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HER TURN
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HER TURN
Why It’s Time for Women to Lead
in America

Vicki Donlan
with Helen French Graves
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Donlan, Vicki, 1951–

Her turn : why it’s time for women to lead in America / Vicki Donlan with Helen French
Graves.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–275–99924–7 (alk. paper)
1. Leadership in women—United States. 2. Leadership—United States.
3. Women in the professions—United States. I. Graves, Helen French, 1950– II. Title.
HQ1421.D66 2007
305.43
331710973—dc22 2007026083

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Copyright 
C 2007 by Vicki Donlan and Helen French Graves

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be

reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007026083

ISBN-13: 978–0–275–99924–7
First published in 2007
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the

Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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This book is dedicated to all the women and men, girls and boys, who
have ever been told that they couldn’t do something because (you
fill in the blank). Regardless of your gender, your race, or a hundred other
things that stereotype you, you can do and be everything you want to be.
This book is a testament to that dream.

Every one of us is a gift—an individual gift with talents, skills, and abil-
ities like no other. When we, as a society, don’t take advantage of every
individual’s gifts, we lose.

This book is also dedicated to my parents, who gave me everything I

needed to believe in myself, and then, most important, to my husband
and son, Fran and David, who have been my biggest fans and cheerleaders
throughout my business career. I have been blessed with a wonderful family.
My parents nurtured me from the day I was born and let me believe that I
was a valuable and important human being—someone who could make a
positive impact on the world whether it was as a mother, wife, or business
leader. My husband and son took pride in my work and joined me in my
accomplishments to let me know that they are with me all the way.

Having cheerleaders in our lives, male, female, young, and old, is the most
important ingredient any one of us can enjoy. It provides the foundation
for self-confidence that is critical for moving us to the next level. These are
the blessings of a good life, and I appreciate them every day.
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Contents

Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Exclusion from Leadership: When Fact Is
Stranger Than Fiction 1
Chapter 1 The New “Problem That Has No Name” 9
Chapter 2 Vive La Difference 19
Chapter 3 A Look Back to Look Ahead 27
Feminism in America 35
Chapter 4 The Time Is Now 39
Chapter 5 “Business as Usual?” . . . Try “Business as
Exceptional” 55
Women’s Retention/Pipeline 58
The Media 63
Women on Corporate Boards 68
Follow the Money 73
Just Imagine 76
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viii r Contents

Chapter 6 Women Entrepreneurs: The BIG Engine That

Could and Does 77
The Workplace Revolution 85
Role Models 89
VCs, Angels, and Others 91
Just Imagine 94
Chapter 7 Legally Blonde—and Black, Brown, Red,
and Gray 97
In-House Counsel 105
Here Come the Judge 107
A Proactive Restructuring 109
Just Imagine 111
Chapter 8 Women in Healthcare and the Sciences:
Prescription for Change 113
The Sciences 119
The Business of Science 122
Women’s Health 126
Women’s Progress 128
Just Imagine 130
Chapter 9 Bias in Higher Education: The Firestorm 131
Tenure Track or Tenure Off-Track? 133
President Is Gender Neutral, Right? 138
Just Imagine 143
Chapter 10 Women and Nonprofits: Wage and
Donation Gaps 145
Women’s Contribution 149
The Second Career 151
Negotiating the Nonprofit Way 152
Women-and-Girls Programming 153
Her Part 155
Follow the Leaders 158
Writing the Check 160
Just Imagine 161
Chapter 11 When Women Rule: A Woman in the
White House 163
Show Me the Money 167
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Contents r ix

Too Silent a Majority 169

Breaking the Mold: The Candidate of the
Twenty-First Century 171
The Women Who Have Been There 173
Just Imagine 178
Chapter 12 What’s in It for Men and Women? 179
Pride 179
Women as Boss 183
Family Time 184
Family Leave/Parental Leave 186
Equal Pay 188
Give Peace a Chance 188
Chapter 13 Getting a Place at the Table 191
Ten Recommendations 191
Chapter 14 Finally: Woman to Woman 201

Notes 207
Women’s Organizations and Resources 215
Bibliography 219
Index 221
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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all those who so freely gave of their time and opinions
for this book. The future of women’s ability to lead is in the hands of
the thought leaders who were interviewed and/or who took the time to
respond to our surveys and help us in general. Our thanks go alphabetically
to the following:
Clinton Allen, Sharon Allen, Mara Aspinall, Suzanne Bates, Corinne
Broderick, Candida Brush, Ann W. Caldwell, Jacqueline Cooke, Celia
Couture, Nicole Cozier, Martha Crowninshield, Diane Danielson, Gail
Deegan, Diana DeGette, Linda Denny, Geri Denterlein, Marsha Evans,
Joseph Fanning, Marsha Firestone, Cathy Fleming, Alexandra Friedman,
Mary Gegler, Sara Gould, Mary-Laura Greely, Sharon Hadary, Stephanie
Hanbury-Brown, Myra Hart, Marian Heard, Swanee Hunt, Susan Ivey,
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ilene Lang, Barbara Lee, Liz Levin, Margaret
Marshall, Ellyn McColgan, Barbara J. McKenna, Evelyn Murphy, Gloria
Nemerowicz, Nancy H. Nielsen, Annette O’Connor, Tom Peters, Donna
Burns Phillips, Katherine E. Putnam, Lauren Stiller Rikleen, Barbara
Rockett, Rhonda Rockett, Bill Samatis, Jeanne Shaheen, Lois Silverman,
Diane Sutter, Ruth Sweetser, Marie Wilson, Toni Wolfman, and Ellen
Zane.
We also wish to thank the thousands of inspirational women whom we
have had the honor to profile in Women’s Business over the past ten years,
and especially those we have included in this book. Those thanks go to:
Martha Coakley, Deborah Dunsire, Peg Feodoroff, Trish Karter, Teresa
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xii r Acknowledgments

Heinz Kerry, Janet Kraus, Christina Lampe-Onnerud, Lynn Margherio,

Becky Minard, Judith Nitsch, Mary O’Donnell, Katherine O’Hara, Regina
Pisa, Jean Qiu, Kathy Sherbrooke, Ruth Simmons, Denise Squillante, Sue
Welch, and Valerie Yarashus.
We felt more empowered by every interview. Women are thriving across
professions—business, law, medicine and the sciences, higher education,
politics, and nonprofit—and are ready for greater challenges ahead. The
ideas of where women are in America today from these influencers of
tomorrow provide us all with the foundation for the work we need to do
for a better country. We thank them all for their participation and words
of wisdom.
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Introduction

Exclusion from Leadership: When Fact Is Stranger Than Fiction

If you just picked this book up in the science fiction section of your
bookstore, please go directly to the manager and shout, “It Is Time for
Women to Lead in America. Display this book in your window and at the
front of the store next to all the nonfiction bestsellers.” As the customer,
you, of course, are always right and the manager will comply. That “comply”
part is the science fiction of my proposal because so few people are thinking
about the importance of women’s leadership today.
I think about it all of the time.
Every morning I get up, make a cup a coffee, and read two or three
newspapers. Yes, I still read newspapers. I have been doing this during
my entire business career. I’m looking for leads, looking for ideas, looking
for people to reach out to, and, most important, I’m educating myself on
what’s happening locally and in the world.
What amazes me, thirty years after I started this practice, is that there
are still so few women mentioned, profiled, quoted, or in any way visible
in the newspaper—and this phenomenon stretches across all professions.
What I’d like to see in the media are the role models who provide us the
full scope of what we can be or hope to be. Male or female, we are given an
opportunity to view the world through our own rose-colored glasses and
decide who is relevant to the path we choose to take for our career, family,
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2 r Introduction

and overall lifestyle. But for half of the population, the female half, the
role models aren’t there.
Let me assure you that this book is not a radical feminist exposé or a
rant on how women can do it all and men should become extinct. Not at
all! Unlike other books on women’s leadership, this book is for women and
men. Why? Because our country needs the talents and skills of all who want
to contribute to making sure America remains the world leader through
the twenty-first century. For this to happen, both sexes are required to par-
ticipate in the transformation of a nation that is hovering on crisis because
half of the population is not fully represented in top leadership positions.
This book makes the case that America has the greatest power of all
industrial nations, able to draw on the education and capabilities of all its
inhabitants, and yet it seems stuck in reverse. What’s more, women aren’t
pulling together and wielding their strength. Women must understand
what their power is, how to work together to use it, and why it’s time to
stop the whining and, instead, to take control. We need a change in our
corporations, our medical institutions, our universities, our political rep-
resentation, our social programs, our home environments, and our global
relations—and women are ready for the challenge of change.
When I started my newspaper, Women’s Business, it was to provide
visibility for women in business and the professions. I compare the old
adage, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it really exist?”
to, “If we don’t see successful women in business or in the professions in the
media, do they really exist?” The answer is yes. Absolutely, yes; they exist
in numbers too big to be ignored. Ten years after our first issue, Women’s
Business has profiled or showcased more than three thousand women in
nine states, and we have many, many more stories to tell. But my newspaper
is not your typical newspaper. Women need visibility, and they need to
see the resolve of the complex issues that thwart their rise to leadership
addressed front and center. Leadership is their destination and yet the
journey continues.
As a matter of fact, the journey has gotten bumpier in the last few years
as what appears to be an array of choices for women has obscured the
obstacles that still exist, whether when navigating a path to the corner
office, or when raising money to start a business or political campaign, or
when simply taking time off for family and losing pace with career and
salary opportunities regardless of the sector in which they work. These
obstacles have been illusive to men and to the young women just starting
their careers, but in time these same barriers will raise their ugly heads—for
the young women; that is—unless things change.
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Introduction r 3

Men have had their turn. Now it’s women’s turn to step up. It’s just time.
Women are losing ground every year. Financially, according to Evelyn
Murphy’s book, Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get Paid Like Men—And
What to Do About It, women are losing from $700,000 to more than $2
million in their lifetime by not taking control over their compensation
packages. The wage gap affects men as well as women. As the AFL-CIO
declares on its Web site, “Equal pay is about basic justice and fairness and
basic family economics. More wives and mothers work for pay than ever
before, and they are working more. Their earnings are essential to family
support. Pay discrimination costs women a lot but it robs husbands and
families, too.” I couldn’t say it better.
The AFL-CIO’s 2004 “Ask a Working Woman Survey” showed that
62 percent of their working women provided half or more of their family’s
income. Yet, 25 percent of them said they were not earning equal pay.
So when I say this should matter to men just as much as to women, the
numbers back me up. The men in these families are just as much on the
losing end as the women. The AFL-CIO also found that men have another
stake in equal pay. Those men in occupations largely held by women, such
as clerical and sales work, receive lower pay because of discrimination
against women. Equal pay for equal work in these circumstances means a
pay raise for men, too.
Two years later, the 2006 survey reported no improvement of concerns,
with 97 percent of working women, across age and race lines, worried
about the rising costs of healthcare, job exporting, higher education costs,
and lack of retirement benefits. The greatest outrage stated was the con-
tinued increase of pay and retirement packages for CEOs while workers’
compensation was frozen or cut.
At the other end of the spectrum, Catalyst, the women’s business re-
search and advisory organization, reports that it will take women forty-
seven years to catch up with men in populating the senior executive suite
in Fortune 500 companies.1 Who has that kind of time? That’s longer than
a career’s lifespan if sixty-five is the typical retirement age. No wonder
women are dropping out of corporate America—the very place where the
nation’s eyes do follow its leadership, the very place where a CEO’s name
is recognized coast to coast, the very place where the corner office rarely
sees a woman behind this very important desk. And to corporate America’s
detriment, if she doesn’t see a path to the executive suite in her future, she
will continue to reach instead for the closest door to map her own course.
Human capital, particularly female talent, is a cost factor that corporate
America cannot continue to ignore.
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4 r Introduction

Nor can corporate America afford to ignore the boardroom, where the
statistics are even worse. Here, women will wait seventy-three years for
parity. “So what?” you might ask. This is why I care. The decisions made
in the boardroom affect what you and I can buy, and make or break the
stock market investments we make.
Here’s more to fuel my argument for women at the top of our nation’s
major corporations. Eighty-five percent of the purchasers of their products
and services are women. Shouldn’t these boards want to understand their
customers’ perspective, and pronto? Of course they should and, in their
marketing analysis, they do. Yet few realize it’s imperative to include the
majority of their customers—women—on their boards. If they did, they’d
be even more successful. As we note later, there are a number of studies
pointing to this very important fact—important, if your compensation is
based on your company’s profit margin—that the most profitable publicly
traded companies are those with female directors.
Business, of course, is not the only guilty party in the gender equation.
In politics, women are not encouraged to run as often as they should
because the question of “how much money she can raise?” supersedes the
importance of her skills. Political data shows, however, that when women
do run, they win, particularly when running for local office.2
In healthcare and the sciences, while women account for more than half
the graduates at U.S. medical schools, they are not yet well-represented in
the upper echelons of their profession.
In the legal world, record numbers of women are entering law schools,
but the current organizational structure of American law firms creates a
significant barrier to becoming a partner. Tenure puts a disproportionate
number of women compared to men off-track in higher education, where
other obstacles as well contribute to their dwindling numbers on the path
to a college or university presidency.
And in the nonprofit world, women are moving from their traditional
volunteer activities into paid leadership positions, but their pay does not
yet match that of their male counterparts. This same type of pay gap affects
not just women’s bank balances but also where our philanthropic dollars
and resources go.
The challenges for women in attaining leadership across the board are
so great, so weighty, so difficult—and yet there are women in every sector
every single day overcoming these challenges. Take small business, for ex-
ample, where women are flexing their leadership muscle, whether they’re
leaving corporate America or simply are compelled to start and grow their
own companies. Women currently start two out of every three new busi-
nesses in this country, making them a large part of the small business
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Introduction r 5

engine that keeps our economy moving. In fact, the White House desig-
nates a week each year to honor small businesses for doing their part, it’s
that important. What’s more, once started, women-owned businesses are
more likely to be in business at the crucial make-or-break five-year mark
and are less likely to be in debt, according to the Center for Women’s
Business Research. Walk down any main street of any town in America,
and you’ll find that half of all businesses are women-owned.
Women’s representation in small business is a telling example of the
leadership qualities women bring to our country and to the world. It’s
the same strength women bring to law, to politics, to medicine and the
sciences, to higher education, and to the nonprofit world. In each of these
professions, there are examples of women who have not been deterred by
the history of obstacles standing in their way for success. More and more,
they’re breaking down barriers to get the education necessary to compete
equally in law, medicine, and higher education, and knocking on doors,
and asking for support in politics and nonprofit.
Women have a long history for the willingness to tough it out whether
or not the structure fits their needs. Even the isolation that comes with
being the first does not keep most women from trying and giving it their
all. And yet women are still not equally represented in leadership positions.
Our country, based on laws, must have the perspective of women at every
level in politics to consider adequately all sides of every issue presented,
guaranteeing our right to full representation.
And in the sciences and education, women have not been afraid to pursue
knowledge at any cost in order to practice their passion for discovery and
learning. As volunteers, women were the first in America to nurture and
assist with the needs in war and in peacetime and will continue to be part
of finding the solutions for those with less.
Don’t get the impression, however, that I’m letting women off the hook.
Characterized as risk-averse, they’re more likely to say, “I have to know
more,” “I don’t know if I can,” “I’m not ready yet,” whereas men generally
tend to jump right in. Look at any woman who is at the top, and you’ll see
what can happen once women realize they’re skilled, capable, and ready.
As a woman who started her own business, I can tell you the risk and
reward of breaking out of the mold is well worth it. I have been told that
few can keep up with me. My standards are too high. I work too hard.
My goals are too lofty. The truth is, I am excited about what I do. I feel
passion for my work and will do whatever I can to succeed. I see where I
want to go and will move mountains to get there. Do I believe that I am
the exception? Absolutely not! I know hundreds of thousands of women
who have a picture of a goal in their heads and will do whatever it takes
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6 r Introduction

to turn that picture into reality. I have counseled many women over the
years on how to get their businesses off the ground. Many of the women I
mention in this book have built businesses much larger than my own.
And, as you’ll see, the same passion and drive and vision do play in the
Fortune 500, at the law firm, in Congress, in the teaching hospital, and
in the universities that have the first shot at shaping our future leaders.
But these women are the exception, not the rule, when there’s no reason
women can’t and shouldn’t rule.
The fact is, since women represent half of the country’s talent pool, it
doesn’t have to be this way. What women have not learned is how to work
together. There is power in numbers. Women have the numbers not only to
compete, but also to lead. If women don’t take this opportunity now, they’ll
keep losing ground because, by taking themselves out of the pipeline, they
lose the connections that are necessary for leadership positions in every
area in which they seek advancement.
So, if now is not the time for women to take the lead, then, when? There
needs to be a sea change. We can’t wait forty-seven years or seventy-three
years for what can and should happen today. We must make it clear to the
next generation of both men and women that by not making equality of
the sexes a priority now, America jeopardizes the strength of its position
as the leader of the free world.
We need to fill the pipelines with women to reflect proportionally their
percentage of the population and then promote them, not just leaving them
to languish. If we continue the momentum that has women populating
in good number the entry and middle levels of nearly every facet of the
economy to the next level—leadership—I firmly believe we’d see a dramatic
change in the fortunes of this country. As we discuss throughout this book,
with women taking the lead, priorities will change. The next generation
in this country and around the world will take on greater meaning and
importance. Women will see to it that human rights are a priority at home
and abroad.
The facts in this book speak for themselves. My opinions are based on
my more than fifty years of living life as a woman, experiencing the ups and
downs of being a businesswoman, and interviewing legions of other women
from all walks of life. I sent out surveys and interviewed more than seventy
people, mostly women, but also some men. The interviews I’ve included
in this book are the opinions of the brave people who held nothing back,
knowing that their honesty will help all women take “one small step for
(wo)man and one giant leap for (wo)mankind.” When you find a quotation
without a citation in the book, it came from my personal research. The
other quotes came from the pages of newspapers and magazines across the
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Introduction r 7

country and around the world. You see, I am not the only one focusing
attention on the progress of women’s leadership. Yet, I believe this book
takes the subject one crucial step further by spotlighting the urgency.
So please, take that step today. Take this book to the bookstore manager
and demand that Her Turn: Why It’s Time for Women to Lead in America
join every other important book in the window and on the Must Have
shelf. And then take this book home to read. You won’t be sorry you did.
Instead, you’ll be glad that finally there’s a call-to-action for women and
men in America.
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CHAPTER 1

The New “Problem That Has

No Name”

“The problem that has no name—which is simply the fact that American
women are kept from growing to their full human capacities—is taking a far
greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known
disease.”
—Betty Friedan

