LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With QuoteGood keep em in the kitchen , incommmmmmmmmmmmming
A new study suggests hesitancy and self-doubt, rather than overt male sexism, limits the number of women in senior management roles
The glass ceiling may be all in the mind. A lack of ambition and self-confidence, rather than overt male sexism, is holding women back from senior management roles, according to research.
Women of all ages are likely to set their career goals lower than men, are more hesitant about putting themselves forward for top jobs and more frequently admit to self-doubt, according to the study by the Institute of Leadership and Management.
Experts believe a principal reason for women’s lower ambition is that men are more likely to define their success in life in terms of work achievement, while for women other factors such as raising a family play a far bigger role.
Some women may also have their ambition limited by worries about whether they can succeed in a male-dominated workplace, and by a greater innate aversion to risk-taking.
The findings come as Lord Davies prepares to report to the government on how to increase the female presence in British boardrooms. He is expected to recommend a voluntary code to raise numbers, while not ruling out quotas in the future.
Penny de Valk, the chief executive of the institute, said she had been particularly surprised that the gender gap in confidence and ambition was as wide in young managers as in middle-aged ones.
“With the younger generation, expectations are higher, but they are higher for men as well as women — so the gap is just as wide in the twenties and early thirties,” said de Valk. “There is still a fundamental confidence issue about what women think they will be able to do.”
She added: “In the absence of role models and many women in that senior management world, it becomes a vicious cycle. They adjust their expectations, they become self-limiting.”
The institute questioned 2,960 of its members, the youngest of whom were 18 and the eldest in their sixties. They were all in managerial roles, from the most junior to the most senior. When asked about their goals when they first started work, 50% of women said they had expected to become managers, compared with 62% of men. The gap was even wider — 15 percentage points — among those under 30.
While half of the women admitted to feelings of self-doubt, only 31% of the men did. Women were also less likely to push themselves forward — only 14% said they would apply for a job for which they were only partly qualified, compared with 20% of men.
Decisions over how to balance children and careers create a watershed in women’s careers around the age of 30.
Carolyn McCall, chief executive of easyJet, said recently: “There will come a point where they [women in the workplace] have to decide are they going to take a break or are they going to stick with working all the way through, and those are quite difficult years when you are juggling.
“There have got to be structures that will allow them to do certain things benignly.”
The new research follows a controversial report earlier this year by Catherine Hakim, senior research fellow in sociology at the London School of Economics, in which she argued that the sex wars at work were largely over and the remaining gaps in male and female careers were dictated by choice rather than sexism.
“Some women are career centred, determined and motivated, it is just they are in a minority,” said Hakim. “Men are more motivated to achieve in the public sphere.”
She added: “I don’t think it is about the business environment. These days I don’t think women give a toss about whether they are in a male-dominated environment.”
Carol Doherty, 44, an NHS project support manager from Dereham, Norfolk, agreed men tended to be more obviously ambitious. “Some of my male colleagues are more confident, yes. They can stand up and talk to an audience better. I am still learning.”
Doherty, who has three sons and plans to marry her long-term boyfriend, Tony Trotman, added: “I started at a low grade. I enjoyed it, I did a bit of work as and when. My director saw potential and I got promoted.
“But I am not sure I am a directorate person. I probably know I won’t get there, but I am confident where I am. As long as I can show I am motivating people and working to the best of my ability, I am happy doing that and looking after my family.”
However, Anna Bird, acting chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: “This report shows just how far the UK has got to go on workplace equality. Outdated stereotypes about men’s and women’s roles have an insidious effect on cultural attitudes about who should do which jobs.”
Push for more female directors
Women should make up at least a fifth of directors at Britain’s biggest companies by 2013, with that proportion rising to a quarter by 2015, a government report is expected to say this week.
Guidelines drawn up by Lord Davies of Abersoch, a former trade minister, imply that more than 100 women will have to be recruited to the boards of FTSE 100 companies in the next four years, so that there are two or three women on each. Currently, only 12.5% of blue chip board posts are held by women and 18 FTSE 100 companies have no female directors at all.
David Cameron, the prime minister, will warn that unless chairmen act fast, the government plans to impose a quota that will force firms to appoint more women directors.
“Inclusive and diverse boards are more likely to be effective boards,” said Davies.
Sunday Times;
20 February 2011
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
So ladies, what say you ?
FEAR NAUGHT
Should raw analytical data ever be passed to policy makers?
Good keep em in the kitchen , incommmmmmmmmmmmming
TANKIE.
