Books | FemaleBreadWinners

How Organisational Culture Keeps Professional Women From Achieving

I recently reviewed Women’s Work, Men’s Cultures by Sarah Ruterford for People Management . It’s an insightful book that gets under the skin of how organisational culture is at the root of women’s lack of progress in the workplace. It asks the uncomfortable questions about what it will take to change organisational fabric to harness the potential of a truly diverse workforce.

Uniquely for books on women in the workplace, she sets the scene by detailing societies devaluation of women – through domestic violence, hyper-sexualisation and a lack of global economic equality with men. She posits: “If women are not valued and respected in wider society, organisations have a steep hill to climb if they are to insist on value, respect and fairness within their own workplaces.”

Rutherford poses insightful questions about how organisations should recognise most women have responsibilities outside of the home that far exceed their male colleagues. For example some larger employers have facilities such as dry cleaners, a gym, or an onsite convenience stor to ease domestic responsibilities largely borne by women. Do employees in Diversity have a seat at ‘the top’ or are they shouldered with ‘transforming corporate culture’ while having little real influence? Indeed, does an employer make efforts to encourage flexible working for all or is the emphasis on a long-hours culture, attractive executive assistants and sports-heavy corporate entertaining? As Rutherford points out, a corporate website can feature happy faces of racially diverse men and women, but if the drop down list of senior employees and board members are primarily white men – it belies the image they would like to portray.

Rutherford explains that while blaming a hostile organisational culture has become acceptable, talking about men’s resistance to equality is far less popular. She cites Catalyst research which showed 74% of male interviewees identified ‘fear’ as a barrier to men’s support of gender equality. On a theoretical level, men may recognise having women at the table may improve performance, but on a deeper level they might also fear the change in their clubby atmosphere, having any incompetence exposed or indeed their own seat at the table questioned.

I respect her argument that without culture change, there will be no real shifts on gender diversity in the workplace. Indeed, biological differences are very popular to blame but actually account for much less difference than we would like to conveniently think. However, biological differences justify to naysayers there is no way to solve workplace inequalities, since ‘it’s all genetic’ which hinders change in the way organisations treat their female employees.

Rutherford explains that frequently-cited stereotypes about ‘women’s style’ don’t address from where habits originate. For example, women’s use of apologies when speaking, hesitant speech, allowing themselves to be interrupted, working harder and not drawing attention to themselves are currently viewed as innately ‘a feminine preference’ rather than developing out of a structural positions of inferiority and superiority. Overall, this is an excellent read for anyone ready to ask the ‘tough questions’ about inequality in the workplace. For more on the future of women in the workplace read Female Breadwinners or see other articles on women in business.

What Obstacles Face Professional Women in Emerging Markets?

I recently read “Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets: Why Women are the Solution” which looked at professional women in a global context. Authors Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Ripa Rashid point out that businesswomen face steep obstacles in emerging markets. How can they stay on the fast track if, as in the UAE, they cannot travel without a male chaperone? And how can they be taken seriously if, as in Russia, the term “businesswoman” is synonymous with “prostitute”? However, there were notable but discouraging similarities. For example in many countries deals are routinely sealed with booze and late night male bonding, which adds to the macho culture. Additionally in every emerging market women bear the lioness’s share of family responsibilities.

No doubt, the workload for tiger businesswomen can be crushing. Rapid growth means exhausting change – the optimism and responsibility that brings. However, having customers in different time zones, as global Asian firms often do, makes it worse. More than a quarter of the female high-fliers surveyed by Ms Hewlett and Ms Rashid report working between eight and 18 hours more each week than they did three years ago. And horrible commutes are common. In IBM’s ranking of the world’s worst commutes, Beijing and Mexico City each scored 99 out of a possible 100 pain points. New Delhi, Moscow and São Paulo also did appallingly. Female commuters often have to put up with leering, groping men, particularly if they work late: 62% of Brazilian women say that they feel unsafe travelling to work.

Wise firms focus on the two biggest problems for working women in emerging markets: looking after their ageing parents, which is typically more of a problem than child care, and commuting. A growing number of companies provide flexible working so that women can work from home. As detailed in the book: “Ernst & Young holds family days to show parents what their daughters have achieved. It also offers medical cover for parents. Many companies provide their female staff with late-night shuttle buses—and female-only taxi companies are springing up in India, the UAE and Brazil.” A good read for those interested in the future of working women and female breadwinners globally.

For more information and practical advice take a look at our tools for Female Breadwinners.

Women Breadwinners are Tomorrow’s Leaders

It is vital to investigate this shift because the future of the workforce of tomorrow is increasingly female. Female breadwinners, though largely invisible, are more common than people anticipate and on the rise. Watch the short video clip below to see proof of this. Only two of the twelve job titles expected to grow between 2008 and 2018 are dominated by men: accountant and construction worker.

