Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 10:45:23 -0500 (EST)
Subject: CSWA Newsletter of 3/10/99
To: AASMAIL:;;wellesley.edu

            AAS Committee on the Status of Women
     weekly issues of  3/10/99, ed. by Priscilla Benson
***  send email and addresses to aaswomenwellesley.edu  ***

This week's issues:
1.  The Glass Ceiling
2.  Women in Technology Forum (Career Opportunities)

Note from the editor:  There will be no newsletter the weeks 
of March 24 and March 31.  Your editor will be out of email 
contact.
-------------------------------------------
1.  The Glass Ceiling
From: Cynthia Cheung ccheungpop600.gsfc.nasa.gov

We present below notes from a seminar presented at George 
Washington's Virginia Campus back in December.  The program 
was cosponsored by Women in Technology, PBS and The Business 
Channel.  These notes may be relevant to the question of why 
are there few Women Applicants.

"Risk, Rescue and Righteousness: How Women Prevent 
Themselves from Breaking through the Glass Ceiling"
Thursday, December 10, 1998

The program coordinator was:  Janet Wenzel
Corporate Liaison                                                                 
(703) 729-8302
jwenzelgwu.edu

Information may also be available from Women in Technology:

703-818-3799
infowomenintechnology.com

Notes were taken by Ida Hakkarinen and Daria Webb from the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration at the 
presentation, which was a PBS videotape followed by 
discussion. 

Some additional information may be found at:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/women_workplace_4-24.html

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/background/jan-
june96/catalyst.html

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/background/jan-
june96/townsend.html
 
Glass Ceiling Seminar sponsored by Women In Technology (WIT)

Notes from PBS video presentation by Helen Peters: "Risk, 
Rescue and Righteousness: How Women Prevent Themselves from 
Breaking through the Glass Ceiling."  Ms. Peters is Director 
of Planning at National Semiconductor.

Ms. Peters served on a Task Force about the Glass Ceiling 
while at a Fortune 500 company.  The top 35 women managers 
were put on the TF.  The outcome of the report by the TF 
was: 1) CEO asked the women to explain why they weren't 
being promoted; 2) 50% of the available talent for the
TF was marginalized based on gender (because no men were on 
it); 3) people were angry with the TF because it asked men 
to change and portrayed women as victims, rather than 
identifying ways that women could "seize" power for 
themselves.

Statistic from the TF Survey
- Women make up
50% of workforce
13% of management
 7% of executives (almost all senior women are in staff 
positions rather
than line jobs)

- 51% of men and 81% of women believe that women do not have 
the same opportunities as men

- 71% of the women believe there is a glass ceiling
- 73% of the men believe there is not a glass ceiling

- Male managers that are responsible for hiring still 
exhibit the same attitudes as 20 years ago
 - women are less committed because of families
 - women do not have the "right stuff"
 - women will "catch up" without any help from men

Bank of Montreal Study
- 75% of workforce were women
- 6% of women were executives
- women had longer service records than men
- women's performance reviews were higher
- based on data, it was estimated that it would take women 
well beyond the year 2000 before they would make up 20% of 
the executives

Glass Ceiling Book (1989, updated 1992) - based on data from 
1989-1992,the book estimated that it would take another 475 
years before women reached parity with men.

Corporate Trends
- 50% of all new businesses are started by women
- 75% of those succeed
- women want flexibility in lifestyle rather than money
- women who leave corporations have higher education than 
those that stay
- data shows that best talent is leaving at a fairly high 
rate since women do not see opportunities for themselves

Leadership Study
- 47 different leadership skills/traits were examined
- women and men differed statistically on 22 of the 47 
leadership attributes (these were behaviorally observed 
differences)
- Commonalties between successful men and women managers:
 1. Self-disciplined
 2. Ambitious
 3. Know their stuff/business
 4. Embrace a visible, take charge, influential approach - 
action oriented
 5. Trust/personal integrity forms basis of leadership
- Differences between men and women managers:
 - Women rated better in Basic Skills (hiring, firing, 
organizational, etc) and in Higher Level Skills (leadership, 
setting direction, etc)
 - Men rated better in only one area - Technical Skills

Women's Survey - survey conducted of women in their 40s 
asked why they believed they were not being promoted:
- Social patterns - old boy network
- Unwillingness of male managers to take risk of promoting 
female candidates
- Excessive performance scrutiny
- Discomfort of men working with women
- Lack of focused career path
- Women who fail are very visible and may hurt chances of 
other women
- Late awareness of the "rules of the game"
- Unwilling to take risks or move out of "comfort zone"

Women who had high visibility in an organization were 
concerned about the impact of their failures on the younger 
women coming up in the organization.