It was Betty Friedan in 1963 who shocked the country with her book, The
Feminine Mystique, by labeling the malaise women were feeling at the time
as “the problem that has no name.” Now, more than forty years later, it’s
men with the malaise.
It was while I was talking about the underlying concept of this book
that I realized the evolution of this new problem without a name. When
explaining to men that I was writing around the questions, “What’s hold-
ing women back?” “Why has the progress for women in business and the
professions and politics been so slow?” and “Are women their own worst
enemies?” I’d get a polite nod. But when told that the title of the book
was HER TURN: Why It’s Time for Women to Lead in America, these same
men overwhelmingly responded, “What about the children?” Not once did
I hear that women aren’t ready or women don’t have the strength, intel-
ligence, passion, determination, or aptitude needed to lead. No, the only
response was, “What about the children?” As a modern workingwoman
and mother, I did my best to hold my tongue and my sarcasm and re-
sponded instead, “Don’t children come from a man and a woman? Why
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10 r Her Turn

do you believe that children are the responsibility of the woman?” This re-
sponse immediately evoked a puzzled look. I would then go on to explain
that my belief for the need of greater participation by women in leadership
positions in no way meant that I thought that the children should be aban-
doned. It is quite the contrary. We are at a crossroads in our society where
men have the opportunity to take a greater part in the nurturing of their
children and to share in the joys of parenting. This response again would
generally meet with another quizzical expression, and then their question,
“Don’t you think women are born to be better nurturers than men?” Aha!
The problem.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business
Administration at Harvard Business School and the author of sixteen
books, answers the problem with no name and men’s worry over who’s
going to take care of the children this way: “Well, why don’t they? It’s not
who’s going to take care of the children, really. I think we have just not
solved the way family life intersects with work life in the United States,
especially compared to the Nordic countries. We don’t believe in early
childhood education, and, as many political candidates say, we should
have after-school, extended school day and not just day care—all of which
would be really good for this country and the kids and society and the
future—but somehow we don’t do it.”
You might say there is nothing new in almost all men believing that
women are better at raising children. And, you’d have a point. What is
important here is that in the last thirty or more years, women have earned
their way into the corner office, into the boardroom, into the halls of justice,
and are now vying for the people’s house—The White House—and more,
and yet they have made no progress as being seen less involved in the home.
Let me put it another way. Women have been successful at proving that
they can do just about any job a man can do and have often deserved to
lead the team in the line of work. What women have not been successful in
doing and, perhaps, can even accept some of the blame for, is not finding
a way to demonstrate that men have the ability and most likely even the
passion for childrearing.
“For women to succeed and be treated equally, the major change that
now has to happen is with men and their careers,” says Mara Aspinall,
president of the $240 million Genetics division at Genzyme. “Men need
to be allowed to think about their own family life balance.”
Aspinall and her husband are a prime example of this. He took a sabbat-
ical to care for their newborn second son while she returned to work twelve
days after giving birth. “It was an ideal time for him to take a sabbatical.
While his organization was very supportive, it took a longer time for others
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The New “Problem That Has No Name” r 11

to appreciate a dad as the primary caregiver,” she says. “My colleagues had
a very tough time with my returning so quickly. One woman came into
my office, closed the door and asked if the baby was still in the hospital—
because she could think of no other explanation of why I would be back in
the office so soon. The reality is that there are lots of men who, if it were
socially acceptable and financially possible, would prefer to be home with
their family.”
Aspinall is careful to point out that she returned to work because she
wanted to, not because she feared for her job or her position in the company.
Her position was secure and the company was generous with its leave
policy. The choice was to take advantage of the workplace policies as they
should be used—by men and women alike. It’s when we turn lip service
into spoken reality that we’ll have true equity. Don’t we all owe dads in this
country this opportunity—and without any hesitation? The macho-man
routine is old and out-of-date, or it should be. Women are nurturers and
men are breadwinners—we see it all the time, and men, not only women,
are on the losing end.
We are all well aware of the fateful, and some might say outright foolish,
remarks former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers uttered
at a conference regarding the lack of women’s innate abilities in math
and science. A media extravaganza ensued, eventually leading to Summers’
resignation. Score some points for the media for underscoring women’s
value. Yet, night in and night out, television instills the image of Dad
as a complete bumbling idiot when it comes to parenting. There is no
outrage from men or women on the media’s perspective on men’s role as
guardians. Men can work, lead companies, make money, and father chil-
dren, yet they are incapable of making a bed, cooking a meal, or changing
a diaper. It’s interesting to note that in the TV sitcom, women are mak-
ing it: They lead companies, make money—and juggle the man, who is
incompetent when it comes to the household, along with the rest of the
family. There are no points for women’s value here, however. Every one of
these stereotypes plays into why women are being held back. Kanter calls
it “the lingering stereotype” and it’s hampering progress in equality of the
sexes.
“Top positions really require 150 percent of people’s time, energy and
loyalty, and not everybody wants to give that nor should they,” Kanter says.
“But the fact of family responsibility still haunts women because there’s an
assumption made by many people who are looking at candidates that the
women will drop out, and that assumption might or might not be true.”
So, what does it take for a woman to overcome this lingering stereotype?
“If you’re an ordinary woman, you have to be extraordinary to beat an
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12 r Her Turn

ordinary man,” Kanter says. “It’s still based on assumptions, but again, the
more women who get up there [to the top], the more things will change.”
And what about the single parent or the single person who doesn’t have
the luxury of a second breadwinner in the family? Shouldn’t the system
allow for their rise to their best potential regardless of gender? A January
2007 New York Times article1 announced that for the first time in history,
51 percent of women are now living without a spouse. The data came from
the 2005 Census, and compares to 35 percent of women living without a
spouse in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000. The report dramatically changes
the way we must model social and workplace procedures. The year 2005
was also the first time in our history when married couples became the
minority in American households. Employers and the government must
respond to this information with new ways of distributing benefits and
shaping pathways to independence. Stephanie Coontz, director of Public
Education for the Council on Contemporary Families, comments,2 “This
is yet another of the inexorable signs that there is no going back to a
world where we can assume that marriage is the main institution that
organizes people’s lives. Most of these women will marry or have married.
But on average, Americans now spend half of their adult lives outside of
marriage.”
The Census Bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey showed that,
among the more than 117 million women over the age of fifteen, only sixty-
three million are married. The report also showed that the proportion
of married people has been waning for decades, particularly among the
younger age groups. So, although our culture is still in a marriage mindset,
the statistics tell us that the reality is very different. This is neither the
place nor the time to address why there are these changes to the institution
of marriage. It is, however, the time to accept the change and demand
that our society begin to live with the reality of a changing culture. We
cannot expect women to take advantage of the education and opportunities
available to them in 2007, the same opportunities that have always been
available to men, and then tell them the children are their responsibility,
too. It just doesn’t make sense.
Our beliefs are so grounded in the fact that women are the ones who
give birth that we forget to assess logically not only what might be best for
the child but also for society. Allow me to provide you something else to
think about here. Today, many gay and lesbian couples choose to have a
family. In the case of a lesbian couple, a decision can be made as to which
individual will bear the child. This very important decision is thoughtfully
made for what is best for the family. Can you imagine if this were the
opportunity for every couple in the country?
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The New “Problem That Has No Name” r 13

Of course, this choice is not available to most couples. But that does
not mean that there is not a choice when it comes to childrearing. Every
individual in this country is responsible for the next generation. They are
the leaders of tomorrow and they are the reason we work so hard to make
our world better. The most visible sign of this, and a moment I hope will
remain vivid in our minds, was at the swearing in of our first woman Speaker
of the House. At the opening ceremonies of Congress on January 4, 2007,
congressmen and congresswomen brought their families to witness the
momentous occasion. Nancy Pelosi was escorted into the House chamber
by her grandchildren, and all the children were invited to the speaker’s chair
to touch the gavel. Senator Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat from Arkansas,
said it best on Good Morning America,3 “We’re here to make this great
country better for the next generation. . . . [We need] reminders, every
now and then, of what it is we’re trying to do, and the choices that women
make. They have to get results.”
Having heard loud and clear that it’s men’s concern about the children
that is holding women back, I decided to ask women for their thoughts. I
surveyed 650 women with the following question: “What is holding women
back from leading in America? In your profession? In all professions?”
Within minutes, I received dozens of responses, all with a similar theme.
The following comments speak clearly to what women see as the obstacles.

ppp
“I work in a very male dominated industry—particularly at the senior levels.
Success often requires senior sponsorship, investment skill as well as grow-
ing the business (asset gathering). Often men have greater success due to
broader networking opportunities (college/grad school classmates, golf, etc.)
particularly as the majority of CIOs, CFOs, and treasurers are men. It is
also a demanding field that can require long hours and travel, which means a
good support system and understanding spouse. A friend who heads Credit
Suisse’s global equity team out of London said to me that almost all of the
women she knows who have succeeded in this business either are not mar-
ried, have no children, or have a spouse who is home or in a low-demanding
profession—and I think it is the exception that you can have two people in
demanding professions and still have a successful marriage/family without
the demands taking a toll.
“I have fought at firms to allow flextime (not widely embraced in the
investment profession) in order to retain and attract qualified individuals. At
my firm, 20 percent of employees are on flextime (male and female), and it
is hugely successful for them and the firm, but that is the exception, not the
rule. For example, when I was offered a position at BlackRock, a firm at the
time that was only sixteen years old, less than 20 percent of the investment
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14 r Her Turn

professionals were women (although they boasted that they had nearly a
fifty-fifty ratio—the women were all in operations, support, and marketing).
They told me that they hire a mix of about fifty-fifty for the investment
staff each year. When I asked why they couldn’t retain them, BlackRock
responded that they never asked why they left! Discussions with individuals
in the know indicated that working on that team was like spending your days
in a locker room—enough said.”
—Barbara J. McKenna, CFA, Principal, Longfellow Investment
Management Co.
“Believing they belong at the top and helping each other the way men do.”
—Suzanne Bates, CEO, Bates Communications
“I believe the country is still fighting with the stereotypes of women and their
place in the world. It is still difficult for a number of people, including other
women, to trust that women are perfectly capable, willing, and courageous
enough for the job. I also believe that women are not always given the expo-
sure to leadership opportunities because of where they are in the hierarchy
within companies. Thankfully this is changing, but slow to happen. In my
case, having spent twenty-five-plus years in corporate America, I was always
waiting for the opportunity to prove my value. I was sometimes turned down
for promotion because I lacked experience, but when I sought the experience,
I was often not given it. I also felt that the company looked out for displaced
men more than displaced women. I have several examples of jobs being split
in two so that a displaced man would have a place to fall—clearly this was
convenience rather than need. I wish I had an equal number of examples
when this happened on behalf of women.”
—Celia A. Couture, Founder, CC Consulting
“Women have a collaborative, non-hierarchical mindset. Women function
best as peers and don’t like following other women. Men are competitive and
hierarchical. This means that when women lead, it is most successful when
it is collaborative. Men don’t usually respect this. A woman who listens to
them rather than tells them what to do is their peer, not their boss.”
—Katherine E. Putnam, CEO, Packaging Machinery Company Inc.
“It’s hard to pin down one thing, but if you looked at the big picture, I would
say that it’s a corporate work model that’s outdated and needs re-engineering.
In the past, when America has had to change the existing culture, it took the
government to come in and make sweeping changes like child labor laws, the
Nineteenth Amendment, Social Security, minimum wage laws, the GI Bill,
and Title IX. Now, we have a conundrum. We are not a world leader when it
comes to family policies in the workplace. And now it’s America that needs
some changing, yet they (current leaders) have neutralized the government
from doing so. As long as families are put below the shareholder value and
it still takes two incomes to be ‘middle class,’ it’s the women who are going
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The New “Problem That Has No Name” r 15

to suffer—because it is the women who do 100 percent of the child-birthing

and still remain the vast majority of caretakers. As such, women are going to
be forced to make choices between their work and their children and, even if
they don’t have children, they will be hit with a ‘Potential Mommy Penalty.’
Without incentives or penalties, why would those at the top of the ladder
want to change anything? Believe me, if it were left to them, we’d still have
children working forty-hour weeks.”
—Diane Danielson, CEO, downtownwomensclub.com

“It takes a long time to reverse a pattern of domination, both culturally and
actually, but it is happening slowly in our country. The media continues
to play a big role in discouraging young people from seeing the arenas of
leadership as wide open to all people. Leadership is not understood as the
inclusive process it needs to be, but rather as lodged in one very powerful
person. Leadership is often portrayed as an onerous, all-consuming, antago-
nistic, have-to-know-all-the-answers kind of thing, and many women don’t
see themselves filling that kind of role. To the extent that society defines
leadership as more inclusive and complementary, more people will imagine
themselves productively participating. Power and resources are still much in-
tertwined in America, and women and people of color often have less access
to resources upon which to build.
“In education, access remains a huge issue for people who are the first
in their families to go to college and for lower-income people. In terms
of leadership, there are some very visible women leading major educational
institutions, but the numbers are still small. This remains true for intellectual
leadership as well, where a man’s voice, especially when affiliated with a
prestigious institution, gets heard before a woman’s voice that is saying the
same thing.”
—Gloria Nemerowicz, President, Pine Manor College

“The major elements holding women back right now from leading in Amer-
ica are the appropriate opportunities to do so. Life is so much about chances.
Being in the right place at the right dawning moment. But many women
are still not getting those chances. That is why they have not led America
more. This is true in all professions, including law. To a lesser extent, there
has been one other key element holding women back from such leadership
positions, and ironically, this is one which women do control: the basic faith
in oneself to master the hurdles that will enable the assumption of such
leadership roles. Too many women are afraid they won’t be able to pull it
all together—the travel, the meetings, the dinners, the work—and still have
any semblance of a personal life. So they don’t even try. And it’s so short-
sighted. I always tell the women I work with, ‘Yes, you can make this work.
But you don’t have to do it alone. Find the right help at home with your
kids. Talk with your spouse about how to divide up some of the parenting
responsibilities. Figure out how to make this work for you. Don’t say that
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16 r Her Turn

you cannot do this. Because you can. And you can do it really well! Believe in
yourself and the rest will fall into place.’ And I noticed some time ago now
that the women who never seemed to have this fear of failing everyone and
everything, who just grasp the opportunities as they come and figure it out
as they go, are the very ones who have succeeded wildly. They never stopped
to say: ‘I cannot possibly . . . ’ or ‘I don’t know how to. . . . ’ ”
—Mary-Laura Greely, Member, Mintz Levin

“Confidence and the old boys’ network. Let me explain. First, on confidence.
Professional women today are harder working and, in many cases, better
educated than their male counterparts. Yet, despite women’s greater access
to higher education, women are slower to find their voice in business and
politics. Over and over again, I hear women say: ‘It wasn’t until I was in
my forties that I really developed the skill and ability to throw my hat in
the ring for leadership roles.’ Women should take advantage of professional
development courses, training in public speaking or graduate-level business
courses (the high-testosterone kind) to gain the confidence necessary to make
sure that they earn their leadership stripes in their thirties, rather than waiting
until their forties or fifties. The old boy network may have gone underground
(it’s more subtle now) but it is not dead. Take a look at the day planner for
any male senior executive: Unless he’s dining with a female client, business
prospect or potential lover, he’s not socializing with his female colleagues.
In my own profession, there are many women in public relations, but fewer
female business owners. Key barriers include access to capital coupled with
a reluctance to take risks.”
—Geri Denterlein, CEO, Denterlein Worldwide

ppp
To sum up the comments from my survey, women are being held back
by each other, by their different leadership style, and, most important, by
a government that has not kept up with cultural changes and mandated
the kinds of family leave programs that allow all available workers to
succeed. And, it is also clear that women understand that men are still
more comfortable with each other. Regardless of the push to get women
into more senior positions, men will always look to fill an opening with
one of their own. This is not because they discriminate against women,
but because it is the decision with the least effort and potential long-term
complications.
We have to be honest here and accept that men think more like other
men than they do like women and they certainly believe they understand
each other better. There is little comfort for men in trying to picture their
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The New “Problem That Has No Name” r 17

second-in-command as a wife, mother, housekeeper, and business decision

maker. The visual just doesn’t connect for scores of men. I have been told
many times over the years that men with stay-at-home wives have the most
difficulty in seeing the long-term success potential for the women they
employ. Those big-type CEOs who predictably make the little jokes about
their wives “who shop ’til they drop” are clueless when it comes to how
they should act around career women. Should we scream discrimination
with this behavior? Of course not. Eventually these “knuckleheads,” the
only term I can comfortably use for these gentlemen, will learn that the
business world has passed them by and they are seen as dinosaurs by most
men and women.
This problem may be greatest on Wall Street. Over the past decade,
most of the top brokerage firms have had sex discrimination cases brought
against them. Clearly, a lawsuit was less expensive than doing the right
thing. A DiversityInc 2007 article4 spotlights the paltry amount of diversity
in the pipeline. The lack of opportunity as well as pay inequities cause
diverse individuals to leave the industry. And, for women particularly, the
highly publicized sex discrimination cases that most of the major brokerage
houses have undergone and succumbed to are reason enough to take their
talents elsewhere. We shouldn’t have to look alike to get ahead.
When looking at sheer demographics, the company that doesn’t seriously
begin to recruit and retain its women is going to be left in the dust like
so many dinosaur bones. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, by
2010, the number of available jobs is projected to increase by more than
twenty-two million. The labor force, however, is only projected to increase
by seventeen million. Every man and woman, with the capacity to do so,
must be able to fill these positions. Retaining talent is not just good business
sense, it is crucial for our economy. But back to how this will be possible.
America once and for all must address priority Number One—our children
and families.
For every step forward, the worry about the children brings women two
steps back, or that’s the potential unless, as Kanter points out, a woman
is so extraordinary that she’s able to supersede the prevailing mindset.
Here’s an example. When interviewed for this book, Diana DeGette, a
Colorado Congresswoman who’s Chief Deputy Whip and in her sixth
term, shared her story of beginning her run for the seat made vacant by
Pat Schroeder: “Schroeder was the icon of American politics and she had
been there for twenty-four years. She had raised her kids in the job and yet
some people said to me, ‘Well, I’m not supporting you because we already
had a woman,’ and I said, ‘Well, men have been succeeding each other
for generations in Congress and it seemed to work out OK.’ Then other
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18 r Her Turn

people said, ‘How will you raise your kids in this job? ’” DeGette knew that
Schroeder’s children were the exactly same age as hers, two and six, when
she had been elected to Congress. DeGette continues, “Twenty-four years
later and they’re still asking me the same questions they asked Pat.” Given
the success of so many women in politics today, isn’t it time we stop asking
the same “what about the children?” question in reference to women’s
leadership? As DeGette points out, her career in law that preceded her
career in public service was just as demanding of her time.
I believe the answer is to give more women political power and that
question, once and for all, can and will be resolved. Women will make
their case: that they are up to the challenge of accomplishing any job a man
can do. But we have hardly begun the work toward the emancipation of
men. It’s time to accept our collective advances and create a level playing
field for men. At the moment, we can’t be the best in the CEO office and
the best at reading bedtime stories at the same time. This is a serious point
of order for women if they’re to come full circle into creating the life they
want. They can’t have career, home, and children all to themselves. Clearly,
there is no balance in having it all, all by ourselves. Balance comes with
being able to depend on the support of all of those around us. Our complex
society is in need of a shakeup, something we will discuss at the end of this
book in how we get there. But for now, let’s agree to the understanding
that our first priority is the next generation, without whom we have little
reason to achieve grandeur. When all of us are found to be accountable for
their success, we will truly be the role models for the world.
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CHAPTER 2

Vive La Difference

“My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those
who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in
the first group. There was much less competition.”
—Indira Gandhi

