News For You - August 2002

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Are Powerful Women More Likely to Be Quitters Than Men?

What do Karen Hughes, Oprah Winfrey, Rosie O’Donnell and Gov. Jane M. Smith of Massachusettes have in common? All three women represent a trend in the workplace; quitting while on top. It appears as though more and more women are leaving their jobs when they are at the top of their professional game. Extremely high-powered women such as Carol Wallace, former managing editor of People, and Patricia Schroeder, the former Colorado congresswoman, are prominent examples of this female movement.

Women claim that some of the reasons they leave their jobs are “children, lifestyle, exhaustion – or a combination of them all.” According to Sheila Wellington, the president of Catalyst, a New York company that helps to advance women in business, this is not an exclusively a female trend. Wellington claims that because there are so few women at the top that each singular event takes on heightened meaning.”

In fact, men do occasionally leave their jobs while still in their prime, although it is more rare. Comparison studies indicate that men have a hard time stepping down from their jobs. “Men form long-lasting identities with corporations or political posts” and are reluctant to give up their career. Men seem to be “addicted to the power and the status and the games” associated with their jobs.

(Source: The New York Times, Sunday, March 24,2002).
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Women Rush to the Statehouse

Currently, there are seventy-three women in Congress with 60 females holding seats in the House, and 13 female Senators. In this 2002 election year, the number of women in national politics will remain constant. This year, only 42 of the House’s 435 seats are open and of the 354 Senate seats up for election, only 4 are available. With little opportunity to make it to the country’s capital, many strong female politicians have set their sights on the governor’s mansion. Women already hold five governorships, and, this year, governor positions are at stake in 36 states where women are credible candidates in about a dozen.

The drive of women toward the governor’s mansion represents an important advancement for women according to Ann Lewis, head of the Women’s Vote Center at the Democratic National Committee. Lewis states that “what’s so important in this year, both practically and symbolically, is to increase the number of women to serve as chief executive officers in their states. That reflects the increase in the number of women in the pipeline, a growing interest in the public in seeing women in office and a growing recognition, within the women’s political community, of the importance of breaking this particular glass ceiling.”

(Source: The New York Times, Monday, April 15,2002).
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Divorce Sends Women Voters to the Left

Columbia University economists Lena C. Edlund and Rohini Pande have identified a growing trend in the voting behavior of men and women. In past elections, women have favored Republican candidates, while men tended to vote for Democrats. However, in recent decades these voting patterns have reversed dramatically, with women voting for Democrats and men supporting Republicans. This drastic shift is evident in the most recent elections: “the support of women was a big factor in Bill Clinton’s victories, and if women’s votes alone had been counted in 2000, Al Gore would have won by a landslide.”

Political analysts attribute the change in voting patterns to the “sharp increase in the ranks of working women, the rise of feminism, and women’s concern over social issues such as abortion rights.” However, Edlund and Pande have discovered a different reason for the shift. They suggest that the “major cause is the differing impact of the decline in marriage on the economic well-being of men and women.” Edlund and Pande contest that the decline in marriage has made men wealthier and women poorer. The study shows that women are more likely to vote Democratically after a divorce and less likely after marriage.

(Source: Business Week, March 11, 2002).
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Women Face Challenges in the Silicon Valley

Female technology executives working in Silicon Valley face challenges above and beyond those felt by the average female businesswoman. Because Silicon Valley is dominated by men, female executives are constantly fighting the “assumption that women don’t know what they’re talking about.” This is most apparent in the fact that although women start 30 percent of all companies in Silicon Valley, they receive only 1.6 percent of funding. The most common complaint of female technology executives is that while trying to innovate and develop new technologies, the “media remains obsessively and single-mindedly focused on their looks and their gender.”

In an article in the March issue of Forbes, Kim Polese, CEO of Marimba, was accused of using her good looks to “distract attention from a not-so-glitzy product.” Women working in Silicon Valley were outraged at the article’s accusations, feeling that there is a double-standard for men who get away with doing the same thing. This prominent example illustrates the major obstacle women face in the field of technology: “this is the conundrum that faces many female executives in Silicon Valley, where women CEOs are a rare species and young, attractive female CEOs are even rarer. Because they are anomalies, they are both visible and spotlighted by the media; attention is, of course, both flattering and good publicity – but it also tends to shift the focus away from their work.”

(Source: www.salon.com, February 25, 2002).
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Women Underpaid at Wimbledon

With the emergence of spring and fair weather, attention and energy are focused on outdoor sports, such as tennis. This year, one of the world’s most prestigious tennis tournaments, Wimbledon, will increase the amount of prize money to $12.7 million. However, just as there are salary injustices in the businessworld, so are there pay discrepancies in the world of sports. This year, the men’s Wimbledon champion will receive $765,000, whereas the women's champion will only earn $700,000. Additionally, the men’s bracket is allotted $6.29 million in prize money, while the women’s bracket will only receive $5.32 million in winnings. In response to questions concerning the divergence in pay, All England Club Chairman Tim Phillips said, “We are not sure there are many other sporting events with equal parity in terms of men and women.”

(Source: USA Today, April 24, 2002).

American Women Do Not Have It All

Economist and author Sylvia Ann Hewlett recently conducted a nationwide survey on the personal and professional lives of American women in high-earning jobs. Hewlett disclosed the results of her research in a book titled “Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children” which reveals that businesswomen are inadequately fulfilled. The book indicates that because of career demands, some women have been forced to delay or abandon motherhood, while others who are raising children “have suffered insurmountable career setbacks.”

While the book makes some interesting points about an extremely controversial topic; that has not been enough to get the book off store shelves. After an incredible publicity tour including 60 Minutes, Oprah, Today, Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News, the covers of Time and New York magazines, as well as op-ed pieces in the Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The New York Times, Hewlett’s book is a flop. The book’s publisher, Manhattan company Talk Miramax, is baffled by the lack of sales and suggests that possible causes could be “a generic title, an ambiguous cover, or the failure of the news media to appreciate the nuances of Ms. Hewlett’s research.” Another factor contributing to the lack of sales is the pessimistic topic because “the woman who feels devastated that her life didn’t work out doesn’t want to read about it.” In efforts to increase sales, Talk Miramax has designed a new marketing campaign for the upcoming paperback edition.

(Source: Harvard Business School Publishing, April 2002 & The New York Times, May 2002).
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Successful Females Also Athletic

With more women breaking through barriers in the workplace and climbing the corporate ladder, there is a desire to find what these successful women have in common. One shared characteristic is a history of athletics. EBay CEO Meg Whitman was on the lacrosse and squash teams at Princeton, Sue Wellington, who is on sabbatical as president of the Gatorade division of Quaker Oats, was captain of the Yale swim team, and Melissa Payner, CEO of Spiegel Catalog, was a collegiate gymnast at Arizona State.

A study conducted in February by the mutual fund company, Oppenheimer, found that 82% of executive women played organized sports after elementary school, whereas only 61% of adult women in the general population continued participating in athletics after grade school. According to Wellington, the connection between female executives and a background of athletic participation is only logical because, “business is, after all, about winning and losing.”

(Source: USA Today, March 26, 2002).
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