Women’s Leadership: What’s True, What’s False, and Why It Matters

8/12/2019 Womens Leadership: Whats True, Whats False, and Why It Matters

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Womens Leadership

Whats True, Whats False, and Why It Matters

By Judith Warner March 2014


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Womens LeadershipWhats True, Whats False, and Why It Matters

By Judith Warner March 2014


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1 Introduction and summary

4 Removing the barriers to womens equal participation

is good economic policy

7 The key is not being a woman, per se, it is being an outs

11 More women are needed in the pipeline: When it comes

to womens influence, numbers and hierarchy matter

12 Innovative leadership solutions are a must for female

politicians and corporate leaders in the United States

14 We need to keep women in the workforce to increase

the number of women in the leadership pipeline

17 Conclusion

19 Endnotes

Contents


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1 Center for American Progress | Womens Leadership

Introduction and summary

We know that when women participate fully in their governments and econo-

mies, they and their families benefit, but so do their communities, their countries,

and even the world as a whole.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, September 24, 20121

Fully inegraing women ino a naions economic lie is essenial or a sociey o

flourish. Ta is a message ha our counry, and oher rich naions, have consis-

enly sen o developing naions around he world.2And ye, here a home, wehave somehow managed no o heed i.

Women have ounumbered men on college campuses since 1988.3Tey hold

almos 52 percen o all proessional-level jobs,4 have earned a leas a hird o

law degrees since 1980,5and almos hal since 2001.6Women were ully a hird

o medical school sudens by 1990,7and since 2002, have ounumbered men in

earning undergraduae business degrees.8And ye, women have no moved up

o posiions o prominence and power in America a anywhere near he rae ha

hey should have based on heir represenaion and early successes in higher edu-

caion and in he enry-level workorce. In a broad range o fields, he presence

o women in op leadership posiionsas equiy law parners, medical school

deans, and corporae execuive officers, or exampleremains suck a a mere 10

percen o 20 percen. Womens share o voicehe average proporion o heir

represenaion on op-ed pages, as elevision pundis, on corporae boards, and in

Congressis jus 15 percen.9In ac, i is now esimaed ha, a he curren rae

o change, i will ake unil he year 2085 or women o reach pariy wih men in

leadership roles in our counry.10

oday, more han our decades afer he sar o he second-wave womens move-men, American women sill encouner considerable barriers o reaching heir ull

poenial. Some o hese barriers are, a leas in par, sel-imposed: he lean-ou

phenomenon o affluen women oping o slow or sop heir highly demanding


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careers grealy hins he ranks o women who could be leaders. Roughly a hird o

high-achieving womenhose wih graduae degrees or bachelors degrees wih

honorscurrenly leave heir jobs o spend exended ime a home, and 66 per-

cen o high-achieving women a some poin swich o career-derailing par-ime,

reduced-ime, or flex-ime work schedules.11

Sereoypes and skewed percepions remain powerul and sill impede he

advancemen o women. Te dearh o women in leadership rolesand in whole

fieldscreaes he percepion ha women do no belong in hose posiions or

proessions. In he poliical world, his means ha women are less likely han

men o be recruied o run or eleced office, are more likely o be discouraged

rom running, and are less likely o consider hemselves qualified o runeven

houghwomen now raise as much money and are as successul as male candidaes

when hey do run or public office.12

Some o he barriers are culurala double bind o compeing norms or lead-ership saure and emale likeabiliy, or example, has made i very difficul

or women o display he confidence and asseriveness associaed wih srong

leadership andsill be viewed as likable by heir colleagues and superiors.

Furhermore, longsanding assumpions abou he so-called ideal worker, who

is all work, all he ime, wih no compeing demands on he home ron, have

relegaed employees wih obvious caregiving responsibiliiesdisproporionaely

womeno second-class saus. A vas increase in he working hours required o

Americans over he pas 30 years has made he noion o 24/7 employee availabil-

iy no jus a culural ideal, bu he new normal. Wih a 40-hour-a-week job now

considered o be par ime, many proessional women find hemselves marginal-

ized when hey se aside ime or amily lie. And ar oo many low-income women

find hemselves orced o leave heir jobs ourigh because hey canno find

affordable child care, lack access o paid sick days, and lack he righ o he sor o

predicable schedule ha migh permi hem o successully inegrae heir work

and amily livesa package o impedimens ha raps hem on he sicky floor

o permanen low-saus employmen.

Sill oher barriers, perhaps he mos prickly and enacious o hem, are srucural.

A shorage o role models, or example, means ha womenand women o colorin paricularlack menors, sponsors, and opporuniies in male-heavy organiza-

ions o develop he sors o social relaionships ou o which menorship, spon-

sorship, board appoinmens, or simply promoions, naurally evolve.


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Tis combinaion o culural barriers and srucural changes in how we work has

served o marginalize women, pushing hem down or ou o he workplace in he

very era in which hey were expeced o ake fligh. Te ne resul: Te Unied

Saes, once a world leader in gender equaliy, now lags behind oher similarly

wealhy naions in womens economic paricipaion. In he wo decades rom

1990 o 2010, our counry ell rom having he sixh-highes rae o emale labor-orce paricipaion among 22 Organisaion or Economic Co-operaion and

Developmen, or OECD, counries o 17h on he lis.13

A he same ime, afer a ew decades o progress a he end o he 20h cenury,

womens advancemen in he leadership pipeline has salled, boh in he privae and

he public secors. Sill No Progress Afer Years o No Progress was how Caalys,

a nonprofi working o expand opporuniies or women in business, headlined is

findings rom a 2013 survey o women in key leadership roles in U.S. Forune 500

companies.14Among oher findings, he Caalys sudy noed ha women held only

16.9 percen o corporae board seas in 2012, indicaing no significan year-over-year upick or he 8h sraigh year.15Te absence o significan numbers o women

in corporae boardrooms is mirrored in he hallways o governmen. When i comes

o womens poliical empowermen, he Unied Saes currenly ranks 60h ou o 136

counries in he World Economic Forums 2013 global gender gap index.16

Addressing he womens leadership gapall he ways ha women are kep rom

reaching heir ull poenialhas been a ho-buton issue since he early 1990s.

And ye, or all he ink spilled on popular books, mos-read aricles, and academic

sudies, all he hours devoed o launching human resource programs ha aim o

recrui and reain women, and all he money invesed in researching he causes and

cures, he ne resul has been a raher sriking collecive ailure. Tere is a discon-

nec beween he lofy rheoric issuing orh rom would-be women-riendly orga-

nizaions and he resuls on he ground. No business would olerae a similar lack

o achievemen wih respec o sales, revenues, earnings, or any o he oher merics

commonly used o measure business success,noed he auhors o he 2012repor, Fulfilling he Promise: How More Women on Corporae Boards Would

Make America and American Companies more Compeiive, rom he Cener or

Economic Developmen, a nonprofi in Washingon, D.C.17

Our naional olerance or he sall in he advancemen o women issurprising,paricularly given ha, over he pas wo decades, a considerable body o research has

emerged o lend inconroverible proo o he idea ha when women hrive, organiza-

ions hriveand naions hrive oo.18From ha research, here is now a consensual

view ha womens leadership is no jus a mater o airness, bu also has he poenial

o move companies, governmens, and socieies in new and beter direcions.