Rita just asked ...........when exactly are you coming to stay for that visit Eric?Originally Posted by tankie
Good keep em in the kitchen , incommmmmmmmmmmmming
Should raw analytical data ever be passed to policy makers?
Men get broody as women chase jobs
Traditional roles are reversed as single males show a greater desire than women to settle down and have children
Once, women were expected to tame their man into wedlock. Now, researchers have found, the roles have reversed so far that single males have become more likely than women to want to settle down into marriage and child-rearing.
According to the new study, men are the ones looking for romance, while single females are willing to ignore their ticking biological clock as they work their way up the career ladder.
Sociologists believe the shift is a sign of the rise of the domesticated “new man”, in touch with his feminine side, while increasingly assertive and independent women want to spend their spare time and cash with friends rather than husbands.
Helen Fisher, an anthropology researcher at Rutgers University, New Jersey, who conducted the study, said: “Men today are more like [the female archetype] than we have seen in generations. They are becoming the broody ones, they are more likely to want to settle down sooner.”
Fisher’s research found that 51% of single men aged 21 to 34 wanted children, compared with 46% of single women. The gap becomes even more pronounced as singletons age, according to the study, which was conducted for Match.com, the dating website.
While 27% of childless single men aged 35 to 44 wanted to have children, the figure was just 16% for women.
Across all age groups, 35% of women said regular nights out with friends were important to them, compared with 23% of men. Meanwhile, men also seemed more romantic with 54% saying they had experienced love at first sight, compared with 44% of women.
“Complicating matters is the change in women’s attitudes towards life and relationships, mostly driven by the huge numbers flooding into the workforce,” Fisher said.
“Women gain self-confidence, self-worth, money and experience through work and want things that men have for years taken for granted. Now those things are within reach and they are grabbing them.” Although the study was conducted among 5,199 single people in America, researchers say the phenomenon is becoming evident in Britain.
Tina Miller, reader in sociology at Oxford Brookes University and author of Making Sense of Fatherhood, said: “It is more acceptable now for men to talk about their emotions without being seen as soft or effeminate. It’s okay to be in touch with your feminine side.
“Men are appropriating that language to find a role in the family.”
Growing equality in education, lifestyle and the workplace have all been cited as contributing to the changes. In 1980 women made up 40% of the university student population; today the men’s share has fallen to 43%.
Female students are also more likely to achieve a higher result: 63.9% of them gain a first or upper second-class degree, against 59.9% of men.
The gap in pay between the sexes has also narrowed, with women aged 22-29 now earning more than men for the first time, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Adrienne Burgess, head of research at the Fatherhood Institute, said the rise in women’s pay had enabled the change to take place because it relieved men of the “burden of breadwinning”.
“Men have always wanted children. It is just that in the past many men, wanting to be responsible, waited until they felt financially ready to support a family. That becomes less of a problem when they have a working partner who is often earning as much if not more than them,” she said.
The new type of family setup is typefied by Richard Jones, 28, who, when he became a father, gave up his job to look after his daughter so his wife Lorraine, a marketing executive, could go back to work three months after giving birth. He now stays at home to look after 16-month-old Gwendolen.
Jones, of Saddleworth, Greater Manchester, said: “Men my age are more broody than our dads were. It has been quite daunting for me but I really wanted to do it. In my case, my wife was earning more money so it made financial sense to have me stay at home while she went back to work.
“I make sure I get out and about with the little one as otherwise I think it would feel quite lonely. I go to mothers’ and toddlers’ groups even though I’m the only dad among 20 mums. I’m a bit of novelty.”Stay-at-home father Richard Jones is a bit of a novelty (Bob Collier)
Should raw analytical data ever be passed to policy makers?
The report has a gaping hole in it's logic. They say that women are more timid and less confident than men, and that may explain why women don't get promoted to the same degree as men. Why are women more timid and less confident? Institutional sexism, I'd argue. Women have never been treated as equals, especially in the workplace. Let's have a level playing field based on merit, and I'd argue that that timidity would crumble as young girls grow up seeing what is patently obvious: they are every bit as capable as men, and don't need to be told so or apologise for being so.
Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
- John Stuart Mill.
Err , not just yet WayneRita just asked ...........when exactly are you coming to stay for that visit Eric?
TANKIE.
I believe women are just as cruel, saddistic, evil, scheming, basically all of the bad traits of men, as any man in the world, if not more so.
Men are just as caring, nurturing, warm, and thoughtful, basically all the good traits of women, as any woman in the world, if not more so.
Just want to be fair.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
Too true G/N
TANKIE.
very balanced outlook GN
Should raw analytical data ever be passed to policy makers?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Share this thread with friends: