Wednesday, December 27, 2006
The 'Nice Men' Who Take Care of Us
Dr. Alice Bourke Hayes, corporate board member at Jack in the Box and ConAgra, reminisced that,
“In the fifties, women were just not as career-oriented as they are today. In the back of our minds, we just assumed that some nice man would take care of us – a husband, a father, or a brother. I was not thinking of a career at all [during my college years.] I just studied biology because I loved it.”
From that beginning, Dr. Hayes rose to become a prominent biology scientist, educator and academic leader at three prominent universities (Loyola, Saint Louis, and University of San Diego) -- three Jesuit and Catholic campuses where women, historically, were expected to be quiet supporters, not vocal leaders. Dr. Hayes’ experience taught me that it is not so important where you start your career as how you finish it.
Even in the 1960s, when I was preparing to choose a college, “the nice men” who would pay my way there assumed they had the right to select where I would go based on their decision criteria. My father consulted with my brothers, and together they decided that Wheaton College in Norton, MA would position me well for the future that a young woman would face from 1964 forward. This all-women’s college was equidistant from something like 11 dominantly or exclusively male colleges, thus dramatically improving the odds that I would find a husband who “would take care of me.”
My peers at Wheaton apparently concurred whole-heartedly with that philosophy. While I foolishly attempted to focus my attention on my studies, my roommate and dorm mates focused their energies instead on weekend dances and parties hosted by those neighboring 11 campuses. Monday morning breakfasts were sessions where more than one damsel would flaunt a new diamond engagement ring to the accompaniment of screeches from admiring, if not jealous, girlfriends.
I tried to transfer out of Wheaton during my freshman year, so convinced was I that a significant educational mismatch had occurred. The guidance counselor warned me that I’d be pegged by all prospective campuses as an indecisive quitter if I didn’t at least give the place the mandatory minimum two year endurance test. So, I hunkered down even harder with my studies and was prepared to write off the first two years of my college career.
The Vietnam War was in its infancy. Still, it was a time when opposing sides wrote and spoke civilly to each other, on the merits, even though vehemence was building. I had chosen my own position – against the war – from reading a history of how long the French had been mired in the very same location under a different name, the Indochina War.
At Wheaton, those of us who studied government were considered “grunges” – the equivalent of today’s brainiacs or female nerds. There wasn’t enough technology around yet to consider us full-blown geeks. We decided to organize a school-wide debate on the pros and cons of the war. One member of our group, a rabid anti-war activist, was prepared to do verbal battle; but we had to search to find someone on the pro-war side of the debate. We found one young girl who had been active in the Young Republicans primarily because of her family’s influence in the party over the years. We legitimized the session by inviting a faculty member to moderate.
The night of the debate came, and each side expected a slam-dunk verbal victory over the other side. What amazed us all was that this bastion of social debs and dating managed somehow to put their preening and mating priorities on a back burner for one night to attend a debate on a subject that ultimately would influence their lives for decades to come. The hall was full to capacity. The debate was civil and serious. The issue was discussed with the respect it warranted. And we all listened and learned what political deliberation could be – if we wanted it.
There was no clear winner that night, just as there was no clear path out of the quagmire of Vietnam for another 15 years. I remember feeling not bad about “our side” not having taken the room by storm because I was so impressed by the sincerity and equanimity of the young lady who spoke on the side of the debate with which I could not agree – but which I could respect. I learned a great deal from her and have always held her in high regard as a genuine, thinking and intelligent leader.
It is not necessary, I learned, to agree with everything that a leader has to say. However, it is important to respect them. She described that evening, almost 40 years later, this way:
“… most college campuses were isolated from the unrest [surrounding the Vietnam War] and Wheaton was among them.
"During my sophomore year, in the spring of 1966, I was one of two student members on a campus-wide student-faculty panel discussion politely termed, 'Vietnam: Where Do We Go From Here??' I supported the war effort; I felt what we were doing – trying to prevent the expansion of communism throughout Southeast Asia – was in our national interest. In retrospect, I still believe we were in Vietnam for a worthy, even noble, cause, even if our strategy for engagement was flawed, as it so clearly was. The major lesson that Vietnam holds for America is that we must never go to war without a plan to win, not just the war but also the peace, a lesson reinforced by the challenges in Iraq after the fall of Baghdad.”
