienced racial discrimination. The argument that women of color often experience both gender and racial harassment in the workplace, since sexism and racism have been historically and experientially intertwined (Murrell, 1996), is known as the double jeopardy hypothesis. In fact, some researchers suggest that racialized sexual harassment is a central factor in the harassment experience of women of color (e.g., Buchanan, 2005; Welsh, Carr, MacQuarrie, & Huntley, 2006). Although some studies failed to support the double jeopardy hypothesis (e.g., Krieger et al., 2006), others showed support for racialized sexual harassment in the workplace (e.g., Buchanan & Ormerod, 2002; Cortina, Fitzgerald, & Drasgow, 2002; Mansﬁeld, Koch, Henderson, & Vicary, 1991; Schneider, Hitlan, & Radhakrishnan, 2000; Texeira, 2002; Yoder & Aniakudo, 1995). Recently, two models of the double jeopardy hypothesis were empirically tested: The additive (main-effect) model was compared with the multiplicative (interaction) model on the incidence of both sexual and racial/ethnic harassment (Berdahl & Moore, 2006). The sample consisted of 238 employees (48% of whom reported to be White) who were recruited from ﬁve organizations. Sexual harassment was measured with 19 items that were worded to apply to both men and women, with 14 items measuring traditional sexual harassment on the basis of Fitzgerald et al.’s (1988) typology (gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion) and ﬁve additional items measuring ‘‘not-man-enough harassment,’’ which were previously identiﬁed by Berdahl et al. (1996) and Waldo et al. (1998). Ethnic harassment was measured using seven items from the Ethnic Harassment Experiences scale (Schneider et al., 2000). The procedure used to measure both sexual and ethnic harassment consisted of multiplying frequency of harassment (0–4) by negative evaluation of the experience (1–2). Thus, the amount of harassment ranged from 0 (never experienced or experienced such harassment in a neutral or positive way) to 8 (experienced such harassment most of the time and evaluated it very negatively). Berdahl and Moore (2006) found that when racial/ethnic harassment and sexual harassment were combined to form an overall measure of harassment, women of color experienced signiﬁcantly more overall harassment compared to men of color, White women, and White men, supporting the double jeopardy hypothesis. When the two models were tested, the ﬁndings showed that women experienced signiﬁcantly © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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more sexual harassment than men, race/ethnicity was not signiﬁcant, and there was no interaction between sex and race/ethnicity. In addition, people of color experienced signiﬁcantly more racial/ethnic harassment than did Whites, but women did not experience it more so than men did, and there was no signiﬁcant interaction between sex and race/ethnicity. Lastly, women experienced more overall harassment than men, and people of color also experienced more overall harassment than did Whites, but there was no interaction between sex and race/ethnicity. These ﬁndings support the additive model, suggesting that race/ethnicity does not affect sexual harassment and that sex does not affect racial/ethnic harassment. CONCLUSIONS The existing literature reviewed in this chapter suggests that personal slights lead to incivility spirals. Moreover, incivility is a type of interpersonal discrimination (Hebl, Foster, Mannix, & Dovidio, 2002), because it is subtle and easily masked (covert) and is often targeted at women and racial/ethnic minorities. Unfortunately, incivility becomes a systemic organization problem that is often ignored and unpunished by organizations compared to formal (overt) discrimination of the past that is protected by law (Code of Federal Regulations, 2000). According to Dipboye and Coletta (2005), ‘‘the subtlety and complexity of [interpersonal] discrimination in today’s workplace makes it even more pernicious in some respects than the simple and easily identiﬁable discrimination of the past’’ (p. 427). Moreover, a growing body of empirical evidence shows that incivility has negative consequences on individuals and organizations. Thus, incivility should be subject to the same regulations and policies as formal types of discrimination. In addition, incivility co-occurs with sexual and racial/ethnic harassment. Hence, multiple forms of interpersonal mistreatment need to be addressed simultaneously rather than in isolation, as is typically the case. As Lim and Cortina (2005) put it, ‘‘a concerted effort at eliminating all elements of a hostile work environment might be more effective and efﬁcient’’ (p. 494). Gender harassment has been identiﬁed as an important link between general incivility and sexualized harassment (i.e., unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion; Lim & Cortina, 2005). Thus, gender should be actively investigated when assessing generalized incivility in order to detect gendered incivility, gendered bullying, and the interface between gender with other systems of inequality, such as race/ethnicity and sexual orientation. In addition, same-sex sexual harassment is a common occurrence, suggesting a need to focus on gender stereotyping rather than on sexualized harassment, which is more symptomatic of heterosexual sexual conﬂict between men and women. In fact, legal © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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scholars have suggested that the term sexual harassment should be reconceptualized as gender-norm harassment to accommodate the plurality of forms that sexual harassment now takes (Epstein, 1998; Franke, 1997; Schultz, 1998). Additional research and legal scholarship describing the link between gender stereotyping and discrimination are needed in order to make clear to policy makers the need to make gender-norm harassment, both overt and covert, illegal. REFERENCES Andersson, L. M., & Pearson, C. M. (1999). Tit for tat? The spiraling effect of incivility in the workplace. Academy of Management Review, 24, 452–471. Baron, R. A., Neuman, J. H., & Geddes, D. (1999). Social and personal determinants of workplace aggression: Evidence for the impact of perceived injustice and the Type A behavior pattern. Aggressive Behavior, 25, 281–296. Bastian, L. D., Lancaster, A. R., & Reyst, H. E. (1996). Department of Defense 1995 sexual harassment survey. Arlington, VA: Defense Manpower Data Center. Berdahl, J. L., Magley, V. J., & Waldo, C. R. (1996). The sexual harassment of men? Exploring the concept with theory and data. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 20, 527–547. Berdahl, J. L., & Moore, C. (2006). Workplace harassment: Double jeopardy for minority women. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 426–436. Bernstein, A. (1997). Treating sexual harassment with respect. Harvard Law Review, 111, 445–527. Blumenthal, J. A. (1998). The reasonable woman standard: A meta-analytic review of gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment. Law and Human Behavior, 22, 33–59. Buchanan, N. T. (2005). The nexus of race and gender domination: The racialized sexual harassment of African American women. In P. Morgan & J. Gruber (Eds.), In the company of men: Re-discovering the links between sexual harassment and male domination (pp. 294–320). Boston: Northeastern University Press. Buchanan, N. T., & Ormerod, A. J. (2002). Racialized sexual harassment in the lives of African American women. Women & Therapy, 25, 107–124. Code of Federal Regulations, Vol. 29, §1604.11 (2000). Cortina, L. M., Fitzgerald, L. F., & Drasgow, F. (2002). Contextualizing Latina experiences of sexual harassment: Preliminary tests of a structural model. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 24, 295–311. Cortina, L. M., & Magley, V. J. (2003). Raising voice, risking retaliation: Events following interpersonal mistreatment in the workplace. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 8, 247–265. Cortina, L. M., Magley, V. J., Williams, J. H., & Langhout, R. D. (2001). Incivility in the workplace: Incidence and impact. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 6, 64–80. Deitch, E., Barsky, A., Butz, R. M., Chan, S., Brief, A. P., & Bradley, J. C. (2003). Subtle yet signiﬁcant: The existence and impact of everyday racial discrimination in the workplace. Human Relations, 56, 1299–1324.

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DeSouza, E., & Solberg, J. (2003). Incidence and dimensions of sexual harassment across cultures. In M. Paludi & C. A. Paludi, Jr. (Eds.), Academic and workplace sexual harassment: A handbook of cultural, social science, management, and legal perspectives (pp. 3–30). Westport, CT: Praeger. DeSouza, E., & Solberg, J. (2004). Women’s and men’s reactions to man-to-man sexual harassment: Does the sexual orientation of the victim matter? Sex Roles, 50, 623–639. DeSouza, E. R., Solberg, J., & Cerqueira, E. (2007). A cross-cultural perspective on judgments of woman-to-woman sexual harassment: Does sexual orientation matter? Sex Roles, 56, 457–471. Dipboye, R. L., & Coletta, A. (2005). The dilemmas of workplace discrimination. In R. L. Dipboye & A. Coletta (Eds.), Discrimination at work: The psychological and organizational bases (pp. 425–462). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. DuBois, C.L.Z., Knapp, D. E., Faley, R. H., & Kustis, G. A. (1998). An empirical examination of same- and other-gender sexual harassment in the workplace. Sex Roles, 9, 731–749. Employment Equal Opportunity Commission (2007a, May 17). Sexual harassment. Retrieved on November 2, 2007, from http://www.eeoc.gov/types/ sexual_harassment.html. Employment Equal Opportunity Commission (2007b, January 31). Sexual harassment charges: FY 1997–FY 2006. Washington, DC. Retrieved on November 2, 2007, from http://www.eeoc.gov/stats/harass.html. Epstein, L. B. (1998). What is a gender norm and why should we care? Implementing a new theory in sexual harassment law. Stanford Law Review, 51, 161. Ferris, G. R., Zinko, R., Brouer, R. L., Buckley, M. R., & Harvey, M. G. (2007). Strategic bullying as a supplementary, balanced perspective on destructive leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 18, 195–206. Fitzgerald, L. F., Shullman, S., Bailey, N., Richards, M., Swecker, J., Gold, Y., Ormerod, M., & Weitzman, L. (1988). The incidence and dimensions of sexual harassment in academia and the workplace. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 32, 152–175. Fitzgerald, L. F., Swan, S., & Magley, V. J. (1997). But was it really sexual harassment? Legal, behavioral, and psychological deﬁnitions of the workplace victimization of women. In W. O’Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment: Theory, research, and treatment (pp. 5–28). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Franke, K. M. (1997). What’s wrong with sexual harassment? Stanford Law Review, 49, 691–772. Glomb, T. M., Richman, W. L., Hulin, C. L., Drasgow, F., Schneider, K. T., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (1997). Ambient sexual harassment: An integrated model of antecedents and consequences. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 71, 309–328. Haslett, B. B., & Lipman, S. (1997). Micro-inequalities: Up close and personal. In N. V. Benokraitis (Ed.), Subtle sexism: Current practice and prospects for change (pp. 34–53). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hearn, J., & Parkin, W. (2001). Gender sexuality and violence in organizations. London: Sage. Hebl, M. R., Foster, J. B., Mannix, L. M., & Dovidio, J. F. (2002). Formal and interpersonal discrimination: A ﬁeld study of bias toward homosexual applicants. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 815–825.

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Hepworth, W., & Towler, A. (2004). The effects of individual differences and charismatic leadership on workplace aggression. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 9, 176–185. Hoel, H., Faragher, B., & Cooper, C. L. (2004). Bullying is detrimental to health, but all bullying behaviors are not necessarily equally damaging. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 32, 367–387. Jennifer, D., Cowie, H., & Ananiadou, K. (2003). Perceptions and experience of workplace bullying in ﬁve different working populations. Aggressive Behavior, 29, 489–496. Krieger, N., Waterman, P. D., Hartman, C., Bates, L. M., Stoddard, A., Quinn, M. M., Sorensen, G., & Barbeau, E. M. (2006). Social hazards on the job: Workplace abuse, sexual harassment, and racial discrimination—A study of Black, Latino, and White low-income women and men workers in the United States. International Journal of Health Services, 36, 51–85. Lapierre, L. M., Spector, P. E., & Leck, J. D. (2005). Sexual versus nonsexual workplace aggression and victims’ overall job satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 10, 155–169. Lim, S., & Cortina, L. M. (2005). Interpersonal mistreatment in the workplace: The interface and impact of general incivility and sexual harassment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 483–496. Lipari, R. N., & Lancaster, A. R. (2003). Armed forces 2002: Sexual harassment survey. Arlington, VA: Defense Manpower Data Center. Mansﬁeld, P. K., Koch, P. B., Henderson, J., & Vicary, J. R. (1991). The job climate for women in traditionally male blue-collar occupations. Sex Roles, 25, 63–79. Martindale, M. (1991). Sexual harassment in the military: 1988. Sociological Practice Review, 2, 200–216. Miner-Rubino, K., & Cortina, L. M. (2004). Working in a context of hostility toward women: Implications for employee’s well-being. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 9, 107–122. Miner-Rubino, K., & Cortina, L. M. (2007). Beyond targets: Consequences of vicarious exposure to misogyny at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1254–1269. Murrell, A. J. (1996). Sexual harassment and women of color: Issues, challenges, and future directions. In M. S. Stockdale (Ed.), Sexual harassment in the workplace: Perspectives, frontiers, and response strategies (pp. 51–65). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Neuman, J. H., & Baron, R. A. (1998). Workplace violence and workplace aggression: Evidence concerning speciﬁc forms, potential causes, and preferred targets. Journal of Management, 24, 391–419. Pearson, C. M., Andersson, L. M., & Porath, C. L. (2000). Assessing and attacking workplace incivility. Organizational Dynamics, 29, 123–137. Pearson, C. M., Andersson, L. M., & Porath, C. L. (2005). Workplace incivility. In S. Fox & P. E. Spector (Eds.). Counterproductive work behavior: Investigation of actors and targets (pp. 177–200). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Pearson, C. M., Anderson, L. M., & Wegner, J. W. (2001). When workers ﬂout convention: A study of workplace incivility. Human Relations, 54, 1387– 1419.

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Pearson, C. M., & Porath, C. L. (2002). Rude awakening: Detecting and curtailing workplace incivility. London, Ontario, Canada: Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario. Pryor, J. B., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (2003). Sexual harassment research in the United States. In S. Einarsen, H. Hoel, D. Zapf, & C. L. Cooper (Eds.), Bullying and emotional abuse in the workplace: International perspectives in research and practice (pp. 79–100). London and New York: Taylor & Francis. Raver, J. L., & Gelfand, M. (2005). Beyond the individual victim: Linking sexual harassment, team processes, and team performance. Academy of Management Journal, 48, 387–400. Richman, J. A., Rospenda, K. M., Nawyn, S. J., Flaherty, J. A., Fendrich, M., Drum, M. L., & Johnson, T. P. (1999). Sexual harassment and generalized workplace abuse among university employees: Prevalence and mental health correlates. American Journal of Public Health, 89, 358–363. Rotundo, M., Nguyen, D. H., & Sackett, P. R. (2001). A meta-analytic review of gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 914–922. Rowe, M. (1990). Barriers to equality: The power of subtle discrimination to maintain unequal opportunity. Employee Responsibility and Rights Journal, 3, 153–163. Schneider, K. T., Hitlan, R. T., & Radhakrishnan, P. (2000). An examination of the nature and correlates of ethnic harassment experiences in multiple contexts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 3–12. Schultz, V. (1998). Reconceptualizing sexual harassment. The Yale Law Journal, 107, 1683–1805. Stockdale, M. S., Visio, M., & Batra, L. (1999). The sexual harassment of men: Evidence for a broader theory of sexual harassment and sexual discrimination. Psychology, Public Policy, & Law, 5, 630–664. Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A.M.B., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial micro-aggressions in everyday life. American Psychologist, 62, 271–286. Texeira, M. T. (2002). ‘‘Who protects and serves me?’’ A case study of sexual harassment of African American women in one U.S. law enforcement agency. Gender & Society, 16, 524–545. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1981). Sexual harassment in the federal workplace: Is it a problem? Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1988). Sexual harassment in the federal government: An update. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1995). Sexual harassment in the federal government: Trends, progress, continuing challenges. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. Vickers, M. H. (2006). Writing what’s relevant: Workplace incivility in public administration—A wolf in sheep’s clothing. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 28, 69–88. Waldo, C. R., Berdahl, J. L., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (1998). Are men sexually harassed? If so, by whom? Law and Human Behavior, 22, 59–79. Ward, J., & Winstanley, D. (2003). The absent presence: Negative space within discourse and the construction of minority sexual identity in the workplace. Human Relations, 56, 1255–1280.

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Welsh, S., Carr, J., MacQuarrie, B., & Huntley, A. (2006). ‘I’m not thinking of it as sexual harassment’: Understanding harassment across race and citizenship. Gender & Society, 20, 87–107. Willness, C. R., Steel, P., & Lee, K. (2007). A meta-analysis of the antecedents and consequences of workplace sexual harassment. Personnel Psychology, 60, 127–162. Yoder, J. D., & Aniakudo, P. (1995). The responses of African American women ﬁreﬁghters to gender harassment at work. Sex Roles, 32, 125–137.

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Chapter 5

Sexual Harassment and Male Dominance: Toward an Ecological Approach Phoebe Morgan James Gruber

The last quarter century has witnessed aggressive efforts at gender integration and gender equity by women’s groups, government agencies, and policy advocates. Because wages and occupational status have historically been disproportionately higher among men, economic and labor parity has played a key role in efforts to desegregate male-dominated domains.1 As a result, today unprecedented numbers of women are now doing work previously done by men, and an increasing number of high-paying, high-status occupations previously dominated by men have achieved or are close to achieving gender equity.2 Yet, in the United States, men’s wages are 25% higher than women’s, over 90% of Fortune 500’s CEOs are White men (Business Wire, 2000), and the labor market remains highly segregated (Kelly, 1991). Research has consistently linked the problems of male dominance with sexual harassment (for an overview, see Morgan 2001). Despite laws and policies prohibiting it, sexual harassment continues to be a problem across all domains and is endemic where men predominate (Gruber & Morgan, 2005). In male-dominated domains, disproportionately more women (and men) experience sexual harassment and they report more severe forms of it. In domains of high dominance (where 85% or more of occupants are male), sexual harassment is especially prevalent. For example, while less than half (42%) of female U.S. government employees

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have been sexually harassed (U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board [USMSPB], 1995), two-thirds or more of the women working in the military sector report experiencing it (Bastian, Lancaster, & Reyst, 1996). Similarly, women working in paramilitary occupations like policing and ﬁreﬁghting have signiﬁcantly higher rates of harassment than their civilian counterparts (Commission on Women, 1992; Brown, Campbell, & Fife-Schaw, 1995). In fact, the rate of harassment among women police ofﬁcers may be as high as 80% (Martin & Jurik, 2006). In male-dominated domains, sexual harassment is not only common, but pernicious. In addition to high victimization rates, the types of harassment and the consequences of it are more severe. Sexual bribery and sexual assault, for example, are experienced by a signiﬁcantly higher portion of military and paramilitary women (Bastian et al., 1996; Embser-Herbert, 2005; Texteira, 2002; Yoder & Aniakudo, 1997) than in the general population. Reports of especially demeaning and violent harassment across a wide range of male-dominated occupations—from coal miners (Yount, 1991) to oil riggers (Holcombe, 1992) and even stock brokers (Smith, 2002)—add more evidence about the unique problems women face in male-dominated domains. Historians have found ample evidence that, at least since the 19th century, the problems of male dominance and workplace sexual harassment have been inextricably linked (Baker, 2005; Bularzik, 1978). Since the 1970s feminists have conceptualized sexual harassment as a political problem (Farley, 1978; MacKinnon, 1979), an occupational hazard (Crull, 1981), and even a public health risk (Charney & Russell, 1994). Regardless of the type of problem sexual harassment is conceived to be, from a feminist perspective male dominance is a key, if not the central, factor affecting it. Sociologist Lin Farley (1978) broke theoretical ground by linking unwanted sexual attention to the dominance of patriarchal ideology. Speciﬁcally, Farley argued that the normalization of unwanted sexual attention is the outcome of a patriarchal system in which men’s wants and needs are privileged over those of women’s. Legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon (1987) concurred, but extended the theory further by envisioning male dominance as the primary marker of patriarchy and sexual harassment as both an outcome of and a contributor to male domination. In other words sexual harassment is not simply a product of male dominance; it also reproduces it. Social research of the last quarter century has consistently validated this feminist view. But more recently the focus of sexual harassment research has drifted away from the study of institutionalized male dominance to psychological and organizational factors. This shift to micro-level analyses (for an in-depth critique, see Mueller, DeCoster, & Estes, 2001) has, among other things, led to an exploration of the psychological factors associated with research participants’ deﬁnitions of and responses to ‘‘sexual harassment.’’ © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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This tilt toward the psychological study of sexual harassment has been fueled in large part by the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ) developed in the late 1980s by Louise Fitzgerald and her colleagues, which has become the most widely used measure of sexual harassment experiences in the world. Only recently has the widespread use of the SEQ been challenged (see Gutek, Murphy, & Douma, 2004). In particular, Gutek and her colleagues state that, at best, the SEQ is a measure of psychological sexual harassment. That is, Fitzgerald and her colleagues, as well as other researchers during the ﬁrst decade of sexual harassment research, ‘‘tried to ﬁnd out what kinds of experiences people had that might be considered sexual harassment and then wrote questions to try to capture these experiences’’ (p. 467). In addition to the SEQ, Fitzgerald’s measure of ‘‘organizational tolerance’’ (i.e., whether leadership has a lax attitude toward enforcing sexual harassment policies) is assessed by asking employees about the likely responses of their supervisors or managers to hypothetical situations that involve unwanted sexual attention. Our primary critique of recent trends in sexual harassment literature is that the problem of male dominance as a theoretical force and a stimulus for research models is ‘‘missing in action.’’ In particular, we believe that sexual harassment theory and research has lost much of its feminist edge during the last two decades because of the prominence of organizational psychology paradigms over alternative critical feminist perspectives that link work to cultural production and reproduction of racial, social class, and gender inequality. Through an in-depth review and reanalysis of the existing research, the following pages make several theoretical propositions that, when viewed together, present an ecological model of the relationship between male dominance and sexual harassment. By ‘‘ecological’’ we mean that male domination occurs as the result of situated performances of masculinity that are inﬂuenced by a host of ‘‘external’’ or extra-situational factors, such as sex ratios, the dominance of cultural norms in the work domain (e.g., ‘‘sex-role spillover’’), physical and social boundaries that demarcate work domains, collective identities of participants, and individual attitudes. Recent innovations in men’s studies have allowed us to understand male dominance as a far more complicated phenomenon than sexual harassment research has conceived it to be (for a thorough overview and critique of the masculinity literature, see Connell, 2000). This body of work places masculinity construction at the center of its analyses and critically examines the normalization of manhood and the social functions of manliness. Masculinity research sheds considerable light on how gender segregation and the subordination of women is socially justiﬁed and perpetuated. However, the subject of sexual harassment has been tangential at best in this body of work (for an exception, see Messerschmitt, 1993). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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For ease of discussion, we present our analysis in three parts. Part one critiques the ways in which male dominance has been conceptualized in numerical terms. Part two draws upon recent masculinity theory to conceptualize male dominance in normative terms (e.g., domains where work roles or identities center around stereotypic masculine behaviors or images such as risk-taking, aggressiveness, sex talk, etc.) and highlights the variety of ways these stereotypes affect sexual harassment. In the third part we discuss the implications this multidimensional view of male dominance has for future sexual harassment research and policies. The outcome is a set of proposals based upon our ecological model that may serve as a basis for future research. NUMERICAL DOMINANCE Survey research consistently conﬁrms a positive correlation between numerical dominance and sexual harassment. In domains where the sex ratio is skewed (i.e., the proportion of men greatly exceeds that of women), sexual harassment is likely to be prevalent (Gruber, 1998; Gutek, 1985; Gutek & Morasch, 1982). In fact, comparative analyses show that male predominance and sexual harassment correlate across domains as well as within them. A complication arises, however, because numerical dominance does not always (or necessarily) predict the existence of a work domain male culture. Nevertheless, numerical dominance has often been used as a proxy for normative dominance. Proportionality Drawing upon social role theory, Gutek and Morasch (1982) were the ﬁrst to theorize the connection between sex ratio skew and sexual harassment prevalence. They argued that in environments where the sex ratio is skewed, cultural gender roles ‘‘spill over’’ into the workplace. While this occurs regardless of which sex predominates, sexual harassment is especially problematic when men are a signiﬁcant majority. In domains where sex role spillover occurs, the climate becomes sexually charged and the treatment of women as daughters, wives, girlfriends, and mothers rather than as coworkers and supervisors is normalized. In coal mining, for example, where less than 7% of the workers are female, women are often typecast as ﬂirts, tomboys, or ladies and then treated as such by their male coworkers (Yount, 1991). Similarly, in corporate ofﬁces, executive secretaries are hired and promoted on the basis of their abilities to perform as surrogate wives (Pringle, 1989) and are often conspicuously objectiﬁed as status-bearing possessions (Messerschmidt, 1993). Bond and her colleagues (2004) © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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argued that job satisfaction for both women and men varied substantially between female- and male-dominated occupations because of cultural gender differences. Speciﬁcally, they hypothesized that workers’ higher satisfaction in female-dominated jobs was the product of workplace norms that encouraged supportive and nurturing relationships, which contrasted with male-dominated jobs where emotional distance was typical. Degree of Sexualization and Amount of Contact In addition to conﬂating gender roles with work roles, men tend to sexualize interaction with the opposite sex more than women do (Gutek, Cohen, & Konrad, 1990; Stockdale, 2005). The ‘‘contact theory’’ of Gutek and her colleagues argues that routine contact with members of the other sex increases sociosexual behavior and workplace sexualization, especially in male-majority workplaces because men tend to sexualize interactions, irrespective of speciﬁc occupational or situational norms. In highly sexualized environments, for example, girl watching is accepted as innocent fun, as is the highly visible display of scantily clad ‘‘calendar girls’’ on walls or computer screens (Quinn, 2000). An analysis of a random survey of Canadian women found that the amount of contact with men within a domain was a more signiﬁcant predictor of sexual harassment than the number of men who work there (Gruber, 1998). Expectedly, in domains where the rate of contact with men is high, the atmosphere is sexually charged and sex and work roles are conﬂated; unwanted sexual attention such as ﬂirting, requests for dates, sexual jokes, and proposals for sex is common. In addition, quid pro quo harassment is likely to be tolerated. By ‘‘quid pro quo’’ we refer to an often unspoken expectation that sexual favors can be traded for work-related rewards. Women who ﬂirt or accept requests for dates or sex are rewarded by being hired, promoted, or given favorable assignments; those who refuse sexual offers risk being demoted or ﬁred (MacKinnon, 1979). Labeled ‘‘the casting couch’’ by theatrical performers, quid pro quo harassment has frequently occurred at auditions (Farley, 1978). While the problems of skewed sex ratio and high contact implicate the need for more aggressive efforts at integration, sex role spillover and the sexualization of the attitudinal climate suggest the need for greater efforts at promoting professional behavior. Consensual relations policies and mandated sexual harassment workshops are examples of the latter (Wonders, 1997). However, the fact that the problem of sexual harassment persists in light of increased integration and professionalism suggests the relationship between male predominance and sexual harassment is multifaceted. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Degree of Women’s Visibility Kanter’s (1977) ethnographic study of corporate gender relations suggests the correspondence between sex ratio and sexual harassment may actually be curvilinear. She found that in departments where the numbers of women were especially small—one or two—men granted them token status and treated them affectionately. The tokens were infantilized and treated as little sisters, workgroup pets, or department mascots. However, as the number of women increased, they lost token status and, with that, the affection of their patronizing male coworkers. As the visibility of women increased, gender relations grew hostile. As Cockburn (1991) explains, visibility affects gender relations in two ways. First, greater numbers foster a heightened sense of solidarity among women; as a result, they may feel more empowered to assert their work roles over their sex roles and therefore resist male sexual advances. Those who follow this path are likely to experience retaliation. Spurned judges, for example, have punished female attorneys by berating them in court (Angel, 1991). Thus, the visibility theory suggests retaliation-based sexual harassment will rise as women’s proﬁle increases. Second, growing visibility creates the impression that a critical mass of women is taking over the domain. Such a perception produces backlash. Sexual harassment, then, becomes both an expression of anger and a tool of intimidation. Rather than infantilizing or objectifying, sexualized behavior becomes demeaning and humiliating. It creates an environment inhospitable to women that signals ‘‘you are not wanted here.’’ For example, despite the fact that the U.S. Armed Forces have some of the most progressive gender integration policies in America, which resulted in the doubling of the number of women recruits in a decade (Titunik, 2000), in 2001 nearly 80% of female veterans claimed they experienced sexual violence while serving their country (USA Today, 2001). In short, the critical mass theory suggests that when men perceive their dominance is at risk, the rate of hostile environment harassment will increase. Within a sexually charged environment, backlash will manifest in forms of more severe physical aggression. They may haze rather than initiate female newcomers. For example, in the Arizona Department of Corrections, new female corrections ofﬁcers were required to practice body and cavity searches more frequently than their male counterparts (Morgan, 1999). In coal mining, the stripping and greasing down of newcomers initiates them to the culture and solidiﬁes bonds between those who share it (Yount, 2005). Yet, when a small number of women are stripped and greased by a large number of men, for them an initiation ritual becomes an alienating experience. Likewise, in military academies, a site of rapid integration, upperclassmen traditionally initiate

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freshmen through demands for submission. A Pentagon survey found that within their ﬁrst year of service 12% to 17% of all female cadets had been sexually assaulted (Lipka, 2005). While numerical dominance and the prevalence of sexual harassment are related, these examples show that the relationship is neither necessarily linear nor positive. It is not simply that the more men that populate a domain, the more women will be sexually harassed. Among U.S. autoworkers, for example, the women who experienced the most sexual harassment were not tokens, but working in groups where their numbers (approximately a third of the group) made them a ‘‘threatening minority’’ (Gruber & Bjorn, 1982). Recent ﬁndings from a Dutch survey show that women are at the highest risk of sexual harassment in domains that are somewhat dominated by men. While approximately half of the female respondents working in either non-dominated or highly male-dominated workplaces experienced unwanted sexual behavior, a whopping 81% of those in somewhat male-dominant domains experienced it (Timmerman, 1990). So, numerical dominance is related to sexual harassment, but the nature of that relationship is contingent upon context. In conclusion, numbers do matter, but in at least two different ways. First, in highly male-dominated settings where the majority of men hold traditional gender values, sex spillover is likely, as is the sexualization of social interaction. In these situations, unwanted ﬂirting, touching, ‘‘ogling,’’ and requests for dates or sex will seem normative and the exchange of sexual favors for work-related reward will be common. But, with the successful integration of more women, the more visible they become. With their higher proﬁle comes women’s resistance to quid pro quo harassment and an escalation of men’s hostility. Once the character of a domain shifts from highly dominated to somewhat dominated, there arises the possibility that a critical mass of women is emerging. Men unwilling to relinquish their majority status (and the perks that come with it) respond with demeaning and humiliating forms of sexual harassment as a means to express outrage and to make the environment as inhospitable as possible for women. NORMATIVE DOMINANCE Applications of sex ratio, spillover, sexualization, contact, and critical mass theories make the connection between male predominance and sexual harassment prevalence clear but not complete. There are at least two common situations that illustrate the limitations of these theories. First is the sexual harassment of women by men in domains where men do not predominate. Second is the sexual harassment of men by other men. With regard to the ﬁrst situation, survey results indicate that even when the sex ratio is fairly even the sexual harassment of women is © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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common. Timmerman’s (1990) study of Dutch employees, for example, found that while sexual harassment rates in non-male-predominant domains was lower than where men are the majority, nearly half (48%) of the women in them experienced sexual harassment. In a Canadian survey of working women, those in gender-balanced work domains experienced levels of harassment similar to their peers in maledominant settings (Gruber, 1998). In fact, even in situations where a minority of women have greater job status and authority over their male subordinates, they are harassed (Rospenda, Richman, & Nawyn, 1998). About half of college faculty professors are sexually harassed by their students (DeSouza & Fansler, 2003), as are attorneys by their clients (Laband & Lentz, 1998), and nurses by their patients (Hanrahan, 1997). Likewise, female executives, managers, and supervisors are sexually harassed by their subordinates at least as often as women without supervisory status. As for the second situation, surveys show that 14% to 19% of men are sexually harassed at work, and they experience signiﬁcantly more same-sex harassment than women do (USMSPB, 1981, 1988, 1995). Men harass women primarily through sexual comments or requests for relationships or sex; but they harass other men physically, mostly by inappropriate touching or body language (Stockdale, Wood, & Batra, 1999). So, while these two situations highlight the limits of predominance theory, they do not necessarily call for a discarding of it. In fact, they suggest that male dominance is at least two-dimensional: There is a normative component as well as a numerical one. By normative we refer to those psychological and sociological processes that construct male dominance as natural and sexual attention as inevitable and therefore tolerable. Traditionality Attitudinal and perceptional studies of psychologists have made signiﬁcant progress toward linking normative male dominance to sexual harassment prevalence. In general terms, traditionality (i.e., the degree to which one believes that gender differences are ‘‘natural’’) normalizes the sexual, social, and economic subordination of women. Pryor and colleagues, for example, have found a relationship between men’s propensity to sexually harass women and their attitudes. In particular, high LSH (likelihood to sexually harass) men hold adversarial sexual beliefs, ﬁnd it difﬁcult to assume the perspectives of others, and endorse traditional sex-role stereotypes (Pryor & Stoller, 1994; Pryor, Giedd, & Williams, 1995). Also, these men score high on scales of antifemininity, toughness, dominance, and authoritarianism. Fitzgerald and Shullman (1985) note a similar link between traditional attitudes about gender roles among women and their resistance in labeling unwanted © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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sexual attention as ‘‘sexual harassment.’’ In contrast, Brooks and Perot (1991) found feminist ideology to be a signiﬁcant predictor of the likelihood of deﬁning situations as sexually harassing. Speciﬁcally, the more respondents embrace gender equality, the more likely they were to deﬁne unwanted sexual attention as harassing. Thus, regardless of the number of men populating a domain, the men and women who rate high on the traditionality scale will more likely view unwanted sexual attention as just the price women must pay to participate in the paid labor force while those with feminist orientations are more apt to ﬁnd unwanted sexual attention hostile and offensive. Traditionality theory, then, can account for the sexual harassment of women in domains where men do not predominate. Where the majority of those who populate the domain hold traditional values, most likely there will be a gendered division of labor and a disparate disbursement of power. In a highly traditional domain, it is normal for a minority of elite men to hold a disproportionate amount of power over a majority of subordinate women. Hospitals are a case in point. In this domain, a high degree of traditionality is evidenced by a gendered division of labor such that medicine is predominately practiced by men and patient care is performed primarily by women. Despite the fact that the work and training of nurse practitioners is in many ways comparable to physicians, their status and pay is signiﬁcantly less than physicians (About Women and Marketing, 1998). Furthermore female nurses are more likely than female physicians to be sexually harassed by male patients. Thus, in hospital rooms where nurses have the greatest authority, unwanted sexual harassment from male patients is common, but complaints about it are not (Hanrahan, 1997). Even though they didn’t like it, nurses told Hanrahan sexual harassment was for them an unavoidable occupational risk. In sum, in work domains where the majority of women and men hold traditional beliefs about gender, the prevalence of interactions that meet the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s deﬁnition of sexual harassment will be high, but reports of sexual harassment low (Stambaugh, 1997; Morgan, 1999). But, as the number of women with feminist ideology grow, so will the number of reports and complaints about sexual harassment. Also, a feminist ideology can help buffer the negative impact of harassment on women’s mental health and wellbeing (Rederstorff, Buchanan, & Settles, 2007). Gender Regime Traditionality theory cannot account for the harassment of men by other men, especially when the perpetrator and his target are both heterosexual. Gender performance theory, more commonly referred to as ‘‘doing gender’’ theory, offers an explanation. Ethnomethodologists © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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West and Zimmerman (1987) conceptualized gender as an interactive accomplishment. Most simply, what it means to be feminine or masculine is produced through social interaction. What is deﬁned as ‘‘normal’’ for a man or a woman is the outcome of negotiations that extend over a period of time. When gender performance does not meet expectations, the actor is stigmatized and subject to social control. Gender is produced at every level of interaction, from interpersonal to organizational (Martin & Jurik, 2006). Gender norms change with ideological shifts and vary across types of interactions and within domains. Gender hegemony—the privileging of the roles, values, and beliefs of one group over another—is institutionalized by the state, media, religion, at home and at work, and structured by race, class, sexuality, and ability (Messerschmidt, 1993). Connell (2000) refers to this system of gender management as the ‘‘gender regime.’’ As a learned performance, there are variations in the degree to which men accomplish the hegemonic ideal (Connell, 1995). In fact, only a few rigorously practice it, and this group of ‘‘hyper-masculine’’ men is accorded elite status. Thus, the gender regime produces a hierarchy of men in which only a few men dominate the remaining majority. Sometimes men of privilege use intimidation and violence to sustain dominance, and men of lesser status use the same to resist subordination and increase their status (Collinson, 1992; Kaufman, 1987; Hearn, 1985). Sexual harassment, then, is a common tactic used by subordinate men to challenge the power of elite males. Conversely, sexual harassment is also a weapon used by elite men to defend against insubordination. Organized Sexual Harassment In a patriarchal society, one of the most unambiguous ways to demonstrate masculinity is to assert sexual, economic, or social dominance over women (MacKinnon, 1987). Thus, there is no place for women in a power pyramid based upon masculinity (Cockburn, 1991) and attempts to insert women into it destabilize the regime (Hatty, 2000). The need to preserve the dominance of men over women bonds men of all statuses—the elite hyper-masculine as well as the men they dominate. In fact, it is at the very sites of successful integration of women where cults of masculinity ﬂourish (Connell, 1995). At these sites, sexual harassment is an organized male-bonding ritual. Quinn’s (2000) ethnography of girl watching, for example, reveals that the primary motivation of group ogling is not inherently hostile but more for sport. As with team sports like football, the sexual objectiﬁcation of women becomes a game in which knowledge of the rules and willingness to play it establish insider status. From the girl watcher’s point of view, ogling is harmless fun. It is, then, domination of women that bonds together all those within the masculine hierarchy. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Those who are uninitiated to the masculine order are inducted through group performances of ritualized sexual aggression. In military academies, the sexualized hazing of cadets is a long-standing tradition. A prerequisite for induction into a college fraternity is the ability to rise above the humiliation of being demeaned as homosexuals or subordinated as women. It is not just the integration of women that destabilizes the hierarchy of men. Men who stand against the gender regime also threaten the stability of the masculine hierarchy. Men who choose cooperation over competition, treat women as equals, or who refuse to use force are gender rebels who risk becoming targets of what Stockdale (2005) terms ‘‘rejection-based’’ sexual harassment. In much the same way as women who ‘‘invade’’ male turf become targets of hostility and derision, so too nonconforming men are subject to verbal and physical aggression and excluded from routine male-bonding experiences. Given the fact that only a few men have what it takes to achieve elite status and the vast majority are either working to prove their masculinity or resisting pressure to do so, it makes sense that the majority of men targeted for sexual harassment are harassed by heterosexual men and that the most common types of harassment they experience are sexualized acts of hostility and intimidation. Ironically, then, while the masculine regime is stabilized by homosocial rituals, it is destabilized by homosexuality. As a result, highly normative domains strongly prohibit homosexuality. For example, in the U.S. Armed Forces, homosexual behavior is a crime subject to court martial. When gays and lesbians challenged that policy by publicly owning their sexual orientations, the Clinton Administration attempted to restore order with the institution of ‘‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’’ policies. Yet, sexual harassment has become a common method for the informal sanction of homosexual behavior. Interestingly, false ‘‘outing,’’ or just the threat of it is a common retaliation against heterosexual women who resist or complain about unwanted sexual attention, as doing so triggers formal mechanisms of social control (Embser-Herbert, 2005). TOWARD AN ECOLOGICAL MODEL OF MASCULINITY IN ORGANIZATIONS To this point we have examined how two different facets of male dominance—numerical and normative—affect sexual harassment prevalence and severity. For ease of discussion, we have explored each one independently; but, as our examples illustrate, these two types of dominance operate simultaneously. We have established that there are degrees to both dimensions. The sex ratio, for example, can be slightly, somewhat, or heavily skewed toward men. Similarly, attitudes about gender and feminist ideology can slide along a scale from very © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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traditional to not traditional at all. The masculine regime—the habits, practices, and rituals that sustain male dominance—can be formal or informal, and the rules can be rigid, plastic, or somewhere in between. In light of our review and critique, the following sets forth a series of proposals for future research and policy making. For ease of discussion, they are summarized in this chapter’s appendix. Proposal 1 The fact that sex ratios occur within both social and psychological contexts needs greater consideration. In operationalizing this variable, there are three dimensions that researchers should include: the objective count of women and men (the number of employees, participants, or members listed in formal documents); the perception that work domain members have of the numbers (the degree to which those populating a domain sense men or women predominate); and changes in both the actual number of men and the perceptions of the numbers. With regard to the second aspect, research suggests that in situations of stress majority group members are apt to inﬂate their estimates of the number of minority-status members who have entered their domains. Also, as we discussed earlier, a notable shift in numbers of women, even when they already constitute a sizable minority, may create an outbreak of misogyny. Therefore, an evaluation of male dominance should include a sex ratio history of the domain under investigation. Proposal 2 The extent to which leadership can control male dominance impacts the effectiveness of policies preventing sexual harassment. This is likely to be problematic when employees work in domains that are physically isolated from those where leadership resides. A ﬁre station, a police station, and a military barracks are prime examples of this type of separation. For example, ﬁreﬁghters may perceive the city government, chief’s ofﬁce, or even the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission director as far removed from their daily work lives and therefore ignorant of their reality (Baignet, 2005). They may resent and therefore ignore policies that mandate attitudinal or behavioral change. In isolated settings such as these, a physical structure encompasses a social setting and blurs the distinctions between occupation and organization. In some areas within an organization there are distinct occupational niches where employees with similar job titles are functionally and spatially segregated from the rest of the organization. These similarities promote group identiﬁcation and solidarity that may be enhanced further by similarity in ascribed characteristics (e.g., gender, race, age). The physical separation heightens the symbolic separateness © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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of the work group. For example, Corroto’s (2005) ﬁeld study shows that a masculinist enclave can exist within an otherwise gender-diverse setting (a university) where men in a traditionally male occupation (architecture) claim physical space (studios) as male territory and use these areas to enact normatively male ritual activities (e.g., displaying sexual grafﬁti). From our experiences as sexual harassment consultants, a map of the work domain that includes the ﬂow or patterns of movement of women and men within it not only creates a more vivid portrayal of social contact between the sexes but also delineates the boundaries (physical and/or symbolic) that may heighten sexual harassment targets’ sense of entrapment. Proposal 3 When male dominance is normalized through organized rather than individual processes, the impact of masculine norms on work domains is increased substantially. The spillover effect may be heightened considerably when hiring or promotion criteria or membership requirements to professional associations or unions codify the conﬂation of gender and occupational roles. For example, military and paramilitary physical ﬁtness requirements that emphasize upper body strength normalize masculinity as an occupational requirement. Similarly, uniform requirements like those of the Hooter’s restaurant (i.e., tight, low-cut T-shirts and miniskirts) institutionalize a sexually charged restaurant climate and thereby normalize unwanted sexual attention as an acceptable occupational hazard. A key feature of the role of extra-organizational norms among groups of people is an occupational culture. What has not received research attention is an analysis of the factors that heighten tensions between organizational and occupational loyalty and identity. For male-dominated occupations this may be a primary source of male resistance to organizational policies and directives against sexual harassment as men begin their careers. For a number of jobs there is an extended socialization process that controls entry into an occupation and guides behavior during employment. There may be a formal training process wherein a candidate spends an extended period of time as a student or trainee. The training or socialization may occur in a setting that is physically, psychologically, and gender separate. Police academies and military boot camps are notable examples. The spillover of this socialization into formal work domains is accentuated by unique global occupational identities that link workers to groups or associations outside the work site. Professional associations, fraternal organizations, and unions not only help to sustain occupational identities at work but they also create global allegiances that extend far beyond the work site. Group solidarity is further enhanced through informal rituals and practices that © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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bond members of an occupation at a work site (e.g., coal miner greasing, girl watching, after-work get-togethers at strip bars) that often contradict or attempt to undermine formal processes of an organization. These rituals may serve, among other functions, to heighten group boundaries. So, as we try to understand why women police ofﬁcers or members of military units experience higher levels of sexual harassment than women in the general working population, we need to move beyond their small numbers and the masculinist character of these occupations to a fuller understanding of the socialization processes that reinforce homosociality and male bonding. Proposal 4 Collective occupational identities and personality characteristics and attitudes coincide. In other words, the behavior and attitudes men have about gender and sexuality are shaped not only by their training, initiations, and interpersonal experiences at work, but also by the socialization experiences that determine the kinds of work they do and how they do it. There is a self-selection process whereby men with certain attitudinal or personality characteristics are apt to choose some types of work over others, the kinds of people they choose to work with, and their interpersonal relations with coworkers and supervisors. A key socialization variable is sexual orientation, speciﬁcally homophobia—one of the most popular measures of a tendency to sexually harass, according to John Pryor’s LSH scale, which correlates signiﬁcantly with a number of negative personality characteristics. To advance the research on personal characteristics and work roles we need research on personality types, attitudes, and proclivities that is group-based, speciﬁcally occupation-based. Research on personality types or attitudes of men in occupations that are numerically male-dominant would clarify the elements of and extend the meaning of normative dominance. The problem of male dominance isn’t simply the number of men; it’s the attitudes and orientations that are shaped and reinforced by homophobic and misogynist occupational cultures. For example, Kurpius and Lucart (2000) found that undergraduate members of military groups (e.g., Reserve Ofﬁcers’ Training Corp) had higher scores on authoritarianism than their peers. One approach to accomplishing this might be to derive a mean score for all persons (or a sample of persons) within an occupation using measures such as the LSH, authoritarianism, anti-femininity, traditional masculinity, or other scales of this sort. A more ambitious project would involve charting change or continuity in personality and attitudes of trainees, cadets, students, and the like as they move into the formal occupational world. Such longitudinal research would provide a basis for understanding the impact of organizational variables on © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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either reinforcing or challenging gender stereotyping and discriminatory behavior socialized through occupational cultures. Proposal 5 A ‘‘trickle down’’ theory about sexual harassment predominates in both research and policy. By ‘‘trickle down’’ we mean that within any hierarchy—social, economic, or organizational—it is assumed that beliefs and practices among the elites trickle downward, inﬂuencing the thoughts and actions of subordinates (Hulin, Fitzgerald, & Drasgow, 1996). Within employment and educational organizations, policy implementations that embrace this view emphasize the importance of formal prohibition statements made by leadership. Legally, liability rests not so much on the type of harassment reported but on an organization’s administration to respond effectively. The rationale is straightforward: If the administration does not take harassment seriously, neither will its employees. The trickle down model predicts that organizations with male-dominated leadership and/or leadership that tolerates sexual harassment and discrimination are more likely to have sexual harassment problems within the ranks. However, the trickle down theory cannot easily account for ‘‘contraharassment,’’ the harassment of superiors by those of lesser status (Rospenda et al., 1998). Yet, in reality harassment of teachers by their students and supervisors by their subordinates is common. As Connell (2000) notes, within the hierarchy of men harassment is used both to maintain power and to usurp it. Men at the top harass those at the bottom as a means to exercise their superiority and maintain their elite status. In their quest for upward mobility, men of lesser status may harass their competitors (i.e., men with equal status) as well as those above them. As Acker (1990) concurs, in the hierarchy of men, women are not even at the bottom—they are outside it completely. Their attempts to ‘‘break in’’ can precipitate a hostile comradeship among all men. One of most neglected aspects of sexual harassment research—most speciﬁcally in survey research—is collective resistance by men against formal policies and programs aimed at reducing harassment. Certainly, resistance to ‘‘authority’’ is a well-worn feature of masculinity in American popular culture. From Marlon Brando and James Dean of the postwar era to Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry) and Sylvester Stallone (Rambo) of the 1980s to the rappers of hip-hop today, the image of a ‘‘real man’’ is one who resists the ‘‘system’’ and the incompetence and weakness (i.e., stereotypic feminine characteristics) it perpetuates. Perhaps the most glaring problem with the trickle down model of leadership is the fact that policies and programs developed to reduce sexual harassment may in fact encourage it! This was demonstrated aptly by Miller’s (1997) ﬁeld study of male active-duty Army soldiers. Rather © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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than risking formal punishment by directly attacking the military’s gender equity policies and practices, the men chose subversive tactics, or ‘‘weapons of the weak’’ (e.g., foot dragging, rumor mongering) to convey their displeasure in ways that were hidden from ofﬁcial scrutiny. In these types of situations the impact of sexual harassment on its targets stems not only from the severity but the pervasiveness of the behavior as well. The pervasiveness results from both instances of overt, active resistance to ofﬁcial policy, as well as a continuous stream of hostile and demeaning behavior under the radar of ofﬁcial scrutiny. Quinn (2000) describes the ‘‘paradox of complaining’’ wherein targets of harassment are silenced by the ‘‘humorous’’ thrust of public jokes or innuendos (‘‘chain yanking’’), which, though guised as ‘‘not personal,’’ are insulting and humiliating. This resistance may become emboldened when its targets are intimidated or silenced into inaction, as is the case when the harassment experiences occur in relatively isolated settings. We propose, then, that women and men will interact differently depending on where they are located in the organizational structure, and how this location is perceived. Researchers have conceptualized work domains as interchangeable on the rungs of an organization, and consequently we have missed the dynamics of power and powerlessness—in particular, women’s roles as scapegoats among men who perceive themselves as powerless. Proposal 6 In addition to the previous factors we’ve discussed, one could predict the rates at which men sexually harassed their female and male colleagues not only by these previous factors (physical isolation, masculinist occupational identity, etc.) but also by attitudes toward work and work processes. Simply put, nasty, alienating work environments create nasty interpersonal relationships. Of particular interest to us is how the reaction to alienation by men is along the lines of reafﬁrming traditional masculinity, including aggression, substance abuse, and homophobia. Gender regimes normalize aggression as appropriate for men and unacceptable among women. In one of the ﬁrst cross-national comparisons of sexual harassment experiences among blue- and white-collar women, Kauppinen and Gruber (1993) found that American autoworkers had signiﬁcantly higher levels of harassment than all other workers. Part of the reason for this was their signiﬁcantly higher levels of work alienation or bureaucratization. Speciﬁcally, autoworkers had higher workloads and less autonomy than American professionals or European workers, and these were strongly related to poorer social relationships. The impact of work structure and processes on job-related, psychological, and health outcomes is a well-studied area within sociology and © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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psychology (see Blauner, 1964; Miller, 1980; Kohn, Naoi, Schoenbach, Schooler, & Slomczynski, 1990). Jobs that are routine, regimented, inﬂexible, highly monitored, or offer little mobility or opportunity result not only in low job satisfaction and high turnover but also in poor physical and mental health and a negative work climate. Unfortunately, the role of work structure or processes on sexual harassment has received considerably less attention than organizational ‘‘climate.’’ For example, Fitzgerald, Drasgow, Hulin, Gelfand, and Magley (1997) do not include work bureaucratization variables at all in their analyses of the antecedents of sexual harassment. This is unfortunate because research that uses bureaucratization variables show that they have unique, independent contributions in predicting sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is frequently found in a nexus of variable relationships that include bureaucratization, organizational climate, and workrelated and psychological outcomes. Mansﬁeld, Koch, Henderson, and Vicary (1991) found that women workers who held jobs that were characterized by monotony, isolation, and fatigue experienced more sexual harassment than women in other jobs. Perhaps the clearest distinction between the impact of work structure and work climate variables was demonstrated recently by Mueller et al. (2001). They found that centralized decision making, a lack of formal policies that protect employee rights, and rigid organizational structures with little job mobility predicted sexual harassment above and beyond job–gender context or organizational climate variables. They also raised provocative questions about the oft-cited relationships among sexual harassment and various outcomes such as job dissatisfaction, burnout, or turnover (Laband & Lentz, 1998), psychological well-being (Schneider, Swan, & Fitzgerald, 1997) and drinking (Richman, Rospenda, Nawyn, & Flaherty, 1997). When work structure variables were controlled, they found no signiﬁcant relationships between sexual harassment and job dissatisfaction, job stress, or intentions to quit because ‘‘sexual harassment and negative work outcomes are related because they are [all] products of similar organizational contexts’’ (p. 13). One of the signiﬁcant ways in which work structure affects job outcomes and experiences at work is by its impact on organizational climate. As Kauppinen and Patoluoto (2005) note, conﬂict among workers in the form of bullying, intimidation, or violence is frequently found in workplaces where the pace of work has increased, concerns about retrenchment are widespread, or workloads have increased. Gutek (1985) argues that inappropriate or unprofessional behavior—drinking, sabotage, petty bickering—and sexual harassment or sociosexual behavior are correlated. In work environments where tension and conﬂict exist, erotic warfare often erupts as sex and sexuality become vehicles for expressing rivalry and dissatisfaction (Haavio-Mannila, 1992). Two studies (Kauppinen & Gruber, 1993; DeCoster, Estes, & © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Mueller, 1999) that used regression analyses found that low solidarity or poor congeniality among coworkers was a strong predictor of sexual harassment. Richman and her colleagues (Richman, Rospenda, Nawyn, & Flaherty, 1997) found that environments with high levels of generalized workplace abuse had signiﬁcant problems with sexual harassment, and these (in particular, generalized workplace abuse) in turn were signiﬁcant predictors of depression, anxiety, and hostility for both male and female employees of a university. There are some important implications of the research on work structure and organizational climate to male dominance. An important reason why male-dominated jobs are dangerous environments for women is because many of these jobs are highly bureaucratic (e.g., regimented, routinized, hierarchical) such as factory work or military or paramilitary jobs. Women who enter these jobs are apt to be sexually harassed as a result of two tensions: a direct threat to male power and privilege, or an already existing poor work climate brought about by alienating work. While the ﬁrst tension has received considerable attention, the second needs further development. Speciﬁcally, while bureaucratic structures and processes produce similar outcomes on job (dissatisfaction, turnover) and psychological outcomes, the reactions to alienation seem to differ insofar as men seem more inclined to express their discontent through hostility and stereotyping. CONCLUSION It is our contention that a fuller understanding of sexual harassment can be found by a deeper consideration of the various ways that masculinity impacts work domains. To be sure, ‘‘male dominance’’ is multifaceted. A central focus of this study is the complex interrelationships between gendered numbers and norms, or ‘‘double dominance.’’ The impact of male dominance in this regard has been lost in the shufﬂe of ‘‘organizational climate’’ theory and research. Our critique of the literature and our proposals for further study are fueled by an ecological approach to human interactions. We begin with two assumptions: Work domains provide rich settings for ‘‘doing gender’’; and the content of these gender performances are highly situational and impacted by the work context and by a variety of factors outside the domain. If a work domain is the ‘‘stage’’ for gendered performances, then we need to understand its unique structural and physical aspects because it matters whether the stage is in the middle of the organization or at its bottom (Proposal 5) or whether or not it is separate or uniﬁed (Proposal 2). It has long been understood that numbers, in particular ratios of women and men, shape interactions in work domains. What we have tried to do is provide a normative context to © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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the numbers by focusing on factors that facilitate (or inhabit) the inﬂuence of traditional masculinity on work roles. APPENDIX: PROPOSALS 1 2 3 4 5 6

Actual numbers, perceived numbers, and changes in numbers are intricately linked and provide a comprehensive view of a work domain. The impact and subjective interpretation of numbers is related to social and physical space. Numerical dominance is strengthened by normative dominance when it is mediated through socialization processes. Normative male dominance is enhanced when personal characteristics intersect with workplace variables. Male dominance is about power and leadership as well as powerlessness and resistance. Male dominance, bureaucratization, and alienation are interrelated.

NOTES 1. Male dominance varies across social institutions, employment sectors, organizations, and work groups; thus, for ease of presentation, the term ‘‘domain’’ will be used to reference all of these. 2. By ‘‘gender equity’’ we mean that the proportions of women employed in these settings are 40% to 60%. However, because pay inequities and differences in status persist, gender parity remains an elusive goal.

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Lipka, S. (2005). Defense Department releases data on sexual assaults at military academies. Chronicle of Higher Education. Available from http:// chronicle.com/daily/2005/03/2005032102n.htm. MacKinnon, C. (1979). The sexual harassment of working women. New Haven: Yale University Press. MacKinnon, C. (1987). Feminism unmodiﬁed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Mansﬁeld, P., Koch, P., Henderson, J., & Vicary, J. (1991). The job climate for women in traditionally male blue-collar occupations. Sex Roles, 25, 63–79. Martin, S., & Jurik, N. (2006). Doing justice, doing gender. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Messerschmidt, J. (1993). Masculinities and crime. Lansing: Rowman & Littleﬁeld. Miller, J. (1980). Individual and occupational determinants of job satisfaction. Sociology of Work and Occupations, 7, 337–366. Miller, L. (1997). Not just weapons of the weak: Gender harassment as a form of protest for Army. Social Psychology Quarterly, 60, 32–51. Morgan, P. (1999). Risking relationships: Understanding the litigation choices of sexually harassed women. Law & Society Review, 33, 67–92. Morgan, P. (2001). Sexual harassment: Violence against women at work. In C. Renzetti, J. Edelson, and R. Bergen (Ed.), Sourcebook on Violence Against Women (pp. 209–222). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mueller, C., DeCoster, S., & Estes, B. (2001). Sexual harassment in the workplace. Work and Occupations, 28(4), 411–446. Pringle, R. (1989). Secretaries talk: Sexuality power and work. London: Verso Press. Pryor, J., Giedd, J., & Williams, J. (1995). A social psychological model for predicting sexual harassment. Journal of Social Issues, 51, 69–84. Pryor, J., & Stoller, L. (1994). Sexual cognition processes in men high in the likelihood to sexually harass. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 163–169. Quinn, B. (2000). The paradox of complaining: Law, humor and harassment in the everyday work world. Law & Social Inquiry, 25, 1151–1185. Rederstorff, J., Buchanan, N., & Settles, I. (2007). The moderating roles of race and gender role attitudes in the relationship between sexual harassment and psychological well-being. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 50–61. Richman, J., Rospenda, K., Nawyn, S., & Flaherty, J. (1997). Workplace harassment and the self-medication of distress. Contemporary Drug Problems, 24, 179–200. Rospenda, K., Richman, J., & Nawyn, S. (1998). Doing power: The conﬂuence of gender, race, and class in contrapower sexual harassment. Gender & Society, 12, 40–60. Schneider, K., Swan, S., & Fitzgerald, L. (1997). Job-related and psychological effects of sexual harassment in the workplace. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 401–415. Smith, R. (2002, December 17). Salomon is told to pay broker $2.5 million. Wall Street Journal, p. C–1. Stambaugh, P. M. (1997). The power of law and the sexual harassment complaints of women. National Women’s Studies Association Journal, 9, 23–42. Stockdale, M. (2005). The sexual harassment of men: Articulating the approachrejection theory of sexual harassment. In J. Gruber & P. Morgan (Eds.), In

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the company of men: Male dominance and sexual harassment (pp. 117–142). Boston: Northeastern University Press. Stockdale, M., Wood, M., & Batra, L. (1999). The sexual harassment of men: Evidence for a broader theory of sex harassment and sex discrimination. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 5, 630–664. Texteira, M. (2002). Who protects and serves me? Gender & Society, 16, 524–545. Timmerman, M. (1990). Werkrelaties tussen vrouwen en mannen ongewenste intimiteiten in arbeidssituaties. Amsterdam: Sua. Titunik, R. (2000). The ﬁrst wave: Gender integration and military culture. Armed Forces & Society, 26, 229–257. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1981). Sexual harassment in the federal government. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1988). Sexual harassment in the federal government: An update. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1995). Sexual harassment in the federal workplace: Trends, progress & continuing challenges. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. Violence against women in the military (2001, August 18). USA Today, p. 14. West, C., & Zimmerman, D. (1987). Doing gender. Gender & Society, 1, 125–151. Wonders, N. (1997). Politics of the policy process. In B. Sandler and R. Shoop (Eds.), Sexual harassment on campus. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Yoder, J., & Aniakudo, P. (1997). Outsider within the ﬁrehouse. Gender & Society, 11, 324–341. Yount, K. (1991). Ladies, ﬂirts and tomboys. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 19, 396–422. Yount, K. (2005). Sexualization of work roles among men miners: Structural and gender-based origins of ‘‘harazzment.’’ In J. Gruber & P. Morgan (Eds.), In the company of men: Male dominance and sexual harassment (pp. 65– 91). Boston: Northeastern University Press.