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Removing the barriers to womens

equal participation is good

economic policy

Counries hrive when women hrive, and economies mos ruiully grow when

women are mos able o conribue ully.19I is a common-sense mater o dollars

and cens; women are breadwinners in ully 40 percen o American homes20and

hey conrol 80 percen o consumer spending in he Unied Saes.21I women

canno work, earn, and spend o he ull exen o heir capabiliies, i is our

economy ha suffers he consequences.

Tis is a clear lesson rom our hisory: Te long-erm growh o he Americaneconomy in he second hal o he 20h cenury was in large par ueled by he

seady increase in womens labor-orce paricipaion during ha period.22Tis

dynamic has been proven rue or economies around he globe as well. Te mos

imporan deerminan o a counrys compeiiveness is is human alenhe

skills, educaion and produciviy o is workorceand women accoun or one-

hal o he poenial alen base hroughou he world, he auhors o he World

Economic Forums Global Gender Gap Repor 2013, a cross-naional sudy o

136 counries progress in advancing he goal o economic, poliical, educaional,

and healh care equaliy, argued his year. Closing gender gaps is hus no only a

mater o human righs and equiy; i is also one o efficiency,23he repor saes.

Jus las year, he Congressional Budge Office, or CBO, prediced ha he sall

in womens workorce paricipaion has been significan enough o play a noable

role in slowing down American economic growh over he nex decade.24And

global managemen consuling firm Booz & Company has esimaed ha increas-

ing womens labor-orce paricipaion o he same level as mens would increase

our counrys gross domesic produc, or GDP, by 5 percen.25

Wha is rue or naional economies is rue or businesses as wellcompanieshrive when women flourish and are able o rise as ar as heir alens can ake hem .

Economists Eileen Appe

Heather Boushey, and Jo

Schmitt have calculated

female employment hadincreased as it did in the

20th century, U.S. GDP w

have been approximate

percent lower in 2012

more than $1.7 trillion

reduction in output, wh

roughly equivalent to to

U.S. spending on Social

rity, Medicare, and Med

combined in that year.26


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Te reasons are simple: Te ailure o make he mos o an organizaions human

capial is a huge wase o skill, raining, and inellecual energy ha is exremely

cosly and shrinks he pool o uure leaders. Te Cener or American Progress

esimaes ha he cos o replacing an employee is one-fifh o ha employees

annual salaryand up o 213 percen o he annual salary or hose in execuive-

level posiions.27

In law firms, he price o losing a single associae has been esi-maed o be as much as $400,000.28

Diversiy, on he oher hand, when well-managed,29pays off in a very big way.

Decades o research on he effecs o affirmaive acion in he Unied Saes have

shown ha companies ha ap ino he wides possible alen pool are more high

perorming, producive, and profiable.30Companies wih greaer racial and gender

diversiy consisenly ouperorm hose wih less diversiy on measures o sales rev-

enues, number o cusomers, and marke share.31Tis seems o be, in par, because

homogenous groups end no o uncion creaively and inellecually as well asdiverse groups o people. oo much sameness sifles criical hinking and breeds

complacence and overconfidence; he combinaion o which can yield pracices

such as he kind o crony capialism ha helped bring us he 2008 banking crisis,

according o Rosabeh Moss Kaner, a Harvard Business School proessor and one

o he mos influenial longime researchers in he area o leadership.32

In conras, researchers have ound ha groups ha bring ogeher and successully

inegraehe views o men and women wih varied perspecivesdue o differ-

ences in educaion, experience, and amily backgroundhave a higher collecive

inelligence, or more creaiviy and beter problem-solving, han eams made up

o very similar hinkers.33Diverse perspecivesespecially a he highes decision-

making levelsenrich organizaions by making hem more represenaive o and

responsive o he populaions ha hey serve, and more savvy abou he markes

hey seek o conquer. Tis is basic common sensei you wan o be able o reach

he broades possible variey o cusomers, you have o be able o know how hose

cusomers eel and hink. Las all, he Cener or alen Innovaion in New York

confirmed his axiom via daa, finding ha publicly raded companies wih boh

inheren and acquired diversiy in leadership were 70 percen more likely han

companies wihou his wo-dimensional diversiy o have capured a new markeand 45 percen more likely o have improved marke share. Te sudys auhors

define inheren diversiy as ha derived rom differences wih which leaders are

born, such as race and gender; whereas acquired diversiy derives rom peoples

diverse experiences, such as prior occupaional backgrounds.34

Diverse perspective

especially at the

highest decision-

making levelsenr

organizations by

making them more

representative of an

responsive to the

populations that th

serve, and more sav

about the markets t

seek to conquer.


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Homogeneity can lead individuals to underestimate the actual complexity of group tasks because they assume

that others behavior is more predictable than it actually is. People in homogeneous groups tend to believe

that because others look like them, they are like them in terms of having similar perspectives, knowledge, and

behavior. This assumption of like-mindedness feels comfortable; it caters to our basic human need for social

acceptance and inclusion. But it also creates blind spots in our judgments and behavior. We underestimate the

potential for seemingly similar others to have substantively different perspectives and ideas, which can lead usto make oversimplified, perhaps even, objectively inaccurate, assessments in these contexts.

Evan Apfelbaum, professor of management and assistant professor of organization studies at the Massachu-

setts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management35


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The key is not being a woman,

per se, it is being an outsider

When any group o people are in he minoriy, hey behave differenly han when

heir numbers are greaer, as heir ousider saus deeply affecs heir atiudes

and values. Women, long excluded rom he mos elie realms o power, reain

an ousider saus even when hey ascend o senior leadership roles. And i is

his ousider saus ha appears o have meaningul effecs on how hey go

abou he business o leadership. Ta is he conclusion ha David A. Masa and

Amalia R. Miller, economiss a he Norhwesern Universiys Kellogg School o

Managemen and he Universiy o Virginia, respecively, have drawn rom years oseeking o ideniy meaningul differences in womens leadership syles. According

o Masa and Miller, here are large gender gaps in conormiy and radiion,

possibly relaed o womens exclusion rom male social neworks. As a resul, hey

sugges women may be more willing o challenge esablished pracices.36

Te bes and mos recen research ino womens influence as ousiders-urned-

leaders does indicae ha hey have a rack record o being more willing han men

o break wih radiional ways o exering power and doing business.37Women

appear o lead in ways ha challenge exising hierarchies and have shown a par-

icular willingness o break wih pracices ha reinorce he wealh and influence

o hose who are already powerul, such as CEOs.38Women are less likely o lay

off workers when imes are ough.39Tey are more likely han men o join board-

monioring commitees, audiing, nominaing, and corporae governance com-

mitees in paricular,and end o be more exacing sewards o heir companies.40

Te presence o women on corporae boards makes hose boards more likely o

proec shareholders by holding CEOs more accounable or poor sock price

perormance, orcing CEO urnover i a company perorms badly.41Boards ha

include women are more likely o align heir ineress wih hose o shareholders

by aking more equiy-based pay, compensaion ied o long-erm success,42and

heir presence on boards leads companies o behave more ehically and engage in

ewer bad business pracices.43


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Womens hisory o exclusion, researchers ur-

her speculae, may provide an explanaion or

why emale poliicians have ypically been less

corrup han heir male colleagues:45hey have

jus been ouside o he crony neworks ha

allowed corrupion o flourish.46

Masa andMiller sugges ha his may explain why he

presence o women on corporae boards ends

o make hose boards more socially responsible

by spending more on environmenal and cor-

porae social responsibiliy programs,47engag-

ing more in philanhropic aciviies, and giving

more o chariy.48I may also explain why, in

socieies around he globe, emale poliicians

have proven o be more hard-working han

men in perorming heir official duies49inhe U.S. Congress, or example, emale lawmak-

ers work harder or heir consiuens, remain

more involved wih heir communiies, spon-

sor more bills, and obain more co-sponsorship

or heir legislaive iniiaives50and why hey

end o be paricularly conscienious corporae

board members, wih beter atendance records

han men. In ac, hey even make male board

members behave beter: Male direcors have ewer atendance problems he

more gender-diverse a board is.51

One migh see his as he posiive side o a legacy o discriminaion: decades o

having been held o a higher sandard and having had o overcome he orces o

prejudice and exclusion appear o have made odays op-ranking women dispro-

porionaely effecive. I hey have proven hemselves beter leaders, i is perhaps

because hey have had no choice.

Norway, which in 2003 attempted a voluntary quota system fo

en on corporate boards, and then in 2006 adopted a law requir

that all publicly traded companies increase the female represe

on their boards of directors to 40 percent within two years, offe

illustrative example. In their 2013 article, A Female Style in Cor

Leadership? Evidence from Quotas, Matsa and Miller looked atperformance of companies, both public and private, and found

between 2003 and 2009, companies affected by the quotas lai

fewer workers than did companies that were unaffected.

According to Matsa and Miller, the newly composed boards we

willing to tolerate higher relative labor costs, and even reduced

short-term profits, because they were thinking about creating

differentlycounting their workforce as an asset worth saving

service of morale and long-term growth, rather than a liability

dispensed with in order to grow profits. Female directors, they

may be maximizing long-run shareholder value by avoiding la

increasing morale and avoiding recruiting and training cost

when demand rebounds. Under this interpretation, the new w

on these boards are encouraging their firms to adopt strategie

view employees as assets with specific human capital to be dev

oped, rather than as costs to be cut.44


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In the future, will women

still act like women?

I women do have a rack record o leading di-

erenly, i is in large par because heir behaviorhas been shaped by hard experience.

Longsanding voer bias has mean ha women

have had o be wice as goodmore alened,

more qualified, more hard-working han heir

male compeiorsi hey wan o be deemed

viable candidaes.54In he business world, he

wice as good phenomenon has held rue

as well.55Te populaion o women rising ohe op isand has long beenconsiderablysmaller han he equivalen male alen pool,

which means ha he women who make i o

key leadership posiions are sel-seleced o have he srengh, clariy o vision,

drive, and ousized skills o push hrough all he barriers ha would oherwise

weed hem ou.

Many scholars now sugges ha as he number o women in high posiions o

public and privae leadership increases, we are likely o see a decrease in he

atiudes, values, and behaviors ha have, unil now, differeniaed hem rom

mena realiy ha we are already seeing in U.S. poliics. 56(see sidebar) Tese

same scholars predic ha bringing more women o posiions o prominence may

make visible a more varied assormen o women; and hese ar more numerous

and represenaive women would no longer have o be sellaro rise o he op.

In oher words, should women reach leadership pariy wih men, hey are likely

o sop hinking and acing like womendefined by so-called radiional rais

ha se women apar in a mans worldand insead discover he reedom o

simply being who hey are.

Are women more honest by nature? Not necessarily, according t

tin E. Esarey, assistant professor of political science at Rice Unive

who studied corruption levels in 157 countries and attitudes tow

corruption in 68 countries from the late 1990s to the early 2000

found that whether women are more likely than men to refrain

corruption depends upon the type of government in which theserve. In autocratic governments, where bribery and favoritism

the norm, there are no meaningful differences in the behavior o

and female elected officials. But in democracies, where corrupti

more commonly stigmatized, women behave in a more honest

ner.52In a 2013 article in the journal Politics & Gender, Esarey an

co-author, Gina Chirillo, speculate that this higher level of hone

due to the fact that women are more averse to the risks of viola

political norms, and because gender discrimination makes viola

institutional norms a riskier proposition for women than men.5


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I we are ever o reach he poin where we migh acually winess wha can resul

when women are no longer in he minoriy, we need o grealy increase our popu-

laion o emale leaders.

Historically, female legislators in the United States were more likely

than men to make bills dealing with womens, childrens, and family

issues a priority. They were reliably more progressive than their male

colleagues: more supportive of welfare policy, more likely to push for

increased funding for womens health, and more strongly inclined to

vote in favor of womens reproductive rights.

But over the past two decades, the polarization of our political par-

ties and, in particular, the near-elimination of moderates from the

Republican Party, has essentially brought an end to the longstanding

gender gap among legislators. While the voting records of moderate

female Republicans in Congress were notably more women-friendly

than those of their male colleagues in the 1980s and early 1990s, a

surge of conservative women in the Republican Party after 1994 hasmeant that, by the 108th and 109th Congresses, the voting records of

female Republican members of Congress were no longer ideologi-

cally distinguishable from those of their male colleagues,politscientist Brian Frederick has found.57Because there were a num

moderate Republican women in the Senate, however, women

chamber were still distinctly more liberal, and more likely to su

womens issues than are male senators.58

Party has made it virtually impossible for gender to matter,59s

Jennifer Lawless, director of the Women & Politics Institute in A

can Universitys School of Public Affairs.

There is some evidence that Republican female legislators are s

more likely to make a priority of discussing issues relating to wo

in committee, but when it comes to final voting, they hew to th

party line.

60

However, it is worth remembering that pro-womabe in the eye of the beholder.

Do female U.S. politicians still act like women?


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More women are needed in

the pipeline: When it comes

to womens influence, numbers

and hierarchy matter

A ew oken women will no do he rick. Tere is evidence ha he power and

influence o highly successul women can creae a rising ide ha lifs all boas

by challenging sereoypes abou gender roles and leadership and buoying oher

women, boh wihin specific organizaions and in sociey a large. In Germany,

or example, when Angela Merkel was firs eleced chancellor in 2005, only oneo he counrys 16 saes had been led by a women. By 2013,

here were our acing emale governors, and many more women

moving up he poliical leadership pipeline.61Female poliicians

around he globe have hisorically been more likely o suppor

measures ha help women, children, and amilies, including

hose ha promoe beter healh care and educaion.62As corpo-

rae leaders, hey are more inclined han heir male counerpars

o suppor pracices aimed a reducing gender inequaliy.63And

he presence o women as CEOs, board chairs, and board direc-

ors helps o narrow he pay gap beween men and women.64

Bu or women wihin an organizaion o make a difference or

oher women, a couple o condiions mus be in place: Women

have o be boh presen in sufficien numbers and occupy

high-enough posiions o have he power o bring change. Te

presence o women in high-saus managemen posiions, or

example, does narrow he gender-wage gap, bu he presence o

women in lower-level managemen does no.68

The presence of women in key elected posi

has been shown to have a powerful effect b

on voter attitudes toward female politicians

on the willingness of other women to consi

running for office.65

Law firms whose corporate clients have a

significant number of women in leadershtions go on to increase their number of fe

partners.66

In the media world, the more women there

behind the camera or the editors desk, the

the portrayal of women. Films written or d

by women consistently feature a higher pe

age of female characters with speaking rol


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Innovative leadership solutions

are a must for female politicians

and corporate leaders in the

United States

Counries around he world ha have vasly increased he represenaion o

women on corporae boards or in poliics have chiefly done so hrough he vehicle

o quoas. Bu his is no an opion in he Unied Saes.

In ac, here is litle by way o public policy in our counry ha specifically aims

o increase womens ascendance o op leadership roles. One measure ha clearlyatemped o bring such change was Secion 342, he so-called Diversiy Clause

o he Dodd-Frank Wall Sree Reorm and Consumer Proecion Ac o 2010.

Te law creaed 20 Offices o Minoriy and Women Inclusion a various agencies

regulaing he financial services indusry.Te offices were charged wih assessing

and monioring diversiy pracices a he agencies, heir conracors or subcon-

racors and in he eniies hey regulae. So ar, however, here appears o have

been much alk abou assessmen, bu no acion. Indeed, jus las monh, he

Naional Urban League responded wih hinly veiled conemp o a reques or

commen on a proposed ineragency policy saemen esablishing join sandards

or assessing diversiy policies and pracices in he financial services indusry. Te

drafed sandards, he Naional Urban League wroe in an open leter o he heads

o he Minoriy and Women Inclusion offices o hal a dozen regulaory agencies,

lack real merics o assess progress on diversiy and conain no real provisions o

require such assessmens. Te Agencies Sandards seem o pass he buck o he

regulaed eniies, and o he public, o conduc he assessmens. Tis is no wha

Secion 342 inended, he auhors wroe.69

We need o explore how he SEC migh more sringenly require compliance

wih our exising privae-secor diversiy rules, and wheher here are more wayso require publicly raded companies o repor he percenage o women on heir

boardsin execuive posiions, among op earners, and hroughou heir orga-

nizaionand o provide explanaions o heir effors o enhance gender diver-

siy. Ausralia offers us one possible course o acion. In 2012, Ausralia began

requiring public and privae companies wih more han 100 employees o repor


16/26


how many men and women hey employed and by wha percenages a differ-

en managemen iers, and in differen occupaional caegories. Saring in 2015,

Ausralian companies will be required o provide inormaion abou recruimen,

promoions and resignaions; disclose he gender composiion o heir governing

bodies and pay differenial beween men and women; and provide deails abou

heir flexible-work provisions, leave policies, and policies o help workers whohave experienced domesic violence, gender discriminaion, or sexual harassmen.

Te availabiliy o similar daa in he Unied Saes migh enable acivis share-

holders o use a companys lack o acion on womens advancemen as a pressure

poin o demand change.


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We need to keep women

in the workforce to increase

the number of women in

the leadership pipeline

For non-execuive women, his means advancing public policy iniiaives ha are

aimed a making i possible or women o flourish in he workorce over he oal-

iy o heir working lives. Policies such as paid amily leave, paid sick days, predic-

able scheduling, and he abiliy o reques flexible work arrangemens are crucial

o ensuring all workers, especially women, remain in heir jobs. All our o he op

counries in he World Economic Forums 2013 global gender gap indexIceland,

Finland, Norway, and Swedenoffer a combinaion o use-i-or-lose-i paerniyand maerniy leave, ederal paid parenal-leave benefis, ax policies ha suppor

child-bearing, and pos-maerniy job re-enry programs ha help women reurn

o work afer childbirh.70Te combined effec o such measures is o suppor he

wage-earning aciviies and advancemen o women hroughou all he sages o

heir lives. Tese policies also conribue o a culural climae in which he successul

inegraion o work and amily, or men and women alike, is viewed as a social neces-

siyan inegral componen o economic growhand no merely a privilege.

Successul work-amily policies ha are aimed a boh men and women creae new

norms o atiudes and expecaions ha enhance womens abiliy o say he course.

While such policies do keep women in he workorce, hey are no by any means a

guaranee ha women will riseo or near he op.Indeed, amily-riendly policies

when used near-exclusively by womencan acually be a hindrance o womens

advancemen. Recen research by Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn o

Cornell Universiy has shown ha women in OECD counries wih generous paid

amily leave policies, par-ime work enilemens, and governmen-subsidized child

care are ar more likely han American women o work par ime and hold lower-

level posiions han men, and ha American women are more likely o work as

managers or proessionals han women in hese amily-riendly counries. Teremay be a radeoff beween some policies ha make i easier or women o combine

work and amily and womens advancemen a work,71noe Blau and Kahn.

For women on he execuive rack, amily-riendly policy is no enough o over-

come he womens leadership lag. Tere also needs o be a change in he value

sysem by which we evaluae and promoe promising employees.


18/26


For women to thrive, the American

workplace has to change in ways

that alter the rules of the game

for men and women alike

One o he bigges changes o he pas hal-cenury has been he dramaic conver-

gence o he lives o men and women. Boh sexes now expec o play an acive role

in caring or heir amilies, and boh need o earn a living in order or heir amilies

o hrive. Ye programs o address he womens leadership gap have ended o

ocus on men and women as differen and disinc caegories o people wih differ-

en workplace issues. Tese programs, however uninenionally, have posiionedwomen as a problemgroup requiring special accommodaions ha allow hem

o adap heir unique needs as mohers o he demands o he workplace. Tis

orienaion, however well meaning, has marginalized women and pu hem on a

secondary rack.

Te womens leadership gap is a social problem, an economic problem, and a

conundrum ha poses a serious challenge o a core American valuehe promise

ha every person should have he chance o ulfill her or his God-given poenial

and paricipae ully in he public and economic lie o our sociey. Viewing i

merely as a womens problema mismach beween he essenial characerisics

o women and he essenial characerisics o he workplaceis boh inellecu-

ally dishones and inaccurae, and has led us o a sae o long-erm sall. We need

o change he conversaion around womens leadership o provide an enhanced

undersanding o is cenral imporance o he progress o our counry.

In doing so, we should ake care no o all ino he rap o making he case or

womens leadership in erms ha reinorce age-old belies abou womens essen-

ial differences rom men. Tis kind o hinking had a paricular resurgence afer

he 2008 financial meldown, when much was made o he idea ha he near-collapse o he worlds banking sysem migh well have been avered i women had

been in charge, and i heir greaer composure, sense o responsibiliy, and grea

pragmaism in delicae siuaions, as hen-French Finance Miniser Chrisine

Lagarde once pu i, had been allowed o hold sway.72Te problem wih raming


19/26


he call or womens leadership in his way is no jus ha i ress upon oudaed

social science,73 nor ha popular Venus-versus-Mars noions o womens superior-

iy as leaders are rooed in many o he same anciul ideas ha once consigned

hem o he nursery. As renowned Harvard proessor Rosabeh Moss Kaner has

noed, Good sereoypes o women can be jus as confining and inaccurae as bad

sereoypes.74

Te bigger problem is ha, in he real world, belies abou womensessenial differences have ranslaed ino workplace policies ha rea hem differ-

enly and ha, wih all he bes o inenions, aid in heir marginalizaion.