(Source: It’s My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America, pp. 56-57, by Christine Todd Whitman (The Penguin Press HC, January 31, 2005).)
Christie Todd Whitman also is a corporate board member at S.C. Johnson & Sons, Inc., Texas Instruments, United Technologies and The Millennium Challenge Corporation. She is the former director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, January 2001 to May 2003, and former governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001.
As much as we appreciate all of “the nice men” out there, making “nice decisions” about our “nice futures,” it is also important that we listen to our own good sixth sense in order to learn how to make good decisions for ourselves and about our own futures.
“In the fifties, women were just not as career-oriented as they are today. In the back of our minds, we just assumed that some nice man would take care of us – a husband, a father, or a brother. I was not thinking of a career at all [during my college years.] I just studied biology because I loved it.”
From that beginning, Dr. Hayes rose to become a prominent biology scientist, educator and academic leader at three prominent universities (Loyola, Saint Louis, and University of San Diego) -- three Jesuit and Catholic campuses where women, historically, were expected to be quiet supporters, not vocal leaders. Dr. Hayes’ experience taught me that it is not so important where you start your career as how you finish it.
Even in the 1960s, when I was preparing to choose a college, “the nice men” who would pay my way there assumed they had the right to select where I would go based on their decision criteria. My father consulted with my brothers, and together they decided that Wheaton College in Norton, MA would position me well for the future that a young woman would face from 1964 forward. This all-women’s college was equidistant from something like 11 dominantly or exclusively male colleges, thus dramatically improving the odds that I would find a husband who “would take care of me.”
My peers at Wheaton apparently concurred whole-heartedly with that philosophy. While I foolishly attempted to focus my attention on my studies, my roommate and dorm mates focused their energies instead on weekend dances and parties hosted by those neighboring 11 campuses. Monday morning breakfasts were sessions where more than one damsel would flaunt a new diamond engagement ring to the accompaniment of screeches from admiring, if not jealous, girlfriends.
I tried to transfer out of Wheaton during my freshman year, so convinced was I that a significant educational mismatch had occurred. The guidance counselor warned me that I’d be pegged by all prospective campuses as an indecisive quitter if I didn’t at least give the place the mandatory minimum two year endurance test. So, I hunkered down even harder with my studies and was prepared to write off the first two years of my college career.
The Vietnam War was in its infancy. Still, it was a time when opposing sides wrote and spoke civilly to each other, on the merits, even though vehemence was building. I had chosen my own position – against the war – from reading a history of how long the French had been mired in the very same location under a different name, the Indochina War.
At Wheaton, those of us who studied government were considered “grunges” – the equivalent of today’s brainiacs or female nerds. There wasn’t enough technology around yet to consider us full-blown geeks. We decided to organize a school-wide debate on the pros and cons of the war. One member of our group, a rabid anti-war activist, was prepared to do verbal battle; but we had to search to find someone on the pro-war side of the debate. We found one young girl who had been active in the Young Republicans primarily because of her family’s influence in the party over the years. We legitimized the session by inviting a faculty member to moderate.
The night of the debate came, and each side expected a slam-dunk verbal victory over the other side. What amazed us all was that this bastion of social debs and dating managed somehow to put their preening and mating priorities on a back burner for one night to attend a debate on a subject that ultimately would influence their lives for decades to come. The hall was full to capacity. The debate was civil and serious. The issue was discussed with the respect it warranted. And we all listened and learned what political deliberation could be – if we wanted it.
There was no clear winner that night, just as there was no clear path out of the quagmire of Vietnam for another 15 years. I remember feeling not bad about “our side” not having taken the room by storm because I was so impressed by the sincerity and equanimity of the young lady who spoke on the side of the debate with which I could not agree – but which I could respect. I learned a great deal from her and have always held her in high regard as a genuine, thinking and intelligent leader.
It is not necessary, I learned, to agree with everything that a leader has to say. However, it is important to respect them. She described that evening, almost 40 years later, this way:
“… most college campuses were isolated from the unrest [surrounding the Vietnam War] and Wheaton was among them.