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Chapter 6

Challenges for Women of Color Darlene C. DeFour

When people say that they want to focus only on gender, I wonder which aspect of myself I should leave at home when I go in to work. Should I leave home race today? Or should I leave home my gender? (Told to the author)

Demographers predict that by 2050 half or nearly half of the population will be of color (Armas, 2007). In some states people of color are already the majority or near majority of the population. This boost in diversity is the result of a few factors, including: the predicted small decline in the non-Hispanic white population, continued large increases in the Hispanic and Asian populations, and the continued growth of the Black population. Add to these factors the increases in populations of immigrant of color and one can predict the characteristics of the labor force in the future. The enlargement of a multicultural population will mean a workforce that is more culturally diversiﬁed. The workplace has continued to become more diverse in terms of gender over the years. There have been steady increases in women in the United States who are employed outside of the home. Over 60% of women who are 16 and older are members of the workforce (Bureau of Statistics, 2004). Race and ethnicity are not current predictors of whether or not women are working outside of the home. According to the Bureau of Statistics (2004), 62% of Black women, 59% of Asian women, 59% of European-American women, and 58% of Latina women are in the workforce. While race/ethnicity may not strongly predict whether or not a woman is employed outside of the home, it can shape what she encounters while there. Race/ethnicity can inﬂuence the type of

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employment (Essed, 1991), stereotypes held about her abilities (St. Jean & Feagin, 1998), and her salary (Bureau of Statistics, 2004). Collins (2000) contends that the experiences of women cannot be investigated in terms of gender only. Collins’s point is well taken in terms of salaries. Although women typically make less money than men, the amount varies across ethnicities. Thus a complete analysis of working women’s experiences must consider identities in addition to gender. Looking at gender only when considering salaries would not take into account the milieu in which women operate. Feminists of color assert that all experiences should be analyzed using a framework that considers interlocking systems of oppression. This would include considering gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Although the exploration of how the intersection between gender and all identities is important to consider, the focus of this chapter will be on the gender–race/ ethnicity intersection. Collins’s analysis suggests that it is important to look at the unique experiences of women of color. Although great strides have been made, women continue to experience barriers to their success based on their sex. These obstacles are exhibited in terms of prejudice (negative attitudes about women’s abilities); discrimination (treating women differently because of their sex); and stereotyping (beliefs about women’s talents and abilities). The experiences of men and women of color with work and the workplace can be affected by race and ethnicity (St. Jean & Feagin, 1998). The obstacles based on sex can take unique forms for women of color (e.g., racialized sexual harassment) (Buchanan, 2005). It is important that we examine how the conﬂuence of race and gender can inﬂuence the work lives of women of color. In this chapter we will ﬁrst look at deﬁnitions of sexism and racism and new deﬁnitions that incorporate simultaneously experienced gender and race discrimination. We will then look at speciﬁc ways women of color experience workplace discrimination. Finally, we will discuss frameworks for combating gender racism in the workplace. CONCEPTUALIZING DISCRIMINATION: GENDER AND RACE Gender discrimination and race discrimination have been conceptualized in a variety of ways (e.g., Glick & Fiske, 1996, 2001; Dovidio, 2001; Jones, 1997). These varying conceptualizations are relevant here in that they reﬂect the ways that unfair treatment may manifest in the workplace. Trends in conceptualizations of gender and race discrimination have followed similar paths. Initial research focused on blatant forms of the behaviors and took the perspective of the perpetrator. Current research examines hidden forms of discrimination and includes perspectives of the target (e.g., Essed, 1991; Swim & Stangor, 1998). How have gender and race discrimination been conceptualized? © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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SEX DISCRIMINATION Glick and Fiske (1996, 2001) have delineated the contours of sexism in their work on ambivalent sexism. According to their work, attitudes toward women are not necessarily hostile; however, these attitudes still serve to undermine women and maintain subservient roles. They describe two forms of sexism: hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism is based on a dislike of or an antagonism toward women. Women are viewed as trying to control men. Women may be seen as using their sex and/or sexuality to get ahead. This is the form of sexism that most people would deﬁne as sexism. Conversely, with benevolent sexism there is no overt hatred of women. In fact, women may be revered. They are perceived as being in need of help and protection. Women are seen as having a particular ‘‘place’’ in society. Benevolent sexism is deﬁned as a set of interrelated attitudes toward women that are sexist in terms of viewing women stereotypically and in restricted roles but are subjectively positive in feeling and tone (for the perceiver) and tend to elicit behaviors typically categorized as prosocial (i.e., helping) or intimacy-seeking (i.e., self-disclosure) (Glick and Fiske, 1996, p. 491). The work of Glick and Fiske (1996, 2001) is important in that it makes clear critical features of sexism. First, their work has shown the multidimensional nature of sexist thought. Second, sexism may not appear as blatant hostility, in some cases it is behavior that may appear to be supportive of women. Third, sexist beliefs are not harmless in that they are associated with unequal treatment. Benokaraitis (1997) also conceptualizes sexism as a multidimensional construct. Sex discrimination is deﬁned as ‘‘unequal and harmful treatment of people because of their sex (i.e., biological differences between males and females, which include hormones, chromosomes, and anatomical characteristics)’’ (p. 7). She further posits that sex discrimination comes in three general manifestations: blatant sex discrimination, subtle sex discrimination, and covert sex discrimination. Blatant sex discrimination is deﬁned as ‘‘unequal and harmful treatment of women that is intentional, quite visible, and can be easily documented’’ (p. 7). Some examples of blatant sexism cited are sexual harassment, sexist language and jokes, gendered physical violence (including rape and wife abuse), and unfair treatment in societal institutions (e.g., the family, employment, education, politics) (Benokaraitis). Subtle sex discrimination is deﬁned as ‘‘unequal and harmful treatment of women that is typically less visible and obvious than blatant sex discrimination.’’ It is behavior that is frequently not seen as sexism or perceived at all. This behavior is frequently not seen because it has become part of the societal norm. It has been normalized; thus it is not viewed as damaging. When women complain about this form of sexism they are frequently

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accused of being too sensitive. Benokaraitis outlines nine forms of subtle discrimination. They include condescending chivalry, supportive discouragement, friendly harassment, subjective objectiﬁcation, radiant devaluation, liberated sexism, benevolent exploitation, considerate domination, and collegial exclusion. Covert sex discrimination was deﬁned as ‘‘the unequal and harmful treatment of women that is hidden, purposeful, and often, maliciously motivated’’ (p. 12). An essential feature of this form of sexism is that it is intentional. Males deliberately strive to guarantee that women do not succeed. Two common forms of covert discrimination are manipulation and sabotage. This form of sexism frequently occurs in educational and employment settings. Benokaraitis’s (1997) subtle sex discrimination construct shares much with Glick and Fiske’s (1996, 2001) benevolent sexism construct. They both point to an ideology that makes particular discriminatory behaviors toward women part of the fabric of life. RACE DISCRIMINATION There is a long history of research on racism and prejudice (e.g., Allport, 1958; Brewer, 1979; McConahay, 1986; Jones, 1997; Dovidio, 2001; Swim & Stangor, 1998). Current research ﬁndings point to the multidimensional nature of racial discrimination. As the societal context has changed, the nature of racial prejudice and discrimination has changed with it. As with sexism, the forms that race discrimination takes can be overt and hostile or subtle and seemingly not related to the social category (in this case, race). These concepts of racism were initially focused on attitudes and behaviors toward Black Americans but have now been broadened to include other groups of color. Early research on race discrimination concentrated on what is now called ‘‘old-fashioned racism.’’ Old-fashioned racism is a form of racism where people support derogatory statements about the abilities or intelligence of Blacks and other people of color or support obviously racist social policies (e.g., racially segregated schools). Symbolic racism/modern racism is a less overt form of race discrimination. Racism is not expressed as overt hostility toward Blacks and other groups of color. In this form of racism individuals are not ‘‘anti-Black.’’ They do not say that Black people should be denied opportunities because they are Black and innately inferior. Instead Black people and other underrepresented groups are seen as not adhering to important social American values such as hard work, being promoted on the basis of merit, and so on. They (Black people) want special treatment. This form of discrimination and prejudice is expressed in terms of endorsing statements like ‘‘Blacks are pushing too hard’’ and ‘‘Over the years blacks have gotten more than they deserve’’ (McConahay, 1986). It is

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associated with being against public policies like busing for school integration. Analyses of discrimination have continued to evolve to explain seeming inconsistencies between attitudes and behavior. Dovidio (2001) and Dovidio and Gaertner (2000) posit aversive racism as a form of racism that they view as most typical of well-educated liberal Whites in the United States. (It is important to note that these are people who women of color are likely to encounter in the workforce as colleagues and employers.) They characterize aversive racism as a phenomenon that explains how many Whites who consciously, explicitly, and sincerely support egalitarian principles and perceive themselves to be nonprejudiced also harbor negative feelings and beliefs about Blacks and other historically disadvantaged groups. These unconscious negative feelings and beliefs develop as a consequence of normal, almost unavoidable and frequently functional, cognitive, motivational, and social cultural processes (Dovidio & Gaertner, p. 618). The processes that are a part of this conceptualization of discrimination are general social psychological processes. The processes include cognitive (the seemingly natural process of placing people in categories that also activates racial bias and stereotypes), motivational (the need for individual and group power, status and control), and sociocultural (viewing these behaviors and thoughts as normal and natural and as a result adopting behaviors that perpetuate cultural stereotypes and social structures that maintain the status quo). Context affects whether or not discriminatory behaviors will be expressed. Discriminatory behavior will only be expressed in situations where ‘‘bias is not obvious or can be rationalized on the basis of some factor other than race’’ (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000, p. 315). GENDERED RACISM: THE INTERSECTION OF RACISM AND SEXISM Although the literature on race and gender discrimination has become more complex, there is still a major gap in the literature. Conceptualizations of racism and sexism treat them as separate forms of bias. What then of people who exist in a space that crosses two devalued social categories? What then of people who are or can be discriminated against on the basis of both their sex and their race? Theorists have attempted to ﬁll this omission in the literature with the concept of ‘‘gendered racism’’ (Essed, 1991; St. Jean & Feagin, 1998). The concept is based on the idea that for women of color the experiences of racism and sexism are interconnected. It is not possible to pull one apart from another. ‘‘These two concepts narrowly intertwine and combine under certain conditions into one, hybrid phenomenon’’ (Essed, p. 31). Gender roles of women of color are perceived through a lens of racial © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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oppression. Viewing women of color in this way lends itself to particular negative images about their nature, talents, beliefs, and capabilities. WORKPLACE EXPERIENCES OF WOMEN OF COLOR Matlin (2008) describes two forms of discrimination that speciﬁcally relate to the workplace. They are access and treatment discrimination. Access discrimination refers to bias that is involved in the process of hiring. Treatment discrimination involves what happens after the person has been hired. Women of color are frequently invisible in workforce statistics. Statistics are often reported in terms of gender or ethnicity but not both. Data are broken down in terms of ‘‘women’’ and ‘‘minorities.’’ Some researchers have suggested that in some white-collar jobs we should be less concerned about access in terms of recruitment at entry-level positions (e.g., corporate management) because women of color are represented there. The greater concern is higher level advancement (e.g., Giscombe & Mattis, 2002). This is probably not the case in all forms of work. We do know that women of color are concentrated in certain ﬁelds and in low-paying jobs. Lack of access to higher paying jobs can be attributed to a number of factors including restricted access to educational opportunities and stereotyped ideas about skills and abilities. In some instances qualiﬁed women of color are not hired because the person does not ﬁt the employer’s preconceived notion of a successful applicant (St. Jean & Feagin, 1998). EMPLOYMENT AND SALARIES Clearly gender plays a role in women’s work experiences. Women are likely to make less than men who work in a similar position. A recent report by the AAUW (2007) indicates that by the ﬁrst year out of college women working full-time make less money than men. The discrepancy in salary increases over time. After the ﬁrst year women earn 80% of what men make; after 10 years they earn 69% of what men receive. This difference is attributed to sex discrimination in that onefourth of the discrepancy remains unaccounted for after factors that inﬂuence salary level are held constant. Workplace sex discrimination comes in multiple forms, including hiring rates, promotion, salaries, sexual harassment, occupational segregation, being mommy-tracked, and undervaluing women workers (WAGE, retrieved October 22, 2007). In addition, over the life of a career the unexplained portion of the salary gap increases. Thus we know that gender inﬂuences how much a person makes. However, both gender and race/ethnicity combined have an impact on how much money a women earns. Race and gender interact to inﬂuence salaries. The wage gap is not the same for © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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all women. In 2004 median incomes by race and group were as follows: White men $45,542; White women $32,486; Black men $31,305; Black women $27,730; Hispanic men $26,679; Hispanic women $23,444; Asian men $45,870; and Asian women $35,975. The median income for Asian women was more than that for all women and more than the income of Black and Hispanic men. Thus all women are not equally affected by the wage gap. MENTORING Having a mentor is an important part of career development. Women of color frequently report not having mentors and being excluded from formal and informal networks at work. This appears to be the case in different ﬁelds. ABA Commission on Women (2006) conducted a study in an attempt to understand the high attrition rate of women of color lawyers in private law ﬁrms. Women of color lawyers in private ﬁrms report having mentors; however, although they had mentors, having a mentor did not appear to work for them as it did for White men. Traditionally, having a mentor increases access to important assignments, opportunities for advancement, and incorporation into the life of the organization. Even with mentors the women of color were still excluded from the internal networks within the ﬁrm. Having a mentor also did not increase the likelihood that they would have more contact with clients or get work assignments that would allow them to earn more billable hours. Numbers of billable hours is important because they determine who becomes a partner in a law ﬁrm. Women of color associates reported that the types of assignments that they had appeared to be tied their race and gender. They reported that contact with clients occurred only when their race or gender was beneﬁcial to the ﬁrm. During these meetings their presence was more like ‘‘window dressing’’ to put the client at ease, and they did not play a substantive role. In a study of resilience and resistance strategies of women of color faculty, Thomas and Hollenshead (2001) found that women of color at their academic institution were less likely to have mentors than were White women, White men, and men of color. Women of color’s mentors were more frequently individuals who were not located in their campus units or departments or their academic institutions. They were more likely to use nontraditional forms of mentoring structures. Instead of having one individual who was older and more experienced, women of color used groups of peers. Women of color also used the ethnic minority sections of their professional organizations to ﬁnd individuals who could assist them with a speciﬁc issue. Although not focusing on the experiences of women of color, Kaminiski (2004) describes how mentoring and social networks can work to promote career development in academia. The mentor of a junior male © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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faculty member who came to her campus the same year that she did received protection from his mentor. His mentor interceded to prevent him from having to work on campus and departmental committees. If the faculty member was asked, his mentor told the department head that the person needed time to work on his research so he should be excused. In contrast, Kaminiski was assigned to work on the executive committee, which is the departmental committee that required the most work. In addition to this, the junior faculty’s mentor taught one of his courses for him. These things gave him more time to do his work and focus on receiving tenure. In academia receiving tenure and getting promoted are essential parts of career development. Kaminiski (2004) also describes another exclusionary practice. Male faculty members went to lunch together; women were never invited to attend. This is another example of exclusion from internal networks. When asked about this faculty would say that they are friends or that they were discussing things that women would not be interested in. This is an example of rationalizing the practice by using reasons other than race and gender. It should be noted that these networks and informal gatherings serve multiple functions. First, they make a person feel like they are part of the fabric of the work group. Women of color in academia and other predominately White workplaces frequently describe feelings of alienation and isolation (Myers, 2002; St. Jean & Feagin, 1998). These informal gatherings set up relationships that can lead to working on projects. In addition, during informal meetings information about work is passed on (e.g., unwritten rules). All of these point to subtle forms of sexism, benevolent sexism, and gendered racism. These examples of practices that appear not to be linked to race or gender nevertheless affect women’s career trajectories. OTHER FORMS OF GENDERED RACISM Results of research suggest that women of color frequently feel that their work is judged through a lens of gendered racism. Themes that have arisen in numerous studies include: 1. Feeling that their work is viewed as unimportant. In academia it is especially not valued if the person is studying race and gender. This leads them to being asked to perform more service functions (Myers, 2004; Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001). 2. Feeling a lack of respect from colleagues for their work and research agendas. 3. Feeling of being used by their organizations or in academia their departments. They are asked to participate if the issue pertains to race or gender but not for other issues.

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4. Feeling that they are judged by different standards and having to prove oneself over and over again (Myers, 2004; St. Jean & Feagin, 1998). 5. Feeling that they are under constant observation. 6. Not being made aware of the unwritten rules in their organization (Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001).

Women of color also reported that competent behavior such as using Standard English or writing well was viewed with surprise as an anomaly and meriting special praise (St. Jean & Feagin, 1998). Speaking Standard English was viewed as going against unconscious views of women of color’s abilities. In addition, women still faced occupational ceilings. Women of color are only allowed to rise to a certain level. Employers continue to have stereotypes of Black women and other women of color, which include believing they are not particularly competent. Women of color are viewed as afﬁrmative-action hires. A person who is hired via afﬁrmative action is seen as not being competent (St. Jean & Feagin). The person is seen as being a part of the organization only because of the policy. They are viewed as covering two afﬁrmative action categories—gender and race. In addition, women discuss being referred to in ways that reﬂect stereotypes about women of color (e.g., subtly suggesting that their form of dress makes them look like a prostitute) (Buchanan, 2005). Employers and others feel comfortable making comments about natural hairstyles. An example of this is a recent comment made during a presentation by an editor from Glamour magazine to members of a law ﬁrm where she indicated that wearing natural hairstyles was inappropriate for the practice of law. WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT GENDERED RACISM IN THE WORKPLACE? In combating racism and sexism in the workplace, multiple strategies must be used that deal with the multidimensional nature of the problem. The key is that workplaces must pay active attention to this issue. Creating workplace conditions that will allow women of color to ﬂourish will not happen by chance. Giscombe & Mattis (2002) maintain that attempting to achieve diversity based on the business model (i.e., Do it because diversity is good business—it will lead to increases in proﬁts.) is not really effective. Using this model does not promote social change. They believe that diversity programs should have a social justice agenda underlying its programs. Triandis (2006) suggests that, to combat these issues, organizations must develop a cultural intelligence. Cultural intelligence means ‘‘the capability of being effective across cultural settings’’ (Ng & Earley, 2006). In this context it would mean taking into consideration gender and race when thinking about how behaviors will be perceived. Triandis believes that there are © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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a few practices that lend themselves to being culturally intelligent. These include not forming judgments until information about the person is gathered, and paying attention to the situation. As pointed out earlier in the chapter, unfair treatment of women of color is often the result of making judgments based on stereotypes. Kaminiski (2004, p. 106–107) outlines strategies that can be used at, in, or by departments in academic settings. These include: 1. Transparency in decision making—making both the process and outcome public to everyone. 2. Fairness in performance evaluation—making sure that everyone has the same information about what evaluations will be based on. 3. Tracking resources distributions—providing the same level of support for all, men and women; this case it should be true across racial lines as well. 4. Inclusivity—ﬁnding a way for members of the department to perceive themselves as belonging to a common group. 5. Labor unions—using them to promote diversity and to ﬁght back if equity is violated.

Research on the experiences of women of color in the workforce has evolved; however, there is still a need to continue to uncover how other aspects of their identities simultaneously impact their work experience. How do race, gender, class, sex, and sexual orientation intersect and interact? By looking at these intersections we will get more insight into the work lives of all women.

REFERENCES AAUW (2007). Behind the Pay Gap. ABA Commission on Women in the Profession (2006). Visible invisibility: Women of color in law ﬁrms. Retrieved on October 1, 2007. Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Armas, G. C. (2007). Census bureau predicts diverse U.S. future. In P. S. Rothenberg (Ed.), Race, class and gender in the United States (pp. 203–205). New York: Worth. Benokaraitis, N. V. (1997). Sex discrimination in the 21st century. In N. V. Benokaraitis (Ed.), Subtle sexism (pp. 5–33). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Brewer, M. B. (1979). Ingroup bias in the minimal intergroup situation: A cognitive motivational analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 307–324. Buchanan, N. T. (2005). The nexus of race and gender domination racialized sexual harassment of African American women. In J. E. Gruber and P. Morgen (Ed.), In the company of men: Male dominance and sexual harassment (pp. 294–320). Boston, MA: Northeastern University. Collins, P. H. (2000). Gender, black feminism and black political economy. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 568, 41–43.

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Dovidio, J. F. (2001). On the nature of contemporary prejudice: The third wave. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 829–849. Dovidio, J. F., & Gaertner, S. L. (2000). Aversive racism and selection decisions: 1989 and 1999. Psychological Science, 11, 315–319. Essed, P. (1991). Understanding everyday racism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Giscombe, K., & Mattis, M. C. (2002). Leveling the playing ﬁeld for women of color in corporate management: Is the business case enough? Journal of Business Ethics, 37, 103–119. Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (1996). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 491–512. Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (2001). An ambivalent alliance. Hostile and benevolent sexism as complementary justiﬁcations for gender inequality. American Psychologist, 56, 109–119. Higginbotham, E. (2004). Invited reaction: Black and white women managers: Access to opportunity. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 15, 147–152. Hite, L. M. (2004). Black and white women managers: Access to opportunity. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 15, 131–146. Jones, J. M. (1997). Prejudice and racism (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Kaminiski, M. (2004). Running into the wind: The experience of discrimination in an academic workplace. In J. L. Chin (Ed.), The psychology of prejudice and discrimination—Bias based on gender and sexual orientation, Volume 3 (pp. 93–111). Westport, CT: Praeger. Matlin, M. W. (2008). The psychology of women (6th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. McConahay, J. B. (1986). Modern racism, ambivalence, and the modern racism scale. In J. F. Dovidio & S. L. Gaerner (Eds.). Prejudice, discrimination and racism (pp. 91–125). Orlando, FL: Academic. Myers, L. W. (2002). A broken silence: Voices of African American women in the academy. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Myers, L. W. (2004). Black women coping with stress in academia. In J. L. Chin (Ed.), The psychology of prejudice and discrimination. Bias based on gender and sexual orientation, Volume 3 (pp. 134–149). Westport, CT: Praeger. Ng, K., & Earley, P. (2006). Culture and intelligence. Group and Organization Management, 31, 4–19. St. Jean, & Feagin, J. R. (1998). Double burden: Black women and everyday racism. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Swim, J. K., & Stangor, C. (Eds.). (1998). Prejudice: The target’s perspective. San Diego, CA: Academic. Thomas, G. D., & Hollenshead, C. (2001). Resisting from the margins: The coping strategies of Black women and other women of color faculty members at a research university. Journal of Negro Education, 70, 166–176. Triandis, H. C. (2006). Cultural intelligence in organizations. Group and organizational management, 31(1), 20–26. WAGE. Retrieved October 22, 2007, from http://www.wageproject.org. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2004). Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. Washington, DC: Author.

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Chapter 7

On Being a Woman Chiropractor: In My Own Voice Patricia Campbell

‘‘God, you’re beautiful.’’ ‘‘I want you so bad.’’ ‘‘What a honey-mummy you are.’’ These are all comments I have received from male patients of all ages, from 20 to 70þ, from ﬁrst meeting to having treated them for many years. I was stunned—I’m your doctor not your girlfriend—then I was angry—How dare you treat me that way. Mostly, I blamed myself. I looked at what I wore, how I treated people, how I looked—it had to be me. I changed how I dressed, what I looked like. I cut my hair short, wore jackets and layers to hide myself, restricted my time with patients, especially men, and stayed with ofﬁce hours not seeing patients after hours as emergencies. I did not go out in public alone, I tried to have my children, husband, or friend with me, I put in a swimming pool instead of going to the beach—two blocks away. I hid the vehicle so people would not know I was at home, even though I live in a small town where everyone knows everyone else—the people you work with are the parents at your child’s school and their children are friends with your children and you see the same people at the arena, ﬁtness club, and grocery store. I still believed it was something I was doing, it was my fault. Then at a seminar 4 years into practice, I went to lunch with seven other women, and as the stories began to pour from them I realized I was not alone and patients behaving badly was a very large, silent problem. The solutions were as varied as the women at the table. One confronted a patient head-on and even banned him from the ofﬁce. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Others like myself took personal responsibility and changed ourselves; others ignored it and thought we were over-reacting. All the changes I made did little to improve the situation. The comments continued and even increased as people commented on the new look and gave their own opinion—‘‘Grow your hair; I so like long blond hair.’’ Chiropractic college was an idyllic setting, intimate with only 800 staff and students, sheltered from the real world with support and guidance at every step, an atmosphere of respect, equality, and gender neutrality. Discussions about sexual harassment and abuse focused on the actions of male doctors who misused their authority. The doctor was responsible for the doctor–patient relationship. No mention was made about patients misbehaving or having anything other than the utmost respect for doctors. With this sheltered and na€ıve attitude, I opened my own ofﬁce at 26 years of age. A bubbly and vivacious young woman with a ready smile and warm approach, I welcomed everyone into the ofﬁce and into care. As time went on, I began to wonder about comments certain patients made, their over-interest in my personal life, attention to me which was not in line with their care. I put it off to small-town life, a ‘‘high’’ proﬁle of a doctor in the community, concern from the patients. I am a doctor, I was to be respected and appreciated, revered for my concern and knowledge—not hit on like I was at the bar. Like any good doctor when faced with a problem, I began to research sexual harassment in the medical community. The lack of research was shocking and what I did ﬁnd was strangely comforting. My excuses and self-blame were normal responses, and it was very common for females to be treated as women ﬁrst and professionals second. Because chiropractic and medicine are male-dominated ﬁelds, my mentors and older male colleagues had no experience with harassment and really didn’t think it existed. The regulatory college and the rules and guidelines that govern the profession reﬂected a similar standpoint. The doctor is responsible for the patient–doctor relationship, and the doctor is held accountable for it. One story shared with me and shared now with permission highlights how complicated and stressful harassment can be and how difﬁcult dealing with it is. It was a routine request, ‘‘May I see you after work for an adjustment?’’ Sure, this was a patient she had treated for 6 years and also treated his family and several friends—a great patient and an excellent ambassador for the ofﬁce. After the adjustment, they walked out of the treating room into the reception area. He stood in front of the exit door and she sat on the second step of the stairs a few feet away. Suddenly, he began to move

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toward her, she extended her hands to stop him. He grabbed her hands. In an instant, her world was upside down, laid out on the stairs with him straddling her hips, hands pinned above her head. She had to listen while he told her how much he wanted her and how long he had wanted her. Calmly, she tried to explain to him how such an affair was against her moral, professional, and social standards, as well as the trouble she would get into. He would hear none of it as he replied, ‘‘Trust me, I won’t tell.’’

This situation was complicated by several factors: 1. She lived in a small town and these were her patients, friends, and colleagues—socially and professionally; 2. His mother taught at her children’s school; 3. He was 20 years old and she was in her thirties; 4. The regulatory college has a zero tolerance policy against sexual abuse and does not care about the situation, only the letter of the law; 5. She is the doctor, with the power and authority, how could she let this happen; 6. Her reputation could be ruined and livelihood destroyed.

He left that night, understanding her point of view; yet, terriﬁed, embarrassed, and scared, she said nothing for years. As a result of stress and panic attacks brought on by this encounter, she has left practice. From my research, I have found sexual harassment of female doctors is the norm not the exception. Harassment will continue and even escalate if ignored. Certain men will treat a professional as a woman ﬁrst and a doctor second. The regulatory bodies and professional associations believe this to be the doctor’s responsibility and fault. Social standards and perceptions of health care professionals are changing and the respect and awe once experienced for doctors has diminished to the point of a hired consultant. With more women entering the male-dominated health care ﬁelds, rules, regulations, and attitudes must change and support systems be developed and instituted to deal with this silent epidemic.

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Chapter 8

Relationships with Men Donna Casta~neda Breena E. Coates

Two-thirds of women in the United States over age 20 are in the paid workforce—when women in the armed forces are included, the proportion of women who work reaches 70% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003). Thus, a large number of women spend a signiﬁcant amount of their waking hours at work (Sayer, 2005) and, not surprisingly, the workplace is where many women encounter persons with whom they develop important relationships. Researchers increasingly understand that relationships are at the center of organizational life and it is through them that much of the work gets done (Blatt & Camden, 2007; Ragins & Dutton, 2007; Wilson & Ferch, 2005). Positive relationships with co-workers, subordinates, and superiors are critical to a woman’s job satisfaction, motivation, and career advancement, and just as importantly, contribute favorably to the core competencies and end products of a particular organization. Even conceptions of effective leadership are changing to reﬂect the importance of relational interactions and the skills that are most useful in these, such as empathy, authenticity, and humility (Badarraco, 2002; Collins, 2001; see Fletcher, 2007 for a discussion). Relationships that women develop with other women are important and may provide them with social support (Andrew & Montegue, 1998; Aronson, 1998; Lu & Argyle, 1992; Mays, 1985; Nyamathi, Bennett, Leake, & Chen, 1995; Severance, 2005), opportunities for companionship and enjoyable social interaction (Fehr, 1996; Severance, 2005), intimacy (Fehr, 2004; Parks & Floyd, 1996a; Sapadin, 1988), instrumental assistance (Nyamathi et al., 1995; Patterson & Bettini, 1993; Walker,

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1995), and they contribute to their social and personal identities (Johnson & Aries, 1983). This chapter, however, focuses on women’s relationships with men in the workplace and examines the nature of these relationships, why they may be important, and the consequences, both positive and negative, they may have for women. Although many categories of workplace relationships with men could be addressed, this chapter will focus on two of these—women’s workplace friendships and romantic relationships with men. Women’s relationships with men at work are varied and they often develop out of the particular roles that women take in the workplace— men may be colleagues, coworkers, supervisors, staff that women supervise, managers, mentors, teammates, leaders, or team members that women lead. Just as in relationships outside the workplace, women’s relationships with men at work can include instrumental or expressive qualities, or a combination of these elements, and their relationships with men can range from being close and intimate to superﬁcial in quality (Lobel, Quinn, Warﬁeld, & St. Clair, 1994). Women may also view and possibly label some of these relationships as friendships or romantic relationships. Nevertheless, the workplace is unique in that it is an arena where connection with others occurs along with demands for individual achievement and productivity (Quick, Gavin, Cooper, & Quick, 2004; Wilson & Ferch, 2005). Despite being a location where people sometimes meet others with whom they develop close and long-lasting relationships (Kalmijn & Flap, 2001), work requirements may necessitate, even motivate, intense competition and acrimony. This duality can create conﬂicts, contradictions, and stress for women. Despite more women being integrated into higher levels of organizational structures today, the implicit and sometimes explicit gender, class, sexual orientation, and ethnic/racial hierarchies and power relations that permeate and organize the workplace (Acker, 1990; Hurtado, 1996; Stobbe, 2006) may make women particularly vulnerable to negative consequences of relationships with men in the workplace, such as discrimination and sexual harassment. This reality of the workplace is always present and plays an important role in how women experience relationships with men. FRIENDSHIPS WITH MEN IN THE WORKPLACE Deﬁnitions of friendship abound, but they share common features such as notions of intimacy, trust, loyalty, liking, and shared interests (see Fehr, 1996: Berman, West, & Richter, 2002; Sapadin, 1988). Implicitly, or sometimes explicitly, deﬁnitions of friendship include the notion that they are entered into and maintained voluntarily and that, unlike other signiﬁcant relationships, friendships in Western cultures are not formalized through familial or societal structures or obligations © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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(Fehr, 1996; Stein, 1993). In fact, the imposition of rigid role structures may be viewed as antithetical to formation of true friendship bonds (Bell & Coleman, 1999). On the other hand, women’s friendships with men in the workplace differ from those that occur outside of work, in that those within the workplace are, to a large extent, non-voluntary (Duck, 2007). In reality, choices of friends outside the workplace are not totally voluntarily made either. We are most likely to become friends with those who are of the same gender, similar in age, social class, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, and who live in the same geographic area (Casta~ neda & Burns-Glover, in press; Cook, Bruin, & Crull, 2000; O’Boyle & Thomas, 1996; Rose, 1995; Seraﬁca, Weng, & Kim, 2000; Way & Chen, 2000). To some extent, women choose their friends at work, certainly, but they may not realize the extent to which these choices are curtailed, bounded, or inﬂuenced by the speciﬁc work context. This may seem unimportant, but in a friendship outside work for example, the affective and relationship processes such as caring, trust, fairness, intimacy, and so on are developed and negotiated with the implicit understanding that if the relationship proves unrewarding, it may be exited. In the workplace, however, women must often continue to interact, work, and complete tasks with men even after a friendship has waned or even failed. The implications this may have for women’s work life, both for its day-to-day quality and its inﬂuence on their success or advancement in the workplace, may be quite serious in comparison to friendships outside the workplace. The social and relational nature of work plays a primary role in organizational life (Ragins & Dutton, 2007) and, although organizations are not bound to do so, more and more of them recognize the need to provide employees with not only a job and salary but also a pleasant and positive work environment. Organizations may therefore use strategies that promote workplace friendships, such as development of an atmosphere of openness, encouraging employees to act in a friendly manner with each other, training of supervisors and staff in how to develop positive relations at work, providing opportunities for workers to socialize with one another, and so on (Berman, West, & Richter, 2002). Nevertheless, the desire to create a positive and socially enjoyable workplace is not the only motivation for organizational managers. Organizations also understand that workplace friendships, or at least the opportunity for them in the organization, are linked to important work-related outcomes, such as job satisfaction, decreased employee turnover intentions, greater work involvement, greater readiness for organizational change, and greater commitment to the organization (Madsen, Miller, & John, 2005; Morrison, 2004; Nielsen, Jex, & Adams, 2000; Riordan & Griffeth, 1995). Workplace friends usually spend time together that goes beyond the needs of their job © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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speciﬁcations, and they are able to communicate about and interact around both personal and work-related topics (Sias & Cahill, 1998). In fact, communication about work-related topics with workplace friends tends to be more in-depth, efﬁcient, and useful than with nonwork friends (Ray, 1987). The ability to be sociable and get along with coworkers may be essential to movement from lower- to higher-level positions in the organization and in determining the ‘‘ﬁt’’ of an individual for a job promotion (citation). Friendships at work help provide a pleasant work experience, help workers ‘‘get through the day,’’ and may even spill over into and contribute to socializing activity outside work (Pettinger, 2005). Through creation of positive relationships and reduction of conﬂict, the effects of a workplace that facilitates friendships may extend and promote an organization’s effectiveness even into the future (Massey, 2005). For women, workplace friendships with men may be especially important. Men continue to be most likely to hold positions of power in organizations, and the informal relationships women have with men can affect their advancement in the organization, their ability to effectively navigate the social and political work hierarchy, and their access to support and patronage. For example, mentor/protegee relationships can be formal in nature, where a mentor and protegee are assigned to each other by the organization, or they can be informal, where they grow out of mutual identiﬁcation of needs, interpersonal comfort with and attraction to each other, and perceptions of competence in each other (Ragins & Cotton, 1999). In other words, informal mentor relationships have many of the qualities of friendship and, compared to formal mentoring relationships, different consequences for work outcomes. First, informal mentors are related to greater pay compensation for both women and men than formal or no mentors. Furthermore, women report greater coaching, counseling, role modeling, social, and friendship functions with informal mentors than with formal mentors, whereas men ﬁnd formal and informal mentors equally helpful in these areas. Finally, women with a history of informal and formal relationships with male mentors, compared to such relationships with female mentors, tend to receive greater pay compensation (Ragins & Cotton, 1999). Despite the usefulness to women of informal mentors, they tend to rely more heavily than men on formal relationships and organizational structures to promote their careers (De Vries, Webb, & Eveline, 2006; Pazy, 1987). These formal programs have been useful for women, and they have helped recreate, to some extent, the informal relationships or networks from which women may be excluded. However, a range of formal and informal workplace relationships with men are needed by women, including those that they consider to be friendships (Gibson, 2005). Not all women have access to a one-on-one developmental © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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relationship with a powerful mentor, and, in fact, such a model may not be needed for women to be successful in their work lives. Informal networks and friendships with peers may be quite helpful to women and provide them with helpful role models, social support, instrumental advice, and career-development information. Furthermore, when women are in a mixed-gender employment situation, their informal relationships with men are related to their greater inﬂuence and centrality in the organization. Nonetheless, women often have difﬁculty developing the informal relationships with men that are beneﬁcial to their careers, and their informal relationships at work tend to be more restricted and with less powerful employees (Brass, 1985; Cannings & Montmarquette, 1991). Of course, many other factors play a role in this ﬁnding, such as job level, gender composition of the workplace, access to high-level employees, and aspects of the job such as location, hours, full- or part-time status, and so on, but clearly friendships with men are important for women to develop in the workplace. The development of friendships by women is inﬂuenced by many variables that can range from the individual and interpersonal to contextual variables at larger levels of analyses, such as the social network, community, and national cultural level (Adams & Allan, 1998), but the workplace in particular contains the situational elements that facilitate friendship, such as proximity (Festinger, Schacter, & Back, 1950), shared tasks and activities, and repeated exposure (Saegert, Swapp, & Zajonc, 1973) that lead to familiarity and liking. However, workplace friendships are especially inﬂuenced by the speciﬁc aspects of the work context (Sias & Cahill, 1998). For example, workers are more likely to develop intimate relationships when a supervisor’s behavior is perceived to be unfair, unsupportive, or she/he appears unwilling to recognize employee accomplishments or contributions (Odden & Sias, 1997; Sias & Jablin, 1995). Friendships may also move from superﬁcial to deeper levels as a result of workplace factors. In one study of friendship development in the workplace, for instance, progression from acquaintance to friend was most frequently related to physical proximity. On the other hand, progression from friend to close friend and from close friend to almost best friend was most frequently related to work problems, such as a difﬁcult supervisor or coworker, or problematic organizational changes, as well as personal life events or problems (Sias & Cahill, 1998). In these cases, workplace friends can provide support, advice, and guidance that strengthen bonds between individuals. This study highlights workplace factors as an inﬂuence on friendship development, but it also demonstrates how the line between work and personal lives is much less distinct than is generally thought. In general, women tend to have a greater desire for social ties in the workplace than do men (Konrad, Richie, Lieb, & Corrigall, 2000), but women are more likely to become friends with female than male © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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coworkers (Elesser & Peplau, 2006; Markiewicz, Devine, & Kausilas, 2000). Men are also more likely to become friends with male rather than female coworkers, and this same-gender preference is indicative of the greater shared interests and comfort women and men may have with same-gender friends (Ibarra, 1992). Just as in relationships outside the workplace, women tend to show greater orientation to interpersonal relationships within the workplace than men. For example, women are more likely to engage in electronic and face-to-face relationship-oriented communication with other employees than are men, and they are more likely than men to report communication about nonwork topics with coworker friends (Harper, 2005; Lobel et al., 1994). These patterns imply that traditional constructions of gender surrounding friendships outside the workplace (i.e., that women are more relational than men and are more satisﬁed with same-gender friendships than cross-gender friendships), continue to operate in the workplace. However, other research suggests a more complex picture of friendship in organizations. For instance, in contrast to friendships outside the workplace where friendships with women are routinely rated as more satisfying by both women and men (Adams, Blieszner, & De Vries, 2000; Cheng, Chan, & Tong, 2006; Hays, 1985; Parks and Floyd, 1996), one study found that across varying job categories (lawyers, information technology workers, and managers in mid- to large-size organizations), friendships with women were not consistently rated as more satisfying than those with men (Markiewicz et al., 2000). This study also found that higher evaluation of the quality of a relationship with a male friend was related to greater salary, whereas greater efforts to spend time interacting with female friends was related to lower salary. Furthermore, tensions and strains in relationships with male friends at work resulted in lower job satisfaction for women. Taken together, these results suggest that friendships with men are more highly linked to career success than those with women. As mentioned previously, in many job settings men tend to occupy the high power positions, thus, they may be more able to contribute to women’s career success. Conversely, because they hold more positions of power in organizations, conﬂicts with male friends may be particularly distressing for women. Women may have a greater desire than men for social ties in the workplace, but this should not obscure the fact that women’s motivations for workplace friendships may also be related to their desire to facilitate their work and advance their careers (Markiewicz et al., 2000; Randal & Ranft, 2007). Contrary to common assumptions, women can be just as ambitious and concerned about achievement as men (Paludi, 1990), and the networking activities and informal relationship building that women engage in at work may be part of their effort at career development. In fact, when women’s motivations for coworker © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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relationships are primarily based upon their desire to facilitate or advance their work, rather than primarily related to development of social ties, they engage in greater information exchange outside their organizations, which provides them greater opportunities to ﬁnd other jobs (Randal & Ranft, 2007). The gender composition of an organization and a woman’s position in the organizational hierarchy can also inﬂuence women’s development of friendships with men. Both women and men at lower levels in the organizational hierarchy are more likely to develop workplace friendships than those at higher organizational levels (Mao, 2006). This pattern may differ depending on organizational culture—for example, some organizations emphasize collegiality or egalitarian structures, others emphasize these to a lesser extent. It may also vary on the basis of the advancement and promotion rules within an organization. Where these rules are explicit and clear, friendships may beneﬁt, as opposed to work situations where they are vague or arbitrary. In such organizations, friendship development may suffer because of competition between workers and perceived unfairness in the evaluation process. Being in the minority in the workplace or in a speciﬁc work team is associated with greater visibility, but also with greater stereotyping and social isolation (Kanter, 1977). Thus, women in largely male work situations have even greater difﬁculty in establishing the friendships with men that are crucial to career advancement. Greater status may not alleviate these difﬁculties—women in the minority who have a higher status than their male team members tend to be especially isolated (Goldner & Strong, 1987). Not only are these women excluded from male friendship networks in the workplace, but they themselves may be reluctant to develop friendships with other women in the workplace because of differences in status and power. Despite this, the workplace may be a context where differences, particularly in demographic characteristics such as age, ethnicity, social class background, and even gender, may be more easily transcended than in nonwork contexts. Commonality in work requirements and environment may facilitate friendships, and this may be increasingly true as organizations become more diverse. A factor that may be critical in this process is the passage of time. The longer people are together, the less important become visible differences, whereas less visible differences, such as attitudes, values, and personalities, increase in their importance over time (Cable & Judge, 1996; Elﬁnbein & O’Reilly, 2007; Harrison et al., 2002; Ostroff & Rothausen, 1997). BARRIERS TO WORKPLACE FRIENDSHIPS WITH MEN As stated earlier, friendships with men in the workplace can have positive effects on women’s work lives, but a number of barriers exist © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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that make development of such relationships difﬁcult. For instance, in interviews with professional-level women and men, Elesser and Peplau (2006) found that, with regard to cross-gender friendships, these workers were concerned that coworkers might perceive a cross-gender friendship as sexual or romantic in nature and organizations may have explicit policies against such relationships. Men were also concerned that their friendly behavior would be misinterpreted by female coworkers as sexual harassment. For their part, women were concerned that male coworkers felt uncomfortable in their presence and therefore men avoided interacting with them. Elesser and Peplau found that men did change their behavior when interacting with women—men joked less with women than with men and were less likely to engage in behaviors that could be interpreted as sexual harassment, such as meeting in an ofﬁce alone with a woman. Elesser and Peplau (2006) have referred to these barriers to crossgender friendships as the ‘‘glass partition.’’ Many work arenas are male-dominated, and women in these situations are at a greater disadvantage than their male counterparts in developing the friendships that facilitate and advance their careers. In particular, women may be less able than their male coworkers to develop friendships with male superiors in the workplace. Cross-sex superior–subordinate friendships are especially fraught with perceived sexual harassment content (Powell, 2001); thus, they may be avoided by male superiors. Even when women do establish friendly relationships with supportive male superiors, these men may overstep their bounds to subordinate women workers, thus leading to sexual harassment claims (Bryson v. Chicago State University 96 F3d 912, 1996). Nonetheless, relationships with superiors can be key to women’s vocational development. Superiors are crucial role models and they may even take on mentor roles with subordinates, but with fewer opportunities to interact and develop relationships with male superiors, women have less access to the mentor process (Dreher & Cox, 1996; Paludi, 1990; Ragins & Cotton, 1999). Other factors unrelated to sexual harassment concerns can inﬂuence women’s friendship development with men in the workplace. The tokenism theory, posited by Kanter (1977a), argues that many organizations ﬁll a perceived gap in gender equality with ‘‘token’’ women, particularly in the upper echelons of the enterprise. However, being in the minority in a workplace or in a speciﬁc work team is associated with greater visibility and resultant stereotyping and isolation (Kanter, 1977a, 1977b). Thus, women in largely male work situations have even greater difﬁculty establishing the friendships with men that are crucial to career advancement. They are excluded from informal networks where important information is exchanged along with friendship and camaraderie. These traditional male alliances, sometimes called the ‘‘old boy-ocracy,’’ continue to present barriers to career effectiveness © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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for senior-level professional women (Swiss, 1996). Even when women are allowed into the relationship, they have reported the feeling of ‘‘not ﬁtting in’’ and experienced a constant uneasy need to change their behavior to match the behavior of male colleagues (Cox, 1994; Kanter, 1977). Greater status may not alleviate these difﬁculties—women in the minority who have a higher status than their male team members tend to be especially isolated. Such isolation of executive women spills over into relationships with female subordinates—women themselves may be reluctant to develop friendships with other women in the workplace because of differences in status and power (Goldner & Strong, 1987). Other factors inﬂuence women’s friendships with men. First, while women may desire friendships with men in the workplace, they may simply not have enough time to devote to friendship development. While both women and men work, women with children are responsible for a greater share of the work surrounding family matters, such as taking children to medical appointments, grocery shopping, school visits, etc., and these may cut into their lunch and break times during the work day. Also, while men have increased the amount of time they devote to family matters (although it is still less than that of women), a gap in the amount of free time for leisure activities has emerged with women’s free time decreasing compared with that of men (Sayer, 2005). Thus, women’s friendships at work, as well as out of work, must compete for time with other demands, particularly those related to family matters. Another factor that can inﬂuence women’s friendships with men is sexism. Women report encounters with sexism at a rate of one or two sexist incidents weekly (Swim, Hyers, Cohen, & Ferguson, 2003) and these occur across women’s daily activity domains, including work. These encounters are common, even mundane, but they still negatively impact women’s psychological mood and self-esteem. In workplace friendships with men, women may increase the possibility of these experiences, relative to their friendships with women, and this may be another element that inﬂuences women’s experience of and desire for friendships with men. Women in nontraditional occupations such as construction, mining, law enforcement, etc., may be especially subject to sexist incidents, and development of friendships with men in these occupations may be particularly difﬁcult (Harrington & Lonsway, 2007; Ilies, Hauserman, Schwochau, & Stibal, 2003; Lafontaine & Tredeau, 1986). For lesbians, bisexual women, women of color, and other women from diverse backgrounds, friendships with men in the workplace take on other dimensions. Biases against them may stem not only from their gender, but also from their ethnicity, race, or sexual orientation (Hurtado, 1996; Martin, 1994). Like sexism, the experience of everyday racism is a frequent and common occurrence for women of color (Martin, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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1994; Swim, Hyers, Cohen, Fitzgerald, & Bylsma, 2003), and this can inﬂuence how women approach friendships with men in the workplace. They themselves may curtail or carefully monitor their behaviors in relationships with men (and European-American women) to avoid stereotypes, to ‘‘ﬁt in,’’ or to succeed at work. For example, a study of Latina managers found that regardless of their generation level, awareness of prejudice and discrimination inﬂuenced how open they were with non-Latina/o coworkers and the extent that they revealed aspects of their family lives to them (Hite, 2007). Lesbian women’s friendships with men are inﬂuenced by the heteronormativity of organizational practices; that is, the notion that heterosexuality is ubiquitous, normal, and unquestioned in the workplace (Bruni, 2006; McDermott, 2006). Although it may vary depending on the particular organization, its policies, and the history and personality of individual women, performance of lesbian, bisexual, or transgender identities in the workplace always entails a calculation/risk assessment process that can be psychologically costly for women (McDermott, 2006). Part of this calculation/risk assessment process may include greater wariness of friendships with men in the workplace on the part of women, particularly in employment settings where hostility toward differing sexual identities is present. Openly lesbian or bisexual women have reason to be fearful as, with openness about their sexual orientation, they may become targets of intimidation, harassment, or discrimination (Ragins, Cornwell, & Miller, 2003; Ragins, Singh, & Cornwell, 2007; Taylor & Raeburn, 1995). Lesbian and other sexual minority women may rightly understand that knowledge of their sexual orientation can inﬂuence actual job outcomes, such as promotions (Ragins & Cornwell, 2001). On the other hand, even if they are willing to develop friendships with heterosexual men in the workplace, social segregation or even ostracism of lesbian women in organizations, particularly when they take an openly activist stance, may affect their ability to initiate, develop, and maintain these friendships (Taylor & Raeburn). This social exclusion may not even be particularly apparent to those affected by it—one woman employed in an academic setting explained that ‘‘I suffered horrible ridicule and discrimination in the department but usually didn’t know about it until after it occurred. You see, I was so far outside the networks that no one even told me about all of the events I was missing’’ (Taylor & Raeburn, p. 265). A more subtle concern for women surrounding friendships with men in the workplace, and one they themselves may not be aware of, is that relationality, and the responsibility for developing connections with others, is not a gender-neutral process in organizations nor the larger society (Abrams, 1998; Cancian, 1987; Miller, 1976). While organizations are beginning to appreciate the importance of positive relationships, women are more likely than men to be expected, even assigned, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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to create the conditions for these relationships (Fletcher, 2007). However, because relationality is consistent with femininity, and femininity is associated with powerlessness and dependence, the skills needed to facilitate and enhance positive relationships in the workplace may be ones that are not taken seriously, rewarded, or recognized (Fletcher, 2007). Competence at work is many times associated with displays of masculine behavior for both women and men and displays of relational skills and behavior by women, while they may be viewed as ‘‘nice,’’ may not contribute to perceptions of job competence or expertise (Fletcher, 1999; 2007). Enacting relationality in the workplace is certainly positive and may be helpful for women, but unlike for men, it contains a greater potential for detracting from their evaluation as competent and valued workers. Greater attention and research must be done to more fully explicate these gender dynamics and processes and implications for them for women in the workplace. ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN IN THE WORKPLACE In addition to friendships, women may also develop romantic relationships with men at work. These relationships are typically referred to in the literature as ‘‘workplace romances’’ and indicate a relationship between two individuals in the same organization that includes mutual sexual attraction that is consensually and autonomously acted upon by both participants in some form of intimate behavior, such as dating and or sexual activity (Mainiero, 1993; Pierce, Byrne, & Aguinis, 1996). The setting for workplace romances is often perceived to be an ofﬁce. In fact, the term ‘‘ofﬁce romance’’ is sometimes colloquially used to refer to these relationships, and workplace romance research has focused primarily on those that take place in white-collar settings. However, the organizational setting of these relationships can vary and can include factories, hospitals, retail businesses, construction sites, restaurants, and shop ﬂoors. The individuals’ connection to the workplace can be varied as well and can include coworkers, vendors, team members, clients, and contractors. They may work side by side, in different ofﬁces, different divisions, or even in different geographic locations, such as different neighborhoods, cities, states, or countries. For the most part, the prevailing image of workplace romantic partners is that they are heterosexual and European-American, although, clearly, this does not have to be the case. Nevertheless, researchers are only recently beginning to recognize the importance of studying samesex workplace romances and the role of culture, social class, and ethnicity in them. Indeed, same-sex workplace romances may be subject to greater implications for participants because they tend to receive more negative responses from society in general (see Riach & Wilson, 2007). Furthermore, at least in some workplaces, those from already © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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marginalized groups (the working class, certain ethnic or cultural groups) who engage in workplace romance behavior may be more likely to be targeted for enforcement of existing workplace sexual harassment policies than those from socially dominant groups (Williams et al., 1999). The existing literature on workplace romance tends to emphasize the legal, emotional, and work performance pitfalls of these relationships (Powell & Foley, 1998; Williams et al., 1999). In fact, much of the advice to organizations focuses on how to manage or restrict such relationships, and they are exhorted to develop written company policies surrounding them. Part of the difﬁculty for employers, however, is that while a plethora of advice on how to manage workplace romance is available, little of it stems from empirical research. For example, of key interest to employers are the potential effects of workplace romances on job performance, but that message is mixed. Some studies show that involvement in a workplace romance does not result in decrements in work performance, and in some cases it is related to improvement in various aspects of work performance (Dillard, 1987; Pierce, 1998). In fact, involvement in a romantic relationship, whether in or out of the workplace, has been positively linked to one’s own work motivation, job involvement, and satisfaction with type of work (Pierce, 1998). In at least one study, motives for engaging in a workplace romance affected work performance. In this case, women, and to a lesser extent men, who engaged in workplace romance out of love motives were more likely to increase their work performance and job involvement than those who engaged in a workplace romance out of job-related or ego motives (Dillard, 1987). The deﬁnitive study of the prevalence of workplace romance has yet to be done, but available research suggests the workplace is an arena in which intimate romantic and sexual relationships are frequently formed. According to an American Management Association survey conducted among its members and customers, 26% of men and 36% of women report having dated a workplace colleague. The proportion was higher among workers under 49 years of age (37%) compared with workers 50 years of age and above (22%). More men had dated a subordinate (20%) compared with 2% for women, while more women had dated a superior (18%) compared with 5% for men. In another survey of 610 employees representing a variety of industries across the United States, 58% reported engaging in an ofﬁce romance, up from 46% in the same survey two years prior (Vault, 2005, September). The results in this survey were not broken down by gender, but 14% reported dating a superior and 19% reported dating a subordinate. Not only is the prevalence high for those who report engaging in a workplace romance, but many workers report having been exposed to a workplace romance on the part of their coworkers. In one of the ﬁrst © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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studies of the extent of workplace romance, Quinn (1977) found that 62% of respondents said they knew of at least one of these relationships. Later, Anderson and Hunsaker (1985) found that 86% of respondents had been exposed to one or more workplace romantic relationships. Most recently, the Vault survey found that 43% of respondents knew of a currently occurring romantic relationship in their organization. Of special note is that, while organized settings such as family and neighborhood networks continue to inﬂuence choice of marriage partner, social network research has found that, since 1945, the workplace (along with schools) has increased in its importance as a site from which marriage partners are selected (Kalmijn & Flap, 2001). For example, 22% of respondents in one survey reported meeting their spouse or long-term signiﬁcant other in the workplace (Vault, 2005); in another survey, 45% of women and 43% of men who engaged in a workplace romance reported that the relationship had ended in marriage (American Management Association, 2003). Internet relationships notwithstanding, who we end up with in a close relationship is limited to those we are actually able to meet and interact with, and the workplace provides a pool of persons to choose from and an organized setting for social interaction. Not only are romantic relationships common at work, but the workplace is also a location in which a fair amount of sexual activity occurs (for a discussion, see Casta~ neda, 2006). Sexual behavior includes kissing, hugging, fondling, sexual intercourse, and other physical, sexually stimulating behavior, but it may be more broadly conceived to include ﬂirtation behavior, requests for dates, sexual comments or jokes, and sexual language. This behavior may be considered by participants as consensual and nonharrassing or as offensive, coercive, and sexually harassing (Gutek, Cohen, & Konrad, 1990). In an investigation of the predictors of this broad spectrum or sexual behavior in the workplace, Gutek and her colleagues found that a greater amount of contact with the other gender in the workplace predicted, ﬁrst, a more sexualized work environment, and this in turn was predictive of greater sexual behavior in the workplace. Overall, women reported greater sexually harassing behavior than men, but women and men were equally likely to report nonharrassing sexual behavior in the workplace, and this behavior was much more commonly experienced than sexual harassment (Gutek et al., 1990). However, while the two types of sexual behavior exist in the workplace, sexual harassment behavior also increased. This result points to the role of social and cultural power differentials between women and men—because we live in a world where women are secondary to men and where heterosexuality is the expected norm and guides gender relations in organizations, for women sexuality at work always holds the potential for an acting out of these power relations (Mills, 1989; Riach & Wilson, 2007). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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The only study by Gutek and her colleagues highlights that the phenomenon of sexuality at work is not always coercive and contains multiple facets and interpretations by workers. For instance, the contradictory nature of sexuality in the workplace (i.e., that it can be an act of resistance to managerial control and regulation, as well as an expression of hierarchies of oppressive power) is obscured by the more pronounced focus on its potential coercive effects on workers, particularly women. More nuanced thinking on organizational sexuality refers, instead, to ‘‘. . . a multileveled understanding of power and resistance in which struggles around sexuality have manifold consequences’’ (Fleming, 2007, pg. 240). Sexuality, gender, power, resistance, control— all of these processes in the workplace intersect in complex ways that are not always easily mapped out in an unambiguous manner and how they are expressed, evaluated, interpreted, and experienced by women very much depends on the political context of a particular work setting (Fleming). This more subtle point is often overlooked, but once brought to the forefront it suggests a much wider spectrum of women’s experiences with sexuality and romantic relationships with men in the workplace that may be missing from organizational theory and research. That said, however, one of the predominant organizational concerns surrounding workplace romance is the potential for sexual harassment claims that may result when the relationship fails. Some data indicate a link between the two. In a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, a quarter of the respondents indicated that sexual harassment claims in their organizations were caused by workplace romances. Of particular concern are dissolved hierarchical relationships, especially direct reporting ones, because they are thought to contain greater potential for sexual harassment claims for a number of reasons. First, even though negative feelings may exist on the part of one partner or both partners, they must continue to work with one another after the relationship is over. In addition, the lower-level partner in such relationships may have had job-related motives for entering the relationship that have now been thwarted, and this could lead to resentment. Finally, a power differential between the two exists that could lead to sexual coercion or discriminatory managerial decision making (Pierce & Aguinis, 1997). Sexual harassment is a serious legal and ethical event and should be dealt with accordingly; however, with respect to a dissolved workplace romance, judgments of responsibility for the sexual harassment and decisions about subsequent managerial intervention do not stem solely from the objective behaviors of the former relationship partners. The characteristics of observers and aspects of the former workplace romance play a role in perceptions of responsibility and intervention decisions. For example, Pierce, Broberg, McClure, and Aguinis (2004) found that assessment of the immorality of the sexually harassing © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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behavior mediated decisions about whether the accused or complainant had greater responsibility for the behavior. Assessment of responsibility, in turn, inﬂuenced disciplinary action decisions that ranged from no response to punitive responses. However, assessment of the immorality of the behavior was inﬂuenced by factors unrelated to the speciﬁc harassing behavior. If the prior workplace romance had been hierarchical, the company had a workplace romance policy in place, and the sexually harassing behavior was quid pro quo rather than hostile environment harassment, assessment of the immorality of the sexually harassing behavior occurred. Motives for engaging in a workplace romance, as well as gender of the relationship partner, play a key role in perceptions of judgments of responsibility for sexual harassment behavior. In one study where a woman was the sexual harassment complainant and a man was the accused, perceptions of job motives of the accuser and complainant affected judgments of responsibility for the sexual harassing behavior. In this case, the accused was considered most responsible when he had an ego motive and the complainant had a love motive, and least responsible when he had a love motive and the complainant had a jobrelated motive for participation in the relationship. Conversely, the complainant was judged as most responsible for the harassment when she had a job-related or ego motive compared to a love motive and the accused had a love, not ego, motive for participation in the relationship. This study also found that observers considered disciplining the accused as an appropriate action when the romance had been a hierarchical one, but if the complainant in a hierarchical workplace romance was perceived to have a job-related motive, male but not female observers did not consider company-funded counseling as an appropriate intervention (Pierce, Aguinis, & Adams, 2000). This research provides insight into the complex cognitive processes that contribute to coworker responses to sexual harassment claims by those who have participated in a workplace romance. They demonstrate, once again, the importance of perceived motives for the romance on the part of observers and that, even if erroneous, these perceived motives cannot be taken lightly. However, a more fundamental and crucial issue surrounding workplace romances and sexual harassment remains unexamined. While women are acknowledged to more likely be the victim of sexual harassment, the reasons for this are not questioned. Therefore, the deeper causes for sexual harassment behavior are not addressed. The rationale for organizational attempts to prevent it is usually based upon its threats to the organization (e.g., low staff morale, high turnover, and lowered productivity), and less upon its harmful impact on women (Bennett-Alexander & Hartman, 2004; see Robinson v. Jackson Shipyards, Inc., 760 F. Supp. 1486 (M.D. Fla Jacksonville Div., 1991); Samuels, 2003). The view implicit in advice to © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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organizations is that sexual harassment is the result of individual, aberrant behavior and is containable and readily resolved by following a checklist of managerial actions. What this traditional approach to sexual harassment obscures is the highly gendered power relations in organizations that structure and perpetuate women’s inequality in the workplace (Acker, 1990; Hurtado, 1996). One expression of this workplace inequality is sexual harassment. This may be one reason women tend to have more negative attitudes toward workplace romantic relationships than men (Pierce, et al., 1996), especially hierarchical romances (Jones, 1999). They may correctly understand that women in these relationships will be evaluated more negatively and therefore have more to lose (Anderson & Fisher, 1991; Powell, 2001). Furthermore, they may better understand and possibly fear that their claims of sexual harassment after a workplace romance has ended will be taken less seriously because of their involvement in the relationship (Pierce et al., 2004). Social ties at work, including women’s friendship and romantic relationships with men, are inevitable. When women experience these as positive, they add immeasurably to the quality of their work and personal lives. Instead of existing solely outside of work and as part of the private sphere, sexuality, romance, intimacy, close relationships, and affectionate bonds are part of the public world—they make up the fabric of work, operate at every level of organizations, and can affect work outcomes in myriad ways. However, the workplace does not operate in isolation from the gender, class, racial/ethnic, and heterosexual hierarchies that exist within the larger culture (Kanter, 1977; Maddock & Parkin, 1994; Salzinger, 2003; Schein, 1994; Williams, 1989). These social and cultural structures and processes make up the context in which women’s relationships with men in the workplace occur; thus, more so for women than men, the potential for negative consequences of these relationships is always present. An important ﬁrst step in changing this social reality is greater research and theory on relational issues in organizations that goes beyond the prevailing, albeit important, emphasis on the standard sexual harassment paradigm, to one that can more fully encompass the contradictory, emergent, and multifaceted reality that these relationships contain for women at work. REFERENCES Acker, J. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender & Society, 4, 139–158. Adams, R. G., & Allan, G. (1998). Placing friendship in context. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Adams, R. G., Blieszner, R., & De Vries, B. (2000). Deﬁnitions of friendship in the third age: Age, gender, and study location effects. Journal of Aging Studies, 14, 117–134.

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Williams, C. (1989). Feminity in the marine corp. In C. Williams (Ed.), Gender differences at work: Women and men in nontraditional work (pp. 45–87). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Williams, C., Giuffre, P., & Dellinger, K. (1999). Sexuality in the workplace: Organizational control, sexual harassment, and the pursuit of pleasure. Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 73–93. Wilson, S. M., & Ferch, S. R. (2005). Enhancing resilience in the workplace through the practice of caring relationships. Organization Development Journal, 23, 45–60. U.S. Census Bureau (2003, August). Table 1. Selected characteristics of the population 20-64 by employment status: 2000. Census 2000 Brief: Employment status 2000. Retrieved on July 8, 2007, from http://www.census.gov/ prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-18.pdf.

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Chapter 9

What I See Is What Matters: In My Own Voice Sharon Butler

What I know means nothing; it is what I see that matters. As a woman coming of age in the mid-1980s, I have surfed the wave of the ‘‘women’s movement’’ at the most exciting time. The women’s movement has been a huge public relations success. I know so much about what has kept women from being all that they know and believe they can be. I know of all the conditioning and behaviors that have prevented women from rising above the glass ceilings and taking over the world. Every man I have encountered both personally and professionally appears to be equally informed. I would say that ‘‘knowing’’ the issues has made little impact. By deﬁning our challenges, women have polarized our differences between women and men. I know we have come far in identifying the value of women in business, yet . . . I still see discrimination of women across a number of industries. Earlier in my career it was as simple as being asked to fetch coffee, or worse yet bona ﬁde sexual harassment. But now, often what I see is not men but women keeping women down in the workplace. I have seen women who have established a place for themselves but let other women struggle. It is as if they believe the only reason they have achieved a place of respect among men was solely their gender—any woman would do, therefore all other women are the competition. We are by nature a nurturing gender, yet when deﬁning moments occur, we pretend we are not. When I reﬂect on the mentors who have guided me along in my journey as an educated and accomplished woman, I am saddened by the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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number of women who added baggage to the journeys of other women, all the while claiming that they prefer to work with men. At that moment when mentoring, sharing, and collaborating could occur, power overcomes them and they stand tall among their male colleagues, displaying like armor all of their unwomanly qualities. This phenomenon is one that I have not only witnessed, but experienced ﬁrsthand, not once but on three different occasions throughout my career. In all instances, I witnessed women discriminating against women. In interviewing these women that were so signiﬁcant in my observation, they each deﬁned that the people who gave them opportunity, showed them career paths, or otherwise mentored them were men. There are so many books, articles, and periodicals about the sisterhood built by women’s rights, and I know we have all learned so much from reading them and understanding them. The reality is, however, that as women have made a share for themselves in the big offering of business leadership, they have showed that, often, women don’t play nicely. That is what I see, and it is in direct conﬂict with what I know.