Much has been written on how men and women are different. Much
has been written about how men and women are alike. Right brain, left
brain—women use one and men use the other. Women are better nurturers,
caretakers, multitaskers, and jugglers of all that needs to get done. Men,
on the other hand, work best when they focus on one thing at a time.
Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, to coin a phrase. Men
are hunters and women are gatherers. Men play sports, women play dress-
up. Men want fast, sporty cars. Women want safety and comfort in their
vehicles. Women are good at language and history and men excel at math
and science. Women want a man with money and a good job. Men want
a woman who is happy to stay home and cook and clean.
Does this sound right to you? Does it fit the world you live in? Can we
stereotype people because of their gender? Race? Economic background?
Religion? Physical disability? Accent? Ancestry? Sexual orientation? Size?
Or age? When a former president of Harvard University even questions
the innate abilities of men and women, his words bring on a firestorm of
protests. And, for some, his words brought to memory the long-put-to-rest
theory about the innate abilities of whites and people of color.
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20 r Her Turn

It might make for good reading, or better yet for good debate, but I’ve
learned you can’t judge a book by its cover. I guess that tells you what
generation I come from. As much as I would like to assume that any one
of the categories listed above could easily describe a person, I have learned
that until you really get to know someone, nothing can tell you much
about them. And, that is particularly true about men and women. The
only thing we can all agree on is that most men and women are biologically
different.
Now, this chapter is not meant to amuse you but to enlighten you because
the moment you make a preconceived decision about someone because of
one of the just-mentioned categories, you have sunk to the lowest form
of bigotry and discrimination—stereotyping. Plus, you lose out on the
opportunity of discovering for yourself just how wonderful Mother Nature
is. People from all walks of life, all sizes, and colors, and religions can teach
you something you don’t know. Every person has value as a human being
and you will be better for learning what that special quality is if you leave
your judgmental nature at the door.
A spring 2005 Q&A 1 provides a glimpse of what it’s like to be a female
in a highly visible, typically male-dominated field, that of chief justice of
a state supreme court. The female chief justices in Illinois, Massachusetts,
Utah, and Wisconsin at that time, Mary Ann McMorrow, Margaret H.
Marshall, Christine M. Durham, and Shirley S. Abrahamson respectively,
agreed that there are special burdens and advantages to being the rare
woman with such high visibility.
First, there’s the positive. “You’re a celebrity,” says Durham. Next,
there’s the we’ve-come-a-long-way satisfaction that McMorrow relates.
As a young prosecutor, she was asked to argue a case before the Illinois
Supreme Court. Thrilled with the opportunity to be the first woman to do
so, she worked hard to prepare her brief and argument. Right before the
“big day,” McMorrow was told that a woman could not argue before the
Supreme Court. Of course, she was hugely disappointed. “Now I sit on
the very court before which I was not permitted to argue,” she says. “When
I see so many women arguing and drafting briefs, I cannot help but think
what a waste of talent there was so many years ago.”
And then there’s the pressure of being one of the few of your gender.
Durham said of the scrutiny she felt all along: “If I had failed as a trial or
an appellate judge, it would have rebounded not just to my detriment but
also to that of women lawyers across the board.”
So many professions and careers benefiting from differing points of
view make a vive la difference attitude a strength. It is almost impossible
to imagine that women in America didn’t have the freedom to express
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Vive La Difference r 21

themselves openly in all the ways men have as guaranteed by the Consti-
tution. Whether as a chief justice or in any other role that makes a positive
impact in how we live our lives, men and women bring qualities to bear
that benefit the society as a whole.
We are fortunate in America for our freedom of speech and ideas and
what allows not only individuals but also the media to express themselves.
Our media, as flawed as it might be as expressed in this book, sometimes
gets it right in giving women the right kind of visibility. When reading the
headline for a Wall Street Journal interview with the four Sullivan sisters,2
I immediately recalled the famous story of the five Sullivan brothers, who
had enlisted in the Navy in February 1942, with the promise that they
would serve together. The ship they served on was attacked and all five
brothers died. Their plight inspired a movie and initiated a change to the
policy of the U.S. War Department. Had The Wall Street Journal picked
the Sullivan sisters with an instinct that their story, too, could move a
generation?
The Sullivan sisters grew up in Elberon, New Jersey, in the 1960s. Their
upbringing, similar to mine and many other women with dads and moms
who want their daughters to be independent, was about learning a strong
work ethic and the determination to succeed. Their dad, an executive
at AT&T, taught them what he knew about launching products, profit
margins, teamwork, and competition. And their mom taught them that
ambition is a feminine quality and that self-discipline is important. The
results of these parents’ work in mentoring their daughters to be leaders:
Denise Sullivan Morrison is president of Campbell USA; Maggie Sullivan
Wilderotter is chair and CEO of Citizens Communications Company;
Colleen Sullivan Bastkowski is regional vice president of sales at Expedia
Inc.’s Expedia Corporate Travel; and Andrea Sullivan Doelling is a cham-
pion horse jumper and a former senior vice president of sales at AT&T
Wireless.
The article quotes these sisters as having had “to outperform men,
take jobs men didn’t want and draw on the perseverance they learned as
children.” And they “continue to make their own opportunities, another
lesson learned from their parents.” Yes, the media can, and occasionally
does, expose real stories of women who are making it and even gives them
credit for it.
The Sullivan sisters’ story brings up the importance of being taught con-
fidence at an early age. In my experience, the most confident people are the
least judgmental people. Perhaps, I’m stereotyping with this observation,
but I don’t think so. When you are comfortable in your own skin, you have
less reason to question someone else. Diversity is all about bringing more
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22 r Her Turn

perspectives to the table. Debate is all about having more than one opinion
to discuss. If there were only one way to think about things, life would be
pretty boring. Nothing is more enriching than to have a different point of
view expressed and have a whole new way of looking at a particular issue.
I often say to my husband, you don’t have to tell me I’m right, just tell
me that you understand my point of view. Of course, I then remind him
that if we talk long enough, I will be right, so he might as well give in
early . . . but I digress.
Seriously, not enough can be written about the importance of bring-
ing people with different views to the table for discussion. Our recent
involvement in Iraq is a perfect case in point. Every leader must surround
himself/herself with different perspectives. It is the only way of seeing
the whole picture and making the best decision. Communication styles
are a major component of this discussion. Generally, women are seen as
less communicative at work regarding their needs, yet able to speak more
openly than men in every other aspect in the rest of their lives. Men speak
more directly about what they want at work but seem unable to do the
same in other situations.
Could it be that it isn’t the gender but the circumstance and the “what-
is-expected-of-me syndrome” at play here? Sociologists, psychologists, and
academics have spent decades arguing the gender myths. These myths are
then transposed into our TV shows, movies, books, and newspaper and
magazine articles. We are what the media and others tell us we are. Or
are we? The Economist 3 reports that the world over, parents still prefer
having boys over girls. The premise that boys have a better opportunity for
economic success and therefore better prospects for survival is as antiquated
as believing women’s hormones can drive them to insanity. In other words,
these are ideas, or myths, held by a generation long past. Girls today get
better grades, earn more degrees, attain higher financial returns in their
investments, and, because they tend to do the housework, childrearing,
and work outside the home, they outproduce men. The media is obligated
to restate the facts of the power and future of girls.
The media’s image of girls and women does not reflect the reality of
their achievements. Women may be involved in a juggling act at work and
at home, but the majority of women are making it work. The working
mom understands the need for outside support from family, friends, or
structured day care. She coordinates the needs of every member of her
family. The stay-at-home mom doesn’t have it any easier as she involves
herself in her community, at her child’s school, and more. But too often
the media pits the career mother against the stay-at-home mother. The
stay-at-home dad is pitted against the status quo for macho men. Family
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Vive La Difference r 23

values are spouted by both political parties but answers for catching up
with the progress of the rest of the world, or more specifically with Canada
and Europe, are not in the dialogue. The most educated generation in
our history is caught in the crossfire of wanting it all, and yes, all at the
same time. When the best and the brightest, and I mean the majority of
graduate students—women, the supposed weaker sex—are ready to take
on the world of work at every level, our culture is set in a tailspin as to how
to respond.
A JWT Worldwide survey, released in March 2007, dubs single twenty-
something women as “Atalantas” and describes them as “independent,
educated, upwardly mobile, and in no rush to wed.” She is looking for
strong female role models and is dedicated to achieving her goals and
passionate about her independence. She describes herself as a “home-
lover, not a clubber” and depends on her peer network for all her life
advice. Finally, she finds herself wanting to be carefree and explorative
one minute and dependable and responsible the next. It’s obvious that
this generation of women is ready for anything and believes they can have
it all.
Atalanta’s role models are not just found in the media’s portrayal of
single women on such shows as Sex and the City and in the movies. The
question is, why doesn’t the media focus its attention on the positive
aspects of Atalantas in its business news? These enthusiastic, energetic
women are the future in America. They are role models in their own way as
freedom fighters for determining how women will rule the next generation.
Women of all ages today are looking to see how other women are doing it
and have done it. Whether it’s by attending women’s conferences to hear
the stories of women CEOs or devouring the less-than-frequent business
stories found in business magazines and newspapers, or, if they’re lucky,
looking up the ranks within their workplace, today’s career women are
seeking inspiration from other women in order to compete and thrive.
The annual lists of top businesswomen, most powerful women, and
richest women open up the world of possibilities. For example, this year’s
“Fortune 50 Most Powerful Women” list illustrates the diversity of women
and their companies. The first three are the CEOs of PepsiCo, Kraft Foods,
and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). We are immediately made aware
that women are being taken seriously at least some of the time. Indra Nooyi,
born in India and CEO of PepsiCo since August 2006, brought her custom
as a lifelong vegetarian to the healthy nutrition concept the company has
adopted. Irene Rosenfeld stood her ground earlier at Kraft when she left
the company because she disagreed with top management. The company
brought her back as CEO in June 2006, when top management’s direction
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24 r Her Turn

wasn’t working. Pat Woertz showed her stuff at Chevron but knew the
CEO slot wouldn’t open for years, so she took time to research other
opportunities. ADM came knocking within months and Woertz became
CEO in April 2006.
These women and many more like them cannot be dismissed as rare
or eccentric. They are more the norm across America today although our
media does little to tell us about their journey. They are women who are
serious about their career and work. And they are women who bring the
meaning of vive la difference to corporate influence.
When asked about what she thinks women bring to the table, Ellyn
McColgan, who’s president of Fidelity Investments Distribution and Op-
erations and has been on the list of Fortune magazine’s “50 Most Powerful
Women in Business” since 2004, answers, “I’m thinking of a half a dozen
of women who work here at Fidelity who are widely recognized as smart
and as the people who get a lot done. They work well across divisions
because they are so focused and they work so well with other people.”
Women are also making their mark out in the marketplace. A 2006 New
York Times article4 focuses on the need for American companies to wake
up to the consumer power of women. In it, Michael J. Silverstein of the
Boston Consulting Group says that women “will earn more money than
men if current trends continue by 2008.” Women make the majority of
buying decisions not only in household goods but also travel, automobiles,
education, financial services, and healthcare. Women also make almost
half of home improvement and consumer electronics buying decisions.
And, by owning almost 50 percent of all small businesses, women are key
purchasers of all business products and services.
There is not just diversity in what women versus men want but also
in what different women want. When I started my newspaper, I queried
advertising agencies about how they targeted businessmen. The answers
from agency to agency were similar as they each had a clear profile about
what a businessman looked like, what he read, what he watched, and where
he traveled. When asked the same question about a businesswoman, no
agency had a clear idea of how to reach her. There was no clear profile for
a businesswoman. Aha! I knew immediately, I had an opportunity to fill
a niche. The point is not to suggest that men are predictable and have no
mystery to them, but that women hold the surprises.
This isn’t to say that corporate is completely gender blind. One startling
“new” idea is that women and men network differently. The passé brain-
child of networking your way to new business only on the links or over
cognac and a smoke is being replaced, at least at some major compa-
nies across the country according to an article in The Wall Street Journal.5
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Vive La Difference r 25

Profiling women’s events at firms such as Ernst & Young, Merrill Lynch,
and General Electric, writer Carol Hymowitz reports, “After all, network-
ing over shoe shopping at a Manhattan boutique is no different than playing
golf and sharing cigars after a steak dinner is for men.” I’ve attended many
women-only networking events myself, including a night at the theatre, an
exhibit at the art museum, wine and chocolate tastings, fashion shows, and
even a lesson in flower arranging. The point is not that women don’t, or
can’t, enjoy the things men do, but that they enjoy other social gatherings
as well, and a smart company will provide alternative occasions to make
sure they tap into the passions of all its customers.
So why is most of our country still caught up in a one-size-fits-all
mentality? And, why is that one size a white male forty regular? Even he
is looking for more choice and opportunity to embrace a vive la difference
workplace.
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CHAPTER 3

A Look Back to Look Ahead

“I think it is time for us Americans to take a good look at ourselves and our
shortcomings. We should remember how we achieved the aims of freedom
and democracy. We should look back in an effort to gauge how we can best
influence the peoples of the world.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt

Take a look at this paraphrasing of the National Organization for Women’s

Bill of Rights, adopted in 1967, and see if you don’t end up asking yourself:
Is this all there is?

1. That the U.S. Congress would pass the Equal Rights Amendment,
which guarantees the equality of rights for all regardless of gender.
2. That women be granted the opportunity for equal employment.
3. That the law protect women’s rights to return to their jobs within a
manageable time after childbirth without loss of seniority, and that
they be paid maternity leave.
4. That there be an immediate revision of tax laws to permit the deduc-
tion of home and child care expenses for working parents.
5. That adequate child care facilities be established by law.
6. That women have the right to be educated, at all levels, to their fullest
potential and equally with men through the enactment of federal and
state legislation, thereby eliminating discrimination and segregation
by sex.
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28 r Her Turn

7. That women in poverty have the same rights as men in securing job
training, housing, and family allowances through revisions in welfare
legislation and poverty programs.
8. That women have the right to control their own productive lives
by removing language in penal code laws that limit access to con-
traceptive information and devices, and by repealing abortion penal
laws.

What was considered radical in 1967 is today a statement of not only

the obvious but also a declaration of what’s right. Equality does not mean
there are no differences between men and women. It means that we should
have the same rights under the law.
History provides perspective for us all. As I researched this book, I
realized that what I believed were the radical “bra-burning feminists of the
1960s” were actually an older, more experienced group of women than I,
with a greater understanding of the inequities for our gender. I believe the
next generation, those up-and-coming women—and men—making their
way into the work world have the same disadvantage that my generation
and I had in not knowing what had come before us. The lack of knowledge
of how women have provided not only comfort but have also worked at
every level during wartime in our country’s history to then quietly allow
themselves to become second-class citizens once the crisis was over must
be corrected. This history and its power, or the lack thereof, must be
shouted out to every generation. We must not forget the sacrifices of our
forbearers—our great-great-grandmothers and the generations of women
who have brought us to where we are today: Ready to lead in America.
Every historical advancement of our female ancestors has served as a
challenge, not to male authority in self-righteous indignation but to in-
equality. Each advancement has been a forward step toward equal oppor-
tunities for all, the very basis of our Constitution. We are not there yet!
It’s time for a new women’s revolution where women take their collective
place equally alongside men and help make this country the best place it
can be and continue its path as global leader. For us (America) to take a
second place to any country because of its positive position on equality of
the sexes versus our seeming inequality is an abomination.
As you’ll read later in a discussion on global family leave programs,
America ranks almost last out of one hundred and seventy-three countries
studied that offer guaranteed leave with income to women in association
with childbirth. To be crystal clear, there is no guaranteed paid leave for
mothers in the United States in any segment of the workforce. Other
countries have learned the importance of a diverse workforce and how to
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A Look Back to Look Ahead r 29

keep talented people on the job. This is a lesson America cannot afford
to toss out with yesterday’s homework. We must seek out the talent at
hand and move in the direction of creating leadership that brings equality
across the sexes. We have no time left to continue this lag behind the rest
of the world. We must actively seek out the talent at hand and move in
the direction of creating leadership that brings equality across the genders.
We will all be better for it.
Awareness of the past will get us on the right track. There is a very good
reason to study history, whether it’s the history of a country, a battle or
conflict, or the history of a people. History affords us an opportunity to
learn something from the events of the past. Most important, it allows us
the opportunity not to make the same mistakes twice. Leaders must build
on the knowledge of past events in order to see potential outcomes for the
future. It is often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing
over and over and expecting different results each time. Understanding our
history allows us to move ahead rather than ’round and ’round in circles or,
worse, backward. Too often we see our leaders fail by dismissing history
and assuming that time has changed the circumstances.
Women’s history is not spoken or written about enough, in my opinion.
Although March is considered Women’s History month in the United
States, you would be hard-pressed to find much written about the women’s
movement that began in this country in the early 1830s. I am devoting
this chapter to the history of the women’s movement and to women’s
leadership to set the stage for my assertion—that the time is now for
women to lead. Men and women must understand the past struggles of
their female ancestors to have an appreciation for where we are today and
why we are at that moment in time when change must take place. So, don’t
skip this important look back at women’s efforts to participate jointly with
men as they stepped foot onto the shores of America.
Since coming ashore first in 1608 at Jamestown, Virginia, and at the
subsequent Plymouth, Massachusetts, settlement in 1620, women have
contributed at every level of society. (I can’t help but note that the first
woman to help the earliest Jamestown settlers, all men arriving in 1607,
was Native American Pocahontas.) From generation to generation, women
have been asked to lead in a variety of capacities at different times in our
history. The U.S. census reports that in 1800, 5 percent of women were
employed. Married women at this time had a life expectancy of forty and
had an average of seven children. By 1900, 21 percent of women were
employed, and life expectancy for a married woman was fifty-plus with
the likelihood of having four children. By the year 2000, 60 percent of
women were employed and comprised 40 percent of all workers. The life
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30 r Her Turn

expectancy of a married woman in 2000 reached eighty and she produced

an average of two children.
The statistics show clearly that as reproductive labor decreased and life
expectancy spans increased, women sought more opportunities for work
and vice versa. Today, 52 percent of the workforce is female and 54 percent
of the ninety-six million singles in the United States are women. Although
90 percent of women statistically will become pregnant, most of them will
continue to work, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
During the Industrial Revolution at the beginning of the 1800s, women’s
work moved from unpaid housework to low-pay wage work. In the early
factories, single women and poor married women played a major role in
filling the jobs of making finished goods out of raw materials for low
wages. Men secured the higher-paying wages as mechanics and overseers.
As the factories grew, there was a demand for clerical work and sales clerks.
White literate women took these jobs, which were managed by men. By
1830, department stores were the rage; at first, because women worked
for cheap, they were hired for sales positions. But as the role became
more professional, women were pushed out into the lower-paying jobs
of teachers and librarians that were once held by men. By 1900, women
outnumbered men as teachers by two to one.1
The 1830s marked the start of the first women’s rights movement.
As factory workers, their work was critical to the economic growth of
the country, yet they had no rights to own property or to control their
wages. The first Women’s Rights Convention was held in 1848 in Seneca
Falls, New York, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Three
hundred people attended, forty of whom were men. The Declaration of
Sentiments, signed by one hundred of the participants, was presented as
the convention’s grievances and made available to the press. The following
were their grievances.

