Why do so few women make it to the top?
Discuss issues that have a social and cultural impact, including but not limited to issues such as racism, teenage pregnancies, the social impact of religion, and the state of the education system.
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Re: Why do so few women make it to the top?In this day and age, I am sure the main factor is that Women have children. Women often go out of the labour force for a long time just to give birth and look after a baby, and thus when they return to the labour force they are out of touch (just like a sportsman would be out of touch after a long time out of the sport) and have more pressure on them as they have children. Or the woman just leaves the labour force entirely.
The age at when they leave the labour force due to child bearing is just as they start to get a bit more mature and start to move up into the higher ranks of business, then bam, they are stopped. Whilst the men continue to go up because they fundamentally never have to carry another human being inside of them.
When you look at data for under 25s you find that women in some studies are now earning more than men. The reasonable explanation being, most women have not left the labour force by 25 years old.Last edited by Classical Liberal; 10-06-2012 at 22:15. -
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Re: Why do so few women make it to the top?Because either a) women settle down and focus on their family life or b) their bosses unfairly assume they will and therefore don't promote them.
Edit: There is also a lack of women in certain high-paying, recruiting sectors too, like sciences and engineering. Instead they seem to flock towards very competitive fields which are already flooded with people capable of doing the job, like journalism, human resources and marketing.Last edited by xmarilynx; 10-06-2012 at 22:17. -
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Re: Why do so few women make it to the top?Glass ceiling, both inflicted and self-inflicted.
Inflicted because, especially in old-fashioned careers such as law, politics ect. There is a large reliance on systems such as the 'old boy network' and men hiring their friends when they were younger. It's a vicious circle.
Self-inflicted because women (quite rightly) generally have a wish to settle down and have children, so naturally it is not in a company's interest to hire and train someone who may well leave at any moment. It is generally older women, who don't have children or whose children are older, with more experience who are hired into top jobs -
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Re: Why do so few women make it to the top?<3(Original post by MeGusta)
Kitchen. -
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Re: Why do so few women make it to the top?Why do so few women make it to the top of...? Mountains? Their careers? Office blocks? Please be slightly less vague, since it's quite difficult to respond against such an awkwardly phrased and unspecific point :-)(Original post by jb_keep_walking)
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Re: Why do so few women make it to the top?Our society was male dominated (and still is) for something like 2000 years and a very long time before the christian calendary and you ask this question?
It's only recent 30-50 years woman have a say and a lot of influence in society (i know there were examples of powerfull women in history but they were very tiny minority). -
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Re: Why do so few women make it to the top?Institutional sexism (systematic oppression) fueled via bourgeoisie who hold on to androcentrism.
Hahaha joke, what the **** does that even mean?
It's because women only recently started gaining rights thus it's no common to see men still dominating at that top. Plus, there's still gender roles that are applicable that make women less eager to apply. Plus, women typically have children and in careers like these aren't family-friendly hence high-divorce rights for men and the fact that they'd rather have a trophy marriage than a love marriage. Research has shown that younger females are earning more than their male counterparts. Sexism? No. Just like it isn't sexism for men to earn more than women in general. Or somehow a institutionalized sexism against men's health hence lower life expectancy.Last edited by Roaroaroar; 10-06-2012 at 22:29. -
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Re: Why do so few women make it to the top?Exactly this.(Original post by Classical Liberal)
In this day and age, I am sure the main factor is that Women have children. Women often go out of the labour force for a long time just to give birth and look after a baby, and thus when they return to the labour force they are out of touch (just like a sportsman would be out of touch after a long time out of the sport) and have more pressure on them as they have children. Or the woman just leaves the labour force entirely.
The age at when they leave the labour force due to child bearing is just as they start to get a bit more mature and start to move up into the higher ranks of business, then bam, they are stopped. Whilst the men continue to go up because they fundamentally never have to carry another human being inside of them.
When you look at data for under 25s you find that women in some studies are now earning more than men. The reasonable explanation being, most women have not left the labour force by 25 years old. -
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Re: Why do so few women make it to the top?Having and raising children takes a lot of time and effort. Which is then not spent on career development.(Original post by jb_keep_walking)
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There are a few exceptional individuals. Angela Merkel has no children as an example. -
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Re: Why do so few women make it to the top?"The Top", when discussing business and politics and the legal sector and academia and most other sectors as well, consists primarily of those in their 40s and 50s, or even older in some cases, who have been university educated, especially from Red-Brick/Russell Group universities.(Original post by jb_keep_walking)
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So we're talking about people who attended these universities within a generation of them actually opening their doors fully to women, and back when the numbers of women attending was very low. This means that of the potential pool for people at "the top" very few are actually women. Further, they will have faced some sexual discrimination at the time they entered their first jobs, and this will have dissuaded or hindered many from climbing the ranks. Add in the standard hinderences of childbirth, and we're looking at a very very small number of women actually gunning for these posts.
And because the "top", as in the very top (Boardrooms and the cabinet, head judges etc) are very very narrow, we see very few to no women because there's just not enough space for many.
So we have a very small proportion of realistic women applicants heading into a very small number of posts. It may well be the proportion of women occupying those posts is actually fully representative of the number of women in contention, even over-representing.
This is just a fact that "the top" represents society as it was several decades ago by virtue of the time taken to get there.
What will be interesting is to see how this changes without over-compensating regulation over the next few decades, as the candidates come from generations not facing real sexism (we have stamped discriminatory sexism out of society - all that's left are kitchen jokes! They're hardly going to affect job prospects) and where the proportion of Russel group/Oxbridge graduates is evenly split between the sexes, fare in this regard.