"During my sophomore year, in the spring of 1966, I was one of two student members on a campus-wide student-faculty panel discussion politely termed, 'Vietnam: Where Do We Go From Here??' I supported the war effort; I felt what we were doing – trying to prevent the expansion of communism throughout Southeast Asia – was in our national interest. In retrospect, I still believe we were in Vietnam for a worthy, even noble, cause, even if our strategy for engagement was flawed, as it so clearly was. The major lesson that Vietnam holds for America is that we must never go to war without a plan to win, not just the war but also the peace, a lesson reinforced by the challenges in Iraq after the fall of Baghdad.”
(Source: It’s My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America, pp. 56-57, by Christine Todd Whitman (The Penguin Press HC, January 31, 2005).)
Christie Todd Whitman also is a corporate board member at S.C. Johnson & Sons, Inc., Texas Instruments, United Technologies and The Millennium Challenge Corporation. She is the former director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, January 2001 to May 2003, and former governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001.
As much as we appreciate all of “the nice men” out there, making “nice decisions” about our “nice futures,” it is also important that we listen to our own good sixth sense in order to learn how to make good decisions for ourselves and about our own futures.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Women in Science -- The Poor Babies!
Women in Science: The Battle Moves to the Trenches By Cornelia Dean, Health & Fitness, New York Times, December 19, 2006, Tuesday; Late Edition - Final, Section F, Page 1, Column 2 (2506 words).
So, there’s still a war going on and women are now getting down and dirty in the trenches, is that the message from Ms. Dean and the NY Times? It’s the NY Times, of course, so it MUST be even-handed with a balanced news perspective, right? And because of the “gravitas” of the NY Times imprimatur, you can Google the title and find over 13,000 other newspapers citing the very same article. Ah, yes, fair and balanced news about women of achievement once again hits the wall. NOT.
To evaluate the “objectivity” and the “balanced” nature of this article, we examined each paragraph, and then split them between two columns: the left hand column listed each of the positive paragraphs and the right hand column listed all the negative paragraphs written by Ms. Dean, quoting the women in science at the Rice conference.
There were merely 22 paragraphs in the left (positive) column, encouraging women to pursue science careers. Oh, wasn’t that a wonderfully persuasive conference in Houston!
The right (negative) column contained 64 separate paragraphs, telling women in science they are losers in a female loser world. They tell women they haven’t a prayer of a chance. It’s all “trouble talk”, telling women NOT to consider a science career: “forget it,” “don’t even try” or “watch out for the boogie MAN, MEN, MALES, all of whom are out to get you in the academic science environment. Or, my favorite distorted logic, “if you need encouragement, just talk to us female mentors, girls – cause we’re so-o-o-o-o positive.”
If I were a woman considering a science career, the overwhelming message to me from these women would be that I haven’t a prayer of a chance at achievement in scientific academia unless I’m ready to be a sacrificial lamb or a devious and conniving she-devil who plays the game “just right” to get that special edge. The message is: if you fail, do what all women in science do -- blame the men, the university, and the global village that doesn’t give you what YOU think you need to succeed.
But, what is most upsetting is how one of the female speakers dismissed the very important work and accomplishments of the women of science at MIT. Dr. Steitz trivialized 4 long years of intense negotiations and collaboration at MIT as simply “a report [that] criticized the institute’s hiring and promotion practices.” Perhaps the cavalier attitude of the women at the Rice conference explains why they are not give the credibility they desire. For a more admiring and complete review of exactly how the women of MIT accomplished diversity at this dominantly male school of engineering, see:
Not Every Apple in Cambridge is Rotten.
Women have a choice: they can whine and cry about the injustice they have seen or experienced. “Blame everybody else,” is the option presented at the Rice conference and at the 13,000 newspapers and blogs that supported that view. Women who make that choice must live with the consequences: whining in the academic or scientific world gets you nowhere except a reputation as a baby.
Women can quit: they can “opt out” as we so euphemistically hear everywhere today. “Walk out on the boys” is the advice of one woman of science. Women who make that choice must not want the scientific academic profession as much as they suggest. Women who make that choice will get you a reputation as a quitter, in any profession.
In both cases, don’t you just feel like saying “OHHHH, the poooor babies. Here let me kiss it and make it all better!”