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Chapter 10

Women in Ethiopia: The Sound of Hope: In My Own Voice Haimanot Kelbessa

For many years Ethiopians have been praying and struggling against injustice, hoping for a new day to come. The Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) is one of the many positive results of the struggles and prayers that took place in the past. Recently many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are managed by women have been formed, and they are doing an excellent job. Such organizations are mushrooming everywhere in the rural areas as well as in the cities. Their efforts are making a difference, one woman at a time. In 1996, with her few female colleagues, Meaza Ashenaﬁ, executive director of EWLA, started a legal advocacy group. The main purpose of the organization was to put an end to various discriminatory laws against women in Ethiopia and to bring awareness regarding women’s rights. With the help the organization receives from the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the association is able to circulate information about gender equality by teaching women about the law through the paralegal training that they provide, as well as by the counseling services and the media outreach effort they undertake. Ashenaﬁ was a legal advisor to the Ethiopian Transitional Government Constitution Commission human rights panel. The experience that Ashenaﬁ acquired at the commission while writing position papers regarding women and children was rewarding to her. This experience encouraged Ashenaﬁ to start her own organization, EWLA. Ashenaﬁ was born in Asossa, a small village in western Ethiopia, near the Sudanese border. She gives a lot of credit to her parents, who instilled in her the importance of education. She appreciates what her © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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mom did for her. Even though her mom was illiterate, she had the insight to raise her ﬁve children so that they could go to college. Ashenaﬁ says her mom had a lot of unused potential. In school, Ashenaﬁ was always a hardworking student. Despite the remark that was made by one of her teachers regarding her potential, ‘‘you are so smart and have so much potential, it’s too bad you are not a boy’’ (Fidali, 2003, p. 2), she continued her hard work and it paid off. She went on to receive her law degree, from Addis Ababa University. Her association, EWLA, advances the issue of women’s rights in Ethiopia. According to Ashenaﬁ, the fact that women in Ethiopia do not have access to justice is the result of the shortage of women’s groups that stand in an organized fashion against unjust laws and practices. Ashenaﬁ explains that several laws affect women directly or indirectly, including family and penal law. She explained that family law gives a right for the husband to discipline his wife. This allows women to be treated as if they were children. The penal law on the other hand gives the right for the criminals who abduct and rape girls to be their husbands. The EWLA provides women 15 days of basic Ethiopian law training. This provides women the information to know what their rights are under the law and how to assert them. This empowering mechanism has a domino effect that passes from woman to woman by which EWLA hopes to guarantee progress. With the tireless efforts of the EWLA, the penal law of 1957, which disregarded women’s rights, was reformed in July 2004 and enforced in May 2005. The association is not fully content with the law, which still excludes sexual harassment and marital rape. This issue of marital rape is very signiﬁcant in light of the transmission of HIV/AIDS in African society, where women are mostly voiceless. As a consequence, this disease is killing thousands of women. It is one of the major reasons for so many orphaned children in the country. One of the cases EWLA fought that attracted worldwide attention involved Aberash Bekele, a 14-year-old girl who was abducted and raped and forced to marry her abductor, like many other young girls in rural Ethiopia. However, Aberash retaliated by killing her abductor, becoming the ﬁrst woman known in court to stand up against this gender-based violence. The association represented the girl to be not guilty on grounds of self-defense. This exposed the unfair law to Ethiopians and to the outside world. In another case, EWLA stood in support of an Ethiopian migrant worker in Bahrain for alleged murder of her employer due to abuse. The association initiated a task force to raise money for her legal support and asked for government intervention. This helped the migrant worker obtain a defense lawyer from the Ethiopian government for her appeal. This led to the exposure of the physical and mental abuse, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Women in Ethiopia

153

wage denial, and other mistreatment of Ethiopian women working in various Arab countries, because of the lack of legal protection. One major case that almost resulted in risking EWLA’s existence was that of Hermela Wosenyeleh. This woman was harassed and shot by a male perpetrator. The court punished him by sentencing him to only a few months in jail. The association helped this woman to put her story on television, after unsuccessfully attempting to get any results with the law enforcement ofﬁcials in Ethiopia. Meaza Ashenaﬁ gave the issue even more publicity through an interview she gave with a newspaper. As a result, EWLA was accused of acting beyond its mandate and its activity was suspended by the Ministry of Justice. With the intervention and lobby of local and international NGOs, the suspension was lifted. The perpetrator was sentenced for 18 years, and the Minister of Justice was removed from his position. Ethiopian women are hopeful that the new millennium will bring equality, justice, and freedom to all. Ethiopia celebrated its millennium on September 12, 2007, based on the Coptic Orthodox calendar. This holiday started in the morning with the sound of young girls’ voices singing the New Year’s celebration song ‘‘Abeba-ye-hoy.’’ The girls went from home to home, giving the yellow ﬂowers they collected from the meadow, which marks the season of hope. They looked happy and hopeful. REFERENCES Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association: About EWLA. Retrieved on October 9, 2007, from http://www.etwla.org. Fidali, T. (2003). Ethiopian women of substance: Africa Prize laureate Meaza Ashenaﬁ & EWLA. Retrieved on October 10, 2007, from http://www. tadias.com/v1n5/GRS_2_2003-1.html. United Nations Development Fund for Women (2000). Ending discriminatory laws against women in Ethiopia. Retrieved on October 9, 2007, from http:// www.unifemorg/gender issues/voices from the ﬁeld/story.php?StoryID¼230.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Index

ABA Commission on Women, 115 Academia: access to resources, 44; career development, 44–45; decreasing gender disparity, 45–47; underrepresentation of women, 42; women leaders in, 40; work versus family conﬂict, 43–44 Access discrimination: workplace experiences of women of color, 114 Access to resources: women in academia, 44 Advocacy groups: barriers gone underground, 12 Afﬁrmative action: in gendered racism, 117 Ambiguity (lack of deliberate intent): in incivility, 66 Ashenaﬁ, Meaza: EWLA, 151–53 Aversive racism, 113 Bekele, Aberash: EWLA case, 152 Blue-collar women workers: leadership, 49–51 Bryson v. Chicago University, 132 Bureaucratization: sexual harassment and, 101 Career choices, 4–6 Career construction theory, 4

Career development: friendships with men, 129–30; women in academia, 44–45 Center for Worklife Policy, Manhattan, 4 Changes in number of women: model of masculinity and, 96 Chiropractor: in my own voice, 121–23 Chronicle of Higher Education (2005), 44 Citation frequency, 22 Civil Rights Act of 1964: Title VII, 68–69 Cluster or cohort hiring, 12 Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLWU), 51–52 Cognitive processes: conceptualization of discrimination, 113 Collegiality: STEM academic women, 10–11 Committee on Maximizing the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, 2 Committee on Women in Psychology Leadership Institute: recommendations, 53–54 Communitarian environment, 8–9 Competent behavior: in gendered racism, 117 Conceptualizations: gender and race, 110

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156

Index

Constant surveillance: in gendered racism, 117 Constructions: careers as, 4–6 Construct of possible selves, 5–6 Contact theory: degree of sexualization and, 89–90 Contingency approach to leadership, 35–36 Control theory, 5 Corporate world: female leadership in, 38–40; informal culture and incivility, 67 Cyber-incivility, 67 Degree attainment, 41; minority women, 41–42 Denial of personal disadvantage, 15 Department of Defense (DoD): sexual harassment survey, 70–72 Discriminatory actions in hiring, 12 Doing gender theory, 94 Education: barriers to women, 42–44; women and, 41–42 Elite environment, 8–9 Employment and salaries: challenges for women of color, 114–15 Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC): deﬁnition of sexual harassment, 69 Equal opportunity laws, 12 Erotic warfare, 102 Ethiopia: women in, 151–53 Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA), 151–53 Ethnicity: challenges for women of color, 109–19; friendship in the workplace, 133–34 Exclusionary practices, 116 Extra-organizational norms: male dominance and, 97 Extreme working, 17 Faust, Catharine Drew Gilpin, 47 Flexible work schedules, 20 Friendship: men in the workplace, 126–31 Future-oriented notions of self, 5

Gatekeepers: recognition of productivity, 7 Gender discrimination: conceptualizing, 110; injustice, 15; racial, 113–14; sexism, 111–12 Gender disparity: academia, 45–47; perceptions of sexual harassment, 72–73 Gendered racism, 113–14, 116–17; what can be done, 117–18 Gender ratio: effects on sexual harassment, 91–93; sex ratio history, 96 Gender regime, 94 Glass ceiling concept, 35; women in academia, 42–43 Glass partition: workplace friendships, 132 Hayes-White, Joanne, 52 Health and helping professions, 47–49 Health-related consequences: sexual harassment, 73–74 Higher education, 41 History of women in education, 41–42 HIV/AIDS: women in Ethiopia, 152 Homophobia, 98 Identity threat, 16 Improvisational career path, 4–5 Incivility: causes or antecedents, 66; compared to sexual harassment, 73–74; deﬁnition, 66; escalation to sexual harassment, 74–76; frequency rates and consequences, 67–68; racialized, 76–79 Inclusive work environments: STEM academic women, 10–11 Inclusivity for department members: to combat gendered racism, 118 Informal corporate culture: incivility and, 67 Integrative theories of leadership, 36 Isolation and exclusion, 11–12 Job-related consequences: sexual harassment, 73–74

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Index Job satisfaction: effects of incivility and sexual harassment, 73–74; STEM academic women, 10–12 Judged by different standards: in gendered racism, 117 Labor unions: to combat gendered racism, 118 Lack of line experience, 39 Lack of respect: in gendered racism, 116–17 Laissez-faire style, 36–37 Lanier, Cathy, 52 Law ﬁrms: women of color, 115 Leadership: in academia, 40; barriers for women, 37–38; blue-collar women workers, 49–51; congenial setting, 33; control of male dominance, 96–97; in the corporate world, 38–40; health and helping professions, 47–49; recommendations, 53–54; unions, 51–52 Leadership styles, 36–37 Leaky pipeline theory: women in academia, 42–43 Likelihood to Sexually Harass (LSH) scale, 98 Linear career path, 5 Male dominance: degree of sexualization, 89–90; extra-organizational norms, 97; numerical, 88–91; sexual harassment and, 85–107; women’s visibility, 90–91 Management training: bias and equity, 20 Marginalization and discouragement, 13 Masculine hierarchy, 94–95 Masculinity: ecological model, 95–102 Mentoring, 20; informal, 128–29; women of color, 115–16; workplace friendships, 128 Mentors and role models: STEM ﬁeld, 3 Microaggressions: racial, 76–79 Middle-management: corporate world, 38–40 Military personnel: DoD sexual harassment survey, 70–72

157

Motivational process: conceptualization of discrimination, 113 My life as a woman psychologist: Saﬁr, Marilyn P., 57–63 Normative dominance, 91–95 Numerical dominance, 88–91 Objective count of women: model of masculinity and, 96 Occupational identities: behavior and attitudes of men, 98–99 Occupational niches: sexual harassment and, 97 Occupation-based research: sexual harassment, 98 Old-fashioned racism, 112 Organizational catalysts, 12 Organizational climate: incivility and, 67 Organizational hierarchy: friendship formation, 131 Paradox of complaining, 100 Participation only in race/gender issues: in gendered racism, 116–17 Perception of numbers of women: model of masculinity and, 96 Performance evaluation fairness: to combat gendered racism, 118 Performance-related feedback, 39 Personality traits: incivility and, 66–67 Physics departments: three types, 8–9 Pluralist environment, 8–9 Police and ﬁre force: case vignettes, 52–53 Postsecondary education, 41 Proportionality: sexual harassment and, 88–89 Psychological consequences: sexual harassment, 73–74 Psychologist: in my own voice, 57–63 Racial discrimination: challenges for women of color, 109–19; conceptualizing, 110; employment and salaries, 114; gendered, 113–14;

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158

Index

incivility and sexual harassment, 76–79; mentoring for women of color, 115–16; microaggressions, 76–79; research, 112–13; workplace experiences of women of color, 114 Racialized incivility and sexual harassment, 76–79 Relational departments, 21 Relationality: friendship in the workplace, 134–35 Relationships with men, 125–43 Research collaborations, 20–21 Research productivity, 7–8; activities necessary for, 8 Resistance to authority: men, 99–100 Resource distribution tracking: to combat gendered racism, 118 Rodin, Judith, 46 Romantic relationships: attitudes, 140; legal, emotional, and performance pitfalls, 136; perceived motives, 139; in the workplace, 135–40 Same-sex workplace romances, 135–36 Science, technology, engineering and mathematics. See STEM careers Sexism, 111–12; friendships and, 133 Sexual activity: workplace, 137–38 Sexual Experience Questionnaire (SEQ), 69; psychological sexual harassment, 87 Sexual harassment, 65–84; compared to incivility, 73–74; consequences, 73–74; deﬁnitions, 68–69; escalation from incivility, 74–76; gender differences in perceptions, 72–73; male dominance and, 85–107; men’s resistance to authority, 99–100; numerical dominance, 88–91; occupational-based research, 98; occupational niches, 97; organized, 94–95; quid pro quo, 69; racialized, 76–79; rejection-based, 95; same sex, 70–72; same-sex, 92; trickle down theory, 99–100; workplace romantic relationships, 138–39 Sexual Harassment of Men (SHOM), 72 Sexualization: degree in male dominance, 89–90

Sexual orientation: friendship in the workplace, 133–34 Simmons, Ruth: 46–47 Situational approach to leadership, 35 Socio-cultural process: conceptualization of discrimination, 113 STEM careers: barriers gone underground, 12–13; male-dominated departments, 2–3; recruitment and hiring, 2; research productivity, 7–9; satisfaction among academic women, 10–12; undergraduate degrees among women, 2; underrepresentation of women, 1–33 Stereotypy: benevolent, 14; imperceptible types, 13; leadership barriers for women, 37–38; motherhood, 18–19; STEM careers, 1 Technology: cyber-incivility, 67 Threat rigidity: women in the corporate world, 39 Tokenism, 11, 40, 90; friendships and, 132 Traditionality scale, 92–93 Trait approach to leadership, 35 Transactional style, 36–37 Transformational style, 36–37 Transparency in decision making: to combat gendered racism, 118 Treatment discrimination: workplace experiences of women of color, 114 Trickle down theory: sexual harassment, 99–100 Undergraduate degrees: STEM ﬁelds, 2 Underrepresentation: women in academia, 42 Under-the-radar discrimination, 13 Unions: female leaders, 51–52 United Nations Development Fund for Women, 151 University presidents, female, 46–47 Unwritten rules: use in gendered racism, 117 Woman chiropractor: in my own voice, 121–23

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Index Women of color. See Ethnicity; Racial discrimination Women’s movement, 149–150 Women’s rights: Ethiopia, 151–153 Women’s visibility: in sexual harassment, 90–91 Work and productivity, 6–10 Work judged unimportant: in gendered racism, 116–17 Work/life balance: for both genders, 16–18 Workplace discrimination: STEM careers, 1

159

Workplace friendships, 126–31; barriers to, 131–32; desire for social ties, 129–30; perception as romantic relationships, 132; perception as sexual harassment, 132; romantic relationships, 135–40; sexual harassment and, 138–39 Workplace Incivility Scale (WIS), 68 Work structure: sexual harassment and, 101–2 Work versus family conﬂict: in academia, 43–44 Wosenyeleh, Hermela: EWLA case, 153

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

About the Editor and Contributors

Michele A. Paludi, PhD, is the author/editor of 27 college textbooks, and more than 140 scholarly articles and conference presentations on sexual harassment, psychology of women, gender, and sexual harassment and victimization. Her book Ivory Power: Sexual Harassment on Campus (1990, SUNY Press) received the 1992 Myers Center Award for Outstanding Book on Human Rights in the United States. Dr. Paludi served as chair of the U.S. Department of Education’s Subpanel on the Prevention of Violence, Sexual Harassment, and Alcohol and Other Drug Problems in Higher Education. She was one of six scholars in the United States to be selected for this subpanel. She also was a consultant to and a member of former New York State Governor Mario Cuomo’s Task Force on Sexual Harassment. She is the series editor for Praeger’s Women’s Psychology Series. Dr. Paludi serves as an expert witness for court proceedings and administrative hearings on sexual harassment. She has had extensive experience in conducting training programs and investigations of sexual harassment and other equal employment opportunity issues for businesses and educational institutions. In addition, Dr. Paludi has held faculty positions at Franklin & Marshall College, Kent State University, Hunter College, Union College, and Union Graduate College, where she directs the human resource management certiﬁcate program. She teaches courses in the school of management, such as ‘‘Foundations of Human Resource Management,’’ ‘‘Managing Human Resources,’’ and ‘‘International Human Resource Management.’’ Erika M. Baron received her BA in psychology from the University of Michigan. She is pursuing her PsyD in school-clinical child psychology at Pace University in New York City. Her research interests include the

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162

About the Editor and Contributors

effects of body image on female adolescent personality development as well as gender issues in a cross-cultural perspective. Bianca L. Bernstein, PhD, is a professor of counseling psychology, educational leadership & policy studies, and women and gender studies at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. She recently completed a term as director of the Division of Graduate Education at the National Science Foundation, after 8 years as dean of the Graduate College at Arizona State University. Dr. Bernstein specializes in counseling research on stress and cognitive mediation, gender and ethnic issues, and clinical supervision, and in higher education on broadening participation of women and minorities in science and engineering careers, preparing future faculty, and reforming graduate education. Her work has been disseminated through publications in major journals and over 200 presentations at national meetings of scholarly and professional organizations. Dr. Bernstein is the principal investigator of a major research grant from the National Science Foundation to build personal resilience and improve persistence among women in science and engineering PhD programs. Sharon Butler deﬁnes herself as a continuous learner, who is always looking for the next opportunity to mentor or coach someone to the next level of her or his career. Currently serving as a human resource director for a national technology ﬁrm, Ms. Butler has set the goal to one day teach and inspire college students. She enjoys a professional career and motherhood and believes each adds value to the other. Patricia Campbell, DC, resides in a small town in Ontario, Canada, and practiced chiropractic medicine for 16 years before retiring and pursuing other avenues. She teaches chemistry and biology at Georgian College. She received her training at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto. Donna Casta~ neda is an associate professor in the psychology department at San Diego State University–Imperial Valley Campus. She completed her BA in psychology at the University of Washington and her MA and PhD in social psychology at the University of California–Davis. Her research focuses on gender, ethnicity, and their relationship to physical and mental health. She has investigated the impact of close relationship factors in HIV sexual risk behavior, particularly among Latinas/os; the HIV/AIDS prevention needs of women factory workers in Mexico; the close relationship context and how it affects intimate partner violence; and the relationship between marital satisfaction and mental health among wives and husbands.

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About the Editor and Contributors

163

Breena E. Coates is a professor of management for the department of command, leadership and management at the United States Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. She has a BA in English from Calcutta University and an MPA and PhD in public policy impacts on organizational behavior from the University of Pittsburgh. Her current research focuses on impacts of public policy on organizational behavior, strategic management, and leadership. A second area of interest is organizational behavior, strategy, and cultural change in the United States military. Darlene C. DeFour, PhD, is a social psychologist/community psychologist. She is a graduate of Fisk University and received her doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She is currently an associate professor of psychology at Hunter College of the City University of New York. There she teaches classes including ‘‘Social Psychology,’’ ‘‘Personal Adjustment,’’ ‘‘Psychology of Women,’’ ‘‘Theories of Ethnic Identity Development,’’ and ‘‘Issues in Black Psychology.’’ She is currently a member of the board of directors of the New York Association of Black Psychologists and has served on the board of directors of the national association. She is also active in several divisions of the American Psychological Association. The theme of her current research is the exploration of the various ways that violence in the form of racism and sexism as well as physical violence affects the everyday lives of adolescent and adult Black females. Florence L. Denmark is an internationally recognized scholar, researcher, and policy maker. She received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in social psychology and has ﬁve honorary degrees. Denmark is the Robert Scott Pace Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at Pace University in New York. A past president of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the International Council of Psychologists, Denmark holds fellowship status in the APA. She is also a member of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology and a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences. She has received numerous national and international awards for her contributions to psychology. She received the 2004 American Psychological Foundation Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Public Interest. In 2005, she received the Ernest R. Hilgard Award for her career contribution to general psychology. She was the recipient in 2007 of the Raymond Fowler Award for outstanding service to APA. Denmark’s most signiﬁcant research and extensive publications have emphasized women’s leadership and leadership styles, the interaction of status and gender, aging women in cross-cultural perspective, and the contributions of women to psychology. Denmark is the main nongovernmental organization (NGO) representative to the United Nations for the International Council of Psychologists and is also the main NGO

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164

About the Editor and Contributors

representative for the APA. She is currently chair of the New York NGO Committee on Aging and a member of APA’s Committee on Aging. Eros R. DeSouza is currently a professor of psychology at Illinois State University. He earned his PhD in community psychology from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. As a community psychologist, he is deeply interested in social justice. He has carried out qualitative and quantitative research on sexuality and gender issues, including sexual harassment from a cross-cultural perspective. As of 2007, he has written several book chapters and more than 40 scholarly articles; he has also coauthored almost 100 papers presented at conferences. Margaret Gibbs is a professor in the school of psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She received her PhD in clinical psychology from Harvard University. She has addressed women’s issues in her research, teaching, and clinical practice. James Gruber is a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan– Dearborn. He has published extensively on workplace sexual harassment and has presented workshops and expert witness testimony on the topic since the early 1980s. He recently co-edited a book in 2005 with Dr. Phoebe Morgan (In the Company of Men: Male Dominance and Sexual Harassment), which offers new directions in theory and research on the topic. Currently, he is conducting research with Dr. Susan Fineran on bullying and sexual harassment in middle and high school. Also, they are studying the impact of sexual harassment on girls who hold jobs while attending high school. Haimanot Kelbessa was born and raised in Ethiopia. She went to grade and high school in Ethiopia. She came to the United States in 1982. Ms. Kelbessa completed undergraduate studies at the University of Houston, in general studies in 1992. She has worked in a clerical position for the U.S. Army as a civilian in Saudi Arabia. In addition, she has worked in various capacities through the years, primarily in property management. She is currently working toward her human resource management certiﬁcate at Union Graduate College. Maria D. Klara received her BA from Boston College in 1999 and then her MS in counseling psychology from Northeastern University in 2003. She is currently pursuing her PsyD in school-clinical child psychology at Pace University in New York City. Her academic interests include women and gender issues, psychological assessment, and clinical work with adolescents. Phoebe Morgan holds a PhD in justice studies from Arizona State University and is a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Northern

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About the Editor and Contributors

165

Arizona University. She teaches courses about women, crime and justice, research methods, and justice policy. Her research specialties include sexual harassment, women’s complaint making, and organized claimsmaking. With James Gruber, she edited Male Dominance and Sexual Harassment (Northeastern University Press). Her research also appears in The Law and Society Review, the Journal of Law, Culture and the Humanities, the Journal of Criminal Justice Education, The Women’s Studies Association Journal, Afﬁlia Social Work Journal, the Sourcebook for Violence Against Women, Classic Papers on Violence Against Women, Everyday Sexism in the Third Millennium, Investigating Difference, and The Gendered Economy. She is currently researching sexual harassment in transnational corporations and the globalization of U.S. sexual harassment policy. Nancy Felipe Russo is Regents Professor of Psychology and Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University, where she is the director of the university’s new Ofﬁce for Academic Institutional and Cultural Change and Co-I of the NSF CareerBound project led by Bianca Bernstein. Russo is author or editor of more than 200 publications related to the psychology of women and women’s issues, a former editor of the Psychology of Women Quarterly, and a member of the editorial board of several other journals. A former president of the American Psychological Association (APA) division of the Psychology of Women, she is the recipient of that group’s Centennial Heritage Award for contributions to public policy and Carolyn Wood Sherif Award in recognition of distinguished contributions to research, teaching, mentoring, and service to psychology and society. A former member of the APA Presidential Task Force on Women in Science and Technology, she currently serves on the executive boards of Divisions 1 (General), 35 (Psychology of Women), and 52 (International Psychology) of APA. A former member of the board of directors of the Hispanic Women’s Corporation, Russo has been recognized by APA’s Board of Ethnic Minority Affairs for contributions to ethnic minority issues, and is the recipient of the APA’s Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest. Marilyn P. Saﬁr is professor emeritus in the department of psychology (specializing in clinical and social psychology). She was the founder and former director (1983–1993) of the University of Haifa women’s studies program. She is also a founding member of the executive committee. Saﬁr is a member of numerous professional organizations and a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) (Division 35: Psychology of Women; Division 9: Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues 1; Division 52: International Psychology, of which she is a founding fellow). She is also a charter fellow of the APA. Saﬁr was the ﬁrst recipient of American Psychological Association’s Division for International

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About the Editor and Contributors

Psychology (52) Distinguished Visiting Professorship, August 2005–August 2006. Saﬁr was also the ﬁrst recipient of the Florence Denmark and Gori Gunvald Award for Research on Women and Gender, International Council of Psychologists, 2002 (Toronto 2003). APA’s Committee on Women and Psychology honored her in 1992 with Distinguished Leadership Citation for her professional contributions to the ﬁeld of psychology of women both nationally and internationally. Saﬁr was also elected member of the International Academy for Sex Research. Saﬁr was cited in The Lexicon of 1000 Israeli Women, 1885–1985. Saﬁr has been listed in The International Who’s Who of Professional and Business Women, 1989; The World’s Who’s Who of Women, 1987, 9th Ed.; 1989, 10th Ed.; 1991, 11th Ed.; The International Directory of Distinguished Service, 1986, 1st Edition. She was singled out as one of the 100 Heroines of the World in Rochester, New York, in recognition of her lifetime achievements in furthering the cause of women’s rights, freedom health, and equal opportunities, and for serving as a role model for women and girls around the world. Janet Sigal is a professor of psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She received her PhD in social psychology from Northwestern University. Her research interests include women’s issues, sexual harassment, domestic violence, cross-cultural research, and simulated jury research. Dr. Sigal is a fellow of Divisions 35 and 52 of the American Psychological Association. Dorothy Wnuk received a BS from Rutgers and an MA from John Jay. She is currently a doctoral student in the clinical psychology doctoral program at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

The Psychology of Women at Work

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Recent Titles in Women’s Psychology ‘‘Intimate’’ Violence against Women: When Spouses, Partners, or Lovers Attack Paula K. Lundberg-Love and Shelly L. Marmion, editors Daughters of Madness: Growing Up and Older with a Mentally Ill Mother Susan Nathiel Psychology of Women: Handbook of Issues and Theories, Second Edition Florence L. Denmark and Michele A. Paludi, editors WomanSoul: The Inner Life of Women’s Spirituality Carole A. Rayburn and Lillian Comas-Dıaz

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

The Psychology of Women at Work Challenges and Solutions for Our Female Workforce

Volume 3 Self, Family, and Social Affects

Edited by MICHELE A. PALUDI

Praeger Perspectives Women’s Psychology

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The psychology of women at work : challenges and solutions for our female workforce / edited by Michele A. Paludi p. cm. — (Women’s psychology, ISSN 1931-0021) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-275-99677-2 ((set) : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-275-99679-6 ((vol. 1) : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-275-99681-9 ((vol. 2) : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-275-99683-3 ((vol. 3) : alk. paper) 1. Women—Employment—Psychological aspects. 2. Work and family. 3. Women—Job stress. 4. Women—Psychology. I. Paludi, Michele Antoinette. HD6053.P75 2008 158.7082—dc22 2008004119 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright

C

2008 by Michele A. Paludi

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008004119 ISBN: 978-0-275-99677-2 (set) 978-0-275-99679-6 (vol. 1) 978-0-275-99681-9 (vol. 2) 978-0-275-99683-3 (vol. 3) ISSN: 1931-0021 First published in 2008 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8

7 6 5 4 3

2 1

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For Antoinette and Michael Paludi, who encouraged me to deﬁne what women’s work is for myself

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

xi

Chapter 1: Aggressive Men and Witchy Women: The Double Standard Susan Strauss

1

Chapter 2: Lessons from My Father: In My Own Voice Susan Lehrman

21

Chapter 3: Self-Esteem and High-Achieving Women Tina Stern

25

Chapter 4: Women in Human Resources: In My Own Voice Linda Dillon

55

Chapter 5: Stress and Health Paula Lundberg-Love and Donna Lee Faulkner

59

Chapter 6: Preparing to Be Employed: In My Own Voice Christa White

85

Chapter 7: Mental Health Impact of Sexual Harassment Susan Fineran and James Gruber

89

Chapter 8: Religion and Women at Work Michael B. Mathias

109

Chapter 9: Workforce Issues: In My Own Voice LuAnn Hart

143

Chapter 10: Society’s Gains: Economics of Women in the Workplace Zhilan Feng and Maneechit Pattanapanchai 149 Index

173

About the Editor and Contributors

179

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Acknowledgments

I thank Debbie Carvalko at Praeger for her encouragement and support throughout the writing of these three volumes. It is an honor to work with her. I also thank the graduate students in my human resources classes for their comments about the changing nature of work for women. I am conﬁdent that they will make a difference in the lives of the next generation of women employees and their families. I am grateful to Carrie Turco and Sharon Butler for their comments on earlier versions of the introduction. The following family, friends, and colleagues have been invaluable during the preparation of these three volumes. Thank you to Rosalie Paludi, Lucille Paludi, Presha Neidermeyer, and Paula Lundberg Love. I especially acknowledge Carmen Paludi, Jr., for his friendship and sage advice. Together we continue to make the dreams of our grandparents on Weaver Street into realities. Finally, I wish to thank William Norton Dember, my advisor and mentor in graduate school, who, like my parents, told me to seek my own career path and be tough-minded and kindhearted at the same time. I started drafting these books after I last saw Bill in May 2006, when we discussed my career since graduate school (it had been 26 years since I received my PhD). He reminded me that I came to work with him as a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati because I was interested in the psychology of women’s work and achievement motivation. Moreover, he inquired why I hadn’t written or edited a book in that ﬁeld during the course of my career. These three volumes are in response to Bill’s question. Bill died in September 2006. These books are in tribute to him as a psychologist, mentor, professor, colleague, and friend.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Introduction

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, ‘‘She doesn’t have what it takes.’’ They will say, ‘‘Women don’t have what it takes.’’ —Clare Boothe Luce

Clare Boothe Luce’s sentiment was once again highlighted during the preparation of these three volumes of The Psychology of Women at Work: Challenges and Solutions for Our Female Workforce, when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Throughout the initial part of Senator Clinton’s candidacy, comments about a woman president received media attention. Polls from CNN.com (July 24, 2007) and YouTube (January 21, 2007; March 5, 2007) reported the following quotations: ‘‘Hillary Clinton needs to wear a dress or skirt now and then. Her always making public appearances in pants gives a sense she is trying to ‘ﬁt in’ with the boys, which is never going to be the case.’’ ‘‘Hillary is cute. Those are her qualiﬁcations for prez.’’ ‘‘It’ll be nice to have a woman president but you know white America won’t let her.’’ ‘‘Women, above all, should reject hillary. Missus clinton is the biggest misogynist of all.’’ ‘‘hillary clinton running must be a joke! A woman for president! Ha! Now that[’]s a joke.’’

Elizabeth Edwards, whose husband, John Edwards, also declared his candidacy for president, joined the chorus in criticizing Hillary Clinton. Elizabeth Edwards stated the following: She [Hillary Clinton] and I are from the same generation. We both went to law school and married other lawyers, but after that we made other © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Introduction choices. I think my choices have made me happier. I think I’m more joyful than she is.

Elizabeth Edwards also stated, ‘‘Sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women’s issues.’’ Mrs. Edwards’s comments prompted a comparison of the two women—one perceived as ‘‘feminine’’ and the other ‘‘masculine.’’ Responses from a CNN.com poll (July 24, 2007) included the following: ‘‘It would be awesome if Hillary was more like Elizabeth. But Hillary lacks the compassion and realness Elizabeth possesses.’’ Tucker Carlson, host of MSNBC’s Tucker, asked a guest, ‘‘I mean, let’s take this critique [by Elizabeth Edwards] seriously—is Hillary Clinton too manly to be president?’’ This is in direct contrast to the view that many people had of Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, who, when she dropped out of running for U.S. president in 1984, cried. This raised the question of whether a woman was too ‘‘emotional’’ to be president. Schroeder (1998) wrote, ‘‘Crying is almost a ritual that male politicians must do to prove they are compassionate, but women are supposed to wear iron britches.’’ In 1870, when Victoria Woodhull, the ﬁrst woman to run for president, declared her candidacy, the New York Herald commented: ‘‘She is rather in advance of her time. The public mind is not yet educated to the pitch of universal woman’s [sic] rights’’ (‘‘Woman’s Idea of Government,’’ 1870, p. 6). In 2008 we are still hearing arguments that the United States is not ready for a woman president—a view expressed not only to Victoria Woodhull but also to other women candidates for president before Hillary Clinton: Margaret Chase Smith (in 1964), Shirley Chisolm (in 1972), Patricia Schroeder (in 1984), Elizabeth Dole (in 2000), and Carolyn Moseley Braun (in 2004). Similar comments were directed toward Geraldine Ferraro, the ﬁrst woman to be placed on a national presidential ticket (as Walter Mondale’s vice president in 1984). Ferraro was criticized for wearing short-sleeved dresses while campaigning because her arms wobbled when she waved (considered not ‘‘feminine’’). ‘‘The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ‘It’s a girl,’’’ Shirley Chisholm once noted. Gender-role stereotypes about ‘‘appropriate’’ and ‘‘inappropriate’’ occupations for women still abound. Gender stereotyping is a psychological process that illustrates a structured set of beliefs about the personal attributes of females and males (Ashmore & DelBoca, 1981; Doyle & Paludi, 1997; Fiske & Stevens, 1993). When asked to describe a woman, for example, individuals commonly cite ‘‘caring,’’ ‘‘nurturing,’’ ‘‘sensitive,’’ and ‘‘passive.’’ When asked to name a woman’s occupation, individuals cite ‘‘nurse,’’ ‘‘elementary school teacher,’’ or ‘‘social worker,’’ but not ‘‘president of the United States.’’ © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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I have frequently used the following riddle when students and trainees indicate that they believe that they themselves do not hold genderrole stereotypes about occupations: One afternoon, a man and his son go for a drive through the countryside. After an hour or so they get into a terrible car crash. The father dies instantly. The son is taken by a helicopter to the nearest hospital, where a prominent surgeon is called to help save the boy’s life. Immediately on entering the operating room and looking at the boy, the surgeon exclaims, ‘‘I can’t possibly operate on this boy . . . he’s my son.’’ How can this be?

The responses I have received to this question have ranged from ‘‘The father didn’t really die—he sustained only minor injuries and could perform the surgery’’ to ‘‘It was the boy’s stepfather who died, and his biological father was the surgeon’’ to ‘‘The boy’s adoptive father is the surgeon, and his biological father was with him in the car.’’ Individuals rarely solve this riddle: The surgeon is the boy’s mother. When the answer is revealed, these individuals are angry with themselves that they initially stated that they hold no occupational stereotypes for women and men. Individuals also usually ‘‘mark’’ an occupation if they believe that the gender of the person performing the job is atypical. Thus, they say ‘‘male nurse,’’ ‘‘female physician,’’ ‘‘female professor,’’ and ‘‘male model’’ (Paludi, Paludi, & DeFour, 2004). Markings alert listeners or readers to something atypical for the occupation—that it is held by an individual of the sex other than the one with which it is traditionally associated. An awareness of the contents of occupational stereotypes related to gender begins in the preschool years and is well developed by ﬁrst grade (Betz, in press; Gottfredson, 1981; Heyman & Legare, 2004; Hughes & Seta, 2003; Sczesny, 2003). Among 6-year-olds, there is research evidence of gender stereotypes in the kinds of occupations that children consider for future employment. Girls commonly choose the occupations of nurse, teacher, or ﬂight attendant. Boys, on the other hand, select police ofﬁcer, truck driver, architect, or pilot. Children’s ranges of occupations are difﬁcult to change once they are set (Betz, in press; Eccles, Wigﬁeld, & Schiefele, 1999). Levy, Sadovsky, and Troseth (2000) reported that a stereotypic view of the world reinforces many of the common gender-role stereotypes and is a factor in prompting young boys’ interest in more than twice as many occupations as that of young girls. Girls thus restrict their occupational aspirations. In addition, girls have a more limited concept than boys do of the career possibilities available to them in math- and computer-related occupations (Burger et al., 2007; Creamer & Laughlin, 2005; Naua, Epperson, & Kahn, 1998; White & White, 2006). Girls focus © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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on occupations that are associated with less status, less satisfaction, and less pay than the occupations considered by boys (Heyman, 2000; Richardson & Sandoval (2007). Siegel and Reis (1998) reported that although teachers perceived gifted girls as working harder and doing better work than gifted boys, these teachers gave higher grades to the boys. Similarly, Fennema and colleagues (1996) found that teachers perceived that boys are better than gifted girls at math and science. Kerr, Colangelo, and Gaeth (1988) reported that gifted girls are concerned about the negative effects of being gifted on their peers’ attitudes toward them. The researchers found that, by the sophomore year of college, most gifted women changed their majors to less intellectually challenging ones. Furthermore, Kerr, Colangelo, and Gaeth found that, by their senior year, these gifted women reduced the level of their career goals. Brody (1977) reported a decline in self-esteem among girls but not boys in elementary, middle, and high school. For example, 55% of elementary school girls agreed with the following statement: ‘‘I am good at a lot of things.’’ This percentage declined to 29% in middle school and 23% in high school. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) (1992) reported that girls who pursued math and science courses and participated in sports maintained their self-esteem from elementary school through high school. Hall and Sandler (1982) and Allan and Madden (2006) argued that, for girls and women, the educational system is a ‘‘chilly climate.’’ Girls and women are discouraged from classroom participation, are sexually harassed by teachers as well as peers, receive a lack of mentoring, and are advised by guidance counselors to lower their expectations for a career (AAUW, 2001; Paludi, Martin, & Paludi, 2007; Richardson & Sandoval, 2007). As can be seen from this brief review, an important manifestation of gender-role stereotyping is a progressive decrease in girls’ and women’s career aspirations (Betz, 2007; Farmer, 1997). ‘‘The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of your chromosomes,’’ Bella Abzug once protested. Lacampagne, Campbell, Herzig, Damarin, and Vogt (2007) reported that gender differences are signiﬁcant in math-related careers and in career aspirations. For example, of students who took the SAT in 2005, 5% of boys and 1% of girls reported planning to major in computer science. In addition, 10% of boys and 2% of girls were planning to major in engineering (College Board, 2005). Career education programs continue to be gender-segregated; 90% of women in training programs are in traditionally female ﬁelds—for example, ofﬁce technology and health care (AAUW, 2002). More than 90% of teachers (preschool, elementary, and special education), secretaries, childcare workers, waitresses, hairdressers, speech therapists, occupational © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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therapists, dental hygienists, and teacher’s aides are women (U.S. Department of Labor, 2003). Betz (in press) reported that women remain underrepresented in technical and scientiﬁc ﬁelds as well as in managerial positions in education, government, business, and the military. In a recent study conducted by Catalyst (2007), gender-role stereotyping was linked to women’s participation as leaders in business. According to this report, ‘‘Gender stereotyping, one of the key barriers to women’s advancement in corporate leadership, leaves women with limited, conﬂicting and often unfavorable options no matter how they choose to lead.’’ Catalyst found that women constitute more than 50% of management and professional occupations but are only 15.6% of Fortune 500 corporate ofﬁcers and 14.6% of Fortune 500 board directors. Ilene Lang, president of Catalyst, comments on this as follows: When companies fail to acknowledge and address the impact of gender stereotypic bias, they lose out on top female talent. . . . Ultimately, it’s not women’s leadership styles that need to change. Only when organizations take action to address the impact of gender stereotyping will they be able to capitalize on the ‘‘full deck’’ of talent.

Women earn less than 20% of the bachelor’s degrees in ﬁelds such as engineering and physics and less than 10% of the graduate degrees in engineering (Betz, 2007). Women represent only about 14% of engineers, 30% of computer systems analysts, and 25% of computer programmers (U.S. Department of Labor, 2003, 2005). Women account for 8% of physicists and astronomers, 7% of air trafﬁc controllers, 5% of truck drivers, 4% of pilots, 5% of ﬁreﬁghters, and 2% of carpenters and electricians (Betz, 2007). Equally important, women are paid less for full-time employment than men are; women make only 77% as much as men do when both are employed full-time (U.S. Department of Labor, 2005). This income disparity is greater for Black, Asian, Native American, and Hispanic women than for White women, and for middle-age and older women than for younger women. ‘‘We haven’t come a long way,’’ noted Elizabeth Janeway, ‘‘we’ve come a short way. If we hadn’t come a short way, no one would be calling us baby.’’ These realities of the psychology of women at work require an indepth look at not only the barriers to women’s success but also the strategies for empowering women at the individual, organizational, legal, and societal levels. These three volumes provide an overview of the scholarly research on the issues related to women and work. Volume 1, ‘‘Career Liberation, History, and the New Millennium,’’ provides an overview of research on comparisons of men and women © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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in gender-relative (i.e., stereotypical masculine and feminine) communication styles, women as bosses, women as entrepreneurs, personality factors that impact women in the workplace, feminist competing values leadership, career preparation programs in high school, and sexual harassment. Volume 2, ‘‘Obstacles and the Identity Juggle,’’ offers reviews on the double standard for women in the workplace; sexual harassment; women and leadership; the glass ceiling; pay inequalities; incivility toward women in the workplace; women in the sciences, technology, engineering, and math; and the economics of women in the workplace. Volume 3, ‘‘Self, Family, and Social Affects,’’ discusses women and self-esteem, the impact of work on women’s physical health, mental health issues for women in the workforce (especially women who have experienced discrimination), women’s relationships with male co-workers, and religion and women at work. In addition to the scholarly reviews of research on the psychology of women at work, I have included women’s personal accounts of their career development, especially their experiences in the labor force. A variety of careers is represented in these personal accounts—attorney, human resource manager, college president, chiropractor, and psychologist—as well as students who are pursuing careers. For many years researchers have deﬁned for women what success is, what work is, and what achievement striving should be. These deﬁnitions have typically contained masculine biases (Paludi & Fankell-Hauser, 1986). Thus, these personal accounts of women’s experiences recognize that women differ in the strength of their striving for achievement and in the roles that elicit their striving, taking into account the effects of family, friends, role models, and partners. It is the goal of these volumes that these personal accounts stimulate additional research, legislation, and advocacy on behalf of female students and employees so that a woman running for the United States presidency will be accepted and encouraged.

REFERENCES Allan, E., & Madden, M. (2006). Chilly classrooms for female undergraduate students: A question of method? Journal of Higher Education, 77, 684– 711. American Association of University Women (AAUW). (1992). The AAUW report: How schools shortchange girls. Washington, DC: Author. American Association of University Women (AAUW). (2001). Hostile hallways: Bullying, teasing, and sexual harassment in school. Washington, DC: AAUW Educational Foundation. American Association of University Women (AAUW). (2002). Title IX at 30: Report card on gender equity. Washington, DC: Author.

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Ashmore, R., & DelBoca, F. (1981). Conceptual approaches to stereotypes and stereotyping. In D. Hamilton (Ed.), Cognitive processes in stereotyping and intergroup behavior. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Betz, N. (2007). Women’s career development. In F. L. Denmark & M. Paludi (Eds.), Psychology of women: A handbook of issues and theories (2nd ed.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 717–752. Brody, J. E. (1997, November 4). Girls and puberty: The crisis years. The New York Times, p. B8. Burger, C., Abbott, G., Tobias, S., Koch, J., Vogt, C., & Sosa, T. (2007). Gender equity in science, engineering and technology. In S. Klein (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp. 255–279). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Catalyst. (2007). The double-bind dilemma for women in leadership: Damned if you do, doomed if you don’t. New York: Author. College Board. (2005). 2005 College-bound seniors: Total group proﬁle report. Available online at www.college-board.com Creamer, E., & Laughlin, A. (2005). Self-authorship and women’s career decision making. Journal of College Student Development, 46, 13–27. Doyle, J., & Paludi, M. (1997). Sex and gender: The human experience. New York: McGraw-Hill. Eccles, J., Wigﬁeld, A., & Schiefele, U. (1999). Motivation to succeed. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional and personality development (pp. 1017–1095). New York: Wiley. Farmer, H. S. (1976). What inhibits achievement and career motivation in women? Counseling Psychologist, 6, 12–14. Farmer, H. S. (1997). Diversity and women’s career development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Fennema, E., Carpenter, T. P., Franke, M. L., Levi, L., Jacobs, V., & Empson, S. (1996). A longitudinal study of learning to use children’s thinking in mathematics education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 27, 403–434. Fiske, S., & Stevens, L. (1993). What’s so special about sex? Gender stereotyping and discrimination. In S. Oskamp & M. Costanzo (Eds.), Gender issues in contemporary society. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Gottfredson, L. S. (1981). Circumscription and compromise: A development theory of occupational aspirations. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 28, 545–579. Hall, R., & Sandler, B. (1982). The classroom climate: A chilly one for women. Washington, DC: Project on the Status and Education of Women. Heyman, J. (2000). The widening gap. New York: Basic Books. Heyman, G., & Legare, C. (2004). Children’s beliefs about gender differences in academic social domains. Sex Roles, 50, 227–239. Hughes, F., & Seta, C. (2003). Gender stereotypes: Children’s perceptions of future compensatory behavior following violations of gender roles. Sex Roles, 49, 685–691. Kerr, B., Colangelo, N., & Gaeth, J. (1988). Gifted adolescents’ attitudes toward their giftedness. Gifted Child Quarterly, 32, 245–247. Lacampagne, C., Campbell, P., Herzig, A., Damarin, S., & Vogt, C. (2007). Gender equity in mathematics. In S. Klein (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp. 235–253). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Levy, G., Sadovsky, A., & Troseth, G. (2000). Aspects of young children’s perceptions of gender-typed occupations. Sex Roles, 42, 993–1006. Naua, M., Epperson, D., & Kahn, J. (1998). A multiple-groups analysis of predictors of higher level career aspirations among women in mathematics, science and engineering majors. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 45, 483– 496. Paludi, M., & Fankell-Hauser, J. (1986). An idiographic approach to the study of women’s achievement strivings. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 10, 89– 100. Paludi, M., Martin, J., & Paludi, C. (2007). Sexual harassment: The hidden gender equity problem. In S. Klein (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp. 215–229). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Paludi, M., Paludi, C., & DeFour, D. (2004). Introduction: Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose (The more things change, the more they stay the same). In M. Paludi (Ed.), Praeger guide to the psychology of gender (pp. xi–xxxi). Westport, CT: Praeger. Richardson, B., & Sandoval, P. (2007). Impact of education on gender equity in employment and its outcomes. In S. Klein (Ed.), Handbook for achieving gender equity through education (pp. 43–58). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Schroeder, P. (1998). 24 Years of housework . . . and the place is still a mess: My life in politics. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel. Sczesny, S. (2003). A closer look beneath the surface: Various facets of the think-manager-think-male stereotype. Sex Roles, 49, 353–363. Siegel, D., & Reis, S. M., (1998). Gender differences in teacher and student perceptions of gifted students’ ability and effort. Gifted Children Quarterly, 42, 39–47. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2003). Facts on women workers. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2005). Women in the labor force: A data book. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. White, M., & White, G. (2006). Implicit and explicit occupational gender stereotypes. Sex Roles, 55, 259–266. Woman’s idea of government. (1870). New York Herald, p. 6.

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Chapter 1

Aggressive Men and Witchy Women: The Double Standard Susan Strauss

Labeling a man aggressive is stereotypically associated with strength, decisiveness, and power (Harris, 1994; Johnson, 1997), but when a woman behaves in the same or in a similar manner, she might be labeled as a witch, a word commonly used to insult and demean women (Johnson). This discrepancy of labels implies hostility toward women and establishes a double standard, which is reinforced by both women and men (Conway & Vartanian, 2000; Heim, 1995; Johnson; Ledet & Henley, 2000; Wood & Karten, 1986). Turkel (2004) asserted that when a man is direct he is considered strong, but when a woman is direct she is considered overbearing. When women are assertive, they are often labeled aggressive and are then hesitant to express their ideas or to disagree with others (Turkel). Several theories have been examined in the scholarly literature to explain the phenomenon of judging women more harshly than men: sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996; Masser & Abrams, 2004), sex role stereotyping (Deaux, 1995; Devine, 1989; Fiske & Stevens, 1993), patriarchy (Johnson, 1997), oppression (Johnson, 1997; Stout & McPhail, 1998), and competition (Loya, Cowan, & Walters, 2006), to name a few. Most of the literature measured the perceptions of gender behavior within the workplace milieu; however, a few researchers associated women’s hostility toward women as a reﬂection of jealousy caused by current beauty and body image standards (Forbes, Collinsworth, Jobe, Braum, & Wise, 2007; Loya et al., 2006). This chapter will explore these theories that provide a rationale for both women and men viewing women as witchy. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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STEREOTYPES AND GENDER ROLE THEORY Research has demonstrated that stereotypes often operate unconsciously (Devine, 1989), are used to evaluate situations and people (Deaux, 1995), and have not changed much over time (Eagly, 1987). Fiske (1993) asserted that stereotyping is more prevalent with those individuals who hold power, and Eagly, Makhijani, & Klonsky (1992) found that women in leadership roles tend to be devalued compared to men in leadership roles. Both women and men cultivate expectations about their own and the opposite gender’s behavior based on their beliefs about what is appropriate for both genders, which Eagly (1987) labeled genderrole theory. A stereotype is a complex construct in which researchers have hypothesized female gender subtypes. Fiske and Glick (1995) categorized three subtypes for women: sex object (sexually desirable and potentially sexually available), traditional woman (weak, vulnerable, and powerless), and the nontraditional woman (strong, competitive, and difﬁcult). Kanter’s (1977) four female subtypes are similar: mother (sympathetic), seductress (sex object), pet (girlish, cute, admires male antics), and iron maiden (strong, competitive, tough, threatening, unfeminine). Iron maidens face hostility from their coworkers and are often viewed as less agreeable and cooperative (Fiske & Glick). According to Fiske and Stevens (1993), all stereotypes are comprised of both descriptive and prescriptive elements. The prescriptive element of the stereotype identiﬁes how an individual ought to behave on the basis of membership within the particular group. The researchers found that gender stereotypes are more likely to be prescriptive and therefore more rigid about what constitutes acceptable behavior. Several scholars (Burgess & Borgida, 1999; Franke, 1997; Schultz, 1998) asserted that prescriptive stereotypes may result in discrimination against women who violate these stereotypes and defy behavioral expectations; these women may be subjected to sexual harassment or receive a poor performance evaluation. Franke’s legal perspective suggested that when sexual harassment, a form of gender discrimination, punishes individuals who do not conform to prescriptive stereotypes, it reinforces the prescriptive gender stereotypes of both genders. The descriptive element of the stereotype reﬂects what others believe about members of the speciﬁc group. For example, the male stereotype is that men are aggressive, daring, rational, strong, and self-conﬁdent (Johnson, 1997). In contrast, the female stereotype describes a woman who is nurturing, soft-spoken, compliant (Eagly, 1987), illogical, emotional, passive (Burgess & Borgida), weak, and lacking in self-control (Johnson). Therefore, if a woman is generally believed to be less competent than a man, then she will be evaluated less positively and perceived as having less ability than her male counterpart (Deaux, 1995). Both women and men share the descriptive element of gender stereotypes but differ in their

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prescriptive gender stereotypes, resulting in both genders being likely to discriminate (Burgess & Borgida). Both prescriptive and descriptive female gender stereotypes were critical in not granting a partnership to Ann Hopkins when she was employed at Price Waterhouse, a prominent accounting ﬁrm, because she was seen to lack femininity (Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 1989). She was a strong and ambitious woman, competent and well thought of by her clients. She was also perceived as lacking skills in coworker relationships and engaging in more typically male behavior. For example, she was told to ‘‘walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely, wear makeup, have her hair styled, and wear jewelry’’ (Fiske, Bersoff, Borgida, Deaux, & Heilman, 1991, p. 1050). Fiske and Stevens (1993), in referring to the Price Waterhouse case, captured the dilemma many women experience: The issue no longer is acknowledgment of competence. Rather this aspect of the stereotyping process explains the penalties that result from perceived violation of acceptable sex-role appropriate behaviors. Because many behaviors considered inappropriate for women are the very ones deemed necessary to be competent in a traditionally male job, sex stereotypes create a double bind for women. Their competence is undervalued if they behave in traditionally feminine ways, while their interpersonal skills are derogated and their mental health is questioned if they behave in traditionally masculine ways. (p. 218)

Women who work in male-dominated jobs, who therefore do not ﬁt their gender stereotype, are more likely to be viewed negatively (Eagly & Mladinic, 1994), be victims of male backlash (Faludi, 1992), and experience discrimination and harassment (Fiske & Glick, 1995). According to Glick (1991), male-dominated jobs are seen as requiring speciﬁc knowledge and skills that set men up as superior to women, so when women are able to do the jobs, men’s self-esteem and gender identity are threatened. This nontraditional woman is likely to experience hostility from some of the men with whom she works. A hostile work environment results in an attempt to alienate and denigrate the women who have moved into male-dominated roles and have entered male turf (Fitzgerald, 1993; Gutek, 1985). Expectancy-value theory (Troyer & Younts, 1997) is similar to Fiske and Stevens’ (1993) model of descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes. Expectancy-value theory is a model of social order of interacting with others and supports a status hierarchy based on a number of variables including gender, seniority, race, and so on. The theory consists of ﬁrst-order and second-order expectations for social interactions. The researchers found that ﬁrst-order expectations, similar to descriptive stereotypes, is what an individual expects of her or his own behavior,

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and second-order expectations, similar to prescriptive stereotypes, include the expectations that are held for others. If ﬁrst-order and second-order expectations are in conﬂict with one another, second-order expectations carry more weight in inﬂuencing the social action of the individual. In other words, the greatest inﬂuence on an individual’s social interaction is what the other person’s expectations are of her or him. When men and women are interacting while involved in a speciﬁc task, the gender beliefs of both individuals will shape what each expects from the other gender, resulting in a double standard for evaluating performance with women seen as less competent (Biernat & Kobrynowicz, 1997). In a study of college students’ expectations about female and male candidates for professorships, sex-role stereotypes emerged in the students’ evaluations of the candidates based on altered application materials (Wall & Barry, 1985). If a woman’s name was used in the materials, the students indicated that she seemed to be too focused on the business side of her career and didn’t seem to exhibit much personality. Conversely, if a man’s name was used on the materials, no reference was made regarding his career emphasis or personality. The researchers also discovered that students judged women professors more severely than men, expecting the women to be more devoted to students by spending more time with them than the male professors were expected to spend. The authors suggested that female professors may be unfairly evaluated when students praise male professors even when it was the females that were more attentive to students. The reasoning was that women, in acting more nurturing and providing more time with students, are merely doing what is expected of them as women, whereas a male professor, when providing time and attention to students, is exceeding students’ expectations. Women leaders whose style tends to ﬁt the male stereotype of leadership (i.e., autocratic and direct) received more negative evaluations than their male peers who used the same style, and the women were viewed as less effective leaders as well (Eagly, Karau, & Makhijani, 1995). Men are more harsh when evaluating female leaders than are women (Eagly et al., 1992). Eagly and Johnson’s (1990) meta-analysis of women’s natural leadership styles demonstrated that women generally act in ways that are consistent with prescriptive stereotypes—participatory and democratic—and will purposely use those skills in their management role. Kanter (1977) presented a sociological study of an actual corporation she labeled Indsco. Her study contrasted roles of women and men at work with both genders incorporating the stereotypical behavior of their gender within the organization’s climate. As a result, Kanter postulated that stereotypical behavior is not based solely on individuals but rather is imbedded within the organizational system, as for example, sex-segregated jobs. Sex-role spillover, a theory © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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suggested by Gutek and Morasch (1982), states that women and men carry over their gender-based roles into the workplace even when those roles are inappropriate. This phenomenon is most likely to occur when the gender ratio is skewed toward either women or men and is most obvious when women work in male-dominated jobs. When a woman works in a male-dominated job, her sex is salient in her position, leading to both her female and male coworkers questioning whether she is as capable as a man, which reﬂects the coworkers’ gender bias. As these researchers have demonstrated, stereotypes appear to play an essential role in how women and men are perceived and expected to behave. A deviation from their prescribed role may be viewed as a violation of the social order and may lead to the double standard of women being devalued and viewed as witchy and less competent. As a result women are caught in a double bind of balancing strength and autonomy with warmth and wanting to be liked; they can be discriminated against for their membership in any of the female stereotype subtypes, and the female stereotype works against them in a maledominated environment. The stereotypes reﬂect sexist beliefs that require examination. SEXISM Sexism is deﬁned by Forbes, Collinsworth, Jobe, Braum, and Wise (2007) as ‘‘the assignment of roles and privileges as a function of gender (p. 266) . . . [and] plays a central role in implementing and justifying the oppression of women’’ (p. 267). Glick and Fiske (1996, 1997, 2001) have further divided sexism into two interrelated components, hostile and benevolent sexism. The researchers deﬁned benevolent sexism as ‘‘attitudes toward women that are sexist in terms of viewing women stereotypically and in restricted roles but that are subjectively positive in feeling or tone (for the perceiver) and also tend to elicit behaviors typically categorized as prosocial (e.g., helping) or intimacy seeking (e.g., self-disclosure)’’ (1996, p. 491). Benevolent sexism, however, stems from the belief that women are inferior to men and that they require special attention or privileges because they are not men’s equals (Forbes et al.). Glick and Fiske (2001) deﬁne hostile sexism as ‘‘an adversarial view of gender relations in which women are perceived as seeking to control men whether through sexuality or feminist ideology’’ (p. 109). According to Glick and Fiske (1996, 1997, 2001, 2002), hostile and benevolent sexism are complementary to each other, with both demonstrating the inequality between women and men. For example, men who hold benevolent sexist beliefs about women (perceived by some as positive characteristics) likewise believe in hostile sexism (negative stereotypes) (Glick & Fiske, 1996). Sibley and Wilson (2004) found that the complementary effect between hostile and benevolent sexism by men is evident in men’s © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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belief of the various female stereotype subtypes. These results mirror the ﬁndings of Glick, Diebold, Balley-Werner, and Zhu (1997). This means that women who display attributes of the traditional subtype of women may be more likely to experience a more positive experience with men, whereas nontraditional women may bear the brunt of men’s negative actions. Hostile sexism is associated with negative evaluations of women, especially those who are perceived as threatening male hegemony within the workplace (Masser & Abrams, 2004). Masser and Abrams’ ﬁndings were in contrast to other researchers who found that benevolent sexism was the best predictor of negative evaluations of women candidates for positions within a male-dominated organization (Abrams, Viki, Masser, & Boehner, 2003; Glick et al.). Glick et al. asserted that when women’s behavior is in violation of the traditional gender role, they receive negative evaluations from those with benevolent sexism beliefs. Glick et al. and Masser and Abrams noted that men who display hostile sexism may also judge nontraditional women negatively; however, their judgments appear to be in response to feeling intimidated or threatened by these women. Lee’s (2002) qualitative research suggested that failure to conform to gender stereotypes was the basis for gendered bullying. She provided examples of women who were bullied because they didn’t adhere to appropriate female workplace conduct. In some cases, the bullying resulted in low performance-related pay and promotions, which is discrimination. Other examples suggested that women who were assertive were bullies, but women who were perceived as compliant and quiet, characteristics associated with femininity, were treated more favorably. In the communication study conducted by Conway and Vartanian (2000), women tended to demonstrate verbal passive-aggressive behavior. Terms deﬁning verbal passive-aggressive communication in their study were nagging, complaining, fussy, and whiny. The researchers raised the question as to whether the behavior of complaining is labeled as nagging because it is coming from a woman, and wondered if the same term would be applied if a man were complaining. Passiveaggressive communication may be considered more acceptable for women than aggressive behavior. Women are not supposed to be aggressive so that men can be aggressive and demonstrate their manhood (Johnson, 1997). When women don’t abide by this unspoken rule, it interferes with men’s ability to separate themselves from women, if women can be like men. This in turn interferes with male privilege. Women who fail to follow the stereotype of their gender by acting assertively are viewed negatively and become the all-encompassing witch. Not all women who violate female stereotypes are judged negatively. According to Glick et al. (1997), hostile sexists do not routinely evaluate career women negatively and may view them quite positively © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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when evaluating their work prowess. Women’s interpersonal skills, however, were viewed negatively by evaluators using words such as ‘‘aggressive, selﬁsh, greedy and cold’’ (p. 1330). Women managers, then, are more likely to be disliked because they violate the prescriptive gender stereotype; they may be seen as unable to relate well to coworkers, yet may be respected from a competency perspective. Sexism and sex-role stereotypes are closely aligned in the double standard of aggressive men and witchy women. They both can be observed in action in the communication styles that both genders use.

COMMUNICATION Women and men communicate differently (Arliss, 1991; Stout & McPhail, 1998; Tannen, 1990, 1994). This gendered communication demonstrates a subtle and sometimes invisible sexism that is effective in diminishing a woman’s status, demeaning her humanity, and minimizing her power (Stout & McPhail, 1998). Tannen (1990) stated that ‘‘language keeps women in their place’’ (p. 241). She indicated that women have a choice to make in their communication style—that of being perceived as a ‘‘strong leader or a good woman’’ (p. 241). Women who are assertive are labeled domineering, aggressive, witchy, or worse. Words such as bitch, nag, whore, and cunt are on the severe end of hostile and demeaning labels for women (Arliss), particularly when women step out of their social stereotype and are verbally aggressive and/or argumentative. Tannen contrasted a male speaker’s and female speaker’s style and how others perceive them in the following quote: [A man may] ﬁnd himself commanding more attention in public if that is what he wants. And in the process, he would better ﬁt the model of masculinity in our culture. But women who attempt to adjust their styles of speaking louder, longer, and with more self-assertion will also better ﬁt the model of masculinity. They may command more attention and be more respected, but they may also be disliked and disparaged as aggressive and unfeminine. (p. 239)

Nicotera and Rancer (1994) found that men are signiﬁcantly more likely to be argumentative and to express verbal aggression. Men who are not aggressive are often labeled wimps (Tannen, 1994). According to Infante (1981, 1985), those who are highly argumentative are viewed more positively than those who are not likely to argue. Men are expected to be more aggressive and forceful on the basis of their perceived higher status (Conway & Vartanian, 2000). Infante (1985) stated that an individual’s credibility is enhanced if he is argumentative. Women, then, may be perceived as less credible than men on the basis of lower argumentative behavior. Tannen (1994) asserted that women © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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who do not display ‘‘angry outbursts’’ (p. 182) may set themselves up for exploitation because their behavior may be perceived as avoidance of conﬂict. Smith et al. (1990) found, however, that when women are angry, they violate gender stereotypes, risk rejection, and will be viewed more negatively than angry men. Women are concerned with being liked and getting along so they have learned conﬂict-avoidant behavior and are more likely to seek consensus (Smith et al., 1990). Women typically enjoy using consensus as the preferred style rather than a style of ruling with an iron ﬁst (Tannen, 1994). Infante (1987) stated that ‘‘according to the cultural sex-role expectations model, arguing . . . is compatible with expectations for male behavior but incompatible with expectations for female behavior’’ (p. 175). Women perceive argumentativeness more negatively than men regardless of which gender is displaying the behavior (Nicotera & Rancer, 1994). Perceptions and evaluation of aggressive behavior varies on the basis of the gender of the individual (Harris & Knight-Bohnhoff, 1996). Argumentativeness and aggression are not the only forms of communication in which women and men are judged differently. The ways in which both genders are addressed differs on the basis of gender, with women more likely to be called by their ﬁrst names. Using a woman’s ﬁrst name in addressing her, rather than addressing her with her title, such as Dr. or Ms., is common, whereas men are more likely to be addressed with their titles (Stout & Kelly, 1990). Stout and Kelly found in their study that 72% of the time women managers were called by their ﬁrst names yet only 28% of the time were men referred to by their ﬁrst names. Titles are indicators of one’s status and demonstrate respect and equality when used by all individuals in communication. When titles are not equally used, for example when male physicians call female nurses by their ﬁrst names yet nurses are expected to use the title of Doctor when addressing a physician, it is a subtle demeaning of women and demonstrates male hegemony. According to Stout and McPhail (1998), ‘‘language has been used to exclude women from participation as equals and thus keeps women as invisible outsiders’’ (p. 81). One of the most common yet insidious examples of excluding women is the use of the default gender pronoun he or use of the word man, such as in mailman, policeman, mankind, etc. Though progress has been made in correcting the error, it is still a common communication trait. Wood’s (1994) study concluded that people do not think of women but automatically think of men when hearing or seeing in print the generic word man. Communication, both overt and covert, expresses the stereotypes and sexism that demean women at work and in society. It is the tool used by both genders to enact the double standard that portrays women negatively. But these three constructs—gender stereotypes, sexism, and communication—are cogs in a wheel of a patriarchal system. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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PATRIARCHY AND OPPRESSION Johnson (1997) asserted that ‘‘a society is patriarchal to the degree that it is male-dominated, male-identiﬁed, and male-centered . . . and involves as one of its key aspects the oppression of women’’ (p. 5). The world is viewed through a gendered lens using the male standard as the norm, yet the lens isn’t merely about women and men—it is a systemic framework of power, control, and competition. The framework is about leadership traits that are masculine, and according to Johnson, recognize that ‘‘power looks sexy on men but not on women’’ (p. 7). Patriarchy is ‘‘a culture embodied by everything from the content of everyday conversation to literature and ﬁlm . . . ideas about the nature of things . . . about social life and how it is supposed to be . . . what’s expected of people and about how they feel . . . standards about feminine beauty and masculine toughness . . . valuing of masculinity and maleness and the devaluing of femininity and femaleness’’ (Johnson, pp. 84–85). Both sexism and sex-role stereotypes are part of the patriarchal system that serves to negate women and maintain the framework of male hegemony, cultural misogyny, and the oppression of women (Johnson, 1997). According to Johnson, sexism is prejudice against women because it supports a culture of male privilege by supporting patriarchy and oppression. In contrast, anti-male stereotypes are not anchored in a culture that espouses maleness as disgusting and inferior as with femaleness. Femaleness is devalued in cultures throughout the world, supporting the oppression of women similar to the way racial minorities, the disabled, and gays and lesbians are devalued and oppressed in a patriarchal system. According to Friere (1968) and Johnson, oppression is a system of inequality where one group dominates another group and beneﬁts from the subordination. The oppressed internalize the thoughts and behavior of the oppressor and follow the oppressor’s prescribed behavior. Members of oppressed groups believe that the actions of the oppressor toward them are undertaken for their sake when instead it is for the oppressor’s best interests. Gradually members begin to internalize their oppression and their marginalization and believe that it is their own deﬁciencies, described by the oppressor, that are responsible for their low self-esteem, powerlessness, and hopelessness, and eventually they learn to hate themselves and the group to which they belong. The misuse of power lays the framework to oppressed group behavior (Friere, 1968; Johnson, 1997). The oppressor uses his power to cause the oppressed to submit and be compliant. Lee and Saeed (2001) posited that members of oppressed groups are reactive rather than rational and intentional. This reactive behavior continues to support the oppression. According to Freire (1968), members of oppressed groups are

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often silent when there is cause to express their concerns. Their silence reﬂects feelings of shame and embarrassment about their oppression. There is a resistance in acknowledging that as humans we are part of the patriarchal and oppressive system, and therefore we often fail to acknowledge its dynamic. Friere declared that oppression is successful because it is not recognized and can therefore become internalized. Internalized oppression occurs when women have learned to internalize the negative beliefs about women touted by their oppressor, often feeling inferior to men (Stout & McPhail, 1998). Women will often take on the voice of men, their oppressor, by stating, for example, that they would rather work with men than women, or would rather work for a male boss than a female boss. In essence, then, women become judgmental and critical of their own gender—they internalize the misogyny of the patriarchal system. It’s misogyny that changed the concept of the word witch from being that of a wise woman healer or midwife to that of an evil-doer, resulting in burning ‘‘witches’’ at the stake during the Middle Ages because of their healing abilities (Ashley, 1976; Ehrenreich & English, 1973; Johnson). Not all women necessarily experience oppression the same just because they are women, however. Race, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and other aspects of womanhood inﬂuence the degree of oppression one may both experience and internalize (Johnson, 1997). Pheterson (1986) provided a more detailed deﬁnition of the construct of internalized oppression: Internalized oppression is the incorporation and acceptance by individuals within an oppressed group of the prejudices against them within the dominant society. Internalized oppression is likely to consist of selfhatred, self-concealment, fear of violence, and feelings of inferiority, resignation, isolation, powerlessness, and gratefulness for being allowed to survive. Internalized oppression is the mechanism within an oppressive system for perpetuating domination not only by external controls but also by building subservience into the minds of the oppressed groups. (p. 148)

When women and men label women who are assertive, or who display what are typically labeled male characteristics, or who work in male-dominated occupations, as witchy, it serves to maintain the patriarchal system by keeping women ‘‘in their place’’ and promoting male privilege (Johnson, 1997). One aspect of oppression is horizontal hostility (HH) (Stone, 2007), also called horizontal violence (Friere, 1968; Lee & Saeed, 2001). HV occurs when the oppressed direct their anger and sense of helplessness and hopelessness about their oppression to members of their own group. This is a result of often being unable to exhibit feelings of © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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aggression against the dominant group for fear of reprisal. They also tend to lack pride with their own group and are hesitant to align themselves with those members who have the least power within their group (Dunn, 2003). This can result in self-hatred, an example of internalized oppression, where women (and men) are unable to challenge the patriarchal system and its male privilege; they may not even see patriarchy as a problem because it is so much a part of the fabric of their life from birth—it is the reality in which all human beings exist (Johnson, 1997). Stone’s (2007) qualitative study identiﬁed a number of issues that catalyze HH. These included jealousy, competition, and/or recognition for jobs, control, and power issues and female stereotypes where the women expected their coworkers to behave in traditionally female ways. Behaviors comprising the HH were sarcasm, verbal abuse, public reprimands, sabotage of another’s work, taking credit for another’s work, exclusion, gossip, whispering, and blaming. Simpson and Cohen (2004), acknowledging that women can be bullies, stated: Rather than challenging the masculine hegemony of management, some women—particularly those who employ bullying tactics—may be conforming to the masculine ethic that underpins many management practices. On this basis, while men and women may be involved as perpetrators in bullying situations, and while, irrespective of gender, much bullying involves the abuse of power, such behavior cannot be divorced from gender considerations. (p. 182)

