Wo(men) at Work:



Wo(men) at Work:

Interviews with Women in Business Regarding Gender Inequality

By Stephanie Roth

Abstract

Previous research indicates that gender inequality is a social issue which exists in the workplace. While federal legislation and social movements like Feminism have assisted in improving gender relations, gender inequality in career opportunities continues to exist. The purpose of this paper is to assess gender inequality in the current workplace. Specifically, I examine how gender affects women in business and evaluate whether prejudices regarding gender occur in the professional setting and if this hinders promotion. Data here is based upon interviews with six professional women in the South Bend, Indiana region are used to assess gender inequality and the way it has affected the individuals and their careers.

Previous research indicates that gender inequality is a social issue which exists in the workplace. While both federal legislation such as Affirmative Action, and social movement, such as Feminism, have assisted in improving gender relations, gender inequality continues to exist. Given that for most sociologists gender is socially constructed, gendered occupations or work-related skills are based upon social assumptions and beliefs regarding the physical, emotional, and psychological characteristics of women and men. The purpose of this paper is to assess gender inequality in the workplace; specifically how gendered assumptions affect women in business and to ascertain whether prejudices regarding gender occur in the professional setting and it hinders promotion.

Previous Studies on Women and Careers

In 1890, 18 percent of women worked for pay, compared to 60 percent in 1998 (Costa 2000). Since the 1950s, women in the United States have significantly advanced professionally. Overall, women have shifted from being housewives and mothers to chief executive officers of major corporations. Despite the advances women have made in the professional world, there are still many barriers. Davis-Netzley (1998:340) describes the glass ceiling as the “invisible barriers through which women can see elite positions but cannot reach them.” Today, there are many attitudes and perceptions limiting professional women’s equality in business.

Previous literature describes many factors influencing a woman becoming a professional. A crucial factor is her educational background. Bradley (2000) found that women’s representation in colleges and universities are approaching the equality point of 50 percent, which means women’s enrollment in colleges and universities are equal to that of men. Joy (2000:471) states, “Women are graduating from college at higher rates than men in the United States.” However, Joy (2000:474) states, “Men obtain more from a college degree in terms of wage, job satisfaction, and job quality than do similarly qualified women.” Black and Juhn (2000) find that college women’s participation in high-wage professional occupations is positively correlated with wages in these professional occupations. Black and Juhn (2000) offer some evidence that college-educated women are entering-wage professional occupations in response to the recent increase in skill demand. However, Davis-Netzley (1998:353) state, “Women’s work experiences are not only affected by gender but also by race, ethnicity, nationality, and class.”

During the 1980s, black women surpassed black men in nearly every area of higher education, with the exception of the area of business; even so, white men continue to dominate the field of business (Anonymous 1997). Bell and Nkomo (2001) found that it is more difficult for black women professionals to fit in and succeed in the corporate world than it is for white women. They call for women to unite as women and support one another.

According to previous literature, another important factor in determining success and equality for women in business is the wage structure. Suter and Miller (1973) analyze incomes for men and women in 1967 and showed that by considering only educational level, occupational status, and work experience, the income level can be predicted more confidently for women than men. Thus, women’s pay is proportionate with effort and education. Suter and Miller (1973:973) conclude, “With the relationship of income with socioeconomic characteristics is more consistent for women than for men, women receive decidedly lower increments for equal step increase in educational level and occupational status.” Morrison et al. (1987) propose that it is only a matter of time before wage and advancement for women professionals equals men’s.

Loury (1997) found the gender earnings gap narrowed significantly in the 1980s due to the gain in the number of years worked by women compared to men, perceptions and attitudes of professional women, and changes in the organizational structure. Morgan (1998) also considers the gender earnings gap, but she specifically looks at engineers. By comparing the glass ceiling effect and the cohort effect, Morgan’s (1998) findings suggest that a cohort effect operates for engineers and the gender earnings gap is more related to the time period when an individual entered the field than how long she has been in the profession. Alessio and Andrzejewski (2000) reviewed Morgan’s (1998) article and acknowledge that the glass ceiling as a useful concept for identifying the sociological phenomenon of patriarchal institutions which prevent women from advancing in their careers as fast as men.

