The self-imposed glass ceiling
9:23am Tuesday 1st April 2008
Why do girls do so increasingly well at school, yet men still dominate senior positions in adult life?
Psychologist Susan Pinker explored this question for her new book, The Sexual Paradox, and reveals fundamental differences between the sexes. Sarah O'Meara reports
IF you were to predict the future on school achievement alone, the world would be a matriarchy, according to Susan Pinker. And she's right. Since the mid-90s in Britain alone, almost all extra university places have been taken by women. But the fact remains, men still dominate the boardrooms.
In 2005, psychologist and newspaper columnist Susan Pinker set out to discover why. Her resulting book The Sexual Paradox is an eye-opening read.
Whether you consider her conclusion that men and women are fundamentally different a statement of the obvious, or deeply controversial, this Canadian mother-of-three has touched on an often unacknowledged truth: that some women prefer family time to an 80-hour week.
It's infantilising women to suggest that they are puppets without wills,'' says Susan. Sexism is one piece of the puzzle, but it doesn't tell the whole story any more.'' Research she cites in her book shows that about 60 per cent of women turn down promotions or take positions with lower pay to weave flexibility or a social purpose into their work lives.'' Like the scientific version of Men Are From Mars, Women From Venus, Pinker uses statistics to make her point. It's not that we're not wired to win,'' she continues.
It's just that our idea of winning is different. There's lots of evidence to support the idea that a woman's network of friends and family are more important to her happiness than status and wealth. But the idea that men and women might be different scares people.'' Pinker says that during the 80s she was not alone in thinking men and women had nearly identical brains, but had been socialised to take on different roles in a sexist and prejudiced world.
Many of us thought that if only women could tame their outdated sentimentality, then our parental roles could be reversed,'' she says.
But her research shows that new technology is now demonstrating this is not the case.
Women experience an avalanche of hormones at childbirth and during nursing.
These hormones prompt a desire to connect and be close with their baby and the people around them. These emotions don't vanish simply because they have to go to work.
But there is a resistance to the idea of hormonal and neurological differences between the sexes, even if they're subtle. To people it says, biology is destiny and women should go back to the kitchen. Of course I don't believe that.'' When Pinker says women' she is talking about the majority. There are always going to be Hillary Clintons, because 20 to 25 per cent of women are as ambitious as men. They're not home oriented.
They're not what I call adaptive and won't make adjustments to their careers for the sake of other parts of their lives. But there are already thousands of profiles on Hillary Clinton and not that many on the majority of women who choose not to live like that.'' Pinker notes that among the graduating business students of America, one in three females will end up working part-time as opposed to one in ten of their male counterparts.
But she doesn't attribute these figures to a lack of ambition, rather an alternative female model of success.
Women shouldn't be treated as second class citizens because they don't earn 15 per cent more. We all make tradeoffs.
If someone is working an 80-hour week they might not get home to put their baby to bed.'' Very often, archaic working practices are blamed for preventing women rising to the top of their professions. But Pinker argues that offering more flexible working hours or a creche, won't always resolve some of the more basic work/life tensions.
The working women we surveyed felt much more guilty than men about not spending time with their children as they grew up. They also consistently felt they were making a hash of their home life.
"I believe that's one reason certain professions like medicine, pharmacy and veterinary medicine attract women in such huge numbers. These are jobs which offer them the chance to design their own schedules and have a lot of autonomy.'' Pinker came across the story of Elaine early on in her research. A high flying female executive on the fast track to the corner office' she refused a promotion which would put her on course to become CEO.
In the book Susan explains how, her company provided every possible perk to promote women's success, including networked home offices so they could telecommute, flexi hours, no pressure to put in face time, an in-house dry cleaner and gym, an income supplement for a nanny, and on-site care for children.'' And still Elaine didn't take the job.
Susan says: Elaine said she was imposing her own glass ceiling. Even though she loved her job, she had two children settled in school who were happy, her parents were nearby and she felt that everybody's happiness was connected.
In order to take the promotion, she would have had to move to another city.
She told me, I don't need any more money'. Interestingly, she also said that the company was keen to promote women up to that level, but all the women were turning them down because they had families. Her father-inlaw was shocked and thought she had lost her mind. He was a senior executive, had had five kids and moved them all over the world. And Elaine said it took a terrible toll on his children.'' Since writing her book, Pinker has been inundated with emails from women happy to hear what she's got to say.
Women feel that they're alone making these decisions. They say things like, I felt my choices weren't respected.
Thank you for making these points'.''