Men's Survey - survey of men asked same question (why women 
were not being promoted)
- Women are not adept at competing
- Not part of old boy network
- Not willing to put career first
- Limited cross-functional experience
- Promoting women is "high risk"
- Few role models available for women
- Women must be "intellectually" aggressive without being 
"personally" aggressive
- Aren't "customer oriented" outside of the formal reporting
relationship
- Must stop being "in control"

Observation:  The "bandwidth" of style tolerance for women 
is very low.

Staff versus Line Positions - road to CEO level is taken 
from line positions not staff positions

Line Position - traits of job
- Fast-paced
- Fast track
- Educational background is important
- Directly affects business - profit oriented
- Communication skills important
- Knowledge/experience
- Interpersonal skills
- Leadership
- Decisive - action oriented

Reasons why a person would choose a staff position vs. line
- intellectual stimulation
- job opportunity
- personal preference
- global view, broader experience
- intellectual approach vs. action approach

Staff Position - traits of job
- Service-oriented
- Require communications skills
- Apply Knowledge/Experience
- Interpersonal skills
- Team player
- Analytical skills

Observation: Men are very reluctant to promote women for 
high-stress, high-risk positions where it may be very tense 
because they want to shield women from defeat.

What do Women Need to Do to Change - RISK
- Women are so worried about "striking out" that often, they 
don't try to "hit home runs"
- Oriented to thoughtful, detailed approach to problem 
solving, very cautious
- Tend not to make decisions until everyone has been 
consulted and all info has been collected
- Have higher need for approval and support

Observation: There is a myth in business that women aren't 
"team players."  Women are very good team players.  We are 
always surveying the environment with the quality of 
decisions that we make.

This means that women tend to be less action-oriented and 
are far-more more risk adverse than men.  Women need to 
trust their intuition more.

What do Women Need to Do to Change - RESCUE
- Women are more disciplined, responsible and task-focused
- Women express appreciation for the group/team's efforts
But:
- Women don't show the same attention to their own careers 
as to others
- Women take on too much responsibility (rescuing and 
mothering syndrome)
- Women need to promote themselves more

- Several studies have shown that men have significantly 
more "energy" at work than women do.  (This is probably 
because women have the responsibility to get other human 
beings up and out of the house before
going to work.)

Observation:  A woman will skip a business lunch to "get the 
job done," but a guy won't.  He'll go to the lunch with his 
boss/client and then figure out how to get the job done 
later.

What do Women Need to Do to Change - RIGHTEOUSNESS
- Communications style is more forthright, direct, 
transparent, which is much appreciated by subordinates
- Women believe that work is "real life" and not a game

Women's style is perceived as less objective, less flexible 
and more emotional.
- Viewed as less polished and diplomatic - no game face
- Women may dig in their heels when challenged by less-
informed colleagues, personalizing the issue and making it 
right or wrong.
- Women make it right or wrong - so if they are right, then 
the other person has to be wrong - leads to LOSE/LOSE 
situations
- Women need to change the approach as to how they present 
cases, they can't be private causes.

BOTTOM LINE
* Women have good basic management skills and a style suited 
to the 90's leadership approach
* To break the glass ceiling, women need to transition to 
line positions

* Women need to stop getting mired in details
* Women need to stop rescuing and mothering
* Women need to stop making cases/issues right or wrong
* Women need to start focusing energy on career and goals
* Women need to start taking risks
* Companies need to understand that they will lose their 
best and brightest unless they can demonstrate opportunities 
for women at the top

Book Recommendation for building an "action plan" for your 
career Through the Brick Wall : How to Job Hunt in a Tight 
Market by Kate Wendleton
Paperback - 303 pages (January 1993)
Random House (Paper); ISBN: 0679744983

Panel Discussion after the Video

Judi Campbell (moderator, member of WIT), Mary Dale (UNISYS 
Account Exec), Michael Stolarik (VP for Business Planning, 
some local company), Sharon Confessore (GW professor)

Comments and observations by panelists:

A woman manager tends to be very protective of her people; 
will look "downward" in the organization.  Senior people 
place far more emphasis on loyalty (are you more loyal to 
the people below you than above you?).