1. Married women were legally dead in the eyes of the law.

2. Women were not allowed to vote.
3. Women had to submit to laws when they had no voice in their
formation.
4. Married women had no property rights.
5. Husbands had legal power over and responsibility for their wives to
the extent that they could imprison or beat them without impunities.
6. Divorce and child custody laws favored men, giving no rights to
women.
7. Women had to pay property taxes although they had no representa-
tion in the levying of their taxes.
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A Look Back to Look Ahead r 31

8. Most occupations were closed to women, and when women did work,
they were paid only a fraction of what men earned.
9. Women were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine or
law.
10. Women had no means to gain an education since no college or
university would accept female students.
11. With only a few exceptions, women were not allowed to participate
in the affairs of the church.
12. Women were robbed of their self-confidence and self-respect and
were made totally dependent on men.2

The media mocked the convention, and when The New York Herald
printed the Sentiments, the paper’s negative intention backfired as the
printing gave the opportunity for men and women who had not attended
the convention to think about the questions that had been asked.
As we look at the Sentiment’s grievances of 1848, it should make us
shudder that many of them took generations to be rectified and, in the case
of equal pay, we are still on the journey.
By May of 1851, another Women’s Rights Convention took place in
Akron, Ohio, organized by Frances D. Gage. Both men and women
were in attendance. Both men and women were allowed to speak their
minds as to how the concerns for equality between the sexes needed to
be aired. The only black person attending was Sojourner Truth. Standing
nearly six feet tall, she stood out among the crowd and was given the
opportunity to be heard. Her words, in a speech known as the “Ain’t I a
Woman?” speech, spoke of the importance of the women’s movement to
black women. She rebuked the widely held idea that women were weaker
than men.
“That man over there say that woman needs to be helped into carriages,
and lifted over ditches, and has to have the best place everywhere. Nobody
ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me any best
place . . . And ain’t I a woman? I have plowed and planted and gathered
into barns, and no man could head me . . . I could work as much and eat as
much as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well.” Sojourner
Truth continues today to stand out as a symbol of a strong black woman
who worked for equal rights all her life. She understood that her fight was
based on her color and her gender, and that equality must be in both areas
to be satisfactory.3
The Civil War, with women taking up the work of the men out on the
battlefield, would set the scene for greater struggle for women’s rights and
civil rights that often crossed paths. In 1869, the Fifteenth Amendment
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32 r Her Turn

gave black men the right to vote. Neither the Fourteenth nor Fifteenth
Amendments included women. With the passage of the Fifteenth Amend-
ment, many black women felt that black male suffrage was an important
first step toward women’s rights. Meanwhile, women were left to clean up
from the ravage of war, keeping families together, and finding ways to feed
them when their men didn’t return home. The movement led right up to
the women suffragettes’ winning the right for women to vote in 1920 with
the Nineteenth Amendment—culminating the first wave of a women’s
movement in America. It would be another forty-plus years before women
collectively worked together again to advance their rights and call attention
to the need for equality.
World War I once again saw men go to war and women do whatever was
needed at home, from working in factories making weapons to populating
the battlefield as nurses. The Great Depression of 1929 was a time when
one out of every five people was out of work. In some places, it was illegal
to hire women, yet many women had no choice—single women, widows,
divorced women—they all had to find anything they could to survive.
They were allowed only to do what was labeled women’s work—laundry,
cleaning, cooking, and sewing. Minimal survival was the only right they
endured for the ten years leading up to World War II, when women’s help
became paramount once again.
Then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) campaigned to
get all women working, and by 1945 six million women worked in war in-
dustries. These women were called Women Ordnance Workers (WOWs).
The Rosie Riveter media campaign directed by the government ultimately
got nineteen million women working in factories and businesses, on farms,
and in the military. Child care centers were set up in factories, or neighbors
watched one another’s children. It was considered a woman’s patriotic duty
to work as the men fought the war. In 1942, six months after Pearl Har-
bor was attacked, FDR signed a bill to create the Women’s Army Corps
(WAC). The Navy followed with the Women Accepted for Voluntary
Emergency Services (WAVES). The Coast Guard and the Marines also
allowed women to join their ranks.
When World War II ended, women were asked to go home and leave
their jobs for the returning men—even those women who had lost their
husbands and now had no support. Polls at the time showed that three-
fourths of the WOWs wanted to keep their jobs. Many women found ways
to keep working and even learned new skills to change positions. And by
1950, one-third of all women still worked.
Yet the 1950s was a time of prosperity for many. Wartime was over and
jobs were plentiful. Although more women than ever worked, the image
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A Look Back to Look Ahead r 33

of a perfect family was an at-home mom with two-plus children and a

husband with a good job. Families could live and thrive on one paycheck.
It was the Leave It to Beaver era that the media likes to perpetuate even
today as the perfect role model for happy families, with June Cleaver,
the housewife in her shirtwaist dress, waiting by the front door for her
children to return from school and for her husband to return from work to
the comfort of their immaculate home.
By 1960, however, the need for two paychecks grew as the economy
weakened. The women’s movement again mobilized in 1961 when then-
President John F. Kennedy created a blue-ribbon President’s Commission
on the Status of Women. The committee was chaired by Eleanor Roo-
sevelt, and it was to focus on the prejudices against women as well as
on basic rights. The goal was to give women an opportunity to make a
maximum contribution in government and private employment.
Women wanted to work and needed to work. More and more married
women took jobs at low wages just to keep the family on par. The 1963
recommendations from the Commission included:

r Making admission requirements at colleges more flexible in order to

admit more women,
r To fund child care centers for working mothers privately,
r To provide for paid maternity leave, expand job counseling services for
women, and end gender-based hiring and discrimination practices.

Equal pay was also legislated in 1963, when the United States passed
the Equal Pay Act, outlawing different pay scales for men and women.
Little changed, however, since most men and women didn’t work the
same types of jobs. What did change was that, up until this point, jobs
could be advertised for women or for men and with differing gender-based
pay scales. The Equal Pay Act provided women the promise of a fair wage
for the first time in history.
The 1963 report was the first time that the status of women in America
had been researched. The other most important recommendation of the
commission was that each state set up a similar commission. By 1964,
thirty-two states had complied and by 1967, all fifty states had set up
commissions. The synergy between women’s groups helped motivate the
passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, eliminating discrimination against
African-Americans, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act finally prohib-
ited discrimination by race or gender. Once again, race and gender were
combined under an act of discrimination. This act also set up the Equal
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34 r Her Turn

Employment Opportunity Committee (EEOC), where complaints could

be heard and reviewed. In 1967, the Affirmation Action Executive Order
was declared for women and minorities to make sure both had an equal
and fair opportunity for employment.
At about the same time, in November, the National Organization of
Women (NOW) ratified its Bill of Rights and empowered women across
the country to start their own women’s groups. It was the second call for
the liberation of women. This next wave focused on benefits and work-
place discrimination, as well as sexual harassment. In 1971, the National
Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC) was formed with a mission of in-
clusivity. Like the suffrage movement, it focused on the women’s vote
and the opportunity for political power to redirect the nation toward a
peaceful goal. At the founding convention in 1973 in Houston, Texas,
fifteen hundred came to build a national political movement for women.
New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm argued that “the NWPC
is not to be the cutting edge of the women’s liberation movement, but a
big umbrella organization which proves the weight and muscle for those
issues which the majority of women in this country see as concerns.” It
was clear: Diversity would be a strong issue that women would and could
embrace.
The women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s for the second time
in U.S. history had a reason for momentum, and its impact righted the
backward progress of previous decades.
By the end of the 1960s, women in America made up:

r 2 percent of the architects,

r 3 percent of the lawyers,
r 7 percent of the physicians,
r 9 percent of the scientists, and
r 22 percent of all teachers.4

The 2006 Databook on Women in the Labor Force5 reported statistics

based on 2005 information that illustrates the dramatic change for women
in these arenas as follows:

r 24 percent were architects,

r 30.2 percent were lawyers,
r 32.3 percent were physicians,
r 48.7 percent were biological scientists,
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A Look Back to Look Ahead r 35

r 45.9 percent were medical scientists,

r 35.3 percent were chemists and materials scientists, with women com-
prising approximately 10 percent of all engineers,
r 56.8 percent of secondary and postsecondary teachers, and
r 82.2 percent of elementary school teachers.

A lot has changed in forty years, but, as you’ll see, a lot has remained
the same.

Feminism in America

Feminism in America cannot be pinpointed to a specific date, because as

long as there have been women, there has been a feministic point of view.
Many times in our history, however, the word has taken on a negative
connotation. The movement in the 1960s and 1970s split into several
factions, some more radical than others. Issues around the Vietnam War,
reproductive rights, civil rights, and sexual orientation burst on the stage
through the movement. No history of the women’s movement in America
would be complete without mention of two women who embodied the
spirit of those days.
The first is Betty Friedan, whose book The Feminine Mystique in 1963
could be seen as the tipping point for the second wave of the women’s
movement. For the first time, “the problem with no name” that was af-
flicting women across America was identified and received maximum at-
tention. Masses of women were seeking assistance from professionals for
their unexplained malaise. Friedan acknowledged the problem as frustra-
tion and lack of fulfillment by women who could not define themselves
as anything other than someone’s wife, someone’s mother, or, simply, a
homemaker. Friedan will be remembered as one of the most influential
feminists in the twentieth century as a cofounder of the U.S. National
Organization for Women and as a mouthpiece for the emancipation of
women.
Gloria Steinem is the second feminist icon who continues to stand for
the fight for women’s rights through her writings, activism, and magazine,
Ms. Magazine. As cofounder of the NWPC as well as the Women’s Action
Alliance, Steinem has walked the talk for women for the past fifty years. She
was often designated by the media as the movement’s spokeswoman as her
moves and voice were sensational and she tolerated the media’s mocking.
These are just two of the women to whom the media turned its attention in
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36 r Her Turn

the late 1960s and early 1970s to portray as examples of those who sought
to undermine the family. Yet their work spurred women’s consciousness-
raising groups across the country, where women got together with their
friends in small factions to discuss their work in and outside the home.
By the early 1970s a sexual revolution had blossomed, and women were
demanding their opportunities promised to them by law.
The National Organization of Women (NOW) Convention in 1971
passed the following resolution.

1. Be it resolved that NOW recognizes the double oppression of les-

bians.
2. Be it resolved that a woman’s right to be her own person include the
right to define and express her own sexuality and to choose her own
lifestyle.
3. Be it resolved that NOW acknowledges the oppression of lesbians as
a legitimate concern of feminism.

Once again, the women’s movement and, more specifically NOW, its
leader, found itself between causes—the gay liberation movement and the
women’s movement. The message didn’t resonate positively across Amer-
ica, which wasn’t ready for the sexual orientation debate. The importance
of NOW’s history and its impact on the women’s movement and women
in general explains the ebb and flow of the movement since inception. Its
focus on the politics of sexual orientation, and later abortion, disturbed the
majority of the country at that time and allowed the media to demonize
the organization. These divisions caused an ominous feeling for women
who wanted to be considered feminists.
My research of this time brought back to mind Sojourner Truth’s dia-
logue with her “Ain’t I a Woman” theme—that of not being a second-class
citizen, but a person entitled to all the benefits men enjoy.
By the early 1990s, and specifically 1992, women in many respects had
come full circle, or so we are to believe if we accept the media hype of
the day. The Year of the Woman, 1992, was the year that more women
were elected to the U.S. Senate than ever before. Four women, Dianne
Feinstein, California; Barbara Boxer, California; Carol Moseley Braun,
Illinois; and Patty Murray, Washington State, were elected to the Senate
to join Nancy Kassebaum, Kansas, and Barbara Milkulski, Maryland.
For the first time in American history, six women served in the Senate.
In their first year in Congress, these women got thirty pieces of legislation
passed. In their second year, another thirty-three legislative actions were
approved. The record for any year before this was five. It should be clear
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A Look Back to Look Ahead r 37

from this recounting of history that, with more women serving in Congress,
a new perspective and initiative should move forward.
As you’ll read in the following chapters, during the next decade and half,
women have put their education first, taken advantage of the vote, made
their way into the workforce in record numbers, and continued to fight for
equality at every level. The organizations that started the rhetoric and got
women mobilized are still active and formidable against the opposition. But
the struggle continues. Today’s young woman sees open doors in her future
and opportunities that every woman and man in America is promised. Yet,
the reality, as will be mapped out, is not what’s promised and, in the end
that hurts America just as much as the women it disappoints. The most
educated and the most deserving are allowed to see their dreams disappear.
As Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi remarked as she took the oath of
office on January 4, 2007, “It is a moment for which we have waited over two
hundred years. We waited through the many years of struggle to achieve
our rights. But women weren’t just waiting. Women were working. Never
losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men
and women are created equal. For our daughters and our granddaughters,
today we have broken the marble ceiling.”6
So, as the debate goes on, women are making history in America every
day. Not a week goes by, as a publisher of a newspaper, that I’m not pitched
a story of another “first” for women: the first woman chief of police of a
major metropolitan city, the first woman head of a major city council, the
first woman major university president in the area, the first woman attorney
general in the state, and the list goes on. But just because women are making
history each day does not mean that each crack in the glass ceiling or the
marble ceiling or the concrete ceiling, or whatever the ceiling, is getting
that ceiling closer to being shattered. That will only happen when women
and men make it their business to bring other women into the pipeline
to power. Each “first” must be followed by a “second” and a “third” and
a “fourth,” and on and on. So, before you become complacent with the
history of the women’s movement in this country and how each step along
the way has benefited you—men and women—read on. We have a lot of
work to do before there is equality among the sexes in America.
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CHAPTER 4

The Time Is Now

“Women will run the twenty-first century. This is going to be the women’s
century, and young people are going to be its leaders.”
—Bella Abzug

Your first question may be, “Why now? What has changed so dramatically
that women are ready to take the lead?” Let me give you some “whys” to
consider. When we are in such need of the many attributes women bring to
the table—character, determination, compassion, and empathy, to name a
few—why aren’t more women among our leaders?
When it comes to business, women account for 85 percent of the con-
sumer purchasing power—so why aren’t they at the helm of more large
enterprises? Women are over half of the U.S. population—so why are they
just 16 percent of Congress? More than 65 percent of all graduate de-
grees are now being earned by women—so where is their path to holding
the elite positions at colleges and universities? With females representing
more than 50 percent of all law and medical school students—what are the
legal and medical professions doing to structure themselves for change?
Finally, as the volunteers and, by 2010, as those who control 60 percent
of the wealth in America1 —why aren’t women leading the nonprofit and
philanthropic worlds? You see, the real question is, “If not now, when will
women accept the power that is theirs for the taking?”
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the Harvard Business School thought leader,
says, “Now is the time for women. I think we have a sufficiently large pool
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40 r Her Turn

of women with experience and credentials to make it extremely plausible.

There were many years in which a combination of discrimination and
preference and gender segregation of occupations meant that there simply
were not many women in position. Now women have earned their way
onto the track to top leadership and have proven themselves. We now have
more and more work where physical characteristics play absolutely no role
in the ability to perform that work. Today, the main skills are mental. Most
work is knowledge work.”
Let me stop here for a moment and say that women are leading in
one area—getting hit harder by inflation than men. According to Merrill
Lynch economist David Rosenberg, this is due to consumer prices. The
costs for items that women consumers purchase, “including clothes, shoes,
cosmetics, jewelry, housekeeping, and appliances, have been rising faster
than for typically male products—men’s clothing, sporting goods, tele-
visions, and auto parts and repairs,” he notes. The result: The “female
inflation rate,” as Rosenberg calls it, is 3.6 percent year to year, which is
eighteen times the 0.02 percent inflation rate for men.2 As women are
encountering greater job growth than men and marrying later than they
used to, they are also spending more of their income than single men. The
gender-related supply-and-demand inflation rate is clearly a benefit to men
but one that should scream to women that once again, at this moment,
their achievements still have a negative effect on their future.
Women can’t reach parity unless we all, men and women, focus on
getting there. We are holding ourselves back every time we don’t hire
a woman, don’t refer a woman, and don’t vote for a woman. We can no
longer discount half of the talent that is out there ready, willing, and able to
lead. Time is no longer on our side. Never before have there been as many
women who are as educated, as employed, and as motivated for leadership
as there are today. There is power in numbers and women, as 52 percent of
the U.S. population, have the numbers. The balance of power should be on
the brink of equalizing. The workplace should be on the verge of change.
Now is the time for women to wield their power and set that change into
motion. Let the united force of momentum begin!
For the past thirty years and more, every woman with the desire to
lead in corporate America has been described at least once by someone
as hitting her head against the proverbial glass ceiling, banging her pretty
head against a cement wall, clawing her way to the top, and yes, sleeping her
way to the top. Not attractive descriptions for women who have nothing
more in mind than to achieve their maximum potential. The women who
have made it, however, are scarce in comparison to the number of positions
available and to the talent waiting in the wings.
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The Time Is Now r 41

