Traditional views of women's roles by men have implications for women's careers

As this research is out there I feel I need to comment on it, though I have a lot of questions about the sample of the population studied and details of the study. Research from the University of Florida reports that men with more traditional views of women will get higher pay than men with more gender equality views.

I would be interested to delve into their political beliefs and also the type of homes they grew up in and the roles their parents played (both working or not, single). I would also like to see information on salaries that compare women with stay-at-home husbands compared to women with working husbands. I have been surprised by how many senior women I've met whose husband are at home.

The participants in the study are between 39 and 47 years old. They had to rate statements on gender roles. The difference in salary was$8500 between men with a traditional view, and those with less traditional views.

In a less generous mood I might wonder how many women did these men step on to move on up the ladder, and how many are they blind to potential to grow after them. This does have implications for impacting women's careers but I need to see the complete study to know what we're truly discussing here.

College Can be Dangerous for Your Confidence

This article relates closely to the previous posting that women could so benefit from a boost in their confidence. They can do it, they really can but for some reason we keep under playing our abilities because of our lack of confidence. Take a look at this article by Kathy Wyer she reports on some research at UCLA on academic accomplishments, abilities, and personal traits. Linda J. Sax, associate researcher, has been reviewing the data - men are entering college in fewer numbers and less academically engaged, but during the college experience become strongly influenced by academic faculty and develop intellectual self-confidence at a greater rate to women. I'm interested to know more about how she evaluates academic ability and self-confidence - during the college years from her research it appears to impact gender, what does the growth look like after a few years in the work place?

Linda draws several conclusions from her research related to several areas including: academic engagement, interaction with faculty, health and well-being, staying close to home, and selection of majors and careers. Her research can be found in her recent published book: The Gender Gap in College: Maximizing the Potential of Women and Men.

Maths Knows No Gender Boundary

... at least at for grades 2 through 11. The No child left behind act has allowed researchers to review standardized test results. A careful analysis of the results from those tests suggests there is no difference in scores for girls and boys. They looked at results for California and 9 other states, and no difference was found. In another data set looking at complex reasoning skills gender differences were too small to be meaningful.

What needs to happen to keep girls on a science track to make it attractive to pull them through to the next level of science? How do we make it personable, where's the face and social part in the math syllabus at university?

LA times Article.

A Glut of Women in the News and Making News

Lots of things of interest here. First the website - Newsonwomen is a neat find - a website that is focused on Women in the News. There's nothing more empowering some days than to read about a slew of women who are succeeding, if in doubt about how to succeed take a look here and be inspired. The article that caught my attention is related to a kickoff event called, 'Women Making a Difference in Digital Media'.

While looking at the presenters at the event I found out about Natalie Del Conte and 'Loaded', Natali kicked off an online series around CES season earlier this year. I've just taken a glimpse at a couple of the daily episodes. Its fast, happy, and an E! type of presentation but of technology. Natali does a nice job of presenting the facts and also has quick insightful one liners about 'her' perspective on the technology, position, or whatever. Her philosophy is generally that there are a lot of technology shows about the 'specs' but not about the 'personal experience', she hesitates when saying that women are more attracted to the personal experience as she doesn't want to offend but honestly I think she's onto something. It has the lightweight appeal of glamour mag show, but actually is informative and just the sort of information you might need to have to drop in a technology conversation, or appear tech savvy - but the great part of it here is it is consumable by non-hard core geeks, and will help you stay up to date, with the added refreshment of a female commentary.

Worth taking this podcast to the gym (now if only I could findmy podcast player wire to connect to the PC, and figure out how to download the podcast, and remember to have it charged when at the gym.... any solution for that anyone???)

Gender Brain Differences: What does it mean?

Here's a neat article from Forbes about gender differences and how they appear at work. Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis have studied this area for over 20 years and have published a book, Leadership and the sexes: Using Gender Science to Create Success in Business. It's a fascinating look at all that biological, behavioral, and physiological research and reframed in how it manifests itself at work and in business situations. While I would love to believe that both men and women are eating this type of research up to understand how to appreciate diversity in the workplace at the current time it's more beneficial for us women to read it and assume this is how our behaviors are interpreted. For example, women may run from one topic to the next before returning to the task at hand as we're born to multi-task, whereas men might appear to shut down in a meeting as their brains are more apt to enter a rest state. So the key is for women when in a business meeting full of men is to stay on topic and not link several topics together without keeping the audience present.

