Catalyst Blog

Our latest Census of women in leadership among top Canadian companies was released last week—and the media took note. Below is Deborah Gillis’s frank response to one topic that kept cropping up in interviews. See if you agree!

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Maybe it was the proximity to International Women’s Day. Or maybe it’s an issue whose time has come. But last week’s release of the 2010 Catalyst Census: Financial Post 500 Women Senior Officers and Top Earners has caused waves in the media across the country. In my five years with Catalyst, I don’t remember such strong media response to our work. The recognition of the quality and significance of Catalyst’s work is gratifying.

But neither do I recall being so frustrated by the level of understanding of the barriers that still block career advancement for many Canadian women. In almost every interview I did, I was asked questions like: “Are women not reaching the top because they ‘opt out’ to raise families?”

True, those questions aren’t answered by the Census, which is intended to be a snapshot and a check on the progress in Canada’s leading companies. Other research, such as Pipeline’s Broken Promise, provides some of the answers.

That study demonstrates that smart, educated women start their careers at lower levels and earn about $4,600 less than their male counterparts. And the gap never closes, even for women who remain single and childless. No opting out. No family before career. Just a glass ceiling and a sticky floor.

If anyone doubts that we have to keep gathering the statistics and telling the stories, a quick skim through the comments on any of the media coverage of the Census will quickly convince them. There you’ll find the folks who think that women have it made or that women gain at the expense of men. Some even declared victory, as Margaret Wente did in her Globe and Mail International Women’s Day column, where she stated “The war for women’s rights is over. And we won.”

Pointing to advances women have made is good—it’s the encouragement we all need to keep going. But we can’t ignore the lack of equity at the top. The confusion of the past week shows that we have to keep challenging pat assumptions that women have made it—or risk being lulled by complacency and a clever headline.

To mark the end of 2010—and my final Catalyzing post until January 2011—I asked my colleagues at Catalyst what they wish for in the days ahead for women and work. Here are Catalyst’s top ten wishes for 2011:

We wish for…

10. Inclusive, agile work cultures that reward results rather than face-time.

9. Companies around the world to “get it” that more women in senior positions can improve financial performance.

8. Men to champion and sponsor the many talented women they work alongside, question the tyranny of macho norms, take more responsibility for child-rearing and the division of labor at home, and  become truly equal partners to women.

7. An acknowledgment that women are the key to solving the world’s problems.

6. Managers to accept and celebrate the career commitment of mothers returning from maternity leave.

5. Headline writers to actually link headlines to story content—instead of writing unrelated, misleading, or “sexy” headlines that do not reflect the more thoughtful points in the article.

4. An end to the false notion that women don’t help each other advance in the workplace.

3. The realization that diversity is not a zero sum game—women, men, families, business, and the economy have a lot to gain from inclusive workplaces.

2. Equal pay for equivalent work—eliminate the gender pay gap once and for all! 

1. More optimism from both women and men who doubt that all this change is possible.

What do you want to see in 2011 for women and business? Let me know in the comments below!

Here we go again. Sometimes news—even good news—gets blown out of proportion. That’s what’s happening now with the gender wage gap.

Recent headlines like “What gender pay gap? Young single women making MORE money than their male peers in America’s cities,” and “Workplace Salaries: At Last, Women on Top,” imply the gender pay gap has closed for all women. But it hasn’t. The gap is alive and well.

These stories were pegged on recent market research that found that single, childless women aged 22 to 30 earn, on average, 8% more than their male counterparts in select U.S. cities. This important finding—largely reflective of increased rates of higher education among young childless women who work in cities with a knowledge-based economy—is good news. But the catchy headlines do not reflect the whole story.

The market study compared young women and men with different educational backgrounds. But what happens when you compare the salaries of women and men side-by-side with the same degree?

In Catalyst’s Pipeline’s Broken Promise, we found that women with M.B.A.s start behind, and stay behind, men with the same degree. In fact, women earn $4,600 less than equally skilled men in their first job out of business school—and this pay gap increases over time. And according to the latest U.S. Census figures, the median salary for women with Master’s degrees is actually lower than the median for men with only a Bachelor’s.

Does this seem fair to you?

I welcome research indicating that some young women in some cities are more than holding their own with wages. But for most women, it’s not yet time to break out the champagne.

Like the “mancession” stories that proclaimed new opportunities for women to advance in the absence of men, a lot of the recent pay gap coverage overstates the facts and does not take into account all the nuances of the data.

Context is king. Don’t lose sight of the larger picture and what still needs to be fixed.

