An endurance run
“At the current pace of change, it will take 100 years for women to reach parity in the C-suite”, said Sheryl Sandberg on the issue of women at work on September 30, 2015. Women are still underrepresented in the U.S. corporates according to a study, Women in Workplace 2015 by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co. There are only 24% of women in STEM according to the Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey. The gender gap in ability, if it indeed exists, may not significantly cause the shortage of women in science (Melissa Hines, 2006). But women do face an uneven playing field.
In the article “Sex differences in personal attributes for the development of scientific expertise”, Lubinski and Benbow suggested that women can have a good combination of abilities and interests to excel in STEM, but if they cannot work long hours, it is difficult to achieve the same level as men. If time is a constraint, then women are placed at a disadvantage. Due to social influences at home and at work, women may not be able to devote as much time to their work as their counterparts.
Expectation leads to significant change in behavior (Melissa Hines, 2006). Young girls can perform better academically if they receive the right motivation and encouragement from their parents and teachers. A study by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) demonstrated that students who were told by their teachers that they were capable of achieving academically actually performed better than the other students. Since ability pattern is critical for choice (Davis, 1992), better performance will possibly motivate students to devote more time to their academic pursuit. However, gender bias is still ingrained in our society, and even parents do not expect their daughters to perform as well as their sons (Mondschein, Adolph, & Tamis-LeMonda, 2000). If young girls are not expected to do well in science from a young age by their parents and teachers, they probably will not feel encouraged to put as much time into bettering their skills as boys. Over time, the accruement in skills will cause girls to lack behind boys in math and science because girls have not been putting in as many hours as boys due to the gender bias at home and in school.
Moreover, when entering the professional world, a pressure of work-family balance and stressful workplace can hinder women from working long hours. In the article, Lubinski and Benbow mentioned that exceptionally talented women were working and preferring to work 40 hours or less per week. But people who achieve world-class performance spend no less than 60 hours per week. The authors also pointed out that it is harder to achieve higher leadership role if employers take a leave for a number of years. It is indeed difficult for women to be able to put in that much amount of time into work for many consecutive years partly due to a burden of work-life balance. It is not to say that women have a heavier burden than men and that men do not care as much about family as women. However, a 2013 Pew Research Center survey found that 51% of working mothers said that it is harder for them to advance in their job as compared to only 16% of men. The workforce, in STEM and in other fields, is only getting more demanding, a reality that puts a pressure on employers to constantly keep up with the changing pace. But some family matters require time from women, as well as men, and the fear that taking time off will hinder career advancement only makes work-family appear as a trade-off.
Women face obstacles from their early life until they enter the workforce. Although we are becoming more aware of the nature of gender difference in ability, we are still a long way off until we reach gender parity in the workplace like Sheryl Sandberg has said. We need to give young girls an early start in the field of Math and Science by instilling a belief that they are just as capable of excellence. Also, women, and men as well, can view a career as an endurance run. There is always a need to speed up but it is also important to slow down and take a break (i.e. family leave or vacation) without fear of losing out. Some women have tried and made it. Marti Head, a now Senior Director of GlaxoSmithKline – a multinational pharmaceutical company, took a few years off from her education to work in fields different from her current work. Marti realized during her years off that she needed to go back to school, and so she returned to the academia to earn a B.A and Ph.D. in Chemistry. Marti did not lose out because of her non-conformity. There is no make or break moment because each of us has a different career trajectory. We can always resume our endurance run with refreshed energy and embrace the race against ourselves rather than against the others, or against time.
References:
Dawis, R. V. (1992). The individual differences tradition in counseling psychology. Journal ofCounseling Psychology,39, 7-19.
David S. Lubinski, Camilla Persson Benbow (2007). Sex Differences In Personal Attributes For The Development Of Scientific Expertise. Why Aren’t More Women in Science?: Top Researchers Debate the Evidence., 47-55. doi:10.1037/11546-004
Melissa Hines (2006). Do Sex Differences In Cognition Cause The Shortage Of Women In Science. Why Aren’t More Women in Science?: Top Researchers Debate the Evidence., 47-55. doi:10.1037/11546-004
Mondschein, E. R., Adolph, K. E., & Tamis-LeMonda, C. S. (2000). Gender bias in mothers’ expectations about infant crawling. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 77, 306-316.
Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Story, L. (2005, September 20). Many women at elite colleges set career path to motherhood. New York Times, p. Al.