The article also emphasizes that neither gender approach is the ultimate successful approach, and that leaders and success can come from both genders. Again for us now as women the tricky part is understanding the rules of the game today, to increase our opportunity to succeed so we can create a more diverse and appreciative diverse work environment in the future.

There's a fun little slide show as well on the site that hightlights some of the top differences.

We Know What Your Brain is Thinking!

Well, at least we know how there are differences between responses to certain situations, or at least we think there are. A new market research technique is being used to read brain patterns of participants in studies. The article is interesting as Jim Meskauskas, comments that we don't need this expensive research to confirm what common sense can tell us. The example in the story is about the differences in reaction between men and women when watching a detergent ad, where the story line has a pregnant woman drop some ice-cream onto her shirt. Men apparently show now stress when the ice-cream falls nor relief when the shirt comes out of the washer clean, meanwhile women show a ray of emotions to the story line.

I have worked with similar systems in user research and it's always hard to determine how actionable this type of data is, and also how difficult it is to be concise with the variables, but it feels there could be some interesting uses of it to make the world continue to recognize how different we all are when we respond to situations, especially genders. Data and sizes of differences certainly speaks in the business world (whether it's even valid or not).

Not A Rosie Picture for All

While I like to be upbeat and optimistic about the increase in wealth of women, I do need a reality check on for which segments of the female population is this the case. Increases in wealth is not for all women. An article in the SignonSanDiego.com highlights the challenges women are facing with the current tightening of the economy. A Rockerfeller Foundation study produced these following results:

• One in five women had a medical prescription she couldn't afford to fill in the past year, compared with one out of eight men.
• One in eight women reported that she couldn't afford to take a child to the doctor during the past year, compared with one out of 16 men.
• One in 14 American women went hungry at some time last year because of lack of money, compared with one out of 25 men.
• More American women – 56 percent – are worried about cutbacks to Social Security than men, at 41 percent. One reason for this disparity is that half of retired women count on Social Security as a major source of income, compared with 38 percent of retired men. And one reason for that is that more men have employment-provided retirement savings plans, at 61 percent, than women, at 51 percent.

Keeping gender successes in perspective is important, and with success we've got to remember how to give back and create benefits for all, to strengthen overall society.

Fight, Flee, or a Third Option for Women, Make Friends

So you thought fight or flee where the only two options when faced with stress? Well according to some new research being pulled together by two women there is a third option: bond with women. Huh? you say. There were two women researchers, Laura Cousin Klein and Shelley Taylor , and one day they found themselves in the lab together. They talked about what they did when they get stressed, and it was neither fight or flee but to get busy, tidy up, de-stress with female friends.

Hmmm... they thought, why doesn't this show up in the research. In reviewing their research, and previous stress related research they realized most stress related research of this type was frequently done on men.

They proceeded with a few investigations and have some thoughts on how oxytocin is released when women are in stressful situations, this leads them to more female bonding behaviors, or family nurturing behaviors. Apparently oxytocin doesn't have the same calming effect when mixed with the release of testosterone.

There's been 5 decades of research that says fight or flee are the options and here we now discover there might be alternatives. It makes us question what generalizations, organizational behavior training, etc., have been based on that male dominant research.

A few days ago I also came across another piece of research from Duke University Medical Center related to health issues rising from poor quality sleep. The new insights from the research were along the same lines - a significant amount of previous research was done on men, but with women the results are different, and in fact more significant as to the cardio-vascular system.

Notice a theme developing? Is this early part of this century going to be about reviewing outcomes from the last century and figuring out whether women were appropriately included in the research. I'd like to think current medical research is more conscious of the inclusion of women in research when it's a topic that is felt to cover both sides of the story. However, yet again if women aren't involved in the research, or commissioning of the questions the hypotheses will be different, different research designed, and the results will be different. It's an important fact to consider when entering into market research or planning phase. It feels like it relates to the gender budgeting post - people really need to exercise the alternative muscles to see alternative perspectives, or more specifically - look people, a benefit of diverse work forces are you get all these considerations for free when discussing projects. Now that is a great proposition.