It’s time for women to be able to gut it out to stay in corporate Amer-
ica and change the “business as usual” atmosphere that is corrupting the
system. It’s time for women to show that they’re capable of true and
equal representation in government at all levels: local, state, and federal.
It’s time for women to bring the capabilities that make them success-
ful lawyers to the leadership of the firm. It’s time for women to go to
the head of the class in shaping our future through colleges and uni-
versities. It’s time women succeed in their chosen medical and science
specialties without being held back by stereotyping. It’s time for women
to take their place with the “other half” and lead in all segments of so-
ciety, thereby creating even greater strength through more fairly realized
unity.
Warren Bennis says, “Letting the self emerge is the essential task for
leaders. It is how one takes the step from being to doing in the spirit
of expressing, rather than proving.”3 In other words, it is not necessarily
the path we choose that determines our ability to lead but how we are
able to express ourselves fully. Detoured by the roadblocks on the path to
leadership in the corporate culture, women have expressed themselves by
starting their own businesses—and their numbers are dramatic. Between
1997 and 2006, woman-owned businesses grew by 42 percent compared to
23 percent growth for all businesses. As Sharon Hadary, executive director
of the Center for Women’s Business Research, says, “What we heard from
a lot of women was that they were leaving their former employer because
they felt that they could not make a difference in the organization and
that their opinions were not influencing the direction of the organization.”
Determined to lead, they have found a way to do so—but it is not in
corporate America.
I believe that this is the tipping point women have been working toward.
As we will discuss later in the book, small business in America is the en-
gine driving our growing economy. Women in 2006 were responsible for
10.4 million privately held businesses—that’s two out of every five busi-
nesses in the country. In corporate America, women are secure in the ranks
of middle management and stand at the precipice of senior management.
Women and the women’s movement are responsible for the changes that
have taken place in corporate America and in their own businesses regard-
ing flextime, family and medical leave programs, onsite day care, and elder
care programs. These programs were demanded for by women but benefit
all employees. Men are equally the beneficiaries of these programs, as we
will discuss later. I have often said that the change in generational attitudes
can be described as follows: When I was born, my dad was in the office
waiting for the call; when my son was born, my husband was with me in
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42 r Her Turn

the delivery room; and when my son has his child, he will take time off
from work to bond.
It is clear that the days when women were encouraged to give their all
and “stand by their man” and hope for the best are over. Smart companies of
all sizes depend heavily on women to advance their agendas and contribute
to their bottom line. These national as well as global companies have
serious programs dedicated to the retention of women. These programs
are not in place to placate the demands of women’s organizations but
because company leaders realize that talented employees are absolutely
essential to success. OK, so you ask, why aren’t there any men retention
programs? Men are certainly essential to corporate America and to the
bottom line. Men, however, have what can best be described as the old boys’
network at work, where each member of the club automatically welcomes a
newcomer.
In their book,4 Members of the Club, Dawn-Marie Driscoll and Carol R.
Goldberg describe how comfortable this membership is for men. “It is not
an institution that can be found in the telephone book, nor does it have a
list of members. No single definition precisely fits The Club, but we know
it when we see it.” In the early 1990s when the book was written, The
Club was “an inner circle of male senior executives and professionals, all
of whom know each other, many of whom have shared past experiences
in school, the military or their companies.” In other words, a place “where
everyone knows your name,” to borrow a well-known tag line from the
familiar television show, Cheers. Yet, although more and more women
have moved into senior executive and professional positions and are well
known to the men at The Club, membership still eludes most.
Of course, there needs to be a safe place to prepare for The Club, and that
place is within the old boys’ network. It provides an opportunity for men to
start their career with a place at the table and the sense that there is a clear
career path. The unspoken rule of going along to get along and becoming
a member of the team are tactics learned early on, most likely from team
sports. As long as companies remain male-dominated, these conditions
don’t change, not because of bias or discrimination in the workplace per
se, but from a lack of diversity. Studies on the effects of having women
on corporate boards show that it takes a minimum of three women on a
board to change the dynamics of the group. One woman is seen as a token,
whether on purpose or by situation. Two women may be able to back each
other up enough to be heard but it takes three women to create an impact
on the discussion.
The point I am making here has nothing to do with discrimination.
Quite naturally, birds of a feather flock together. We unconsciously, and
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The Time Is Now r 43

sometimes consciously, feel more comfortable with others who are like
us. It is instinctual to believe that those who look more like us think
like us and will act like we do. Like it or not, this is human nature. But
understanding this is the first step in making sure we do everything we can
to value diversity at every level—even though we know we must work hard
in achieving what does not come naturally.
When more than 50 percent of the workforce is female, companies must
make an extra effort to provide mentorship programs that will meet their
needs for advancement and hear their concerns along the way. It is not
enough to endorse women’s initiatives for senior level and/or mid-level
managers. New recruits, both male and female, must feel that there is an
equal opportunity for advancement at the firm whether or not there is a
current role model of their gender at the “C” level—CEO, CFO, COO,
and on. The same must happen in every profession.
In 1988, Bennis wrote in On Becoming a Leader, “Where have all the
leaders gone? They are, like flowers of the haunting folk song, long time
passing.”5 All the leaders we once respected, he says, are dead. He goes on
to list many of the greatest leaders in all of history, FDR, Churchill, the
Kennedys, and Martin Luther King, just to name a few. No women are on
his list. Moreover, today’s question is not only “where have all the leaders
gone?” but also “why have so many become corrupt?” Why have greed,
self-interest, and self-indulgence taken over as the major characteristics of
our leaders? And before you accuse me of male-bashing, let’s take a look
at just a portion of “The Corporate Scandal Sheet”6 as an example of what
can happen in every sector across the country.

r October 2001, Enron: Corporate executives boosted profits and hid

debts totaling over $1 billion by improperly using off-the-books part-
nerships. The company filed for bankruptcy. The employees lost their
pensions.
r November 2001, Arthur Andersen: Andersen was convicted of ob-
struction of justice and ceased auditing public firms by August 31.
This case was later reversed but Arthur Andersen went out of business
and more than eighty thousand employees lost their jobs.
r April 2002, Adelphia Communications: Three Rigas family members
and two other ex-executives were arrested for fraud.
r May 2002, Tyco: Ex-CEO Dennis Kozlowski was indicted for tax
evasion and improper use of company funds.
r July 2002, AOL Time Warner: AOL said it might have overstated
revenue by $49 million.
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44 r Her Turn

I could go on and on with other corporate scandals but you know

the stories all too well. You could say I am making the case that these
companies, all led by men and controlled by male-dominated, and in almost
every case, male-only boards of directors, are corrupt due to their lack of
female representation. You would be right. That is exactly what I am saying.
I need to take you a step further, however, to make my point. We have
created a power structure in corporate America today that has lost its moral
compass. By focusing on the assumed desires of corporate shareholders that
company profits are more important than anything else, we have created
unreasonable pressure on company officials to drive earnings at any and all
cost.
Five and more years have passed since the scandals I mention here and
yet today we are still immersed in scandals of backdating of options for cor-
porate executives and board of directors and the need for more than half of
the Fortune 500 companies to restate earnings. So, what about the issue of
whether there is a gender difference in ethical decision making? Leslie M.
Dawson, professor of marketing at the University of Massachusetts Dart-
mouth, says, “The more we understand the differences in moral reasoning
that characterize the sexes, the better we can appreciate women’s impact on
ethical decision making in organizations.”7 The research she reported on
was based on forty-eight male and forty-two female marketing and sales
managers who were given six scenarios involving possible ethical issues and
asked to make a decision in each. Four of the six scenarios proved the sexes
had statistically significant different viewpoints.
But do these differences automatically mean that the current decline of
ethical standards in the business community may be able to be reversed
with a continuing influx of women at management levels? Dawson sug-
gests that “what seems more certain is that women’s increasing influence
in organizations will bring about differences in how ethical problems are
perceived and resolved. Women’s special traits could readily be seen as
improving the ethical climate of a firm in numerous ways: more sensitive
and caring treatment of customers, more creative approaches to prob-
lem solving, more effective relationship building creating greater trust
in interpersonal affairs, more supportive and understanding supervisory
styles.”
The bottom line is that bringing women’s voices to the top where
decisions are made can only help ebb the tide of corporate shenanigans.
When I’m asked if I believe that women would be less corrupt than men
if they held the majority of the power, my answer is that our instinct
for being so tough on each other—and holding ourselves to the same
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The Time Is Now r 45

standard—might just be the strength that keeps us accountable when we

are put in powerful positions. I believe America now depends on it.
How will women change the tone in corporate America? The same
way they will change the face of law, politics, healthcare, the sciences,
higher education, nonprofit, and philanthropy. With women as the major-
ity in senior level positions in corporations, strong companies will become
stronger as people—human capital and not monetary capital—are given
the greatest attention. All companies are only as successful as the people
who work there. Doing well by doing good will not be a motto on the
door but a concept embraced by all management filtered down to every
employee. Companies in America cannot afford to dismiss the importance
of people—employees, customers, the communities where employees and
customers work and live, and even international customers, the people in-
terested in the American way of life and ideals. The governance of these
companies, the board of directors and the management team, will benefit
by understanding their customer better since their customer is a woman.
The same kind of changes will happen in every avenue for women’s lead-
ership. Some of these changes are already happening in medicine, where
women’s influx into the medical community has helped focus the attention
on women’s health. Dr. Nancy H. Nielsen, speaker for the American Med-
ical Association’s policymaking House of Delegates, says, “Women have
energy, passion and a lot of experience at care-giving. Those are great qual-
ities for leaders who can inspire others and demonstrate by their personal
behavior what our profession is all about. Throughout the ages, physicians
have put the needs of others before themselves. It is truly a profession of
service to others.”
Of course, women as caregivers is nothing new, but as leaders in medicine
and science, the evidence thus far is that they seek only to advance humanity
as a whole rather than the spotlight for themselves. Forty years ago, doc-
tors, mostly male, had all the answers and there was little doctor/patient
communication. The education of today’s patient requires much more
communication, and women have been drawn to accomplishing the task.
The leadership of both men and women is critical in order to find solutions
to the serious healthcare debate going on in America today.
Our nonprofit community has been blessed with some of the most tal-
ented women and men for decades, but women are not up to pay parity
with their male counterparts. The variety of other career options facing
women today puts those low-paying, nonprofit roles in jeopardy. Pay eq-
uity across all professions is paramount, and for women at the helm of
nonprofits, another day cannot go by without equal pay. We need an army
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46 r Her Turn

of female nonprofit leaders to work alongside the new majority of wealth

holders (women) to guide them with their philanthropic choices.
As America increasingly becomes a place where the rich get richer and
the poor get poorer, we need the leadership of women because, as Marian
Heard, former president and CEO of the United Way of Massachusetts
Bay, says, “While men are sympathetic, I think women have a different level
of empathy. Because we have been caregivers and nurturers, we understand
the human side of the equation most days. It doesn’t get in the way. I think
it strengthens, quite frankly, our dealing with people. Women, more so
than men, are used to juggling and we can keep different files and different
projects and different things going at the same time.”
These unique qualities are equally important in the leadership quali-
ties necessary in higher education. Teachers and professors are, in most
cases, the second role models, next to parents, that young people have
to pattern themselves after. It’s time for the tenure process to be trans-
parent. Tenure is one more case where performance matters and the club
must be gender-inclusive. Similarly, the legions of women graduating from
law school must be able to see a direct path to partner if they join a law
firm or the opportunity to rise in the ranks in the judiciary, should that
be their aspiration. The enforcement of our laws must have equal gen-
der perspectives in order to be fully just. Our government needs women
leaders simply because without equal participation, we do not have equal
representation—locally or nationally. Women have as much stake in the
future of America as our male counterparts, at home and abroad, and
the world is watching us as we work toward inclusion in every area of
leadership.
I believe it is in harnessing the talents of the qualified workforce waiting
to join the ranks at the top that can bring balance to what currently is an
insider club. In Norway, this balance is called the 40-percent rule. Norway’s
publicly traded firms “have to meet a 40-percent requirement for female
board members by 2008 or be shut down.”8 Your first response may be,
“Quotas—are you kidding? Women will get there when they deserve to.
They will earn their way onto corporate boards by their performance.”
Really, I say. Do you actually believe that? And, performance, you say?
Performance, where? At the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) or on
some other volunteer board? Most corporate (paid) directors are found
through networking. Do you remember The Club we just talked about?
Many directors are CEOs of the largest corporations in America, and we
know how many of them are women—eleven when this book was written.
Qualified women are easy to find today for these boards through nonprofit
organizations like those that compose InterOrganization Network (ION),
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The Time Is Now r 47

a group of eight regional organizations from across the country that are
advancing businesswomen to positions of power, but that is not happening.
So, back to quotas, because I’m sure you did not let me off the hook that
easily, how successfully are quotas working in Norway? According to Eu-
ropean Professional Women’s Network (PWN) “‘BoardWomen Monitor
2006,’” corporate champions are beyond tokenism on their boards. Since
the quota system was established, more than 40 percent of female directors
are on boards in five industry sectors: “banks, specialty and other finance,
telecom services, media and entertainment, oil and gas.” Data has also
revealed that women on these boards are being selected as employee repre-
sentatives with a large number of labor union appointees. Most important
to the discussion of the success of quotas is the European PWN’s biannual
monitor that provides both women and companies with “benchmarks of
what is being done where and what the results and benefits are.” America
is ready for a similar system as the needed watchdogs, ION Network and
others, are ready, willing, and able to monitor the process.
The country of Norway has also had a gender quota system in place
since 1986 for its political parties for government appointments. Norway’s
Cabinet has been at least 40 percent women, and currently eight out of
seventeen Cabinet ministers are women. Women make up 39 percent of
Norway’s Parliament. But what’s good for Norway isn’t necessarily good
for America. Or is it? Affirmative action programs are not foreign to Amer-
icans. The debate goes on daily in every area of business, education, and
government. Good, thoughtful people debate the importance of diversity
but, at the same time, fairness to all. Perhaps the initiative of Clinton Allen,
founder and president of the Corporate Directors Club, an organization
with more than five hundred members, of which one hundred are women,
will turn the tide in the corporate boardroom.
“I think we haven’t gotten there yet in terms of full acceptance of the
concept of women on boards,” Allen says. “I’ve gotten to know a ton of
women with the Corporate Directors Club very well—top notch, first-
rate women—and I would go out of my way to try and get them on
boards. I’ve been on three boards with women, and women tend to do
their homework—sometimes more than men. They take their time. I’m
not saying men aren’t good directors, I’m just saying women seem to dot
the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s a little bit more. It’s that attention to detail that
has always set women apart, and working alongside men is unmistakably
the way to get on more boards.”
I believe in quotas because I have witnessed the power of affirmative
action programs. More than sixteen years ago, I cofounded a regional or-
ganization called South Shore Women’s Business Network. Its purpose
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48 r Her Turn

was and is to provide a place for women in business to meet and network
with each other and grow their businesses. One of the first things I did
as executive director was to reach out to the State Office of Minority and
Women’s Business Assistance (SOMWBA), for the purpose of finding
out what services were available to small women-owned businesses. Mas-
sachusetts, just like every other state in the union, has a program that allows
women and minorities and disadvantaged businesses to become certified
as such in order to have the opportunity to compete with much larger,
well-funded businesses. The prime contractors with state contracts must
hire a percentage of these Women Business Enterprises (WBEs), Minor-
ity Business Enterprises (MBEs), and Disadvantaged Business Enterprises
(DBEs).
I personally know of dozens of women-owned firms with small operating
funds who were able to navigate their way through the bureaucratic maze
in order to present themselves equally to prime contractors. The Big Dig,
regardless of its later problems, was an opportunity for small firms of all
types to offer up their services for a project of incomparable potential. A
contract with the Big Dig guaranteed a payday and perhaps a pay decade,
depending upon your work.
Two stories related to the Big Dig come to mind. First is a woman-
owned sand and gravel company with an earth removal permit that was
SOMWBA certified. Trucking was a big part of the Big Dig since what
was unearthed to prepare for the tunnel in turn was used to build a sewerage
treatment plant, a golf course, and more. O’Donnell Sand and Gravel took
its business to a new level due to the opportunity provided by affirmative
action. “We built twenty-plus-year relationships with the primes,” says
Mary O’Donnell, who started the company. “They needed the minority
set aside, and sand and gravel wasn’t something they did in-house. It was
a piece of work that they could give away, and the fact they could give it
to a woman’s enterprise was a bonus.”9
In the construction arena, the primes, all male-owned firms, had the
big projects wrapped up. So how did a woman compete with this group?
O’Donnell competed by having the chance to show she had the right stuff
to get the job done on time and under budget. A $7 million contract to
supply all the rock over and under the Third Harbor Tunnel put O’Donnell
Sand and Gravel on the map, so to speak, and proved that the company
could deliver.
Affirmative action programs provided that opportunity as well for Judith
Nitsch Engineering, now Nitsch Engineering, founded in 1989. Starting
her firm during the real estate crash, Nitsch attributes her success to taking
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The Time Is Now r 49

advantage of public-sector/private-sector market swings, putting network-

ing to work, seeking outside input, and ensuring a marketing culture in the
firm. The civil engineering firm had the people and the talent to do the
job for the state in the Big Dig project. But as a small company, it would
need to act as a subcontractor.
The Big Dig, billed as the “largest, most complex and technologi-
cally challenging highway project ever attempted in America’s history,”
had a federal 11-percent DBE hiring mandate that included women and
minority-owned businesses. The project allowed Nitsch Engineering to
quadruple in sales in 1993, and the experience increased the in-house ca-
pabilities as well. In 1996, Nitsch achieved prime contractor status. “We
grew from one person to a company with a COO, a CFO, a marketing
director, an HR manager and department managers,” Nitsch says. “To
grow the business, we’ve always taken advantage of the opportunities out
there.”10
Today, Nitsch Engineering is the largest WBE civil engineering firm
in Massachusetts and provides public and private development in twelve
states and four countries. Nitsch Engineering serves as a prime contractor
on many jobs, and this is all due to the opportunities afforded to them once
upon a time—because of affirmative action. It is clear that these programs
give small companies a chance to do the job and to be seen as competent
partners to the largest firms. It didn’t take long for Nitsch Engineering to
be seen in this way.
When women have the chance to prove they can get the job done just
as well as their male counterparts, they are more likely asked to be part of
the team the next time around. This is exactly why we need to do whatever
we can to infuse corporate America with more talented women in senior
executive ranks and at the board level—to give the boys a chance to see us
in action. Here is where quotas come in. It is time to stop the “opting-out”
talent drain in our major companies. I believe that with role models and
proven leaders of both genders at the top, change will trickle down and
the leaders of tomorrow will work together more inclusively to meet the
demands of a changing workplace.
The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) was
founded in 1997 and is the nation’s leading advocate of women-owned
businesses as suppliers to America’s corporations. It is also the largest
third-party certifier of women-owned businesses in the United States.
More than one thousand U.S. companies and government agencies rely on
the WBENC certification for their voluntary supplier diversity programs.
Its president, Linda Denny, notes, “Women-owned companies have
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50 r Her Turn

participated in supplier diversity programs in growing numbers over the

last ten years and have become a powerful voice in the supplier diversity
community. That community also includes minorities, disabled veterans,
and various other kinds of groups.”
Yes, I can read your skeptic’s mind at work. Affirmative action programs
cause controversy in every industry. Whether it is women or minorities,
there is a supposition that any assistance causes unfairness for someone
else. The truth, in my opinion, is that in order to ensure equality in the
workplace, we must introduce new faces and ideas every chance we get to
make certain that all groups have a turn at bat. Here’s the problem. The
leadership path for men is clear and visible. All we have to do is look at
the example of the platform that has been created for Barack Obama, a
very talented and articulate man that the Democratic Party and the media
embraced in 2006. What did we see? Am I saying that the respect and
attention for Barack Obama was without merit? Not at all. What I am
saying is that talent can be seen from far off and must be embraced as early
as possible to realize its contribution in the future. Where are the young
women leaders of tomorrow? Why does the media constantly reinforce
only negative stereotypes of young women—the young celebrity types with
money and no responsibility? Yes, the media provides us with negative male
role models as well, but the differences are clear. The women chosen are
shown as stupid, irresponsible, anorexic, selfish, and self-involved. The
young men have their faults yet also seem to have greater purpose and
potential for turning themselves around.
Young women, in reality, excel in sports, in the arts, in school, and in the
community. As a former president of the sixth largest council of the Girl
Scouts of the USA, I can state with complete confidence the extraordinary
leadership abilities of those thousands of young women every year who
attain the Gold Award, an honor similar to the Boy Scout’s Eagle Scout
Award. But what awaits these young women as they enter the workforce
and even make it to the middle ranks of whatever they choose, be it
an attorney, a politician, a businesswoman, a hospital administrator, a
scientific researcher, or a college professor? Nothing more. That’s it. At
least that is how it is now for the majority of women, and their inertia is
not due to lack of trying.
The time for women must be now. It is time that we get involved
and make things happen. Again, there’s no sitting back and assuming
that women’s swelling numbers in just about every sector will change
the leadership ratio. Take the Equal Pay Act, for example. Passed in
1963, there’s still a wage gap almost forty-five years later. This gap begins
just one year out of college, when women working full-time already earn
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The Time Is Now r 51

