COLUMN: why the women's issue persists
Copyright Miami Herald & Rosabeth Moss Kanter
MIAMI HERALD & NATIONAL NEWSPAPERS, OCTOBER 20, 2005
THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA
Why the women's issue persists
BY ROSABETH MOSS KANTER
rkanter@hbs.edu
You go, girl! Germany has a new female head of state. Geena Davis'
compelling performance in Commander in Chief helps us imagine that
America could, too. The presidents of prestigious Princeton, MIT and
Brown are women. Miami-Dade has a veritable dynasty of effective female
state's attorneys. In Boston, the sheriff and police commissioner are
women.
The face of leadership is increasingly female -- far from enough, but
getting there. Laura Bush agreed too readily that reactions to Harriet
Miers' Supreme Court nomination could reflect sexism. At Miers' level,
women are succeeding or stumbling on their merits. So why, girlfriends
and boyfriends, is there still a women's issue in America?
The World Economic Forum recently released its first-ever report on the
gender-gap, ranking 58 nations on five indicators of success in closing
the gap. I was invited to present the U.S. perspective at a briefing at
the New York Stock Exchange. That assignment was tough, because the
United States (long accustomed to lead the world) ranked a dismal
No.17. We lagged behind Scandinavian nations; Anglo-Saxon counterparts
New Zealand, Canada, Britain and Australia; and much-maligned France.
We landed barely ahead of Costa Rica.
Some reasons a ''woman problem'' persists: Wage discrimination. As
economist Evelyn Murphy points out in her new book, Getting Even,
''Women working full time -- not part-time, not on maternity leave, not
consultants -- still earn only 77 cents to a full-time working man's
dollar.'' Yet U.S. employers pay millions of dollars annually to settle
sex-discrimination claims -- Murphy says $263 million in 2002 alone.
Educated professional women opting out.
Accurate data are scarce, but anecdotes are oft-repeated. A typical
national headline: Many women at elite colleges set career path to
motherhood. Affluent suburbs teem with 30-something mothers with MBAs,
JDs, MDs and PhDs who left partner tracks at investment banks or law
firms to focus on their children. Harvard Business School sees the need
to help alumnae reenter the work force. Struggling single mothers.
According to last week's Census Bureau report, 29 percent of all new
mothers are unmarried, and about half of unmarried mothers are poor.
Washington, D.C., where national policy is set, has the highest rates
of single motherhood nationwide, and 36.3 percent of all new D.C.
mothers live in poverty. (Hello, Washington pols, are you listening?)
Some analysts say that women don't stand up for themselves, arguing
that the wage gap could be closed if women demanded higher pay. (I'm
doubtful.) Others argue that the child-bearing years handicap and
sidetrack women. David D'Alessandro, former CEO of insurance giant John
Hancock, invokes the 80/20 rule. He says that women have come 80
percent of the way toward equal pay and leadership, because of
opportunity-enhancing programs and their own hard work. He argues that
the remaining 20 percent is plagued by subtle discrimination, as male
decisionmakers assume that their best women will reduce their
commitment because of family responsibilities.
`Family values'
Deloitte & Touche, an accounting and consulting firm depending heavily
on female talent, started a pioneering Women's Initiative in 1993 to
make it easier to balance work and family, with stellar results. But
family is still a women's issue; few men use Deloitte's leaves or
flexible work.
In the WEF rankings, the U.S. shines in women's educational attainment
and has good scores for economic participation and political
empowerment. However, the U.S. ranks poorly on both economic
opportunity and health and well-being, dragged down by meager maternity
leave and limited government-supported child-care. And compared with
other developed nations, America has high rates of teenage pregnancies
and maternal mortality -- shocking given a relatively large number of
physicians.
If America really lived up to the ''family values'' claim of the party
in power, we would help our poorest women and not let our brightest
women flounder on their own. This is the American paradox. We applaud
individual achievement against all odds but fail to put in place the
social and community supports that could shift the odds. You go, girl!
-- straight to your nearest elected officials to demand change. If not
for yourself, then for your sisters and daughters.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a Harvard Business School professor and
author of Confidence. Her column appears biweekly.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field Road Boston MA 02163
1 617 495 6053 (phone)
1 617 496 7167 (fax)
rkanter@hbs.edu