Why Do Few Women Attain Top Management Positions free essay sample

Women have been striving for equal rights for themselves for a long time and they are gradually achieving the goal. As a result, when it comes to managerial area, women’s voices have been heard and responded little by little, more and more women are moving into higher posts in their working. Nevertheless, the business is still strictly run by males, only few women gets the chance to top in management positions, which, at the same time, has already intrigued great debates among all parties. This paper tries to look for the reasons why few women set foot in the top leading places and see whether women are less-qualified to handle the deal or are there any other barriers hinder them from moving forward. Introduction There have been an increasing number of women getting involved in leaderships in corporations for quite some time. Generally, people are used to be in a man-dominated business world, given that more males hold â€Å"the vast majority of top leadership positions† across the world ( Stelter cited in Weyer, 2007). We will write a custom essay sample on Why Do Few Women Attain Top Management Positions? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Yet, it seems that there is a sign for a change when we notice the fact that, according to the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the proportion of females holding managerial and administrative posts in the USA have risen from 18% in 1972 to 46% in 2002 (Eagly Carli, 2003). However, despite the ascending numbers, women still remain mostly in junior or middle management positions, few of them obtain the top jobs, as shown by the Catalyst, a New York-based consulting firm, there were only 17 female CEOs within the Fortune 1000 companies, while only 13. % women are directors in board of Fortune 500 companies ( Weyer, 2007). Approximately 40% of the Fortune 501-1000 corporations composed their Boards of Directors with no woman involved in 1999 (Catalyst cited in Winn, 2004) What is holding women back from being on top? There are various reasons for this issue. This essay is going to discuss the possible justifications dealing with women’s halt in climbing up in corporations, to ex plore whether it’s stemmed from women’s biological or pyscholological nature or from the environment. By comparing the characteristics of male and female in leader position as well as looking for the obstacles women have encountered, it would be a clear picture to tell if women are qualified in the upper leader positions that companies should have open minds to accept and encourage women in top administrative places. Sex differences Are women and men distinguished notably when it comes to their qualifications engaging with leadership? Would the differences, if any, be the obstacle that keeps women from being exclusive in the hierarchy system in companies? A considerable number of research has been done on this subject as it has received enduring attention during the past thirty or so years (Alimo-Metcalfe,Bartol, Bruke and Collins cited in Weyer,p489. 2007). These researches have been summarized by Weyer (2007) in two main schools: one school of investigators claim that females execute assignments in a remarkably opposite way to males, and women are endowed with distinctive talent in managing people as well as weakness by nature; whereas the other school tends to agree that women behave no less the same as their masculine encounters in managerial area. To the former researchers, the majority of them concluded their assumptions by individual organizational practices or face-to-face arrangements with managers or other unofficial investigations. They are inclined to the opinion that females are more of subordinate supporters and are effective in exchanging ideas when compared with males. Combining their arguments with the developing theories of leadership conditional environment, stating that â€Å"the effectiveness of leader behaviors depends on contextual variables, such as the nature of the task and the characteristics of the followers†(EaglyCarli, 2003, p. 808), such gurus presume that women perform better in executive posts in â€Å"contemporary† corporate trend (Eagly, Johanneaen Van Engen, 2003, p. 569). However, there exists another voice claiming that no gender diversity is attached to male-female administration. Some academic writers criticizes the perspectives of dissimilar between men and women are based on â€Å"generalisability† of what we already â€Å"know† about gender differences, thus, people tend to do their surveys with a differences-orientation, which would intentionally influences the outcome of their â€Å"experimentation† (Colwill, 1995, pp. 20-33). Not this merely but also, Colwill pointed out that â€Å"there are no true experiments in this area†, noticing that â€Å"sex-differences research is always, of necessity, correlational,†¦,for sex differences often mask other variables in the research† (ibid,p. 1). However, she continued to compare female with male in other abilities specifically. After recognizing women owns different qualities involving in physical terms and especially in cognition, other than men, Colwill holds the view that both women and men are endorsed with some natural strengths, yet, still, nothing to show women woul d perform worse than men do in top executive fields, but, in fact, as Colwill wrote: The quality of leadership was not determined by sex; it was determined by the organizational resources and organizational support that was accorded to the manager†(ibid. To summarize, it’s convincing that those two groups of experts both make some sense and have very persuasive grounds of argument, despite they deduct totally different set of theories. It’s not an easy path to identify the differences between two genders and decide one to be superior. However, as far as we can concern, there are no evidence sufficiently provided to say that women are totally unfitted in top managerial positions though supporters of the first view might figure men are more capable in dealing with some certain sort of issues. Hence, we can now put away the thoughts that female are allocated to be held behide the upper executive jobs. Sex discriminations Then, what could possibly be the â€Å"glass ceiling† that insulates women from climbing up? As a matter of fact, more and more specialist turn to a less controversial corner, the social role stereotype, or, to put it more frankly, say gender discrimination. The metaphor â€Å"glass ceiling† illustrates that there are unseen barriers to block women from going upward (Weyer, 2007, p. 83). These barriers might refer to â€Å"corporate practices†, †behavioral and cultural causes† and â€Å"structural and cultural explanations rooted in feminist theories†(ibid. ). According to the social role theory, men and women are assigned with different roles correspondent with their genders. For instance, apparently, women are defined as a wife in their marriage, the one to take care of housework as well as cautiously nurturing bab y. This framed role actually make a great impact on career women’s way to success, as they certainly have to strike a difficult balance between the pressured up-going in business and the no less stressful family trifles. To quote from Winn, â€Å"women are not prepared for the corporate pressures that impinged on their role in the family ( the role that they were taught to play)† (2004). It was found by White(1997) that many successful women have suffered â€Å"role conflicts† and â€Å"identity diffusion† for quite some time and hence lose a lot of good promotion opportunities( Winn, 2004, p. 47). Gilchrist (2002) even regards family life and job working as a war with guilt, while Morris (2002) tops household responsibilities at the list of reasons few women manage to get in top(ibid. p. 144). Furthermore, in spite of the family occasion, there are far more troubles fetter females in competing with their polar fellows, one prominent concern is that women are actually struggling in an â€Å"old boys’ club† (Burke, 2003, p. 346). This means, in the process of getting up, women need to get approval from their male managers; they need to survive from a recruitment system which is completely built up by man superiors as well as the selection and assessment methods, they get to obey and follow male-oriented organizational policies and structures. As reasonably stated by Burke (2003), to call on a revolution in board members â€Å"is similar to asking the fox to guard the chicken house†. As a result, in the short term, prejudice, unjust assessments on account of stereotypical judgments making people ignore ndividual’s real qualifications will remain a big role that keeps women from moving up to the top. Conclusion To sum up, the barriers that hold women back from seeking top places in corporation are not because of their lack of outstanding qualities but the stubborn social role framework attached to them. It’s true that men and women might be endowed with different gifts by nature, though tha t have nothing much to say that they are excellent in managing on top. On contrary, men are not preferred to be leaders inherently; rather they take most advantage of being in a man-dominated situation. Compared with the debates in sex differences, it’s almost undeniable that a majority of qualified women are constrained by the stereotypical prejudice, which often make people underestimate their real talent in engaging in supervised posts.