80 percent of what their male counterparts earn, according to the April

2007 “Behind the Pay Gap” report released by the American Association of
University Women Educational Foundation. Ten years after graduation,
the gap widens to women’s 69 percent of what men earn—even though
women outperform men in school. If women don’t take this personally,
and if we all don’t take this seriously, who will?
Evelyn Murphy says, “The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission) has always been underfunded, and it continues to have layer
upon layer of responsibilities such as pregnancy issues, disability issues,
and more put upon it. There will never be enough funds to enforce the
law.”11 So it is up to us to initiate change. The future of America is
in embracing women’s talents, championing fairness across the board,
and making America the greatest country on earth for future generations.
Before you say America is already the greatest country on the earth, I
want to remind you that we can’t rely on the reputation from previous
generations forever.
The lesson of the previous chapter illustrates clearly that we must learn
from history so as not to repeat the same mistakes over and over again until
the pain of doing so finally moves us to change. We must pay attention to
the competition we see around the globe as education has become critical
and accepted as the way to compete, particularly in many parts of Asia and
India. Today, 65 percent of all graduate degrees are earned by women. As
a nation we must utilize the talents of the best and the brightest and not
allow stereotypical ideas of the past get in the way of progress.
And then, to assure that the time is now for women’s leadership,
work/life balance must be seen for what it can be. Family is important
to both men and women. To assume that the birth of a child affects
women more than men in the same occupation sets up a bias that is unfair
to both genders. Family, and more important, a healthy family, is essen-
tial to our country’s future. Business, government, law, higher education,
medicine and the sciences, and the nonprofit arena must support families
in every way possible—not because it is in the best interest of women (and
men) but because it is in the best interest of America. Without procreation
there are no future leaders and no need for goods and services, fair and just
laws, improvements in healthcare, or applicable educational advances. It is
that simple. Therefore, it’s up to us to put families first, and that means
more flextime, more day care, and more attention to the details that allow
us all to move forward. These are all practices that benefit both men and
women.
It’s time for America to reconnect with all its people and address
the problems currently stalling progress in business, politics, healthcare,
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education, and philanthropy. It’s time for women to join men in leading
in America. Your first response to this claim may be, “How can putting
many more women in charge solve the nation’s problems?” Or, if you are
like me, you may ask, “Why has it taken so long to embrace the obvious
and utilize the talents of 52 percent of the population?” When it comes
to women in national government, the United States—with sixteen out of
one hundred senators and seventy-one out of four hundred and thirty-five
in the House of Representatives—ranks sixty-sixth among one hundred
and eighty-nine countries, and behind countries such as Mozambique,
Uzbekistan, and Pakistan.12 Unfortunately, the story at the state level is
even less encouraging, with just 23.5 percent of female lawmakers in state
government. Perhaps, the 2007 record results of fifty-eight women being
elected to their state senates, houses, and assemblies is a sign of hope for
the future.
Swanee Hunt, president of Hunt Alternatives and director of the
Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Gov-
ernment as well as former ambassador to Austria, says women tend to
bring greater senses of integrity and honesty to the political process. “Most
women perceive politics as a dirty game. They are right. Two-thirds of
one hundred and fifty-nine countries surveyed by the World Bank in 2005
had serious corruption. Increasing the number of women in politics may
be an effective measure against corruption. A growing body of evidence
suggests that female government leaders tend to be more transparent and
honest than men. Research sponsored by the World Bank found that the
greater the representation of women in government, the lower the level of
corruption.”13 What more information do we need to vote for a woman
every chance we get?
When we asked how he envisioned the country with more women lead-
ers, management guru Tom Peters said, “Women are more focused on
relationships, women are more thoughtful, all of those things are aston-
ishing strengths and it sure as hell would make a difference if women were
running the United States of America, etc. I really do think we would have
a more peaceful planet. But, on the other hand, guys get away with their
thoughtlessness, just because they are the ones that step forward and it’s
tough, it’s called Life 101. Every strength contains within it a weakness,
whether you are male or female. If you’re a relationship person, you do
things more slowly. Relationships are a more thoughtful affair. I happen
to think that works in the long haul. I happen to think that works in the
short haul. If you believe The Female Brain, seven weeks after conception,
you and I are the same and then the great divide begins at literally the
speed of light. I get whacked by this incredible wave of testosterone in the
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The Time Is Now r 53

eighth week and I lose my relationship ability and begin to develop my

competitiveness skills ability. That’s the hard science of 2006.”
The hard reality today is that America is in need of relationship building,
of thoughtful action, of women at the helm. Whatever your response, the
rest of this book will tell you why the time is now and why you—woman
or man—have an obligation to participate in the change.
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CHAPTER 5

“Business as Usual?” . . . Try

“Business as Exceptional”

“An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowl-

edge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads
to collective organizational success.”
—Stephen R. Covey

There is no “business as usual” anymore. Corporate types are looking

over their shoulders in the aftermath of Enron and other such scandals.
Sarbanes-Oxley has put public companies under the gun to ensure that
their leadership understands their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders
and the general public. Women are often profiled as the whistleblowers in
corporate scandals, which has us wondering: Would we see better character
and values reflected in business if women had an equal role at the table?
My answer, as I’m sure you know by now, is a resounding “Yes!” Women
bring compassion to leadership and greater collaboration to business. I’m
not the only one to think so. During the ten years I have been profiling
women in business, women consistently walk the talk as they define power
differently than men. Women see power as something that should be
shared. They have worked hard to get to the top and, once there, they
reach out, not always to other women unfortunately, but to others to be
more inclusive and to create a flatter organization.
As you’ll read ahead, CEO women time after time choose to work with
others to lead rather than dictate the direction. Character and values are
clearly important ingredients for the company’s success—and very likely
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56 r Her Turn

for bigger profit margins. The 2004 Catalyst Study, “The Bottom Line:
Connecting Corporate Performance and Gender Diversity,” indicates that
companies with the highest representation of women on their top man-
agement teams had better financial performance than the companies with
fewer women in these positions. The study was careful to point out that
it could not unequivocally say that gender diversity causes increased finan-
cial performance, but only that the data certainly can support a clear case
for it.
Sharon Allen, who was recently elected to her second four-year term
as chairman of public accounting firm Deloitte & Touche USA, does say
unequivocally that having more women at the top—and more women in
general—improves the bottom line. Deloitte’s Women’s Initiative (WIN),
undertaken fourteen years ago when the company realized that its women
were not reaching the partner level as expected, has worked successfully at
retaining and advancing women ever since. In 2006, according to Public
Accounting Report’s survey of women in public accounting,1 Deloitte
& Touche USA topped the country’s Big Four accounting firms in the
percentage of women partners, principals, and directors. Fortune in 2007
named Deloitte to its “100 Best Companies to Work for” list for the eighth
time.
Since the U.S. Labor Department statistics show that by 2008 women
will make up nearly half of the labor pool and will earn 57 percent of
all accounting degrees, retention is increasingly becoming a top priority
in the profession. Replacing high-performing professionals can, and does,
cost more than twice that individual’s salary, so focusing on retention of
women and men is not just practical but a tremendous boost to the bottom
line as well. “We’re not doing this just because this is the right thing to
do,” Allen says. “Without question, it has converted to improved financial
success. Retention rates have improved significantly and it has positively
impacted recruiting costs, which are very significant to us. As women
move up into the ranks of our organization, the retention of the really
good and strong leaders improves our operating results. We’re convinced,
absolutely convinced, that we are a larger organization and a more profitable
organization as a result of our initiatives.”
So, why aren’t more businesses catching on? Certainly, some women
are making strides into senior management and into the corner office. But
once they get there, do or can they bring change that can be quantified
and be held up as a reason for more companies to look to the promotion
of women as the path to increasing profits and growing shareholder value?
Catalyst’s “The 2005 Catalyst Census of Women Corporate Officers and
Top Earners of the Fortune 500—Ten Years Later: Limited Progress,
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“Business as Usual?” r 57

Challenges Persist,” says it all in its title. The findings were disappointing,
to say the least. But that was before the 2006 Census,2 which found
women holding 15.6 percent of Fortune 500 executive positions, down
from 16.4 percent in 2005, with the number of companies with three or
more women in the C-suite also decreasing. Because women’s numbers
went backwards, the forty years to parity predicted in 2005 among Fortune
500 corporate officers has become forty-seven years. Worse yet is the
seventy-three years—seventy-three years!—it will take to get women in
equal numbers on Fortune 500 boards. Even though little changed in the
numbers of women overall year to year—14.6 percent in 2006 compared
to 14.7 in 2005—that tenth of a percent translates into a decrease in the
number of companies with one or two women directors as well as an
increase in companies with no women directors at all. And the differential
resulted in an additional three years to parity. That’s right. Women are
actually moving backward, not forward, in their quest to find equality in
corporate America.
Other discouraging findings in both the Catalyst 2005 and 2006 updates:
Women are still more than twice as likely to hold staff positions, almost
guaranteeing their likelihood of missing out of advancement opportunities
to C-level positions. Men, on the other hand, are equally represented in
both staff and line positions. It’s the line positions that affect the bottom
line and are therefore the positions from which corporate America pro-
motes. There was a glimmer of good news: Women in top-paying positions
rose to 6.7 percent in 2006 from 6.4 percent in 2005, and women directors’
participation on compensation and nominating/governance committees
increased from 9 percent and 14.2 percent respectively in 2005 to 10 per-
cent and 14.7 percent respectively in 2006. I did say, “glimmer.”
What will get more women to the top in greater advancements than
tenths of a percentage point? A reality check, for one thing. Since 1970,
according to The Economist, two out of every three jobs globally have gone
to women.3 Combine that staggering statistic with the fact that women
will soon be the majority of wealth holders in this country and, as Tom
Peters says, “There is a demographic tsunami that is going to make this
stuff happen whether guys want it or not. It’s going to happen. Whether or
not women are populating the C-suite, they are more than 50 percent of
managers, well more than 50 percent of human resources and 50 percent
of admin officers, so while the big company executive suites are still short
on women, the infrastructure below is on the border of becoming women-
dominated.”
Here’s Peters’ take on the evolution of leadership over the next two
decades: “The statistical reality is that, if boomers hold all the top jobs
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58 r Her Turn

today and 80 percent of boomers in the top jobs are men, 80 percent of
the boomer top job men jobholders will retire in the next twenty years
and, at the next level down, most of the people who will be in line for the
promotion statistically will be women, period. And women are going to
be ten times harder to ignore in the course of the next twenty years than
is even the case today, let alone years ago. It’s stunning. That’s why I’m
presenting it like, what the hell choice do you have?”
Before we all sit back and say time will simply take care of any women’s
leadership issues, however, let’s focus on what will still be in the way
of women’s leadership progress no matter how many women populate
the payroll. “It will never work if companies work on this as if ‘it’s the
correct thing to do,’” says Myra Hart, Harvard Business School professor,
corporate board director, and one of Staples’ four founders. “They have to
address it as an economic imperative, and then things will happen.”

Women’s Retention/Pipeline

In our chapter, “The Time Is Now,” we looked at just some of the reasons
women are ready to take the lead. For the past thirty years, women have
taken on every challenge offered in corporate America, and they are on pace
to be equal with men in MBA programs by the time this book is released.
Women have the ambition and the drive necessary to get to the top but
continue to get sidetracked by corporate structures that haven’t kept pace
with their European and Canadian counterparts in accommodating their
needs—and in reality, most everyone’s needs. Companies in certain parts
of the world have developed the support systems people require to juggle
24/7 work and family responsibilities, but this is not the case in the United
States, where change has already been a long, slow process.
It was 1986 when then-Colorado Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder
introduced the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). It was purposely
drafted to include both mothers and fathers. Finally passed in 1993, the
act allowed three months unpaid leave within two years after the birth
or adoption of a child for either men or women. Although the leave was
unpaid, the job and its accompanying health benefits were guaranteed
during and on return. The final act included only companies with fifty or
more employees. Both men and women in the United States have taken
advantage of the law, but the majority has been women. If, after the leave,
the woman or, although this is not likely, the man, does not return to work,
there is no further commitment by the employer for future employment or
benefits.
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The Project on Global Working Families report4 concluded in 2007

that the United States lags far behind in family policies—not only all
other wealthy countries but also most low-income countries. One hundred
and seventy-seven countries were researched and their public policies for
families were measured. When it comes to childbearing, one hundred
and sixty-eight countries (out of one hundred and seventy-three) offer
guaranteed leave with income, and ninety-eight of these countries offer
fourteen or more weeks paid leave. Let me again be crystal clear. There
are no guarantees of paid leave for mothers in the United States. Men’s
paternity leave is also considered a positive advancement in many countries.
Sixty-six countries either pay paternity leave or offer the right of paternity
leave to fathers, and thirty-one of these countries offer fourteen or more
weeks of paid leave. Fathers have no guaranteed paid paternity leave or
paid parental leave in the United States (see Figures 5.1 and 5.2).
Other areas studied and measured by the study were time allowed for
breastfeeding, work hours, and leave for illness and family care. In each
area, the United States rated close to the bottom in providing families the
time they need to care for each other.

Figure 5.1
Maximum Paid Leave (Maternity and Paternal) Available to Mothers in Countries
Providing Paid Leave.
50

45

40
Number of countries

35

30

25

20

15

10

0
2-7 8-11 -
12-13 -
14-16 -
17-19 -
20-39 40-51
- -
52-103 -
104-155 156+
Number of weeks

Source: Jody Heymann and The Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University,
“The Work, Family, and Equity Index,” the Project on Global Working Families (January
2007) (used with permission).
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60 r Her Turn

Figure 5.2
Maximum Paid Leave (Paternity and Parental) Available to Fathers in Countries
Providing Paid Leave.
20

18

16

14
Number of countries

12

10

0
<1 1-6 7-11 12-13 14-16 17-19 20-39 40-51 52-103 104-155 156+

Number of weeks

Source: Jody Heymann and The Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University,
“The Work, Family, and Equity Index,” the Project on Global Working Families (January
2007) (used with permission).

It is important to say that some U.S. companies are moving in the right
direction in this area, however. As already noted, companies understand
the need to retain talent because they know that training can cost in the
tens of thousands of dollars and the loss of an exceptional employee, male
or female, can cost upwards of one hundred thousand dollars or more.
And they know that the women they lose are among the best and the
brightest. That’s why they hired them in the first place. In researching their
tentatively titled, yet-to-be-published book, Assuming Control, Harvard
Business School’s Myra Hart and coauthors Candida Brush and Patricia
Greene have found a significant number of MBA women stepping out of
full-time, fast-paced careers. “So the question is, ‘Do you have to slow down
or leave?’ That has a lot to do with how work is structured. If you choose
to exit, how do you reenter when you’re ready? That’s a huge challenge,
and it’s not yet resolved,” Hart says.
Deloitte happens to be answering the “slow down or leave” question, but
then the company has long been ahead of the curve. Deloitte began on its
retention-advancement course correction by studying why women were not
being promoted to partner at the expected rate as well as what accounted for
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“Business as Usual?” r 61

such high turnover throughout the organization. A need for flexibility for
work/life balance, the natural assumption, turned up on the what’s-wrong
list—but so did: (1) not giving women the best assignments out of fear that
they would depart and leave clients hanging and (2) a dearth of mentoring
opportunities. Addressing all three as a starting point—work/life balance,
better assignments, and mentoring—Deloitte took one more initial step,
Sharon Allen says: “Specific action. You can’t just assume that when you
create these opportunities that women will always step up automatically
and take them. You have to take special action and special initiatives to
allow for the training.” And very possibly most important, the company
had the necessary at-the-top buy-in to make the changes. Tom Peters says,
“They put real muscle behind this thing. They put it at the CEO level and
at the advisory board level and in an annual report on progress with the
women’s initiative.”
These days, Deloitte is going a step further. Its latest initiative is career
customization, which allows men and women the opportunity to accelerate
and decelerate their careers in keeping with their personal needs. “Our hope
and our expectation is that this is going to allow us again to retain a much
higher percentage of talented women who will not only find the right
balance of their work and their life at any point in time but will stay with
us for a longer period of time and excel and become the next role model,”
Allen says.
The smart company will address ASAP the pernicious cycle of losing its
investment and its talent, and here’s more reason to do so: The Graduate
Management Admission Council projects that business schools’ outreach
targeting women will only increase their numbers in MBA programs—to
64 percent full-time, 47 percent part-time, and 50 percent in executive
programs. But is the next generation willing to step up to the plate without
this “whole life balance” thing changing? What’s so inviting, after all, about
the work world when you hear Hart describe what she sees as needing to
change to get more women to stay. “I believe we have to rethink the
structure of work. As a society, we have accepted the assumption that
high quality work can only be done on this rapid-fire, 80-hour workweek
schedule. It’s what we hold up as the model. Whether on Wall Street or
in the media, it seems that the people we define as truly successful are
always available, have their Blackberries in hand around the clock and
never say no. Frankly, that may win you the prize, but it’s no way to
live.”
So, if you build it right, will they come? Yes, and in droves. The Sim-
mons School of Management survey, “Optioning In versus ‘Opting Out’:
Women Using Flexible Work Arrangements for Career Success,” released
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62 r Her Turn

in 2007, finds that 88 percent of the four hundred women respondents are
using flexible work options—telecommuting, flexible hours, and the like—
to stay in the workplace while managing their complex lives. What’s more,
these women say they did not sacrifice financial success when carving out
their options. The ultimate result? A new model in which women are act-
ing as “career self-agents” in negotiating their own terms for employment
and, rather than opting out, are opting in.
This points to the fact that, once the right retention initiatives are in
place, then, of course, it’s up to the individual to take the bull by the horns
and wrestle his or her way up to the top. Joseph Fanning, a senior manager
at Ernst & Young in Boston, confirms that the system can allow for a quick
rise for talented men and women if the right steps are taken.
“Accounting firms are looking for an army of talent in the first few years
out of school, recruiting a diverse group of ethnicities and genders,” he
says. “During the first three to five years, a new recruit will work hard and
study to fulfill the requirements for the CPA exam. It is a rigorous but
clear path and it is a testament to how one will further his or her career
with the firm. It shows respect for the job. The ‘army’ little by little is
whittled down by the workload, the required skill sets, the responsibility,
and the exam itself. Once you have reached the manager ranks, the path to
partner starts to become more apparent. Aggressively seeking challenging
assignments and high-profile roles, along with having a mentor to help
navigate your career, can assist in accelerating the process. The average
age to make partner is anywhere from thirty-four to thirty-eight years old,
depending on the practice.”
Flextime and the possibility of working from home for all employees
are actually helping the women who take advantage of the offerings to
attain partner as people can find fulfillment personally and professionally.
“Public accounting firms want a diverse partner group, including women,
and if the desire is there, women can and will make it,” Fanning says.
Interestingly, he notes that few men, that he knows of, take full advantage
of his company’s work/life balance programs, although he says everyone in
his practice, male or female, takes advantage of some portion of the flexible
work environment that his firm offers.
The New York office of Ernst & Young tackled the perceived shame
in taking time off for family by displaying a nine-foot poster, visible from
Times Square, which featured the promotion of Rob McLeod after he
took paternity leave. The same poster also hung in every Ernst & Young
office throughout the United States for the greatest impact inside the orga-
nization. The company’s approach in focusing on men with this work/life
program is aimed at retaining and promoting women, and it is in addition
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“Business as Usual?” r 63

to the mentoring and concierge services that are offered.5 The truth of the
matter is, once men and women are comfortable in their skins and once
they’re sure that corporate is supporting them in—and not punishing them
for—their individual needs, the move to leadership parity can begin.
So, why are there so few women rising to the top even when they’re
in a supportive environment? Fanning suggests, “There are the traditional
reasons, including the desire to stay home and raise a family, and, that
aside, other major drivers that would include not asking for or receiving
the proper assignments, not communicating their worth and not having
the right mentors. My superiors have mostly been women coming up
through the firm and I have had great relationships with all of them,
including from a mentor perspective. I believe one of the most significant
contributing factors to my success in the firm thus far has been the counsel
and guidance of my mentors. Male or female, to get ahead it really helps
to have the guidance of someone who is where you want to go.”
So there it is. Women need the confidence to promote themselves, the
smarts to find and follow through with a mentor, and the willingness to take
advantage of the programs available to them that will help them achieve
their goals. Certainly, more women at the top serving as role models and
willing mentors will make a huge difference for younger women beginning
their climb—if they actually begin the ascent.

