Catalyst Blog

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!

I’m a mother, but being a mom doesn’t mean I have some magical skills non-mothers lack. Yet the “motherhood debate” rages on—especially during the election cycle.

“I think my experience is one of the things that sets me apart as a candidate for Governor. First of all, being a mother, having children, raising a family,” Mary Fallin said recently, who is running against Jari Askins for Oklahoma governor. Askins, who does not have children, responded: “You know, in Oklahoma, all of our governors have been men. So none of them have been mothers. I think most of them have done a pretty good job—so I don’t think that’s a criteria.”

Are male candidates discussing their fatherhood status? Nope. For men, it’s a non-issue. Yet women are held to a different standard in both politics and business. As this cartoon illustrates, we just can’t win.

Our research shows that when women act in ways that are consistent with gender stereotypes, they are viewed as less competent leaders. And when women act in ways that are inconsistent with such stereotypes, they are considered unfeminine. I call this the Goldilocks syndrome: “Too tough, too soft, but never just right.”

The reality is, no one experience or characteristic defines us or gives us the edge. And no gender has a corner on anything. Women aspire to success just as much as men do, and define it similarly.

Following a report on the so-called “motherhood debate” in Oklahoma, Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts asked viewers: “Where do you stand on this debate—should it even be a debate?”

It shouldn’t. Don’t fall into the motherhood debate trap.

Read the research—the numbers tell the whole story.

A lot of ink has been spilled over a recent New York Times article which argued that childless women had careers that tracked men’s. “Women do almost as well as men today, as long as they don’t have children,” a Columbia University professor told the Times.

The article hinged on a recent study of M.B.A. grads from the University of Chicago that probed “women’s underperformance in the corporate and financial sectors.” But what did this report really show?

The authors found a vast wage gap exists between women and men. According to the report, women earn $115,000 on average at graduation and $250,000 nine years out, while men earn $130,000 and $400,000, respectively. “Mean earnings by sex are comparable directly following M.B.A. receipt,” they wrote, “but they soon diverge.”

How’s that for an understatement? Their “comparable” earnings are a $15,000 difference. I’m not sure about you, but I’d be pretty ticked at making $15k less just because I’m a woman.

Was this dramatic finding headline news? Nope.

Instead, media coverage fixated on a detail buried deep into the report. On page 243, the authors’ state:

“Limiting the sample further to women without children, and with no career interruptions by 10 years out, makes the career paths of the women in the sample similar to those of men. For that comparison, the gender earning gap starts out slightly larger than for all women, but grows less rapidly.”

This suggests that for women without children, there’s still a gap at the start of their career after business school, and the gap still grows over time—albeit less quickly than it does for women with kids or who have taken time off.

Not really breaking news, is it? Catalyst actually reached a similar conclusion in Pipeline’s Broken Promise, which found that even among women and men without children, women still started behind men and the gap still grew over time.

The original New York Times article is accurate in saying there’s a bigger penalty for women who have kids and/or take time off (which isn’t surprising), but was misleading in suggesting to the reader that women without kids will face a level playing field with equal pay. The numbers are clear: Women are paid less than their male colleagues. They don’t call it a gender wage gap for nothing.

Gender is at the core of workplace inequity.

But you wouldn’t know this from reading The New York Times.

Citing a University of Chicago study, the Times reported this week that women who had no children and never took time off had careers that “resembled those of men.” This is misleading—here’s why.

The Chicago study found that men earn roughly $15,000 more than women upon receipt of an M.B.A. Nine years later, men earn about $150,000 more. Women who had children or took time off suffered a greater penalty over time than women without children. This is not surprising—workplaces still penalize women for dialing down or temporarily leaving a traditional career track. But, remaining childless does not level the playing field for women.

Our report, Pipeline’s Broken Promise, found that men who left a corporate job for a nontraditional assignment and then returned experienced no penalty in either position or compensation, but women did. The report also found that post-M.B.A. women start behind men in job level and salary—and they never catch up. These findings hold true regardless of previous work experience, industry, geography, aspirations and parenthood status.

What to make of the fact that the last three women nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court were unmarried and had no children? The Times article implies that not having children allowed these women to focus on their careers. But what of the many female leaders who have children?

In Women and Men in U.S. Corporate Leadership, Catalyst surveyed nearly 1,000 senior-level women and men, most within two levels of the CEO. We found that 81% of the women were married or living with a partner, compared with 97% of the men. And there was less discrepancy around whether they had children living with them:  51% of the women did, compared with 57% of the men.

The most powerful businesswomen in America are mothers, too. There are currently 14 female Fortune 500 CEOs. At least 12 of them have kids.

Blaming inequity on factors like motherhood obscures a simple truth: entrenched biases and sexist stereotypes impact all women. Misrepresenting this reality doesn’t solve the problem. It distracts all of us—including employers who lose out on great talent—from addressing core inequity.