Moving orward, we need soluions ha ocus

no on women per se, bu on he larger insiu-

ional srucures ha reinorce sereoypes

abou hem, pu hem on separae racks han

men, and marginalize anyonemoher or

nowho needs o inves ime in caregiving.

Specifically, his means we need o change ourcurren culure o work. We need o reassess

our curren culure o proessional achieve-

men, where overwork, excessive hours, and

he 24/7 work ehic are prized, and where

disconnecing rom work o connec wih

hose a home is a recipe or alling behind.

We need o look a he way hourly wage

work is organizedor no organizedwih

employer-driven flexibiliy creaing exreme

unpredicabiliy or low-wage and low-saus

workers, and consigning hem o he leas

secure and mos dead-end sors o jobs. And

hen we need o change hose overarching

srucures or everyone, men and women alike,

o creae workplaces ha uncion o mee he

needs o a 21s-cenury workorce, raher han

a mid-20h-cenury married man.

A number of peopleresearchers, columnists, pop culturists

pondered the notion whether the financial crisis of 2008 would

have been averted if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sister

Lehman Sisters argument was rooted in research showing woto be more trustworthy and risk-averse than men.75That resear

however, was based on lab experiments involving college stud

a quite different population from those women and men who m

to the top rungs of decision-making in the financial industry. Su

of those executives have found quite the opposite. For instance

women board directors are actually slightly more risk-loving th

male directors, according to Rene Adams, professor of finance

the University of New South Wales, and Patricia Funk, professor

economics at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, who surveyed residen

tors and CEOs of nearly 1,800 publicly traded Swedish compan

2005.76 In other words, how gender expresses itself in the wor

may be very different from how it looks in the lab.

Context drives behavior. In fact,Alice Eagly, a social psychologi

Northwestern University, who has done much of the seminal re

on gender and leadership, found that men and women appear

different in professions where women dominate, and more sim

professions where men dominate.77

Lehman Brothers versus Lehman Sister


20/26


Conclusion

For women o hrive, he American workplace has o change. Ta ransormaion

mus come in ways ha recognize he deeply alered naure o American amily

lie, and in acknowledging his realiy, change he rules o he game or men and

women alike. A number o workplace redesign programs now aim o undamen-

ally resrucure how businesses operae, moivae, and evaluae heir employees,

shifing away rom a model ha problemaizes womens work-lie conflics o a

model ha seeks o inegrae all employeeswork-lie fi.Such a reorienaion willamoun o is nohing less han remaking he American culure o work.

Tis idea is ully in line wih our counrys global ambiions. China, which now

includes as par o is economic growh policies a provision ha women employed

in public enerprises ge 98 days o paid maerniy leave, is already aking seps in

ha direcion.78And conservaive Japanese Prime Miniser Shinzo Abe las year

announced a plan or long-erm economic growh anchored, in par, in increasing

womens paricipaion in he lie o he naion hrough work-amily policy, includ-

ing a call or he creaion o 400,000 new child care spos by 2017.79

I is ime o realize ha he old dichoomies beween home and office, amily and

work, and caregiving and profi-making are as oudaed as radiional noions

abou gender differences. Women canno hrive in a world where he demands o

a 21s cenury, 24/7 global economy coexis wih workplace policies ha belong

in a Mad Men episode, as Presiden Obama pu i in his 2014 Sae o he Union

address. odays men canno make i in such a world, eiher.


21/26


About the author

Judith Warneris a Senior Fellow a American Progress. She is also a conribuing

wrier or Te New York imes Magazineand a columnis or ime.com. She is bes

known or herNew York imesbesseller, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age

of Anxiety, and her ormerNew York imes column, Domesic Disurbances. Herlaes book, Weve Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication, received

numerous awards. From 2012 o 2013, she was a recipien o a Rosalynn Carer

Fellowship or Menal Healh Journalism.

Acknowledgements

I am deeply graeul o he colleagues a he Cener or American Progress who

helped me a every sage o developing his repor. I am paricularly indebed o

Neera anden, Carmel Marin, and Jocelyn Frye or incisive houghs on raming,o Jane Farrell and Claudia Calderon Machicado or help wih end-sage research,

o Sarah Jane Glynn or her careul reading and all-around suppor, and o he ar

and ediorial eams or heir hard work and creaiviy.


22/26


Endnotes

1 U.S. Department of State, Remarks at the Equal FuturesPartnership Launch, September 24, 2012, availableat http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/09/198115.htm.

2 World Bank, World Development Report: Gender Equality

and Development(Washington: World Bank, 2011).

3 Knowledge@Wharton, To Close the Gender Gap, WhatNeeds to ChangeWomen or the System?, March 27,2013, available at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=3219.

4 Catalyst , U.S. Women in Business, available athttp://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/us-women-business(lastaccessed January 2014).

5 Susan Ehrlich Martin and Nancy C. Jurik, Women Enter-ing the Legal Profession: Change and Resistance. InDoing Justice, Doing Gender, 2nd ed. (Sage Publications,2007).

6 National Organization for Women, Education and TitleIX (2012).

7 Feminist Majority Foundation, Empowering Womenin Medicine, available at http://www.feminist.org/re-search/medicine/ewm_toc.html (last accessed January2014).

8 David A. Matsa and Amalia R. Miller, A Female Style inCorporate Leadership? Evidence from Quotas,Ameri-can Economic Journal: Applied Economics5 (3) (2013):136169.

9 The OpEd Project, Why The Op-Ed Project? (AnInterview with Katie Orenstein), available at http://theopedproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=418(last accessed October2013).

10 Diana Mitsu Klos, The Status of Women in the U.S.Media 2013 (Womens Media Center, 2013), availableathttp://wmc.3cdn.net/51113ed5df3e0d0b79_

zzzm6go0b.pdf.

11 Sylvia Ann Hewitt, Laura Sherbin, and Diana Forster,Off-Ramps and On-Ramps R evisited, Harvard BusinessReview, June 2010, available at http://hbr.org/2010/06/off-ramps-and-on-ramps-revisited/ar/1.

12 Jennifer Lawless and Richard L. Fox, Men Rule: TheContinued Under-Representation of Women in U.S.Politics (Washington: Women & Politics Institute,2012), available athttp://www.american.edu/spa/wpi/upload/2012-Men-Rule-Report-web.pdf.

13 Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn, Female LaborSupply: Why is the US Falling Behind? Working Paper18702 (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2013),available at http://www.nber.org/papers/w18702.

14 Catalyst, Catalyst 2013 Census of Fortune 500: Still

No Progress After Years of No Progress, Press release,December 10, 2013, available at http://hosted.verti-calresponse.com/1032393/673b6d1718/520621187/f9ecdf46ae/.