The Media

Even today, the media continues its mantra of a glass ceiling to get across
the point—that ambition isn’t a feminine quality—and, when that image
doesn’t discourage women, the new drum beat becomes “women opting
out.” It is important to understand that when corporate America reports
losing women in large numbers, it is not that they are going home to nest.
The truth is that after a long battle to advance, many women realize they
have a better chance of succeeding by developing their own business model.
Learning once again that we have a choice today in how we work and with
whom we work, women take the risk for doing it on their own. And the
corporate woman CEO is still depicted as the person who has sacrificed
it all to get to the top. This myth must be rebuked. Doing so is the main
reason I started a business newspaper profiling women senior executives
and women business owners.
Four years into publishing the paper, I attended a luncheon at which
the keynote speaker was Ellyn Spragins, talking about the misfortune of
successful women. Her point: They either had no husband in their life
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64 r Her Turn

or he was a househusband and not an equal intellectual partner. Look-

ing around the room and seeing many successful women that I knew
well and knowing the successful, talented men they were married to for
thirty or more years, I spoke up and immediately took our speaker to
task.
“As publisher of a newspaper profiling women in business, my experi-
ence is just the opposite,” I said. “My experience is that successful people
are determined people and that determined people put great effort into
everything they do. That includes work, marriage, and family. The suc-
cessful women I know, and several of them are in this room, are married
for many, many years and have children and grandchildren who are strong,
successful individuals.”
With this, the speaker asked me about my own family and, particularly,
my husband. “I am married thirty years (it is now thirty-five years), my
husband is a financial advisor and I have a son twenty-five-years old (now
thirty years old) who is in technology sales. My husband is my financial
advisor and my biggest fan, and I am his. We have a successful marriage
and family because we work hard at everything we do.”
Out of this conversation, Spragins interviewed me for a piece she was
writing in the New York Sunday Times.6 I panicked for several weeks before
it came out. I knew that she had an agenda and I feared my husband’s
reputation as a financial expert would be jeopardized. Fortunately, the
article made a short reference to him and concentrated more on how I
choose my own portfolio of investments. I have been investing in stocks
since I was ten years old. I wasn’t married then. What the article did not
say, and what of course one could only partially read between the lines, was
that as a smart businesswoman I may choose what stocks I’m interested
in but I’m not foolish enough not to take the advice of the person who
cares most, besides me, about my financial stability. My point is, the media
has an angle and an agenda with much of what it writes about women in
business, and both men and women must be aware that it just isn’t that
simple. Reader beware!
In the same vein, later that same year, I got a call from a major network’s
local affiliate. The producer of the nightly television show Chronicle was
interested in doing a show on successful businesswomen and their trophy
husbands. That’s right, I was asked to identify the region’s women with
the greatest achievement and their househusbands who made it all work.
Now, you might say, doesn’t that prove the point that women have made it
if television wants to tell their story? I’m afraid not. And, you should know
better than that. Creating the picture that successful women must find men
who are ready, willing, and able to fulfill the household chores and give up
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“Business as Usual?” r 65

on their own dreams is the media’s way of telling young women that they
might just have to pay too high a price for success. Viewer beware!
This is a perfect time to let you know that I am a true believer that
women who stay at home and raise families, help their husbands achieve
success, and/or provide hours and hours of community service work all
deserve and have my absolute respect. And I just as strongly support the
men who take on that same role. People, male and female, have the right to
choose their dreams and pursue what fulfills them. But it is reprehensible
for the media to control the image and enforce a preconceived picture
that continually downgrades women’s leadership capabilities and, at the
same time, the person who might be supporting them in ways other than
financially.
I could spend an entire chapter, no, an entire book, on how the media
distorts the power and influence of women in everything we do in Amer-
ica. It is never enough that a woman CEO leads a multimillion dollar
company, employs hundreds of happy workers, and provides the best in
medical, dental, and retirement benefits. She must also be struggling with a
debilitating disease or have a handicapped child, or, like my friend Shirley
Singleton, CEO of Edgewater Technology, experience a massacre of seven
employees by one disgruntled software engineer. Is this the way to have
to get media attention if you are a woman leading a $10 to $100 million
company? Of course not.
Singleton cofounded Edgewater Technology in 1992. I met her in 1997
when the company was still small but starting to tick in the technology
boom. In 1999, Edgewater was acquired by StaffMark, a publicly traded
billion-dollar staffing organization. Singleton remained as president and
continued to grow the company. Until the tragic event of December 26,
2000, she had very little media coverage. None of us can imagine the
thoughts that must swirl through a leader’s mind at such a time of crisis,
but Singleton proved herself to be the finest leader any company could ask
for by keeping the company on track through not only the heart-wrenching
episode but also the ensuing technology bust. Over the past seven years,
Singleton has received a lot of attention for a variety of reasons, mostly for
the tremendous motivation she gave to her employees to stick together and
make it through. But I also know she often feels too much attention is paid
to her. My advice to her and other women is that we need them to keep
the spotlight on themselves for whatever reason so that the achievements
of all women will have the limelight. I admire Singleton and other women
like her for not allowing the media to paint them with a broad brush and
to stand up and give voice to all the women leaders. We cannot allow
the media to define women only as victims or as those who succeed only
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66 r Her Turn

against immeasurable odds. Sometimes women are successful just because

they work hard and know what they are doing. What a concept!
Just take a look at how Carly Fiorina, former HP CEO, was and is
handled by the media. In a 2006 Financial Times interview,7 Fiorina admits
to feeling like she was “operating in a fishbowl of media and public scrutiny”
all the time she led HP. “People have their point of view based on their
stereotypes. You have to cut through that. In many ways I was a caricature.
Gee, she has laid off people, therefore she is heartless. She wears nice
clothes, she must be superficial.” Her autobiography, Tough Choices: A
Memoir, was written not just to tell her side of the story but also to tell
how business really works. “It occurred to me that people didn’t really
understand how business operates. People don’t understand that you set
goals, you rally people around a common goal that is worth achieving.
People think business is mechanistic. It is a very human activity. To change,
to get results, it is about changing people.” For the five-and-half years she
ran HP, Fiorina was held up as a role model for women—with or without
her or other women’s permission. She declares in her book that she did
everything she could to reject questions about her gender but nothing
she did allowed her to escape them. Since Fiorina was the most powerful
woman in business in the United States, the media was not about to focus
on the business issues facing the company only.
By the time of her announcement of Compaq’s acquisition, Fiorina
thought the media’s attention would finally focus on the plan itself but
there was never a letup on her gender and how that played with the public
and company directors in such a crucial decision for the then-struggling
company. In the same 2006 Financial Times interview, she says, “I don’t
believe that I lost or that I failed. I think I was fired. I don’t feel like a
victim in this. I took a set of decisions that I am accountable for. I feel that
I made the right choices for the business. I think the results [since then]
have demonstrated that.”
I remember Fiorina’s firing well. I was inundated by calls from both
newspapers and television that day to comment on her fall. “Was she fired
because she was a woman?” “Was it a sign for businesswomen that there
was no chance to succeed at the top?” “Did women not have what it takes
to succeed?” No, no, and no. CEOs in public companies are hired and fired
every day across America. They serve at the favor of the board of directors.
If and when the board feels the CEO is moving in the wrong direction,
the decision is made to find someone new.
So did Carly Fiorina’s five-and-half years at HP help or hurt women?
Unfortunately, not a month goes by that some man, business or otherwise,
doesn’t say to me, “What a shame for women that Carly Fiorina got
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“Business as Usual?” r 67

fired from HP. It shows women don’t have what it takes to be CEO.”
Really. Isn’t it interesting that we don’t blame all men for the behavior and
decisions of Tyko’s Dennis Kozlowski, Enron’s Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey
Skillings, Adelphia’s John Rigas and his sons, Timothy and Michael, and
the list can go on and on. No one would begin to suggest that their
behavior indicates that all men are selfish and regularly put their own
self-interest above those of the company and of the shareholders. What
we need are lots of women at the top. It’s then that we won’t have the
opportunity to shake our heads and cluck our tongues over the dismissal of
one rare woman CEO. (And, if the media will revisit Fiorina’s insistence
on merging Compaq with HP, it could very well be that she did “good” for
the company and that the board of directors did the disservice.) But how
to get more women to the top is the pressing question.
For decades, we have heard that getting women into CEO positions
was all about filling the pipeline. A December 2006 New York Times
article8 follows the story of Carol Bartz, the former CEO of Autodesk
who worked her way through the male-dominated technology industry in
Silicon Valley in the 1980s. Throughout her climb, she often found herself
skipped over or dismissed by other men in the room who assumed “she was
an office assistant.” Things aren’t all that different today. “There have been
women in the pipeline for twenty to twenty-five years. Progress has been
slower than anybody thought it ever would be,” says Julie H. Daum, North
American board practice leader for executive search firm Stuart Spencer,
in the same article.
In 2006, more women had reached chief executive in the Fortune 500
than in any other year with the addition of Irene B. Rosenfeld, CEO
of Kraft Foods; Patricia A. Woertz, CEO of Archer Daniels Midland
(ADM); and Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo chair and CEO. But the overall feel-
ing by these women and others is that they want to be seen for their
“accomplishments rather than for being women.”9 Perhaps, and in my
opinion it is very unfortunate, they learned from watching Carly Fiorina
struggle to get her message out while doing her best to sift through the
questions directed at her only because she was a woman. The media’s pre-
conceived view of a woman CEO, then and now, prevents these leading
women from publicly speaking their minds on an array of issues. Other
potential female and male leaders are the losers when the media puts its
own spin on women at the top.
Clearly, the working woman’s mantra is: We must see it to believe
it. We must believe it to achieve it. It may be tough running a Fortune
500 company whether you are male or female, but the responsibility of
shouldering all the attention as the woman in this position is more than any
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68 r Her Turn

one, two, three, and perhaps all eleven women can bear. Scrutiny, however,
hasn’t stopped the women who are at the top, nor has it prevented women
like Sherron Watkins, a vice president at Enron, from blowing the whistle
on corporate wrongdoing. Watkins was the first to e-mail Kenneth Lay
about the problems she knew about firsthand, pointing out misstatements
in the financial reports in the company. She exemplifies everything the
media wants in a hero or a shero and everything most companies stay
clear of.
As was mentioned in an earlier chapter, the corporate scandals and
particularly the year 2004 will go down in history as the most corrupt year
in corporate dealings. Or will it? The fact that more than six hundred public
companies overstated their earnings and had to request time to restate their
earnings in 2006 puts a new microscope on what’s happening in corporate
America. Backdating of options will be the scandal that will keep the focus
on what and why corporate America—men’s corporate America—can’t
keep its house in order. Am I suggesting that with a balance of women in
senior-level positions there would be a difference in character and values?
Yes, again, I am willing to take a stand and tell you that it is a matter of
checks and balances. More women in top leadership positions will change
this. If Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies had 50-percent female
leadership, you would see a very different dynamic.

Women on Corporate Boards

Sarbanes-Oxley and its strict compliance measures may be responsible for

a slight blip in women’s representation on corporate boards that some say
they are now seeing. “Board membership has become so professional these
days. It’s no longer the kind of bring-your-friends-aboard-and-play-golf
thing that it was twenty or thirty years ago,” says The Corporate Directors
Club’s Clinton Allen, who has served on public boards since 1976. “It’s
very important that directors understand what their responsibilities are
and what their responsibilities to the shareholders are. When you are in
an environment like that, to me, it doesn’t matter if you are a man or a
woman.”
Still, the corporate board is another numbers game. If CEOs are the
mainstay of board membership, and women aren’t getting to CEO, then
guess where else they aren’t getting. Ditto for any other C-level position.
“So what?” you might ask. “Why do we need more women in the board-
room?” Corporate America is not just about jobs, it is also about your
investment in America. The value of your investment portfolio—mutual
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funds, 401(k)s, IRAs, pension funds, and, yes, even social security—is
based on the success and/or failure of public companies. So we are all very
much affected by the inner workings of these organizations. What’s more,
these are the companies that are most visible and transparent in terms of
operation. For those on the outside, diversity of thought translates into
credibility and reliability by shareholders and consumers alike. On the in-
side, diversity at the top gives credence to the opportunities for anyone
with the ability to rise to the top. And we need women in the boardroom,
and the executive office, and everywhere else throughout the organization,
for their understanding of half of the country’s population or, put more
simply, for better profits.
Let’s look at the facts. Women are the major consumers in America, not
only of consumer goods but also of all business goods and services, totaling
$44.5 billion.10 It is clearly in the best interest of corporate America to
have its major consumer perspective reflected at the board level. The 2004
Catalyst study mentioned at the very beginning of this chapter isn’t the
only study to make the link between women’s participation and bottom
line performance. Toni Wolfman, in her 2007 New England Journal of
Public Policy article, notes six other studies from 1998 to 2005 that, as she
says, “demonstrate a correlation between the presence of women in posi-
tions of corporate leadership—on boards of directors or in senior executive
positions, or both—and superior financial performance.”11
The most recent study that Wolfman, president of InterOrganization
Network (ION) and Executive in Residence of the Women’s Leadership
Institute at Bentley College, notes is the 2005 study by Citizens Advisers
that analyzed the two hundred and ninety-eight companies in the Citizens
Index. Each of those companies had at least one woman or minority on its
board of directors or in the upper two levels of its management. Citizens
Advisers “found that the total and average annual return on the stock of
those companies with the highest gender diversity was several percentage
points higher than that of the companies with the lowest gender diversity
and also had less volatility or risk than those companies with fewer women,”
she writes. “While these studies do not purport to demonstrate a causal
relationship between the presence of women in positions of corporate
leadership and stronger financial performance, at the very least they show
that the two go hand in hand. As such, they reinforce the conclusions of
those who advance the case for diversity as a common sense response to
the increased economic clout of women and their growing importance as
corporate stakeholders of every kind.”
Anecdotal evidence—conversing with other people—points to more
women on boards outside the Fortune 500 in the last three to four years,
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70 r Her Turn

but we’re still talking about a mere 14.6 percent of the directors sitting
around the Fortune 500 table in 2006. Clinton Allen notes seeing an
increase of women on boards over three decades, but even he says, “I don’t
think there’s full acceptance of the concept of women on boards. There are
an awful lot of boards that are just men, and diversity issues don’t come up
all that much, to be perfectly honest. It still is a bit of an old boys’ club. It
hasn’t flipped yet.”
That isn’t to say that Allen and others like him aren’t trying to get
more women on boards. He has nominated women for membership on
the boards on which he serves—not because they’re women but because of
the skills they bring to the table. But somehow, some way, these women
had to get to one board table in the first place.
Gail Deegan, who is a director on the boards of both EMC Corporation
and The TJX Companies, is a perfect example of once you’re in, one board
leads to another. Before beginning her CFO trek to multiple companies
and back when she was treasurer at Eastern Gas, Deegan would make
presentations to her company’s board. She got to know one of the members,
the CEO of Houghton Mifflin, who asked her to join the Houghton
Mifflin board in 1989 to add needed financial expertise. A year later, she
was asked to join the board of what is now PerkinElmer through similar
circumstances—the then-chair of the company was also on the Eastern
Gas board.
“In both cases, the senior people saw me in action,” Deegan says. “There
was a comfort level and they felt comfortable recommending me. Whether
they’re sponsoring you for a promotion or a board, it’s a little more risky for
them because they’re saying, ‘Here’s a woman’ and the response is, ‘We’ve
never had a woman on the board. How do we know she can do this?’ and
they respond, ‘I know because of such and such.’”
Altogether, Deegan has been involved in five corporate boards over the
past twenty-five years. Sometimes she has been the only woman. Other
times, she has had company. One of the boards brought in another woman
at the same time as Deegan to make their entry more comfortable as two.
Today, Deegan is the only woman out of eleven on the EMC board, but is
one of four women out of ten directors on the TJX board. She doesn’t see a
different dynamic board to board, no matter how many women comprise its
membership. “Once you get past the initial gender ‘there’s a difference,’ it
becomes a much greater sense of what are the experiences and the expertise
that you bring to the board and how does the board function as a board,”
she says.
Myra Hart sits on the public company boards of Ahold, Office De-
pot, and Summer Infant as well as several private boards. She’s among
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“Business as Usual?” r 71

four female directors on a supervisory board of seven members at Ahold,

whose stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the
Amsterdam Stock Exchange, and is one of the four women out of twelve
directors at Office Depot. “I don’t have first-hand experience with being
the first woman on a board,” she says. “I have never found it difficult to
get attention or be heard if I have something to say. There is no sense that
women are anything but first-string members of the team.”
A study out of the Wellesley Centers for Women,12 however, found that
a critical mass of three or more women could cause a fundamental change
in the boardroom and improve corporate governance when interviewing
fifty women directors, twelve CEOs, and seven corporate secretaries from
Fortune 1000 companies. “While a lone woman can and often does make
substantial contributions, and two women are generally more powerful
than one, increasing the number of women to three or more enhances the
likelihood that women’s voices and ideas are heard and that boardroom
dynamics change substantially.”
The study’s report also heard from interviewees that women were more
likely than men to ask the tough questions. Salespeople can confirm this
since women are known to ask the detailed questions around wanting to
understand every aspect of a particular problem or fact. Men are less likely
to question another man on the facts. The results of the Wellesley Centers
study imply that even one woman serving on a board makes a constructive
contribution. Even when seen as a token in the room, one woman can
bring a new perspective. Two women on a board have the opportunity to
back each other up, creating a larger impact on the board. Just because two
women serve on a board, however, doesn’t mean they will agree. Three
or more women on a board change the dynamic of the meeting and the
women tend to blend in and be seen as people rather than for their gender.
The study report found that three or more women on a board allowed
women to speak and contribute more freely, and men were able to listen
with more open minds. “As one woman director interviewed summarized
it, ‘One woman is the invisibility phase; two women is the conspiracy
phase; three women is mainstream.’”
I have always said that we women are our own worst enemies because
we don’t give an inch without questioning each other. If only men had this
talent. In the case of board leadership, this talent of questioning everything
has merit. My own personal experience goes like this. While sitting on a
regional board, I attended quarterly meetings. At each board meeting, I
brought up the subject of not getting board materials, and particularly
financials, in advance of the meetings. Each time, I was given an excuse for
why the financial statements were not available earlier. It is important that
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72 r Her Turn