Goldin and Katz (2000) attribute much of the increase in the number of professional women to the invention and access to the birth control pill in the 1970s. Before the availability of the birth control pill, many women had to choose marriage or a career. Since the pill, women have been able to more easily combine both worlds: a marriage and career. Blair-Loy (1999) believes the legal and social changes of the 1970s regarding women’s rights have had a significant impact on women’s advancement in the field of finance. For example, in 1971, the American Economic Association began promoting women’s progress in the economic profession (Bartlett 1998).

Daily, Certo, and Dalton (1999) examined a decade of women’s representations on corporate boards and CEO positions. They found significant growth on corporate boards, but very little, if any, growth in the number of women in CEO positions. Renzulli, Aldrich, and Moody (2000:524) report that since 1970, female business owners have experienced a six fold increase in their share of U.S. businesses. Though women now hold more professional positions, perceptions of women in business still vary.

Wiley and Eskilson (1983) found the middle manager respondents in their studies expected male managers to have more power and future mobility than equivalent female managers. Their findings indicate the necessity of considering the explanations given for past performance and promotion when investigating structural status variables which effect expectations of future success. Cohen, Broschak, and Haveman (1998) examine the hiring and promotions of managers, specifically how the organizational distribution of men and women effects psychological and economic rewards. They found that women are more likely to be hired and promoted into a particular job level if there is a higher portion of women are already there. Also, women are more likely to be promoted when more women are already at that level. Thus, it will be difficult for women to be promoted to the CEO positions since research has shown there are so few women CEOs. Appold, Siengthai, and Kasarda (1998) believe that as women’s presence in the workplace increase, the work attitudes about women will improve, providing positive feedback on the hiring of increased numbers of women. Although, Appold et al. (1998) did not suggest that women would be promoted to CEO if there are more women in an industry, it would seem there is a greater chance of promotion.

My study draws upon many of the previous studies. It is most similar to Davies-Netzley’s study because I focus on women who have worked to climb above the glass ceiling and the perceptions of these women.

Theory

Gender inequality has been a topic of discussion since before the 1920’s when women earned the right to vote. Although women today are as professionally qualified as men, gender inequality and stereotyping have impacted women’s professional success. Many sociological theorists have spent much of/if not their entire careers analyzing gender equality. Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, and Betty Friedan were three very influential feminist theorists who wrote about gender issues.

In “Room of One’s Own” (1929), Woolf offers her opinion on how women are being creatively and intellectually stifled. She uses an analogy about a personal experience on a college campus to illustrate the constricted status of women. Woolf is sitting on a river bank, trying to reel in a thought (just like a little fish). A Beadle from the college approached her with resentment and anger. Woolf (1929:258) states:

Instinct rather than reason came to my help; he was a Beadle; I was a woman. Thus was the turf; there was the path. Only the Fellows and Scholars are allowed here; the gravel is the place for me . . . The only charge I could bring against the Fellows and Scholars of whatever the college might happen to be was that in protection of their turf, which has been rolled for 300 years in succession, they had sent my little fish into hiding.

Woolf has lost her little thought and she is intimidated and yet angered by the authority of the male Beadle due to the fact that she was simply a woman and not a Fellow or Scholar. She did not “belong” on the river bank; she belonged on the path. Woolf is angered by the Beadle “protecting his turf” which has belonged to men for 300 years and, at this point in time, showed no signs of changing. The turf represented the professional world, a place in which a woman did not belong.