A critical element to patriarchy and oppression is hatred of the very group in which the oppressed is a member. Women’s hostility to women is a complex phenomenon that requires discussion. WOMEN’S HOSTILITY TO WOMEN Women’s hostility to women (WHW) is a perplexing issue complicated by women’s anger, sexist beliefs, stereotypes (Cowan, Neighbors, DeLaMoreaux, & Behnke, 1998), and their oppression as a group (Johnson, 1997). When women oppress other women with their hostility to their own gender, they help maintain the patriarchal system (Acher, 1990). WHW occurs when women feel hostility toward other women and hold negative stereotypes of women as a group and therefore reject other women (Cowan et al.). This phenomenon of believing negative stereotypes about one’s own group has been called false consciousness by Jost and Banaji (1994), and it is a framework that maintains and justiﬁes the status quo of patriarchy. WHW has its roots in childhood. Tannen’s (1990) research with preteen girls’ conversations with their friends demonstrated that they become judgmental of other girls who dress in expensive or designer © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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clothing. Tannen asserted that ‘‘appearing better than others is a violation of the girls’ egalitarian ethic: People are supposed to stress their connections and similarity’’ (p. 217). This ethic is in contrast to boys’ socialization, where displaying their supremacy and boasting is an advantage in their male friendships. If girls boast and appear better than their friends, they risk rejection by their peers at a time when afﬁliation with their friends is paramount. As a result, girls and women will often hide their successes and accomplishments to avoid loss of approval from their friends or the actual loss of friendships. The behavior of concealing success can later result in women not receiving the recognition deserved, promotions, and future opportunities. Loya, Cowan, and Walters (2006) asserted that WHW occurs when women feel inadequate and dissatisﬁed with themselves, and project those negative feelings onto their own gender, in a sense scapegoating other women. The researchers stated this develops ‘‘because socially acceptable prejudices about women already exist. Instead of boosting her ingroup or derogating outgroups, a woman with a threatened sense of self may choose to derogate her own group’’ (p. 9024). This scapegoating enables her to view other women as equally inadequate as herself, thereby raising her own self-esteem. A woman’s self-esteem was found to be a critical element in determining the likelihood of that woman’s hostility toward other women (Cowan et al., 1998). For women, one’s self-esteem is often tied to how they view their attractiveness. Media images of attractive women stimulate WHW because women compare their own bodies to the bodies and attractiveness of the media images, resulting in a lowered sense of self and a negative impression of their own bodies (Loya et al., 2006). Rodin, Silberstein, and StriegelMoore (1984) found that women’s negative views of their own bodies is so pervasive as to be the norm. This can result in projecting their discontent on to other women, often resenting them, and stimulating further hostility toward them. The researchers asserted, however, that the hostility that’s generated emanates from devaluing or discounting other women’s attractiveness, not in feeling hostile about the images themselves. The authors claimed that ‘‘women who are more hostile toward women may make themselves feel better, or at least . . . from feeling worse, when competing with other women who are more favorable on a dimension traditionally valued in women (e.g., attractiveness) by devaluing or discounting the attributes of the other woman’’ (p. 581). Examining Western beauty standards from this perspective has been argued to represent the oppression of women (Forbes et al., 2007). Jeffreys (2005) stated that beauty standards and practices diminish women’s self-conﬁdence, focus attention on the superﬁcial aspects of womanhood rather than on a woman’s competencies, and reduce women to sex objects. Forbes and her colleagues argued that women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies reinforces patriarchy, and Jeffreys © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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indicated that the current beauty standards and practices maintain gender inequality. Forbes et al. also found in their study with women and men that an association existed between sexism, hostility toward women, and the Western standards and practices of what constitutes beauty. When few women are employed in a male-dominated workplace, they are known as tokens (Kanter, 1977). Kanter discovered that, when women ﬁnd themselves as tokens, they may disengage in their association with other women, believing that it will improve their standing with their male colleagues. The token woman will come to believe that, to belong with the guys, she needs to detach from the other women to the degree that she begins to incorporate the same prejudices against women as do her male peers. As a female token, her gender becomes particularly salient if she is promoted because the promotion may be due, in part, to her gender. As a result, she is viewed as a competitor by the other women with whom she works, leading to rivalry relationships. Kanter argued that the men with whom the tokens work establish a game of loyalty in which the women are compared to each other on the basis of the amount of loyalty they demonstrate to their male coworkers. One of the aspects of the game is for the women, sometimes unconsciously, to turn against their own gender, collude with the men, and interfere with hiring and promotional practices of other women by criticizing and devaluing them, thereby allowing the men to maintain their dominance. Harris (1974) found that females were more aggressive to other females than to males. Women tend to use covert aggression in their abuse of other women, such as exclusion and gossip (Mizrahi, 2004). Bjorkqvist, Osterman, and Lagerspetz (1994) identiﬁed a variety of aggressive behaviors women use toward each other in addition to exclusion and gossip: negative facial expressions, sharing secrets, spreading rumors, sharing nasty comments about another, and ignoring, to name a few. Both men and women prefer to use covert aggression tactics, with women more likely to use social manipulation than men. Covert aggression by both genders is an attempt to disguise abusive behavior in hopes of preventing retaliation and/or social ostracizing. Likewise, covert aggression was found to be the more prevalent form of aggression in Baron’s (Baron et al., 1999) study. According to Loya, Cowan, and Walters (2006), one catalyst of WHW is any situation that has the power to stimulate negative feelings in women about themselves as women. Heterosexual women who are dependent on men for their social identity tended to devalue other women (Cowan et al., 1998; Henderson & Cunningham, 1993). Cowen and her colleagues also found that women who were hostile to other women tended to be younger, dissatisﬁed with their personal and sexual lives, less emotionally intimate with their partners, more hostile to men, and were more accepting of interpersonal and sexual violence toward women. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Mizrahi (2004) raised the questions as to whether WHW may constitute gender harassment, a form of sexual harassment, and, if so, whether it can rise to the level of a sexual harassment hostile environment claim. Mizrahi argued that the answers are yes because in many instances women harass and devalue each other because of their gender: ‘‘Moreover, female-on-female harassment is often created by sex segregation and discrimination in the workplace, and falls squarely under the coverage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’’ (p. 1579). Through the Civil Rights Act, employers are prohibited from discriminating, which includes harassment, against any employee on the basis of her or his protected class such as sex, race, color, religion, and national origin (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1990). She explained the relationship of female-to-female harassment, Title VII, and the superiority of men at work in the following quote: Some may argue that Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination based on sex was meant to address male supremacy, and that a recognition of female-on-female harassment would be a signiﬁcant departure from Title VII’s goal. However, legal recognition of female-on-female sex harassment does work to combat male supremacy in the workplace. As explained through this chapter the exclusion of women from maledominated jobs and from positions of authority creates hostile relations among women in the workplace. Holding employers liable for the dynamics that they have created among women shifts the focus back to segregation and thus creates additional incentives for employers to integrate their workplaces and empower female workers. (p. 1620)

Gender harassment is a form of hostile work environment sexual harassment characterized by unwanted behavior that creates a negative work environment and can be psychologically injurious (Fitzgerald & HessonMcInnis, 1989; Lee, 2001; Piotrkowski, 1998; Yoder and Aniakudo). The hostile work environment classiﬁcation of sexual harassment is surrounded by ambiguity (Fitzgerald & Ormerod, 1993). Yoder and Aniakudo and others (Schultz, 1998; Weiner & Hurt, 1999) suggested that it is not the behavior alone that determines whether the incidents are hostile, but consideration of the environmental context is required to make the determination. Yoder and Aniakudo posited that ‘‘the gender-typing of an occupation, the gender composition of the work groups, and the organizational climate regarding gender all may impact on what is perceived as harassing behavior’’ (p. 254). The authors stated that these issues are broader than the workplace and reﬂect societal mores as well. In the ﬁrst sexual harassment case that was heard by the United States Supreme Court, Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson in 1986, the court held that a victim could hold an employer liable for a sexual hostile work environment if the conduct the victim was subjected to was because of her sex (Meritor v. Vinson, 1986). In 1998 the Supreme Court © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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heard another sexual harassment case, Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., addressing male-to-male sexual harassment (Oncale v. Sundowner, 1998). The court stated that sexual harassment did not need to be the result of sexual desire to constitute sex discrimination/harassment on the basis of one’s sex. Yale law professor Vicki Schultz conceptualized sexual harassment more broadly than many courts and the scholarly literature (1998). Schultz identiﬁed sexual harassment as both sexual and nonsexual means to devalue women and ensure they are unsuccessful in maledominant domains. Her thesis stated that the courts fail sexual harassment victims by not addressing the totality of a woman’s experience in the workplace—the subtle and not so subtle ongoing daily discrimination and inequities along with sexual harassment. She asserted that they are one and the same with the intent to hold women from progressing within the organization and their careers. Since the Oncale ruling, courts and scholars have focused on maleto-male harassment and gay and lesbian harassment, and, according to Mizrahi (2004), ‘‘nonsexualized female-on-female harassment remains invisible as well as undertheorized’’ (p. 1584). Schultz (1998) believed that a major component of sexual harassment evolved from job segregation, which is often based on sex segregation. Sex segregation in the workplace sets the stage for sex stereotyping to occur (Masser & Abrams, 2004; Deaux, 1995). Schultz and Mizrahi asserted that sex segregation creates the dynamics of WHW in the form of harassment, where women are more likely to undermine each other. Mizrahi (2004) took an additional approach, indicating that WHW is perpetuated by women who are jealous of their female peers who are advancing and have more power than other women—therefore recognizing that WHW is sex-based. Mizrahi posited that an examination of the workplace climate, with attention to the environment and the types of relationship dynamics among the women, would provide needed information to determine if the hostility is sex-based. Mizrahi further explained sex-based harassment in her article: In addition, when the reason for the harassment is female-speciﬁc, the same ‘‘but for’’ test can be used to determine that the ‘‘because of sex’’ element has been satisﬁed: If only a woman could be targeted for the harassment, it is by deﬁnition sex-based. For example, when a woman harasses a female coworker out of jealousy regarding a female-speciﬁc trait, the harassment can be considered sex-based. Recall, too, that sex segregation leads to sex being salient, so that women are more likely to compare themselves to each other along gendered lines than they would be in an integrated environment. (p. 1617)

Mizrahi (2004) stated that courts should address three elements to determine if WHW may constitute female to female harassment: (a) © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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both horizontal and vertical segregation; (b) the relationship between the target and the perpetrator as well as the overall relationships among the women, the role the men play in impacting the women’s relationships; and (c) whether the behavior was female to female and/or any other indicators that merit attention such as a general atmosphere of misogyny. CONCLUSION Perhaps change is looming in perceptions of strong ‘‘masculine’’ women. Ledet and Henley’s study (2000) demonstrated that power was associated with masculine characteristics. The researchers found that women in senior positions within their workplace were seen as masculine in comparison to both women and men in lower positions. This result was viewed in a positive light, indicating that female stereotypes of dependent, soft, and unassertive were not associated with women in senior leadership roles, and therefore may be changing. Examining the results of Ledet and Henley’s study, and the research on sexism, stereotypes, and communication, is a critical step in creating a society of equality. Framing these constructs within the patriarchal system of oppression may add a more comprehensive approach to dismantling the patriarchy that has existed for thousands of years (Johnson, 1997) and continues to exert its inﬂuence on the double standard between women and men. Changing patriarchy is a challenge that must be stimulated and propelled forward by not only the scholarly research but by organizations who currently support male privilege; and the women and men who are a part of the patriarchal system must know there are alternative paths. REFERENCES Abrams, D., Viki, G. T., Masser, B., & Bohner, G. (2003). Perceptions of stranger and acquaintance rape: The role of benevolent and hostile sexism in victim blame and rape proclivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 111–125. Acher, J. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender and Society, 4, 139–158. Arliss, L. P. (1991). Gender communication. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Ashley, J. A. (1976). Hospitals, paternalism, and the role of the nurse. Teachers College: Columbia University. Baron, R. A., Neuman, J. H., & Geddes, D. (1999). Social and personal determinants of workplace aggression: Evidence for the impact of perceived injustice and the type A behavior pattern. Aggressive Behavior, 25, 281–296. Biernat, M., & Kobrynowicz, D. (1997). Gender and race-based standards of competence: Lower minimum standards but higher ability standards for devalued groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 544–557. Bjorkqvist, K., Osterman, K., & Lagerspetz, K. M. J. (1994). Sex differences in covert aggression among adults. Aggressive Behavior, 20, 27–33. Retrieved on January 29, 2006, from EBSCO database.

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Burgess, D., & Borgida, E. (1999). Who women are, who women should be: Descriptive and prescriptive gender stereotyping in sex discrimination. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 5(3), 665–692. Conway, M., & Vartanian, L. R. (2000). A status account of gender stereotypes: Beyond communality and agency. Sex Roles, 43(3/4), 181–199. Retrieved on June 3, 2007, from ProQuest database. Cowan, G., Neighbors, C., DeLaMoreaux, J., & Behnke, C. (1998). Women’s hostility toward women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22, 267–284. Retrieved on May 3, 2007, from EBSCO database. Deaux, K. (1995). How basic can you be? The evolution of research on gender stereotypes. Journal of Social Issues, 51(1), 11–21. Retrieved on April 16, 2007, from ProQuest database. Devine, P. (1989). Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 5–18. Retrieved on March 28, 2007, from ProQuest database. Dunn, H. (2003). Horizontal violence among nurses in the operating room. AORN Journal, 78, 977–988. Eagly, A. H. (1987). Sex differences in social-role interpretation. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Eagly, A. H., & Johnson, B. T. (1990). Gender and leadership style: A metaanalysis. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 233–256. Eagly, A. H., Karau, S. J., & Makhijani, M. G. (1995). Gender and the effectiveness of leaders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 125–145. Eagly, A. H., Makhijani, M. G., & Klonsky, B. G. (1992). Gender and the evaluation of leaders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 3–22. Eagly, A. H., & Mladinic, A. (1994). Are people prejudiced against women? Some answers from research on attitudes, gender stereotypes, and judgments of competence. In W. Stroebe & M. Hewstone (Eds.), European review of social psychology: Vol. 5 (pp. 1–35). New York: John Wiley. Ehrenreich, B., & English, D. (1973). Witches, midwives and nurses: A history of women healers. Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press. Faludi, S. (1992). Backlash: The undeclared war against American women. New York: Doubleday. Fiske, S. T. (1993). Controlling other people: The impact of power on stereotyping. American Psychologist, 48, 621–628. Retrieved on March 9, 2007, from ProQuest database. Fiske, S. T., Bersoff, D. N., Borgida, E., Deaux, K., & Heilman, M. E. (1991). Social science research on trial: Use of sex stereotyping research in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. American Psychologist, 46, 1049–1060. Retrieved on March 9, 2007, from ProQuest database. Fiske, S. T., & Glick, P. (1995). Ambivalence and stereotypes cause sexual harassment: A theory with implications for organizational change. Journal of Social Issues, 51, 97–116. Retrieved on July 19, 2005, from EBSCO database. Fiske, S. T., & Stevens, L. E. (1993). What’s so special about sex? Gender stereotyping and discrimination. In S. Oskamp & M. Costanzo (Eds.), Gender issues in contemporary society (pp. 173–196). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Fitzgerald, L. F. (1993). Sexual harassment: Violence against women in the workplace. American Psychologist, 48, 1070–1076.

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Fitzgerald, L. F., & Hesson-McInnis, M. (1989). The dimensions of sexual harassment: A structural analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 35(3), 309–326. Fitzgerald. L. F., & Ormerod, A. J. (1993). Breaking the silence: The sexual harassment of women in academia and the workplace. In F. L. Denmark & M. S. Paludi (Eds.), Psychology of women: A handbook of issues and theories. (pp. 553–581). Westport, CT: Greenwood. Forbes, G. B., Collinsworth, L. L., Jobe, R. L., Braum, K. D., & Wise, L. M. (2007). Sexism, hostility toward women, and endorsement of beauty ideals and practices: Are beauty ideals associated with oppressive beliefs? Sex Roles, 56, 265–273. Franke, K. M. (1997). What’s wrong with sexual harassment? Stanford Law Review, 49, 691–772. Freire, P. (1968). Pedagogy of the oppressed. NY: Seabury. Glick, P. (1991). Trait-based and sex-based discrimination in occupational prestige, occupational salary, and hiring. Sex Roles, 25, 351–378. Glick, P., Diebold, J., Balley-Werner, B., & Zhu, L. (1997). The two faces of Adam: Ambivalent sexism and polarized attitudes toward women. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 1323–1334. Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (1996). The ambivalent sexism inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 491–512. Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (1997). Hostile and benevolent sexism: Measuring ambivalent sexist attitudes toward women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 119–135. Glick P., & Fiske, S. T. (2001). An ambivalent alliance: Hostile and benevolent sexism as complementary justiﬁcations for gender inequality. American Psychologist, 56, 109–118. Retrieved on May 20, 2007, from EBSCO database. Glick, P., & Fiske S. T. (2002). Ambivalent responses. American Psychologist, 57, 444–446. Retrieved on May 15, 2007, from EBSCO database. Gutek, B. A. (1985). Sex in the workplace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Gutek, B. A., & Morasch, B. (1982). Sex-rations, sex-role spillover, and sexual harassment of women at work. Journal of Social Issues, 38, 55–74. Harris, M. B. (1974) Mediators between frustration and aggression in a ﬁeld experiment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10, 561–571. Harris, M. B. (1994). Gender of subject and target as mediators of aggression. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24(5), 453–471. Harris, M. B., & Knight-Bohnhoff, K. (1996). Gender and aggression I: Perceptions of aggression. Sex Roles, 35(1/2), 1–25. Retrieved on January 3, 2004, from ProQuest database. Heim, P. (1995). Getting beyond ‘‘she said, he said.’’ Nursing Administration Quarterly, 19(2), 6–18. Henderson, S. N., & Cunningham, J. N. (1993). Women’s emotional dependence on men: Scale construction and test of Russianoff’s hypothesis. Sex Roles, 28, 317–334. Jeffreys, S. (2005). Beauty and misogyny: Harmful cultural practices in the West. New York: Routledge. Johnson, A. (1997). The gender knot: Unraveling our patriarchal legacy. Philadelphia: Temple University.

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Jost, J. T., & Banaji, M. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-justiﬁcation and the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 3, 1–27. Infante, D. A. (1981). Trait argumentativeness as a predictor of communicative behavior in situations requiring argument. Central States Speech Journal, 32, 265–272. Infante, D. A. (1985). Inducing women to be more argumentative: Source credibility effects. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 13, 33–44. Infante, D. A. (1987). Aggressiveness. In J. C. McCroskey & J. A. Daly (Eds.), Personality and interpersonal communication (pp. 157–192). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Kanter, R. M. (1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basics Books. Ledet, L. M., & Henley, T. B. (2000). Perceptions of women’s power as a function of position within an organization. The Journal of Psychology, 134(5), 515–526. Retrieved on April 24, 2007, from ProQuest database. Lee, D. (2001). ‘‘He didn’t sexually harass me, as in harassed for sex . . . he was just horrible’’: Women’s deﬁnitions of unwanted male sexual conduct at work. Women’s Studies International Forum, 24(1), 25–38. Retrieved on June 26, 2005, from ProQuest database. Lee, D. (2002). Gendered workplace bullying in the restructured UK civil service. Personnel Review, 31(1/2), 205–228. Retrieved on June 26, 2005, from ProQuest database. Lee, M. B., & Saeed, I. (2001). Oppression and horizontal violence: The case of nurses in Pakistan. Nursing Forum, 36(1), 15–24. Retrieved on March 23, 2006, from EBSCO database. Loya, B., Cowan, G., & Walters, C. (2006). The role of social comparison and body consciousness in women’s hostility toward women. Sex Roles, 54, 575–583. Masser, B. M., & Abrams, D. (2004). Reinforcing the glass ceiling: The consequences of hostile sexism for female managerial candidates. Sex Roles, 51(9/10), 609–615. Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson 477 U.S. 57 (1986). Mizrahi, R. (2004). Hostility to the presence of women: Why women undermine each other in the workplace and the consequences for Title VII. Yale Law Journal, 113, 1579–1621. Nicotera, A. M., & Rancer, A. S. (1994). The inﬂuence of sex on self-perceptions and social stereotyping of aggressive communication predispositions. Western Journal of Communication, 58(4), 283–307. Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, 523 U.S. 75 (1998). Pheterson, G. (1986). Alliances between women: Overcoming internalized oppression and internalized domination. Signs, 12(1), 146–160. Piotrkowski, C. S. (1998). Gender harassment, job satisfaction, and distress among employed white and minority women. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 3(1), 33–43. Retrieved on April 25, 2004, from ProQuest database. Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989). Rodin, J., Silberstein, L. R., & Striegel-Moore, R. H. (1984). Women and weight: A normative discontent. In T. B. Sonderegger (Ed.), Psychology and gender (pp. 267–307). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

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Schultz, V. (1998). Reconstructing sexual harassment. Yale Law Journal, 107, 1683–1796. Sibley, C. G., & Wilson, S. (2004). Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexist attitudes toward positive and negative sexual female subtypes. Sex Roles, 51, 687–696. Simpson, R., & Cohen, C. (2004). Dangerous work: The gendered nature of bullying in the context of higher education. Gender, Work and Organization, 11(2), 163–186. Smith, K. C., Ulch, S. E., Cameron, J. E., Cumberland, J. A., Musgrave, M. A., & Tremblay, N. (1990). Gender-related effects in the perception of anger expression. Sex Roles, 20(9/10), 487–499. Stone, E. A. (2007). Women and workplace communication: A study of horizontal hostility. Unpublished master’s thesis, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR. Stout, K. D., & Kelly, M. J. (1990). Differential treatment based on sex. Afﬁlia, 5(2), 60–71. Stout, K., & McPhail, B. (1998). Confronting sexism and violence against women: A challenge for social work. Menlo Park, CA: Addison Wesley Longman. Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation. New York: Ballantine Books. Tannen, D. (1994). Talking from 9 to 5. New York: Avon Books. Troyer, C., & Younts, C. W. (1997). Whose expectations matter? The relative power of ﬁrst and second order expectations in determining social inﬂuence. The American Journal of Sociology, 103(3), 692–732. Retrieved on May 25, 2007, from ProQuest database. Turkel, A. R. (2004). The hand that rocks the cradle rocks the boat: The empowerment of women. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 32(1), 41–53. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1990). Policy guidance on current issues of sexual harassment. Retrieved on April 5, 2005, from www.eeoc. gov/policy/docs/currentissues.html. Wall, H. M., & Barry, A. (1985). Student expectations for male and female instructor behavior. In R. E. Cheatham (Ed.), Women in higher education: Traditions, transitions and revolutions (pp. 283–291). St. Louis: Saint Louis University, Metropolitan College, and SAASS, Inc. Wiener, R. L., & Hurt, L. E. (1999). An interdisciplinary approach to understanding social sexual conduct at work. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 5, 556–595. Wood, J. (1994). Gendered lives: Communication, gender, and culture. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Wood, W., & Karten, S. J. (1986). Sex differences in interaction style as a product of perceived sex differences in competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 341–347. Retrieved on July 28, 2007, from ProQuest database. Yoder, J. D., & Aniakudo, P. (1996). When pranks become harassment: The case of African American women ﬁreﬁghters. Sex Roles, 35(5/6), 253–270. Retrieved on March 8, 2004, from ProQuest database.

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Chapter 2

Lessons from My Father: In My Own Voice Susan Lehrman

When I was 16 and beginning to think about colleges and majors, I went to my father for advice. My father was a man who appreciated education. He was one of the ﬁrst college graduates in his extended family and was, at the time, working on an advanced degree. Yet his advice, at least by today’s standards, seems sadly outdated. ‘‘The plan is for you to go to the local state school, where they have an excellent home economics teaching program. Money is tight and I need to save it to send your brothers away to school. After all, they will be supporting families, while you will have a husband to support you. Plus, you have great interpersonal, family-oriented skills. This is clearly the right path for you.’’ While my father’s advice is sure to set modern teeth on edge, in the mid-1960s it was not that unusual. Although my mother worked parttime to help support our family, she had never been to college, nor had any of my aunts. My father was advanced enough to support the notion of a college education for his two daughters, but his vision was limited to consideration of typical ‘‘female’’ occupations: teaching, social work, or nursing. Don’t get me wrong, these are ﬁne occupations for men or women, and my undergraduate degree in secondary education from our local university is one that I am proud of and one that has informed my lifelong love of learning and commitment to the ﬁeld of education. But who knows what arenas I might have explored if I had not been limited by these early constraints? And it was not just my father who limited my horizons. During high school, although I clearly had excellent © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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math and science skills, I was encouraged to take chorus, acting, and domestic science electives in my junior and senior year rather than advanced science and math courses. Despite these limitations, I have had an engaging career that I look back on with pride. I taught high school in Alaska and Australia during my early postbaccalaureate years. I pursued a master’s degree in public health, followed by 12 years in hospital management, in my late 20s and 30s. I received my PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in my early 40s. I taught at the college level and then became a higher education administrator in my late 40s and 50s. As discordant as this career pathway might appear, my internal compass has consistently led me in the direction of using my interpersonal and organizational skills to start new programs and to solve sticky organizational problems. My ﬁrst management position was an entry-level job in a hospital. As fate would have it, my boss passed away very suddenly when I had been in the position for a short time. The organization found itself in a tough position. My boss had been spearheading several important projects, and there was no one waiting in the wings to step into his position. After discussing the situation with an individual who was to play an important mentoring role in my life, I went to the president and said that I would be willing to step into my boss’s role on an interim basis. His ﬁrst inclination was, literally, to laugh. I was young and inexperienced and most of the individuals I would be supervising were relatively uneducated older males—a tough group for anyone to control. In the ﬁnal analysis, the organization put me into the interim slot, ‘‘but only until we ﬁnd a man who can take on the position.’’ And with the warning, ‘‘These guys are going to try to make mincemeat of you, so don’t do anything to rock the boat!’’ While my father may have been on the wrong track regarding my college education, he left me with a set of values that served me well in this interim leadership position. He hammered home to all his children, ‘‘If you accept a job, give 110% and do anything and everything within ethical bounds to make a success of it. I don’t care if you have to work 80 hours a week! Never give up!’’ With this in mind, I determined that I would have to not only work hard, but be smart. It became clear to me early on that my new department was grossly overstaffed. Although I had been told not to rock the boat, I knew the hospital was experiencing ﬁnancial difﬁculties. Another piece of wisdom from my father was to, ‘‘Do the right thing, even if it isn’t the popular thing.’’ As natural attrition began to occur in my department, I again turned to my mentor and became convinced that the right thing to do was to © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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reshufﬂe the workload to accommodate these losses without ﬁlling the vacated positions. Observing my actions from afar, seasoned directors from other departments strongly advised me that I was making a terrible mistake. Not only would the individuals I supervised raise a major ruckus, when the next budgetary cycle came around administration would surely require across-the-board labor cuts and I would be placed in the untenable position of having to cut more deeply than my department could bear. Far better, they said, to keep the labor budget padded so I could demonstrate my effectiveness in reducing staff at that time. While I could see the inherent logic in my peers’ recommendations, I could not get my father’s voice out of my head. I called together my employees and told them what I intended to do and why. I told them that taking the right road, versus the easy road, would set us apart as a department that would never ask for resources it didn’t need and that, in the end, we would all be better off for it. I assured them that I would not ask them to work beyond their capacity, but that together we could work smarter and save resources. To my astonishment, they agreed! As a team we set about to make our department as efﬁcient as possible. When the predicted time came for across the board cuts, every department but mine was cut by 10%. There was no discussion; the other department heads were simply told to ‘‘do it.’’ My department, on the other hand, was rewarded for demonstrating its good stewardship by being allowed to propose a zero-based budget; as long as we could justify what was needed, we could have it. In the end, I was given the job permanently and a number of positions followed with the same organization in which I was asked to tackle difﬁcult situations that required the cooperation of the entire team to succeed. I learned a number of very valuable lessons from this early management experience that have continued to shape my leadership style to this day: Be transparent with those who work for you and with those you report to. Engage employees at all levels in organizational change. Do the right thing even if it appears the tougher course to follow. Take reasonable risks and do so courageously. Actively seek out mentors, and listen to them carefully, although in the end you have to follow your own intuition. In my late 30s, I made the difﬁcult decision to pursue a PhD that would eventually take me out of health care and into higher education. When I was 42, I completed my doctoral work, had my ﬁrst and only child, and along with my husband made the decision to move from San Francisco to upstate New York. I took a 50% pay cut and became ‘‘the oldest junior faculty’’ at a small college teaching in the health MBA program. While it had been my intention to leave my days as a manager behind me, this was not to be. Just as I was going through the tenure © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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process, a leadership crisis occurred in my academic department. With no one to assume the lead, a critically needed accreditation was in jeopardy. After a failed search for the right candidate, and with much hesitancy, I said I would take the position as long as my colleagues agreed to support me and to work hard to successfully complete the accreditation process. They did, and we were successful. Not long after this my institution announced its intention of spinning off all of its graduate programs in order to maintain its status as a liberal arts institution. With no one else able or willing to ﬁll the slot, and with many fears about my ability to run a college, I agreed to serve as the founding president of Union Graduate College. Starting a college, even one that has deep roots in a very old and prestigious undergraduate institution, has been in many ways like starting a new enterprise. The lessons from my ﬁrst big management position have, however, continued to serve me well. Pulling together the right team to share my vision of a growing, graduate-only institution, rooted in the liberal arts but deeply tied to the exciting things going on in the local business and professional communities, has been my biggest and most rewarding challenge. Together we have followed my father’s injunction to ‘‘give 110% and do anything and everything within ethical bounds to make a success of it.’’ Research shows that women tend to pursue much more circular career paths than men. Indeed, my career path has not conformed to the norm. I have made lateral moves because they were more interesting to me than upward moves. I have accepted jobs that paid much less than prior jobs. In part this may be the result of early implicit or explicit injunctions against aiming high. Ironically, however, being freed from the push to achieve at all costs may have allowed me to follow a personally rewarding but atypical career path. Perhaps all is well that ends well, but wouldn’t it have been so much better if I—if all of us—were encouraged to follow our own dreams but to dream as big and wide as we wanted to? As I mentor young women, I share my father’s early injunctions about college to encourage them to confront their own personal, hopefully less explicit but often just as damaging, gender stereotypes. After all, while anyone at any time can ply us with verbiage intended to limit our horizons, it is only when we internalize and accept these stereotypes that we are truly limited.

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Chapter 3

Self-Esteem and High-Achieving Women Tina Stern

INTRODUCTION The psychology literature is full of empirical studies and theoretical articles on self-esteem, and there is considerable research on women and achievement. Yet, there is relatively little research on the intersection of gender, self-esteem, and achievement, and even less research on the concerns experienced by high-achieving women that may be related to their self-esteem. Over the past 40 years, psychologists have proposed that successful women have characteristics thought to be associated with high self-esteem (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987; Fitzgerald & Harmon, 2001) and, conversely, that high-achieving women experience self-doubt, success-related fears, and fail to internalize their successes (Horner, 1969; Clance & Imes, 1978). Both hypotheses have, at times, received attention in the professional literature. Vocational development theorists agree that women’s achievement is inﬂuenced by a complex interaction among various individual characteristics, such as self-esteem, with an array of external and social inﬂuences (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987; Fitzgerald & Harmon, 2001; Gomez et al., 2001; Richie et al., 1997). The purpose of this chapter is to examine literature on the relationship between selfesteem and achievement in women and to learn more about the concerns that high-achieving women experience that are related to their self-esteem. Research on the relationship among self-esteem and achievement, leadership, and performance has been conducted in diverse disciplines. Counseling psychologists who study career development have

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examined the role of self-esteem and related characteristics in vocational behavior (Betz, 2001). The disciplines of business management (Pierce & Gardner, 2004) and applied psychology (Judge & Bono, 2001; Schwalbe, Gecas, & Baxter, 1986) have examined the role of self-esteem as it relates to job performance. Personality and social psychologists, along with sociologists, have studied self-esteem as it relates to a wide array of behavioral outcomes including performance (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003; Rosenberg, Schooler, Schoenbach, & Rosenberg, 1995), and clinical psychologists have been interested in the relationship between self-esteem and behavioral choices (Baumeister et al.). In the absence of research directly on the topic of women’s achievement and self-esteem and self-esteem concerns, this chapter will review and integrate some of the related literature from the areas of vocational development, management, and social psychology. The chapter begins with an examination of some of the literature in the area of vocational development that describes the characteristics of highachieving women and the role of self-esteem, self-concept, and selfefﬁcacy in their vocational behavior. The chapter continues with a description of some of the research challenges in the study of selfesteem and reviews the literature on self-esteem and performance. This is followed by a description of a theoretical approach to the study of self-esteem that will then be used to review seven qualitative studies of high-achieving women for possible self-esteem–related content.

CHARACTERISTICS RELATED TO WOMEN’S VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR Self-Esteem and Self-Efﬁcacy Vocational development theories have long recognized that traits, such as self-esteem, and other individual characteristics interact with environmental conditions and constraints to inﬂuence vocational behavior (Fitzgerald & Harmon, 2001). Self-concept, as distinct from self-esteem, was among the traits considered by early vocational development theorists to be central in the process of career development (Betz, 2001). Early theorists proposed that people developed a vocational self-concept that inﬂuenced their choices. In addition to selfconcept, some researchers emphasized the importance of self-esteem in career selection (Betz). Betz predicted that people with high self-esteem would make more congruent and fulﬁlling vocational choices than those with low self-esteem and that they would be more certain about their choices. Regarding internal characteristics related to success, recent research in the area of vocational behavior has shifted focus away from selfesteem and self-concept as central to the process of vocational choice to © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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an emphasis on the importance of self-efﬁcacy. In contrast to selfesteem, which Betz (2001) deﬁned as a general belief about one’s importance and value, she deﬁned self-efﬁcacy as beliefs concerning one’s ability to perform a speciﬁc behavior or a class of behaviors. Betz has applied the principles of Bandura’s work on self-efﬁcacy to the development of a theory of vocational behavior. Betz identiﬁed various domains of career self-efﬁcacy, including occupational self-efﬁcacy, task-speciﬁc self-efﬁcacy, career decision-making self-efﬁcacy, and selfefﬁcacy and vocational interests. Career self-efﬁcacy is related to outcome expectations, vocational aspirations, academic success, career barriers, vocational interests, occupational congruence, and social support (Phillips & Imhoff, 1997; Fassinger, 2002). The importance of selfefﬁcacy to the vocational choice process has received considerable research support and is an important theoretical advance, particularly for understanding women’s vocational behavior (Betz; Fitzgerald & Harmon, 2001). Fassinger (2005) proposed that high self-efﬁcacy is a key ingredient to success for women. Low self-efﬁcacy is ‘‘probably the most pervasive and intractable internal barrier to a woman’s career success’’ (Fassinger, 2002, p. 31) as it results in her own underestimation of competencies, talents, and capabilities. Gender Typing In addition to self-efﬁcacy, Fassinger (2005) and Phillips and Imhoff (1997) emphasized the critical inﬂuence of internalized gender socialization on ‘‘vocationally relevant attitudes, beliefs, and personal traits contributing to the self-concept’’ (Fassinger, 2005, p. 99). Deﬁning characteristics of female gender socialization that inﬂuence vocational behavior include nurturance, caretaking, cooperativeness, denial of one’s own needs, male-referential self-worth judgments, expectations for marriage and children, and avoidance of cross-typed interests and behaviors (Fassinger, 2005). Such female-typed characteristics manifest themselves in the workplace as a range of ‘‘well-documented selfconcept problems for women including compromised decision making, self-doubt, low aspirations, underutilization of talents and abilities, lack of conﬁdence, low expectations for success, role conﬂict, guilt, and inordinate concern over the judgment of others’’ (Fassinger, 2005, p. 99). An additional consequence of this cycle is that women with weak selfconcept will be more likely to blame themselves for external discrimination, which will reduce the likelihood that they will take effective action against it, perpetuating ‘‘a cycle of self-doubt and self-denigration’’ (Fassinger, 2005, p. 99). Gender socialization can also result in depressed entitlement (Fassinger, 2002). Given the numerous negative consequences of strong gender-typing for occupational advancement, it is not surprising that high-achieving women are low in many © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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female-typed characteristics, such as the ones described above, and are high in some traits typically thought of as masculine, such as agency, instrumentality, and autonomy (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987; Gomez et al., 2001). Traditional female gender-typing disadvantages women for vocational success while masculine-typed traits seem to confer an advantage. Also related to gender stereotypes and socialization are pressures regarding marriage and motherhood. Expectations related to marriage and motherhood can result in role conﬂict for working women and can lead to guilt about non-parenting activities. Fassinger (2002) suggested that many women live with contradictory ideas about women’s roles. They may have liberal ideologies regarding women working outside the home but maintain traditional attitudes toward women’s responsibilities in the home and for the family. Even high-achieving women often expect to perform or assume responsibility for the majority of labor related to home and family (Fassinger, 2002). In addition to the actual responsibilities, spousal views of the woman’s employment and gender role attitudes of partners/spouses and other family members are also ways that gender roles inﬂuence women’s vocational behaviors. Fear of Success and the Imposter Phenomenon While there is an intuitive belief that success and self-esteem are strongly related, paradoxically, the opposite belief is also widespread. Reported in both the popular and the psychological literature has been the proposition that successful women have characteristics indicative of low self-esteem. Such reports suggest that they fear success, feel like imposters when they do succeed (Clance & Imes, 1978; Clance & O’Toole, 1987), experience dependency conﬂicts (Post, 1982), and are self-sabotaging (Post, 1989). The pervasiveness of the belief in women’s low self-esteem related to achievement is evidenced even in feminist works like Gloria Steinem’s book (1992) Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem, where she writes, ‘‘Wherever I traveled, I saw women who were smart, courageous, and valuable, who didn’t think they were smart, courageous, or valuable—and this was true not only for women who were poor or otherwise doubly discriminated against, but for supposedly privileged and powerful women, too’’ (p. 3). Fear of Success (FOS) (Horner, 1969) and the Imposter Phenomenon (IP) (Clance & Imes, 1978) formulate hypothetical constructs that imply that achievement for women is accompanied by self-esteem–related conﬂicts. Both constructs propose that successful women, more than men, experience self-esteem-related doubts. However, results from studies on these constructs have been contradictory, and researchers have found fault with the constructs themselves (Hyde, 2006; Rollins, 1996; Fried-Buchalter, 1992, 1997). Furthermore, neither construct has © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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received empirical support for its hypotheses that women experience such problems at a rate greater than men (Paludi, 1984; Fried-Buchalter, 1992, 1997). The premise that underlies both FOS and IP, that women experience problems as a result of success to a greater degree than do men, has not been supported. This premise reﬂects the widespread belief that women, in general, have lower self-esteem than men (Kling, Hyde, Showers, & Buswell, 1999). Kling and her colleagues conducted a meta-analysis on gender differences in global self-esteem using 216 different samples of more than 97,000 people. While males received a higher self-esteem score on average, the difference between males and females was small and ﬂuctuated with age and ethnicity. The gender difference in self-esteem was very small in children and gradually increased to a moderate size in high school. Gender differences in selfesteem were largest in high school, larger than at any other time of life. For adults between the ages of 23 to 59, the gender difference in selfesteem was almost zero, and the size of the difference continued to decline even further for those over 60 years old. In addition, the metaanalysis found that the gender difference in self-esteem between African-American men and women was also almost zero, suggesting that broad assumptions about women’s poorer self-esteem relative to men’s is unfounded (Kling et al.). A ﬁnal problem with the constructs of FOS and IP is that they focus on internal barriers to women’s occupational achievement. Fitzgerald and Harmon (2001) pointed out that discussions of women’s career development and career choice have shifted from emphasizing internal barriers to women’s success to recognizing the obstacles presented by external, systemic, societal factors, including the effects of gender socialization. Fitzgerald and Harmon’s model of women’s vocational behavior has removed FOS as an individual inﬂuence from their conceptualization because they note that it does little to explain or describe women’s behavior. Other Characteristics and Factors Related to Vocational Behavior In addition to high self-efﬁcacy and fewer gender-typed constraints and expectations, there is considerable consensus in the recent vocational development literature that women with a strong career orientation have in common a variety of other characteristics and external circumstances (Fassinger, 2002). High-achieving women are likely to have positive self-concepts, have had exposure to role models, have attended all-girl schools or women’s colleges, had employed mothers, particularly mothers who enjoyed their work, and had fathers who supported and encouraged their achievements (Crawford & Unger, 2004). In addition, they tend to have strong © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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academic self-concepts, educated parents, taken math courses, and married late (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987). External or systemic occupational factors that can negatively affect women’s achievement include unequal promotion, salary, power, discrimination, hostility, restricted access to information, stereotyping by others, absence of role models, sexual harassment, double standards for performance and behavior, and lack of support for family responsibilities. These negative inﬂuences on women’s achievement are often compounded when women work in male-dominated ﬁelds (Fassinger, 2005; Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004). The next section reviews literature on self-esteem. Researchers have studied self-esteem extensively in a variety of disciplines. The section begins with an examination of some of the complexities in the study of self-esteem. This topic is followed by a discussion of two reviews and one meta-analysis on the relationship between self-esteem and performance, and the section ends with a description of an alternative approach to the study of self-esteem. SELF-ESTEEM Researchers agree that the role and importance of self-esteem is heavily inﬂuenced by culture (Diener & Diener, 1995); in the United States it has been called a preoccupation (Solomon, 2006), a popular obsession (Koch, 2006), the ‘‘holy grail of psychological health’’ (Crocker & Knight, 2005, p. 200), and ‘‘the royal road to happiness and personal fulﬁllment, and an antidote to a variety of social ills, including unemployment, gang violence, and teenage pregnancy’’ (Brown & Marshall, 2006, p. 4). Solomon reports that using self-esteem as a search term in Google in 2003 resulted in 2,270,000 results. Between January and October of 2001, Baumeister and his colleagues (2003) searched the PsycINFO databases for all articles containing the term self-esteem in the abstract and found 15,059 articles. Yet despite the widespread interest and belief in self-esteem among some academics and the public, research conclusions about the importance of and behavioral outcomes related to self-esteem have been controversial and a source of debate in the professional literature. Academics who research and study selfesteem disagree about the deﬁnition of self-esteem (Mruk, 2006), its nature (Marsh, Craven, & Martin, 2006), its function (Brown & Marshall), and its importance to the individual and to society (Owens & McDavitt, 2006; Crocker & Park, 2004; Pyszczynski, Greenburg, Solomon, Arndt, & Schimel, 2004), whether it produces speciﬁc behavioral outcomes (Baumeister et al.), whether it is a basic human need (Koch, 2006), whether having high self-esteem is necessarily positive (Baumeister et al.), and whether people should try to pursue high selfesteem as a goal in itself (Crocker & Park). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Deﬁning Self-Esteem The ﬁrst challenge in studying self-esteem is that there is little agreement about what is meant by the term (Brown & Marshall, 2006). Researchers use and deﬁne self-esteem in different ways (Mruk, 2006). There are unidimensional and multidimensional approaches to understanding self-esteem (Marsh et al., 2006). A unidimensional use of the term refers to global or trait self-esteem. Global or trait self-esteem refers to the way ‘‘people generally feel about themselves’’ (Brown & Marshall, p. 4) or the overall evaluation of one’s worth or importance (Blascovitch & Tomaka, 1991). Global self-esteem has been found to be relatively stable across a person’s life span (Brown & Marshall). From a multidimensional perspective, psychologists also study state self-esteem and domain-speciﬁc self-esteem (Brown & Marshall). State self-esteem is more changeable than global self-esteem and refers to feelings of self-worth or temporary emotional reactions to various contexts; e.g., feelings that occur after getting a promotion or winning an award. Domain-speciﬁc self-esteem refers to self-evaluations of speciﬁc abilities and attributes; e.g., occupational self-esteem or academic self-esteem (Brown & Marshall). While the constructs of global, trait, and domainspeciﬁc self-esteem are related, they are also distinct, and theorists disagree about which conceptualization is most useful (Brown & Marshall). Brown and Marshall fault researchers for contributing to confusion in the study of self-esteem by not specifying the deﬁnition or level of self-esteem they are using in their research. In addition to deﬁnitional complications, the nature of self-esteem is also debated; some researchers emphasize the cognitive aspect of self-esteem (a rational assessment of worth; e.g., I am competent), while others focus on the affective component (feeling of liking of oneself; e.g., I feel good about who I am, I feel worthwhile), and some conceptualizations advocate understanding self-esteem as a combination and interaction of both competence and worthiness (Mruk). Finally, to confuse the issue further, there are numerous terms that are similar to but distinct from self esteem, including self-concept, self-efﬁcacy, and life satisfaction. And there are other terms that are considered to be more or less synonymous with self-esteem, including self-worth, self-acceptance, and self-regard (Blascovitch & Tomaka).

Self-Esteem and Measurement Challenges Two methodological weaknesses occur repeatedly in research on self-esteem that make it challenging to study: the use of correlational studies, which makes causal conclusions difﬁcult (Baumeister et al., 2003), and the use of self-report measures. Few of the many thousands of studies published on the topic use the highly rigorous methods that © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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are necessary to establish causal relationships. Although studies may imply that high or low self-esteem is causally related to many behaviors or psychological states, correlational research generally cannot conclude whether level of self-esteem caused a particular outcome (high self-esteem produces professional success), whether the outcome caused the level of self-esteem (professional success results in high self-esteem), or whether a third variable caused both the particular outcome and the level of self-esteem (educational attainment causes high self-esteem and professional success). In fact, the conclusion from substantial research examining the relationship between self-esteem and school performance is that it is more likely that school performance causes changes in self-esteem than the other way around, and many researchers have found that any relationship between self-esteem and school achievement is likely to be a result of a third variable, that is, family background factors (Baumeister et al.). The use of self-reports in research on self-esteem presents other signiﬁcant methodological problems. First, most self-esteem measures do not distinguish among ‘‘defensive, inﬂated, narcissistic, and so-called genuine high self-esteem’’ (Baumeister et al., 2003, p. 5). Some of these types of high self-esteem can be associated with undesirable outcomes like hostility or aggression (Baumeister et al.). Second, people with high self-esteem tend to see all their characteristics in a positive light, and those with low self-esteem tend to be generally negative about many things, not just their self-esteem. ‘‘It is hard to distinguish the general negativity from the speciﬁc low self-esteem’’ (Baumeister et al., p. 7). Therefore, self-reports contain a bias, a favorable one for those with high self-esteem and an unfavorable one for those with low self-esteem. Furthermore, as with all self-reports, the responses may or may not be an accurate assessment of a person’s characteristics but merely the positive (or negative) self-view of the respondent. When self-esteem is high in the absence of any justiﬁcation, researchers question whether the high self-esteem is a manifestation of unhealthy narcissism. For example, Baumeister and his colleagues found that while people with high self-esteem believe they are more popular and interpersonally skilled than others, ‘‘when rated by peers, teachers or laboratory interaction partners, people with high self-esteem are not liked any better than people with low self-esteem’’ (p. 20). Therefore, responses on self-report often do not correspond to objective measures. Notwithstanding the challenges in studying self-esteem, there is considerable research on the topic, and most psychologists agree that it is important, although they may disagree as to the reasons. To better understand the relationship between self-esteem and achievement in women, the following section will examine selected meta-analytic

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research studies and literature reviews on the relationship between self-esteem and performance. Self-Esteem and Performance Judge and Bono (2001) completed a meta-analysis of 81 studies of employed adults that was designed to examine the relationship between each of four traits with job satisfaction and job performance. Judge and Bono were interested in the higher-order construct called core self-evaluation, which they also refer to as positive self-concept, and the four traits they studied indicate a person’s core self-evaluation. The four traits studied in this investigation were global self-esteem, generalized self-efﬁcacy, locus of control, and emotional stability/neuroticism. Judge and Bono were investigating whether the components of the core self-evaluation construct had predictive validity for job satisfaction and job performance. For the purposes of this chapter, this discussion will focus on their ﬁndings only on the relationship between the trait of self-esteem (or global self-esteem) and job performance. Judge and Bono (2001) presented theoretical arguments to support their hypotheses that each of the four traits would be related to both job satisfaction and job performance. Speciﬁcally, with regard to selfesteem and performance, they cited self-consistency theory as underlying the prediction that individuals with high self-esteem will perform successfully in order to maintain their positive self-image. The metaanalysis concluded that although self-esteem had the strongest positive relationship with job performance from among the variables (.26), the relationship was more complicated than the relationships between the other variables and job performance. These relationships were less clear because of the greater variability in the correlations across the studies on self-esteem and job performance. In fact, more than 10% of the individual studies reported a negative relationship between selfesteem and job performance. They suggested that there are unknown factors that inﬂuence the extent to which self-esteem is important to job performance. Baumeister and his colleagues (2003) also found high variability in the relationship between self-esteem and performance in the studies that they reviewed. With regard to the relationship between the other three traits that constitute core self-evaluation and job performance, Judge and Bono found that all three traits had a positive and similar relationship (correlations between .19 and .23) to job performance. In contrast with Judge and Bono’s (2001) investigation of the relationship between global self-esteem and performance, Pierce and Gardner (2004) examined a domain-speciﬁc self-esteem, organization-based self-esteem (OBSE). They conducted a review of the literature of the

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relationship between OBSE and an individual’s work and organizational experiences, including performance. They deﬁne organizationbased self-esteem as ‘‘the degree to which an individual believes him/ herself to be capable, signiﬁcant and worthy as an organizational member’’ (p. 593). Organization-based self-esteem is more changeable than global self-esteem and less changeable than task-speciﬁc self-esteem. The purpose of Pierce and Gardner’s review was to identify precursors and consequences of OBSE and to examine the role of self-esteem in the work context. Although the authors do not speciﬁcally identify the number of articles they included in this review, they identify it as a comprehensive review of over four dozen empirical studies that cover more than a decade of research on the topic. The authors reviewed mainly ﬁeld studies that relied on cross-sectional data and correlational designs. They included many studies that were conducted in crosscultural settings. Looking at the antecedents of OBSE, Pierce and Gardner (2004) found in their review a positive and signiﬁcant correlation between global self-esteem and OBSE in studies using American samples as well as those with samples from the Middle East, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. They concluded that people high in OBSE are also ‘‘high in global self-esteem, positive affectivity, internal locus of control, Protestant work ethic, and need for achievement, and low on negative affectivity and Machiavellianism’’ (p. 599). Pierce and Gardner also found that high OBSE is related to organizational commitment, improved coping, ethical behavior, altruism and compliance, and lower rates of turnover. With regard to performance, the studies that Pierce and Gardner reviewed found a positive correlation between OBSE and performance that ranged from .21 to .47 on a variety of diverse performance measures such as supervisor ratings or managerial behavior. They concluded that causation is likely to be reciprocal. Pierce and Gardner (2004) identiﬁed organizational conditions that foster OBSE, which included tasks offering a high degree of complexity, self-direction, and control. Opportunities for participation in work groups, the chance to exert inﬂuence and participatory leadership are also related to OBSE. These are job characteristics that are likely to be found in positions of responsibility. Exposure to sexism and other forms of discrimination, which women are more likely to experience than men, are related to lower OBSE. In addition, organizational selfesteem is negatively related to stress and job insecurity. In summary, the authors suggest certain external characteristics of a particular position can inﬂuence OBSE, which then relates to positive occupational behaviors. High-achieving women are likely to work in conditions that are associated with high OBSE (high complexity, self-direction, and control) and with low OBSE (sexism, discrimination, and stress). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Baumeister and colleagues (2003) reviewed methodologically rigorous studies on self-esteem and its correlates. The purpose of their review was to evaluate whether global self-esteem does, in fact, cause a variety of positive or negative outcomes. They were very selective in the studies they included in this review. They included mainly studies that used objective measures of self-esteem, had large numbers of subjects, or used longitudinal designs that allowed for the evaluation of causality. While they did not identify the exact number of studies they reviewed, they identiﬁed their criteria for exclusion; they did not include unpublished studies, studies on the causes of self-esteem, secondary sources, and studies whose outcomes did not have broad social relevance. These criteria resulted in the inclusion of ‘‘relatively few’’ (p. 10) studies. While they examined the relationship between selfesteem and school performance, job and task performance, interpersonal relationships, aggression, violence, delinquency, antisocial behavior, happiness, coping, depression, health, smoking, alcohol and other drugs, sex, and eating, this chapter will describe only their summary of ﬁndings that relate self-esteem to job and task performance or to other variables that might also affect job and task performance. The review by Baumeister and his colleagues (2003) agreed with the conclusions of the above reviews that overall there is a modest, positive correlation between self-esteem and job performance; however, there was considerable variability in the results across studies. The variability, found also in the Judge and Bono review (2001), could be accounted for by the differences in demands and rewards in diverse work settings. They found no studies that could support causal inferences; it is possible that job success causes high self-esteem rather than the other way around. They also examined other performance-related variables, like performance quality and persistence at tasks. They concluded that self-esteem has little or no direct relationship to task performance under challenging or threatening conditions; however, the review supported a relationship between self-esteem and task persistence. They concluded that those with high self-esteem were more likely to persist at tasks, even after failure, than those with low self-esteem. Yet, high self-esteem was also associated with knowing when to quit. They determined that those with high self-esteem ‘‘use better selfregulation strategies than people with low self-esteem’’ (p. 15). Their overall conclusions were that there is a weak relationship between selfesteem and performance, that there is no causal evidence that selfesteem leads to improved job performance, and that most laboratory studies and many ﬁeld studies show no difference between the performances of people with high and low self-esteem. Baumeister and his colleagues’ conclusions (2003) with regard to the relationship between self-esteem and leadership were similar to their ﬁndings about self-esteem and performance: High self-esteem has a © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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weak relationship to leadership and contributes little when other variables are controlled (like optimism or leadership efﬁcacy). They found that high self-esteem has a weak but signiﬁcant association with speaking up in group settings. The strongest relationship was found between self-esteem and the likelihood of initiating interpersonal contacts and relationships. However, they point out that initiating behaviors can foster either prosocial or antisocial behaviors. In other words, those with high self-esteem are overrepresented among both the ‘‘perpetrators of bullying and the people who stand up to bullies and defend victims’’ (p. 24). Baumeister and colleagues concluded that self-esteem is related to initiating behaviors, regardless of whether those behaviors are positive or negative. Many researchers agree that the main beneﬁts of self-esteem are emotional (happiness, positive affect, life satisfaction, and less anxiety, hopelessness, and depression) as well as having positive beliefs about the self (feeling intelligent, attractive, popular, and self-conﬁdent) (Baumeister et al., 2003; Crocker & Knight, 2005). Happiness and life satisfaction have some of the strongest correlations with self-esteem (Baumeister et al.). In addition, those with high self-esteem show increased initiative and persistence. Despite these beneﬁts, Baumeister and colleagues concluded that apart from happiness and good feelings, the relationships between the other variables in their investigation were weak to modest and that ‘‘self-esteem is thus not a major predictor or cause of almost anything’’ (p. 37). Contingencies of Self-Worth Despite the conclusions of Baumeister and his colleagues (2003), Crocker and Park (2004) believe that the desire for self-esteem and its pursuit underlie much of human behavior. However, they contend that research and discussions of self-esteem have overemphasized the importance of whether a person’s self-esteem is high or low. The problem with research in this area is not that self-esteem is irrelevant but rather that research has focused too much on the level of trait self-esteem and insufﬁciently on what people do to demonstrate to themselves and to others that they have worth and value, and on the consequences of this pursuit (p. 394). According to this model, the things that people do to determine that they are worthy and valuable are of greater signiﬁcance than the level of a person’s self-esteem (Crocker & Knight, 2005; Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). These behaviors are labeled contingencies of self-worth. For example, if a person succeeds in a domain on which self-worth is contingent, the person’s self-esteem would increase, and failure in a contingent domain would result in a decrease in self-esteem. While global self-esteem has few speciﬁc behavioral correlates, contingencies of © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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self-worth are somewhat better at predicting behaviors because they inﬂuence behavioral regulation. Contingencies of self-worth inﬂuence behavior by motivating people to pursue the good feelings associated with success in contingent domains by shaping long-term and shortterm goals, by inﬂuencing efforts in pursuing those goals, and by affecting reactions to success and failure (Crocker, 2002; Crocker & Knight). Crocker and Knight suggest that contingencies of self-worth inﬂuence thoughts and emotions as well as behaviors. They argue that everyone has contingencies of self-worth, but the contingencies on which people’s self-esteem is based differ. While researchers have not agreed on the most common or most important contingencies, Crocker, Luhtanen, Cooper, and Bouvrette (2003) identiﬁed seven domains most commonly mentioned in the literature. On the basis of these seven contingencies, they developed an instrument, the Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale (CSWS), to measure contingencies of self-worth in college students. Crocker and her colleagues (2003) do not propose that these are the only or most important contingencies; rather, they are those most often mentioned. They also acknowledge that contingencies may vary depending on culture, gender, age, or other characteristics. The seven domains included in the CSWS are others’ approval or regard, physical appearance, competencies, love from family, outdoing others in competition, virtue, and faith. People’s successes or failures in the domains that are relevant to their self-esteem result in changes in self-esteem and, in turn, can create both feelings of satisfaction and self-worth, but also vulnerability to depressive symptoms (Crocker, 2002). Several of these seven domains are dependent on evaluations from external sources and are called external contingencies. The external contingencies of self-worth include others’ approval and recognition, physical appearance, love from family, and outdoing others in competition. Competency, faith, and virtue are the internal contingencies of self-worth, which depend less on external inﬂuences. Because external contingencies are dependent on responses from other people and are, therefore, under less self-control, they are more likely to be associated with negative outcomes, like depression, neuroticism, and lower selfesteem, than internal contingencies, which are associated with better outcomes (Crocker, 2002; Crocker & Wolfe, 2001; Sanchez & Crocker, 2005; Crocker et al., 2003). For example, if a person’s self-worth is based on others’ approval, that person is likely to feel a decrease in self-worth after receiving criticism (Crocker, 2006). Though internal contingencies create less psychological vulnerability than external contingencies, whenever self-esteem is contingent, people feel threatened by negative feedback in domains on which their self-esteem depends. For example, if a person’s self-esteem is contingent on being a moral person (the internal contingency of virtue), then if that person behaves © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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immorally, that, too, can create a psychological vulnerability to feelings of depression. Therefore, while self-esteem that is based on internal contingencies of self-worth is associated with better outcomes than self-esteem based on external contingencies, both types can be associated with decreases in self-esteem, feelings of depression, or other negative outcomes. Some researchers suggest that optimal self-esteem is non-contingent self-esteem (Crocker, 2006). Non-contingent self-esteem is self-esteem that is not based on success or failure in particular domains; some researchers think of it as true self-esteem or self-esteem that develops naturally from ‘‘autonomous, efﬁcacious action in the context of supportive, authentic relationships’’ (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001, p. 616). Unfortunately, few people have non-contingent self-esteem and, therefore, attainment of non-contingent self-esteem may be an unrealistic goal (Crocker & Park, 2004; Crocker, 2006; Crocker & Wolfe). It is questionable whether people with truly non-contingent self-esteem actually exist, particularly in the North American culture (Crocker, 2006; Crocker & Wolfe). To avoid the psychological vulnerabilities and other costs of contingent self-esteem, Crocker proposes a shift in goals away from the pursuit of self-esteem altogether and toward goals that are larger than the self, inclusive goals that focus not only on the self but on the good of others (Crocker, 2006). This approach is a paradoxical solution of shifting ‘‘away from self-focused, self-centered goals of maintaining and protecting self-esteem, to goals that connect the self to others in an altruistic, compassionate, and meaningful way. These goals keep attention off self-worth, and facilitate the development of authentic relationships that may, in the end, be more sustaining than selfesteem’’ (Crocker, 2002, p. 148). SELF-ESTEEM CONCERNS OF HIGH-ACHIEVING WOMEN Research on high-achieving women and their self-esteem–related concerns is limited. While we know a good deal about high-achieving women in terms of their backgrounds, the important inﬂuences on their lives and vocational choices, their career stages and trajectories, the obstacles they have faced, and their coping and leadership styles, research has not focused on their concerns related to self-esteem. The remainder of this chapter will review seven qualitative studies of highachieving women to illuminate some of the issues and concerns related to self-esteem that were suggested by the participants. Because selfesteem–related concerns were not directly addressed in these studies, I will use Crocker’s model of contingencies of self-worth as a framework to understand how women’s concerns may reﬂect contingencies of selfworth, those areas on which their self-esteem is based. In addition to the seven contingencies used in the CSWS (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001; © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Crocker et al., 2003), I have added a category of non-contingent selfworth to categorize those comments that are not self-focused but focus on the greater good and the good of others. The studies included in this discussion were chosen because they identify as their purpose the study of women who are high achievers, they used qualitative research methods rather than case studies, biographies, or autobiographies, and they studied diverse groups of women. Each of seven studies will be described and reviewed individually. Some limitations of this review must be noted. While the purpose of the original studies was not to identify participants’ concerns related to self-esteem, illuminating those concerns is one of the intents of this chapter. Absent research that examines this topic directly, I inferred parallels between emergent themes and participants’ comments in each qualitative study with Crocker’s contingencies of self-worth as described in the CSWS (Crocker et al., 2003). The themes that emerged from the studies were not always a perfect ﬁt with the contingency descriptions, but ﬁtting the themes with the exact contingency was less the objective than to provide some theoretical support for the idea that these concerns may be related to self-esteem and, as such, provide some insight into high-achieving women. Some themes or comments corresponded to a single contingency of self-worth; however, other themes were suggestive of more than one contingency. For example, concerns about taking time off work to have a family may be related to concerns about approval from others, or love from family, or both. In cases where themes may have related to multiple contingencies, they were listed more than once, under each possible contingency. Further, because the respondents in these studies had not been asked to discuss self-esteem, it cannot be assumed that the themes identiﬁed by the participants were, in fact, self-esteem contingencies. Said another way, a respondent may have indicated concern about how she is perceived at work, yet that concern is not necessarily one on which her self-esteem is based; there may be other reasons for this concern (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). In addition, the seven domains of contingent self-worth identiﬁed by Crocker and her colleagues (2003) for their measurement instrument were developed for college students, and they are not intended to represent all the contingencies on which people base their selfesteem. Other contingencies, such as power or social identity, have been identiﬁed in the literature, and a person’s contingencies may differ depending on age as well as culture (Crocker & Wolfe; Crocker et al., 2003). That culture inﬂuences the nature, importance, and role of global self-esteem and self-esteem contingencies has been recognized in the literature (Diener & Diener, 1995). Another problem is that because the purpose of these studies was occupational achievement, the respondents may have mentioned only work-related concerns, rather than a broader array of concerns that they may have. Therefore, the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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effort of this review to identify the participants’ self-esteem–related concerns may be limited to identifying only those concerns in a speciﬁc domain, occupational self-esteem. REVIEW OF STUDIES White, Cox, and Cooper (1992) conducted a qualitative study of 48 women in the United Kingdom who ‘‘had achieved extraordinary levels of career success’’ (p. 5). The women were executives, entrepreneurs, politicians, and senior members of high-status professions. Peers in a prominent women’s group for ‘‘high-ﬂying women’’ determined whether a career was considered extraordinarily successful (p. 7), but their criteria were not speciﬁed. The purpose of their study was to examine the characteristics and the career trajectory of those who make it to the top. Participants were interviewed for 1 hour, and they were asked about their childhoods, education, work and non-work/family history, and their awareness of organizational power and politics. In addition, participants took three psychometric tests: one on locus of control, one on need for achievement, and one on gender identity. Their scores on these tests were compared to those of women who had low and moderate levels of achievement. Based on Crocker’s contingencies of self-worth (Crocker, 2002), respondents’ comments related most often to the contingency of competency. Participants frequently cited competency-related themes, including having a strong belief in their own abilities, having an internal locus of control, recognizing the importance of hard work, being tenacious, wanting to take advantage of opportunities, recognizing the importance of perseverance, being motivated to excel, preferring interesting and challenging work over promotions, recognizing that advancement depended on competence, valuing self-development, and having high standards. Themes related to the contingency of approval or recognition from others included feeling increased self-conﬁdence as a result of feedback from mentors, desiring recognition from others, knowing it was important to ‘‘blow their own horn,’’ recognizing the need to ‘‘sell’’ oneself. Related to the contingency of love for family, respondents cited feeling an ‘‘energy deﬁcit’’ related to the complications of managing work and home and worrying about the possible negative impact of family demands on work. Respondents discussed the need to appear professional, which is suggestive of the contingency of self-worth related to appearance. Finally, themes of integrity and honesty at work emerged, which are related to the virtue contingency of self-worth. To summarize, the participants expressed most concerns related to the competency contingency followed by approval or recognition from others and love for family. Concerns related to the contingency of virtue and appearance emerged less often, and concerns © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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related to the faith contingency and the competition contingency were not expressed. Reddin (1997) completed a qualitative study of six high-achieving women from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Though it is not stated, it appears that this study was conducted in the United States. Reddin deﬁned high achievement as having an advanced degree or career accomplishments. The deﬁnition was not further speciﬁed. The purpose of Reddin’s study was to understand women’s achievement and women’s career development patterns better. Reddin’s results identiﬁed several themes and characteristics of high-achieving women, including independence, curiosity, high-achievement motivation, goal-setting, persisting in the face of obstacles, belief in gender equality with regard to women and work, traditional gender attitudes related to familial and social roles, importance of family, and self-doubts despite high achievement and recognition. Once again, most themes expressed by the participants in Reddin’s study corresponded to the competency contingency. Themes related to competency included being determined to ﬁnd answers, fearing failure, valuing being good at one’s job choice, recognizing the importance of career, and emphasizing accomplishments. Respondents in this study expressed concerns related to the self-worth contingency of outdoing others in competition, including being able to solve a problem that others could not solve and fearing not measuring up to others’ expectations. Concerns related to the contingency of recognition or approval from others included feeling important, experiencing self-blame related to racism and sexism, and being concerned about taking time off work to have children. Themes related to the love for family contingency included recognizing the importance of family support and the desire of their family’s approval of their decisions, being concerned about work/family conﬂicts, and being concerned about taking time off work to have a family. The importance of using their skills for a good purpose and the desire to make a contribution were themes related to the virtue contingency of self-worth. The desire participants had to enrich their lives, accomplish their goals, and make a contribution could be considered themes suggestive of non-contingent self-esteem. As with the study by Cox and her colleagues (1992), the themes expressed by the participants in Reddin’s study relate most often to the self-worth contingency of competency. This was followed by concerns related to competition, recognition, and approval of others, love of family, and virtue contingencies of self-worth. Several themes and comments were reﬂective of non-contingent self-esteem. Walton’s (1997) research interviewed 11 women who are the heads of colleges in the United Kingdom. Her purpose was to learn more about women ‘‘who have reached the highest rung of the British higher education ladder’’ (p. 70). Her study reviewed the respondents’ © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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personal proﬁles, educational backgrounds, academic career paths, non-academic experiences, the search process, family inﬂuence, encouragement, discouraging factors, leadership styles, job satisfaction and stress, salaries, career preparation, and professional development opportunities. The majority of concerns expressed by the participants in this study related best to the approval and recognition from others contingency of self-worth. Themes and comments that corresponded with this contingency included feeling demands to be an ‘‘honorary man’’ wanting to feel valued and be taken seriously, fearing that other women would feel betrayed by them, feeling apart from the group, feeling manipulated by others because they were female, experiencing pride in their ability to work as a team, fearing negative perceptions of others if a goal was not achieved, and feeling isolated and lonely in the leadership role. Themes related to the competency contingency of self-worth emerged with the next greatest frequency. They included the importance of feeling one has done a good job, feeling satisﬁed with what one has completed, and recognizing the importance of professional development. Finally, the desire to do something to decrease gender inequity corresponds to the virtue contingency of self-worth. Marshall (1995) conducted a qualitative study in the United Kingdom of 12 women who had reached senior management and board levels in diverse employment sectors and then left or contemplated leaving employment. The purpose of her study was to consider career management and organizational development issues and explore why women left their positions. Given that the women had left or were contemplating leaving their positions, the participants had more to say about the negative aspects than the positive aspects of the work environment. The themes and comments related to the contingency of recognition or approval from others represented the vast majority of the concerns. They included experiencing friction and bullying when relating to other people in power, feeling isolated in male-dominated cultures, feeling they were being tested by others, having aggression directed at them, feeling both close to and separated from subordinates, having their effectiveness blocked or undermined, feeling uncertain about how to exert power, being uncertain about relating to other women, and not knowing how to manage in a male-dominated culture. Several of these themes also related to the self-worth contingency of competency. Those that correspond to both categories included feeling concern about having their effectiveness blocked or undermined and feeling uncertain about how to exert power. Additional themes that related to the competency contingency of self-worth include wanting to operate as a change agent and feeling overworked and over-committed. Concern about having their image ﬁt into a male-dominated environment related to the appearance contingency of self-worth. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Gomez and her colleagues (2001) conducted a qualitative research study of 20 notable Latinas in the United States. The participants were chosen by a panel of eight ‘‘distinguished Hispanic women who published a biographical directory of 275 notable Latinas in the United States’’ (p. 288). The purpose of this study was to develop a theoretical framework for career development that extends previous theory to include background and contextual factors particular to the Latina culture. To collect their data, the authors used an in-depth, semistructured interview and a brief demographic questionnaire. They asked questions about career path, professional stress, external challenges and limitations to achievement, success and failure, background and current inﬂuences, family-work interface, cultural identity, career and life satisfaction. The researchers propose a career development theory that conceptualizes interacting spheres of inﬂuence that compose the career-life path. Participants’ concerns that related to the competency contingency of self-worth included feeling a strong need to achieve their best in any situation, believing that they must work twice as hard to prove themselves in the face of sexism and racism, having a strong work ethic, possessing high career self-efﬁcacy, believing strongly in their own ability to succeed, and feeling unsuccessful at managing work and family because attending to one resulted in neglecting the other. Concerns related to the contingency of recognition and approval from others included believing that they must work twice as hard to prove themselves in the face of sexism and racism, desiring to prove themselves to others, fearing being perceived as ‘‘selling out’’ to others (only a concern among Mexican-American women), and being concerned about violating the cultural standards of gender roles. Themes related to love for family were frequent. Participants cited feeling loyalty to family, having a collective identity that emphasized family, having a strong cultural identity, being concerned about managing work and family, being concerned about meeting family expectations to marry and conform to traditional gender roles. More themes related to the virtue contingency of self-worth emerged in this study than in the other studies. These themes included having a desire to fulﬁll a calling or life conviction, being motivated to make a difference and stand up for something, emphasizing social responsibility and service, wanting to make a contribution, feeling responsible toward others in terms of mentoring and being role models, and creating opportunities for others. The desire to make a contribution, to make a difference, to fulﬁll social responsibilities to others, and to serve as a role model to others also correspond to non-contingent self-esteem, or self-esteem that emphasizes others and making a contribution to something bigger than the self. These ﬁndings correspond to research on cultural differences in self-esteem, which suggests that the sources of self-esteem and life satisfaction tend © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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to differ between collectivist and individualistic cultures (Diener & Diener, 1995). The repetition of themes related to love for family and contributing to the good of society emerged more among the Latina women as compared to the women cited in the studies above whose race and ethnicity were unspeciﬁed. Richie and her colleagues (1997) completed a qualitative study in which they interviewed 18 high-achieving African-American and White women (nine African-American women and nine White women) who were closely matched on age, occupation, and geographic location within eight occupational ﬁelds. The purpose of their study was to explore critical inﬂuences, particularly those related to professional success, on the career development of these women with the ultimate goal of constructing a comprehensive and inclusive theory of women’s career development. The researchers used a questionnaire that focused on background inﬂuences, stress, coping, and resiliency; self-efﬁcacy and attributional factors; community and social support; external challenges and obstacles; and factors related to individual personality and temperament. Women in this study exhibited many strengths that did not ﬁt neatly into the contingencies of self-worth yet are worth mentioning. These include persevering when facing challenges, relying on internal standards and judgment, and feeling passion for their work. They expressed few concerns about conﬂicts between achievement and femininity. In fact, the participants ‘‘displayed expressive characteristics (e.g., nurturance, relational orientation, and sensitivity) that contrast with the rugged individualism often depicted in traditionally masculine styles of achievement.’’ Participants reported a strong ability to manage stress and overcome adversity. Using Crocker’s model (2002; Crocker et al., 2003) of contingencies of self-worth, some of the participants’ comments could be understood in terms of the competency contingency. These themes include having a strong commitment to their careers, persisting in the face of obstacles, living up to their own standards, worrying about time demands, valuing their own work, and balancing their work and home life. Responses that best matched the contingency related to the importance of the approval and recognition from others included demonstrating nurturance and other expressive characteristics, valuing support from friends and the community, and having a relational orientation. Responses relating to the self-worth contingency for love of family included recognizing the importance of support from partners and from family. A minority of African-American women also reported that faith was important to them. Themes relating to the contingency of virtue included recognizing the importance of the collective rather than just the individual, committing to improving conditions for other women and for African Americans, being motivated to succeed as a © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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way of opening doors for others, seeing the value in giving back to society and the community. Several of these responses are also reﬂective of non-contingent self-esteem, including thinking of the collective as well as the individual, improving conditions for others, wanting to succeed as a way of helping others, being motivated to give back to society, feeling interconnected with others, and believing that they and their work ﬁt into the larger world. Participants in this study made a high number of virtue and non-contingent responses. Kawahara, Esnil, and Hsu (2007) conducted a qualitative study on 12 women of Asian descent. This sample purposely included participants to ensure that diverse Asian ethnicities and professions would be represented. All women were leaders and considered to be high achievers on the basis of a variety of criteria. Each participant completed a ﬁve-question interview that lasted from 45 minutes to 2.5 hours. The purpose of the study was to gain a greater understanding of Asian-American women leaders. The authors identiﬁed six themes that emerged from the interviews. The themes were knowing oneself and doing something you believe in; having a vision and inspiring others to work on the vision; having a relational and collaborative leadership style; taking on challenges, struggles, and conﬂicts; having both dominant culture efﬁcacy and biculturalism; and recognizing the importance of support and encouragement. The greatest number of comments corresponded with the virtue contingency of self-worth. These included making choices in accordance with their values, recognizing the importance of things beyond themselves and their own interests, being concerned about others and the community in general, recognizing one’s responsibility to others, wanting to be a social activist and be of service, creating equality in the workplace regardless of position or level, having a commitment to social justice, promoting the empowerment of others, and wanting to create a harmonious environment. All the comments related to virtue also match the non-contingent self-esteem in that they go beyond the self, express the desire to help others, and focus on something larger than the self. Several comments corresponded with the contingency of self-worth related to competency. These included recognizing the importance of self-development, being willing to take charge, wanting to learn new skills, being willing to work hard, being willing to become involved in challenges, and being willing to do whatever it takes to achieve the desired outcome. Comments related to the contingency of approval or regard from others included wanting to command people’s respect and cooperation, being able to inspire others, desiring to understand others and to be understood by them both within and outside one’s community, desiring support and encouragement from others, wanting to present a positive image of Asian-American women, and wanting to show that Asian-American © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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women are competent leaders. Comments relating to the love for family contingency included recognizing the importance of support from family members and partners. Some comments related to ethnicity did not correspond to any of Crocker’s (2002) contingencies of self-worth. These included experiences with oppression and prejudice as well as the desire to challenge cultural norms for Asian women. Once again, the number of comments reﬂective of collectivist values was expressed more frequently by the Asian-American women than by some of the other samples, with the exception of the Latinas. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS To gain a better understanding of women’s self-esteem and how it relates to achievement, as well as to learn more about self-esteem– related concerns, I’ve examined research on separate aspects of this topic from a variety of disciplines. I’ve examined research in the area of women’s vocational development, including characteristics associated with high-achieving women. I have explored some of the research on self-esteem as it relates to performance, and I have used the contingencies of self-worth model to explore possible self-esteem–related concerns in seven qualitative studies of high-achieving women. The research ﬁndings on women and achievement seemed to disagree with some of the literature on self-esteem and performance. The review by Baumeister and his colleagues (2003) and Judge and Bono (2001) found modest positive relationships between self-esteem and performance. Pierce and Gardner (2004) found a slightly broader range of correlations, but they reviewed studies on very speciﬁc task behaviors. Yet, the literature reviews on high-achieving women concluded that achievement for women is associated with many characteristics related to high self-esteem, including high self-efﬁcacy, instrumentality, and autonomy (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987; Judge & Bono). One explanation may have to do with the fact that the reviews and meta-analysis examined performance, and the other studies investigated achievement. While performance and achievement are related concepts, they are not identical. Performance may refer to behavior related to a speciﬁc task (task performance) or to behavior related to the job (job performance). Achievement refers to broader and more complex responses than performance. Second, the reviews and meta-analysis examined studies that measured self-esteem directly. The studies on women’s achievement were not focused directly on self-esteem. Another explanation of the different conclusions drawn from the two types of studies may relate to the purpose of these studies. Applied psychologists may be interested in knowing whether measuring self-esteem will help employers identify employees who will perform well, whereas research in the area of women’s career development attempts to identify the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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complexity of inﬂuences on women’s achievement. For example, Gomez and her colleagues (2001) describe a career life-path model. This model recognizes the multiple and complex inﬂuences on women’s achievement and includes not only a variety of personal characteristics like self-esteem, but also factors in the immediate context, like social support and coping skills, aspects of the culture, family, and personal background, as well as sociopolitical conditions. The inﬂuences on women’s achievement are numerous, interactive, and complex. The next goal of this chapter was to begin to identify self-esteem– related concerns that high-achieving women experience. To understand the importance and inﬂuence of self-esteem, Crocker and Wolfe (2001) suggested that it is essential to look beyond the usual research preoccupation of whether an individual’s self-esteem is high or low. They proposed that understanding the basis of a person’s self-esteem will yield more useful information than knowing the level of that person’s selfesteem. The domains on which our self-esteem is based are called contingencies of self-worth (Crocker & Wolfe). In the absence of research that directly investigates the self-esteem concerns of high-achieving women, the contingencies of self-worth model provided a framework for understanding these concerns. I have used the seven contingencies of self-worth that Crocker and her colleagues identiﬁed as those most often mentioned in the literature (2003; Crocker & Wolfe) to examine comments made by participants in seven qualitative studies of highachieving women. It bears repeating that the seven contingencies used in this analysis are not intended to be exhaustive, nor am I proposing that the comments made by participants reported in these studies match deﬁnitively with the contingency with which they have been paired. Further, while the participants’ comments reﬂect their concerns, these concerns are not necessarily contingencies on which their selfesteem is based. Rather, the objective of this review was to begin to explore some concerns expressed by high-achieving women and to put them in a framework that provides theoretical support for understanding how these concerns could potentially be related to their selfesteem. Crocker and her colleagues (2003) designed a scale to measure contingencies of self-worth based on the seven contingencies most frequently cited in the literature; however, they clearly stated that other contingencies exist. In fact, participants in the seven studies frequently mentioned concerns related to a contingency that was not included on the CSWS—social identity. Social identity has been described as one of several other contingencies on which people’s self-worth may be based (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001; Crocker et al., 2003). Many of the studies’ participants talked about concerns related to their identities as women, including gender roles and sexism. The participants in the studies with Latinas, African-American women, and Asian-American women © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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described concerns related to their cultural identities as well. Not only were the respondents concerned about the majority culture’s expectations for them as women, but also with the gender-role expectations within their cultures or subcultures. In addition to cultural gender expectations, minority women were also concerned about racism and racial discrimination as well as sexism. The addition of social identity as a contingency for self-esteem is relevant for both women and minorities. Several themes and patterns emerged from among the other concerns expressed by participants in these seven studies. Certain contingencies of self-worth received very few related comments. Study participants mentioned very few concerns that related to two of the four domains of external contingencies, those contingencies most likely to result in psychological vulnerabilities and unhealthy behavior. Participants expressed two or fewer concerns related to the external contingencies of physical appearance and outdoing others in competition. Concern with physical appearance is a female gender-typed response. That participants made few comments related to this contingency may not be surprising given that research suggests that high-achieving women are low in gender-typed behaviors (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987). However, participants also made few comments related to concerns about competition, a male-typed behavior. The studies’ participants did express concerns related to two external contingencies: recognition and approval from others and love for family. The concerns related to recognition and approval from others may be understood in light of research ﬁndings that suggest that when women are successful in a male arena, they are less liked, personally denigrated, and treated differently in ways that affect their career outcomes (Heilman et al., 2005). The external contingency related to love from family may be related to the uneven distribution of household responsibilities, the expectation that women assume the majority of household responsibilities, the lack of support for child care in society and the workplace, and the conﬂict between family and work demands that results from these conditions. Overall, study participants in the seven qualitative studies expressed a high number of concerns related to internal contingencies. Internal contingencies are contingencies associated with more favorable outcomes because they do not depend on the evaluation of others. Participants expressed concerns related to the internal contingencies of competency and virtue. The greatest number of participants’ total comments related to the internal contingency of competency. On the basis of the content and frequency of comments related to this contingency, high-achieving women are concerned about their performance, reaching their goals, and meeting demanding standards. Given their levels of achievement, this is not surprising. Interestingly, women expressed numerous concerns related to virtue. Many of these concerns dealt with wanting to make a contribution and wanting to make things © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Table 3-1. Study participants’ comments categorized by contingencies of self-worth Others’ approval or Physical regard appearance White, Cox, & Cooper (1992) . 48 women . U.K. Reddin (1997) . 6 women . U.S. Walton (1997) . 11 women . U.K. Marshall (1995) . 12 women . U.K. Gomez et al. (2001) . 20 Latinas . U.S. Richie et al. (1997) . 9 African-American women . 9 White women . U.S. Kawahara, Esnil, & Hsu (2007) . 12 Asian-American women . U.S. Total comments