15 Ibid.

16 World Economic Forum, The Global Gender Gap Re-port 2013 (2013), available at http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2013.pdf.

17 Committee for Economic Development, Fulfillingthe Promise: How More Women on Corporate BoardsWould Make America and American Companies moreCompetitive (2012), available at http://www.fwa.org/pdf/CED_WomenAdvancementonCorporateBoards.pdf.

18 Katrin Elborgh-Woytek and others, Women, Work, andthe Economy: Macroeconomic Gains From GenderEquity (Washington: International Monetary Fund,2013), available athttp://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2013/sdn1310.pdf.

19 Ibid.

20 Sarah Jane Glynn, The New Breadwinners: 2010Update (Washington: Center for American Progress,2012), available athttp://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2012/04/16/11377/the-new-bread-winners-2010-update/.

21 Girls On It, Where are all the Female Creative Direc-tors?, available at http://girlsonit.com/where-are-all-the-female-creative-directors(last accessed November2013).

22 Edwardo Porter, To Address Gender Gap, Is It Enoughto Lean In?, The New York Times, September 24, 2013,available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/25/busi-ness/economy/for-american-women-is-it-enough-to-lean-in.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

23 World Economic Forum, The Global Gender GapReport 2013.

24 Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Econom-ic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023 (2013), availableathttp://www.cbo.gov/publication/43907.

25 DeAnne Aguirre and others, Empowering the Third Bil-lion: Women and the World of Work in 2012 (Arlington,VA: Booz & Company, 2012), available at http://www.booz.com/media/file/BoozCo_Empowering-the-Third-Billion_Briefing-Report.pdf.

26 Eileen Appelbaum, Heather Boushey, and John Schmitt,Economic Importance of Womens Rising Hours ofWork: Time to Update Employment Standards (Wash-ington: Department of Labor, forthcoming).

27 Heather Boushey and Sarah Jane Glynn, There AreSignificant Business Costs to Replacing Employees(Washington: Center for American Progress, 2012),available at http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2012/11/16/44464/there-are-significant-business-costs-to-replacing-employees/.

28 Opt-In Project, The Opt-In Project Report: Making the

Case for Balance, available athttp://apps.americanbar.org/women/leadershipacademy/2007/Handout-Gillette.pdf (last accessed January 2014).
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23/26


29 While a number of much-cited studies have assertedthat gender-diverse working teams are more effectivethan all-male ones, there have been some discordantfindings.From these, many experts now caution thatfor the abstract benefits of diversity to be a lived reality,diverse teams have to be well-managed. But if a partic-ular corporate culture does not deal with diversity well,employees can experience it as a net negative, and it

will not yield positive results. Positive findings: A studyof 101 large companies in Europe, the Americas, andAsia by McKinsey & Company showed that companieswith three or more women in senior management rolesscored higher than organizations with no women atthe top on nine criteria including leadership, account-ability, capability, motivation, innovation, work environ-ment, and values. McKinsey & Company, WomenMatter: Gender diversity, a corporate performancedriver (2007). Also see Credit Suisse, Gender diversityand corporate performance (2012), available at https://www.credit-suisse.com/newsletter/doc/gender_diver-sity.pdf. Discordant findings: One major meta-analysisshowed no beneficial effect for objective measures ofgender diversity and a negative effect on subj ectivemeasuresof gender diversity. Alice H. Eagly, Womenas Leaders: Leadership Style Versus Leaders Values andAttitudes. In Gender & Work: Challenging ConventionalWisdom(Boston: President and Fellows of Harvard

College, 2013), p. 66, available athttp://www.hbs.edu/faculty/conferences/2013-w50-research-symposium/Documents/eagly.pdf; Deborah L. Rhode and AmandaK. Packel, Diversity on Corporate Boards: How MuchDifference Does Difference Make? Working PaperSeries 89 (Stanford University Rock Center for Corpo-rate Governance, 2010), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1685615;Cristian L. Dezs and David GaddisRoss, Does Female Representation in Top ManagementImprove Firm Performance? A Panel Data Investigation,Strategic Management Journal 33 (9) (2012): 10721089,available at http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/sites/finan-cialstudies/files/files/female_representation.pdf.

30 National Womens Law Center, Affirmative Action andWhat It Means for Women (2000), available at http://www.nwlc.org/resource/affirmative-action-and-what-it-means-women.

31 A 2009 study of 506 American companies, for example,showed that those with greater racial and genderdiversity consistently outperformed those less diversecompanies in terms of sales revenues, number ofcustomers, and market share. Cedric Herring, DoesDiversity Pay? Race, Gender, and the Business Case forDiversity,American Sociological Review74 (2) (2009):208224, available athttp://w ww.asanet.org/images/

journals/docs/pdf/asr/Apr09ASRFeature.pdf.

32 Rosabeth Moss Kanter, What if Lehman Brothers hadbeen Lehman Sisters?, Bloomberg News, October25, 2010, available at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-25/what-if-lehman-brothers-had-been-lehman-sisters-.html.The Lehman Sisters argumentwas rooted in research showing women to be morerisk-averse than men.For more information, see JulieA. Nelson, Would Women Leaders H ave Prevented

the Global Financial Crisis? Implications for TeachingAbout Gender, Behavior, and Economics (New York:Institute for New Economic Thinking, 2012), availableat http://ineteconomics.org/sites/inet.civicactions.net/files/Note-14-Nelson.pdf.That research, howeverlikemuch of the research on gender-based differences inpersonal characteristics like altruism, for example, orlong-term planningwas based on lab experimentsinvolving college students, which is quite a differentpopulation from those women and men who make itto top decision-making jobs in the financial industry.Surveys of those executives have found quite theopposite: That women board directors, for example,are actually slightly more risk-loving than male direc-tors, in the words of Rene Adams and Patricia Funk,who surveyed resident directors and CEOs of nearly1,800 publicly traded companies in Sweden in 2005.Rene Adams and Patricia Funk, Beyond the GlassCeiling: Does Gender Matter?, Management Science

58 (2) (2009): 219235, available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1475152; Irvin W.Silverman, Gender Differences in Delay of Gratification:A Meta-Analysis, Sex Roles 49 (9-10) (2003): 451463;James Andreoni and Lise Vesterlund, Which is the FairSex? Gender Differences in Altruism, Quarterly Journalof Economics116 (1) (2001): 293312, available athttp://www.pitt.edu/~vester/QJE2001.pdf.

33 Sujin K. Horwitz and Irwin B. Horwitz, The Effects ofTeam Diversity on Team Outcomes: A Meta-Analytic Re-view of Team Demography,Journal of Management33(6) (2007): 9871015, available at http://www.sagepub.com/vaughnstudy/articles/dair/Horwitz.pdf.

34 Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Melinda P. Marshall, and LauraSherbin, How Women Drive Innovation and Growth,Harvard Business Review blog, August 23, 2013,available at http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/08/how-women-

drive-innovation-and/.

35 Evan Apfelbaum, Whats the Business Case for Diversityin the Workplace? MIT Sloan Management, February27, 2013, available at http://mitsloanexperts.mit.edu/diversity-in-the-workplace/.