Simone de Beauvoir begins the Introduction of The Second Sex (1953:xxii) by stating how a woman is identified in relation to a man; she states:

For him she is sex – absolute sex, no less. She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her;she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other.

de Beauvoir recognizes the way that women are being characterized as “the Other” and the reason they are being typified as secondary. She claims that women are conceptualized as “the other” because early Western philosophers established the female sex as "the other" to rationalize and promote the development and growth of fledgling patriarchy. Specifically, de Beauvoir describes the eighteenth-century middle class and how it reacted to threatening, progressive ideas of the time. At the time, women were confined “to the kitchen and the home, closely watching their behavior, keeping them wholly dependent” (1953:111). de Beauvoir (1953:112) believes that the middle class woman clung to this because,

She clung to the privileges of her class. Freed from the male, she would have to work for a living, she felt no solidarity with working women, and she believed that the emancipation of bourgeois women would mean the ruin of her class.

de Beauvoir suggests that middle class women were perfectly content with their place in society due to the gender construction of the historical and cultural period in which de Beauvoir was writing. She suggests the reason women are satisfied with their roles is they “lack concrete means for organizing themselves into a unit which can stand face to face with the correlative unit. They have no past, no history, no religion of their own” (1953: xxv). de Beauvoir discusses female labor and the French laws and charters surrounding it. These laws and charters were made in order to restrict women in business. She (1953:115) states:

Little by little social legislation was set up and feminine labor was surrounded with hygienic precautions: chairs were required for saleswomen, long sessions at outside displays were forbidden, and so on. The International Labor Office led to international conventions on the sanitary conditions of women’s labor, leave to be granted for pregnancy, and so forth.

In The Second Sex (1953), Simone de Beauvoir specifically addresses the businesswomen. She suggests society holds women in business in a higher regard. De Beauvoir (1953:135) states:

The businesswoman and the female employer who runs a small enterprise have always been among the privileged; they are the only women recognized since the Middle Ages by the Code as having civil rights and powers.”

Feminine labor was “protected.” de Beauvoir (1953: xxv) reiterates the fact that the “division of the sexes is a biological fact, not an event in human history.” With this perspective on gender, de Beauvoir sought to encourage women to make human history by standing up and no longer depending on men for their past, history, and religion.

Ten years later, Betty Friedan in “The Problem That Has No Name” (1963), speaks of the same sort of complacency as a wife and mother, only Friedan describes a problem many women in 1963 were having. It was “the problem that had no name.” Friedan (1963:15) describes the problem:

It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night – she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question – “Is this all?”

Friedan noted that there was no word to express the yearnings that so many women were having. At the time, there were many accounts written by experts, in columns, books, and articles informing women that their role was to seek fulfillment as wives and mothers. Friedan (1963:357) speaks of how isolated women were; they rarely left home unless it was to care for home, children or attend an event with their spouse. Friedan claims that women at the time were socialized to be wives and mothers and to want nothing more. She provides empirical evidence about the declining average age of marriage and how girls were socialized younger and younger to become perfect wives and mothers. The goal was to get and keep their husbands and the dream being told was to become the suburban housewife. Friedan discusses how shameful it was for a woman to admit to any dissatisfaction with her life as a wife/mother; how women told themselves over and over, “There’s nothing wrong really.” Friedan (1963: 32) states:

If I am right, the problem that has no name stirring in the minds of so many American women today is not a matter of loss of femininity or too much education, or the demands of domesticity. It is far more important than anyone recognizes. It is the key to these other new and old problems which have been torturing women and their husbands and children, puzzling their doctors and educators for years. It may well be the key to our future as a nation and a culture. We can no longer ignore that voice from within women that says: “I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.”

Friedan concludes on an encouraging note as she seeks to promote the examples of successful women changing the future of our nation and culture.

There are many theories as to why gender inequality exists in the professional realm. Woolf (1929), de Beauvoir (1953), and Friedan (1963) all offer insights and explanations as to why gender inequality exists. They provide a historical background and a theoretical framework for my study regarding gender inequality and women in business today.