4

11

2

3

5

4

8

3

9

1

Outdoing Love from others in Competency family competition

1

Virtue

2

2

3

1

4

6

5

7

3

6

1

4

6

6

1

9

41

13

2

Non-contingent self-esteem

1

4

37

Faith

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

2

24

4

1

6

9

1

22

50

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better for other women or members of their ethnic group. Only one concern related to the internal contingency of faith, and this was expressed by an African-American participant. Finally, and importantly, many comments were reﬂective of non-contingent self-esteem, self-esteem some consider to be optimal. Non-contingent self-esteem is demonstrated when, instead of focusing on the self, a person’s focus is outside of the self and on helping others and making a contribution. Latinas, Asian-American women, and the participants in the study with both African-American and White participants cited many more concerns that were reﬂective of non-contingent self-esteem than did the participants in other studies. Participants repeated speciﬁc concerns across studies that dealt with negotiating the demands of work and family, gaining recognition in the workplace, valuing competence, and having the desire to make a contribution. Despite theoretical disagreements about many aspects of self-esteem and its weak predictive relationship to performance, based on ﬁndings from research on women and achievement, high-achieving women possess many characteristics that are suggestive of high selfesteem. These characteristics include high self-efﬁcacy, instrumentality, autonomy, and persistence. Gomez and her colleagues (2001) concluded that a proﬁle for high-achieving, professional women is emerging in the literature that ﬁnds them to be passionate, tenacious, high in career self-efﬁcacy and conviction, and to have effective coping skills, internal motivation, career persistence, and high instrumentality.

REFERENCES Baumeister, R. F., Campbell, J. D., Krueger, J. I., & Vohs, K. D. (2003). Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 4, 1–44. Betz, N. (2001). Career self-efﬁcacy. In F. T. L. Leong & A. Barzak (Eds.), Contemporary models in vocational psychology (pp. 55–77). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Betz, N., & Fitzgerald, L. (1987). The career psychology of women. Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Blascovitch, J., & Tomaka, J. (1991). Measures of self-esteem. In J. P. Robinson, P. R. Shaver, & L. W. Wrightsman (Eds.), Measures of personality and social psychological attitudes (pp. 115–155). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Brown, J. D., & Marshall, M. A. (2006). The three faces of self-esteem. In M. K. Kernis (Ed.), Self esteem issues and answers (pp. 4–9). New York: Psychology Press. Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy Theory, Research and Practice, 15, 1–8. Clance, P. R., & O’Toole, M. A. (1987). The imposter phenomenon: An internal barrier to empowerment and achievement. Women and Therapy, 6, 51–64.

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Cox, M. J., Owen, M. T., Henderson, V. K., & Margand, N. A. (1992). Prediction of infant-father and infant-mother attachment. Developmental Psychology, 28, 474–483. Crawford, M., & Unger, R. (2004). Women and gender: A feminist psychology (4th ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill. Crocker, J. (2002). Contingencies of self-worth: Implications for self-regulation and psychological vulnerability. Self and Identity, 1, 143–149. Crocker, J. (2006). What is optimal self-esteem? In M. K. Kernis (Ed.), Self-esteem issues and answers (pp. 119–124). New York: Psychology Press. Crocker, J., & Knight, K. M. (2005). Contingencies of self-worth. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 200–203. Crocker, J., Luhtanen, R., Cooper, M. L., & Bouvrette, S. A. (2003). Contingencies of self-worth in college students: Measurement and theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 894–908. Crocker, J., & Park, L. E. (2004). The costly pursuit of self-esteem. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 392–414. Crocker, J., & Wolfe, C. T. (2001). Contingencies of self-worth. Psychological Review, 108, 593–623. Diener, E., & Diener, M. (1995). Cross-cultural correlates of life satisfaction and self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 653–663. Fassinger, R. (2002). Hitting the ceiling: Gendered barriers to occupational entry, advancement, and achievement. In L. Diamant & J. A. Lee (Eds.), Psychology of sex, gender, and jobs (pp. 21–46). Westport, CT: Praeger. Fassinger, R. (2005). Theoretical issues in the study of women’s career development: Building bridges in a brave new world. In W. B. Walsh & M. L. Savickas (Eds.), Handbook of vocational psychology: Theory, research, and practice (3rd ed., pp. 85–126). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Fitzgerald, L. F., & Harmon, L. W. (2001). Women’s career development: A postmodern update. In F. T. L. Leong & A. Barzak (Eds.), Contemporary models in vocational psychology (pp. 21–45). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Fried-Buchalter, S. (1992). Fear of success, fear of failure, and the imposter phenomenon: A factor analytic approach to convergent and discriminant validity. Journal of Personality Assessment, 58, 368–379. Fried-Buchalter, S. (1997). Fear of success, fear of failure, and the imposter phenomenon among male and female marketing managers. Sex Roles, 37, 847–859. Gomez, M. J., Fassinger, R. E., Prosser, J., Cooke, K., Meija, B., & Luna, J. (2001). Voces abriendo caminos (voices forging paths): A qualitative study of the career development of notable Latinas. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48, 286–300. Heilman, M. E., Wallen, A. S., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M. M. (2004). Penalties for success: Reactions to women who succeed at male gender-typed tasks. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 416–427. Horner, M. S. (1969). Fail: Bright women. Psychology Today, 3, 36. Hyde, J. S. (2006). Half the human experience, 7th ed. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifﬂin. Judge, T. A., & Bono, J. E. (2001). Relationship of core self-evaluation traits— self-esteem, generalized self-efﬁcacy, locus of control, and emotional

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stability—with job satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 80–92. Kawahara, D. M., Esnil, E. M., & Hsu, J. (2007). Asian American women leaders: The intersection of race, gender, and leadership. In J. L. Chin, B. Lott, J. K. Rice, & J. Sanchez-Hucles (Eds.), Women and leadership: Transforming visions and diverse voices (pp. 297–313). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Kling, K. C., Hyde, J. S., Showers, C. J., & Buswell, B. (1999). Gender differences in self-esteem: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 470–500. Koch, E. J. (2006). Examining the role of self-esteem in psychological functioning and well-being. In M. K. Kernis (Ed.), Self-esteem issues and answers (pp. 260–266). New York: Psychology Press. Marsh, H. W., Craven, R. G., & Martin, A. J. (2006). What is the nature of selfesteem? Unidimensional and multidimensional perspectives. In M. K. Kernis (Ed.), Self esteem issues and answers (pp. 16–25). New York: Psychology Press. Marshall, J. (1995). Working at senior management and board levels: Some of the issues for women. Women in Management Review, 10, 21–25. Mruk, C. J. (2006). Deﬁning self-esteem: An often overlooked issue with crucial implications. In M. K. Kernis (Ed.), Self esteem issues and answers (pp. 10– 15). New York: Psychology Press. Owens, T. J., & McDavitt, A. R. (2006). The self-esteem motive: Positive and negative consequences for self and society. In M. K. Kernis (Ed.), Selfesteem issues and answers (pp. 398–406). New York: Psychology Press. Paludi, M. A. (1984). Psychometric properties and underlying assumptions of four objective measures of fear of success. Sex Roles, 10, 765–781. Paludi, M. A. (2002). The psychology of women (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Phillips, S. D., & Imhoff, A. R. (1997). Women and career development: A decade of research. Annual Review of Psychology, 48, 31–59. Pierce, J. L., & Gardner, D. G. (2004). Self-esteem within the work and organizational context: A review of the organization-based self-esteem literature. Journal of Management, 30, 591–622. Post, R. D. (1982). Dependency conﬂicts in high-achieving women: Toward an integration. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice, 19, 82–87. Post, R. D. (1989). Self-sabotage among successful women. Psychotherapy in Private Practice, 6, 191–205. Pryszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Arndt, J., & Schimel, J. (2004). Why do people need self-esteem? A theoretical and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 435–468. Reddin, J. (1997). High-achieving women: Career development patterns. In H. S. Farmer (Ed.), Diversity and women’s career development from adolescence to adulthood (pp. 95–126). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Richie, B. S., Fassinger, R. E., Linn, S. G., Johnson, J., Prosser, J., & Robinson, S. (1997). Persistence, connection, and passion: A qualitative study of the career development of highly achieving African American and White women. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 44, 133–148. Rollins, J. H. (1996). Women’s minds women’s bodies: The psychology of women in a biosocial context. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

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Rosenberg, M., Schooler, C., Schoenbach, C., & Rosenberg, F. (1995). Global self-esteem and speciﬁc self-esteem: Different concepts, different outcomes. American Sociological Review, 60, 141–156. Sanchez, D. T., & Crocker, J. (2005). How investment in gender ideals affects well-being: The role of external contingencies of self-worth. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 29, 63–77. Schwalbe, M. L., Gecas, V., & Baxter, R. (1986). The effects of occupational conditions and individual characteristics on the importance of self-esteem sources in the workplace. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 7, 63–84. Solomon, S. (2006). Self-esteem is central to human well-being. In M. K. Kernis (Ed.), Self esteem issues and answers (pp. 254–259). New York: Psychology Press. Steinem, G. (1992). Revolution from within: A book of self-esteem. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company. Walton, K. D. (1997). UK women at the very top: An American assessment. In H. Eggins (Ed.), Women as leaders and managers in higher education (pp. 70– 90). Bristol, PA: Open University Press. White, B., Cox, C., & Cooper, C. (1992). Women’s career development: A study of high ﬂyers. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

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Chapter 4

Women in Human Resources: In My Own Voice Linda Dillon

I have been employed in the human resources ﬁeld for approximately 27 years. Over the course of these many years, I’ve held progressively responsible positions within the human resources ofﬁce, culminating in my current position of director of human resources. I have responsibility for all aspects of human resources, including position classiﬁcation, stafﬁng and recruitment, payroll and beneﬁts, training, labor relations, and employee services. Throughout these many years there have been several people who have inﬂuenced my life and my decisions both personally and professionally. These people have supported my beliefs, encouraged me when I lost faith in myself, and acted as role models. My parents from the very beginning were steadfast in their belief in me and my abilities. They always encouraged me to accept new challenges and believe in my own capabilities. I recall that when I was a high school senior and contemplating a college course of study, my parents encouraged me to select a major I was interested in—to select a career I wanted to pursue rather than a career that was traditionally female. Keep in mind that when I was entering college, women were just beginning to pursue careers in law, medicine, accounting, and various sciences. (Previously, women pursed careers in teaching, nursing, library science, and secretarial science if they pursued careers at all.) Thus, the support I received from my parents challenged me to challenge myself. Their encouragement didn’t end once I became a successful human resource professional. I recall two days before my father passed away, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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he and I were chatting about something minor and he said to me, ‘‘Don’t defeat yourself. You can do anything you put your mind to.’’ It’s just so demonstrative of the steadfast support I was fortunate enough to receive. My parents were outstanding role models for me as well. They instilled in me a strong sense of family, a strong work ethic, and a strong sense of what is fair and ethical. My husband of 34 years has also been a steadfast supporter. There were often times when I felt overwhelmed trying to balance work and home life. Yet he was there, encouraging me and assisting me along the way. I was very fortunate recently to have a supervisor who was also very supportive. Not only did he promote me to my current position as director of human resources, he challenged me to do more. Shortly after my appointment, he said, ‘‘Linda, this is your time. Make your mark.’’ He provided me the opportunity to make some changes—to introduce new initiatives. My entrance into the human resources ﬁeld happened quite by accident. My undergraduate degree is in accounting; however, before I obtained that ‘‘perfect’’ job in accounting, I was offered a promotion to a position in human resources. I accepted the position, thinking it was just a temporary arrangement. What I didn’t expect was that the longer I remained in the human resources ofﬁce, the more I liked the human resources ﬁeld. So I decided to stay. We, as women, tend to inexplicably accept the majority of home life responsibilities. As a result, we can be overwhelmed trying to balance home and work life responsibilities. Integrating work and family roles successfully is just about impossible if you don’t establish your priorities and have appropriate support and ﬂexibility. Both roles demand your attention and commitment. To me, my family is most important— they are my priority. I could not have juggled climbing the professional career ladder and being a mom without help. My parents were my children’s child care during the day. They were the absolute best! On those occasions when one or both of the children were ill, my husband and I would alternate taking time off from work to care for them. I didn’t have to concern myself with the quality of their care whether they were healthy or ill. My supervisors knew how important my family was to me and allowed me to adjust my full-time work schedule to attend various school functions. (I was always very careful to provide as much advance notiﬁcation to my supervisors as possible.) In return for this ﬂexibility, I would often take work home with me or work extra nonpaid hours. In my view, it was only fair. My supervisors provided me opportunities to be a more involved parent at my children’s schools. I responded by working harder—clearly a win–win situation. My children are now college graduates and have embarked upon their © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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respective careers, yet I continue to schedule home projects or vacation plans as far in advance as possible. I’ll also adjust my schedule to minimize my absence from work. With the use of cell phones, BlackBerries, laptops, and so on, it’s easier to keep in touch with the ofﬁce and attend to the needs of my family. With regard to integrating work and family, appropriate support may also include hiring a cleaning service or gardening service. When our children were younger, my husband and I had to make a decision regarding the quality of the time we spent with our children. For us, hiring someone to clean our home was a ﬁnancial sacriﬁce beneﬁcial to all of us. Human resources is an increasingly demanding ﬁeld. It is no longer a clerical payroll function. We are and should continue to be strategic partners with the executive staff and the heads of various operations and legal divisions. Human resources helps balance the needs of the organization to develop and prosper with the needs of our employees to develop and prosper. Both sides need to be successful. As human resources specialists, it’s important to enjoy working with people. People are the most interesting part of the job, but they are also the most difﬁcult part of the job. You must demonstrate patience, ﬂexibility, understanding, and perseverance. You must believe that what you do makes a difference. Most importantly, you must be ethical in your decisions and your interactions with people. As a professional woman in today’s workforce, it is fundamental to be secure in who you are as a woman, to know what’s most important to you, to allow yourself to be ﬂexible, and to take the time to ﬁnd the humor in your life. No matter how difﬁcult things get, either at home or in the workplace, always keep in mind that success stops when you do.

© 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 5

Stress and Health Paula Lundberg-Love Donna Lee Faulkner

Sixty-three million women constitute nearly one-half of the United States workforce, an increase of 56% since 1950. Women hold professional and managerial positions as well as jobs in trades traditionally occupied by men. However, with these changes in the workplace women have been exposed to the same occupational hazards as men. One of these hazards is workplace stress. Indeed, data suggest that women report more stress and stress-related illness than men do (Harvard Women’s Health Watch, 2000). The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the impact of workplace stress on women’s medical and mental health. When given the opportunity to address the impact of workplace stress on the health and well-being of women, the authors initially envisioned a focus on the relationship between workplace stress and speciﬁc medical or psychological disorders. Indeed, we found many studies that investigated the relationship between workplace stress and particular types of disorders. However, after a thorough review of the empirical literature across a number of disciplines, it became apparent that there are various themes that comprise the fabric of the research on the effects of stress in the workplace. For example, there is a body of work that emphasizes the importance of ‘‘job control,’’ that is the amount of control over or the degree of autonomy that one has in her job. This line of research investigates the demand-control-support theory of the relationship between jobs and stress and its myriad effects. It is also characterized by various models that seek to assign some quantitative value to the amount of variance that the particular

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factors in the model contribute to the levels of reported stress. There are also studies that investigate the magnitude of workplace stress in women who have particular types of careers. Finally, much has been learned about the physiological effects of stress, in general, and workplace stress, in particular. Due to the volume of studies that have been published on the effects of workplace stress, this chapter cannot effectively describe the totality of the data in existence. Therefore, we elected primarily to focus on studies that have been published during the past 20 years. Additionally, we chose to organize this chapter with respect to four themes apparent within the body of workplace stress literature, namely, a discussion of the physiological consequences of stress, the effects of stress that have been reported in studies that investigated the demand-control-support model of workplace stress, the effects of stress as it relates to cardiovascular disease, and the effects of workplace stress with respect to particular types of occupations. THE BIOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF STRESS Walter Cannon (1929) ﬁrst demonstrated that the psychophysiological reactions of ‘‘ﬁght or ﬂight’’ could be induced under conditions of fear, pain, hunger, and rage. He observed that environmental threats provoked a general discharge of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) marked by increases in the release of catecholamines, which prepare the individual to ﬁght or to ﬂee (Cannon, 1932). Hans Selye (1956) subsequently demonstrated that the ‘‘stress response’’ could be elicited via physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial stimuli. If the stimuli were prolonged, frequent, and/or intensive, stress would lead to physiological damage to the organism. Selye’s stress response caused an activation of the pituitary adrenal cortex that resulted in a release of corticosteroids (cortisol and corticosterone). While there have been many differences in the manner in which stress has been deﬁned and measured in the research literature, most contemporary deﬁnitions of stress incorporate the following assumptions: Stress is a process that occurs when environmental demands exceed the adaptive capacity of the organism; this process results in biological and/or psychological changes that may have consequences for health; and individual ‘‘appraisals’’ are important in determining responses to stress (Cohen, Kessler, & Gordon, 1998). When studying the biological consequences of stress, two particular neuroendocrine systems are of interest with respect to their effects on health. These are the sympathetic adrenomedullary (SAM) system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system. Stimulation of the SAM system results in the release of epinephrine (EPI) and norepinephrine (NE), whereas stimulation of the HPA system results in the secretion of cortisol. In response to SNS stimulation, EPI and NE are © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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secreted into the bloodstream, which results in pronounced effects on the cardiovascular system and the release of energy such as glucose and free fatty acids. Cortisol secretion is regulated by the release of adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) from the anterior pituitary gland, which reaches a peak in the bloodstream after about 30 minutes of acute stress. Release of ACTH stimulates the adrenal cortex to release cortisol. Cortisol inﬂuences the metabolism in cells, the distribution of fat and the immune system, and its level is controlled by a feedback system in the hypothalamus and the hippocampus. Furthermore, the stress hormones can be measured in the blood and the urine. Cortisol can even be measured in the saliva. Measurement of these hormones provides a link between an individual’s perception of stress and its impact on various health outcomes (Lundberg, 2005). Many studies have documented the sensitivity of EPI secretion to various types of stressors in the laboratory and stress in natural settings (Frankenhaeuser, 1983; Lundberg, 1984). NE is involved in the regulation of blood pressure and is more sensitive to physical demands and body posture. Consequently, among white-collar workers mainly exposed to mental demands, EPI levels rose about 50% at work as compared to nonwork conditions while NE levels did not. However, among blue-collar workers who were physically active performing manual tasks, the levels of both EPI and NE were increased, EPI about 100% and NE about 50% (Lundberg & Johansson, 2000). Cortisol levels habituate rapidly to regular work conditions and generally do not increase during daily work. Instead, cortisol secretion increases in response to novel conditions, emotional challenge, fear, anxiety, helplessness, and during heavy workloads (Kirschbaum & Hellhammer, 1989; Folkow, 1993). In a study of women who regularly worked more than 50 hours per week, it was found that their cortisol levels were twice as high in the morning compared with women who had a more moderate workload (Lundberg & Hellstrom, 2002). In response to the extreme stress of childbirth, cathecholamine (EPI and NE) levels and cortisol may increase to more than 10 times the levels during pregnancy (Alehagen, Wijma, Lundberg, Melin, & Wijma, 2001). EPI levels can increase in response to pleasant as well as unpleasant stimuli (Levi, 1972), while cortisol levels seem to be more sensitive to negative emotional conditions (Folkow, 1993; Kristenson, Eriksen, Sluiter, Starke, & Ulsin, 2004). The results of a study of male and female white-collar workers indicated that individuals high in psychological well-being had signiﬁcantly lower levels of cortisol at work as compared with those who had lower levels of psychological well-being (Lindfors & Lundberg, 2002). However, very low cortisol levels are associated with burnout and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Yehuda, Teicher, Trestman, Levengood, & Siever, 1996). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Biological responses to stress have been investigated as a function of gender. In response to performance stress in a laboratory setting, men increased their EPI levels by 50% to 100%, while those of women responded very little or not at all, even though women performed as well or better than the men on the tasks (Frankenhaeuser, 1983). However, in response to a real-life stressor such as an important examination, female students exhibited a signiﬁcant increase in EPI output, but it was still less than that of their male colleagues (Frankenhaeuser). Lundberg (1996) conducted a series of studies that investigated the effects of a number of variables, such as type of stressor (performance stress versus emotional and interpersonal stress), type of education, gender roles (masculinity, femininity), and sex hormones (testosterone, estrogens) on secretion of stress hormones. Mothers following their child to the hospital had higher levels of EPI than the fathers (Lundberg, de Chateau, Winberg, & Frankenhaeuser, 1981). Women who had chosen a line of male-dominated education had EPI responses to performance stress similar to their male colleagues (Collins & Frankenhaeuser, 1978). Moreover, estrogen replacement therapy (Collins et al., 1982) and high testosterone levels (Lundberg et al., 1983) did not markedly inﬂuence women’s EPI response during stress. The conclusions of the authors was that gender roles and psychological factors were more important than biological factors in explaining gender-related differences in EPI release during stress. Although the results of other studies (Frankenhaeuser et al., 1989; Lundberg & Frankenhaeuser, 1999) indicated that men and women at the same occupational level responded in a similar manner to workrelated stress, comparisons between male and female white-collar workers showed that women’s stress levels tended to remain elevated while men would relax and unwind at the end of the work day (Frankenhaeuser et al.; Lundberg & Frankenhaeuser). The authors speculated that perhaps the gender difference in the stress levels might be caused by the fact that women have a greater unpaid workload as a result of child care and household responsibilities (Lundberg, Ma˚rdberg, & Frankenhaeuser, 1994). Signiﬁcant correlations also have been obtained for women’s physiological stress levels at work and at home in the evening (Frankenhaeuser et al.) and between the number of extra hours of work and EPI levels during the weekend (Lundberg & Palm, 1989). The secretion of stress hormones has important implications for stress-related health problems. For example, catecholamines have been linked to hypertension, myocardial infarction (MI), and stroke. A model has been proposed that describes how elevated blood pressure could lead to successive thickening of the arterial walls, which could lead to narrowing of the blood vessels, thereby increasing peripheral resistance in the cardiovascular system (Folkow, 1982). Also, elevated © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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blood lipids, increased blood clotting, and the development of atherosclerosis, all risk factors for MI, are mediated by levels of catecholamines. Therefore, elevated levels of catecholamines in response to work-related stress can put one at greater risk for cardiovascular disease. With respect to cortisol, overactivity/dysregulation of the HPA axis has been associated with an array of health problems, including cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, cognitive impairment, and reduced immune function, when cortisol levels are high. Because there is a high density of cortisol receptors in the abdomen, elevated cortisol levels result in an accumulation of abdominal fat. Abdominal fat is readily releasable into the bloodstream, which in turn can result in an increase in free fatty acid levels and contribute to cardiovascular disease. High cortisol levels also block the ability of cells to utilize blood glucose, thus resulting in Type 2 diabetes. Additionally, cortisol has antiinﬂammatory effects. However, chronically elevated levels of cortisol can impair immune function, and thus increase the risk of infections (Lundberg, 2005). Because cortisol can cross the blood–brain barrier, it can enter the brain and result in the degeneration of neurons in the hippocampus, which manifests itself as memory impairment (Sapolsky, 1996). Finally, in people exposed to chronic psychosocial stress, elevated baseline levels of cortisol followed by an attenuated cortisol response have been observed (Kristenson et al., 1998). According to Lundberg (2005), countries such as Sweden and Norway have seen a dramatic increase in absenteeism during the past 10 years, particularly among women, due to health problems. These include burnout, depression, muscular pain, headache, gastrointestinal problems, and so on. Most of these disorders have been regarded as stress-related and described as ‘medically unexplained symptoms.’ It is possible that the more rapid pace of modern life, increased workload, and continuous adjustment to changes and new demands have contributed to a change between catabolic and anabolic processes.

JOB CONTROL, PHYSICAL HEALTH, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING One aspect of working life that has been extensively researched is the degree of control or autonomy that an individual has over her job. It is a crucial feature of the major theoretical approaches to understanding the impact of workplace stress (Karasek, 1979; Payne, 1979; Warr, 1987), and it is a central factor of job design theories (Hackman & Oldham, 1980; Wall, Corbett, Clegg, Jackson, & Martin, 1990). Additionally, in the management literature, the issue of job control is seen as important for releasing employee potential and improving job performance. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Within the psychological literature the concept of control can be viewed as a characteristic of the environment and a characteristic of the individual. Assembly line work could be viewed as an occupation where an employee lacks control over her job. However, an individual could still view herself as having high control based upon her level of mastery or self-efﬁcacy (Bandura, 1977). Or individuals could be seen as having greater or lesser needs for control (Burger & Cooper, 1979). The major models of job design and stress treat the concept of job control (decision latitude, discretion, autonomy) as characteristics attached to particular job tasks; however, the fact that individuals vary in their perceptions of, or needs for, control, also has implications for the importance of individual differences in these models (Jones & Fletcher, 2003). The most well-known demand-control-job strain model is that of Karasek (1979), which posits that physical and psychological workrelated stress can be predicted from combinations of job demand and job control. Historically, the model has evolved. While many studies focus on the negative impact of jobs that are high in demand and low in control, suggesting that these two variables are additive, other researchers have proposed that the combination of high demand and low control may be interactive such that this particular condition produces greater strain (Terry & Jimmieson, 1999). This is an important distinction because an additive versus an interactive effect has different implications for improving the workplace and reducing stress. If job demand is harmful primarily under conditions of low control, then, theoretically, job strain could be reduced by increasing control without reducing workload (Karasek; Parkes, 1991). Furthermore, Kasl (1996) has observed that some researchers view decision latitude as buffering the effect of job demand such that high demands will be present only in the face of low control, while others regard the interaction as synergistic. Often the design of the studies does not permit one to make such a distinction (Jones & Fletcher, 2003). The job-strain model has been further developed to include the variable of social support and is often referred to as the iso-strain model (Johnson & Hall, 1988). In this model there are also two alternative hypotheses, an additive model and an interactive one wherein social support acts as a buffer (Van der Doef & Maes, 1999). The job-strain model has been tested using a variety of methods and levels of analysis, including long-term epidemiological studies that have followed subjects over years to predict coronary artery disease and other disease outcomes (Jones & Fletcher, 2003), as well as cross-sectional studies using self-report measures of demand and control to investigate predictors of psychological well-being or other symptoms (Dollard, Wineﬁeld, Wineﬁeld, & de Jonge, 2000; Fletcher & Jones, 1993). Nevertheless, the job strain model has been criticized. Researchers have raised concerns regarding the nature and subjectivity of the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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measurements, the statistical tests used to determine the interaction, a tendency for the core dimensions to be confounded with socioeconomic status, and the fact that the model does not take into account sociocultural issues and individual differences (Ganster & Fusilier, 1989; Jones, Bright, Searle, & Cooper, 1998; Kristenson, 1996; Muntaner & O’Campo, 1993). While it has been criticized for its simplicity and lack of scope, it has stimulated much research on the effects of job control on health. Another model that investigates the importance of autonomy in job stress is the job characteristics model (JCM). The JCM suggests that there are ﬁve core job characteristics: skill variety, task identity, task signiﬁcance, autonomy, and feedback. The construct of autonomy is concerned with the freedom to decide how to do the job and the opportunity to use one’s discretion (Jones & Fletcher, 2003). It is thought that these characteristics in conjunction with experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility, and knowledge of results predict work motivation, work effectiveness, and job satisfaction. While this model did not initially suggest a relationship between core job characteristics and health, subsequent researchers added the outcome variable of mental health (Wall, Clegg, & Jackson, 1978; Wall, Kemp, Jackson, & Clegg, 1986). There also has been criticism of the JCM model particularly because of a bias to utilize cross-sectional studies that rely on self-report measures only (Roberts & Glick, 1981). Moreover, the model posits that job characteristics cause high or low job satisfaction and that self-reports of job characteristics are valid reﬂections of the objective characteristics of a job. Thus the assumption is that modifying the job tasks to provide greater control will necessarily result in greater motivation of employees because they will perceive themselves as having greater control. But self-reports do not always correspond to the objective characteristics of a job, and perceptions of job characteristics can be manipulated (Sanchez & Levine, 2000; Spector & Jex, 1991). Furthermore, individual differences in one’s affective state (positive or negative) can certainly impact the relationship between job characteristics, work effectiveness, and job satisfaction (Champoux, 1991). Recently, the concepts of job control and Karasek’s model have been incorporated into studies in the medical literature that investigate an array of aspects of physical and psychological health and well-being. Where some studies have found a relationship between job strain (high demand and low control), neck pain in salespeople (Skov, Borg, & Orhede, 1996), and adverse outcomes of pregnancy in clerical and commercial workers (Brandt & Nielsen, 1992), the preponderance of this literature focuses on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and its associated risk factors (Jones & Fletcher, 2003). A review of 36 studies published between 1981 and 1993 concluded that there was a signiﬁcant relationship between job strain and CVD, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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job strain and mortality from all causes, and job strain and risk factors for CVD (Schnall, Landsbergis, & Baker, 1994). Other studies have investigated the impact of job strain on risk factors associated with CVD such as high blood pressure and elevated levels of EPI and cortisol. In a study of nurses (Fox, Dwyer, & Ganster, 1993), it was found that a combination of high demand and low control predicted blood pressure and cortisol levels, while the results of another study using a heterogeneous sample of occupations found no such relationship. Where demands did show any type of relationship, those with lower demands had higher blood pressure (Fletcher & Jones, 1993). However, when one reviews studies that monitored ambulatory blood pressure, a more sensitive measure than blood pressure taken in a clinic, ﬁve out of nine studies showed a relationship between control and blood pressure (Schnall et al.). With respect to the impact of job strain on health in general, some researchers have concluded that across different populations, using different measurement methods and job designs, there is substantial support for the hypothesis that the combined effects of high-demand, low-control jobs lead to increased CVD (Van der Doef & Maes, 1998). However, while Schnall et al. (1994) agreed with the preceding conclusion, they also considered the separate effects of high-demand and low-control jobs and concluded that although 17 out of 25 studies found signiﬁcant relationships between job decision latitude and outcome, only eight out of 23 studies demonstrated signiﬁcant associations between job demand and outcome. Thus, at this point it is not possible to draw an unequivocal conclusion. However, when the effects of job demand and control can be separated, the data suggest that the impact of job control may be greater than job demands. Thus, more research is needed to clarify these relationships. In the case of the impact of the job-demand and job-control model on psychological well-being, there have been a number of studies. This is due, at least in part, to the fact that while psychological distress is important, in and of itself, it also is a mediating variable whereby work stressors may ultimately lead to illness. According to Jones and Fletcher (2003) there is a ‘‘plethora of research indicating that low job control is associated with poor psychological well-being.’’ This is true whether a measure such as the General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg, 1978) is used or whether speciﬁc measures of depression, anxiety, or job satisfaction are employed (Jones & Fletcher, 2003). Results of the studies generally suggest that the combination of high demand and low control are associated with poor psychological well-being, and additive effects are more numerous than moderated effects (Van der Doef & Maes, 1998). Knowing that people who report low levels of demand and control also experience high levels of distress at work can be important © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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information for employers. However, the data are not strong enough to warrant an assumption that the association is causal, as there are few studies examining the job-demand-control hypothesis and the development of psychiatric illness. However, some studies have found a relationship between low control and symptoms. Occupations associated with lower levels of control have higher levels of depression (MausnerDorsch & Eaton, 2000; Muntaner, Tien, Eaton, & Garrison, 1991). In a study of teachers (Cropley, Steptoe, & Joekes, 1999), job strain was linked to ‘‘neurotic disorder.’’ There also are some studies that have investigated the JCM and its relationship to job satisfaction. A meta-analysis of the relationship between job characteristics and job satisfaction in 28 studies found that of all the core job characteristics, autonomy had the strongest relationship to job satisfaction (Loher, Noe, Moeller, & Fitzgerald, 1985). Another meta-analysis looked at perceived control in relation to 19 outcome variables, some of which were health related. A relationship was found between autonomy and emotional distress in addition to absenteeism and physical symptoms (Spector, 1986). Finally, Saavedra and Kwun (2000) have used the JCM to predict affective states and determined that autonomy was associated with enthusiasm and they have suggested that autonomy may relieve job dissatisfaction as well as energize, reinforce, and maintain work behavior. Overall, the bulk of the data suggest that there is evidence to support the hypothesis that job control is an important variable with respect to the development of CVD and reduced psychological well-being. THE EFFECTS OF WORK STRESS ON RISK FACTORS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE (CAD) The physiological responses to stress involve a coordination of activity in a number of bodily systems, including the central nervous system (CNS), the autonomic nervous system (ANS), and the endocrine, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, and immune/inﬂammatory systems. Current research on the effects of stress on cardiac pathophysiology emphasizes the effects of the CNS and ANS in the development of CAD (Strike & Steptoe, 2004; Rozanski, Blumenthal, & Kaplan, 1999). This activation could predispose one to MI and sudden cardiac death by promoting coronary endothelial dysfunction and immune/inﬂammatory responses, thus inﬂuencing the pathophysiological processes that occur in atherosclerosis. Such processes can increase the vulnerability to clinical cardiac events by triggering lethal arrhythmias through altered neural transmission to the heart (Holmes, Krantz, Rogers, Gottdiener, & Contrada, 2006). Evidence also exists to support the thesis that several speciﬁc components of the physiological responses to stress may promote coronary © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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vasoconstriction, platelet aggregation, or the rupture of plaques in the coronary blood vessels. Mental stress can result in signiﬁcant arterial blood pressure surges (Rozanski, Bairey, & Krantz, 1988). In people with vulnerable plaques in their arteries, a vascular blood pressure surge may cause a plaque to rupture and lead to coronary thrombosis (blood clots in the coronary arteries). In the presence of atherosclerosis, stress-induced elevations in blood pressure, heart rate, and levels of catecholamines increase the oxygen demand for the heart, which can result in myocardial ischemia (insufﬁcient oxygen levels in the heart tissue). If stress induces coronary vasoconstriction, or a state of blood hypercoagulation caused by increased blood platelet adhesiveness, platelet rupture can trigger the development of small thrombi (blood clots), which can trigger a blood clotting cascade that results in acute coronary occlusion and MI, ischemia, vulnerability to arrhythmias, or sudden death (Muller, Abela, & Nesto, 1994). Data also suggest that mental stress can lead to constriction of arteries in diseased coronary vessels with a damaged endothelium (blood vessel wall) (Yeung, Vekshtein, & Krantz, 1991). EFFECTS ON BLOOD PRESSURE While there are a number of risk factors for CAD, including family history, smoking, lack of exercise, and being overweight, two risk factors in particular, namely hypertension and elevated blood lipid levels, have been studied with respect to workplace stress (Shirom, 2003). Blood pressure ﬂuctuates in response to changes in the internal and/or external environment. To discuss blood pressure one needs to understand the difference between systolic and diastolic blood pressure. The maximal pressure of the pulse of blood expelled from the left ventricle of the heart into the aorta is systolic blood pressure, while the minimal pressure exerted when the heart is at rest just before the next heartbeat is termed the diastolic blood pressure (Shirom). As mentioned earlier in this section, blood pressure can be measured when one is seated or when one is ambulatory. The latter is experimentally advantageous because subjects can go about their typical activities while blood pressure can be measured multiple times daily (Pickering, 1993). Acute diastolic blood pressure reactivity to various stressors has been prospectively linked to an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease, including CAD, stroke, and renal disease (Fredrikson & Matthews, 1990). The results of studies that have investigated ambulatory blood pressure over time have indicated that blood pressure measured at work is higher than all other measures of blood pressure taken during the day independent of the time of day (James & Brown, 1997). Personality factors such as the Type A personality, which is characterized by impatience, chronic urgency, enhanced competitiveness, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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aggressive drive, and an inclination toward hostility, can affect blood pressure (Booth-Kewley & Friedman, 1987). Meta-analytic data indicate that individuals with Type A personality show a greater diastolic blood pressure increase in response to daily activities than do people who are not Type A (Lyness, 1993), although the differences were small. Furthermore, in situations involving positive or negative feedback, elements inherent in playing video games, and socially aversive events such as criticism or verbal harassment, Type A individuals were found to have signiﬁcant increases in blood pressure (Lyness). In a meta-analysis, while the experience of anger was correlated with elevated blood pressure, the effect was small and highly variable (Suls, Wan, & Costa, 1995). Studies have repeatedly found that during periods of increased work demands blood pressure may be especially high (James, Broege, & Schlussel, 1996). It is possible that chronic exposure to job-related demands may be associated with changes in posture and increased physical activity. However, another pathway leading from chronic stress to elevated blood pressure could be related to one’s sense of autonomy and control. In a series of studies that used both job demand and job control appraisals to predict ambulatory blood pressure in a sample of working adults who were followed longitudinally, it was found that low levels of decision latitude and high workload predicted elevated blood pressure at work, at home, and even during sleep (Schwartz, Pickering, & Landsbergis, 1996). Subsequent attempts to replicate this study in working men and women have had mixed results. Sometimes the predicted interaction was conﬁrmed (Fox et al., 1993), and sometimes it was not (Fletcher & Jones, 1993; Kamarck et al., 1998; Weidner, Boughal, Connor, Pieper, & Mendell, 1997). A carefully conducted study of the effects of job strain on ambulatory blood pressure did indicate that situations in which participants perceived as high on control were associated with lower levels of diastolic blood pressure, which suggests that control may protect against acute SNS activation (Kamarck et al.). In summary, while the effects of chronic stress on hypertension remain inconclusive, and more research is required to clarify this possible relationship, there is considerable support for the hypothesis that short-term stress, such as that associated with critical job events, is implicated in elevated blood pressure (Schwartz, Pickering, & Landsbergis, 1996). EFFECTS ON BLOOD LIPIDS Elevated levels of blood lipids, such as triglycerides and cholesterol, particularly low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, have been shown to be associated with increased risk of CAD (Brindley, McCann, Niaura, Stoney, & Suarez, 1993; Niaura, Stoney, & Herbert, 1992). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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However, levels of serum lipids also have been shown to be inﬂuenced by other factors such as heredity, gender, body mass, dietary fat intake, degree of physical activity, and cigarette smoking (Rosenman, 1993). Yet, all of these factors combined still only account for a small fraction of the variability associated with serum lipid levels. As a result researchers have continued to try to determine the impact of psychosocial stress on lipid levels (Dimsdale & Herd, 1982). In a qualitative review of the literature, Niaura et al. (1992), concluded that even though the effect may be inconsistent, there are data that implicate objective or perceived stress as a variable related to elevated concentrations of blood lipids, particularly the types of lipids that are the most atherogenic. The relationship between cholesterol levels and CAD is graded and continuous (Niaura et al., 1992). For example, the results of the Framingham study revealed that for every 1% reduction in cholesterol levels, there was a 4% reduction in CAD, even after controlling for risk factors such as age, obesity, and blood pressure (NIH Consensus Conference, 1993). Such a dose-response relationship between cholesterol levels and CAD suggests that continuous exposure to psychosocial stress may be implicated as an etiologic factor in the development of coronary heart disease (CHD). The results of studies that investigated the effects of speciﬁc types of chronic stress, such as occupational instability and job insecurity, have found elevations of levels of total cholesterol that have persisted for as long as the stressors were present for a time period as long as one or two years (Mattiasson, Lindgarden, Nilsson, & Theorell, 1990; Siegrist, Matschinger, Cremer, & Seidel, 1988). In a quasi-retrospective study of female manufacturing employees, work overload predicted a subsequent elevation of total cholesterol even after controlling for age, obesity, fatigue, emotional reactivity, and burnout (Shirom, Westman, Shamai, & Carel, 1997). The effects of stress on lipid levels in middle-aged men and women have been studied by Stoney and colleagues (Stoney, Niaura, Bausserman, & Matacin, 1999). They compared the effects of low versus high occupational stress and acute laboratory stress on a battery of lipid and lipoprotein measures. The results indicated that most of the lipid parameters increased signiﬁcantly in response to both acute and chronic stress. Additionally, Stoney & Niaura et al. (1999) reported the results of an unpublished meta-analysis, which reviewed the results of 101 studies with respect to the effects of chronic stress (greater than 30 days), episodic (1–30 days), or acute stress (no more than 24 hours). Acute and episodic stress were found to have a signiﬁcant elevation effect on several lipid parameters. Nevertheless, while chronic stress and total cholesterol levels were associated with increases, none of the other lipid parameters provided a signiﬁcant effect size with respect to chronic stress. Thus the authors concluded that the evidence supported © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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a relationship between acute and episodic stress and lipid reactivity, but that the data were less robust for a relationship between chronic stress and lipid reactivity (Stoney & Niaura et al., 1999). It should be noted, however, that the meta-analysis results could be inﬂuenced by the fact that the designation of acute, episodic, and chronic stress were arbitrary, or because there are a small number of studies that investigated chronic stress and its impact on lipid levels (Shirom, 2003). In a ﬁnal study that investigated the relationship between lipid levels and acute and chronic stress in 100 men and women, it was found that both types of stress induced both signiﬁcant and transient elevations of atherogenic lipids that were not attributable to changes in diet, levels of activity, sleep patterns, or changes in plasma volume shifts, which where controlled for statistically (Stoney, Baussermen, Niaura, Marcus, & Flynn, 1999). THE IMPACT OF WORKPLACE STRESS ON THE HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF MANAGERIAL WOMEN AND WOMEN IN SPECIFIC OCCUPATIONS The bulk of the available research with respect to the effects of workplace stress on managerial personnel primarily has been conducted on men. Research investigating the effects of workplace stress on managerial women, a highly educated, motivated, and well-paid group, has only occurred during the past decade (Burke, 2003). Because this group of women is growing in size, we thought that the examination of the impact of workplace stress in managerial women warranted attention. Additionally, there have been some studies that have examined the impact of workplace stress on women in particular occupations, and we will also discuss the results of these studies. Some researchers have reviewed the literature on stress and health outcomes in women managers and have noted that, while stressors such as role conﬂict, work overload, and ambiguity are shared by both men and women, women experienced additional stressors unique to them and exhibited different ways of interpreting and coping with them (Offermann & Armitage, 1993; Langan-Fox, 1998; Davidson & Fielden, 1999). The stressors experienced by women managers could be categorized as being in three groups: those from society at large including work–family interface, off-job support, attitudes toward women in management and discrimination; those from organizations such as on-the-job support, sexual harassment, sexual discrimination, tokenism, and old-boys network; and, ﬁnally, those from women themselves, which consist of Type A personality, personal control, and self-esteem. Davidson and Cooper (1992) have proposed a model wherein stressors at work, home, and within the individual act as precursors of a © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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wide range of possible stress outcomes. The results of their research indicated that female managers scored higher on both stressors and stress outcomes than did their male counterparts. Women also reported signiﬁcantly greater Type A behavior. A longitudinal study of stress and health outcomes in 311 male senior managers and 172 female senior managers suggested that stressrelated illness was more likely to be expressed as physical illness in males, while female managers were more likely to report psychological illness (Jick & Mitz, 1985). Also, Type A behavior predicted cardiovascular risk, poor physical health, and psychological health problems for both men and women, but more so for women. While men scored higher than women on more work stressors, these stressors were only weak or modest predictors of cardiovascular risk, poor physical health, or poor emotional health. It has been reported that managerial women experience more pressure at work than male managers, while the latter group reported stress from internal sources (Davidson & Cooper, 1986). Women also reported more pressure at home and received little support from their partners (Hochschild, 1989). The women in this study felt isolated at work, exhibited greater symptoms of stress, and tended to exhibit Type A personality. Those women in junior and middle management experienced the highest overall occupational stress levels, although the proﬁles of male and female managers were different. Other researchers studied occupational stress in 220 male and 126 female undergraduate business majors. In this sample the female middle and junior level managers reported greater stress levels than the male managers (Davidson, Cooper, & Baldini, 1995). Women also attributed greater stress with respect to gender-related issues such as discrimination, prejudice, and work–home conﬂict. Finally, the women managers revealed more physical and mental health symptoms than their male counterparts. Another study examined the stress effects as a function of work and career experiences associated with career advancement in 792 women (Burke & McKeen, 1994). The dependent variables were various aspects of emotional well-being. The authors investigated four groups of predictor variables: (a) individual demographics, (b) organizational demographics, (c) work experiences associated with job and career satisfaction and progress, and (d) work outcomes. Work experiences such as support and encouragement, the absence of strain from conﬂict, ambiguity, and overload and challenging jobs were consistently and signiﬁcantly related to self-reported emotional well-being in this sample of managerial women. Additionally, shortterm responses to work conditions and work experiences that could affect emotional health also were signiﬁcantly related to emotional well-being (Burke & McKeen). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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With respect to studies on the impact of workplace stress in individuals employed in particular types of occupations, the authors identiﬁed some studies that examined workplace stress in supermarket cashiers (Lundberg et al., 1999), men and women in high-ranking positions (Lundberg & Frankenhaeuser, 1999), white-collar teleworkers (Lundberg & Lindfors, 2002), and critical care nurses (Sawatzky, 1996). The remainder of this section will discuss the results of these studies. Lundberg and colleagues have studied the impact of workplace stress upon various groups of employees in Sweden. In their study of supermarket cashiers, the authors were interested in determining the psychophysiological stress responses as they impacted muscle tension and neck and shoulder pain (Lundberg et al., 1999). The results of the studies suggested a multifactorial etiology of musculoskeletal symptoms wherein physical and psychosocial conditions interact with individual characteristics and behavior. It also is documented that physically monotonous and repetitive work is associated with an increase in lower back, shoulder, and neck pain (Bernard, 1997). However, other studies have indicated that there is a relationship between psychosocial variables in the workplace and musculoskeletal disorders (Johansson, 1994; Moon & Sauter, 1996). Time pressure, lack of inﬂuence over one’s work, and constant involvement in repetitive tasks of short duration often characterize jobs associated with a high risk for muscular problems. Supermarket cashiers experience time pressure, expectations from the customer and the employer, very little inﬂuence over the content of their work, and repetitive physical activity (Lannersten & Harms-Ringdahl, 1990). The results of this study suggested that the stress levels of supermarket cashiers were signiﬁcantly elevated at work as reﬂected in the catecholamine levels, blood pressure, electromyographic (EMG) activity, and self-reports. Seventy percent of the cashiers suffering from neck/shoulder pain had higher EMG activity at work and reported more tension after work. Women who described more musculoskeletal pain and kept a diary for 1 week were older, had higher blood pressure, and reported more work stress and psychophysiological symptoms (Lundberg et al., 1999). Lundberg and Lindfors (2002) studied the psychophysiological reactions to telework in male and female white-collar workers, where teleworkers include individuals who are said to engage in telecommuting, distance work, and remote work. In general such employees typically work outside a traditional workplace and use information technology and telecommunication equipment (Johnston & Nolan, 2000). In this study, psychophysiological data were gathered for 26 healthy, full-time, male and female employees while at the ofﬁce, engaging in telework at home, and relaxing at home. Blood pressure was signiﬁcantly higher during work at the ofﬁce than when teleworking at home. Levels of EPI were signiﬁcantly elevated in men in the evening after telework at home. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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As mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, it is clear that the proportion of women in the labor force is approaching that of men in many industrialized countries. However, data from several countries indicate that, because of unequal division of labor at home, married women who are employed full-time have a greater total workload than their male counterparts (Kahn, 1991). These gender differences have been detected in both blue- and white-collar workers from different parts of the world (Ayree, 1993; Barnett & Brennan, 1997; Beena & Poduval, 1992), thus supporting the hypothesis that there is an interaction between conditions at work and conditions at home that contribute to greater levels of stress in employed women as compared to employed men. Conversely, there also are data indicating that challenging work may serve as a stress buffer (Barnett, Marshall, & Sayer, 1992; Eckenrode & Gore, 1990; Repetti, 1998; Waldron, 1991). Thus, it seems as if workplace stress can result in both health-promoting and health-damaging consequences in women. Lundberg and Frankenhaeuser (1999) conducted a study to determine the effects of physiological and psychological stress responses to work and family situations in full-time female and male manager employees of a large insurance company in Sweden. The results of this study suggested that, while both men and women experienced their positions as stimulating and challenging, the data indicated a more favorable situation for men than for women. Furthermore, women were signiﬁcantly more stressed by their greater unpaid workload and by a greater responsibility for duties related to home and family. Women had higher levels of NE than men, both during and after work, which the authors suggest was a reﬂection of the women’s greater workload (Lundberg & Frankenhaeuser, 1999). Additionally, women with children at home had signiﬁcantly higher NE levels after work than did the other participants. A study of critical care nurses in Canada sought to describe the stressful work experiences, the perceptions of work stressors, and life stress in the lives of these employees (Sawatzky, 1996). Nurses working in intensive care units (ICUs) assume signiﬁcant responsibility for the management of patient care. Not only is the ICU nurse confronted by impending crises with their patients and their families, but also by the demand for technological excellence (Oehler, Davidson, Starr, & Lee, 1991; Oskins, 1979). The results of this study suggested that patient care–related stressors ranked the highest overall. A sense of lack of control appeared to be a common element among the situations ranked as most stressful. Signiﬁcant correlations were also obtained for the relationship between perceived life stress and the perceived severity of work stressors as well as between frequency and intensity of stressful work events. The authors concluded that, to address these issues, it is critical to change the perception of powerlessness and inevitability in the ICU, and that one of the best ways to foster a better sense of © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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control is via continuing educational experiences that enhance competence and expertise (Sawatzky, 1996). RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ENHANCING WOMEN’S HEALTH AND WELL-BEING IN THE WORKPLACE Given all the information that we have reviewed in this chapter regarding the effects of workplace stress on the health and well-being of women, the authors thought it prudent to offer some recommendations for both organizations and women who are employed. Burke (2003) has identiﬁed three levels of prevention: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary prevention involves efforts directed at reducing or eliminating the risk factors for workplace stress and/or the sources of stress. Secondary prevention involves helping women manage their responses to the unavoidable demands of work and home, while tertiary prevention directs efforts toward healing women and organizations via appropriate professional care (Burke, 2003). The remaining part of this section will provide some suggestions for the primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of stress in the workplace. With respect to primary prevention, organizations could enact policies and procedures to accomplish the following goals: . Provide ﬂexible work schedules, telecommuting, alternative work schedules, and company assistance with child care and elder care to help women deal with work–home overload issues. . Develop zero tolerance for inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace and for sexual harassment, as such problems have been linked to depression, headaches, nausea, and other physiological symptoms (Burke, 2003). . Ensure that companies institute development and reward systems that promote equitable treatment of all employees with a speciﬁc focus on resolving the wage differential between male and female workers. . Design programs that enhance mentoring and networking to improve social support in the workplace.

Primary prevention suggestions for women employees include but are not limited to: . Identify the sources of your stress and implement a personal stress management program that could include engagement in regular exercise, daily relaxation interventions, and perhaps intermittent professional counseling ‘‘check-ups.’’ . Utilize developmental opportunities to enhance your experience and use these developmental opportunities as a means of gaining exposure in the organization. . Recognize the existence of the work–home stress interaction and make suggestions to your employer regarding ﬂexible working arrangements.

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Self, Family, and Social Affects . Address your perceptions of stressors because part of primary prevention is changing the stressor. Modifying one’s perception of the stressor is the ﬁrst step in doing that. Optimism and positive self-talk can foster resilience.

Recalling that secondary prevention involves assisting women in managing their responses to stress and tension, organizations can assist women by: . Creating workplace exercise facilities and options for child care because women have less discretionary time to pursue health club memberships and often need child care to attend an exercise program. . Create networking groups whose purpose is to facilitate emotional release, a sort of ‘‘self-help group therapy.’’ . Encourage or create opportunities for employees to learn stress management techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, or yoga.

Because women in the workplace also have a responsibility for secondary prevention, our suggestions for them are similar to those for the employers and include: . Engage in a regular exercise routine multiple times per week, ideally ﬁve days out of seven. . Engage in a daily stress management technique. . Talk to others to engage in productive problem-solving as opposed to obsessing and ruminating.