36 Matsa and Miller, A Female Style in Corporate Leader-ship? Evidence from Quotas.

37 According to a survey of resident directors and CEOs ofnearly 1,800 publicly traded companies in Sweden in2005, at a point when women held just more than 17percent of board seats in listed Swedish firms. See Ad-ams and Funk, Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Does GenderMatter?

https://www.credit-suisse.com/newsletter/doc/gender_diversity.pdfhttps://www.credit-suisse.com/newsletter/doc/gender_diversity.pdfhttps://www.credit-suisse.com/newsletter/doc/gender_diversity.pdfhttp://www.hbs.edu/faculty/conferences/2013-w50-research-symposium/Documents/eagly.pdfhttp://www.hbs.edu/faculty/conferences/2013-w50-research-symposium/Documents/eagly.pdfhttp://www.hbs.edu/faculty/conferences/2013-w50-research-symposium/Documents/eagly.pdfhttp://ssrn.com/abstract=1685615http://ssrn.com/abstract=1685615http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/sites/financialstudies/files/files/female_representation.pdfhttp://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/sites/financialstudies/files/files/female_representation.pdfhttp://www.asanet.org/images/journals/docs/pdf/asr/Apr09ASRFeature.pdfhttp://www.asanet.org/images/journals/docs/pdf/asr/Apr09ASRFeature.pdfhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-25/what-if-lehman-brothers-had-been-lehman-sisters-.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-25/what-if-lehman-brothers-had-been-lehman-sisters-.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-25/what-if-lehman-brothers-had-been-lehman-sisters-.htmlhttp://ineteconomics.org/sites/inet.civicactions.net/files/Note-14-Nelson.pdfhttp://ineteconomics.org/sites/inet.civicactions.net/files/Note-14-Nelson.pdfhttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1475152http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1475152http://www.pitt.edu/~vester/QJE2001.pdfhttp://www.sagepub.com/vaughnstudy/articles/dair/Horwitz.pdfhttp://www.sagepub.com/vaughnstudy/articles/dair/Horwitz.pdfhttp://blogs.hbr.org/2013/08/how-women-drive-innovation-and/http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/08/how-women-drive-innovation-and/http://mitsloanexperts.mit.edu/diversity-in-the-workplace/http://mitsloanexperts.mit.edu/diversity-in-the-workplace/http://mitsloanexperts.mit.edu/diversity-in-the-workplace/http://mitsloanexperts.mit.edu/diversity-in-the-workplace/http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/08/how-women-drive-innovation-and/http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/08/how-women-drive-innovation-and/http://www.sagepub.com/vaughnstudy/articles/dair/Horwitz.pdfhttp://www.sagepub.com/vaughnstudy/articles/dair/Horwitz.pdfhttp://www.pitt.edu/~vester/QJE2001.pdfhttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1475152http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1475152http://ineteconomics.org/sites/inet.civicactions.net/files/Note-14-Nelson.pdfhttp://ineteconomics.org/sites/inet.civicactions.net/files/Note-14-Nelson.pdfhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-25/what-if-lehman-brothers-had-been-lehman-sisters-.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-25/what-if-lehman-brothers-had-been-lehman-sisters-.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-25/what-if-lehman-brothers-had-been-lehman-sisters-.htmlhttp://www.asanet.org/images/journals/docs/pdf/asr/Apr09ASRFeature.pdfhttp://www.asanet.org/images/journals/docs/pdf/asr/Apr09ASRFeature.pdfhttp://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/sites/financialstudies/files/files/female_representation.pdfhttp://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/sites/financialstudies/files/files/female_representation.pdfhttp://ssrn.com/abstract=1685615http://ssrn.com/abstract=1685615http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/conferences/2013-w50-research-symposium/Documents/eagly.pdfhttp://www.hbs.edu/faculty/conferences/2013-w50-research-symposium/Documents/eagly.pdfhttp://www.hbs.edu/faculty/conferences/2013-w50-research-symposium/Documents/eagly.pdfhttps://www.credit-suisse.com/newsletter/doc/gender_diversity.pdfhttps://www.credit-suisse.com/newsletter/doc/gender_diversity.pdfhttps://www.credit-suisse.com/newsletter/doc/gender_diversity.pdf


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39 This preference for protecting workers over profitshas proven true not just in Norway, where womenspresence on boards was quota-driven, but in the UnitedStates, where businesses owned by women provedto be less likely to lay off workers during the GreatRecession than were comparable businesses ownedby men. For more information, seeMatsa and Miller, AFemale Style in Corporate Leadership? Evidence fromQuotas. Matsa and Miller note that other research hasshown gender differences in attitudes toward layoffs aswell, with women less likely to lay off workers, and citeAriel Rubinstein, A Sceptics Comment on the Study of

Economics, Economic Journal116 (510) (2006): C1-9,available at http://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il/papers/73.pdf.

40 Rene B. Adams and Daniel Ferreira, Women in theBoardroom and their Impact on Governance and Per-formance,Journal of Financial Economics94 (2) (2009):291309.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.


45 David Dollar, Raymond Fisman, and Roberta Gatti, AreWomen Really the Fairer Sex? Corruption and Women

in Government,Journal of Economic Behavior & Organi-zation 46 (4) (2001): 423429.


47 Ibid.

48 The last two examples apply to women on boards ofFortune 500 companies. Eagly, Women as Leaders.

49 Rohini Pande and Deanna Ford, Gender Quotas andFemale Leadership: A Review (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity, 2011), available at http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rpande/papers/Gender%20Quotas%20-%20April%202011.pdf. In India, for example, female villagecouncil leadersthe numbers of whom were vastlyincreased by a constitutional amendment in 1993 thatdecentralized Indian local governments and required

that one-third of village council leadership positionsbe reserved for womenhave been significantly morelikely to allocate public funds for drinking water, whichwomen typically collect.

50 For an excellent research roundup, see Appendix A:Research on the Difference Women Make in Politics, inLawless and Fox, Men Rule.

51 Rene B. Adams and Daniel Ferreira, Women in theBoardroom and their Impact on Governance and Per-formance,Journal of Financial Economics94 (2) (2009):291309.

52 Justin Esarey and Gina Chirillo, Fairer Sex or PurityMyth? Corruption, Gender, and Institutional Context,Politics & Gender9 (2013): 361389, available at http://

jee3.web.rice.edu/corruption.pdf.

53 Ibid.

54 Sarah F. Anzia and Christopher R. Berry, The Jackie (andJill) Robinson Effect: Why Do Congresswomen Outper-form Congressmen? Working Paper (2009) , available athttp://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1013443.

55 In 2011, leadership development consultants JackZenger and Joseph Fokman tracked 7,280 leaders whowere rated by their peers on overall effectiveness andleadership competency. They found that at every level,more women were rated by their peers, bosses, andother associates as better overall leaders than theirmale counterparts. Nonetheless, Zenger and Fokmanfound that the women they interviewed were far fromsecure in their s tatus. The women we queried dontfeel their appointments are s afe, they wrote. Theyreafraid to rest on their laurels. Jack Zenger and JosephFolkman, Are Women Better Leaders Than Men?, Har-

vard Business Review blog, March 15, 2012, availableat http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/03/a-study-in-leadership-women-do/.