Women could make a different choice. Women can do what the female faculty of MIT did: define the problem that you are willing to address, deal with the problem from the framework of change that you are willing to own, define alternative strategies, build the business case for each option, get support from others with similar vested interests, select viable alternative paths toward the objective in which you believe, and then work together – with other like-minded women AND MEN in your organization -- to implement effective, long-term change.
That doesn’t attract the attention or the headlines. It simply gets the job done. That, little girls, is what women in leadership do.
Nobody was more adamant that I in reacting to Dr. Lawrence Summers’ statement (in January 2005) about inborn gender differences that might predict female failure in science and math. Nobody! But nobody will be as strong as I in reacting to women-on-women verbal intimidation, stereotyping, prejudice, bias, and wrongful attribution of cause: effect relationships. Nobody!
If I were to tell my daughter, “It’s an evil world out there, with everyone in pants out to get you,” she is likely to believe me and therefore not make any effort to overcome the risks I tell her about – even if they represent the biases of 20 to 40 years ago.
If I were to tell my daughter the world is so confined and limited for you that you can ONLY have a family OR a career, that you can ONLY have tenure or children, that you can ONLY work 70 hour weeks, then I am telling her to aspire to only half her potential. And she might believe me.
Whatever we tell our daughters, they are likely to believe us because we are the first sources of authority with which they have experience. They are very likely to believe us. So we should be telling them about opportunities in THEIR world, in THEIR future, based on THEIR education and opportunities, not merely on the world in which we were raised.
The NY Times and the women of Rice University’s conference, do our daughters a major disservice. At least we should be giving them equal measure of hope, of opportunity, of context, of vision, of strategy. We should not simply repeat the “old wives’ tales” that were handed down to us by our grandmothers or even our mothers. Our daughters deserve better.
So, there’s still a war going on and women are now getting down and dirty in the trenches, is that the message from Ms. Dean and the NY Times? It’s the NY Times, of course, so it MUST be even-handed with a balanced news perspective, right? And because of the “gravitas” of the NY Times imprimatur, you can Google the title and find over 13,000 other newspapers citing the very same article. Ah, yes, fair and balanced news about women of achievement once again hits the wall. NOT.
To evaluate the “objectivity” and the “balanced” nature of this article, we examined each paragraph, and then split them between two columns: the left hand column listed each of the positive paragraphs and the right hand column listed all the negative paragraphs written by Ms. Dean, quoting the women in science at the Rice conference.
There were merely 22 paragraphs in the left (positive) column, encouraging women to pursue science careers. Oh, wasn’t that a wonderfully persuasive conference in Houston!
The right (negative) column contained 64 separate paragraphs, telling women in science they are losers in a female loser world. They tell women they haven’t a prayer of a chance. It’s all “trouble talk”, telling women NOT to consider a science career: “forget it,” “don’t even try” or “watch out for the boogie MAN, MEN, MALES, all of whom are out to get you in the academic science environment. Or, my favorite distorted logic, “if you need encouragement, just talk to us female mentors, girls – cause we’re so-o-o-o-o positive.”
If I were a woman considering a science career, the overwhelming message to me from these women would be that I haven’t a prayer of a chance at achievement in scientific academia unless I’m ready to be a sacrificial lamb or a devious and conniving she-devil who plays the game “just right” to get that special edge. The message is: if you fail, do what all women in science do -- blame the men, the university, and the global village that doesn’t give you what YOU think you need to succeed.
But, what is most upsetting is how one of the female speakers dismissed the very important work and accomplishments of the women of science at MIT. Dr. Steitz trivialized 4 long years of intense negotiations and collaboration at MIT as simply “a report [that] criticized the institute’s hiring and promotion practices.” Perhaps the cavalier attitude of the women at the Rice conference explains why they are not give the credibility they desire. For a more admiring and complete review of exactly how the women of MIT accomplished diversity at this dominantly male school of engineering, see:
Not Every Apple in Cambridge is Rotten.
Women have a choice: they can whine and cry about the injustice they have seen or experienced. “Blame everybody else,” is the option presented at the Rice conference and at the 13,000 newspapers and blogs that supported that view. Women who make that choice must live with the consequences: whining in the academic or scientific world gets you nowhere except a reputation as a baby.