Finally, because tertiary prevention involves symptom management and resolution of the sequelae of workplace stress, organizations should have employee assistance programs that provide appropriate professional care and that recognize the issues of workplace–home stress, which may be more prevalent in women. Such issues can include but are not limited to alcohol abuse, eating disorders, and smoking. Gender-speciﬁc interventions may be more successful (Burke, 2003). Women in the workplace need to establish working relationships with physicians, mental health providers, and other trained health care providers to establish a working network for their health and well-being. REFERENCES Alehagen, S., Wijma, K., Lundberg, U., Melin, B., & Wijma, B. (2001). Catecholamine and cortisol response to child birth. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 8, 50–65. Ayree, S. (1993). Dual earner couples in Singapore: An examination of work and nonwork sources of their experienced burnout. Human Relations, 46, 1441–1468.

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Saavedra, R., & Kwun, S. K. (2000). Affective states in job characteristics theory. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21(5), 131–146. Sanchez, J. I., & Levine, E. L. (2000). Accuracy or consequential validity: Which is the better standard for job analysis data? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21, 809–818. Sapolsky, R. (1996). Why stress is bad for your brain. Science, 273, 749–750. Sawatzky, J. V. (1996). Stress in critical care nurses: Actual and perceived. Heart & Lung, 25, 409–417. Schnall, P. L., Landsbergis, P. A., & Baker, D. (1994). Job strain and cardiovascular health. Annual Review of Public Health, 15, 361–411. Schwartz, J. E., Pickering, T. G., & Landsbergis, P. A. (1996). Work-related stress and blood pressure: Current theoretical models and considerations from a behavioral medicine perspective. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1, 287–310. Selye, H. (1956). The stress of life. New York: McGraw-Hill. Shirom, A. (2003). The effects of work stress on health. In M. J. Schabracq, J. A. M. Winnubst, & G. L. Cooper (Eds.), The handbook of work and health psychology (pp. 63–82). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Shirom, A., Westman, M., Shamai, O., & Carel, R. S. (1997). Effects of workload and burnout on cholesterol and triglyceride levels: The moderating effects of emotional reactivity among male and female employees. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 2(4), 275–288. Siegrist, J., Matschinger, H., Cremer, P., & Seidel, D. (1988). Atherogenic risk in men suffering from occupational stress. Atherosclerosis, 69, 211–218. Skov, T., Borg, V., & Orhede, E. (1996). Psychosocial and physical risk factors for musculoskeletal disorders of the neck, shoulders, and lower back in salespeople. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 53(5), 351–356. Spector, P. E. (1986). Perceived control by employees: A meta-analysis of studies concerning autonomy and participation at work. Human Relations, 39(11), 1005–1116. Spector, P. E., & Jex, S. M. (1991). Relations of job characteristics from multiple data sources with employee affect, absence, turnover intentions, and health. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(1), 46–53. Stoney, C. M., Bausserman, L., Niaura, R., Marcus, B., & Flynn, M. (1999). Lipid reactivity to stress: II. Biological and behavioral inﬂuences. Health Psychology, 18, 251–261. Stoney, C. M., Niaura, R., Bausserman, L., & Matacin, M. (1999). Lipid reactivity to stress: I. Comparison of chronic and acute stress responses in middle-aged airline pilots. Health Psychology, 18, 241–250. Strike, P. C., & Steptoe, A. (2004). Psychosocial factors in the development of coronary artery disease. Progress in Cardiovascular Disease, 46, 337–347. Suls, J., Wan, C. K., & Costa, Jr., P. T. (1995). Relationship of trait anger to resting blood pressure: A meta-analysis. Health Psychology, 14, 444–456. Terry, D. J., & Jimmieson, N. L. (1999). Work control and employee well-being: A decade review. International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 14, 95–148. Van der Doef, M., & Maes, S. (1998). The job demand-control (-support) model and physical outcomes: A review of the strain and buffer hypotheses. Psychology and Health, 13, 909–936.

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Van der Doef, M., & Maes, S. (1999). The job demand-control (-support) model and psychological well-being: A review of 20 years of empirical research. Work and Stress, 13(2), 87–114. Waldron, I. (1991). Effects of labour force participation on sex differences in mortality and morbidity. In M. Frankenhaeuser, U. Lundberg, & M. Chesney (Eds.), Women, work and health: Stress opportunities (pp. 17–38). New York: Plenum. Wall, T. D., Clegg, C. W., & Jackson, P. R. (1978). An evaluation of the job characteristics model. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 51, 183–196. Wall, T. D., Corbett, J. M., Clegg, C. W., Jackson, P. R., & Martin, R. (1990). Advanced manufacturing technology and work design: Towards a theoretical framework. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 11, 201–219. Wall, T. D., Kemp, N. J., Jackson, P. R., & Clegg, C. W. (1986). Outcomes of autonomous work groups: A long term ﬁeld experiment. Academy of Management Journal, 29, 280–304. Warr, P. (1987). Work, unemployment and mental health. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weidner, G., Boughal, T., Connor, S. L., Pieper, C., & Mendell, N. R. (1997). Relationship of job strain to standard coronary risk factors and psychological characteristics in women and men of the family heart study. Health Psychology, 16, 239–247. Yehuda, R., Teicher, M. H., Trestman, R. A., Levengood, R. A., & Siever, L. J. (1996). Cortisol regulation in posttraumatic stress disorder and major depression: A chronobiological analysis. Biological Psychiatry, 40, 79–88. Yeung, A. C., Vekshtein, V. I., & Krantz, D. S. (1991). The effect of atherosclerosis on the vasomotor response of coronary arteries to mental stress. New England Journal of Medicine, 325, 1551–1556.

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Chapter 6

Preparing to Be Employed: In My Own Voice Christa White

I am currently an undergraduate at a small, private college in upstate New York. It’s my senior year and I’ve found myself in the middle of what seems like a quarter-life crisis at the age of 21. After spending eight years away from home at boarding school and college, it’s now time to ﬁgure out what I’ll do with my life after the institutionalized structure that I’ve become so used to is ﬁnally taken away. Still unsure of myself, I do hope for more than the words of George Orwell in 1984 when O’Brien states, ‘‘If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.’’ Although I feel lost in translation, I hope for and imagine the best outcome possible; one that reﬂects my hard work—academically, socially, and athletically—and expands the image of myself in terms of the reality of all that I am capable of. I’ve always been entirely independent; it never seemed early enough to get away from home and do things on my own. At four years old I didn’t understand why I hadn’t yet been placed in the school system. When I was six, I decided that I should go to sleep-away summer camp. At 11, I needed to go on a term abroad for school, and then at the end of my middle school career, I decided that I needed to go to boarding school for high school. It was all over from there; I was away from home, in charge of my own schedule and setting responsibilities for myself. At boarding school I mastered time management and learned how to form mature yet close relationships with my teachers, coaches, advisors, and peers. Although I wasn’t stable ﬁnancially, the school, in cooperation with my friends who fought for me to stay at the institution, made it possible for me to graduate regardless. After © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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being given so many opportunities at boarding school in terms of classes, extracurriculars, and the social environment, my expectations for college were almost impossibly high. It’s not to say that I’ve been disappointed with my college years. I’ve had a great sense of social support that has speciﬁcally come from my swim team. Especially as an incoming freshman, the team was a necessary distraction from the temporary depression that had overcome me as a result from starting a new life in a new place; I no longer had the best friends who let me live with them when I wasn’t able to afford boarding life for senior year, nor did I have the comfort of dorm parents or the general comforts of a familiar environment. I thought that because I was able to approach new situations rather easily that the transition to college would barely even phase me. However, I soon learned that my adjustment had affected me more than I had thought would be the case. When swim practice started only a few weeks after classes began, it allowed me to regain a sense of schedule and time management. I ﬁnally had a healthy alternative to the constant party scene that so many of the incoming freshmen took advantage of almost daily. The training allowed me to mentally focus on something speciﬁc and that was not all that I missed about my high school days of security. I quickly grasped onto a routine that included classes and sports practice. I furthermore felt as though I had found one adult, my coach, with whom I could talk freely about my new experiences as a freshman in college. He was one person who understood my sarcasm and personality in general. When this connection formed, as well as those connections with the members on the team, I started to feel as though I would be OK in a new place. I had gone from positive to distraught, and ﬁnally leveled off at hopeful by the end of my ﬁrst term at college. Four years later, the most special part of my college experience has been my athletic life. I have learned what it means to balance work and training and to work with a team to accomplish goals such as winning conference meets multiple times or making national qualifying consideration times. I’ve learned to work for others and not only for myself. I’ve found myself on a team for which I would sacriﬁce myself; I have gone beyond my comfort limits for something that is more important than the individual; and in turn I have found that my own successes stem from realizing the importance of working for a team. I have learned that I thrive most in a competitive, fast-paced environment where my efforts are relied on by others. This has been valuable to learn about myself, not only for efforts in the pool but also for where my personal best can be found most evident in my academic as well as social life. I’ve had some obstacles along the way, of course, regardless of how well athletics has treated me during these years. I’ve been frustrated © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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with certain aspects of the academic life. One professor once told my psychology class on the ﬁrst day that not all of us would get A’s. I wondered how she knew that on the ﬁrst day. It turns out that she made sure that there was always a perfect bell curve with every grading period so that she would not be addressed by superiors for being too easy or too hard. It seemed more important that she appear legitimate in the eyes of the administration rather than to work with each student to ensure success. I found it frustrating that a professor whom I initially entrusted to provide me with a valuable learning experience spent more time missing class herself and setting rules to disallow any possible cheating that could take place. My teachers in high school seemed to have more faith in me as a student than this particular college professor. Another setback in my academic experiences has been the lack of courses available speciﬁcally in the department of my major, psychology. Finding that I was nearly done with the requirements for my major during the middle of my third year, I wondered where I would spend my time for the remainder of my college credits. An understaffed department was unable to offer courses that had been previously set up as electives, and as a result there was a slim selection of courses. One professor who has graciously worked with me along the way suggested that I take on a program in the graduate school that had to do with human resources. I was thrilled that such an opportunity was available; it seemed as though I would be able to graduate having an added beneﬁt to give me an edge upon graduation—both because I would have added experience in a particular study and because I would be more conﬁdent about entering the workforce in an area that I would speciﬁcally desire. However, the school administration soon turned me down, with hardly an explanation. They were sorry that I didn’t understand, and would I please stop inquiring about the situation. This was one of the most upsetting setbacks during my academic experience because it seemed as though I was being denied a valuable opportunity for no justiﬁable reason. However, despite these obstacles in my academic life, I have had a few professors in my college career who have helped me learn a little bit of what I want out of life after college. In terms of work, it seems that it’s becoming less of a man’s world than it used to be. Women are now receiving more beneﬁts than before, thanks to research that shows that successful integration of work and family life beneﬁts both the employee as well as the employer than if such beneﬁts were otherwise not offered. For example, direct services offered by companies are important factors in the workforce. On-site health services and ﬁtness centers would ensure a healthy experience for me and therefore a more successful work experience. Culture change strategies where there is training for © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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managers and others to help deal with work and life conﬂicts, as well as the focus of quality work and not quantity, also seem to be important factors to consider as a young woman attempting to enter the workforce for the ﬁrst time. Although I’m not yet at the place of marriage and family, it’s important that companies understand information-based strategies in terms of giving information to employees about child care, and so on, and further accommodating childbirth leave and child-care options. Again, although this does not directly and immediately concern me, it’s important to me that companies are accommodating and understanding in these ways, because it shows the value that they place on their employees. If companies understand the importance of work and life integration, it seems that we are all in the right place.

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Chapter 7

Mental Health Impact of Sexual Harassment Susan Fineran James Gruber

Over the last 25 years, scholars from a variety of disciplines (e.g., psychology, social work, women’s studies) and a wide range of nations have documented the devastating impact of sexual harassment on the health and well-being of girls and women. This chapter provides an overview of the literature and research on one aspect of the harm of sexual harassment: its effect on women’s and girls’ mental health. We begin the chapter with a brief explanation of the laws that cover sexual harassment for both the workplace (Title VII) and educational environments (Title IX). Given that sexual harassment was ﬁrst introduced as a form of employment discrimination, the chapter will begin by summarizing the research on the mental health effects of workplace harassment and then move on to harassment in university and K–12 education environments. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)) provides the principal framework prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, and sex. In 1980 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) deﬁned sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination and issued speciﬁc guidelines to prohibit it. Six years later, the U.S. Supreme Court further reﬁned the law by specifying two categories of sexual harassment: hostile environment and quid pro quo (EEOC, 2000). Hostile environment is applicable when the behavior of one or more people (not only a supervisor) causes the workplace to become sexually abusive, intimidating, or

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offensive and interferes with an employee’s job. Quid pro quo applies when a person in a power position (e.g., a supervisor) makes decisions that affect an employee’s job, on the basis of whether the employee complies with his or her sexual demands. Title VII set the stage for Title IX, which was signed into law in 1972 and states: ‘‘No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, or denied the beneﬁts of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal assistance’’ (Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to the Civil Rights Act of 1964). Using language that is similar to Title VII, the U.S. Department of Education deﬁnes sexual harassment under Title IX as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature by an employee, by another student, or by a third party, that is sufﬁciently severe, persistent, or pervasive to limit a student’s ability to participate in or beneﬁt from an education program or activity, or to create a hostile or abusive educational environment. (Department of Education, 1997, p. 12038)

Both Title VII and Title IX protect women and men from sex discrimination in education and the workplace. However, although sex discrimination can occur to either males or females, sexual harassment has had the distinction of being more problematic to women and girls. SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WORKING WOMEN Sexual harassment is a common phenomenon among working women in America. Every year at least 40% of employed women experience some form of this unwanted and uninvited sexual attention. A review of research across cultures found that it is also a frequent problem for women around the world and has similar effects (DeSouza & Solberg, 2003). It appears, however, that Nordic countries, which actively promote programs and policies to reduce gender inequality, have lower rates of sexual harassment. Compared to American blueand white-collar workers, Danish and Finnish women with similar jobs not only experienced less sexual harassment but fewer adverse job and health outcomes as well (Kauppinen & Gruber, 1993). The factors that cause sexual harassment, including proﬁles of the targets (e.g., non-married, young), the types of jobs that have high rates of harassment (e.g., male-traditional occupations), the ways in which women cope with harassment, and the negative consequent health outcomes appear to be fairly universal across cultures (Gruber, Smith, & Kauppinen, 1996; DeSouza & Solberg). To date, the most ambitious studies of working women (and men) have been conducted by the Merit Systems Protection Board of the U.S. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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federal government (USMSPB). Their three national surveys of federal employees (1981, 1987, 1995) provide some of the best data on the extent and impact of sexual harassment. Also, their survey items have been adapted by a number of researchers for studies of other public sector employees (e.g., MacIntyre, 1982; Stringer-Moore, 1982) as well as by foreign scholars (e.g., Canadian Human Rights Commission, 1983; Hogbacka, Kandolin, Haavio-Mannila, & Kauppinen, 1987). The overall rate of harassment of women in the USMSPB samples remained fairly constant across the three surveys (over 40%), as did the incidence of most of the individual categories (e.g., sexual teasing, looks and gestures, pressure for sexual favors). One ﬁnding that has been replicated by a large number of studies across time and cultures is that less severe forms of harassment, such as sexual remarks or sexually offensive looks or gestures, are much more common than more severe (and more harmful) forms, such as sexual touching or pressure for sexual favors. The Merit Systems surveys also provided evidence of commonly found coping strategies. Most women dealt with the harasser/harassment by ignoring the behavior, avoiding the harasser, or asking him to stop. Women infrequently reported the behavior through formal channels or directly confronted the harasser. Women stated that direct or confrontational responses were used less often either because the more common coping responses were effective in resolving the problem or because the women feared the consequences (e.g., retaliation, job loss) of more assertive action (USMSPB, 1995: Table 11). As other research has conﬁrmed, women’s fear that assertive action would make things worse is well founded (Hesson-McInnis & Fitzgerald, 1992). The job and health impacts of sexual harassment have been well documented over the last quarter century for a variety of occupations, workplace settings, and educational environments. Some of the earliest research studies found that targets of harassment experienced low life satisfaction and self-esteem (Gruber & Bjorn, 1982), anxiety, anger, and helplessness (Crull, 1982; Gutek, 1985), and depression (Hamilton, Alagna, King, & Lloyd, 1987), as well as a number of job-related outcomes. Similar adverse health outcomes have been found outside the United States. Canadian and European women experienced psychosomatic symptoms, depression, an inability to concentrate, and heightened job dissatisfaction as a result of harassment (Canadian Human Rights Commission, 1983; Hogbacka et al., 1987). A comparative study of working women found that Americans suffered greater psychological stress and had poorer selfimages than either their Scandinavian or former Soviet (Russian and Estonian) counterparts as a result of harassment (Kauppinen & Gruber, 1993). These and other adverse outcomes have been found in more recent research. An oft-cited study by Louise Fitzgerald and her colleagues on two samples (workers at a utility company and university staff) © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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found that targets of harassment in both samples had lower life satisfaction, poorer mental health, and more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than other women did (Schneider, Swan, & Fitzgerald, 1997). Additionally, their analyses revealed that even low levels of (or low exposure to) sexual harassment produced negative health outcomes or, in their own words, ‘‘harassment apparently does not have to be particularly egregious to result in negative consequences’’ (p. 412). Indicators of mental stress that were used by Richman and her colleagues—excessive drinking (both drinking as an escape and drinking to intoxication) and prescription drug use were signiﬁcant outcomes of sexual harassment among university staff members (Richman et al., 1999). Negative body image and eating disorders were also found to be a consequence of sexual harassment among college students (Harned, 2000). Though women’s self-reports of depression and stress symptoms resembling post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS) have appeared frequently in the research literature, the clinical dimensions of these problems were not formally documented until the mid-1990s. Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina developed survey items for PTSS using Diagnostic Statistical Manual III-Revised (DSM-III-R) criteria in a national sample of more than 3,000 women. When compared to women who had not experienced harassment, victims—in particular, those whose experiences met EEOC criteria—were at an increased risk of PTSD and/or depression (Dansky & Kilpatrick, 1997). The relationships between harassment and PTSD were explored further by Avina and O’Donohue (2002). They argued that a number of harassing experiences can ﬁt the DSM-IV criteria as probable causes because they pose a threat to physical integrity—speciﬁcally, by threatening the target’s ﬁnancial well-being, threatening her physical boundaries, and/or threatening the victim’s control over situations that she should be able to control (p. 73). SEXUAL HARASSMENT ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES Hall and Sandler (1982) gave a name to a problem that thousands of women experienced during college—‘‘the chilly climate.’’ They used narratives and interviews to reveal the marginalization and maltreatment of women, and the consequent suffering they experienced. The publication of The Lecherous Professor by Billie Dzeich and Linda Weiner in 1984 brought national attention to the problem. Several years later Michele Paludi expanded our understanding of the problem in Ivory Power: The Sexual Harassment of Women on Campus (1991). All three publications presented sexual harassment as a widespread, endemic problem caused by male professors with an inﬂated sense of entitlement who routinely groped, propositioned, and verbally abused their female colleagues and students. Paludi’s book was ground-breaking insofar as © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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it examined the problem of sexual harassment from a variety of perspectives. Its chapters included measurement issues, the conﬂuence of racism and sexism, the effects of coping responses of harassment targets, proﬁles of male perpetrators, and institutional strategies for preventing and remediating harassment. A chapter by Mary Koss on the psychological impact of harassment told of the stress caused not only by the harassment—diminished self-conﬁdence, anxiety, psychosomatic ailments, among others—but also of the problems women faced when they told others about their treatment. Women who complained were doubly victimized: ﬁrst, by the harassment itself, and then by stigmatization by their peers and retaliation by their harassers. Louise Fitzgerald and her colleagues ﬁrst used their Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ) on samples of students and staff at two universities (Fitzgerald et al., 1988). They found high levels of harassment (over 50%) for women in both groups. Most targets experienced gender harassment. Approximately 5% of each group had been sexually bribed. Harassment by professors was frequent among women undergraduate (49%) and graduate (53%) students on a large campus studied by Cortina, Swan, Fitzgerald, and Waldo (1998). Harassment rates were especially high among lesbian and bisexual women (81%). More recent studies that used the SEQ have found similar results. Fifty-six percent of the women students in a study by Huerta, Cortina, Pang, Torges, & Magley (2006) experienced harassment from faculty, staff, or peers during the last year. Harassment targets experienced signiﬁcant levels of psychological stress, more health problems (including symptoms of eating disorders), and less academic satisfaction. THE HARM OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT Though it is clear that sexual harassment causes adverse health outcomes in women (and men as well), the question remains as to which victims experience greater harm than others. Though much early research compared victims and non-victims, recent studies have focused on a variety of factors that may either increase or buffer the effects of harassment. We present four. Severity of Sexual Harassing Experiences While research models of sexual harassment have become more sophisticated over the years, even some of the earliest studies examined harassment severity as an issue apart from simply whether or not someone had been a target (Gruber & Bjorn, 1982; USMSPB, 1981). Severity is related to frequency insofar as some experiences become harassing while others become more severe through repeated exposures. Some experiences have a very low threshold and are harassing with one exposure (sexual bribery, sexual assault), while others with a © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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higher threshold become more severe as a result of repetition and/or contextual factors (e.g., acts by a supervisor versus a peer). In addition to frequency, Gruber (1992) argued that there were at least four other factors that affected severity: source of the harassment (e.g., supervisor versus coworkers), directness (whether the harassment was personal or ‘‘environmental’’), averseness or offensiveness, and threat. Some experiences are severe (e.g., sexual assault, sexual bribery) because they are highly offensive, threatening, and single out the victim. Others are less severe (e.g., a woman who hears sexually degrading comments about a female coworker) because they are indirect or environmental and offensive, and arguably less threatening because the comments are not about her. USMSPB (1981) divided their seven categories into ‘‘most severe,’’ ‘‘severe,’’ and ‘‘less severe’’ and found that more severe harassment was associated with the respondents’ ‘‘emotional and physical condition’’ becoming worse. The frequency of harassment was also signiﬁcantly associated with adverse psychological outcomes in a more recent study. Schneider et al. (1997) tabulated how often respondents had been harassed, regardless of the type of harassment, and found that higher frequencies as measured by the SEQ signiﬁcantly predicted life satisfaction, mental health, and PTSD symptoms. A strong relationship between harassment severity and PTSD was found among college students as well (McDermot, Haaga, & Kirk, 2000). Rather than use a simple frequency measure, they divided the SEQ categories into ‘‘severe’’ and ‘‘mild’’ forms and found that victims of the former had higher scores on all three PTSD subscales (re-experiencing the harassment, avoidance and numbing, and hypervigilance). Male Domination Research over the last quarter century provides compelling evidence that women in nontraditional jobs experience more frequent and severe harassment than other working women. Part of the reason for this, as Kanter (1977) has demonstrated, is because of highly skewed sex ratios. In addition, there is a signiﬁcant minority of occupations where a skewed gender imbalance (numerical dominance) is coupled with occupational roles and norms that reinforce traditional, sexist masculine values and perspectives (normative dominance). A survey of military personnel found that more than two-thirds of the women had been harassed (Bastian, Lancaster, & Reyst, 1996). Similarly, women working in other male-dominated occupations like policing and ﬁreﬁghting have signiﬁcantly higher rates of harassment than their counterparts in other public sector jobs (Brown, Campbell, & Fife-Schaw, 1995; LA Commission on Women, 1992). Similar problems have been found for women in nontraditional ﬁelds on college campuses (e.g., Paludi, 1991). Women students and © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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faculty in nontraditional ﬁelds (e.g., physical and natural science, computer science, engineering) experience more frequent harassment and are subjected to a wider range of sexist behavior (e.g., lower evaluations, poorer mentoring, limited access to training opportunities) than their peers in other departments. The health outcomes for women in these situations are fairly predictable given the higher levels of harassment they experience. Female targets of harassment in the military reported decreased satisfaction with health and recorded problems with emotional and physical health, even when the experiences were somewhat infrequent (Magley, Waldo, Drasgow, & Fitzgerald, 1999). Because women in maledominant work settings are often treated as ‘‘outsiders’’ and endure ostracism and isolation, they lose the potential buffering or protective effects of social support and collegiality that other women use to moderate the psychological harms of sexual harassment. The organizational hierarchy also poses a potential problem because women’s superiors— typically men—may not understand or sympathize with the plight of female subordinates. And, the leadership of an organization has a signiﬁcant impact on its gender climate and the tolerance of sexual harassment (Niebuhr, 1997; Pryor, LaVite, & Stoller, 1995). Work Structure and Processes Sociological research over the last half century has demonstrated the adverse effects of work structure and processes on the health, wellbeing, and job attitudes of women and men (Blauner, 1964; Kohn, 1990; Miller, 1980). Kauppinen and Gruber (1993) were among the ﬁrst to show that work structure and processes were a signiﬁcant cause of sexual harassment and, correspondingly, of psychological distress. Likewise, Mueller, DeCoster, and Estes (2001) found that centralized decision making, a lack of formal policies that protect employee rights, and rigid organizational structures that provided little job mobility predicted sexual harassment above and beyond ‘‘gender climate’’ variables that are used in a number of studies. In a related vein, Kauppinen and Patoluoto (2005) found that bullying was frequently found in workplaces where the pace of work had increased and/or the structure of work had become more hierarchical. Personal and Situational Factors Not all women are harmed in the same way by similar types of harassment. There are a number of ‘‘Who, what, and when?’’ issues that inﬂuence the impact of harassment. To begin with, women may have one or more ‘‘personal resources’’ that enable them to cope with sexual harassment. Those with high self-esteem, high life satisfaction, and/or © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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high job status (Gruber & Bjorn, 1986) or a feminist orientation (Gruber & Smith, 1995) are more apt to respond assertively to their harassers than other women. Also, women who have social support, either in the workplace through positive collegial relationships or outside of work through networks of family and friends, are able to buffer some of the potentially damaging effects of harassment to their well-being. Kauppinen and Gruber (1993), for instance, found that friendly, cooperative relationships with coworkers protected women in nontraditional jobs from some of the psychological distress that troubled other women. More recently, Rederstorff, Buchanan, and Settles (2007) found that a feminist orientation buffered White sexually harassed college students from post-traumatic stress. However, this was not the case for African-American students. Conventional wisdom suggests that women should deal with harassment by confronting the harasser or reporting him to their superiors. The implied assumption is that women who don’t take such action have personality problems. While having signiﬁcant personal resources may encourage women to respond assertively to their harassers, these strategies have a low ‘‘success’’ rate. A number of studies have documented the fact that responding assertively (confronting the harasser or reporting his behavior) often makes matters worse by prompting more harassment and/or retaliation (Fitzgerald, Swan, & Fischer, 1995). So, while providing emotional and social support to targets of sexual harassment is highly commendable, we should be cautious in urging them to take matters into their own hands. There are numerous contingencies that affect the outcomes of harassment situations (e.g., organizational policies, attitudes of supervisors, procedures for investigating and resolving complaints) that may either undermine women’s attempts to stop the harassment or help them resolve the problem. SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND K–12 STUDENTS Unlike the body of research that has accumulated over the past 25 years regarding workplace sexual harassment and its impact on adults, sexual harassment in K–12 schools has a shorter (15 year) history. Many of the behaviors identiﬁed as sexual harassment in the school environment are also identiﬁed as noxious forms of stress or sexual violence and contribute to the psychological and health distress of both school employees and students alike. It is also important to note that these behaviors may also rise to the level of impermissible employment or education discrimination as determined under Title VII or Title IX. For this reason, studies examining the impact of sexual harassment are important to provide scientiﬁc evidence to school administrators, policy makers, and the courts who may be considering complex problems regarding mental and physical health issues for both children and adults. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Researchers, for the most part, have not examined the effects of sexual harassment on adult personnel employed in K–12 school environments, and, unlike the body of research regarding mental and physical health outcomes for adults in various types of work environments, only a few studies have examined mental and physical health outcomes for children in schools. This is especially the case for young (K–6) students. Most of the information on sexual harassment experiences and outcomes has come from a small number of case studies that have garnered media attention and/or been litigated. Because of this, our discussion focuses on middle and high school students. Sexual harassment that occurs in schools is primarily peer to peer, although the American Association of University Women (AAUW) (1993, 2001) estimated that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 10 boys has been harassed by school personnel (teacher, coach, school bus driver, etc.). Lee, Croninger, Linn, and Chen (1996), in a re-analysis of the 1993 AAUW, found that 16% of students had been harassed by a teacher (girls, 20%; boys, 8%) and 44% by other school personnel (girls, 48%; boys, 37%). However, unlike studies on adult women where degree of threat or harm has been examined on the basis of how much power a harasser has over his target, no studies have examined differential effects of adult-to-student as opposed to student-to-student harassment. The most comprehensive reports on school sexual harassment were conducted by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) in 1993 and repeated with similar results in 2001. Their most recent report, Hostile Hallways (2001), found that 81% of students in U.S. schools had experienced peer sexual harassment (83% female, 79% male). Other studies on sexual harassment report similar ﬁgures: Between 50% and 88% of the students were victims (Fineran & Bennett, 1999; Fineran & Bolen, 2006; Permanent Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW), 1995; Roscoe, Strouse, & Goodwin, 1994; Stratton & Backes, 1997; Trigg & Wittenstrom, 1996). Sexual harassment research to date has primarily focused on prevalence and situational factors (type of behavior, when and where it occurs, student responses to it, etc.). Except for the AAUW (1993, 2001) studies, which used a stratiﬁed random sampling technique to select a representative sample of the U.S. student population, and the PCSW (1995) study, where the ﬁndings can be generalized to the Connecticut student population, the remainder of the studies used convenience samples that constrain ﬁndings to individual schools. Peer sexual harassment may include unwanted or unwelcome behaviors such as making sexual comments, jokes, gestures, or looks; showing sexual pictures, photographs, illustrations, messages, or notes; writing sexual messages or grafﬁti on bathroom walls or locker rooms; spreading sexual rumors; calling someone gay or lesbian in a malicious manner; spying on someone dressing or showering at school; © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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‘‘ﬂashing’’ or ‘‘mooning’’ someone; touching, grabbing, or pinching in a sexual way; pulling at clothing in a sexual way; intentionally brushing against someone in a sexual way; pulling clothing off or down; blocking or cornering in a sexual way; and forcing a kiss or other unwelcome sexual behavior other than kissing (AAUW, 1993, 2001). Sexual harassment may also include ‘‘spiking’’ or pulling down someone’s pants, ‘‘snuggies’’ or pulling underwear up at the waist so it goes in between the buttocks, and or being listed in ‘‘slam books,’’ which identify student’s names and have derogatory sexual comments written about them by other students (Strauss & Espeland, 1992). The AAUW (1993, 2001) reports indicated that over 50% of male and female students experienced sexual comments, jokes, gestures, or looks. Over 30% of boys and girls experienced being touched, grabbed, pinched, or brushed up against in a sexual way from schoolmates. In a study by Fineran and Bennett (1999), unwanted sexual attention, including pressure for dates and sex, was reported by approximately 43% of girls and 30% of boys, while in the PCSW (1995) studies, 25% of girls and 5% of boys reported unwanted sexual attention. Gender differences in victimization are common; girls report experiencing sexual harassment more frequently than boys, and boys perpetrate sexual harassment more frequently than girls (AAUW, 1993, 2001; DeSouza & Ribeiro, 2005; Fineran & Bennett, 1999; Fineran & Bolen, 2006; Hand & Sanchez, 2000; PCSW, 1995; Stratton & Backes, 1997; Trigg & Wittenstrom, 1996). Mental Health Outcomes A few of the studies inquired about mental and physical health symptoms and students self-reported the following: loss of appetite, loss of interest in their usual activities, nightmares or disturbed sleep, feelings of isolation from friends and family, and feeling sad, nervous, or angry (AAUW, 1993, 2001; PCSW, 1995; Stein, Marshall, & Tropp, 1993; Stratton & Backes, 1997; Trigg & Wittenstrom, 1996). Students also noted feeling afraid, upset, or threatened by the sexual harassment (AAUW, 1993, 2001; Duffy, Wareham, & Walsh, 2004; Fineran & Bennett, 1999; Fineran & Bolen, 2006; PCSW, 1995; Stein et al., 1993). Duffy, Wareham, and Walsh (2004) found that girls felt the negative impact of sexual harassment victimization more than boys. Speciﬁcally, girls felt more embarrassed, afraid, self-conscious, and they talked less in class. These behaviors translate into lowered self-conﬁdence, concentration, classroom participation, and leadership potential. Most school sexual harassment studies derived detailed descriptions of harassment situations by asking respondents to provide information on an experience that was particularly upsetting. These descriptions reveal that girls not only experience a wider range of harassing behaviors more © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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frequently than boys, they also consistently answer that they found these behaviors to be more threatening or upsetting (AAUW, 1993; PCSW, 1995; Fineran & Bennett, 1999; Fineran & Bolen, 2006; Duffy et al., 2004; Trigg & Wittenstrom, 1996). Similarly, Lee et al. (1996) also found that girls were more severely harassed than boys and had a higher probability of experiencing more psychological problems (i.e., trouble sleeping or loss of appetite) than boys. Hand and Sanchez (2000) also conducted a re-analysis of the 1993 AAUW data and found that girls who experienced physical sexual harassment had more negative educational outcomes than boys. In addition, their analysis showed that ‘‘girls experience qualitatively more severe, physically intrusive, and intimidating forms of harassment than do boys’’ and that the ‘‘deleterious effects of physical sexual harassment were stronger for girls than boys, across all of the measured outcomes’’ [emphasis added] (p. 740). Several recent studies conducted by Gruber and Fineran used a variety of scales to measure psychological outcomes of the impact of sexual harassment on students. In one study comparing middle school and high school girls, six outcomes (self-esteem, mental and physical health, trauma symptoms, life satisfaction, and substance abuse) were compared (Gruber & Fineran, 2005). Study results showed high school girls experienced more sexual harassment and had poorer health outcomes than their middle school peers. In another study comparing bullying and sexual harassment victimization (Gruber & Fineran, 2007), girls were particularly harmed by both forms of victimization. Twice as many psychological outcomes for bullying and sexual harassment were statistically signiﬁcant for girls compared with boys. Additionally, an analysis of data on 8th graders showed sexual harassment impacted the mental health of girls more negatively than boys, and girls reported more trauma symptoms than boys (Fineran & Gruber, 2004). On the basis of the few outcome studies conducted on adolescents, many of the symptoms reported by students due to peer sexual harassment resemble symptoms experienced by women subjected to sexual harassment in the workplace. Mental Health and Sexual Minority Students Compared to the published material on gender, the research on the mental and physical health risks of sexual minority students is sparse because most studies to date have not asked for this type of information. A study by Fineran (2001) found that sexual minority students experienced sexual harassment more frequently than heterosexual students. Speciﬁcally, sexual minority girls experienced signiﬁcantly more sexual harassment than heterosexual girls for the following behaviors: being called sexually offensive names, having rumors told about them, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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being called gay or lesbian in a derogatory way, receiving sexually offensive photos or messages, being touched or grabbed in a sexual way, being pressured for a date, and being sexually assaulted. Studies conducted by Gruber and Fineran (2006, 2005) have also shed some light on the experience of sexual minority youth. They found that in both high school and middle school, lesbian girls experienced more sexual harassment and ridicule than their heterosexual peers. In another study comparing bullying and sexual harassment, gay and lesbian students experienced more bullying (79% vs. 50%) and sexual harassment (71% vs. 32%) (Gruber & Fineran, 2007). Although there have been no large-scale studies examining the psychological impact of sexual harassment on student mental health, there have been some statewide statistics gathered on general student populations. An annual school survey, The Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey (Massachusetts Department of Education, 2007), found that sexual minority students when compared to their heterosexual peers had higher suicide rates, were more apt to skip school because they felt unsafe, had been threatened with or injured by a weapon at school, and experienced more dating violence and nonconsensual sex. A recent report (2005) by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network on Michigan schools revealed that two-thirds of students in their sample were harassed because they were, or appeared to be, gay or lesbian. More than 80% of these students reported hearing derogatory homophobic comments. Supporting this very negative picture, Fineran and Gruber (2004) found in a study of 8th graders that gay/lesbian/bisexual students who experienced sexual harassment had poorer mental health and more trauma symptoms in contrast to their heterosexual peers. In addition, sexual minority students and heterosexual girls reported being signiﬁcantly more upset and threatened by peer sexual harassment victimization than boys, and lesbian girls experienced signiﬁcantly more sexual harassment than gay boys and heterosexual students (Fineran, 2001). The fact that sexual minority students appear to experience a signiﬁcantly higher frequency of sexual harassment than their heterosexual peers reinforces concerns regarding increased mental health risks to sexual minority youth in schools. Sexual minority students feel unsafe in schools where they are experiencing more sexually harassing behaviors than their straight peers, including the experience of physical violence. Current research, however, continues to suggest that girls are most threatened by these behaviors and that more attention should be directed at the overall hostile environments of schools for both of these at-risk populations—sexual minority students and heterosexual girls. Turning our attention to younger elementary students (K–6) or students with disabilities, we ﬁnd that little research has been conducted on these populations and there is no conclusive information regarding © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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sexual harassment victimization and mental health outcomes. One small pilot study consisting of 26 students with disabilities (Rousso & Wehmeyer 2001) found that students were sexually harassed in public places and girls were more likely to be the target of non-disabled male peers. Fineran (2002) reported that high school students with disabilities experienced sexually harassing behaviors more frequently than non-disabled students, while a study of 8th graders found that disabled and able students have similar levels of sexual harassment victimization, but disabled students experienced more negative mental health outcomes as a result of these experiences (Fineran & Gruber, 2004). No other studies have been conducted on this issue with this population. Large-scale survey research exploring sexual harassment has not been conducted on populations of younger children in the same way that junior high and high school students have been studied. Most of the elementary school examples are single cases that have garnered media attention and/or been litigated (Stein, 2007). Many elementary school administrators struggle with naming the range of behaviors that young children experience as sexual harassment and frequently reframe these behaviors as teasing and bullying (Stein, 1999). Generally, however, victims tend not to be identiﬁed in the press and so their stories do not become as familiar as those who are identiﬁed as perpetrators and defended. In summary, the lack of data on this very young population makes it difﬁcult to say how sexual harassment affects the mental health of children who are at an impressionable age. SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND STUDENTS WHO WORK While the adverse effects of sexual harassment on mental health have been documented for adults who have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, little attention has been given to students who work while attending school. A preliminary study by Fineran and Gruber (2005) of 260 New England girls looked at the frequency and the outcomes of sexual harassment among those who worked while attending high school. In addition to comparing the health outcome differences between girls who had and had not been harassed, the study also compared the health outcomes of the harassed teens to published data on health outcomes among adults. Most of the teens who worked were under age 18 (72%) and were employed mostly in two broad categories of the formal wage economy: restaurant service jobs (44%) and retail sales (36%). More than 52% of the teens reported that they had experienced some form of sexual harassment during the past year at their jobs. More than half (56%) of the perpetrators were coworkers, while supervisors and © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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vendors/customers accounted equally for the remainder. A large majority of the perpetrators were older than the teens, with nearly half (46%) described as older than 30. When the teens were compared to a study of working adults by Richman et al. (1999), the results were compelling. The teens reported experiencing signiﬁcantly higher levels of unwanted sexual attention (38%) than women in all three of Richman’s samples (service workers, 15%; clerical staff, 14%; and employed college students, 10%). The percentages for sexual coercion in Richman’s three samples—5% of service workers, 3% of clerical workers, and 1% of college student workers— are comparable to the study on teens. This suggests that the teens experienced more harassment than adults because teens are working part time while Richman et al. (1999) collected data from women working full time. Results also showed sexually harassed teens experienced greater work stress and lower satisfaction with both supervisors and coworkers, and they were more apt to avoid work or to think about leaving their jobs. Also, they were more apt to miss school and less able to focus on school. However, their psychological and physical well-being were not negatively impacted by workplace harassment. Findings from the teen study contrast with the considerable research literature cited earlier in this chapter that ﬁnds that workplace sexual harassment is a source of low self-esteem, psychological distress, and health problems for adult women. It appears that workplace harassment for teens does not produce the level and range of negative outcomes that have been found in studies of adult women. This may be because of the smaller role that work plays in teens’ busy lives. Only a fraction of girls indicated their jobs were important to their identities. Though research has found that sexual harassment at school has detrimental effects on the psychological and physical health of girls, ﬁndings from Fineran and Gruber (2005) suggest that the overall mental health and health risks of workplace sexual harassment for teens are fairly modest. However, teens’ work experiences may have an impact on school. Teens who were sexually harassed at work did not ﬁnd school as exciting or engaging as other classmates. These ﬁndings may be alarming because students who are avoiding school, daydreaming in class, and receiving lower grades may ﬁnd their full career potential threatened or at the very least impeded. Additionally, although the overall mental health risks of workplace sexual harassment for teens may be low, this may not accurately reﬂect health risks involving physical safety. Sexual harassment consists of many behaviors, some of which are described as acts of sexual assault (Fineran, 2002). Redeﬁning sexual harassment as sexual violence and educating girls about workplace violence may be an important precaution for schools, for communities where teens are employed, and for parents to initiate. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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CONCLUSION Millions of women and girls experience sexual harassment as a daily part of their work and school lives, and those who are targeted experience a multitude of consequences that negatively impact their mental health. A number of factors concerning sexual harassment appear to be consistent globally: age of targets, types of occupations where harassment occurs, ways women cope, and psychological reactions to harassment. Less severe harassment behaviors (i.e., sexual remarks or sexually offensive looks or gestures) appear to be much more common than more severe behaviors (i.e., sexual touching or pressure for sexual favors), and low levels of (or low exposure to) sexual harassment produce negative reactions. Mental health outcomes appear to be similar across age groups for both students and employees alike. Students who experience sexual harassment in schools and universities have similar outcomes as women who experience sexual harassment on the job. Overall, research overwhelmingly demonstrates that sexual harassment has a major impact on women and girls’ psychological well-being and mental health, and that schools, universities, and the workplace have responsibility for making these environments safe and nondiscriminatory. REFERENCES American Association of University Women Educational Foundation (1993). Hostile hallways: The AAUW survey on sexual harassment in America’s school (Research Rep. No. 923012). Washington, DC: Harris/Scholastic Research. American Association of University Women Educational Foundation (2001). Hostile hallways: Bullying, teasing and sexual harassment in school. Washington, DC. Avina, C., & O’Donohue, W. (2002). Sexual harassment and PTSD: Is sexual harassment diagnosable trauma? Journal of Traumatic Stress, 15, 69–75. Bastian, L., Lancaster, A., & Reyst, H. (1996). The Department of Defense 1995 sexual harassment survey. Arlington, VA: Defense Manpower Data Center. Blauner, R. (1964). Alienation and freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bowen, G., & Richman, J. (1995). The school success proﬁle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Brown, J., Campbell, E., & Fife-Schaw, C. (1995). Adverse effects experienced by police ofﬁcers following exposure to sex discrimination and sexual harassment. Stress Medicine, 11, 221–228. Canadian Human Rights Commission (1983). Unwanted sexual attention and sexual harassment. Montreal: Minister of Supply and Services of Canada. Commission on the Status of Women (1992). Report on the City of Los Angeles 1992 sexual harassment survey. Los Angeles, CA: The City of Los Angeles. Cortina, L., Swan, S., Fitzgerald, L., & Waldo, C. (1998). Sexual harassment and assault: Chilling the climate for women in academia. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22, 419–441.

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Crull, P. (1982). Stress effects of sexual harassment on the job: Implications for counseling. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 52, 539–543. Dansky, B. S., & Kilpatrick, D. G. (1997). Effects of sexual harassment. In W. O’Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment: Theory, research, and treatment (pp. 152–174). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Department of Education, Ofﬁce for Civil Rights (March 13, 1997). Sexual harassment guidance: Harassment of students by school employees, other students, or third parties. Federal Register, 62(49), 12034–12051. DeSouza, E. R., & Ribeiro, J. (2005). Bullying and sexual harassment among Brazilian high school students. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 20(9), 1018– 1038. DeSouza, E. R., & Solberg, J. (2003) Incidence and dimensions of sexual harassment across cultures. In M. Paludi, & C. Paludi (Eds.), Academic and workplace sexual harassment: A handbook of cultural, social science, management, and legal perspectives (pp. 3–30). Westport, CT: Praeger. Duffy, J., Wareham, S., & Walsh, M. (2004). Psychological consequences for high school students of having been sexually harassed. Sex Roles, 50(11– 12), 811–821. Dyregrov, A., & Yule, W. (1995, November). Screening measures: The development of the UNICEF screening battery. Presented at the annual meeting of the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies, Boston, Massachusetts. Dzeich, B., & Weiner, L. (1984). The lecherous professor: Sexual harassment on campus. Boston: Beacon Press. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1980). Guidelines on discrimination because of sex, 29 C.F.R. § 1604.11. Fineran, S. (2001). Sexual minority students and peer sexual harassment in high school. Journal of School Social Work 11(2), 50–69. Fineran, S. (2002a). Adolescents at work: Gender issues and sexual harassment. Violence Against Women, 8, 953–967. Fineran, S. (2002b). Sexual harassment and students with disabilities. Paper presented at the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Washington, DC. Fineran, S., & Bennett, L. (1999). Gender and power issues of peer sexual harassment among teenagers. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14(6), 626–641. Fineran, S., & Bolen, R. M. (2006). Risk factors for peer sexual harassment in schools. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 21, 1169–1190. Fineran, S., & Gruber, J. E. (2004, January). The impact of sexual harassment victimization on the mental and physical health and coping responses of 8th grade students. Paper presented at the 8th Annual Conference Society for Social Work and Research, New Orleans, LA. Fineran, S., & Gruber, J. E. (2005, August). Sexual harassment of working teens. Paper presented at the International Coalition Against Sexual Harassment Conference, Philadelphia, PA. Fineran, S., & Gruber, J. E. (2006, January). Bullying and sexual harassment: A comparison of the effects on victimization on the mental and physical health and coping responses of students in junior high and high school. Paper presented at the 11th Annual Conference Society for Social Work and Research, San Antonio, TX. Fitzgerald, L. F., Shullman, S., Baily, N., Richards, M., Swecker, J., Gold, Y., Ormerod, A. J., & Weitzman, L. (1988). The incidence and dimensions of

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sexual harassment in academia and the workplace. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 32, 152–175. Fitzgerald, L., Swan, S., & Fischer, K. (1995). Why didn’t she just report him? The psychological and legal implications of women’s responses to sexual harassment. Journal of Social Issues, 51, 117–138. Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (2005). National school climate survey. New York. Gruber, J. E. (1992). A typology of personal and environmental sexual harassment research and policy implications for the 90’s. Sex Roles, 26(11/12), 447–464. Gruber, J. E. (1998). The impact of male work environments and organizational policies on women’s experiences of sexual harassment. Gender & Society, 12, 301–320. Gruber, J. E., & Bjorn, L. (1982). Blue collar blues: the sexual harassment of women autoworkers. Work and Occupations, 9, 271–298. Gruber, J. E., & Bjorn, L. (1986). Women’s responses to sexual harassment: An analysis of sociocultural, organizational, and personal resource models. Social Science Quarterly, 67, 814–826. Gruber, J. E., & Fineran, S. (2004, August). Sexual harassment and bullying: Mental health implications for adolescents. Paper presented at the Society for the Study of Social Problems, San Francisco, CA. Gruber, J. E., & Fineran, S. (2005, August). The impact of bullying on health and academic outcomes of middle and high school girls. Paper presented at the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Philadelphia, PA. Gruber, J. E., & Fineran, S. (2007, August). Teens and trouble: A comparison of the health and school-related effects of bullying and sexual harassment among middle and high school students. Paper presented at the Society for the Study of Social Problems, New York, NY. Gruber, J. E., & Smith, M. (1995). Women’s responses to sexual harassment. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 17, 543–562. Gruber, J. E., Smith, M., & Kauppinen, K. (1996). Sexual harassment types and severity: Linking research and policy. In M. Stockdale (Ed.), Sexual harassment in the workplace: Perspectives, frontiers, and response strategies (pp. 151– 173). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gutek, B. A. (1985). Sex and the workplace. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Hall, R., & Sandler, B. (1982). The classroom climate: A chilly one for women? Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges, Project on the Status and Education of Women. Hamilton, J., Alagna, S., King, L., & Lloyd, C. (1987). The emotional consequences of gender-based abuse in the workplace: New counseling programs for sex discrimination. Women and Therapy, 6, 155–182. Hand, J. Z., & Sanchez, L. (2000). Badgering or bantering? Gender differences in experience of, and reactions to, sexual harassment among U.S. high school students. Gender & Society, 14(6), 718–746. Hanisch, K. A., & Hulin, C. L. (1991). General attitudes and organizational withdrawal: An evaluation of a causal model. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 39, 110–128. Harned, M. (2000). An examination of the relationships among women’s experiences of sexual harassment, body image, and eating disturbances. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 24, 336–348.

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Hesson-McInnis, H., & Fitzgerald, L. (1992). Modeling sexual harassment. Paper presented at the APA/NIOSH Conference on Stress in the 90’s. Washington, DC. Hogbacka, R., Kandolin, I., Haavio-Mannila, E., & Kauppinen, K. (1987). Sexual harassment in the workplace: Results of a survey of Finns. Helsinki: Ministry of Social Affairs: Equality Reports, Series E. Huerta, M., Cortina, L., Pang, J., Torges, C., & Magley, V. (2006). Sex and power in the academy: Modeling sexual harassment in the lives of college women. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 616–628. Kanter, R. (1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic Books. Kauppinen, K., & Gruber, J. (1993). The antecedents and outcomes of womenunfriendly behavior. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 17, 431–456. Kauppinen, K., & Patoluoto, S. (2005). Sexual harassment and violence toward police women in Finland. In J. Gruber & P. Morgan (Eds.), In the company of men: Male dominance & sexual harassment (pp. 195–214). Boston: Northeastern University Press. Kohn, M. (1990). Unresolved issues in the relationship between work and personality. In K. Erikson and S. Vallas (Eds.), The nature of work (pp. 36–68). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lee, V. E., Croninger, R. G., Linn, E., & Chen, X. (1996). The culture of sexual harassment in secondary schools. American Educational Research Journal, 33(2), 383–417. MacIntyre, D. (1982). Sexual harassment in government: The situation in Florida and the nation. Tallahassee: Florida State University. MacKinnon, C. (1979). The sexual harassment of working women. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Magley, V., Waldo, C., Drasgow, F., & Fitzgerald, L. (1999). The impact of sexual harassment on military personnel: Is it the same for women and men? Military Psychology, 11, 283–302. Massachusetts Department of Education (2007). 2005 Massachusetts youth risk behavior survey results. Boston, MA. McDermot, J., Haaga, D., & Kirk, L. (2000). An evaluation of stress symptoms associated with academic sexual harassment. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 13, 397–411. Miller, J. (1980). Individual and occupational determinants of job satisfaction. Sociology of Work and Occupations, 7, 337–366. Mueller, C., DeCoster, S., & Estes, B. (2001). Sexual harassment in the workplace. Work and Occupations, 28, 411–426. Murnen, S. K., & Smolak, L. (2000). The experience of sexual harassment among grade-school students: Early socialization of female subordination? Sex Roles 43(1–2), 1–17. Niebuhr, R. (1997). Sexual harassment in the military. In W. O’Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment: Theory, research, and treatment (pp. 250–262). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Paludi, M. (1991). Ivory power: Sexual harassment on campus. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Permanent Commission on the Status of Women (1995). In our own backyard: Sexual harassment in Connecticut’s public high schools. Hartford, CT. Pryor, J., LaVite, C., & Stoller, L. (1995). A social psychological analysis of sexual harassment: The person/situation interaction. Journal of Vocational Behavior 42, 68–81.

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Rederstorff, J., Buchanan, N., & Settles, I. (2007). The moderating roles of race and gender-role attitudes in the relationship between sexual harassment and psychological well-being. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 50–61. Richman, J. A., Rospenda, K. M., Nawyn, S. J., Flaherty, J. A., Fendrich, M., Drum, M. L., & Johnson, T. P. (1999). Sexual harassment and generalized workplace abuse among university employees: Prevalence and mental health correlates. American Journal of Public Health, 89, 358–363. Richman, J., Rospenda, K., Nawyn, S., & Flaherty, J. (1997). Workplace harassment and the self-medication of distress. Contemporary Drug Problems, 24, 179–200. Roscoe, B., Strouse, J. S., & Goodwin, M. P. (1994). Correlates of attitudes toward sexual harassment among early adolescents. Sex Roles, 31(9/19), 559–577. Rousso, H., & Wehmeyer, M. L. (2001). Double jeopardy: Addressing gender equity in special education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Schneider, K. T., Swan, S., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (1997). Job related and psychological effects of sexual harassment in the workplace: Empirical evidence from two organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 401–415. Stein, N. (1999). Classrooms and courtrooms: Facing sexual harassment in K-12 schools. New York: The Teachers Press. Stein, N. (2007). Locating a secret problem: Sexual violence in elementary and secondary schools. In L. O’Toole, J. Schiffman, & M. Edwards (Eds.), Gender violence: Interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 323–332). New York: New York University Press. Stein, N., Marshall, N. L., & Tropp, L. R. (1993). Secrets in public: Sexual harassment in our schools. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women. Stratton, S., & Backes, J. (1997, February/March). Sexual harassment in North Dakota public schools: A study of eight high schools. The High School Journal, 80, 163–172. Stringer-Moore, D. (1982). Sexual harassment in the Seattle city workforce. Seattle: Ofﬁce for Women’s Rights. Strauss, S., & Espeland, P. (1992). Sexual harassment and teens. Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing. Title VII, Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. x 2000e (1994). Trigg, M., & Wittenstrom, K. (1996). That’s the way the world goes: Sexual harassment and New Jersey teenagers. Initiatives, Special Issue: Sexual harassment, 57(2) 55–65. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (2000). Guidelines on discrimination because of sex. Federal Register, 45, 74676–74677. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1981). Sexual harassment of federal workers: Is it a problem? Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1987). Sexual harassment of federal workers: An update. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1995). Sexual harassment of federal workers: Trends progress and continuing challenges. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Ofﬁce. Williams, J., Fitzgerald, L., & Drasgow, F. (1999). The effects of organizational practices on sexual harassment and individual outcomes in the military. Military Psychology, 11, 303–328.

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Chapter 8

Religion and Women at Work Michael B. Mathias

In 2002 the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Women in Society and in the Church (USCCB) undertook a project to examine the relationship between women’s spirituality and their employment outside the home. The committee invited dioceses to convene focus groups on the topic, and between the fall of 2002 and the spring of 2004 focus groups involving more than 800 women were conducted by 36 arch/dioceses. Based on the feedback from these initial focus groups, the committee identiﬁed several themes that it wanted to explore more in depth and then conducted another round of focus groups in 14 arch/dioceses. The women in these focus groups described a strong, often intense, relationship between their faith and their work. They see spirituality as a unifying factor that permeates all of life, and they resist compartmentalization in their lives. Many of these women spoke of their work as a vocation, a call from God. These women see their work as an extension of their spiritual lives. Most of the focus group participants reported that helping and serving people is the most satisfying aspect of their work. They reported that their faith exhibits itself in the workplace in a number of different ways. Many of them expressed a desire to ‘‘model Christ’’—that is, to set a good example by treating others as Christ would. A lot of them reported that their faith helps them deal with difﬁcult situations at work, including interpersonal issues with colleagues and ethical challenges. Many of these women said that they witness to their faith in the workplace. While some ﬁnd their workplace to be conducive to their spiritual life, others indicated that expressions of faith are discouraged in their workplace. They

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sometimes see fundamental tensions between Christian ideals and the realities of business life. In its follow-up study, the committee asked focus group participants to discuss in greater detail workplace experiences that they think are unique to women. Many participants said that relationships in the workplace are more important to women than men. They believe women are more supportive of one another, exhibit more empathy and compassion, and are less competitive. Women, in their view, tend to be better communicators than men. They maintain that women try harder to create a cooperative workplace and that women generally are more concerned to make the world a better place through their work. This study provides a good picture of how women in this particular faith tradition think about and experience spirituality in the workplace, and its ﬁndings are generally conﬁrmed by solid research in the behavioral and social sciences. The study’s ﬁndings also hint at some of the challenges that religious women face in the workplace as a result of their spiritual orientation. Importantly—and at long last, some might say—it acknowledges and explores the distinctive ways that women think about and experience religion and work, and the relationship between the two. This chapter explores all of these themes in greater depth. The ﬁrst part of this chapter examines the fundamental ways that women attempt to integrate faith and work, particularly in light of feminine conceptions of identity, religion, and work. In most cases, religion is a healthy, vital part of an individual’s identity, and successfully integrating faith and work has a number of beneﬁts. However, the second part of this chapter shows that the common policy of separating spirituality from the workplace leads many religious employees to compartmentalize their religious and work lives. The fragmented sense of identity that results leads to signiﬁcant psychological and moral strain. The view that the workplace is primarily a secular sphere is reinforced by federal law governing religion in the workplace. Part three discusses Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits religious discrimination in the workplace. Although Title VII requires employers to reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs and practices of employees, a series of court decisions have signiﬁcantly limited the employer’s duty. The ﬁnal part of this chapter compares and contrasts two organizational approaches to religion in the workplace. Before proceeding, there is an important matter of conceptual clarity to be addressed. To this point, the terms religion and spirituality have been used interchangeably, but many Americans see a great difference between the two. Spirituality is regarded as highly personal yet inclusive in that it embraces all ways of experiencing the sacred. Religion is regarded as institutional, dogmatic, inﬂexible, and divisive. As Spilka, Hood, Hunsberger, and Gorsuch (2003) explain, in this usage ‘‘spirituality is about a person’s beliefs, values, and behavior, while religiousness © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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is about the person’s involvement with a religious tradition and institution.’’1 So, spirituality is more psychological and religion more sociological. Given this bifurcation, a person can be spiritual without being religious, though being religious invariably involves being spiritual. Roof (1993) dubs the baby boomers ‘‘a generation of seekers,’’ and says ‘‘these intense seekers prefer to think of themselves as ‘spiritual’ rather than as ‘religious.’’’ Rayburn and Richmond (2002) report that women more often distinguish between religion and spirituality, and more often see themselves as more spiritual than religious, than men do. As Hicks (2003) points out, authors of management literature more frequently talk about spirituality than about religion in the workplace.2 Mitroff and Denton (1999) claim that there are good empirical reasons for this approach. In their recent book, A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America, they report that the respondents to their survey generally differentiated strongly between religion and spirituality. They viewed religion as a highly inappropriate topic and form of expression in the workplace. Conversely, spirituality was viewed as highly appropriate. Religion was largely viewed as formal and organized. It was also viewed as being dogmatic, intolerant, and dividing people more than bringing them together. In contrast, spirituality was largely viewed as informal and personal, that is, pertaining mainly to individuals. It was also viewed as universal, nondenominational, broadly inclusive, and tolerant, and as the basic feeling of being connected with one’s complete self, others, and the entire universe. (p. xvi)

Roughly 60% of those surveyed and interviewed had a positive view of spirituality and a negative view of religion. Mitroff and Denton argue it is appropriate (and strongly advisable) to foster spirituality in the workplace, but agree that ‘‘any and all expression of religion in the workplace is highly inappropriate.’’ To the extent that Mitroff and Denton’s argument for accommodating spirituality in the workplace seems to entail that religion also should be accommodated, this position, it will later be argued, appears to be inconsistent. This chapter will focus primarily on the experience of those women who would self-identify as religious (and, by implication, spiritual). But most of the discussion here is highly relevant to women who would identify themselves as spiritual but not religious. When the distinction is relevant, this will be noted. INTEGRATED FAITH AND WORK America is a deeply religious nation. As Prothero (2006) explains, In the United States, religion matters. In overwhelming numbers, Americans believe in God, pray, and contribute their time and money to

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churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples. As much as race, gender, ethnicity, or region, religious commitments make individual Americans who they are. The signiﬁcance of religion is not conﬁned, however, to selfidentity and the private sphere. In the United States, religion is as public as it is pervasive, as political as it is personal. And so it has been for a long, long time. (p. 1)

According to a recent poll, roughly 9 in 10 Americans profess a belief in God or a universal spirit (Gallup, 2007). Nearly the same percentage says religion is either very important (57%) or fairly important (27%) (Gallup, 2006). About two-thirds of Americans (63%) report that they are members of a church or synagogue, and 43% report attending religious services at least once a week or almost every week (Gallup, 2006). International comparisons indicate that the United States is one of the most religious nations in the West (Spilka et al., 2003, 149f). Moreover, in A New Religious America (2001), Diana Eck has demonstrated that the United States is among the most religiously diverse countries on the globe. Today the United States is home to more than 2,000 different faiths and denominations, and more than 500,000 churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples. As Prothero suggests, many Americans regard their religion as a very public matter. For the devout, religion provides the overarching framework that orients them in the world and provides them with motivation and direction for living. As Hill and Pargament (2003) explain, ‘‘religion and spirituality are not a set of beliefs and practices divorced from everyday life, to be applied only at special occasions; instead, religion and spirituality are ways of life to be sought, experienced, fostered, and sustained consistently’’ (p. 68). Nasr’s (1993) account of Islam nicely illustrates the point in the context of this particular faith tradition: In the Islamic perspective, religion is not seen as a part of life or a special kind of activity along with art, thought, commerce, social discourse, politics, and the like. Rather, it is the matrix and worldview within which these and all other human activities, efforts, creations, and thoughts take place or should take place. (p. 439)

Despite the widespread notion that religion is intimately related to all aspects of life, sociologists agree that the process of differentiation dominates modern societies. As Fenn (2001) describes it, differentiation is ‘‘the process by which areas of social life become separated from each other and operate under their own, independent auspices’’ (p. 11). As a result of this process, Fenn explains, each separate sphere becomes relatively autonomous of the others in setting its own internal standards, setting its goals and policies, and determining its own identity and belief system. Through this process, religion has been separated from the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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sphere of economic life and other facets of so-called public life. Thus, according to one of the grand narratives in the sociology of religion, Abandoned to the impersonal structures of impersonal institutions, modern men and women ﬁnd themselves trapped in an iron cage of rationalized bureaucracy, which can supply neither meaning nor signiﬁcance. Homeless, alienated, and anomic minds can now ﬁnd purpose and value only in the realm of personal and private life. Religion, once part of the public realm, correspondingly shrinks in scope, and can work its enchantments— if at all—only in a severely delimited sphere. It becomes, in other words, a ‘‘privatized’’ means by which a declining number of people cope with the dislocations and restrictions of public life. (Woodhead, 2001, p. 76)

The so-called Religious Right—represented by organizations such as the Christian Coalition and the Moral Majority—has mobilized in an effort to combat this process of differentiation in American society, and, over the past three decades, it has emerged as a powerful political and social force.3 While the evangelical movement’s initial efforts were primarily directed at giving greater voice to religion—speciﬁcally, Christianity—in political matters, it has increasingly directed its efforts toward the workplace. As a result of this, and a number of other contributing factors, there has been a sharp increase in interest in religion in the workplace, and a large body of literature devoted to the topic has emerged over the past decade.4 Another factor driving this trend is the increased participation of women in the U.S. labor force.5 Women not only exhibit a greater afﬁnity for religion than men, but they also experience faith differently than men. As the USCCB study noted at the outset indicates, religious women tend to see spirituality as infusing all they do, including their jobs. So, as women enter the workforce, they tend to bring their faith with them. Those who are religious—men and women alike—have a fundamental desire to integrate their religious lives and their work lives. (Indeed, to the extent that one considers religion as an overarching framework in one’s life, the dichotomy between religious life and work life makes little sense.) In God and Mammon in America (1994) sociologist Robert Wuthnow examined the relationship between religious commitment and economic behavior in the United States.6 Wuthnow found that a considerable portion of the American workforce thinks about how to relate their faith to their work and discusses their faith with others at work. When asked how much they had thought during the past year about ‘‘how to link your faith more directly with your work,’’ 33% of working Americans said they had thought about this a great deal or a fair amount. Among persons who said they were members of a church or synagogue, this proportion rose to 46%, and among persons who attended religious services every week, it was 60%. Based upon these © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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ﬁndings, Wuthnow inferred two things: Many American workers are interested in making their faith relevant to their work; and, because the proportions are lower than one would expect given the religiosity of Americans, ‘‘many people have learned to compartmentalize [their faith and work].’’ On the whole, approximately one-third of working Americans claimed to have discussed their faith with someone at work during the past year. Among members of churches or synagogues, this proportion rose to 47%, and among those who attend religious services every week, it was 58%. Wuthnow determined that women are more likely than men to engage in discussions about faith at work. Religious individuals seek to relate their faith to their work in a number of fundamental ways. First, religion imbues work with meaning and purpose. Many religious workers emphasize the noninstrumental value of their work; ﬁrst and foremost, they see their work as service to others. In addition, by emphasizing transcendence of the self, religion encourages workers to view the workplace as a communal setting. Religious workers often report closer connections to coworkers, and, again, tend to call attention to the non-instrumental value of work relations. Moreover, religion provides guidance in relating work to other aspects of life, such as family. Religious workers also ﬁnd their faith to be a powerful resource for managing stress. Religion may also provide the moral grounding needed to address ethical challenges that arise at work. Ultimately, many religious individuals see work as an opportunity for spiritual growth and self-actualization. This section proposes that, in light of feminine understandings of identity, religion, and work, as well as the unique circumstances of working women, there is good reason to believe that the desire to experience and express spirituality in the context of work and the workplace will be particularly strong in religious women. The evidence is clear and well established: Women are generally more religious than men on a wide range of measures (Spilka et al., 2003; Walter & Davie, 1998; Francis, 1997; Beit-Hallahmi & Argyle, 1996; Cornwall, 1989). Findings demonstrate both stronger beliefs and higher levels of religious activity on the part of women. Donelson (1999) reports that, ‘‘relative to men, women attend worship services more often, pray more often, report more intense religious experiences, regard religion more favorably, feel closer to God, are more likely to express need for a religious dimension in their daily lives, and are more involved in religious social activities.’’ An extensive study by Wilson and Sherkat (1994) found that women are less likely to become apostates than are men, though women apostates are also less likely to return to the fold than are men. A number of theories have been proposed to explain why women tend to be more religious than men, but as of yet little empirical research has been undertaken to test these hypotheses.7 © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Many observers see women’s extensive participation in religion as paradoxical. All of the major religious traditions—including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism—have historically placed women in a subordinate position to men (Reinke, 1995). Their teachings have traditionally been interpreted to support the doctrine of ‘‘separate spheres.’’8 Despite the mass entry of women into the U.S. labor force in the late 20th century, it is clear that these teachings still inﬂuence some women: ‘‘To the extent that a woman is religious, she is likely to maintain established sex roles in marriage, to continue to be a homemaker and mother, and not to work outside the home’’ (Spilka et al., 2003, p. 188). Not surprisingly, Wuthnow (1994) found this to be true particularly for women associated with more conservative religious traditions. These teachings can be the source of guilt and frustration for religious women that enter the workforce. Willits and Crider (1988) found that, for females in the workforce, increased adolescent religious participation is negatively associated with job satisfaction. (Note that they found no relation between current religious participation and job satisfaction.) They write, ‘‘Since the primary socialization on gender roles takes place during childhood and adolescence . . . religious women may see employment for pay as an intrusion on their perceived God-given roles of wife, mother and keeper of the home.’’ Bridges and Spilka (1992) write about the potential negative effects of religion on the mental health of women. Through the patriarchal organization of sex roles, these religions may offer negative meanings to women, reducing their sense of personal control and lowering their self-esteem. Hence, scholars like Ozorak (1996) have asked why women disproportionately invest in an institution that systematically devalues them. She suggests that the answer might lie in recent work showing that women and men experience God and faith differently. ‘‘For women, the emphasis commonly seems to be on personal relationships with a loving God and with others in the religious community,’’ says Ozorak, ‘‘while men are more likely to focus on God’s power and judgment, and on their own spiritual discipline.’’ These differences, she notes, are reminiscent of the two voices of morality contrasted by Gilligan (1982): the feminine voice of relationship and the masculine voice of individuation.9 Regarding the women in her study, Ozorak writes, It is striking that the women in this sample, almost without exception, emphasized the centrality of caring and community to their religious experience and insisted on a view of God as a friend and conﬁdant rather than as a cosmic ruler or judge. This offers a possible explanation for the paradox proposed earlier. . . . Most of the women in this study recognized that by social standards, organized religion does not treat them as well as it might. . . . But in absolute terms, they do not see themselves as