In fact, the vast majority of job growth is in fields currently favoured by women, such as teaching, nursing, home health support and customer service. These fields are not as well paid as those previously dominated by men. However, it does indicate that the number of households with a female breadwinner will inevitably increase.

Indeed, the number of women already in this category is a large minority. According to 2010 research from the Pew Centre, 22 per cent of American women are now earning more than their husbands. This is a more than fivefold increase from 1970 when it was just four per cent.

Similarly, out of all the cohabiting heterosexual couples in Britain where one partner earns more than the other, it was the woman who was the main breadwinner in 25 per cent of the cases by 2007. This is a substantial increase on the five per cent recorded in 1969. Indeed, Grazia’s Women and Work survey of professional women in 2010 suggest the number is closer to 30 per cent.

We can tell a lot about a couple by the way they interact and how they talk about each other. However, one thing most outsiders can’t discern, if both partners work, is which person earns more. Nor might it seem relevant.

Yet earnings can underpin how a couple negotiate, how they communicate, their career aspirations, and how they manage family life. The unchallenged assumption, both in the workplace and in social settings, tends to be that men are the main breadwinners – an assumption that is fast becoming outmoded.

The video below is from a recent event to launch my book “Female Breadwinners: How they Make Relationships Work and Why they are the Future of the Modern Workforce” which I wrote to get under the skin of what goes on for this growing group of women. To buy your signed copy, click here.

Summer Reading for your Career – Book Reviews

Fatherhood Reclaimed: The Making of the Modern Father , was recommended to me from a man speaking on the importance of the changing workplace to adapt to the needs of parents, at the platform at a European Professional Women’s Network event. His point, one I could not agree with more, was that too often “flexible working” and “work/life balance” is viewed as a woman’s issue – which can unfortunately undermine its value to society as a whole. This book by Adrienne Burgess, starts by addressing the way modern men have been categorised into one of two roles – as the feckless helpmate, who has good intentions but is useless at childrearing or the abusive and/or absent father. Unravelling the history behind fatherhood as well as the way society treats fathers has been invaluable to me – as an author and coach who specialises in working with professional women. It highlights the fact that the way we treat men today is an artificial construct that can be as limiting as earlier constructs for women as “happy home-maker” or “career bitch” – this books goes a long way to illustrating that we need to come up with more nuanced ways of thinking of working fathers – much as we are doing for working mothers. Standing at the Crossroads: Next Steps for High Achieving Women is a not so recent read but one of my bibles when I was doing my PhD on successful women in male dominated fields – but don’t let that put you off. While it is written with the credibility of academics – it is a very approachable read that addresses the wide range of issues faced by high-performing women including the need to act authentically, make connections, control one’s destiny, achieve wholeness and gain self-clarity. The piece on living authentically is particularly interesting to me as too often I work with women who have historically achieved promotion after promotion – but don’t question the value to them of the journey – only to find that it feels empty once they get there because they have “sold out” on too many of their values. This book also explores age groups as well, and charts the evolution of women’s careers and their priorities as time passes – moving for example, from a “can-do-it-all” attitude in their late 20’s to a “wanting to give back” in their 50’s. Indeed these are themes I see in my work with professional women, and this book was one of the forerunners in addressing what it means to be high-achieving and female in the Western workplace.

Book Review – Confessions of a City Girl

I read Confessions of a City Girl over a weekend in London after working with my clients -professional female women in financial services, all week. This book was a highly entertaining and easy read that confirmed many of the issues experienced by my clients …and issues I have long suspected keep equality out of reach. For example, as she points out “There appeared to be an entirely different pay scale for women and men’s bonuses…which are entirely discretionary and can be easily explained away by ‘he added value here’. It’s a dilemma for women and endemic through our industry… and City Girls know all too well that the women who collect cheques in court rarely collect them again in the city ever again.” The author Suzana S, wrote her “City Girl” column for thelondonpaper and detailed her daily work, and the motivations of her and her colleagues. It is amazing to see how quickly a city approach of “take no prisoners” can become part of one’s ethos –and there were times when you could imagine the author couldn’t recognise herself in the mirror. Sure, she talks about the ubiquitous lap dancing clubs, “entertaining” clients, the egos on the trading floor. But she also delves deeper to try and understand what led to the crash and comes up with some pretty good ideas – the disconnect between front office and back office workers, a culture that encourages people to think only from one bonus year to the next, and widespread ignoring of the people who tried to warn the traders that something was not right – right before the crash. City Girl has been unmasked as Barbara Stcherbatcheff and you can read more about her here.