Methods

Participants

Six professional women in the Michigan-Indiana (Michiana) region, ages 35-65, were interviewed for the study. All of the women were Caucasian and from the Midwest. They were selected for participation upon their membership to a professional women's organization or by using a snowball sampling method from contacts given by a member of a professional women’s organization. One weakness of my research was a lack of time. Due to the constraints of the Senior Seminar course, there was a limited amount of time in which I could interview professional women, thus there were only six participants in this study. This sample may not necessarily be representative of the entire Michiana region, but at least representative of the Women Business Owners of Michiana professional group.

Procedures

The interviews conducted were informal in nature taking place in a coffee shop setting. The interviews were based on approximately thirty open-ended questions (See Appendix), varying slightly for each interview. The questions used were adopted from similar interview questions conducted by Morrison et. al.(1987) and Bell and Nkomo (2001). The questions were open-ended covering topics ranging from the woman’s personal background and education to her current professional position to her personal family life. Depending on the responses given to previous questions, some questions were omitted, specific to each interview. This format was selected because it allowed each participant to reveal a depth of information not available through a survey method. It was selected also to allow each participant to provide detail about her perceptions of her gendered work experiences.

Findings

Davies-Netzley (1998, p. 341) states, “While engaging with ideologies that frame womanhood in terms of family, home, and unpaid or lower paid work, women managers also are marginalized by a work situation characterized by mostly male peers.” This is true of almost all of the women I interviewed in my study.

One’s background or childhood can become the foundation upon which they build their entire lives. Of the six women interviewed, all of them were from the Midwest, specifically Indiana and Illinois. Half reported they were from poor or working class families. Two of the six women were from rural or farm communities, which they believe had a significant impact on their lives as far as building their own work ethic. There were many character traits shared by the women interviewed, but two traits exemplified by all six women interviewed were both passion and ambition.

With regard to family relationships, five women reported their fathers had a significant impact on their professional careers, similar to the Bell and Nkomo (2001) findings. They described their fathers as “very encouraging” while their mothers took a more passive role with regard to professional or career goals. One woman stated, “My father always told me I could do whatever I wanted. My mother wanted me to be a teacher.”

Another strong influence reported by more than half of the women was their faith, most being Roman Catholic during at least one point in their lives. The women stated that religion had given them a base for their morals and values by which they lead their lives.

The next step in building the foundation of one’s life is education. Five of the six women interviewed had attended college. Their colleges were all traditionally liberal arts based, with their majors ranging from History to Modern Languages to English Literature. Two of the six women had at least a master’s degree.

All six of the women said they either had been married or were currently in a relationship. Half of the women got married almost immediately following graduation, from either high school or college depending on their degree. One third of the women had been divorced. One woman speculated the reason intimate relationships did not last was due to the independence of professional women and the emasculation of the men in their lives. Five of the six women had children. Of those five with children, three women had at least one person outside of or in addition to their spouse to help them with the children and/or household chores, including nannies, babysitters, house keepers, and personal assistants. Only one of the women reported being a caretaker for her aging mother, but another reported there was a potential for to her do so. The other women were not responsible for aging parents or relatives due to proximity or the relatives had already deceased.

All six women hold some sort of leadership position within the Michiana community. Five of the six women are members or officers of Women Business Owners of Michiana. They also served on boards of directors or participated in other community organizations including Chamber of Commerce, Better Business Bureau, Junior League, Rotary Club, Lions Club, Church Council, American Cancer Society, Saint Margaret’s House, National Organization of Women, YWCA, etc. Most of the women interviewed stressed the importance of giving back to their community. At least one woman reported that she does pro-bono work for some of her clients and offers discounted rates for others. Despite the level of activities the women are involved in, all six women stressed the importance of a work/life balance.