57 Brian Frederick, Are Female House Members Still MoreLiberal in a Polarized Era? The Conditional Nature ofthe Relationship Between Descriptive and SubstantiveRepresentation, Congress and the Presidency 36 (2)(2009): 181202.

58 Brian Frederick, Gender and Patterns of Roll Call Votingin the U.S. Senate, Congress & the Presidency37 (2)(2010): 103124.

59 Jennifer Lawless, interview with author, October 11,2013.

60 Michele Swers, interview with author, October 19, 2013.

61 Clemens Wergin, A Woman for All Seasons,The NewYork Times, October 21, 2013, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/opinion/wergin-a-woman-for-all-seasons.html..

62 Pande and Ford, Gender Quotas and Female Leader-ship.

63 Philip N. Cohen and Matt L. Huffman, Working for theWoman? Female Managers and the Gender Wage Gap,American Sociological Review72 (5) (2007): 681704.

64 Linda A. Bell, now provost of Barnard College, useddata on executive compensation from Standard andPoors ExecuComp to explore the gender gap in topexecutive jobs and see whether having more women

in CEO, chair, and director positions made a difference.She found that having female CEOs and board chairsleads to more women in top executive positions andto those women earning higher pay. She found thatfemale executives in women-led firms earn between10 percent and 20 percent more than comparableexecutive women in male-led firms, and are between 3percent and 18 percent more likely to number amongthe highest-paid five executives in those firms as well.Linda A. Bell, Women-Led Firms and the Gender Gap in

Top Executive Jobs. Discussion Paper 1689 (Institute forthe Study of Labor, 2005); Geoffrey A. Tate and Liu Yang,Female Leadership and Gender Equity: Evidence fromPlant Closure Working Paper (2013), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1905100.

65 Lawless and Fox, Men Rule.

66 Cohen and Huffman, Working for the Woman? Female

Managers and the Gender Wage Gap.
http://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il/papers/73.pdfhttp://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rpande/papers/Gender%20Quotas%20-%20April%202011.pdfhttp://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rpande/papers/Gender%20Quotas%20-%20April%202011.pdfhttp://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rpande/papers/Gender%20Quotas%20-%20April%202011.pdfhttp://jee3.web.rice.edu/corruption.pdfhttp://jee3.web.rice.edu/corruption.pdfhttp://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1013443http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/03/a-study-in-leadership-women-do/http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/03/a-study-in-leadership-women-do/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/opinion/wergin-a-woman-for-all-seasons.html.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/opinion/wergin-a-woman-for-all-seasons.html.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/opinion/wergin-a-woman-for-all-seasons.html.http://ssrn.com/abstract=1905100http://ssrn.com/abstract=1905100http://ssrn.com/abstract=1905100http://ssrn.com/abstract=1905100http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/opinion/wergin-a-woman-for-all-seasons.html.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/opinion/wergin-a-woman-for-all-seasons.html.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/opinion/wergin-a-woman-for-all-seasons.html.http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/03/a-study-in-leadership-women-do/http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/03/a-study-in-leadership-women-do/http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1013443http://jee3.web.rice.edu/corruption.pdfhttp://jee3.web.rice.edu/corruption.pdfhttp://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rpande/papers/Gender%20Quotas%20-%20April%202011.pdfhttp://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rpande/papers/Gender%20Quotas%20-%20April%202011.pdfhttp://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rpande/papers/Gender%20Quotas%20-%20April%202011.pdfhttp://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il/papers/73.pdf


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67 Best Picture Oscar-nominated films with one or morefemale screenwriters consistently show a higherpercentage of female characters than do films writtensolely by men, Stacy Smith, a professor at the Universityof Southern California Annenberg School for Com-munication and Journalism, has found. In 2008 alone,she discovered that films directed by women featuredfemale actors in 41.2 percent of speaking roles, com-pared to 26.8 percent in films directed by men. USCAnnenberg School for Communication and Journalism,Academy Award-nominated movies lack females, racialdiversity, Press release, February 22, 2012, available at

http://annenberg.usc.edu/News%20and%20Events/News/120222SmithGender.aspx.

68 Philip N. Cohen and Matt L. Huffman warn that thephenomenon of title inflation has permitted compa-nies to greatly increase their ranks of female managerswithout actually giving women more power and pay.As a result, the fact that a relatively large percentage ofU.S. women now occupy manager posts40 percentin 2007is not necessarily all that meaningful. Cohenand Huffman, Working for the Woman? Female Man-agers and the Gender Wage Gap;

69 Letter from National Urban League to Joyce Cofieldand others, February 7, 2014, available at http://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20Leagues%20Com-

ment%20on%20the%20Agencies%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establish-ing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdf.

70 World Economic Forum, The Global Gender GapReport 2013.

71 Blau and Kahn, Female Labor Supply.

72 Nelson, Would Women Leaders Have Prevented theGlobal Financial Crisis?

73 Ibid.; Adams and Funk, Beyond the Glass Ceiling;Silverman, Gender Differences in Delay of Gratification:A Meta-Analysis; Andreoni and Vesterlund, Which isthe Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism.

74 Kanter, What if Lehman Brothers Had Been LehmanSisters?

75 Nelson, Would Women Leaders Have Prevented theGlobal Financial Crisis?

76 Adams and Funk, Beyond the Glass Ceiling.

77 Alice Eagly, presentation at Harvard Business School,Cambridge, MA, March 2013.

78 Donna Cooper, Adam Hersh, and Ann OLeary, TheCompetition That Really Matters: Comparing U.S., Chi-nese, and Indian Investments in the Next-GenerationWorkforce Center for American Progress and TheCenter for the Next Generation, 2012), available athttp://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/up-loads/2012/08/USChinaIndiaEduCompetitiveness.pdf.

79 Laura DAndrea Tyson, Japans Women to the Rescue,The New York Times Economix blog, August 23,

2013, available at http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/japans-women-to-the-rescue/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0.
http://annenberg.usc.edu/News%20and%20Events/News/120222SmithGender.aspxhttp://annenberg.usc.edu/News%20and%20Events/News/120222SmithGender.aspxhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/USChinaIndiaEduCompetitiveness.pdfhttp://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/USChinaIndiaEduCompetitiveness.pdfhttp://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/japans-women-to-the-rescue/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/japans-women-to-the-rescue/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/japans-women-to-the-rescue/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/japans-women-to-the-rescue/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/japans-women-to-the-rescue/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/japans-women-to-the-rescue/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/USChinaIndiaEduCompetitiveness.pdfhttp://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/USChinaIndiaEduCompetitiveness.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://nulwb.iamempowered.com/sites/nulwb.iamempowered.com/files/National%20Urban%20League's%20Comment%20on%20the%20Agencies'%20Proposed%20Interagency%20Policy%20Statement%20Establishing%20Joint%20Standards%20for%20Assessing%20the%20Diversit.pdfhttp://annenberg.usc.edu/News%20and%20Events/News/120222SmithGender.aspxhttp://annenberg.usc.edu/News%20and%20Events/News/120222SmithGender.aspx


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Women’s Leadership: What’s True, What’s False, and Why It Matters

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