Charlotte ObserverFebruary 24, 2010
by Ron Stodghill
Here’s a sobering paradox: This year, business headlines around the world will doubtlessly center around men – big, powerful, frighteningly overpaid men. We’ll get accounts of Brian Moynihan’s struggles to fix Bank of America, tales of Steve Jobs’ latest gizmo at Apple, Ben Bernanke’s maneuvers at the Federal Reserve.
Yet meanwhile, the U.S. Labor Department is quietly telling another story: that the American workplace is no longer a man’s world, at least not statistically. That’s right, while most of us were busy jawboning about everything from Tiger to tea parties, women finally marched their way into the working majority last month, holding 50.3 percent of the nation’s nonfarm payroll jobs, according to labor reports.
Of course, we’ve known for some time that Guy Inc. was ripe for a takeover. Back in 1987, a think tank called the Hudson Institute published a landmark study that predicted, among other things, that by the year 2000 working women would account for 47 percent of the labor force. The forecast not only forced us to rethink our assumptions about the future face of corporate leadership, but also condemned many of us to countless boxed-lunch “diversity” seminars.
Those epic predictions, hastened by an economy that pummeled such male-dominated industries as manufacturing, have come to pass. Unfortunately, slower to come is any real proof that corporate America is ready to cede the reins to its female workers to reflect their growing ranks.
Those epic predictions, hastened by an economy that pummeled such male-dominated industries as manufacturing, have come to pass. Unfortunately, slower to come is any real proof that corporate America is ready to cede the reins to its female workers to reflect their growing ranks.
“There’s a storm brewing,” says Ella L. J. Edmondson Bell, an associate professor at the Tuck School of School of Business at Dartmouth University and a former UNC Charlotte professor. “We’re not developing the talent pool of women in the workplace. And it’s not like we’re finally there. No, we’ve been there.”
In her new book, “Career GPS: Strategies for Women Navigating the New Corporate Landscape,” Bell offers some grim numbers on the lack of parity between professional men and women. Only 28.6 percent of all executive managers in the U.S. are women, and only 7.4 percent of first-level managers are women. “The person you pass the baton to may not be Jack, Hugh, Bob or Richard,” she writes. “It may well be Carla, Nancy, Maria, or Kusum, but only if you have prepared.”
That could be wishful thinking. Earlier this month, Catalyst, the nonprofit advocacy group for professional women, published its own blistering report on workplace disparities, noting that women from elite MBA programs lagged behind male counterparts “in advancement and compensation starting from their first job and were less satisfied with their careers.”
It’s time for Guy Inc. to loosen up and get in touch with, well, its feminine side. With more than half of the work force now occupied by women, it’s shameful that there are so few female power brokers to back up those impressive numbers. The top brass of corporate America can’t remain on top forever, nor should they expect to. Bringing women up can’t be viewed as a matter of compromise. The numbers show it’s more a matter of survival.
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