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disenfranchised. The power of connection and relationship, most essential to their own views of the faith experience, is available to them in abundance. (p. 27)

Woodhead (2001) sees in ﬁndings like this evidence of the feminization of religion, which involves a ‘‘shift of weight towards the relational in religion’’ (p. 78). Women in particular (but increasingly men as well) have come to regard and value religion primarily in terms of its ability to sustain and validate various forms of relationship. When the recent history of religion is reconceptualized from a feminist perspective, Woodhead argues, ‘‘religion can be seen as far from the private matter that has so often been assumed.’’ Indeed, the narrative of modern religious history presented earlier, according to which religion has become a matter of purely private signiﬁcance, makes no sense from this perspective because the sharp line between ‘‘private’’ and ‘‘public’’ spheres of life that is central to this narrative is drawn from a masculine point of view. Women tend not to see themselves as ‘‘unencumbered’’ or ‘‘separate’’ selves but as being ‘‘radically situated’’ in a rich network of relations with others (Miller, 1976; Chodorow, 1978; Gilligan, 1982).10 Religious women report that spirituality is pervasive in these relations, and, hence, the notion that a sharp boundary can be drawn between one’s religious life and other aspects of one’s life, such as one’s work life, is inconsistent with their experience. Consider representative comments from two participants in the USCCB study mentioned at the outset: One woman said, ‘‘Categorizing where spirituality lies can be artiﬁcial; it penetrates all we do’’; another put it this way, ‘‘Spirituality is intertwined in everything.’’ This feminine, relational understanding of religion encourages the sacralization of everyday life, including work life. Ozorak (1996) reports that the women in her study repeatedly mentioned service to others as an integral part of religious practice, and many of these women see work as an important venue for this service.11 One of her subjects, a Unitarian woman, said, ‘‘Going to church is nice, but I really feel religious when I am working. I enjoy working with dying people. So, I really feel like that my God’s work on earth is to do that kind of stuff.’’ Another subject, a Methodist businesswoman, expressed it this way, ‘‘I have the power to make a difference, to be the hands that work for Jesus.’’ Ozorak concluded that these women ‘‘experience God’s power not just in God’s goodness to them but in the work they feel God empowers them to do for others . . . they feel better about themselves in part because they believe that their own behavior and capabilities change for the better.’’ For these women, work is construed as a form of religious expression. They regard their work as important and valuable in light of their religious views, and this strong sense of purpose promotes their self-esteem. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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The desire to ﬁnd meaning and purpose in one’s work is common to men and women, but Ruthellen Josselson’s longitudinal study (1996) of how women construct their identities over a lifetime suggests that this desire may be particularly acute for women. Josselson found that ‘‘unlike many men, few women deﬁned themselves as ‘a manager’ or ‘a teacher.’ Occupation may be what she ‘does’ for many hours of her life, but is seldom what she feels she ‘is.’’’ While the women in her study were generally disinclined to deﬁne themselves in terms of their occupation, she reports that ‘‘more than half the women I have interviewed deﬁne themselves in an important spiritual way. . . . For many of these women, [spiritual development] is an even more consuming quest than occupational self-deﬁnition.’’ For the women in her study, the degree to which occupational endeavors were assigned prominence in their identity was a function of whether they perceived their work to have a meaningful impact on the lives of others. In an otherwise diverse group, ‘‘nearly all located meaning—and identity—in their work relative to the impact they felt they had in the lives of others.’’ When these women felt stymied by the inﬂexibility or indifference of their organizations, and, consequently, believed that they were not getting anything of worth accomplished, they came to feel great dissatisfaction with their jobs. Josselson acknowledges that men may also become very disappointed with their jobs, but she suggests that women, who are less likely to deﬁne themselves by their work, experience this sort of dissatisfaction more intensely and for different reasons. I think that because these women bring a deep sense that they are choosing to work, that they are a ﬁrst generation pioneering high-status roles for women, they demand more from what they are doing. Unlike men, they don’t see themselves, in most cases, of ‘‘having’’ to work in order to ‘‘have’’ an identity at all. . . . These women don’t seem to value themselves based on their income level. . . . They work in hopes of self-realization and a feeling of effectiveness. When this is thwarted, the whole enterprise of employment is open to question. (p. 195)12

All of this may be especially true for religious women because They see their faith as more fundamental to their identity than their occupation, they see their work as serving a higher purpose, and they may feel that their choice to enter the workforce conﬂicts with the traditional teachings of their faith. Those who are religious feel deeper connections not only to their work but also to their fellow workers. Religion connects individuals to one another and promotes sociality (Spilka et al., 2003, p. 18f). It fosters a sense of community and a sense of belonging to something larger than oneself. Scholars from many ﬁelds have noted that employees—both the religious and non-religious—increasingly see the workplace as a © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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communal center (Conger, 1994). This is due, in part, to the fact that Americans spend a lot of time there. Indeed, according to Galinsky et al. (2005), one-third of all U.S. employees can be viewed as being chronically overworked.13 ‘‘As more Americans spend more time ‘at work,’’’ writes Poarch, ‘‘work gradually becomes less of a one-dimensional activity and assumes more of the concerns and activities of both private (family) and public (social and political) life’’ (cited in Putnam, 2000, p. 86). Religious concerns and activities should certainly be added to this list. Partly because Americans are spending more time at work, participation in traditional forms of social association, including church, has diminished signiﬁcantly in recent decades (Putnam).14 In the past, civic organizations offered support and provided a place for people to contribute and establish connections. But as involvement in these organizations has declined, people have brought their need for community (and spirituality) to work. As Nash and McLennan (2001) say, ‘‘For many businesspeople, the corporation is the closest thing that they have to community after the family.’’ As indicated, an inﬂuential line of research in psychology has found that women in general have a more communal orientation than men. To the extent that this is true, the increased presence of women in the workplace is likely to encourage the notion of ‘‘company as community.’’ In fact, it opens the prospect of a revolutionary change in the nature of work and the workplace. Fenn (2001) nicely summarizes the idea: As women enter the labor force in increasing numbers, the very relatedness of people to one another will make it increasingly difﬁcult for corporations and bureaucracies to separate domains such as education and the family, the neighborhood and the community, from the spheres of work and politics. In fact, the increased presence of women in the areas formerly dominated by men may intensify pressures to put back together areas of social life that the Western world has torn apart. . . . As the world of work becomes feminized, relationships on the job will become connected to wider possibilities, networks of relationships, and universes of meaning. (p. 11)

The relational conception of religion common to women further promotes the transformation of work and work relations. Traditionally, work and work relations have been regarded as having primarily (or only) instrumental value—that is, work provides the means to life, but not the meaning of life. But when work and work relations are sacralized, they are seen as having signiﬁcant non-instrumental value. Work, as explained above, becomes an expression of one’s deepest principles, and the workplace is a venue for self-actualization, which one pursues by helping and serving others in the workplace community and the community at large. In addition to bestowing deeper signiﬁcance to work and work relations, many women report that religion constructively helps integrate work in their broader lives. By offering a conception of the nature and © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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purpose of life generally, religion offers adherents motivation and direction for living. It identiﬁes and prioritizes activities that are truly worthwhile and important. Hence, religion provides followers with a mechanism for balancing career pursuits with other activities. A sacral perspective, Nash and McLennan (2001) suggest, ‘‘is a way of preventing oneself from getting too caught up in a corporate mindset that throws the individual out of balance, a state neither personally rewarding nor ultimately effective’’ (p. 23). Consider the comments of one of their interviewees, a woman struggling with career decisions that would affect her family life: I really get carried away with work. I need to put my priorities in balance, and I think a deeper spiritual life will help me do that. You can’t wait until it’s all over to decide what’s really important. My religious belief helps me keep the important things in mind. (p. 25)

The need to ﬁnd balance in one’s life is especially pressing for working women. As Gutek (1993) makes clear, employed women face more stressors, on average, than men, due to gender-asymmetric change in work and family roles. Employed women face a wide variety of stressors owing to the major commitments of time and energy associated with the roles of spouse, parent, and worker. In addition to the strain that comes from juggling multiple roles in life, there are the day-to-day stresses associated with work. Numerous surveys and studies indicate that occupational pressures are by far the leading source of stress for American adults and that these pressures have steadily increased over the past few decades. For example, according to surveys cited by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, p. 4f), 40% of workers report that their job is ‘‘very or extremely stressful,’’ and one-fourth of employees view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives. Galinsky et al. (2005) found that, while men work longer hours, take less vacation time, and tend to have jobs with characteristics leading to more stress, women report having more demanding jobs and feeling more stress. Women face a variety of unique stressors in the workplace, related to: the social isolation that can result from entering a male-dominated workplace or ﬁeld; a sense of being undervalued in their efforts or contributions; challenges to their competency rooted in false stereotypes; sexual discrimination and harassment; and, as mentioned above, work/family conﬂicts. Many women report that religion plays an important role in stress management. Religious commitment has been tied to positive methods of coping.15 As Silverman and Pargament (1990) explain, People do not face stressful situations without resources. They rely on a system of beliefs, practices, and relationships which affects how they deal

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with difﬁcult situations. In the coping process, this orienting system is translated into concrete situation-speciﬁc appraisals, activities, and goals. Religion is part of this general orienting system. (p. 2)

Spilka et al. (2003, p. 483f) indicate that three needs underlie people’s attempts to cope: a need for meaning, based on a desire to make sense of life events; a need to maintain one’s sense of control over life events; and a need to maintain one’s sense of self-esteem. Religion is responsive to all of these needs, and, hence, provides many possible ways of coping with the stresses of life. Moreover, studies show that religion plays a signiﬁcant role, not only in coping with major negative life events—such as death, divorce, or job loss—but also in a person’s experience with minor stressors on a day-to-day basis (Spilka et al., p. 494). Wuthnow (1994) found that those who regularly attend religious services face the same sorts of psychological, emotional, interpersonal, and ethical problems as other workers, but religious people are more likely than non-religious people to engage in two types of activities that alleviate job-related stress. Some of these are ‘‘religious-speciﬁc’’ activities (activities such as praying, meditating, or seeking help from a member of the clergy) and others are ‘‘religion-related’’ activities (activities such as talking with friends and family, or seeing a therapist, which are encouraged by religious involvement but do not necessarily occur in a religious setting).16 Studies have consistently found that religious coping is more common among women, Blacks, the poor, and the elderly (Pargament, 1997). Pargament notes two characteristics of these groups to explain these ﬁndings. First, these groups report higher levels of personal religiousness than others—for them, religion has become a larger part of their orienting system. Second, these groups tend to have less access to secular resources and power in our society; so, religion may be one of the few resources accessible to members of these groups. A number of recent studies have linked these general ﬁndings to the experience of women in the workplace. Bacchus and Holley (2004) found that professional Black women utilize spirituality—particularly prayer, meditation, and inspirational readings—to gain personal strength, inner peace, and guidance and to reﬂect on and reappraise stressful situations in the workplace. Sullivan (2006) determined that the primary role for faith in the workplace for very low income, urban mothers centered on coping with the stresses of low-wage service sector work. Two-thirds of the women in her study reported that they connected their faith with their daily lives, despite the fact that few attended church regularly. In Sullivan’s words: ‘‘These mothers found their faith to be a powerful tool in helping them calm down and deal productively with rude customers or difﬁcult bosses or coworkers. Faith helped them carry out unpleasant tasks and complete the work that had to be accomplished’’ (p. 106). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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One source of stress in the workplace involves ethical problems, and the workplace is rife with such challenges. Indeed, a number of surveys indicate the widespread perception that there is a crisis in business ethics. In a survey conducted by the Gallup Organization for Wuthnow (1994), 86% of the public said corruption in business is a serious or extremely serious problem in American society. Daniel Yankelovich has even claimed that the main force driving the current search for spiritual growth in America is declining conﬁdence in the ethics of business leaders (cited in Nash & McLennan, 2001, p. 31).17 Nash and McLennan report that ‘‘people feel the need for a personal recovery of moral grounding and membership in a moral community.’’ Religion plainly satisﬁes both needs, and one would expect adherents to turn to the moral tenets of their religion for guidance and support when facing ethical predicaments at work. One would also expect to ﬁnd a positive relation between religious commitment and ethical conduct. Wuthnow (1994) found that religious commitment deters ethically questionable behavior in the workplace, but not much. While religious people are somewhat more likely to avoid activities such as bending the rules, lying, arriving late, taking time off that they shouldn’t, using ofﬁce equipment for themselves, and charging illegitimate expenses than are nonreligious people, ‘‘what is also obvious,’’ Wuthnow says, ‘‘is that the differences between religious and nonreligious people on these items are not great.’’ This ﬁnding is generally consistent with the analysis of Spilka et al. (2006). Based on their review of nearly a century’s worth of studies, they conclude that, although religious people say that they are more ethical than others, religion in fact has little or no impact in reducing dishonesty and cheating among religious persons. Wuthnow (1994) attributes these ﬁndings to the powerful countervailing inﬂuence of workplace culture and secular society more generally. If religion often has only a small impact on how people think about ethics and how they conduct themselves at work, an important reason is that the workplace itself has come to provide its own understanding of ethics, and even more than that, its own well-established procedures that sometimes obviate the need for ethics at all. Both of these developments are characteristics of postindustrial society. (p. 88)

Wuthnow is describing the general effect that the process of differentiation has had on the ethical climate of the American workplace. In the economic sphere, ethics has come to be understood in terms of economic logic—honesty, for example, is ‘‘right’’ because it generally pays to be honest. ‘‘In this perspective, ethics becomes a kind of autonomous system that can be understood entirely within the framework of the workplace,’’ Wuthnow explains, ‘‘rather than needing any external validation or grounding in an ultimate or transcendent sense of © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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reality.’’ But when conduct is justiﬁed in terms of economic logic, it may become too easy to argue that it is permissible to do whatever is in one’s own (or one’s ﬁrm’s) self-interest. These ﬁndings imply that religious workers have compartmentalized their thinking about ethics: Ethics is understood one way in a work context but in another way in nonwork contexts. This shapes Wuthnow’s general conclusion about the relationship between faith and work in America today: Religious commitment plays a more important role in guiding work than has generally been acknowledged in the scholarly literature on this subject, especially the literature that instructs us to think about work strictly from a market or organizational orientation. But I also suggest that prevailing cultural assumptions have weakened the inﬂuence of religious commitment in the workplace. We have come to think of religion—at least implicitly—as a way of making ourselves feel better and have largely abandoned the idea that religion can guide our behavior, except to discourage activities considered blatantly immoral. (p. 39)

Religious conviction makes workers feel better by contributing meaning to their work; however, Wuthnow believes this therapeutic function may be one of the few roles it still can play in a secular society. The ‘‘prevailing cultural assumptions’’ create a major obstacle for the seamless integration of faith and work. Before moving on to discuss these difﬁculties, it is important to note that those who do successfully link their faith and work generally experience positive beneﬁts for doing so. Validating earlier research, Wuthnow (1994) found that individuals with higher levels of religious commitment also have higher levels of job satisfaction.18 Although those who are religious value their relationship to God more than their work, they also value their work more in absolute terms than those who are not religious. Several lines of empirical research provide support for the connection between religious commitment and job satisfaction: (a) People reportedly experience less conﬂict with, derive greater satisfaction and meaning from, and invest more time, care, and energy into those aspects of their lives they view as sacred; (b) religious motivation appears to have positive psychological implications; (c) measures of intrinsic religiousness have been tied to positive methods of coping (Hill & Pargament, 2003, p. 68). Spilka et al. (2003) suggest that the greater attachment to religion on the part of women implies that religion is likely to possess more utility for women than for men.19 ‘‘Because the preponderance of evidence generally indicates a positive association between spirituality or religion and the health and well-being of women,’’ Williams-Nickelson (2006, p. 186) writes, ‘‘spiritual self-care strategies such as meditation (or prayer for women of faith) may be useful.’’ © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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COMPARTMENTALIZING RELIGIONS AND WORK LIVES Henry Ford asked, ‘‘Why is it that I always get the whole person when all I really want is a pair of hands?’’ (cited in Pollard, 1996, p. 25). Many of today’s business organizations still reﬂect Ford’s attitude, particularly when it comes to the religious and, more broadly, spiritual dimensions of employees’ identity. According to convention, religious and spiritual concerns are personal matters that have nothing to do with work. Moreover, they can lead to animosity and division. So, employees are encouraged to check their faith at the door when they go to work. A recent Fortune magazine article referred to spiritual expression in the workplace as ‘‘the last taboo in corporate America’’ (Gunther, 2001, p. 58). This conventional view is defended in terms of the private-public distinction and is advanced by the process of differentiation. But whether or not business organizations want whole persons, whole persons report for work. To the extent that prevailing cultural norms discourage religion in the workplace, it is not surprising that many religious workers report less-thansatisfactory connections between religion and work in their lives. A theme that consistently emerges in empirical studies of religion and spirituality in the workplace involves the strong sense of fragmentation that religious and spiritual workers experience in their lives. As noted earlier, Wuthnow (1994) concluded from his comprehensive study that ‘‘many people have learned to compartmentalize [their faith and work]’’ (p. 55). Mitroff and Denton (1999) report that their interviewees ‘‘realized that they had to separate and compartmentalize signiﬁcant parts of themselves at work’’ (p. 38), and Nash and McLennan’s (2001) subjects ‘‘express feelings of radical disconnection between Sunday services and Monday morning activities, describing a sense of living in two worlds that never touch each other’’ (p. 6f). Those with strong religious convictions clearly sense that they cannot express them at work and, as Nash and McLennan put it, ‘‘They are left feeling as if they live out a spiritual schizophrenia’’ (p. 213). Obviously, they wish this were not the case. As Mitroff and Denton explain: People do not want to compartmentalize or fragment their lives. The search for meaning, purpose, wholeness, and integration is a constant, never-ending task. It is also a constant, never-ending struggle. To conﬁne this search to one day a week or after hours violates people’s sense of integrity, of being whole persons. In short, the soul is not something one leaves at home. People want to have their souls acknowledged wherever they go, precisely because their souls accompany them everywhere. They especially want to be acknowledged as whole persons in the workplace, where they spend the majority of their waking time. (p. xvf.)

Nash and McLennan likewise conclude that businesspeople of faith are seeking a greater degree of integration of faith and work. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Despite their clear desire to live their faith in the workplace, these studies have found that religious and spiritual workers are extremely hesitant to act on it. They fear being marginalized, ridiculed, taken advantage of, or even punished. Mitroff and Denton (1999) refer to this as the Faustian dilemma: ‘‘On the one hand, [the employees, managers, and executives to whom they spoke] wished fervently that they could express more of themselves in the workplace, but they were afraid to do so. Indeed, many of those to whom [they] talked were terriﬁed to do so’’ (p. 7). Nash and McLennan’s subjects came up against the same problem: This split [between the religious and work-related dimensions of one’s identity] poses signiﬁcant psychological and moral uncertainty. . . . [Those who are religious] struggle with how they can act on, articulate, and symbolize Christian spirituality within a secular social context. To disguise faith seems inauthentic, but taking it out of the closet may provoke conﬂict or accusations of being inappropriate. (2001, p. 7)

Mitroff and Denton point out that ‘‘almost the entire set of respondents [in their study] was unable to mention at least one organization that they regarded as a role model in fostering spirituality’’ (p. 44). This is an indictment of the business community at large. As indicated, many employees cope with this dilemma by compartmentalizing their lives. These workers resign themselves to the fact that they will not realize their full potential at work. This can exact a considerable toll: ‘‘The individual,’’ Wolfteich (2002) writes, ‘‘lives with a hollow feeling that one’s everyday life lacks meaning—or at least meaning that is strongly afﬁrmed by one’s religious tradition’’ (p. 144). These employees work without the engagement that comes from feeling that they are fully bringing themselves to what they are doing, and this sense of alienation from their work brings great disappointment. Part one of this chapter indicated that feminine conceptions of identity, religion, and work suggest that religious women will have a particularly strong desire to resist fragmentation in their lives. But, clearly, prevailing cultural norms governing spirituality in the workplace have made it immensely difﬁcult for religious women to maintain a cohesive sense of identity. Commentators fault not only business leaders but also religious leaders for their failure to provide constructive models of faith in the contemporary workplace. This is a central theme in Nash and McLennan (2001) and Wolfteich (2002). Despite surging interest in spirituality in the workplace, the church has largely failed to respond. The inadequacy of the clergy’s response is exempliﬁed in a quote from one of Nash and McLennan’s subjects: ‘‘I see many tensions between my Christian beliefs and what I do at work, and I feel deeply responsible © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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to be a ‘good Christian’ in my daily life. But my pastor is the last person I’d discuss this with’’ (p. 3). Based upon their research, Nash and McLennan concluded that ‘‘businesspeople and clergy live in two worlds’’ (p. 128). These two groups have conﬂicting attitudes about the nature and value of business in general. Moreover, businesspeople perceive that members of the clergy have little understanding of the dayto-day life of a businessperson. (Most members of the clergy that were interviewed conﬁrmed that this perception is accurate.) Wolfteich argues that the Roman Catholic Church has failed to adequately address the complexity of women’s work in particular. For example, the church has not offered up female role models whose lives indicate that work can be a spiritual path. This paling of work in the lives of great women in the [Roman Catholic] tradition encourages contemporary women to compartmentalize their working lives from their faith. Work seems irrelevant to faith, or uncomfortably dissonant with the values women learn in church. The reality is that women ﬁnd themselves in new, demanding social and economic roles with little guidance about how to ﬁt these new roles into traditional religious frameworks that, however, remain important sources of identity and community. No wonder women describe an experience of fragmentation. No wonder many compartmentalize these two seemingly unrelated areas of life; compartmentalization is a useful strategy for living with dissonance. (p. 143f.)

So, religious businesspeople in general—and women in particular—do not receive helpful guidance or support from either their work or religious organizations, and they are left to navigate these complex issues of identity and meaning on their own.

PART III As it has been interpreted by the courts, federal law addressing religion in the workplace tends to reinforce the conventional view that religion is a private matter and the workplace is a secular sphere. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.) prohibits religious discrimination in private and public employment.20 The Act also requires employers to reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs and practices of an employee, unless doing so would create an undue hardship on the employer’s business (42 U.S.C. § 2000e(j)). Under the Act, the term religion includes ‘‘all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief.’’ But the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) Guidelines interpret religion more liberally: Religious beliefs include ‘‘moral or ethical beliefs as to what is right or wrong which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views’’ (29 C.F.R. § 1605.1). © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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According to the EEOC (2007), between 1997 and 2006, complaints under Title VII alleging religion-based discrimination jumped nearly 50% (from 1,707 complaints in 1997 to 2,541 in 2006). During this same period, charges alleging race-based discrimination dropped almost 7% (from 29,199 to 27,238); sex-based discrimination charges dropped about 6% (from 24,728 to 23,247); and discrimination charges ﬁled under the Americans with Disabilities Act dropped around 14% (from 18,108 to 15,575). Some religious discrimination claims arising under Title VII involve simple or ordinary discrimination. This occurs when a person is denied an employment opportunity because an employer makes a negative judgment based on her religion.21 Also, an employer’s policies and practices may not favor one religion over another. For example, it would be unlawful for a company to refuse to hire a Muslim simply because she is a Muslim, or for it to allow Christian employees to display religious articles or messages in their workspace while prohibiting Hindu employees from doing the same. While Title VII permits religious expression by employees and their supervisors, it prohibits harassment. Quid pro quo harassment occurs when an employee is required, explicitly or implicitly, to acquiesce to the religious beliefs or practices of a superior in order to obtain a job beneﬁt. A more common form of harassment involves a supervisor or coworker creating a hostile work environment. Like in cases of sexual or racial harassment, whether a particular employee’s work environment is ‘‘hostile’’ for purposes of religious discrimination depends on the totality of the circumstances, including the frequency of the allegedly harassing conduct, the severity of the conduct (whether it is humiliating or physically threatening), and whether the conduct unreasonably interferes with the employee’s work performance. If, for example, Christian workers inspired by their recent viewing of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ repeatedly taunt a Jewish colleague, making working conditions very unpleasant, the worker has suffered religious harassment. If, after she has complained, nothing is done to stop the abuse, the employer may be implicated.22 A third type of religious discrimination occurs when an employer fails to properly accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs or practices. In these cases, an employee establishes a prima facie case of religious discrimination by showing that: the employee has a bona ﬁde religious belief that conﬂicts with an employment requirement; the employee informed the employer of this belief; and the employee was disciplined for failing to comply with the requirement.23 After this prima facie showing, the employer then must demonstrate that it offered a reasonable accommodation or that any reasonable accommodation would have resulted in an undue hardship to the employer. Common employee accommodation requests involve holy day observances (such as when a Sabbatarian requests Saturdays or Sundays off, or a Roman © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Catholic requests Good Friday off), religious garb requirements (such as when a Muslim woman wears a headscarf or a Jewish man wears a yarmulke), and religious grooming requirements (such as when a Rastafarian wears dreadlocks or a Sikh wears a mustache and beard). But accommodation claims may also involve religious speech issues (such as when a ‘‘pro-life’’ Christian wears a button with a photograph of an aborted fetus24), issues related to speciﬁc job-related duties (such as when a pharmacist refuses on religious grounds to speak to any customers unless they are pre-screened by another employee to ensure that they are not seeking birth control25), or issues related to union membership (such as when an employee refuses to afﬁliate herself with a labor organization because of religious beliefs26). The Supreme Court has interpreted the key provisions of Title VII’s accommodation requirement very narrowly, and in so doing it has signiﬁcantly limited the employer’s obligation to accommodate employees’ religious beliefs and practices. In Trans World Airlines v. Hardison (432 U.S. 63 (1977)), the Court determined that anything more than a de minimis cost—that is, a nominal or negligible cost—to an employer constitutes an ‘‘undue hardship’’ for purposes of the accommodation requirement. Undue hardship also may be shown if accommodating the employee would require an employer to violate a statute or regulation.27 The Court held in Ansonia Board of Education v. Philbrook (479 U.S. 60 (1986)) that an employer can satisfy its duty to accommodate by offering any reasonable accommodation. This means that the employer does not have to provide the accommodation preferred by the employee, so long as the employer’s proposed accommodation effectively eliminates the religious conﬂict and does not disadvantage the individual’s employment opportunities. Based upon her review of recent cases involving religious accommodation claims under Title VII, Smith (2004) concluded: The safeguards provided for employee religious practices have been so restricted by court decisions that an employee who requests a religious accommodation must rely more on an employer’s generosity and goodwill than on statutory protection. In case after case, employers have chosen to deny employees’ requests for accommodation by citing some trivial difﬁculty, perhaps even a ‘‘potential’’ hardship, as undue; in other words, requiring more than a de minimis cost. (p. 64)

There does, however, remain a category of very-low-to-no-cost accommodations that employers are typically required to provide, including exemptions from dress codes and grooming rules, scheduling changes that can be accomplished without overtime pay and without infringing on the rights of other employees, and approved absences for occasional religious holidays. Moreover, some lower federal courts appear to have deviated from the restrictive doctrine that ﬂows from Hardison and © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Philbrook by writing opinions favoring the employee’s position.28 This has left the judicial landscape somewhat unsettled, as the line between the trivial costs that do constitute undue hardship and the even more trivial costs that do not remains unclear. The Supreme Court’s constrictive readings of Title VII’s accommodation requirement have been sharply criticized by those who favor more extensive religious freedom in the workplace. The Workplace Religious Freedom Act (WRFA), which has been introduced in every Congress since 1997, aims to strengthen the existing requirements imposed on employers to accommodate the religious practices of their employees.29 The bill has historically received support from both religious conservatives and some of the most socially liberal members of Congress. The WRFA is backed by the Coalition for Religious Freedom in the Workplace, a 50-member strong partnership of organizations afﬁliated with a wide spectrum of religions. It is opposed, at least in its current form, by the Chamber of Commerce, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and a variety of women’s advocacy groups, including the National Women’s Law Center. The WRFA makes three signiﬁcant changes to Title VII’s religious accommodation requirement. First, the WRFA requires employers to accommodate three speciﬁc categories of employees’ religious practices: practices related to wearing religious clothing, practices related to taking time off to observe religious holidays, and other religious practices that may have ‘‘a temporary or tangential effect on the ability to perform job functions.’’ This third category is intended to accommodate cases like that of a Muslim who requests to take brief time during the day to pray. According to the WRFA, these three types of practices do not conﬂict with the ‘‘essential functions’’ or ‘‘core requirements’’ of the employment position. Second, the WRFA deﬁnes ‘‘undue hardship’’ as ‘‘an accommodation requiring signiﬁcant difﬁculty or expense.’’ The WRFA models its understanding of undue hardship on the standard articulated in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 (42 U.S.C. §§ 12101–12213), which is the only other federal statute to impose a duty of accommodation on employers. Employers are required to accommodate disabled employees—for example, by modifying facilities—unless doing so would cause the employer undue hardship. However, the standard applied to determine undue hardship under the ADA is much more rigorous than the standard applied under Title VII of the CRA per Hardison.30 The ADA lists a number of factors to be considered in determining whether an accommodation for a disabled employee would impose an undue hardship on the employer. These factors include the nature and cost of the accommodation, the overall ﬁnancial resources of the employer, and the type of operations of the employer. Although the factors for determining undue hardship set forth in the WRFA are not identical to those of the ADA, they do require the cost of accommodation to be quantiﬁed and considered in relation to the size of the employer. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Finally, the WRFA requires that, for an accommodation to be considered reasonable, it must fully remove the conﬂict between employment requirements and the religious observance or practice of the employee. This provision makes it clear that a reasonable accommodation, by deﬁnition, cannot require any compromise of the employee’s religious beliefs. Proponents of the bill claim that the WRFA will ensure that American workers of all creeds are accorded respect by employers and are able to remain true to their faith in the workplace. For example, Morgan (2005) writes, ‘‘If enacted, the WRFA could play a signiﬁcant role in bringing the legal and business communities’ perception of religion and its practice at work in line with the expectations of an increasingly religious workforce and a society that exhibits growing religious pluralism’’ (p. 75). Opponents of the bill worry that the WRFA will sanction proselytizing and harassing behavior by religious employees. The ACLU (2005) claims that the WRFA threatens critical personal and civil rights of coworkers, customers, and patients. For example, if the bill becomes law, pharmacists with religious objections to contraception might refuse to ﬁll birth-control prescriptions, or police ofﬁcers might refuse to protect abortion clinics. Other critics argue that there are good reasons to distinguish religious observance from disabilities. Thompson (2005), for example, writes: ‘‘Religious employees forced to decide whether to honor a religious belief or stay at a job face a difﬁcult choice, to be sure. But people with disabilities have no choice at all.’’ Because religious observance is a matter of choice and disability is not, Thompson argues it is appropriate that the law should require less by way of accommodating employees’ religious practices. PART IV If the prevailing policy of separating religion from the workplace fails to acknowledge that the ‘‘whole person’’ comes to work, what are the alternatives? Are there any theoretical models for fostering spirituality in the workplace? And, if there are, what sorts of reasons are there for organizations to adopt these models given that the law does not require it? Is it good for business? Is it morally incumbent upon organizations to promote the spiritual development of their workers? As noted in this chapter’s opening, much of the literature tends to take for granted a strict distinction between spirituality and religion (for example, see Conger, 1994). Again, spirituality is understood to address many of the same concerns as religion—concerns about the nature and purpose of life, transcendence, and moral values as these all manifest themselves in daily life. But, in contrast to conventional religion, spirituality is not formally organized or denominational; it is broadly inclusive in accepting all ways of experiencing the sacred. Most authors take for granted the notion that spirituality unites while religion divides, and, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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hence, a good deal of the literature embraces spirituality while rejecting religion.31 Proponents of workplace spirituality typically appeal to a ‘‘person-centered’’ approach to management. This approach recognizes that the worker is a complex individual who brings all of her beliefs, commitments, and motivations with her to work, and that her multifaceted identity impacts her potential and actual job performance. This approach is distinguished from classic management theories as typiﬁed by Taylor’s ‘‘scientiﬁc management,’’ which view workers as one-dimensional and motivated mainly by rational self-interest. Despite this shift in management paradigms, Sheep (2006, p. 368) has noted that there is still a distinct instrumental rationality that runs through the workplace spirituality literature: The ultimate rationale for promoting workplace spirituality is its alleged link to better organizational performance. This ﬁnal section critically evaluates the model of workplace spirituality as it is exempliﬁed in the work of Mitroff and Denton (1999). This model, it is argued, is inadequate for a number of reasons. This section and chapter concludes by pointing to a more promising model for accommodating both the spiritual and religious convictions of workers. Mitroff and Denton (1999), as with Wuthnow (1994) and Nash and McClennan (2001), have conducted pioneering empirical studies of religion and spirituality in the workplace. They have documented spiritual employees’ tendency to compartmentalize their lives, and they mount a compelling case against ‘‘the usual way in which organizations respond to spiritual matters and concerns of the soul by declaring them inappropriate or out of bounds’’ (p. 5). The ‘‘Chinese wall’’ that organizations erect between the so-called private concerns of their employees and the public demands of their businesses, they argue, creates both an external and an internal division: ‘‘It is external in that it walls off the organization from the deepest sources of creativity and productivity of its members. It is internal in that it produces a fundamental split in the souls of its members’’ (p. 6). Mitroff and Denton advise organizations to tear down this wall and ‘‘seek ways to tie together and integrate the potential inherent in the soul with the realities of the workplace’’; for doing so will unleash ‘‘the immense energy or potential that lies at the core of each of us yet remains largely unacknowledged and untapped in our places of work’’ (p. 5). But while Mitroff and Denton (1999) believe that spirituality should be welcomed into the workplace, they also believe that religion should be turned away. They report that the majority of the participants in their study indicated that ‘‘any and all expression of religion in the workplace is highly inappropriate’’ (p. 73). Commenting on this ﬁnding, Mitroff and Denton write: We are inclined strongly to agree with them, even though we realize it may be difﬁcult to ban all religious talk because it can be construed as

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protected speech. Nonetheless, in spite of the legal difﬁculties, the vast majority of our respondents felt that it was highly desirable to set clear limits on religious expression and talk in the workplace. Many felt even more strongly that zero-based tolerance policies should be set. In other words, no religious talk at all should be tolerated. However unfortunate this attitude may be, it means that employees who consider religion extremely important in their lives will not be able to realize their full potential in most environments. The most desirable if not the only alternative may be for them to seek employment in expressly religious organizations. (p. 73f.)

Setting aside the complex issue of protected speech, this analysis is problematic for two reasons. First, it appears to commit the ‘‘is/ought fallacy’’ to the extent that it assumes that because things are a certain way, they ought to be that way—precisely, it assumes that because people disapprove of religious expression in the workplace, religious expression ought to be banned. But perhaps Mitroff and Denton, by indicating that their respondents’ general attitude toward religion in the workplace is ‘‘unfortunate,’’ do not intend any such inference to be drawn. Even if this is so, it is not clear how their view that religious expression in the workplace is inappropriate is to be reconciled with their more general view that organizations should acknowledge the whole person. To admit spirituality into the workplace while turning away religion looks to be inconsistent, particularly when they themselves acknowledge that ‘‘Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam are all historically important ways in which spirituality has been experienced and celebrated’’ (p. 23). In light of the discussion in part one, it should be clear that religion is a fundamental dimension of the religious workers’ identity, and, moreover, that positive outcomes are typically associated with the successful integration of faith and work. Perhaps Mitroff and Denton could respond that the beneﬁts of permitting religious expression in the workplace are outweighed by the potential for acrimony and conﬂict that would result. But there are problems with this response. First, it uncritically assumes that religious expression in the workplace generally would be divisive and that the overall impact on the organization in terms of efﬁciency would be negative. The court cases described previously, and the media in general, tend to focus our attention on those cases of religious expression that involve deep conﬂict. Perhaps these cases are the exception, though, and religious expression in the workplace typically does not lead to disagreement. But even if it were established that religious expression frequently leads to conﬂict, it may be the case that the moral value associated with religious expression trumps the loss of economic value. This last consideration leads to questions about the underlying rationale that Mitroff and Denton (1999) posit for promoting workplace spirituality. Like many proponents of the ‘‘spiritual organization,’’ they © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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defend their view primarily in terms of instrumental reasons—that is, they argue that organizations should acknowledge the whole person, including her spiritual dimensions, because doing this translates into superior organizational performance. Thus, at the heart of Mitroff and Denton’s argument are their ﬁndings that those organizations that identify more strongly with spirituality or have a greater sense of spirituality have employees who (1) are less fearful of their organizations, (2) are far less likely to compromise their basic beliefs and values in the workplace, (3) perceive their organization as signiﬁcantly more proﬁtable, and (4) report that they can bring signiﬁcantly more of their complete selves to work, speciﬁcally their creativity and intelligence. (p. xiv)

The cover-ﬂap of their book tells managers, executives, and organization designers that they will learn how to ‘‘harness the power of spiritual energy . . . in order to make [their organizations] more creative, competitive, and proﬁtable.’’32 Now, it might well be the case that organizations that accommodate the spiritual dimensions of their employees’ lives do experience these beneﬁts (note that Mitroff and Denton’s (1999) ﬁndings do not prove that organizations are in fact more proﬁtable, but only that employees of these organizations perceive them to be); but a number of theorists ﬁnd this approach to justifying workplace spirituality troubling. From the point of view of spiritual and religious employees, the focus should be on exploring how work can be an extension of spirituality and faith, rather than on how spirituality and faith can be proﬁtable tools for business. Sheep (2006) dubs the attempt to justify workplace spirituality in terms of the odd admixture of concerns about spirituality and proﬁtability the ‘‘instrumentality dilemma.’’ Spiritual and religious employees are likely to develop the sense that their spirituality and faith are being exploited for the sake of the bottom line rather than being accorded the moral respect that they rightly deserve. Some theorists have already formed this impression. Joanne Ciulla (2000), for example, offers a scathing appraisal of the workplace spirituality movement. While this interest in religion and spirituality at work is admirable, it is also problematic. . . . From management’s perspective, the spiritual approach picks up where the psychological approach left off. In the 1950s management theorists cultivated workers’ ‘‘need’’ for belongingness. In the 1990s they are cashing in on their need for spirituality and meaning. The nonreligious spiritual approach [i.e., Mitroff and Denton’s approach] is most interesting. It offers a combination of religion ‘‘lite’’ and therapy ‘‘lite.’’ This approach attempts to satisfy what some want from religion without the work of faith and what some want from therapy without the work of changing. But the biggest problem is that

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behind this desire for spirituality often lurk serious ethical problems about how employers and employees treat each other. In the end, spirituality at work does what pop psychology and management fads have always done: It attempts to make people feel good and adapt, not address the serious problems of power, conﬂict, and autonomy that make people feel bad in the ﬁrst place. (p. 222f)

According to Ciulla’s broader analysis, employers often use progressive concepts—like workplace spirituality—to develop new, more subtle, ways to dominate employees. The workplace spirituality movement is the just latest attempt to harness the motivation, goodwill, and energy of employees for the purpose of improving organizational performance. Workplace spirituality, in other words, is the newest opiate that employers have to offer employees. In Ciulla’s view, the growing interest in religion and spirituality in the workplace is symptomatic of a deeper problem involving the nature of modern work. The real problem is that their work zaps them of the energy, the time, and perhaps even the will to take part in meaningful activities and communities outside of work. If employers want to ﬁll this need for something more, the answer is not a prayer meeting or a seminar on ﬁnding your soul. They need to rethink the structure of the workplace and give employees more time and ﬂexibility to lead good lives outside of work without fear of losing promotions, bonuses, or jobs. (p. 223f)

There is a good deal of truth in this analysis, but to the extent that it suggests that spiritual and religious concerns are matters to be pursued outside of work, it perpetuates the customary view that religion is a private matter and the workplace is a secular domain. What is needed in light of the discussion to this point is a framework that acknowledges the signiﬁcant non-instrumental value of spiritual and religious expression within the workplace. A promising model is offered by Hicks (2003), who argues that organizations have a moral obligation to adopt a policy of ‘‘respectful pluralism.’’ The guiding principle of respectful pluralism is termed the presumption of inclusion. It can be stated as follows: To the greatest extent, workplace organizations should allow employees to express their religious, spiritual, cultural, political, and other commitments at work, subject to the limitations of noncoercion, nondegradation, and nonestablishment, and in consideration of the reasonable instrumental demands of the for-proﬁt enterprise (p. 173).33 This framework is intended to be responsive to the circumstances of the contemporary American workplace: It acknowledges that religious diversity among employees is steadily growing, that religious and spiritual beliefs are a fundamental and inseparable part of many employees’ lives, that the workplace is increasingly becoming a public site, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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that the place of religion in public life is highly contested, and that companies are for-proﬁt enterprises. The ultimate aim of this model is to foster mutual respect amidst diversity in the workplace. Hicks (2003) intentionally eschews an instrumental justiﬁcation of his principle and defends it exclusively on moral grounds. The presumption of inclusion is premised on the moral values of human dignity and respect, which, Hicks argues, entail a basic right of religious exercise. Like other basic rights, such as the right to physical security, which entails the right to safe working conditions, the right to religious freedom is part of the structure in which employment occurs. The moral obligation to respect workers’ dignity is prior to considerations of economic efﬁciency; so, the worker does not forfeit her basic rights, including the right to religious expression, simply by entering the workplace. ‘‘The essential point is that the moral status of employees, possessing dignity and deserving respect, builds a presumption for a high degree of ‘personal’ expression,’’ Hicks explains (p. 173).34 There is a stark difference between the presumption of inclusion involved in respectful pluralism and the presumption of exclusion that is tacit in the current understanding of the workplace as a secular domain. The default assumption of respectful pluralism is that it is legitimate for a worker to bring her religious convictions to work, and the moral burden is on the organization to justify policies that would limit personal expression. Respectful pluralism does not warrant any and all expression simply because it is religious. Just as the religious employee is entitled to dignity and respect, so are others in the organization. Hence, the same moral values that justify the presumption of inclusion also imply several norms limiting personal expression. First, religious employees may not illegitimately impose their religious values on others. Second, religious employees may not employ speech or action that shows clear disrespect for particular individuals or groups of coworkers or third parties. Third, the organization as an institution may not endorse or promote any particular religious tradition, because employees from differing religious (or secular) backgrounds may understandably feel compelled to assent to the privileged viewpoint. Clearly, determining whether these norms have been violated—determining whether some instance of personal expression is coercive or degrading, or whether some institutional policy gives preferential treatment to a particular religious outlook—will require the exercise of moral judgment. Respectful pluralism acknowledges that, within the bounds of legality and morality, companies have a legitimate right to seek proﬁts. This entails the employers’ right to limit personal expression for legitimate reasons related to efﬁciency, as long as they do so on an equal basis for all employees. But the presumption of inclusion entails that costs in efﬁciency would have to be signiﬁcant before limits on personal expression would be warranted. ‘‘Respectful pluralism’s approach,’’ © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Hicks writes, ‘‘requires accommodation—on moral grounds—that goes beyond the standard de minimis interpretation of the legal framework required in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act’’ (p. 176). Hicks does not discuss the WRFA, but on the basis of his discussion it seems that his understanding of what would constitute an undue burden is generally in line with the proposed legislation. Religion is an essential and healthy aspect of the identity of many women in the American workforce. But the traditional policy of separating religion and work—grounded in the distinction between ‘‘private’’ and ‘‘public’’ spheres—makes it very difﬁcult for religious women in the workforce to live an integrated life. Many women respond by compartmentalizing, which often leads to signiﬁcant psychological and moral strain. There are alternative models of public and organizational policy, however, that would accord religious women greater freedom to live and express their faith in the context of work. NOTES 1. Spilka et al. (2003, p. 11) also point out that, in the current social and behavioral sciences, there is no commonly accepted way of distinguishing the meaning of ‘‘spirituality’’ from that of ‘‘religion’’—indeed, some theorists maintain that it is not possible to distinguish the two—and, hence, the use of these terms is highly ambiguous in the literature. So, one must check what an investigator actually measures, regardless of the investigator’s usage of these terms, to determine what is being researched. 2. Hicks also points out that this literature tends to focus on the views and experiences of business executives, and, to the extent that men are disproportionately represented in this group, this literature tends to focus on the views and experiences of men. 3. Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Fogel (2000) argues that the rise of the Religious Right is symptomatic of the ‘‘Fourth Great Awakening’’ in American history. 4. An excellent introduction to this literature is Douglas Hicks’s Religion and the Workplace (2003). 5. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (2006), in 1970, 43% of women age 16 and older were in the labor force. By the late 1990s, the labor force participation rate of women had risen to 60%. From 1975 to 2000, the labor force participation rate of mothers with children under age 18 rose from 47% to 73%. Moreover, during the past several decades, women have been increasingly employed in higher paying occupations. In 2000, half of all the workers in management, professional, and related occupations were women. The Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau (2006) notes that in 2006 a record 67 million women were employed in the U.S., and women comprised 46% of the total U.S. labor force. 6. Wuthnow’s analysis was based upon a very detailed survey of more than 2,000 members of the U.S. labor force. This research was supplemented with in-depth interviews of 175 people.

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7. Woodhead (2001, p. 73) summarizes the three most frequently offered hypotheses: (1) Women are more religious than men because of their structural locations in society (religion, like housework, has become one of the gendered institutions created by the division of labor); (2) women are differently socialized; (3) women’s greater religiosity is a compensatory response to their material and social deprivation. (See also Spilka et al., 2003, p. 154f). 8. Consider, for example, Hassan (2003): ‘‘Many traditional societies— including the Muslim—divide the world into private space (that is, the home, which is the domain of women) and public space (that is, the rest of the world, which is the domain of men). Muslims, in general, tend to believe that it is best to keep men and women segregated, in their separate, designated spaces, because the intrusion of women into men’s space is seen as leading to the disruption, if not the destruction, of the fundamental order of things. If some exigency makes it necessary for women to enter into men’s space, they must make themselves ‘‘faceless,’’ or, at least, as inconspicuous as possible. This is achieved through veiling, which is thus an extension of the idea of the segregation of the sexes’’ (p. 226). 9. Just as Gilligan criticized Kohlberg’s theory for its failure to deal with the unique aspects of women’s moral development, some (e.g., Schweitzer, 1997) have criticized the leading theories of religious development for their failure to address the unique aspects of women’s religious experience. For a discussion of this issue, see Spilka et al., 2003, p. 81. 10. This position—sometimes dubbed the ‘‘different voice’’ position—is not without its critics. For an overview of the controversies related to this line of work, see Donelson (1999, p. 319ff). 11. When asked ‘‘what do you ﬁnd most satisfying about your work,’’ the most common answer offered by participants in the USCCB focus groups was helping and serving others. Though this answer was especially common for educators and those in the health professions, it dominated all occupational categories. 12. Josselson’s subjects were college educated women of the boomer generation. It is likely that the experience of women with different educational and socioeconomic backgrounds, and, perhaps, younger women, would be very different. 13. See Juliet B. Schor’s The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (1992). A more recent analysis by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development indicates that during 1970–2002 the number of hours worked per capita declined in 14 of 19 nations surveyed. France recorded the sharpest drop among declining nations with 23.5%. Germany dropped 17.1%; Japan dropped 16.6%; and the United Kingdom dropped 7.2%. For the ﬁve nations whose per capita hours rose, the U.S. led the way with a 20.0% increase in hours (OECD, 2004, p. 6). 14. A number of commentators attribute declining attendance at religious services to the increased participation of women in the labor force. In his introduction to Gender and Religion (1994), sociologist William Swatos writes, ‘‘I would be willing to offer the hypothesis that virtually the entire ‘‘decline’’ of ‘‘the churches’’ in America can be ‘‘explained’’ by the entrance of women into the workforce, certainly more so than by anything like a ‘‘crisis of belief’’ (p. xi).

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15. The deﬁnitive work in the ﬁeld of religious coping is Kenneth Pargament’s The Psychology of Religion and Coping (1997). 16. Those attending religious services every week were 32 points more likely to pray or meditate to relieve feelings of stress from their job; 11 points more likely to discuss stress with others (9 points more likely to discuss stress with their spouses, 6 points more likely to talk to a member of the clergy, and 3 points more likely to talk with friends); 5 points less likely to come home and watch television; and 4 points less likely to drink alcohol (p. 321). 17. According to Gallup (2006b), nearly one in three Americans say that business executives have ‘‘low’’ or ‘‘very low’’ ethical standards. 18. An emerging body of empirical evidence supports, in varying degrees, a positive relationship between religiousness and well-being in general (see Spilka et al., 2003, Chapter 15; and Miller & Thoresen, 2003), and as researchers have made advances in conceptualizing and measuring religion, some potential reasons for this positive association are starting to emerge (see Hill & Pargament, 2003). 19. The author is unaware of any investigation into whether religious and spiritual factors may play some role in the ‘‘gender/job satisfaction paradox’’—that is, the ﬁnding that women report levels of job satisfaction that are comparable to and often exceed those of men, although, in objective terms, women do not fare as well as men in the workplace. 20. The Civil Rights Act (CRA) applies to all private employers of 15 or more persons whose business affects interstate commerce. (Virtually all states have similar fair employment laws that reach smaller employers than does the CRA. Many of these state laws are more stringent than federal law or address areas not covered by federal law.) The CRA also applies to public employers and labor unions. Religious entities are exempted from the provisions of the CRA prohibiting hiring based on religion. 21. Note that Title VII also prohibits discrimination against atheists. So, an employer may not refuse to hire, or ﬁre, an individual simply because she has no religious belief or afﬁliation. 22. This case is described by Cummins, H.J. (2005, August 24). Sea of faith washing over the workplace. Star Tribune. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. 23. See Wilson v. US West Communications, 58 F. 3d 1337 (8th Cir. 1995), citing Bhatia v. Chevron, U.S.A. 734 F.2d 1382 (1984). Note that atheists can appeal to the reasonable accommodation provision of Title VII if their rejection of religion is the source of a workplace conﬂict. See, for example, EEOC v. Townley Engineering and Mfg. Co., 859 F.2d 610 (9th Cir. 1988). 24. See Wilson v. US West Communications, 58 F. 3d 1337 (8th Cir. 1995). 25. See Noesen v. Med. Stafﬁng Network, No. 06-2831 (7th Cir. 2007). 26. See McDaniel v. Essex Int’l., 696 F. 2d 34, 35 (6th Cir. 1982). 27. As in Hardison, employers often invoke the provisions of collective bargaining agreements, which are enforced by federal labor laws, in refusing to accommodate employee accommodation requests. 28. For example, in Protos v. Volkswagen of America (797 F. 2d 129 (3d. Cir. 1986)) the court refused to ﬁnd undue hardship when an employee of a large automobile manufacturer requested time off for his Sabbath, and in EEOC v. Ilona of Hungary (198 F. 3d 1569 (7th Cir. 1997)) the court held that a beauty salon faced no undue hardship in accommodating two Jewish employees’ request

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for unpaid leave to participate in Yom Kippur, even though the day the employees requested off happened to be the busiest day of the week for the salon. 29. In the spring of 2007, the WRFA was reintroduced in the House as H.R. 1431 by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D, NY). The bill is cosponsored by 13 Representatives. The bill currently rests in committee, where it has died every year that it has been introduced. 30. One of the main reasons why the ADA has such a strong deﬁnition of undue hardship is because its drafters saw how the Court had eviscerated the religious accommodation requirement through its narrow interpretations of Section 701(j) of Title VII. 31. Consider, for example, Fairholm (1998): ‘‘While important, the religious nature of spirituality is not considered here. This aspect of spirituality is better accommodated in doctrinaire religions and their social instrumentalities. Indeed, many, including this author, would object to matters of personal religion being introduced in the workplace’’ (p. 113). 32. To be fair, although an economic mode of justiﬁcation dominates their book, Mitroff and Denton do hint at other sorts of arguments in favor of developing workplace spirituality. Although they do not explicitly say so, it seems clear that they believe it is morally wrong for organizations to force spiritual employees to compartmentalize their lives. (But, again, why is it not similarly morally wrong for organizations to force religious employees to compartmentalize their lives?) They also suggest that fostering workplace spirituality will promote ethical organizational cultures, which beneﬁts society more generally. 33. Respectful pluralism provides a framework for all forms of personal expression in the workplace. This is advantageous for it does not require managers to discriminate between religious, spiritual, cultural, and political expressions. Consider, for example, does a ‘‘pro-life’’ button constitute religious or political speech? 34. It seems any moral system that regards living an integrated, noncompartmentalized life as a fundamental moral value would support the presumption of inclusion. If people should live integrated, noncompartmentalized lives, then there is a presumption that they should be allowed to express their religious convictions in the workplace. So, while Hicks defends the presumption of inclusion in terms of moral concepts such as ‘‘dignity,’’ ‘‘respect,’’ and ‘‘rights,’’ one could make a case for the presumption of inclusion in terms of other moral frameworks, including Aristotelian ethics and some forms of feminist ethics.

REFERENCES American Civil Liberties Union (2005). ACLU letter to the House of Representatives on the harmful effects of the Workplace Religious Freedom Act. Available at: http://www.aclu.org/religion/gen/16256leg20050315.html. Bacchus, D.N.A., & Holley, L. C. (2004). Spirituality as a coping resource: The experiences of professional black women. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 13, 65–84. Beit-Hallahmi, B., & Argyle, M. (1996). The social psychology of religion. London: Routledge.

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Bridges, R. A., & Spilka, B. (1992). Religion and the mental health of women. In J. Schumaker (Ed.), Religion and mental health (pp. 43–53). New York: Oxford. Chodorow, N. (1978). The reproduction of mothering: Psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ciulla, J. B. (2000). The working life: The promise and betrayal of modern work. New York: Times Books. Conger, J. (1994). Spirit at work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Cornwall, M. (1989). Faith development in men and women over the life span. In Bahr & Peterson (Eds.), Aging and the family. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Donelson, F. E. (1999). Women’s experiences: A psychological perspective. Mountain View, CA: Mayﬁeld. Eck, D. (2001). A new religious America: How a ‘‘christian country’’ has become the most religiously diverse nation. San Francisco: Harper. Fairholm, G. W. (1998). Perspective on leadership: From the science of management to its spiritual heart. Westport, CT: Quorum. Fenn, R. K. (2001). Religion and the secular; the sacred and the profane: The scope of the argument. In R. K. Fenn (Ed.), The Blackwell companion to sociology of religion (pp. 3–22). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Fogel, R. W. (2000). The fourth great awakening & the future of egalitarianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ford, R. T. (2005). Take God to work day: Why the law shouldn’t bend over backwards for religious employees. Slate.com. Available at: http://slate. com/id/2120789. Francis, L. (1997). The psychology of gender differences in religion: A review of empirical research. Religion, 27, 68–96. Galinsky, E., Bond, J. T., Kim, S. S., Backon, L., Brownﬁeld, E., & Sakai, K. (2005). Overwork in America: When the way we work becomes too much, executive summary. New York: Families and Work Institute. Gallup Poll (2006a). Religion. Available at: http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci¼1690&pg¼1. Gallup Poll (2006b). Honesty and ethics in the professions. Available at: http:// www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci¼1654&pg¼1. Gallup Poll (2007). Americans more likely to believe in God than the devil, heaven more than hell. Available at: http://www.galluppoll.com/content/ ?ci¼27877&pg¼1. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard. Gunther, M. (2001). God & business. Fortune, 144(1), 58–80. Gutek, B. (1993). Asymmetric change in men’s and women’s roles. In B. Long & S. Kahn (Eds.), Women, work, and coping: A multidisciplinary approach to workplace stress (pp. 11–31). Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Hassan, R. (2003). Islam. In A. Sharma & K. Young (Eds.), Her voice, her faith: Women speak on world religions. Boulder, CO: Westview. Hicks, D. (2003). Religion and the workplace: pluralism, spirituality, leadership. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hill, P., & Pargament, K. (2003). Advances in the conceptualization and measurement of religion and spirituality. American Psychologist, 58, 64–74. Josselson, R. (1996). Revising herself: The story of women’s identity from college to midlife. New York: Oxford.

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Miller, J. B. (1976). Toward a new psychology of women. Boston: Beacon Press. Miller, W., & Thoresen, C. (2003). Spirituality, religion, and health: An emerging research ﬁeld. American Psychologist, 58, 24–35. Mitroff, I., & Denton, E. (1999). A spiritual audit of corporate America: A hard look at spirituality, religion, and values in the workplace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Morgan, J. F. (2005). In defense of the Workplace Religious Freedom Act: Protecting the unprotected without sanctifying the workplace. Labor Law Journal, 56, 68–81. Nash, L., & McLennan, S. (2001). Church on Sunday, work on Monday: The challenge of fusing Christian values with business life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Nasr, S. H. (1993). Islam. In A. Sharma (Ed.), Our religions (pp. 425–532). San Francisco: Harper. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Stress . . . at work. DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 99–101. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (2004). Clocking in and clocking out: Recent trends in working hours. Available at: http://www. oecd.org/dataoecd/42/49/33821328.pdf. Ozorak, E. W. (1996). The power, but not the glory: How women empower themselves through religion. Journal for the Scientiﬁc Study of Religion, 35, 17–29. Pargament, K. (1997). The psychology of religion and coping. New York: Guilford Press. Pollard, C. W. (1996). The soul of the ﬁrm. Grand Rapids, MI: Harper Business. Prothero, S. (2006). A nation of religions. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Rayburn, C. A., & Richmond, L. J. (2002). Women, whither goest thou? To chart new courses in religiousness and spirituality and to deﬁne ourselves! In L. H. Collins et al. (Eds.), Charting a new course for feminist psychology (pp. 167–189). Westport, CT: Praeger. Reinke, M. J. (1995). Out of order: A critical perspective on women in religion. In J. Freeman (Ed.), Women: A feminist perspective (pp. 430–447). Mountain View, CA: Mayﬁeld. Roof, W. C. (1993). A generation of seekers: The spiritual journeys of the boom generation. San Francisco: Harper. Schor, J. B. (1992). The overworked American: The unexpected decline of leisure. New York: Basic Books. Schweitzer, F. (1997). Why we might still need a theory for the religious development of women. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 7, 87–91. Sheep, M. L. (2006). Nurturing the whole person: The ethics of workplace spirituality in a society of organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 66, 357–375. Silverman, M. K., & Pargament, K. (1990). God help me: Longitudinal and prospective studies on effects of religious coping efforts. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco. Smith, D. (2004). Workplace religious freedom: What is an employer’s duty to accommodate? A review of recent cases. The ALSB Journal of Employment and Labor Law, 10, 49–65. Spilka, B., Hood, Jr., R.W., Hunsberger, B., Gorsuch, R. (2003). The psychology of religion: An empirical approach. New York: Guilford Press.

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Sullivan, S. C. (2006). The work-faith connection for low-income mothers: A research note. Sociology of Religion, 67, 99–108. Swatos, Jr., W. H. (Ed.). (1994). Gender and religion. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on Women in Society and in the Church. Women’s spirituality in the workplace: A compilation of diocesan focus group reports. Available at: http://www.usccb.org/laity/women. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (2006). Women in the labor force: A databook (2006 edition). Available at: http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlfdatabook2006.htm. U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau (2006). Quick stats 2006. Available at: http://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/main.htm. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Ofﬁce of Research, Information, and Planning (2007). Enforcement statistics and litigation. Available at http://www.eeoc.gov/stats/enforcement.html. Walter, T., & Davie, G. (1998). The religiosity of women in the modern west. British Journal of Sociology, 49, 640–669. Williams-Nickelson, C. (2006). Balanced living through self-care. In J. Worell & C. D. Goodheart (Eds.), Handbook of girls’ and women’s psychological health (pp. 183–191). New York: Oxford. Willits, F. K., & Crider, D. M. (1988). Religion and well-being: Men and women in the middle years. Review of Religious Research, 29, 281–294. Wilson, J., & Sherkat, D. E. (1994). Returning to the fold. Journal for the Scientiﬁc Study of Religion, 33, 148–161. Wolfteich, C. E. (2002). Navigating new terrain: Work and women’s spiritual lives. New York: Paulist Press. Woodhead, L. (2001). Feminism and the sociology of religion. In R. K. Fenn (Ed.), The Blackwell companion to sociology of religion (pp. 67–84). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Wuthnow, R. (1994). God and Mammon in America. New York: Free Press.