An issue that arose in most of the interviews was the geographic area the participants are located in. All of the women are originally from the Midwest, but some had also lived elsewhere. One woman reported she used to be a stockbroker in California and did not face any gender inequality there, but reports she has in the Michiana area. She believes this is due to the open mindedness of the overall population. Residents of California are obviously much more liberal than those of Michiana. She reported that people in the Michiana region are much more suspicious and negative than those in California. Another woman reported previously living in New York and the environment there was much friendlier to not only women workers, but women with children working. Two more women discussed the University of Notre Dame, one as a student and one as a former professor. Both were qualified women, but they both reported difficulties and gender inequality towards women from the University.

During the interviews when the women were asked whether or not they had faced gender inequality, almost every woman interviewed initially said no. After saying no, in the course of the interview they re-evaluated the statement. Upon reflection, all six of the women reported they had faced some sort of gender inequality. One woman, an executive who had experienced gender inequality, believed it was not just her gender but her lack of a college degree that contributed to inequality. Another woman who had experienced gender inequality, currently the President of her company, was once in business with her father where she had called on an account that treated her terribly. She reported she had “grown up in an environment where [gender inequality] was not tolerated.” After speaking with her father about the ordeal, to the account’s embarrassment, her father confronted the company to inquire why she had been treated so poorly. The company apologized profusely and assured her father that had they known it was his daughter, they would have never treated her that way. It seems that in the business world, sometimes it is not what you know, but who you know.

An issue that came up in almost all of the interviews was the importance of women supporting women. One woman stated the reason she initially joined the Women Business Owners of Michiana was for relationships with other women in business. Many women spoke of the strength of women empowering women and networking. The women also stressed the importance of mentors, both being a mentor and taking advantage of the opportunity to be mentored. One woman stated that a reason women should support other women is so that all women can stay grounded and succeed. She said, “We don’t want to become what we are trying to escape.” By supporting and empowering other women, hopefully it will make life easier for future generations of women.

The most interesting aspect of these interviews was the style and grace with which these women handled the discriminatory situations. Although it was very frustrating, none of the women reported experiencing any long-term negative impacts as a result of the gender inequality they faced. All of the women seemed to take it in stride and use it as a learning experience. They are more aware now of not only how to handle gender inequality, but how to prevent it and possibly even use it to their advantage. One woman reported that she would rather work with men, because she sees many advantages to being a woman. She stated that men are “softer and more lenient” with her than they would be working with other men. Another woman suggested that women should use their “differences as women” to get tasks accomplished.

Discussion

The findings demonstrate how important perception is when considering gender inequality in business. Although, most of the women initially stated they had never experienced gender inequality, after reconsidering their answer or asking for clarification, every single woman reported that they had in fact faced gender inequality. Clearly, one’s perception is important with regard to social issues.

Since the purpose of this study was to assess whether professional women in the Michiana region had experienced gender inequality and as there is no specific index to judge whether or not one has faced gender inequality, a woman’s perception becomes the most important factor. Regardless of what discriminatory action which may have been taken against a woman, if she does not perceive the discrimination to have affected her, the action is unimportant. However, in this particular situation with gender inequality and professional women, the reason the women did not originally report to having faced gender inequality is due to the fact discrimination happens so frequently.

Women, but especially professional women, are so often judged first by being female and second by their accomplishments. While women have made great progress in the workplace during the last few decades, the gender inequalities that have been faced by my participants in this study indicate there is still a very narrow socially constructed role of women.

As more groups like the Women Business Owners of Michiana form and more companies offer mentoring programs for women, women can overcome the isolation that Woolf once faced. By overcoming isolation and banding together, women can then continue to create their own history as de Beauvoir described. The more successful women become and the more women that are promoted to higher and higher executive levels, the more women will change the future of our nation and culture as Friedan described. Finally, gender inequality will be eliminated from the professional realm.

References

Alessio, John C and Julie Andrzejewski. 2000. “Unveiling the Hidden Glass Ceiling: An Analysis of the Cohort Effect Claim.” American Sociological Review, 65:311-315.

Anonymous. 1997. “The Long, Hard Ascent: Black Women Storm the Ol' Boys Club of Business Higher Education.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 18:58-59.