Women can quit: they can “opt out” as we so euphemistically hear everywhere today. “Walk out on the boys” is the advice of one woman of science. Women who make that choice must not want the scientific academic profession as much as they suggest. Women who make that choice will get you a reputation as a quitter, in any profession.
In both cases, don’t you just feel like saying “OHHHH, the poooor babies. Here let me kiss it and make it all better!”
Women could make a different choice. Women can do what the female faculty of MIT did: define the problem that you are willing to address, deal with the problem from the framework of change that you are willing to own, define alternative strategies, build the business case for each option, get support from others with similar vested interests, select viable alternative paths toward the objective in which you believe, and then work together – with other like-minded women AND MEN in your organization -- to implement effective, long-term change.
That doesn’t attract the attention or the headlines. It simply gets the job done. That, little girls, is what women in leadership do.
Nobody was more adamant that I in reacting to Dr. Lawrence Summers’ statement (in January 2005) about inborn gender differences that might predict female failure in science and math. Nobody! But nobody will be as strong as I in reacting to women-on-women verbal intimidation, stereotyping, prejudice, bias, and wrongful attribution of cause: effect relationships. Nobody!
If I were to tell my daughter, “It’s an evil world out there, with everyone in pants out to get you,” she is likely to believe me and therefore not make any effort to overcome the risks I tell her about – even if they represent the biases of 20 to 40 years ago.
If I were to tell my daughter the world is so confined and limited for you that you can ONLY have a family OR a career, that you can ONLY have tenure or children, that you can ONLY work 70 hour weeks, then I am telling her to aspire to only half her potential. And she might believe me.
Whatever we tell our daughters, they are likely to believe us because we are the first sources of authority with which they have experience. They are very likely to believe us. So we should be telling them about opportunities in THEIR world, in THEIR future, based on THEIR education and opportunities, not merely on the world in which we were raised.
The NY Times and the women of Rice University’s conference, do our daughters a major disservice. At least we should be giving them equal measure of hope, of opportunity, of context, of vision, of strategy. We should not simply repeat the “old wives’ tales” that were handed down to us by our grandmothers or even our mothers. Our daughters deserve better.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
The Path to the Boardroom -- Part 2
In October 2006, NewsOnWomen.com reported that for the first 10 months of 2006, 227 women were nominated to corporate boards of directors in the U.S. and selected international nations.
Is this a significant number or not? The answer is YES: not only are we seeing continued gains per month, but also more firms in more states are announcing new female directors added to the boardroom. The 10 month total of 227 female nominations represents 27% of the total number of board seats held by women (827) on all Fortune 500 firms as reported by Catalyst Inc. in 2005.
Catalyst Inc. also has tracked the number of women added to boards of directors on Fortune 500 firms over the past 11 years (1995 to 2005). LIke most of the "women on boards advocates," Catalyst reports that women have been added to these top Fortune 500 boards of directors at a rate of "only" one-half of one percent a year over this timeframe.
But they all ignore the very important fact that the TOTAL NUMBER of board seats available for BOTH men and women at these firms DECLINED by 645 seats as boards grew smaller in response to pressure for better governance.
Women, on the other hand, INCREASED the number of seats they occupied by 227 seats between 1995 and 2005, compared to the men who LOST a grand total of 872 seats during that same period.
Not too shabby a performance at all!
Is this a significant number or not? The answer is YES: not only are we seeing continued gains per month, but also more firms in more states are announcing new female directors added to the boardroom. The 10 month total of 227 female nominations represents 27% of the total number of board seats held by women (827) on all Fortune 500 firms as reported by Catalyst Inc. in 2005.
Catalyst Inc. also has tracked the number of women added to boards of directors on Fortune 500 firms over the past 11 years (1995 to 2005). LIke most of the "women on boards advocates," Catalyst reports that women have been added to these top Fortune 500 boards of directors at a rate of "only" one-half of one percent a year over this timeframe.
But they all ignore the very important fact that the TOTAL NUMBER of board seats available for BOTH men and women at these firms DECLINED by 645 seats as boards grew smaller in response to pressure for better governance.
Women, on the other hand, INCREASED the number of seats they occupied by 227 seats between 1995 and 2005, compared to the men who LOST a grand total of 872 seats during that same period.
This is what it really looks like:
Not too shabby a performance at all!