Women tend to make career decisions based upon a dual 
perspective - family/home and career.  The ground is always 
shifting underneath, but there are regular points in one's 
life where decisions about "balance" are made.  Work and 
home/family roles are not always well integrated.

Advice for career advancement: Valuable to pick your (next) 
boss correctly.

Looking ahead for career goals:
What am I going to do?
How do I better understand what's going on around me?
How do I achieve my goals?

Women leaders learn by:
formal coursework
informal mentoring
self-learning
reflective practice

Paradigm - how you view the world, beliefs about the way the
organization works.  What am I seeing?  What am I not 
seeing?

Sometimes, you can have a "perspective transformation" (Jack 
Mezirow, Transformational Dimensions of Adult Learning) and 
something happens that means you never see the world in the 
same way again.

(resource retrievals from amazon.com)

Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning (The Jossey-Bass 
Higher and Adult Education Series) ~ Usually ships in 24 
hours Jack Mezirow / Hardcover / Published 1991                      
Our Price: $34.45

Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood : A Guide to 
Transformative and Emancipatory Learning (Jossey-Bass Higher 
Education Series) Jack Mezirow / Hardcover / Published 1990                       
Our Price: $38.95 (Back Ordered)

Developing Critical Thinkers : Challenging Adults to Explore 
Alternative Ways of Thinking and Acting (Jossey-Bass Higher 
Education Series and the Jos) ~ Usually ships in 2-3 days
Stephen D. Brookfield / Paperback / Published 1991
Our Price: $27.95

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2.  Women in Technology Forum
Return-path: jwrightnsf.gov

Dear Sir or Madam:
  
I would like to post an announcement of an upcoming event 
...
  
 Sincerely,
 George Smith
 Media Relations
 Polytechnic University
 Tel. 718-260-3792
  
  
 Women in Technology Forum
 
 NASA Astrophysicist Carol Jo Crannell to Speak
 
 TV Newscaster Carol Jenkins to Moderate Panel Discussion
 
Dr. Carol Jo Crannell, an astrophysicist with NASA's Goddard 
Space Flight Center will join a panel of other science and 
technology pacesetters at Polytechnic University's Women in 
Technology Forum on Thursday, April 22. Crannell, a 
specialist in solar physics whose accomplishments span three 
decades, will discuss career opportunities for women in 
science and technology. 
 
 Sponsored by the Polytechnic Chapter of the Society of 
Women Engineers, the event will coincide with the Ms. 
Foundation's 7th annual Take Our Daughters to Work(R) day. 
Other panelists include Stephanie Lawson-Muhammad, a systems 
engineer at Lucent Technologies, Inc.; Aliza Sherman, 
president, Cybergrrl, Inc. and founder, WebGrrls 
International; and Tony Torres, vice president for academic 
affairs, National Action Committee for Minorities in 
Engineering. 
 
 The panel will be moderated by Carol Jenkins, well-known TV 
newscaster. 
 
 The Women and Technology Forum will take place on Thursday, 
April 22 from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. in the Dibner Building on 
Polytechnic University's Brooklyn campus at 5 MetroTech 
Center. 
 
 Admission is free. In lieu of a registration fee, attendees 
are invited to make a tax-deductible contribution to further 
the programs sponsored by the Polytechnic University Chapter 
of the Society of Women engineers.  Suggested contribution: 
$20.
 
 For more information and reservations, please contact 
Jeanne Swanson at 718-260-3137. E-mail 
jswansonduke.poly.edu
Fax 718-260-3197. Or see the Polytechnic University website: 
http://www.poly.edu

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End of CSWA Newsletter for 3/10/99