What glass ceiling? Tthe overwhelming explanation for the relatively small number of women in senior management is that women – especially those with children – choose not to be there.

girlwriteswhat · 2011-09-27T17:25:25+00:00

I think, whether these factors are cultural or biological in nature, women, on the whole, would rather have a very successful partner than be very successful themselves. Ask most women what they want in a partner, and it's someone who earns as much, or more, than they do. Even female entrepreneurs are more likely to stay small and trade huge money for emotional fulfilment and less stress rather than try to build their businesses into empires.

The author is right in that it is women driving these gendered differences--women's career choices, as well as their mate selection criteria, which puts more pressure on males than females to succeed.

I'd be curious as to whether the CPR exec, Tracy Robinson, was as devoted to her career while her kids were small (it doesn't state their ages), or whether her husband or a hired nanny is their primary caregiver. If it's the former, hooray! If it's the latter, because her husband is just as career-focused and absent as she is...I'm not sure I'm prepared to cheer.

As for Heleen Mees, what the fuck kind of "healthy role model" is someone who never sees her family and works herself to an early heart attack? That's healthy neither for boys, nor for girls. Men, IMO, have more to learn from women than the other way around, wrt balancing career and personal happiness.

SlimThugga · 2011-09-27T20:19:04+00:00

Didn't read. By the same person who wrote this.

2011-09-27T18:42:30+00:00

Another point is that when they do chose to be there, they out earn their male peers.

Celda · 2011-09-27T20:06:13+00:00

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ottawadeveloper · 2011-09-28T02:00:18+00:00

Ok, here's the problem people.

STOP RELYING ON STATISTICS.

Statistics mean very little. To look at the population and say 2 out of 3 senior managers are male (1 out of 3 being female as is suggested by some reply below) means nothing. It doesn't indicate a "glass ceiling". It doesn't qualify as proof men are keeping women down.

It indicates there is, perhaps, a barrier for women to enter the senior management position if its statistically significant (We're talking 33.33% compared to 50% ideal so a difference of 16.67). What could explain that? There are tons of reason and they're not all about misogynist pigs preventing women from achieving that position.

Take a better example, where I can actually explain it. 1 in 5 people in the IT industry are female. Big gap, right? There was a study done awhile back that shows that, generally speaking, women prefer soft interfaces with ranges of choice and more emotionally-connected answers where as men prefer strictly logical options and hard options (think romance novel versus technical manual if you will and forgive the slight stereotype). Most IT applications are aimed at the latter type of people since IT tends to be strictly logical. Therefore women are less comfortable with them, therefore less women get into IT. The study went on to show that when you change the apps to satisfy the feminine side of that, women were more likely to be comfortable using them (I don't have the links right now, sorry).

The difference there is as natural as women preferring soft colours to men's choices of hard colours. Its not bad and its not even really a stereotype - there's lot of research out there to back it up.

That 1:4 gap isn't solely a result of intentional misogyny in the IT field but perhaps how we have the software set up. There are countless other explanations too out there that might explain it.

TL;DR: statistics without facts explaining the correlation mean nothing. learn to statistic.

BinaryShadow · 2011-09-28T06:00:55+00:00

A lot of feminists would rather have the government implement a man-tax than work like a man to "balance it out."

eyeofthestorm · 2011-09-28T02:53:12+00:00

Hardly any men are senior managers, either – only 0.62 per cent.

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