In the early 1970s, I was among a handful of women in Harvard’s M.B.A. program. One day in class, we were assigned a case study on marketing floor wax. I’ll never forget it: all of my male classmates looked to me for advice!

The assumption was that because I was a woman, I would know something about waxing a floor. They were surprised when I said I didn’t. Was this a harmless case of stereotyping? Maybe. But I was offended.

More than 30 years later, I am still upset by blatant stereotyping—especially in the media. While men perform more housework today than ever before, some newspapers and magazines continue to portray women as mere risk-averse cleaner-uppers.

Last month, for instance, Jullia Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister, replacing Kevin Rudd as head of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Sexist headlines followed. “Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Messy ALP Clean Up,” charged the Daily Telegraph.  “Gillard Must Mop Up Swan’s Mess,” wrote the Business Spectator, referring to Treasurer Wayne Swan.

In 2008, Iceland’s appointment of two women to rebuild the country’s shattered banking system garnered similar headlines. “Iceland Appoints Women to Clean Up ‘Male Mess,’” said the Financial Times. The Guardian proffered: “Women Clean Up the Bankers’ Mess.”

American media also stereotype. In May, Time magazine featured on its cover three stern-faced women in business suits with the text: “The New Sheriffs of Wall Street: The women charged with cleaning up the mess.”  While the article is well-written, the cover seems to imply that FDIC chair Sheila Bair, SEC chair Mary Schapiro and TARP chair Elizabeth Warren are humorless cleaners. And last year ForbesWoman ran an article about financial oversight headlined, “Cleaning Crew: The Women Who are Fixing the Financial Mess.” It featured a picture of a woman in business attire and rubber gloves cleaning up a chalkboard with a watery sponge.

These images reminded me of sexist advertisements from the 1960s. But it’s 2010, people—let’s act like it!

It’s easy to fall back on old stereotypes, but if you take a minute to engage your brain, you’ll find that less offensive and more accurate terms for female leaders exist. To do otherwise is just plain sexist. Is “cleaning up” a leadership trait? I don’t think so.

“It is grievous to read the papers in most respects,” wrote Mary Ritter Beard, the renowned early 20^th century author and historian. “More and more I skim the headlines only, for one can be sure what is carried beneath them quite automatically, if one has long been a reader of the press journalism.”

While just skimming print headlines might have been fine in Beard’s day, you can’t always trust them today. I’ve seen bad headlines over the years. But this one from the Harvard Business Review made me gasp: “Adding Female Directors Hurts Norwegian Firms’ Value.”

In the age of Twitter and RSS feeds, headlines that misrepresent a story can inflict more damage than ever. In a matter of seconds, an inaccuracy can spread quickly across the globe. Along the way, it can reinforce negative stereotypes or lay foundations for doubt where none previously existed.

The Harvard Business Review headline above referred to a recent University of Michigan study into the short-term impact of a Norwegian law mandating that 40% of the seats on corporate boards be allotted to women. The headline was featured on HBR’s Daily Stat— a website, Twitter feed, and iPhone app dedicated to delivering “facts and figures to stimulate thought— and action.” Within hours, it was re-tweeted 34 times.

But the sensational headline didn’t tell the whole story.

In 2003, the Norwegian Parliament mandated the 40% quota. At the time, women held roughly 9% of board seats. After voluntary compliance failed, the quota became mandatory on January 1, 2006, and companies had two years to comply. Companies that failed to meet the quota would be forced to dissolve.

The Michigan report first looked at how the initial announcement of the law impacted stock price. Firms with fewer women on board suffered a greater shock. Why? Because they were required to rotate several board members in short order, thereby producing significant uncertainty. Three days after the announcement, the stock price for firms with no women on their boards dropped 5%, while those with women on board did not suffer a statistically significant loss.

The report also looked at market valuation during the first year after the law went into effect. The researchers found that companies with initially fewer women board members suffered more than those with a greater number. According to the researchers, companies were forced to bring on more new women board members very quickly, and in doing so, they selected women who had less management experience than the men they replaced.

The Michigan study focused on the short term, not long-term impact.  Catalyst research shows that over the long term, on average, companies with a higher percentage of women on their corporate board outperform those with fewer. Just as a successful product release can affect share price negatively for a brief moment (think Nintendo’s Wii), so, too, can a controversial new law shortly after its implementation.

But it’s the long-term effect that matters.

That’s why the Harvard Business Review headline was particularly regrettable. In today’s info-soaked society, many people just read a headline, absorb it, and move on. Had I done that, I would have gotten the impression that women make poor board members. Fortunately, I read beyond the headline.