Diversity: Becoming a Powerful
Champion for Other Women
Robin J. Ely
Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration
Senior Associate Dean for Culture and Community
Harvard Business School
Agenda
•
•
•
•
The Research
Panel
Q&A
Personal Action and Planning
How I came to this topic
• I am a feminist.
• My first real job: worst experiences with only
other professional woman.
• But: relationships with my women friends my
saving grace!
• What gives???
• My dissertation topic.
Questions we will consider today:
• Why are workplace relationships among women
so fraught with conflict when, for so many of us,
women are our greatest sources of support?
• How do our racial, ethnic, and generational
differences create division and disconnection?
• What can we do to better support our own and
other women’s ambitions?
And an invitation . . .
Media Depictions: Women’s Workplace Relationships
Media Depictions: Men’s Workplace Relationships
Belief 1: Women just are pettier than men.
• A divisive belief. Reframe:
• People compete in the realms to which they have access:
• Men: damage other men’s standing in the status/power hierarchy—
challenge, exclude from power
• Women: damage other women’s standing in the social network—
gossip, exclude from . . . relationships
• Both are aggressive behaviors, negative, and defensive.
• Women’s “petty” behavior captures more attention and
engenders more criticism.
• Women are supposed to be NICE . Not supposed to want to win.
• Men’s pettiness assumed to stem from rational and legitimate desire
for greater status and wealth.
 Gender inequality and gender stereotypes create “mean
girl” image of women who compete/want to win.
The question is: What do we want to win?
• Not in the ‘’zero sum” game of “I win, you lose.”
• But in the realm of what kind of world do we want to
create?
• We need to recognize that, as women, we have a collective
agenda.
• “I think women need to come together and challenge
ourselves to find our Susan B. Anthony voice. We haven’t
found our collective voice.”
--Trudy Bourgeois
The Center for Workforce Excellence
 Let’s start building that agenda!
Belief 2: Women in positions of power are
Queen Bees.
• They disassociate from and impede the progress
of other women.
• They want to be special.
• They want to be the only one.
A Contradiction for Women in
Positions of Power: The “Double Bind”
A Contradiction for Women in
Positions of Power: The “Double Bind”
Woman
Leader
Warm
Nurturing
Communal
Decisive
Dominant
Agentic
Woman = Leader
Typical Research Findings
Experiment:
• MBA students evaluate two different versions of case of a
successful woman entrepreneur (Heidi and Howard).
• Asked to evaluate style, competence, likeability, whether
to hire.
Outcomes:
• Equally competent and effective.
• He’s more genuine and kind; she’s more self-promoting
and power hungry.
• He’s more likeable and more likely to be hired.
• The more aggressive they perceived her; the more they
disliked her
• No effect for him.
Frank Flynn and Cameron Mitchell, MBA Class experiment, Columbia Business School
“Damned if we do, doomed if we don’t”
• If women emulate a masculine style, people will
dislike them.
• If they adopt a stereotypically feminine style—
warm, caring—they will be liked but not
respected.
Conclusion: Women trade competence for
likeability.
15
Media Illustrations of the Double Bind
“blunt, testy . . . sharp-tongued,
and occasionally combative”
- NYT
The Double Bind as Distraction
• Women are not more “warm, nurturing, and
communal” than men.
• Effective leadership is not about demonstrating
“decisiveness, dominance, agency.”
• To get caught up in the double bind is a distraction
from leadership; it is merely useful information.
Leadership is about enabling other people to bring
their best selves to bear on a meaningful goal.
 What is your leadership about? What is your purpose?
 How can you enable women to join you in those goals?
Women in Positions of Power:
We need more of them!
Low
Being female
is a liability:
Double-binds
Proportional
Representation
of
Senior Women
High
Being female
is indifferent/
a good thing
Perceptions of senior
women:
• Poor role models
• Act too much like
men
• Too sexual
• Gender no basis for
identification
Relationships
with women peers:
• Not supportive
• Dysfunctionally
competitive
Perceptions of senior
women:
• Great role modes
• Supportive
• Gender a positive
basis for
identification
Relationships
with women peers:
• Supportive
• Competitive, but
able to stay in a
relationship
Belief 3: You can’t “have it all.”
• The “ideal worker” – a committed professional who
dedicates 24/7 to the job (really ideal?).
• Millennials – ambitious, but place higher value on living
personal and family values.
• Successful women have paid a price for their success, are
dismissive of women who choose a different path:
• “I gave up so much, why should she have it all?”
• “To change the rules by asking for special treatment (e.g., part-time
work) reinforces gender stereotypes.”
• “They just don’t understand what it takes to be a high-powered,
committed professional.”
Successful women don’t question the norms; younger
women feel betrayed.
And on the flip side . . .