Appold, Stephen J., Sununta Siengthai, and John D. Kasarda. 1998. “The Employment of Women Managers and Professionals in an Emerging Economy: Gender Inequality as an Organizational Practice.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 43:538-565.

Bartlett, Robin L. 1998. “CSWEP: 25 Years at a Time.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12:177-183.

Bartlett, Robin L. and Timothy I. Miller. 1985. “Executive Compensation: Female Executives and Networking.” The American Economic Review, 75:266-70.

Bell, Ella L.J. Edmondson and Stella M. Nkomo. 2001. Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Black, Sandra E. and Chinhui Juhn. 2000. “The Rise of Female Professionals: Are Women Responding to Skill Demand?” The American Economic Review, 90:450-455.

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Broom, Patricia A. 1986. The Third Sex: The New Professional Woman. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.

Costa. Dora L. 2000. “From Mill Town to Board Room: The Rise of Women's Paid Labor.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14:101-122.

Cohen, Lisa E., Joseph P. Broschak, and Heather A. Haveman. 1998. “And Then There were More? The Effect of Organizational Sex Composition on the Hiring and Promotion of Managers.” American Sociological Review, 63:711-727.

Daily, Catherine M, S. Trevis Certo, and Dan R. Dalton. 1999. “A Decade of Corporate Women: Some Progress in the Boardroom, None in the Executive Suite.” Strategic Management Journal, 20:93-99.

Davies-Netzley, Sally Ann. 1998. “Women above the Glass Ceiling: Perceptions on Corporate Mobility and Strategies for Success.” Gender and Society,

12:339-355.

de Beauvoir, Simone. [1953] 1989. The Second Sex. Reprint, New York: Knopf

Friedan, Betty. 1963. “Problem That Has No Name.” Pp. 355-359 in Social Theory, Second Edition, edited by C. Lemert. Wesleyan University: Westview

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APPENDIX A: Interview Questions

1. What college/university did you attend?

2. Did you face any gender inequality at that institution?

3. Did you go to graduate school? What led you to choose graduate school?

4. Do you feel your experiences at your college/university prepared you for today’s business world? Why or why not?

5. What led you to this career path?

6. What have been some of the positions you have held in your career?

7. What were the key decision points in your career?

8. What would you do differently if you had the opportunity?

9. What advice do you have for other women who aspire to the executive ranks?

10. What is your current position? What is the nature of your work?

11. What has been your exposure to high-level executives? What did you learn from such exposure?

12. What do you see as critical turning points in your career?

13. What is the biggest challenge you have faced?

14. Do you think the road to the top is different for men and women?

15. What is your relationship with your male co-workers?

16. Have you faced gender inequality in your career? If so, please explain the situation.

17. Did you involve management or Human Resources? If so, what was their response?

18. If you did involve management or Human Resources, were you pleased with their response and the outcome of the situation?

19. How is promotion handled within your company?

20. How do you feel gender inequality has affected you? Your career?

21. What opportunities do you feel you missed out on due to gender inequality?

22. Is there anything further you would like to add regarding gender inequality?

23. Have you faced a “glass ceiling” at all in your career?

24. Do you perceive any constraints in your life success that are grounded in gender issues?

25. What kind of personal sacrifices have you had to make to get where you are today?

26. Do you have a family? If so, do you feel as though you have been discriminated at all, in the business world, due to your choice of having a family?

27. If you have children, what kind of child care did you use?

28. What is your spouse’s career and how did you work together around your careers to raise children?

29. Did you have any household help?

30. Are you responsible for caring of your aging parents or other family members?

31. I am interested in learning how your family, women friends, and coworkers provide you with support. In what kinds of situations do they support you? How do they communicate their support? What kinds of support do they provide?

32. What sort of public/community service (board of directors, volunteer work, “pro-bono” work, politics) do you participate in?

33. Can you speak about your personal/social life as far as friends, vacation, hobbies, and relaxation?

34. Do you have anything further to add regarding women in business?

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