Better Supervisors is What's Needed, but in the Meantime What Can You Do

Catalyst is one of my favorite independent research companies for working on understanding women at work. A long time ago they realized that the battle isn't about equality in the work place it's about presenting a business case on the benefits of having a diverse work force.

They recently completed a piece of research looking at women in high-tech jobs. Challenges appear to be in their relationship with their supervisors - their supervisors aren't available when needed, they don't listen to suggestions, and they don't give feedback.

The research comments that women join companies but leave because of supervisors. Come on companies, think about this cost. I haven't yet dug into the absolute results but I wouldn't be surprised if women had the same challenges if their supervisors were female. The role of being boss is a tricky role, with so many demands being made of you. It's always sad when it's simply good management that is the problem. However it does run a little deeper.

In another piece of research Catalyst report that managers have a harder time giving feedback to women than men. I have tried to communicate this to many women that we have to work harder at providing an engagement with our bosses that makes it easier for them to give us feedback, without this feedback we have a harder time progressing.

• Be direct and ask for feedback about a particular project or behavior. Ask clarifying questions as feedback is being given to help them fine tune their feedback.


• Even if they say, 'You did Great', ask about how to improve next time as you want to get better at X.


• Change your behaviors to respond to the feedback, and then confirm that you're improving


• Send an email ahead of a meeting to say you will be asking for feedback on a certain project, behavior to remove taking them by surprise.

Another path is to get feedback from others, however we have to consider what we want feedback on, ask the right questions, and make others comfortable in giving feedback.

• First think about what it is you want feedback on


• Now consider, specifically what aspect it is you want feedback on.


• Brainstorm several different ways to get feedback and from whom. Ask a friend to help you brainstorm.


• Follow through on taking action on getting feedback from someone.


• Say 'Thank you', and seriously consider what they tell you and how you can respond to their feedback.

I know this is a lot of work for us to do, when if we had fantastic bosses we wouldn't need to put in the extra work - well listen, our bosses aren't going to miraculously be better at listening and giving feedback over night so we have to take steps ourselves. And when we become bosses we have to make sure we take time to put into practice what we want from others.

Companies need to be learning about these strategies to improve the technical work place for women because a diverse work force is a more creative productive one.

Women Superstars Are Portable, Men Less So

This is a point in my blog where I wonder if I'm deviating from the theme of my blog or actually iterating to fine tune the theme. I am personally motivated to encourage change in how technology can provide women with an improved quality of life whether it's for pleasure, work, balancing life, family, etc. I have been trying to focus on the pleasure and fun because there are many other sites that comment on how best to balance work/family etc. However to encourage technology companies to consider an audience so unlike the gender makeup of most technology companies requires a shift itself to be more attractive to women to want to join it. So this then leads me in the direction of wanting to include in my blog articles and commentary on why it makes business sense to improve the gender make-up in companies.
In Harvard Business Review this month there's an article on the portability of superstars in the work force by Boris Groysberg, it's a second article pulled from a large data set. The first article had findings that showed it was extremely hard for a superstar in one company to transfer to a new company and still perform at the same outstanding level. However the new article has looked at gender differences and determines that women can move successfully between organizations. There were two primary reasons, first, women have stronger external networks, which they've developed because internal networks can be harder for them to develop. This means when they switch companies they weren't as dependent upon that internal network for their success compared to their male counterparts. The second reason is that women are more likely to way up the environmental factors of moving to a new company: culture that is open to female talent, openness to individual style, and impartial performance measures, this contrasts to a man moving to a new company for financial rewards.

Take aways:
Developing an external network is important, for people who are starting their careers it's developing it outside their group, division, or organization if a small company.
A woman who is second guessing her intuition on whether to force herself to make a move based on compensation if she feels it's not a good fit should probably go with intuition.
A company hiring talent needs to consider how it operates to considered an environment where individual styles can florish. I say operates because I can imagine how a company could try to convey that individual styles are supported, but without the reality to back it up the high flyers recruited in will not continue to rise.

It's bizzare to read the short summary on the HBR site because it's so rare that I've read an article where it's highlighting what women do that men can learn from to be successful in business!