“When I look at [female partner], I think, ‘What kind of mother is
she,’ in addition to how do I think she is as a partner. And the
reason that that comes into play is that I assume she is going to
apply the same standards to me as she does to herself. So if she
doesn’t mind being away from her kids three or four nights a
week, I’m going to assume she is going to expect that from
me. And when I look at men I don’t actually think about what
kind of father they are. I just think about what kind of male
partners they are.”
-
Woman associate in a consulting firm
 Each group feels judged and criticized by the other.
 We need collectively to change the nature of work!
Conclusion #1
• We cannot understand women’s workplace
relationships without understanding how . . .
•
•
•
•
•
Gender bias
Gender stereotypes
Traditional work norms
Cultural beliefs about “good” mothering
Men’s disproportionate power
. . . create divisions and disconnections among us.
 We need to join together and resist!
Belief 4: Women face similar obstacles/opportunities on their journeys up the corporate ladder.
National Survey (N=825)
In-depth Interviews (N=120)
White
Black
• I must perform better than men
to be seen as competent.
.15
.41
• I have women role models of my race.
.40
. 17
• I feel accepted and a member of my
company’s team.
.81
.51
• White women more likely to believe the workplace is a meritocracy;
black women more likely to see systemic obstacles in the
organizational structure and culture.
• White women perceive the relationship between white and black
women to be better than black women perceive it to be.
Differential Rates of Access to Managerial
Positions
Differential Impact of Affirmative Action and
Diversity Practices
Estimated Average Differences in Managerial Composition Due to Adoption of Affirmative Action & Diversity Practices 1971-2002
White Men White Women Black Women
Black Men
Proportion of Organizations
2002
1971-2002
Affirmative Action Plan
Proportion in year of adoption
Percent Difference due to adoption
.783
-1.8%**
.132
7.6%**
.017
.0%
.024
4.2%**
.42
.63
Diversity Committee
Proportion in year of adoption
Percent Difference due to adoption
.630
-3.0%**
.230
13.9%**
.014
29.8%**
.020
10.0%**
.05
.19
.702
-2.6%**
.193
6.7%**
.014
.0%
.020
-10.0%**
.06
.19
.690
-.3%
.216
.0%
.017
23.5%**
.021
4.8%**
.03
.11
Networking Programs
Proportion in year of adoption
Percent Difference due to adoption
Mentoring Programs
Proportion in year of adoption
Percent Difference due to adoption
Note: N(organizations) = 708 *p<.05;**p<.01 (two tailed test).
Similarities between White and Black Women
• Both groups reported a tendency to stay away from each
other in social interactions.
• Neither group reported a willingness to discuss their
cultural differences with the other.
• Both groups’ depictions of each other grounded in
stereotypes that reinforce the image of women as
nurturers, compromisers, and sexual manipulators.
• Other groups of women of color (Dragon Lady, Geisha/China
Doll, Jezebel, Sexual Firebrand)
• By definition, stereotyped images erase complexity,
multiplicity, and contradiction—they are not who we are.
 Women do not “see” each other across racial lines.
Conclusion #2
• Racial/gender stereotypes and systems of
gender/race inequality promote disconnection and
dis-identification among women:
• “Privilege” white women over women of color
• Raise the specter of sexual competition for men
• Reinforce contempt for/fear of women’s power
 HAVE WE HAD ENOUGH??!!
Belief 5: To focus on our differences is divisive.
• Grounded in a value on “colorblindness”
• Belief that racial group membership should not be
noticed or acknowledged and that race should not be
discussed.
• Strategy to minimize appearance of prejudice during a
cross-race social interaction.
• Empirically shown to be improbable.
• Has become a leading institutional strategy for
promoting racial equality.
Consequences of Colorblind Strategy
• Adopting colorblind (vs. value diversity) mindset :
• Inhibits whites from reporting of overt racial injustice.
• When whites avoid race during interracial interactions:
• Blacks are more likely to view them as prejudiced.
• They engage in less eye contact and appear less friendly.
• They communicate and perform less effectively.
• Strategies for dealing with race in cross-race mentoring
relationships:
• Direct engagement
• Denial and suppression
 Develop shared perspectives on how to understand
and address difference.
Conclusion #3
• Open dialogue about how race influences
women’s workplace experiences can be a path to
connection.
How to Become a Powerful Champion
for Other Women (and to be powerfully championed)
• Stop colluding! When tensions arise, see the larger picture.
• Invest in developing someone different from you:
• Mentors: educate yourself; develop your mentees.
• Mentees: educate and develop your mentors.
• Get on the same page regarding the role this difference
makes to the career experiences of the mentee.
• Develop a learning partner with whom to experiment having
conversations across lines of difference about those
differences.
• Make it personal.
Today’s Panel
• Jenna Dudevois, Director Marketing, Kalypso
• Lisbeth McNabb, CEO and Founder, w2wlink
• Sandra Finley, President, League of Black Women
• What can you tell us, based on your experience, about the
path forward to women becoming powerful champions and
supporters of other women?