- Group research topic: What are the causes and consequences of gender inequality in the workforce, and what can be done to eliminate it?
- Personal research topic: In regards to those female leaders that have been able to be successful in a patriarchal businessworld, what has made them so?
- Hypothesis: Female leaders that have been successful possess confidence in their abilities or have adopted stereotypically “male” traits.
Advocate Condell Medical Center President Dominica Tallarico (my mother), left, with Libertyville Mayor Terry Weppler
Source: dailyherald.com
Why I’m curious:
It is common knowledge that women are just as capable and intelligent as their male counterparts, yet female leaders and executives remain a minority. Furthermore, those women that do hold professional positions suffer a gender pay gap, are continuously underestimated or stereotyped, and are expected to not only be successful in their career, but to continue to take care of the majority of domestic responsibilities as well. My mother is the president of a hospital. In the healthcare industry, women account for only four percent of CEOs and other executives. I am curious as to how women like my mother are able to break through career advancement barriers and take on positions mostly occupied by men, so that I may utilize their strategies one day to become an effective female leader myself.
Questions I would like to answer:
- Is discrimination and prejudice in the workforce more subtle or blatant/ What forms do discrimination and prejudice take?
- How have successful women responded to discrimination?
- What pressures from outside of work potentially hold women back and how should these issues be handled?
- What happens when women adopt more masculine styles of leadership?
- What traits of a feminine leadership style can drive a person towards success?
I feel obligated to agree with what you wrote about women's roles in the workforce. What you said about women being CEO s had me wondering about how the men in the work or business would react to having to answer to a woman, given that in the past, it would likely never happen. Have you considered that?
ReplyDeleteI've definitely considered and heard a lot about that. Given that progress has been made and people have become more accustomed to seeing women in leadership positions, responses have generally been quite accepting and supportive. However, there are still instances where women will be ignored, not taken seriously, or even scorned by their coworkers. The fact that most people ignore, though, is that men are not always the ones behaving in such a way. Frequently, women will act in a hostile manner towards other females in the workforce due to fear of competition in an environment where women are already struggling to assume higher positions of employment. The glossing over of this regrettably leads to a lot of undeserved man-bashing that creates even more hostility in the workplace.
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