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Chapter 9

Workforce Issues: In My Own Voice LuAnn Hart

I am currently an administrator for the Arthropod-Borne Disease Program (ABDP), which is located within the Bureau of Communicable Disease Control, Division of Epidemiology, New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH). It is clear to see by this description that I work within a bureaucratic organization, which most government agencies are. I have worked for this program for 6 years and am preparing for an imminent change in programs. As an administrator I am responsible for day-to-day operations including human resource management, procurement, and oversight of contracts of a complex program that is charged with surveillance of arthropod-borne diseases throughout New York state. Arthropod-borne diseases are those that are transmitted by insects, primarily mosquitoes and ticks. I started with the NYSDOH in early 1994, when I accepted an entry-level secretarial position (Keyboard Specialist grade 6). At the time, my husband was out of work due to a recession and we needed beneﬁts. I had been working for a mortgage company where I held the position of new construction (residential) underwriter. The job was very challenging; however, the pay was equal to the entry-level secretarial position in state government. At the time, I held two associate degrees: legal secretarial science and business administration. I hadn’t spent a single day as a secretary until I came to work for NYSDOH. I worked the equivalent of 50% effort or half-time (2 days one week, 3 days the next week). We also had two young daughters, ages 3 and 7 months. It did not take long before I was completely bored and asked for more work. It never mattered to me if I was working beyond my pay © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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scale—I needed to be busy, challenged, and constantly learning. Over time, I accepted a ﬁve-grade promotion to an entry-level administrative position. I took this job full-time because my husband was again out of work (he worked in the commercial construction industry, which was badly hurt during the early 1990s) and it was a requirement to get the promotion. I worked full-time for about 18 months, when I had my son. During that time, there was a reorganization and I was ‘‘saved’’ when I was assigned to another program, where I went on to receive two more promotions over the next 3 years. During that time, I went back to Siena College (yes, work, three young children, a home, a husband, a dog, and everything I had ever wanted) to earn a BS in Marketing/Management. This was difﬁcult because I dealt daily with the pulls from demands of daily life. However, I knew that I needed this degree to advance further within the health department. It didn’t take me long to realize how credentialed the health ﬁeld was, and where I wanted to be. I graduated magna cum laude (my third degree with honors) from Siena College in May 2002. Shortly before my graduation, I applied for and was awarded another promotion to a Health Program Administrator grade 18 (October 2001). This was a signiﬁcant move and allowed me to utilize my BS degree months before graduation. I had negotiated working four days a week, which was vital to keeping up with school (I had taken three classes that fall to ﬁnish up my graduation requirements) and three small children. My son was not yet in school and my goal was to be able to stay home with him as much as possible. Within 18 months exactly, I applied for and was awarded another promotion to a Health Program Administrator 1 grade 23. This was amazing in that this is a professional title, and I had worked my way up from a G-6 to a G-23 in 9 years. This was a rare accomplishment in government, though I had worked very, very hard to develop my career to the level I am today. Thinking back on it all, I did not choose to go into this ﬁeld. I only took advantage of opportunities available to me when I began work in the state health department. It didn’t take long for me to see that there was an opportunity to do valuable work and that I wanted to play an important role in the ﬁeld of public health. This was the driving force behind my decisions regarding my graduate education. In 2005, I took a chance and met with the admissions staff at Union Graduate College (UGC). I had previously planned on working on a master’s degree and started investigating programs. I wanted an MBA because it was in line with my undergraduate degree, but I did not want to study the stock market. UGC had an MBC with a health management concentration. Based on my GPA at Siena College, I was awarded a 50% scholarship, which made this graduate degree affordable when combined with my employer’s tuition reimbursement program. Here I was, back in school again! Although there was reason to © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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celebrate: No one in my family or my husband’s had ever obtained a graduate degree, and it was Union! MENTORS During my time at NYSDOH, I participated in the Mentor/Protege program twice. The ﬁrst time I participated as a G-16, where I worked with a woman who was a G-18. She helped me rewrite my resume, discuss my career goals, and ultimately referred me to my next promotion to a G-18. She was a wonderful supporter and understood the complexities of my life and the need to balance my career aspirations. A year later, I had met with Dennis Murphy, then association director for the division of family health. Dennis and I went to a conference and met in the exhibition hall. We had dinner and spoke about my career at NYSDOH. He offered to mentor me formally in the Mentor/ Protege program. We were paired and worked together for a year formally. During that time, we met each month. Dennis put me in touch with key executive staff throughout NYSDOH, including the Deputy Commissioner Dennis Whalen (currently Secretary of Health for New York State). These meetings were very enriching; Dennis and I met shortly before each meeting to develop relevant interview questions and to go over the results from my previous interview. I met with about nine executives in total—all upper level executives. The interview questions I chose included their early career experiences (which were of great interest to me when I met with women whom I wanted to emulate), education, growth and promotional experiences, and advice for my career. Some meetings started rather uncomfortably, especially when the interviewee thought I was there to ask for a promotion or transfer. When I was able to explain my goals for the meeting, my questions were met with enthusiasm, warmth, and generosity of both time and advice. These meetings allowed me to network and to obtain information for my personal use in developing and implementing my career aspirations. To this day, Dennis Murphy remains a mentor for me and a conﬁdant. In reﬂecting back to the development of this mentor relationship, I could easily say that I would not have guessed that my mentor would be a man. I will explain further in the gatekeeping section. GATEKEEPERS In the broadest sense, my ﬁrst response when I am asked about gatekeepers would be that they were all women. All of them were key women in my life; however, I must say that my gatekeepers were only obstacles for me to overcome, and never seemed impassable to me. My mom was a single mother of two. She divorced at a time when it was not politically correct to be divorced and wore a wedding ring © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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after the divorce so as not to embarrass my grandmother. The thinking at the time was that your children were illegitimate, not that they were the product of a divorced couple. Mom worked as many as three jobs most of my adolescent life. She accepted government assistance until my younger brother and I were in school. When I was about 16, my boyfriend at the time (now my husband) was applying to colleges. This was exciting for me because I had every intention of doing the same the following year. My mother informed me that if I had intentions (note ‘‘if’’) of going to college that I had to start working on my planning because she couldn’t help me, ﬁnancially or otherwise: Gatekeeper #1. I got a job shortly thereafter as a clerk in a nursing home and began my college plans. At that time, I wanted to be a lawyer, but more than that I wanted to be a mom. I decided that I did not want to work in the health ﬁeld! I felt that I couldn’t do both well after seeing my mother working long hours at low-paying jobs and after gaining much of my own independence early. I decided I would do the next best thing, which was legal secretarial science. I was excellent in high school in my business classes and enjoyed and excelled in shorthand. I did receive my AAS degree (graduated magna cum laude) in legal secretarial science. I know that my mother was trying to help me in the only way she knew how. The other gatekeepers I experienced were women who hired me at the G-13 and G-18 levels. I found over time that they had preconceived notions about the limit of my professional skills. These notions were revealed during the course of my employment when I appealed for increased challenge or responsibility. I am determined and many have called me driven. I overcame each gatekeeper with gentle persistence and a work ethic that has provided me with career growth and rewards. When I have discussed these women (three at different times of my career over the past 10 years) with male supervisors, their read was always that I was a threat to these women. I cannot agree that all three of these gatekeepers were threatened, but I can agree that at least two may have felt that I was competition. Ultimately, my response was to move on to other jobs, leaving on the best of terms with these women. I never felt driven away; I actually felt that I was in control of my own destiny and that I would choose my opportunities and movement when I felt that growth was limited. INTEGRATION OF WORK AND FAMILY Because my mom worked so hard, and still does, and was not the cookie-baking homeroom mom, I worked very hard to be able to balance my home and work life. When my children were little, my husband worked very hard so that I could work part-time and be home with my children. I knew that I could not babysit other people’s © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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children to make money, so I maintained a ‘‘foot in the working world’’ by working part-time. This meant that my advancement was stiﬂed somewhat during those years, but my priority was and is my family. At the same time, they have supported me when I have taken on career and educational challenges. My children do not lose out on any (I mean any!) school, sport, or extracurricular opportunity. This takes a small army to accomplish, but there is no other option for me. My oldest daughter, Meghan (age 16), has been in dance, competitive cheerleading (requiring East Coast travel), and currently is in high school and competitive softball (requiring East Coast travel). My middle child, also a daughter, Jaclyn (age 14), has been in dance and sports throughout elementary and middle school (basketball, volleyball, and softball) as well as band, and has taken private drum lessons for ﬁve years. My youngest is Bobby (age 10), who has been involved in all kinds of sports. I often worried that I wasn’t doing the right thing by going back to college, and was even told so by one mother when she told me that she was a ‘‘better mother because she put her children before her career.’’ In speaking with my daughters and other mothers, I thought and still feel that I was actually setting a better example for my girls by pursuing my career goals and working very hard to balance my responsibilities. I have to credit my husband with my success as well. He’s a traditional guy, but he has been supportive at every step in my education and career. I know that going back to school put additional stress on our family—at least doubled the demands over working full time. Yet they have been nothing but supportive. They all attended my Siena graduation ceremony and cheered me on loudly. I know that it will be no time at all before I am doing that for my children! My experiences have also enriched my children. My current job allows me to bring my children to work occasionally and to have experiences in a professional setting and to learn about the research that is conducted. These experiences are ones that they would not otherwise have. ADVICE The very ﬁrst piece of advice I would give anyone for work or otherwise is that there is no such thing as luck. There is only preparation for opportunity. I’ll have to credit Oprah with this bit of advice, which is something I have always kept with me. Hard work, perseverance, and preparation are key elements to success, particularly control over your own destiny and ultimate success. Working hard at an education, learning new job skills, or remaining open to new experiences can provide preparation and skills necessary to take advantage of unforeseen opportunities. Second, women should think like men. This sounds strange, but I will explain. I mean that women tend to develop emotional attachments © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Self, Family, and Social Affects

to jobs and to people, which prevents them from making strategic professional moves. Men don’t tend to make those emotional connections and are better at making changes that beneﬁt them professionally in the long run. Last, work hard to develop personal and professional networks and do not burn bridges. You never know who will be your next boss, so do not make enemies. And work hard to meet people and demonstrate your potential. Interviewing for jobs even when you are not necessarily in the market is a great way to make a good ﬁrst impression and develop professional ties with people outside of your immediate work environment. Never forget that you may only have one ﬁrst impression.

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Chapter 10

Society’s Gains: Economics of Women in the Workplace Zhilan Feng Maneechit Pattanapanchai

INTRODUCTION Employed women have become a driving force in our modern economy. Women’s contribution both to unpaid home services and to the labor market has contributed to recent economic growth and is believed to be the foundation for its future growth. ‘‘A Guide to Womenomics’’ (2006) presented several statistics concerning employed women. For example, in developed economies, women produce just under 40% of the ofﬁcial gross domestic product (GDP). If the value of the domestic services at home is estimated and added to their contribution, however, ‘‘then women probably produce slightly more than half of total output’’ (p. 73). The GDP is a way for measuring the size of the country’s economy. It is deﬁned as the market value of all ﬁnal goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time. The Economist (2006) also noted that women’s importance is not limited to goods and homecare but also as ‘‘consumers, entrepreneurs, managers and investors.’’ Women make about 80% of the buying decisions in areas such as housing, furniture, food, and health care. Furthermore, Catalyst (2007) reported that American companies with more women in senior management jobs earned a higher return on equity than those with fewer women in top managerial positions. In this chapter, we discuss women’s contribution to the economy. We begin with a general description of women’s participation in the workforce and its contribution to productivity and GDP growth. We © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Self, Family, and Social Affects

then investigate the income gender gap and its harmful consequences. Finally, we discuss women’s contribution to long-term economic growth. WOMEN’S LABOR PARTICIPATION RATE Labor force participation rate is deﬁned by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as ‘‘the proportion of a particular population group that is in the labor force—that is, either working (employed) or actively looking for work (unemployed).’’ This number is important because the GDP growth can be achieved by either increasing the productivity (output rate) or by labor utilization (labor participation rate). According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (Table 10.1), women’s labor participation rate (for women aged 16 and older) in United States has steadily increased from 34% in 1950 to 59% in 2006. This participation rate reﬂects an increase of more than 50 million employees. On the other hand, the labor participation rate for men has dropped from 86% to 74% during the same time period. We also report the employment to population ratio in Table 10.1 as a comparison. Both the labor participation rate and employment rate share the same trends. This phenomenon is not unique to the United States. For example, Taiwan reported that women’s labor force participation has grown from 33% in 1965 to 45% in 1995.1 Men’s labor force participation has declined from 83% to 72%.2 Table 10.2 reports the labor force participation rate, and Table 10.3 reports the employment rate by sex of Table 10.1 U.S. labor force 16 years and 1950–2006 Employment to population ratio, %

Civilian labor force (thousands)

Labor participation rate, %

Year

Male

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

81.98 78.85 76.18 72.03 72.15 71.90 70.88 69.70 68.90 69.18 69.58 70.08

31.98 35.50 40.80 47.68 54.40 57.48 57.03 56.28 56.13 55.98 56.25 56.63

43,820 46,387 51,228 61,453 69,049 76,280 76,886 77,500 78,238 78,980 80,033 81,255

18,390 23,239 31,543 45,487 56,860 66,303 66,848 67,363 68,272 68,421 69,288 70,173

86.4 83.4 79.7 77.4 76.4 74.8 74.5 74.1 73.5 73.4 73.3 73.5

33.9 37.7 43.4 51.5 57.5 59.9 59.8 59.6 59.5 59.2 59.3 59.4

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Table 10.2 Labor force participation rates by sex 15 – 64 years (percentages) Men

Women

Countries

1973

1983

1990

2000

2005

2006

1973

1983

1990

2000

2005

2006

Australia Austria Belgium Canada Denmark Finland Francea Germanya Greece Ireland Italy Japan Luxembourg Netherlands New Zealand Norwayb Portugal Spainc Swedenb Switzerland United Kingdomb United States OECD Europec Total OECDc

91.1 83.0 83.2 86.1 89.6 80.0 85.2 89.6 83.2 92.3 85.1 90.1 93.1 85.6 89.2 86.5 NA 92.9 88.1 100.0 93.0 86.2 88.7 88.2

85.9 82.2 76.8 88.5 87.6 82.0 78.4 82.6 80.0 87.1 80.7 89.1 85.1 77.3 84.7 87.2 86.9 80.5 85.9 93.5 87.5 84.7 82.3 84.4

85.9 80.1 72.7 84.9 89.6 80.6 74.6 80.8 82.1 82.2 78.9 87.8 95.1 79.9 82.2 84.5 86.1 76.8 85.3 96.2 86.5 85.8 80.6 83.7

82.0 80.1 73.8 83.1 84.0 76.5 74.4 81.1 77.1 79.1 73.8 85.2 76.4 83.9 83.2 84.8 78.8 79.1 81.2 89.4 84.3 83.9 78.0 81.1

82.7 79.3 73.1 82.5 83.6 75.7 74.5 80.6 79.2 79.9 74.4 84.4 76.0 81.4 84.4 82.3 79.0 82.2 82.5 87.4 83.0 81.8 77.9 80.3

82.9 80.4 72.7 82.2 83.4 76.2 74.2 81.4 79.1 81.0 74.6 84.8 NA 81.9 85.1 81.4 79.5 82.5 82.6 87.8 83.2 81.9 78.0 80.4

47.7 48.5 41.3 47.2 61.9 63.9 50.1 50.3 32.1 34.1 33.7 54.0 35.9 29.2 39.2 50.6 NA 33.4 62.6 54.1 53.2 51.1 44.7 48.3

52.1 49.7 48.7 62.2 74.2 72.7 54.3 52.5 40.4 37.8 40.3 57.2 41.7 40.3 45.7 65.5 56.7 33.3 76.6 55.2 57.2 61.9 49.8 55.2

62.1 55.4 52.4 68.1 78.4 72.9 56.6 57.0 39.9 38.9 44.5 60.4 50.5 53.0 62.1 71.2 61.3 40.9 81.1 59.2 67.4 68.2 53.5 60.0

65.5 62.5 56.6 70.5 75.9 72.0 61.7 63.2 49.7 55.7 46.2 59.6 51.7 65.7 67.5 76.5 63.6 51.8 76.4 73.9 68.9 70.8 60.2 61.3

68.4 65.6 59.5 73.1 75.1 72.9 63.8 66.9 54.6 60.3 50.4 60.8 57.0 68.6 70.8 75.4 67.9 59.1 77.7 74.3 69.6 69.2 58.1 60.4

69.0 67.0 58.9 73.5 76.7 73.2 63.9 68.5 55.0 61.3 50.8 61.3 NA 69.4 71.4 74.8 68.4 61.1 77.7 74.7 70.3 69.3 58.6 60.8

a Data for 2006 are Secretariat estimates obtained by applying changes between 2005 and 2006 estimates from the European Labour Force Survey to national estimates for 2005. b Refers to persons age 16 to 64. c For data under 2000, 2005, and 2006, OECD Europe also includes Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland, and Slovak Republic. Source: OECD Employment Outlook Statistical Annex, 1996, 2001, and 2007.

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Table 10.3 Employment/population ratio by sex 15 – 64 years (percentages) Men

Women

Countries

1973

1983

1990

2000

2005

2006

1973

1983

1990

2000

2005

2006

Australia Austria Belgium Canada Denmark Finland Francea Germanya Greece Ireland Italy Japan Luxembourg Netherlands New Zealand Norwayb Portugal Spainb Swedenb Switzerland United Kingdomb United States OECD Europec Total OECDc

89.9 82.4 81.6 81.9 89.0 78.1 83.8 88.8 81.8 86.5 81.6 88.8 93.1 83.5 89.1 85.6 99.2 90.5 86.2 100.0 90.3 82.8 86.7 85.8

77.5 79.4 69.2 77.8 78.3 77.4 73.4 76.6 75.3 73.8 75.7 86.7 84.0 69.1 80.3 84.4 82.8 67.9 83.0 92.7 75.9 76.5 75.2 77.6

80.3 77.7 68.4 82.3 82.7 77.4 70.3 76.1 71.7 69.5 73.7 86.1 76.8 75.5 76.7 79.8 86.1 68.4 83.0 95.7 80.3 81.2 75.4 79.1

76.6 76.2 69.8 76.3 80.7 69.4 68.1 74.8 71.3 75.6 67.6 81.0 75.0 82.1 78.0 81.5 76.2 71.4 76.1 87.3 79.1 80.6 72.0 76.3

78.5 75.4 67.7 76.7 80.1 69.4 67.8 71.4 74.5 76.2 69.7 80.4 73.3 77.4 81.5 78.3 73.4 76.4 75.9 83.9 78.8 77.6 71.2 75.0

78.8 76.9 67.0 76.8 80.6 70.5 67.5 72.9 74.6 77.3 70.5 81.0 NA 78.7 82.1 78.6 73.9 77.3 76.8 84.7 78.4 78.1 71.8 75.6

46.4 47.7 39.9 44.1 61.2 62.3 47.9 49.7 31.2 32.8 29.9 53.4 35.9 28.6 39.1 49.3 30.5 32.5 60.8 54.1 52.7 48.0 43.2 46.4

47.0 47.1 39.8 55.0 65.0 69.0 48.3 47.8 35.6 33.6 34.2 55.7 40.9 34.7 42.8 63.0 49.8 26.5 73.9 54.7 52.6 56.2 44.4 50.3

58.0 53.5 45.7 65.1 71.4 70.8 50.9 53.2 38.5 35.0 37.9 59.1 43.9 47.4 58.3 67.8 58.8 31.4 78.8 59.3 63.4 64.9 48.1 55.6

61.6 59.7 51.9 65.8 72.1 64.5 54.3 57.7 41.3 53.3 39.3 56.7 50.0 63.4 63.5 74.0 60.4 41.1 72.3 71.6 65.5 67.9 53.9 57.1

64.7 62.0 54.1 68.3 70.8 66.5 56.9 59.6 46.2 58.0 45.3 58.1 53.7 64.8 68.0 72.0 61.7 51.9 71.8 70.4 66.7 65.6 52.3 56.1

65.5 63.5 53.6 69.0 73.2 67.3 57.1 61.5 47.5 58.8 46.3 58.8 NA 66.0 68.4 72.3 62.0 54.0 72.1 71.1 66.8 66.1 53.2 56.8

a Data for 2006 are Secretariat estimates obtained by applying changes between 2005 and 2006 estimates from the European Labour Force Survey to national estimates for 2005. b Refers to persons age 16 to 64. c For data under 2000, 2005, and 2006, OECD Europe also includes Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland, and Slovak Republic. Source: OECD Employment Outlook Statistical Annex, 1996, 2001, and 2007. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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Society’s Gains

countries around the world. We observe that these trends (increasing participation by women in the labor force and declining participation by men between the ages of 15 and 64) occur across all continents. Child-care support programs such as on-site child care, child-care subsidy, and child-care credit have helped facilitate women’s participation in the workforce. This fact has suggested that the increased participation of women’s labor may contribute to the decline in the non-paid domestic home service. Braunstein (2003) investigated this issue using 30 years of labor force data from Taiwan from 1965 to 1995. Braunstein noted that Taiwan’s high economic growth during this period is credited to the increase in women’s labor participation rate, most especially for women with college and graduate school education. Women’s participation in the market sector contributes to the increased public investment in human capital and hence leads to high productivity in the household sector as well. In Table 10.4, we report the percentage of part-time3 and full-time employees from 1950 to 2006 for individuals aged 16 years and older. The table indicates that 7.8% of men had a part-time job in 1968. This number has been increased to 10% since 1980 and has stayed relatively stable in the 1990s and during the ﬁrst six years of the 21st century. For women, the percentage of part-time employment is in the range of 25% to 27% over the last 40 years. Certainly, women are more likely to take a part-time job relative to men because of maternity leaves and their responsibility as primary caregivers to children and elderly parents. This trend is likely to continue as employers offer ﬂex time,

Table 10.4 U.S. labor force 16 years and over 1950–2006, % Male

Female

Year

Full-time

Part-time

Full-time

Part-time

1968 1970 1980 1990 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

92.2 91.5 90.4 89.8 89.9 89.7 89.4 89.2 89.2 89.3 89.4

7.8 8.5 9.6 10.2 10.1 10.3 10.6 10.8 10.8 10.7 10.6

75.1 73.9 73.2 74.7 74.8 75.4 75.2 74.7 74.4 74.3 74.8

24.9 26.1 26.8 25.3 24.6 24.8 25.3 25.6 25.7 25.2 24.7

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Self, Family, and Social Affects

job sharing, telecommuting, and other ﬂexible job designs (Paludi & Neidermeyer, 2007). In 2006, there were more than 100,000 customerservice representatives who worked from home. As Naylor (2006) observed, ‘‘in the face of political pressures and customer backlash, many companies are bringing call center operations back from overseas.’’ Hence, the number of part-time jobs is predicted to exceed 300,000 by 2010. The ﬂexibility of the home-based jobs will certainly encourage more women’s participation in the labor market.

WOMEN’S CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIETY Human Capital Tables 10.5 and 10.6 report the education levels for full-time, yearround employees aged 25 years old and older during the period of 1991 to 2005. The number of both men and women employees who received some college education and above (including associate degrees, bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, professional degrees, and doctoral degrees) have been increasing over the years. On average, women employees invest more in education than men. For example, the percentage of men employees who received less than a 9th grade education is always higher than the percentage of women employees who received the same amount of education. The story of the education levels for those employees who receive some college education or higher is more compelling. In 1991, about 54% of all full-time female workers had some college education, compared with 55% of men. In 2005, however, there were more women employees (about 65%) who received some college or higher education compared to 59% of men employees. These statistics suggest that women employees are more willing to invest in human capital development. Supporting our previous ﬁnding, Figure 10.1 depicts the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in Science and Engineering (S&E) and non-Science and Engineering (non-S&E) ﬁelds by sex during the years 1966 to 2004. The dark dotted line is the number of degrees awarded to women in S&E, while the light dotted line is for men in S&E. Similarly, the dark solid line is the number of degrees awarded to women in non-S&E; the light solid line is for men in non-S&E. Over this period, there are more women who were awarded bachelor’s degrees in non-S&E ﬁelds each year. The number of women with bachelor’s degrees has grown at a faster pace compared to that of their male counterparts. In the S&E ﬁeld, the number of women with bachelor’s degrees started lower in 1966, but since then it has increased and caught up with the number of men with bachelor’s degrees received in 2003. Even though there are fever master’s and doctoral degrees awarded to women in the ﬁeld of S&E during this period, the numbers © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Table 10.5 Employment by educational attainment full-time, year-round workers 25 years old and over, 1991–2005 (thousands) Women Elementary/secondary

College

Year

Less than 9th grade

9th to 12th Grade (no diploma)

High school graduate (includes equivalency)

Some college, no degree

Associate degree

Bachelor degree

Master degree

Professional degree

Doctorate degree

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

733 733 764 694 774 750 791 814 905 934 927 857 876 916 900

1,819 1,653 1,576 1,675 1,760 1,751 1,761 1,876 1,921 1,964 1,869 1,840 1,738 1,797 1,736

10,936 11,026 10,505 10,777 11,059 11,358 11,470 11,605 11,984 11,801 11,686 11,673 11,586 11,395 11,412

5,621 5,903 6,276 6,254 6,328 6,574 6,628 7,067 7,524 7,534 7,281 7,353 7,340 7,341 7,451

2,523 2,651 3,061 3,210 6,334 3,468 3,536 3,527 3,844 4,231 4,190 4,281 4,397 4,492 4,751

5,251 5,599 5,733 5,897 6,432 6,686 7,172 7,276 7,712 7,869 8,253 8,226 8,327 8,683 9,072

2,022 2,192 2,166 2,173 2,268 2,213 2,447 2,639 2,857 2,865 3,089 3,281 3,376 3,467 3,589

311 334 323 398 421 413 488 468 479 499 531 572 567 532 657

206 225 260 283 283 322 318 329 353 364 392 402 462 453 437 continued

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Table 10.5 Continued Men Elementary/secondary

College

156

Year

Less than 9th grade

9th to 12th Grade (no diploma)

High school graduate (includes equivalency)

Some college, no degree

Associate degree

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

1,807 1,815 1,790 1,895 1,944 2,041 1,914 1,870 2,095 2,159 2,207 2,154 2,209 2,427 2,425

3,083 3,009 3,083 3,057 3,335 3,440 3,548 3,613 3,407 3,476 3,503 3,677 3,366 3,464 3,651

15,022 14,722 14,599 15,097 43,3351 15,838 16,220 16,442 16,797 16,735 16,314 16,002 16,283 17,052 17,258

8,034 8,066 8,490 8,783 8,908 9,172 9,169 9,375 9,786 9,837 9,492 9,603 9,337 9,255 9,532

2,899 3,203 3,555 3,735 3,926 3,931 4,086 4,347 3,398 4,813 4,714 4,399 4,696 4,906 5,020

Bachelor Master degree degree 8,455 8,719 9,178 9,636 9,597 9,898 10,349 11,058 11,253 11,654 11,29 11,829 11,846 11,705 12,032

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Housing and Houshold Economic Statistics Division.

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3,073 3,178 3,131 3,225 3,395 3,272 3,228 3,414 3,783 3,788 3,961 4,065 4,124 4,244 4,275

Professional degree

Doctorate degree

1,147 1,295 1,231 1,258 1,208 1,277 1,321 1,264 1,291 1,268 1,298 1,308 1,348 1,308 1,369

674 745 808 868 853 893 966 998 1,033 1,086 1,041 1,065 1,037 1,090 1,144

Table 10.6 Employment by educational attainment full-time, year-round workers 25 years old and over, 1991–2005 (%) Women Elementary/secondary

College

157

Year

Less than 9th grade

9th to 12th Grade (no diploma)

High school graduate (includes equivalency)

Some college, no degree

Associate degree

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

2.5 2.4 2.5 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.3 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.4 2.2 2.3 2.3 2.2

6.2 5.5 5.1 5.3 4.9 5.2 5.1 5.3 5.1 5.2 4.9 4.8 4.5 4.6 4.3

37.2 36.4 34.3 34.4 31.0 33.9 33.1 32.6 31.9 31.0 30.6 30.3 30.0 29.2 28.5

18.6 19.5 20.5 19.9 17.7 19.6 19.1 19.9 20.0 19.8 30.6 19.1 19.0 18.8 18.6

8.6 8.7 10.0 10.2 17.8 10.3 10.2 9.9 10.2 11.1 11.0 11.1 11.4 11.5 11.9

Bachelor Master degree degree 17.8 18.5 18.7 18.8 18.0 19.9 20.7 20.4 20.5 20.7 21.6 21.4 21.5 22.2 22.7

6.9 7.2 7.1 6.9 6.4 6.6 7.1 7.4 7.6 7.5 8.1 8.5 8.7 8.9 9.0

Professional degree

Doctorate degree

1.1 1.1 1.1 1.3 1.2 1.2 1.4 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.5 1.4 1.6

0.7 0.7 0.8 0.9 0.8 1.0 0.9 0.9 0.9 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.2 1.2 1.1 continued

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Table 10.6 Continued Men Elementary/secondary

College

Year

Less than 9th grade

9th to 12th Grade (no diploma)

High school graduate (includes equivalency)

Some college, no degree

Associate degree

Bachelor degree

Master degree

Professional degree

Doctorate degree

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

4.1 4.1 3.9 4.0 4.0 4.1 3.8 3.6 4.0 3.9 4.1 4.0 4.1 4.4 4.3

7.0 6.7 6.7 6.4 6.9 6.9 7.0 6.9 6.4 6.3 6.5 6.8 6.2 6.2 6.4

34.0 32.9 31.8 31.7 31.6 31.8 31.9 31.4 31.8 30.5 30.2 29.6 30.0 30.8 30.4

18.2 18.0 18.5 18.5 18.4 18.4 18.0 17.9 18.5 17.9 17.6 17.7 17.2 16.7 16.8

6.6 7.2 7.8 7.9 8.1 7.9 8.0 8.3 6.4 8.8 8.7 8.1 8.7 8.8 8.9

19.1 19.5 20.0 20.3 19.8 19.9 20.4 21.1 21.3 21.3 21.3 21.9 21.8 21.1 21.2

7.0 7.1 6.8 6.8 7.0 6.6 6.4 6.5 7.2 6.9 7.3 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.5

2.6 2.9 2.7 2.6 2.5 2.6 2.6 2.4 2.4 2.3 2.4 2.4 2.5 2.4 2.4

1.5 1.7 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.9 1.9 2.0 2.0 1.9 2.0 1.9 2.0 2.0

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Housing and Houshold Economic Statistics Division.

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Society’s Gains

159

Figure 10.1

of women who received master’s degrees and PhDs have grown at faster rates compared to those of their male counterparts (see Figures 10.2 and 10.3). The high level of education of women employees has contributed to their improved position in the labor market. In Table 10.7, we report the change of occupation by women employees (aged 16 years and older) from 1984 to 2004. More women are in positions that require a high degree of education. These positions include executives, administrators and managers, professional specialists, engineering and related technologists and technicians, health technologists, and science technicians. For example, the percentage of female employees in the executive, administrator, and manager positions has increased from 8.4% in 1984 to 13.2% in 2004. Likewise, the percentage of women employees Figure 10.2

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160

Self, Family, and Social Affects

Figure 10.3

in the professional specialty positions has increased from 14.4% to 21.6% during the same period. Another measure of human capital is healthiness. Research has found that women’s participation in the workforce has positive impacts on their own as well as their children’s health. McMunn, Bartley, Hardy, and Kuh (2006), for example, investigated the relationship between long-term social role and healthiness of women in the United Kingdom. They reported women who have multiple roles—wife, mother, and actively involved in the labor market for longer period of time—are in relatively good health at age 54. Moreover, they ﬁnd that women who are less active in the labor market are more likely to be obese at age 53. Only 23% of working mothers were overweight when they reached their ﬁfties, while 38% of stay-at-home moms were. Reducing Poverty The investment in human capital by women employees has earned them deserved returns and improved their economic position. Table 10.8 reports the median family income by family types from 1950 to 2005 according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division. The numbers are reported in current dollars. Without adjusting for inﬂation, we can calculate the annual growth rate for each family type during this 55-year period. On average, the annual growth rate is 5.28% for all families. The marriedcouple families with the wife in paid labor force enjoys the highest annual growth rate at 5.57%, followed by the single-female families with an annual growth rate of 4.94%. The married-couple families with only © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Table 10.7A Employed females 16 years and older by occupation in selected years, 1984–2004 annual averages

1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004

All occupations

Executives, administrators, and managers

46,094 48,893 51,879 53,906 54,235 56,771 58,674 60,946 63,100 63,737 64,728

3,889 4,653 5,590 5,931 6,110 7,014 7,767 8,469 8,960 9,446 8,517

Professional specialty

Engineering and related technologists and technicians

Health technologist and technician

Science technician

Other occupation

6,619 7,059 7,643 8,287 8,771 9,411 10,160 10,776 11,570 12,154 13,979

157 166 175 196 162 179 183 202 205 204 141

927 945 1,013 1,086 1,241 1,298 1,293 1,414 1,388 1,531 1,639

71 58 67 77 87 98 92 123 112 138 120

34,431 36,012 37,391 38,329 37,864 38,771 39,179 39,962 40,865 40,264 40,332

Source: National Science Foundation.

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Table 10.7B Employed females 16 years and older by occupation in selected years, 1984–2004, % of total employed

1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004

Executives, administrators, and managers 8.4 9.5 10.8 11.0 11.3 12.4 13.2 13.9 14.2 14.8 13.2

Professional specialty

Engineering and related technologists and technician

Health technologist and technician

Science technicians

Other occupation

14.4 14.4 14.7 15.4 16.2 16.6 17.3 17.7 18.3 19.1 21.6

0.3 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2

2.0 1.9 2.0 2.0 2.3 2.3 2.2 2.3 2.2 2.4 2.5

0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2

74.7 73.7 72.1 71.1 69.8 68.3 66.8 65.6 64.8 63.2 62.3

Source: National Science Foundation.

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the husband working have an annual growth rate in median income of 4.83%, and single male households have an annual growth rate of 4.80%. Obviously, there are multiple factors that contribute to growth in women’s wages (such as efforts to reduce the gender gap). The investment in human capital by women employees is certainly one of them. In 2001, the poverty rate for families with children in the United States was 13%. Using census data and a simulation technique, a study by the Brookings Institute (2003) reported that if all heads for non-elderly and non-disabled families have full-time jobs, the poverty rate would be reduced by 5% to 7.5%. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, families with two or more working members are less likely to live in poverty than those with only one working member. In a study sponsored by the United Kingdom Department of Trade and Industry, Walby and Olsen (2002) reported that women’s participation in the labor force helped reduce child poverty. Especially for single-female household families that are reported in Table 10.8, an increase in median income means fewer children are living in poverty in the short run. In the long run, a mother who does not live in poverty herself is likely to raise productive workers for the next generation. Improving Child Welfare Another notable beneﬁt of female participation in the workforce is their contribution to their children’s well-being. In the United States, Table 10.8 Median family income by family type, all races 1950–2005 (current dollars) Married couple families

No spouse families

Year

All families

Wife in paid labor force

Wife not in paid labor force

Male housholder

Female housholder

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

3,319 5,620 9,867 21,023 35,353 50,732 51,407 51,680 52,680 54,061 56,194

4,003 6,900 12,276 26,879 46,777 69,235 70,834 72,806 75,170 76,854 78,755

3,315 5,520 9,304 18,972 30,265 39,982 40,782 40,102 41,122 42,215 44,457

3,115 4,860 9,012 17,519 29,046 37,727 36,590 37,739 38,032 40,361 41,111

1,922 2,968 5,093 10,408 16,932 25,716 25,745 26,423 26,550 26,969 27,244

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Housing and Houshold Economic Statistics Division.

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more than 70% of women with children under 18 years of age were in the labor force in 2005. Mothers with children ages 6 to 17 years were more likely to participate in the labor force than mothers with preschool children (age 6 or under). In 1975, 55% of mothers with children ages 6 to 17 years were in the labor force, and this number rose to 76.5% in 2005. During the same period, mothers of preschool children who were in the labor force rose from 39% to 62.8% (Child Health USA, 2006). Furthermore, Hong and White-Means (1993) reported that maternal employment is a signiﬁcant factor affecting children’s physical health. Similar results were reported by Heyman (2001). A 2003 study by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation indicated that almost 60% of women with children received their insurance through either their or their spouses’ employers. Of these women, approximately half received coverage through their own employers, and half received coverage as dependents. In 2005, job-based insurance was the major form of health insurance for women ages 18 to 64, accounting for approximately 34%. Heck and Parker (2002) examined the impact of family structure on the characteristics of health insurance coverage for children in the United States. They reported that, in two-parent families, 9% of children with both working parents are uninsured, while 15.1% of children do not have insurance coverage when the father is the only one working in the family. A report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (Lee, 2004) indicated that mothers are more likely to stay on their job longer if the job provides child care or health insurance. INCOME GENDER GAP As we documented above, women have been and continue to be the driving force of economic growth. To ensure a prosperous future, policy makers should remove barriers and detriments that discourage women’s participation in the market. One such barrier is the existence of the income gender gap. In the updated ‘‘Womenomics Revisited’’ (2007), the authors reported a study by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Paciﬁc which concluded that ‘‘sex discrimination cost[s] the region $42 billion to $47 billion a year by restricting women’s job opportunities’’ (p. 88). They also cited ﬁndings in a recent report by Kevin Daly (an economist at Goldman Sachs), which suggested that under the assumption that GDP grew in proportion with employment and if the women’s employment rates were raised to the same level as men’s, then ‘‘America’s GDP would be 9 percent higher, the Euro zone’s would be 13 percent more, and Japan’s would be boosted by 16 percent’’ (p. 88). Hence, minimizing the gender gap is crucial to sustainable growth in the future economy. In this section, we will © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Society’s Gains

165

Figure 10.4

document the income gender gap in the United States and around the world, and we will discuss the importance of gender equality. Figure 10.4 shows the changes in the income/gender wage ratio for full-time employees from 1960 to 2005. The gender/wage ratio is calculated based on median earnings of full-time, year-round employees 15 years of age and older. Obviously, we have made substantial improvement in reducing the income gender gap over this period. However, the situation is less impressive if we consider the annual income by education levels. In Tables 10.9A and 10.9B we report the median annual income of men and women by the amount of education they attained from 1991 to 2005. In 10.9A, the numbers are in thousands of dollars, while in 10.9B, the numbers are percentage of women’s median income to men’s median income. On average, we observe reducing gaps between women’s median income and men’s median income in all levels of education. The income gap between men and women who have professional degrees has reduced most during this period. In 1991, women with professional degrees earned less than 61% compared with men in the same professions. The situation has been improved and by the end of 2005 they earned more than 80% of the men’s income in the same category. However, the numbers are less comforting for other education levels. For example, the income gaps between men and women are widened during this period for those who have master’s degrees and associate’s degrees. For all other levels of education, the reductions in income gaps are almost stalled. The situation is even more pronounced when we look at the women’s income globally. The fact-sheet reported by the United Nation’s web site stated that ‘‘women earn on average slightly more than 50 percent of what © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

Table 10.9A Median annual income by educationa attainment full-time, year-round workers 25 years old and over, 1991–2005 (current thousands $) Elementary/secondary

Sex and year

166

Men 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

College

Less than 9th grade

9th to 12th Grade (no diploma)

High school graduate (includes equivalency)

Some college, no degree

Associate degree

16,880 16,853 16,380 17,151 17,492 17,246 18,551 18,553 19,532 20,250 21,139 20,919 21,217 21,646 22,330

20,994 21,057 21,402 21,748 21,887 22,206 24,241 23,438 23,946 24,646 25,857 25,903 26,468 26,280 27,189

26,218 26,699 26,820 27,237 28,542 30,090 30,655 30,868 32,028 32,432 33,037 33,206 35,412 35,726 36,302

31,034 31,341 31,278 31,344 32,363 33,293 35,087 35,949 37,166 38,175 40,159 40,851 41,348 41,906 42,418

32,221 32,340 32,616 35,121 33,468 36,072 36,677 38,483 40,422 40,983 41,658 42,856 42,871 44,395 47,180

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Bachelor Master degree degree

39,894 40,344 41,416 42,049 42,602 43,780 46,255 49,982 50,994 5,280 53,108 56,077 56,502 57,199 60,020

47,002 47,227 49,826 51,354 51,814 56,076 57,553 60,168 61,816 65,280 66,934 67,281 70,640 71,434 75,025

Professional degree

Doctorate degree

70,284 73,602 77,185 72,090 75,283 78,144 78,290 90,653 76,722 93,276 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000

54,626 56,346 61,347 60,270 61,700 66,159 70,706 69,188 76,722 75,366 81,077 83,305 87,131 82,397 85,864 continued

Table 10.9A Continued Elementary/secondary

167

Sex and year

Less than 9th grade

9th to 12th Grade (no diploma)

Women 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

11,637 12,153 11,876 12,029 12,776 13,572 13,447 14,132 14,420 15,622 16,170 16,510 16,907 17,015 16,142

13,538 13,705 14,700 14,474 15,103 16,132 15,907 15,847 16,328 17,186 17,937 19,307 18,938 19,167 20,125

College

High school graduate (includes equivalency)

Some college, no degree

Associate degree

18,042 18,615 19,168 19,529 19,649 20,501 21,291 21,963 21,956 23,571 24,217 25,182 26,074 26,045 26,289

21,328 21,951 21,997 22,171 22,512 23,832 25,035 26,024 26,419 27,304 28,839 29,400 30,142 30,822 31,399

23,862 24,817 25,067 25,214 26,281 26,773 27,206 28,377 30,108 30,701 31,194 31,625 32,253 33,489 33,939

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Housing and Houshold Economic Statistics Division.

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Bachelor Master degree degree

27,654 29,206 30,344 30,740 30,798 31,910 33,432 35,408 56,685 38,456 39,818 40,853 41,327 41,703 42,172

32,122 35,001 36,924 37,546 38,593 40,415 41,856 46052 45,360 46,987 48,276 48,890 50,163 51,319 51,412

Professional degree

Doctorate degree

42,604 44,313 48,406 48,284 48,111 56,431 54,528 55,460 56,685 60,481 60,093 57,018 66,491 75,100 80,458

40,172 43,778 46,420 46,479 41,920 51,989 50,758 52,167 56,322 57,351 60,425 65,715 67,214 68,387 66,852

Table 10.9B Gender/wage ratio by educational attainment full-time, year-round workers 25 years old and over, 1991–2005, % Elementary/secondary

Year 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

College

Less than 9th grade

9th to 12th Grade (no diploma)

High school graduate (includes equivalency)

Some college, no degree

Associate degree

68.9 72.1 72.5 70.1 73.0 78.7 72.5 76.2 73.8 77.1 76.5 78.9 79.7 78.6 72.3

64.5 65.1 68.7 66.6 69.0 72.6 65.6 67.6 68.2 69.7 69.4 74.5 71.6 72.9 74.0

68.8 69.7 71.5 71.7 68.8 68.1 69.5 71.2 68.6 72.7 73.3 75.8 73.6 72.9 72.4

68.7 70.0 70.3 70.7 69.6 71.6 71.4 72.4 71.1 71.5 71.8 72.0 72.9 73.6 74.0

74.1 76.7 76.9 71.8 78.5 74.2 74.2 73.7 74.5 74.9 74.9 73.8 75.2 75.4 71.9

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Housing and Houshold Economic Statistics Division.

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Bachelor Master degree degree 69.3 72.4 73.3 73.1 72.3 72.9 72.3 70.8 71.2 73.2 75.0 72.9 73.1 72.9 70.3

70.5 74.1 74.1 73.1 74.5 72.1 72.7 69.8 73.4 72.0 72.1 72.7 71.0 71.8 68.5

Professional degree

Doctorate degree

60.6 60.2 62.7 67.0 63.9 72.2 69.6 61.2 59.0 64.8 60.1 57.0 66.5 75.1 80.5

73.5 77.7 75.7 77.1 67.9 78.6 71.8 75.4 73.4 76.1 74.5 78.9 77.1 83.0 77.9

Society’s Gains

169

men earn’’ worldwide. Also, the majority of the 1.5 billion people living on $1 a day or less are women. Hence, we certainly have a long way to go in reducing the gender gaps in terms of income. There are other factors restricting women’s economic opportunities. Women assume major responsibility in taking care of their families. Caregiving demands their time and increases their workload, and thus reduces their availability to participate in the workforce (Paludi et al., 2007). To encourage more participation of women in the labor force, affordable child care has to be made available, and favorable tax rates and policies have to be put in place. If incomes are high and some household care can be purchased at a reasonable price (maybe with subsidies), more women will likely join the labor force. Women are less likely to return to work full-time after they give birth (Barrow, 1999; Paul, 2006). In the United Sates, women are offered a 12-week maternity leave without any pay. This policy obviously contributes to the gender gap in income that we observed above. Women are forced to choose between having children and continuity of their career. The fact that 49% of high-achieving women in the United States are childless compared to 19% of their male colleagues suggests that lack of provisions for child rearing hinders women’s career achievement and restricts their economic opportunities (Hewlett, 2002). It is important for policy makers to see that there is a clear correlation between gender equality (measured by economic participation, education, health, and political empowerment) and GDP per head. Also, inequality between the sexes harms long-term growth. As a reminder for the policy makers, The Economist stated ‘‘men run the world’s economics; but it may be up to the women to rescue them’’ (p. 88). To achieve and maintain economic growth, it is critical to continuously ﬁght to minimize the income gender gap. CONCLUSION As we demonstrated, women’s participation in the workforce is not only instrumental to GDP growth and long-term economic success, it also has profound secondary social beneﬁts. It helps to reduce poverty, increases the investment in human capital, and improves children’s welfare. We also show that homecare responsibility and the existence of the income gender gap have been detrimental to women’s active involvement in the market. The failure of the United States in removing obstacles to employment for women is noted. The United States is among the handful of countries that do not guarantee payment to mothers during their maternity leaves. The female economic activity rate, which is deﬁned as the percentage of the economically active population (both employed and unemployed) out of the total population for those aged 15 and older was 58.8% for the United States in 2000, © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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ranking 58 out of 157 countries. We hope that these numbers serve as an alarm to the policy makers and prompt their actions to encourage women’s participation in the market. If the United States wants to keep its leadership role in the world economy, we have to be more active and aggressive in facilitating women’s involvement. NOTES 1. The author does not mention ages for the labor participation rates. For a comparison we report the employment and labor participation rate for the age group 15–64 years across the world in Tables 10.2 and 10.3. 2. In the United States, the labor participation rate was 59% for women and 75% for men aged 16 and older in 1995. 3. Those who work less than 35 hours per week (U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

REFERENCES Barrow, L. (1999). An analysis of women’s return-to-work decisions following ﬁrst birth. Economic Inquiry, 37, 432–451. Braunstein, E. (2003). Shifting women’s work from the home to market: Assessing policies for economic growth in Taiwan, University of Massachusetts, Political Economy Research Institute. http://www.peri.umass.edu/ﬁlead min/pdf/research_brief/RB2003-2.pdf. The Brookings Institute (2003). Welfare reform & beyond #28, The Brookings Institute Policy Brief, September. http://www3.brookings.edu/es/wrb/ publications/pb/pb28.pdf. Catalyst. (2007). Catalyst.org/pressroom/press_bottom_line_2shtml. Child Health USA (2006). Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau. The Economist (2006, April 15). A guide to womenomics. http://www.ecomomist. com, 73–74. The Economist (2007, April 21). Womenomics revisited. http://www.economist. com, 88. Heck, K., & Parker, J. (2002). Family structure, socioeconomic status, and access to health care for children. Health Services Research, 37, 171–184. The Henry Kaiser Family Foundation (2003, April). Women’s issue brief, an update on women’s health policy, women, work, and family health: A balancing act. http://www.kff.org/womenshealth/loader.cfm?url¼/common spot/security/getﬁle.cfm&PageID¼14293. Hewlett, S. A. (2002). Executive women and the myth of having it all. Harvard Business Review, 80, 66–73. Heyman, J. (Ed.). (2000). The widening gap: Why American working families are in jeopardy and what can be done about it. New York: Basic Books. Hong, G., & White-Means, S. I. (1993). Do working mothers have healthy children? Abstract, Handbook of the Sociology of gender. As appears on http://www.springerlink.com/content/v8j0387821r2t121.

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Lee, S. (2004). Women’s work supports, job retention, and job mobility: Child care and employer-provided health insurance help women stay on jobs. Institute for Women’s Policy Research, November. http://www.iwpr.org/ pdf/C359.pdf. McMunn, A., Bartley, M., Hardy, R., & Kuh, D. (2006). Life course social roles and women’s health in mid-life: Causation or selection. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 60, 484–489. Naylor, M. (2006). There’s no workforce like home. Business Week. http://www. businessweek.com/technology/content/may2006/tc20060502_763202.htm. Paludi, M., & Neidermeyer, P. (Eds.). (2007). Work, life and family imbalance: How to level the playing ﬁeld. Westport, CT: Praeger. Paludi, M., Vaccariello, R., Graham, T., Smith, M., Allen-Dicker, K., Kasprzak, & White, C. (2007). Work/life integration: Impact on women’s careers, employment, and family. In M. A. Paludi & P. E. Neidermeyer (Eds.), Work, life and family imbalance: How to level the playing ﬁeld. Westport, CT: Praeger. Paul, G. (2006). The impact of children on women’s paid work. Fiscal Studies, 27, 473–512. Walby, S., & Olsen, W. (2002, November). Report to Women and Equality Unit, Department of Trade and Industry, UK.

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Index

Page numbers followed by f indicate ﬁgures; t indicates tables. Achievement: internal barriers, 29; self-esteem relations, 25–26 Adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH), stress response, 63 African-American women, professional successes, 44–45 Aggressive behavior, 1–20; verbal, 7; women’s hostility to women and, 13; women versus men, 6 American Association of University Women (AAUW), report on school sexual harassment, 97 Angry outbursts, perception of women, 8 Ansonia Board of Education v. Philbrook, 129–30 Argumentativeness, perceptions by men and women, 8 Asian women, professional successes, 45 Autonomic nervous system (ANS), job stress and, 67 Autonomy. see Job control Benevolent sexism, 5 Blood lipids, job stress effects, 69–71 Blood pressure, job stress effects, 68–69

Bureau of Labor Statistics, women’s labor participation, 150t Cardiovascular disease (CVD), job stress and, 63, 65–67 Career development, self-esteem and, 25–26 Career success: notable Latinas, 43; United Kingdom, 40 Central nervous system (CNS), job stress and, 67 Child-care support programs, effect on women in the workforce, 153 Children: sexual harassment in K-6 students, 100–101; sexual harassment in K-12 students, 96–101; sexual harassment in working students, 101–2 Child welfare, women in the workforce and, 163–64 Cholesterol levels, job stress effects, 69–71 Circular career paths, 21–24 Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII: religion in the workplace, 127–28; sex segregation and discrimination, 14; sexual harassment laws, 89–90 Cognitive impairment, job stress and, 63

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174

Index

College campuses, sexual harassment on, 92–93 College education, 21–24 College heads, United Kingdom, 41–42 Communal orientation, women versus men, 119 Communication, 7–8; labels for women, 7; stereotypes and sexism, 8 Compartmentalization: ethics versus faith, 123–24; religious and work lives, 125–27 Competition, horizontal hostility and, 11 Complaining, verbal passiveaggressive communication, 6 Conﬂict-avoidant behavior, women, 8 Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale (CSWS), 37; self-esteem concerns of high-achieving women, 38–40 Core self-evaluation, 33 Coronary artery disease (CAD), work stress and, 67–71 Correlational studies, in self-esteem, 31–32 Cortisol, stress response, 60–63 Credibility, verbal aggression and, 7–8 Critical care nurses, stressors, 74–75 Culture: deﬁnitions, 31; importance of self-esteem, 30 Demand-control-job strain model, 64–65 Demand-control-support theory, jobs and stress, 59 Depression, sexual harassment and, 92 Descriptive elements, stereotypes, 2–3 Diabetes, type 2, job stress and, 63 Different voice position, 117 Domain-speciﬁc self-esteem, 31 Double standard, aggressive men and witchy women, 1–20 Economics, women in the workplace, 149–71 Educational attainment: employment by, 155–58t; gender wage ratio by,

168t; median annual income, 166–67t Education levels, full-time and parttime employees, 155t, 156t Emotional stability/neuroticism, selfesteem and performance, 33 Employee assistance programs, prevention of workplace stress, 76 Epinephrine, stress response, 60–63 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 89; guidelines for religion, 127–28 Ethics, workplace religion and, 122–23 Ethnicity, high-achieving women, 41–45 Expectancy-value theory, 3–4 Faith, integrated with work, 112–24 Family/work integration, 146–47 Fear of success, 28–29 Female occupations, 21–24 Female stereotype, 2–5 Fight-or-ﬂight response, workplace stress, 60 Fussy, verbal passive-aggressive communication, 6 Gatekeepers, 145–46 Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), report on sexual harassment, 100 Gay and lesbian harassment, 15 Gender: effects on income, 164–69, 165f, 166–68t; religious activity and, 115–17; sexual harassment, 90; workplace stress effects, 71–75 Gendered bullying, 6 Gendered communication, 7–8 Gender harassment, 93; women’s hostility to women and, 14 Gender role theory, stereotypes and, 2–5 Gender typing, women’s vocational behavior and, 27–28 Gender-wage ratio, 160f Global (trait) self-esteem, 31; performance and, 33 God and Mammon in America (Wuthnow), 113

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Index

175

Gross Domestic Product (GDP), contribution of women, 149 A Guide to Womenomics (2006), 149

Job satisfaction: relationship to JCM, 67; religion/faith effects, 124 Job strain model, 64–65

Health and well-being: biological consequences of stress, 60–63; job control effects, 63–67; managerial women, 71–73; occupation-speciﬁc, 73–75; recommendations for enhancement, 75–76; religion/faith effects, 124; sexual harassment effects, 89–107; stress effects on risk of CAD, 67–71; women’s participation in the workforce, 160 High-achieving women: diverse ethnic backgrounds, 41; notable Latinas, 43; self-esteem and, 25–53; self-esteem concerns, 38–40 Horizontal hostility (violence), 10–11; courts addressing of, 15–16; women’s hostility to women, 11–16 Hostile Hallways (AAUW), 97 Hostile work environment: category of sexual harassment, 89; gender harassment, 14; sexism, 5 Human Resources, in my own voice, 55–57 Hypertension, job stress effects, 68–69 Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical system (HPA), consequences of stress, 60–63

Labor force participation rate, 150–54; countries around the world, 151t; employment rate by sex, around the world, 152t; part-time and fulltime employee rate, 153t Language, use for exclusion of women, 8 Leadership: college heads in the U.K., 41–42; male and female stereotypes, 4–5; patriarchy and, 9; self-esteem relations, 25–26; senior management and board levels, U.K., 42; workplace stress effects, 71–75 The Lecherous Professor (Dzeich and Weiner), 92 Lessons from my father, in my own voice, 21–24 Life satisfaction, 31 Locus of control, self-esteem and performance, 33

Immune function, job stress and, 63 Impostor phenomenon, 28–29 Income gender gap, 164–69, 165f, 166–68t Internal barriers, women’s occupational achievement, 29 Iso-strain model, 64 Ivory Power: The Sexual Harassment of Women on Campus (Paludi), 92–93 Jealousy, horizontal hostility and, 11 Job characteristics model (JCM), 65 Job control (autonomy): jobs and stress, 59; physical health, and psychological well-being, 63–67; satisfaction and, 67

Male domination, as sexual harassment, 94–95 Male stereotype, 2–5 Managerial women, workplace stress effects, 71–75 Marriage and motherhood, effects on vocational behavior, 28 Masculine women, 1–20 The Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey, on sexual harassment, 100 Median family income, 160, 163t Mental health: impact of sexual harassment, 89–107; outcomes after sexual harassment, 98–99; sexual minority students, 99–100 Mentoring, 145 Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 14–15 Merit Systems Protection Board, U.S. federal government (USMSPB), 90–91; categories, 93–94 Nagging, verbal passive-aggressive communication, 6

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176

Index

A New Religious America (Eck), 112 Non-contingent self-esteem, 38 Non-contingent self-worth, 39 Non-Science and Engineering (nonS&E), bachelor’s degrees by sex, 154, 159f Nonsexualized female-on-female harassment, 15 Norepinephrine, stress response, 60–63 Occupation changes, women employees, 159, 161–62t Occupation-speciﬁc stress, 72–74 Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 15 Oppressed group behavior, 9–10; horizontal hostility, 10–11; perception by women, 10; reprisal, 11 Organization-based self-esteem (OBSE), 33–34 Organization stressors: managerial women, 71; recommendations for prevention, 75 Part-time employment, 153–54 Patriarchy and oppression, 9–11; women’s hostility to women, 11–16 Peer sexual harassment, children, 97–98 Performance: self-esteem and, 33–3; self-esteem relations, 25–26 Personal stressors: impact of sexual harassment, 95–96; managerial women, 71 Person-centered management, spirituality in the workplace, 133 Physical health, job control and, 63–67 Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 61; sexual harassment and, 91–92 Poverty reduction, women in the workforce, 160, 163 Power issues, horizontal hostility and, 11 Preparing to be employed, in my own voice, 85–88 Prescriptive elements, stereotypes, 2–3

Presumption of inclusion, respectful pluralism, 136–38 Prevention, work stressors for women, 75–76 Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 3 Psychological well-being, job control and, 63–67 Quid pro quo harassment: category of sexual harassment, 89; religious discrimination, 128 Recognition for jobs, horizontal hostility and, 11 Religion: compartmentalizing work and life, 125–27; devaluation of women, 115–16; employer accommodation of beliefs, 129–32; individual connectivity at work, 119; quid pro quo harassment, 129; workplace and, 109–41 Religious discrimination, 127–29 Religious Right, on religion in the workplace, 113 Revolution from Within: A Book of SelfEsteem (Steinem), 28 Risk factors for CAD, job stress and, 67–71 Scapegoating, women’s hostility to women, 12 School sexual harassment, 96–101 Science and Engineering (S&E), bachelor’s degrees by sex, 154, 159f Self-acceptance, 31 Self-concept, 31 Self-efﬁcacy: generalized, 33; selfesteem and, 26–27, 31 Self-esteem, 25–53; affective component, 31; beneﬁts, 36; cognitive aspect, 31; fear of success and the impostor phenomenon, 28–29; high-achieving women, 38–40; literature reviews, 30–38; measurement challenges, 31–33; noncontingent, 38; performance and, 33–34; self-efﬁcacy and, 26–27 Self-regard, 31

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Index Self-report measures, self-esteem, 31–32 Self-worth, 31; contingencies of, 36–38 Senior management, United Kingdom, 42 Sexism, 5–7; in communication, 7–8; deﬁnition, 5; patriarchal system, 9 Sex-role spillover, 4–5 Sex-segregated jobs, 4–5 Sex segregation and discrimination, 14 Sexual Experience Questionnaire (SEQ), 93 Sexual harassment: college campuses, 92–93; EEOC deﬁnition, 89; gender atmosphere of misogyny, 16; harm cause by, 93–96; hostile environment type, 89; hostile work environment, 14; K-6 students, 100–101; K-12 students, 96–101; male domination, 94–95; male to male, 15; mental health impact, 89–107; mental health outcomes, 98–99; peer, 97–98; personal and situational factors, 95–96; quid pro quo type, 89; relation of target and perpetrator, 16; severity of experiences, 93–94; students who work, 101–2; working women, 90–92; work structure and processes, 95 Sexual minority students, mental health, 99–100 Situational factors, impact of sexual harassment, 95–96 Society, women’s contribution to, 154–64 Society stressors, managerial women, 71 A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America (Mitroff and Denton), 111 Spirituality: models for fostering in workplace, 132; workplace, 109–10 State self-esteem, 31 Stereotypy: aggressive men, 1; descriptive and prescriptive elements, 2–3; gender role theory and, 2–5; gender typing, 27–28; hostile and benevolent sexism, 5–6; patriarchal system, 9; witchy women, 1 Stress, 59–83; biological consequences, 60–63; coronary artery disease and, 67–71; sexual harassment and, 92

177

Stress hormones, 60–63 Sympathetic adrenomedullary system (SAM), consequences of stress, 60–63 Sympathetic nervous system, effects of stress, 60 Teleworking, stress differences, 73 Tokenism, women’s hostility to women and, 13 Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, 129 Type A behavior, managerial women, 71–72 U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on Women in Society and in the Church, 109 Verbal passive-aggressive communication, women, 6 Vocational behavior: characteristics related to, 26–30; fear of success and the impostor phenomenon, 28–29; gender typing and, 27–28; marriage and motherhood effects, 28; other characteristics and factors related to, 29–30; self-esteem and self-efﬁcacy, 26–27 Vocational development, self-esteem and self-efﬁcacy, 26–27 Whiny, verbal passive-aggressive communication, 6 White women, professional successes, 44–45 Witchy behavior, 1–20 Women’s hostility to women, 11–16; childhood roots, 11–12; media contribution to, 12; scapegoating, 12 Workforce issues, in my own voice, 143–47 Worklife balance, religion and, 120 Workplace: economics for women, 149–71; faith/religion in, 109–41; federal law addressing religion, 127; ﬁnding meaning and relevance, 118; religion relevance in,

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Index

109–41; spirituality versus religion, 133–36 Workplace Religious Freedom Act (WRFA), 128–29 Workplace stress, 59; recommendations for health and well-being,

75–76; religion or faith as coping mechanism, 121–22; sexual harassment and, 92; sexual harassment of students, 101–2 Work structure and process, as a cause of sexual harassment, 95

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About the Editor and Contributors

Michele A. Paludi, PhD, is the author/editor of 27 college textbooks, and more than 140 scholarly articles and conference presentations on sexual harassment, psychology of women, gender, and sexual harassment and victimization. Her book, Ivory Power: Sexual Harassment on Campus (1990, SUNY Press), received the 1992 Myers Center Award for Outstanding Book on Human Rights in the United States. Dr. Paludi served as chair of the U.S. Department of Education’s Subpanel on the Prevention of Violence, Sexual Harassment, and Alcohol and Other Drug Problems in Higher Education. She was one of six scholars in the United States to be selected for this subpanel. She also was a consultant to and a member of former New York State Governor Mario Cuomo’s Task Force on Sexual Harassment. She is the series editor for Praeger’s Women’s Psychology Series. Dr. Paludi serves as an expert witness for court proceedings and administrative hearings on sexual harassment. She has had extensive experience in conducting training programs and investigations of sexual harassment and other equal employment opportunity issues for businesses and educational institutions. In addition, Dr. Paludi has held faculty positions at Franklin & Marshall College, Kent State University, Hunter College, Union College, and Union Graduate College, where she directs the human resource management certiﬁcate program. She teaches courses in the School of Management: Foundations of Human Resource Management, Managing Human Resources, and International Human Resource Management. Linda Dillon is currently the director of human resources for the New York State Higher Education Services Corporation. She has over 30 years of service in the New York state government. Ms. Dillon earned a BS from Russell Sage College and has completed several master’s level courses from both Russell Sage College and Union College. Ms. Dillon resides

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About the Editor and Contributors

outside Albany, New York, with her husband William. Their son Christopher is a recent graduate of Harvard Business School, and their daughter Stephanie is a recent graduate of the Roger Williams University School of Architecture. Donna Lee Faulkner is currently completing the requirements for the Master of Science degree in clinical psychology at the University of Texas at Tyler, and she plans to become a licensed professional counselor in the state of Texas. Shelly L. Marmion, PhD, and Ms. Faulkner co-authored the chapter entitled ‘‘Effects of Class and Culture on Intimate Partner Violence,’’ which was included in Intimate Violence Against Women: When Spouses, Partners and Lovers Attack. In addition, Ms. Faulkner has assisted Dr. Marmion in experimental research at the University of Texas at Tyler and has collaborated with Dr. Paula Lundberg-Love on several research projects. Zhilan Feng received her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Connecticut. She has been an assistant professor for Union Graduate College since September 2003, and has published papers in several real estate and ﬁnance journals. Her current research topics are corporate governance, asset pricing in capital markets, capital structure policy, and real estate investment and securitization. Susan Fineran is an associate professor at the University of Southern Maine School of Social Work. Her professional career includes clinical experience in the areas of aging, substance abuse, child and family treatment, sex discrimination, and women’s issues. Her research interests include sexual harassment and bullying that affects adolescents in schools and in the workplace and the implications for child and adolescent mental health. James Gruber is a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan– Dearborn. He has published extensively on workplace sexual harassment and has presented workshops and expert witness testimony on the topic since the early 1980s. He co-edited a book in 2005 with Dr. Phoebe Morgan (In The Company of Men: Male Dominance and Sexual Harassment) that offers new directions in theory and research on the topic. Currently, he is conducting research with Dr. Susan Fineran on bullying and sexual harassment in middle and high school. Also, they are studying the impact of sexual harassment on girls who hold jobs while attending high school. LuAnn Hart is an administrator for the Arthropod-Borne Disease Program for the Bureau of Communicable Disease Control, Division of Epidemiology, New York State Department of Health. She is also earning her MBA in health administration at Union Graduate College. © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

About the Editor and Contributors

181

Susan Lehrman has been president and dean of the faculty of Union Graduate College since it was spun off from Union College in 2003. Prior to that time she served as dean of Union College’s graduate programs and as a faculty member in its MBA program. Dr. Lehrman is a nationally known health services researcher focusing on the evaluation of services for the HIV infected and affected population, providing research and evaluation services at the national, regional, and local levels. Prior to her academic career, she had a successful 15-year career in health care management. Dr. Lehrman holds a BS in education from Oregon State University and MPH and PhD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. She currently is the dean of the business school at Providence College. Paula Lundberg-Love is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Tyler and the Ben R. Fisch Endowed Professor in Humanitarian Affairs for 2001–2004. Her undergraduate degree was in chemistry and her doctorate was in physiological psychology with an emphasis in psychopharmacology. After a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship in nutrition and behavior in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, she assumed her academic position at University of Texas at Tyler, where she teaches classes in psychopharmacology, behavioral neuroscience, physiological psychology, sexual victimization, and family violence. Subsequent to her academic appointment, Dr. Lundberg-Love pursued postgraduate training and is a licensed professional counselor. She is a member of Tyler Counseling and Assessment Center, where she provides therapeutic services for victims of sexual assault, child sexual abuse, and domestic violence. She has conducted a long-term research study on women who were victims of childhood incestuous abuse, constructed a therapeutic program for their recovery, and documented its effectiveness upon their recovery. She is the author of nearly 100 publications and presentations and is coeditor of Violence and Sexual Abuse at Home: Current Issues in Spousal Battering and Child Maltreatment. As a result of her training in psychopharmacology and child maltreatment, her expertise has been sought as a consultant on various death penalty appellate cases in the state of Texas. Michael B. Mathias (PhD, University of Rochester) is a clinical assistant professor of management at Union Graduate College and lecturer in the philosophy department at Union College. His teaching and research interests include business ethics and ethical, political, and legal theory. He also works as an ethics consultant and conducts workshops on teaching ethics. Maneechit Pattanapanchai was born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand. She received a doctoral degree in environmental economics from the © 2010 ABC-Clio. All Rights Reserved.

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About the Editor and Contributors

University of Connecticut. Her research interests include economic forecasting, public policies, and corporate restructuring. She is currently working as an economist for the Ways and Means Committee of the New York State Assembly in Albany, New York. Tina Stern grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and has lived in Atlanta, Georgia, since 1987. She earned her undergraduate degree from Boston University, her master’s degree from Cleveland State University, and her PhD from the University of Georgia. She is a professor of psychology at Georgia Perimeter College, where for many years she has taught courses on the psychology of women. In addition, as a licensed psychologist, Tina maintains a clinical practice specializing in women’s issues. Since her days at Boston University, Tina has been interested in and has written about issues related to women and, in particular, the psychology of women. Susan Strauss, RN, EdD, is a national and international speaker, trainer, and consultant. Her specialty areas include harassment and workplace bullying, organizational development, and management/leadership development. Her clients are from business, education, health care, law, and government organizations from both the public and private sector. Dr. Strauss has authored book chapters and articles in professional journals, written curriculum and training manuals, as well as authored the book Sexual Harassment and Teens: A Program for Positive Change. Ms. Strauss has been featured on The Donahue Show, CBS Evening News, and other television and radio programs and has often been interviewed for newspaper and journal articles such as for the Times of London, Lawyers Weekly, and Harvard Education Newsletter. Ms. Strauss has presented at international conferences in Botswana, Egypt, Thailand, Israel, and the United States. She has consulted with professionals from other countries such as England, Australia, Canada, and St. Maarten. She has her doctorate in organizational leadership, is a registered nurse with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and counseling, a master’s degree in public health, and a professional certiﬁcate in training and development. Christa White is majoring in psychology at Union College and is expected to graduate in June, 2008. She has conducted research in work/life integration, especially the impact of maternal employment on children and elder care responsibilities for women.

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