board members have time to review the lengthy statements and compare
any inconsistencies that might crop up from quarter to quarter. A director
cannot sufficiently do this during the meeting itself. The board chair, a
man, seemed more angered at my question than at the CFO, who was
clearly negligent. Finally, I got other board members who understood that
it was their fiduciary responsibility to understand the financials and to
approve them as written, and to question the chairman as well. One week
before the next board meeting, all board materials, including financial
statements, were mailed to directors. It may have started with one voice
but it took many to insist that a change be made.
There are many stories of women who have joined corporate boards and
asked questions for the first time only to find out that they were questions
that had never been asked before and that none of the current board knew
the answers. Asking questions is something women do. It does not show ig-
norance but curiosity. We need more curiosity on public company boards,
and yet women’s place at the table is diminishing. Similar to Catalyst’s
2006 findings, ION reported in February 2007 that corporate boardrooms
had ignored the requests from advocates for sound governance and others
for greater diversity in their boardrooms. The report, “Women on Boards:
Missed Opportunities,” showed that women held just 10 percent of the
board seats of the one thousand, one hundred and twenty-six public com-
panies studied and that 38 percent (four hundred and twenty-seven) had
no women on their boards at all. Most shocking, these numbers changed
negatively for women from the year before.
Wolfman, ION’s president, told us, “What in the world are all these
nominating committees doing? Too many appear to be doing the same
old, same old. Maybe they are now using search firms. But how are they
using search firms? How many of them are feeding names to search firms
and ignoring the other candidates the search firms suggest, while pub-
licly citing the recruiters as the source of their nominees? And how many
search firms continue to promote the same candidates over and over with-
out taking the time to expand their pools of potential directors? I don’t
know the answers to these questions, but it certainly appears that the tradi-
tional old boys’ network still plays a very important role in the nomination
process.”
When asked why it is so difficult for women to get onto public company
boards, Wolfman, as an extreme example, recounted a recent conversation
she had with the male chair of the nominating committee for a large
Massachusetts publicly traded company. “When I told him that I had
learned that his board was looking for a director with a specific set of skills
and experience, and that I knew a woman who met all of the criteria, he flat
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“Business as Usual?” r 73

out told me that he wasn’t interested in hearing anything more from me. He
went on to tell me that the only way that a candidate would be considered
for nomination would be if a current director made a recommendation
based on a personal relationship. And I said, ‘Even though I could introduce
you to several women who have all of those characteristics you’re looking
for, you would not accept their resumes and you wouldn’t be interested in
meeting any of them?’ and he basically told me, ‘That’s the case.’”
So, I guess we can’t call it discrimination since the company in question
has one woman on its board. And we can’t say there aren’t any qualified
women for the position or that the chair of the nominating committee
can’t find them because ION has done its homework on finding qualified
women for corporate board membership and is ready with the list. The
truth is, the majority of these public company boards are happy just the
way things are. Some are willing to open the door a crack and allow a
woman in but not to the point of changing the good old boy appeal of the
group. So, again I say, here’s what needs to change in corporate America.
And how is change to come about? Read on.

Follow the Money

Best Buy is getting “in touch with its feminine side.”13 With women
consumers influencing 90 percent of consumer electronic purchases in an
$80 billion market, Best Buy was in danger of losing a good part of its
customer base. Women were complaining that they weren’t getting the help
they needed and they didn’t feel as though they were being treated with
respect. The company first responded by offering more personalized service
and then redesigned the store. Now Best Buy is focused on changing its
workforce. Anna Gallina, general manager at a North Palm Beach, Florida,
store, is quoted as saying, “Women consumers are seeing a lot more women
in our stores and that makes it less frightening and less intimidating.”
At this writing, 40 percent of Best Buy’s employees were women. “We
are working with the Girl Scouts, with private female colleges, and with
others to recruit amazing women so we can delight our women customers,”
says Best Buy VP Julie Gilbert. What a refreshing concept—corporate
realizing the benefits of having women feel acknowledged once they’ve
shown them they understand them. This information is important for
men and women as the bottom line affects us all. We all need to put our
money into mutual funds and reliable investments of worthy companies for
our future. We are in need of more diversity on our corporate boards for
the greater perspective—the 360-degree perspective that men and women
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74 r Her Turn

bring to very dialogue. When women are no longer considered outsiders,

they can have greater influence on a board. Today’s corporate boards will
benefit from new points of view and tough questioning. Shareholders,
investors, and our entire economy are ready for change in the boardroom.
So how do we get there? Are we in need of quotas?
This was the topic of the Women’s Forum’s Conference in October
2006. The chief executive officer of Nestle, Peter Brabeck, spoke about
how women, “with their different attitudes and intelligence, are signifi-
cantly contributing to creating a new corporate mindset in the twenty-first
century.” When asked how many women sit on Nestle’s board and on its
executive committee, however, Brabeck’s answer of two on the board and
none on the executive committee was met with heckles. The question of
quotas quickly became the debate. Many companies talk about diversity
but have not truly addressed it specifically with a plan. The question of quo-
tas, nonetheless, receives a negative response from both male and female
CEOs. “I don’t think you’d like to be here as part of a quota, but because
you are professionals,” Brabeck said, and he explained, “I think it [quotas]
humiliating.” It was clear during the three-day conference, however, that
without some type of aggressive action, women would have decades to wait
for parity.
The debate for quotas around the world has strengthened since Norway
initiated a requirement that women comprise 40 percent of the boards
of listed companies by 2008. Whenever I mention quotas to women in
business, they immediately shun the idea and respond: “We must get
there on merit alone,” “Quotas give the impression that the position is not
earned,” and “Quotas bring us all back in time to when women couldn’t
measure up.” When asked, Tom Peters noted that affirmative action for
civil rights was “absolutely necessary, absolutely reasonable—and the time
has past. I certainly think there should be goals that I set as the human
resources officer male or female, but federally mandated numbers I think
are a bad mistake in 2007.”
Still, I’m not backing down from my stance on quotas. The quota
system in Norway and Scandinavia shows that a quota system does work.
By looking outside the typical recruitment arenas, corporations there have
found qualified women to fill the positions needed to fill the quotas, and
the result has been progress for businesswomen in this region of the world.
To be sure, hiring targets are working—in the U.S. companies that
choose to institute them and then follow through with measurement and
analysis for any potential course correction. Deloitte & Touche USA works
as an example here. Sharon Allen notes, “Sometimes, if there’s an option
between two equally talented candidates, you choose to put a woman in
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“Business as Usual?” r 75

a position in order to create the role models and leadership opportunities

necessary to change an environment that otherwise may have inhibited
women’s progress. We did that. We were careful not to create quotas or
situations where women got the position only because they were a woman.
In my view, that works against you. But we did assure that women were
given opportunities that created the change which moved them up into
the leadership ranks.”
Ilene Lang, Catalyst’s president, notes the positive changes at the com-
panies that have seen the light. “All of the programs that we have worked
with, that we know about, that have won a Catalyst award are companies
trying to become more diverse and more inclusive, particularly in their
leadership. They do have targets. They do have goals. They typically look
at representation and they say, representation and meritocracy go hand and
hand, and that means that if the top of your company doesn’t look like
the middle or the bottom, then there’s something wrong because we know
that talent doesn’t discriminate. We know the kind of talent that comes
into the workplace out of colleges and graduate schools today, so if the
cream that rises to the top doesn’t look like the feeder pool, then there’s a
problem. So, these companies set those targets. Those are not quotas and
the difference is that quotas motivate a kind of behavior that is just about
the numbers and what we see is targets.”
We certainly applaud the companies that do recognize the value of their
women employees right up into the executive offices, and we are grateful for
the exposure that Catalyst lends to the right kinds of efforts that will strike
down the current forty-seven year and seventy-three year predictions for
parity. This year, 2007, Catalyst recognized three corporations for doing
things right for their women consumers, customers/clients, and employees:
PepsiCo, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Scotiabank.
Here is my problem. I don’t see five hundred out of the Fortune 500 on
the awards list. And I’m not picking on Catalyst. Look at any list—Best
Places to Work, Best Companies for Women of Color, Working Mother
Best Companies, and the like—you won’t see every single company’s name
on the list that should be on that list. When organizations celebrate the
companies that are doing well by women, we all applaud. But what about
the majority of companies that aren’t getting it? Are we waiting for the
media to go after them and expose their bias and their discriminating
practices? At newsrooms across the country, particularly at newspapers
where the investigative reporting is best known, the skeleton crew left after
cutback after cutback barely has the time to uncover the daily national and
local news. To assume that the media, or a watchdog group, will rise up and
insist that the Fortune 100, the Fortune 500, and the Fortune 1000 reward
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76 r Her Turn

employee performance with the opportunity of advancement regardless of

gender is, in my mind, naı̈ve.
Until all one thousand of the Fortune 1000 companies can be celebrated,
the time for quotas is now. Nothing less will accelerate women’s partici-
pation in senior management and on corporate boards the way a mandate
will, especially because there are plenty of women who are so close to
making the leap to the very top level.
In this decade, women will become the majority of middle managers,
the majority of entry-level workers, and the majority of older workers.
Therefore, certainly, Lang is correct when she says, “By 2014, 60 percent
of the entrants to the workforce will be women and people of color. That
means that by 2050, the majority in the U.S. workforce will be women and
people of color, not white males. This is why this leadership question is
so pertinent and why the companies that tap into the leadership now are
assuring the sustainability of their companies in the future.”
The pipeline is filling and it must lead directly to the top positions.
With all this talent and energy, companies must take advantage of the
best and the brightest, men and women, and make sure they are equally
represented at the top in C-level positions and corporate boards. When the
consumer can see herself reflected at all levels of business, she will know her
business is respected and she is respected. America’s economy depends on
the retention of women, women’s purchasing power, and women’s ability
to build business, lead business, and be role models for future generations.
But, I say, the time for all this to take place is now—not in 2014, or 2048,
or 2082. Now.

Just Imagine

Half of those leading in corporate America, filling corner offices and C-

level positions, are women. They make sure that shareholders can be proud
of the company they support and of the policies they provide to the people
who labor across all lines of the business. These women ask questions in
boardrooms and make sure guidelines are followed carefully. As corporate
board officers, they work to build the company by reflecting the needs of
the company’s prime consumer—other women—and understanding her
concerns. America gains economic strength in the face of global competi-
tion with women leading Big Business.
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CHAPTER 6

Women Entrepreneurs:
The BIG Engine That Could
and Does

“Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumblebee

doesn’t know that so it goes on flying anyway.”
—Mary Kay Ash, Mary Kay Cosmetics

Small business is what is driving our American economy, and women are
driving the bus when it comes to starting small businesses. Little attention,
however, is given to those choosing to take the risk in establishing their own
businesses and providing opportunities for employees, vendors, and more.
Before continuing on, let me point out the common misconception—
perhaps, when I say “small business,” you immediately visualize a hair
salon, a retail store, an interior design studio, all great businesses, to be sure.
But the areas of major growth for women’s businesses today are actually
in construction, manufacturing, technology, and healthcare. These are
businesses that have scaleable models, and they are businesses that require
leadership qualities in order to grow. It is estimated that by the year 2008,
more than 50 percent of all American businesses will be woman-owned.
They many not be Fortune 500 companies (at the moment!) but these
companies will continue to employ more than twice what the Fortune
500 employ and therefore will be the teachers for the next generation of
business leaders.
Nearly half of all small businesses in America—businesses up to $100
million—are majority women-owned. That’s 10.4 million companies ver-
sus men’s 11.7 million.1 Women-owned firms are growing at two times
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the rate of all firms—that’s 42 percent versus 23 percent. And out of

all women-owned businesses, companies grossing over $1 million are the
fastest growing sector. Women have turned to entrepreneurship as a way
to fulfill their idea of success and at the same time to provide the ability to
design their work environment. The women whom the media portrays as
“opting out” of corporate typically turn up a month or two later “opting in”
with their own businesses. So don’t listen when you hear the media talk
about women and their choice to leave corporate careers. And what about
the number of working one-parent families? There are no white knights
rescuing them. They, like the rest of their cohort, have the education and
the determination to thrive in business and, if choosing to opt out/opt in,
they succeed by doing it their way. And for those who have never opted
in—they simply have “entrepreneur” encoded into their DNA.
All of these women, no matter what their path to entrepreneurship,
are doing it incredibly well. Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO)
members, for example, in a survey done in September 2006, had owned
or managed their businesses for one to thirty-four years, averaging in at
12.8 years. The majority of the respondents had annual revenues of $1 to
$5 million; 16 percent, between $6 and $10 million; 10 percent, between
$11 and $20 million; 9 percent, between $21 and $50 million; and 3
percent owned or managed companies over $50 million. “I believe that
entrepreneurship is the great equalizer for women, that the story is not
the story in corporate America but in small business America, that women
can shatter the glass ceiling in small business ownership,” says Marsha
Firestone, founder and president of the WPO. “The average age of our
members is forty-nine, so they tend to start their businesses a little later—
after they get some experience and they learn from that experience that
there is a place that they can do better.”
Women are starting their businesses first and foremost out of an en-
trepreneurial idea, or as Sharon Hadary, executive director of the Center
for Women’s Business Research, says, “They see something that they’re
looking for, a product or service, that nobody is providing and it’s a unique
opportunity to provide that product or service. Or they see a product or
service being provided by others, including their employer, that they think
they can do better on their own.”
A perfect example of such a company is SmartPak, a $35 million com-
pany initially providing packaged daily allotments of supplements for
horses in 2000, which now offers an array of products for all kinds of
equine and canine needs. The company was born out of frustration by
Becky Minard. Unable to have the barn where she boarded her horse give
the animal its proper dosages of vitamins and supplements, Minard turned
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Women Entrepreneurs r 79

her questions of “How can this be so hard?” and “Why can’t we just put
it into little packs and send somebody a month’s supply and send it ev-
ery month?” into a business that has a potential market of $500 million.
The idea was so popular with horse owners that they were soon ordering
smaller amounts of supplements for their dogs, and so began SmartPak’s
entry into the canine business. Through catalogue, Web, and bricks-and-
mortar stores with online ordering kiosks inside, the company sells barn
supplies and tack for horses; toys, food, and gear for dogs; pharmaceuticals
and supplements for both; and apparel for people. With a background in
life sciences, consulting and operations, as well as a Harvard MBA, Mi-
nard is building the SmartPak brand and reach as chief marketer to her
husband’s role as CEO.2
Lois Silverman turned improving on a service into a public company.
The founder and former CEO of Comprehensive Rehabilitation Asso-
ciates (now Concentra Managed Care), she started her company in 1978
out of seeing something that she could do better. While working in the
1970s for a large insurance company providing medical management ser-
vices for injured workers, Silverman saw an opportunity for going a step
further in managing workman’s comp care. The new business would pro-
vide medical, vocational, return-to-work, and cost-containment services
and thereby mitigate losses on the part of carriers and employers. Seven-
teen years later, she led the IPO. “We had had rapid growth, new services
and solid gains in the market. We were the industry leaders in terms of a
privately held company and it just felt like it was the right time,” Silverman
says.
To build liquidity for the final boost in positioning, Silverman and her
business partner had brought in investors but they retained 51-percent
control of the company in order to remain at the helm. In 1995, Silverman
was the first woman to take a company public in Massachusetts. She built
a $100 million company with two thousand employees. Silverman learned
from experience the isolation women particularly feel being wrapped up
in growing their businesses out in the corporate world and so, today,
she ensures peer support systems for women through the nonprofit she
founded, The Commonwealth Institute.3
Some women entrepreneurs are not interested in employing people.
They choose instead to be sole proprietors and understand the need to jug-
gle the “doing the business” with the “marketing and selling to customers”
part of the business. Seventy-five percent of all firms and 81 percent of
women-owned firms have no employees. Sole proprietors can grow their
businesses using outside contractors. As of 2004, women-owned firms
without employees generated $167 billion in annual sales, according to the
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80 r Her Turn

Center for Women’s Business Research. I know dozens of women who

started their consulting businesses by leaving the company they worked for
and offering to consult on a project basis, which gave them the opportunity
of starting their businesses with one very impressive client.
Women can also start their own businesses out of frustration in the work-
place, where they aren’t influencing the direction of the organization as
they’d like on a strategic level. And there’s the flexibility mantra and being
in control over their time. Annette O’Connor started her company, Clear-
head Consulting, after eighteen years of working in major corporations in
human resources and in strategic consulting positions. She describes the
culture promulgated at the time this way: “There was a lack of willingness
to speak the truth about the impact day-to-day business decisions had on
the average employee. The last competitive advantage is people, and if you
(the company) don’t understand this, you are foolish.”
O’Connor recognized that she had the resources necessary to design her
own model of a company that would allow her to work on her own and out
of her home—two goals that were paramount to her. It was clear that mid-
size companies, twenty to seventy-five employees, needed to outsource
their HR work and that she was at the right time, right place with her
niche business. It was 1996, there was a technology boom and companies
were growing fast. O’Connor had been in positions all her career life where
no female peers existed. A business of her own would also allow her to
expand her networks and seek out women in business as associates and
colleagues.
“I figured that a worst-case scenario would be that I would do contract
recruiting for $50 per hour. But, once I put the word out, getting business
was never a problem. Companies were desperate for building infrastructure
for growth and designing employee policies and benefits that could grow
with the organization. I was valued as a resource to CEOs and COOs
and I leveraged that ability to bring in other strategic professionals, such
as those in compensation. I tripled my corporate salary in my first year of
business.”
Of course, owning your own small business has challenges. The Num-
ber One challenge for any businessowner is isolation. “Finding confidential
people to share feelings with and learning to forge relationships with other
women was also a struggle,” O’Connor concurs. “But I learned to be a team
player and put my years of knowledge into simple solutions and practical
approaches.” Ten years later, her business has new challenges. “The world
is changing rapidly, and retention is a huge issue for all companies. Gen-
erational issues are the major topic of HR discussions. I have to constantly
test my model.”
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Other women, who are intent on building not only a company that
employs people but one that also impacts the lives in its environs, build a
company that can support its employees and the community at large. A
woman who has taken this very different direction in her business is Trish
Karter, president and CEO of Dancing Deer Baking Company. From
investor to temporary participant to fully involved partner to majority
owner, she has risen to the challenges thrown her way.
In what began in April 1994 as an all-natural wholesale bakery, Danc-
ing Deer has built a national reputation and brand with its direct-to-
consumer Web business, wholesale distribution business, and corporate
delivery channels. In addition to the usual profit motive, Karter has what
she calls “environmental objectives” and she also incorporates employee
ownership into her business plan. “I don’t want to just push cookies out
the door,” she told Fortune Small Business when she was a 2005 Win-
ning Workplaces Best Boss. “We have to have a greater impact on the
community.”4
In 2002, Dancing Deer introduced the Sweet Home product line to
put 35 percent of the retail price of each order toward helping homeless
families find jobs and move into their own homes. The program came from
a partnership with the nonprofit, One Family. In 2005 alone, Dancing Deer
donated $30,000 to the homelessness eradication effort. “I thought One
Family’s mission to end homelessness was compatible with our mission
to do good in the world,” Karter says. “That ties in with our employee
base at our location in a low-income area. My concept was to focus our
philanthropy efforts to be more meaningful, to save ourselves some time
and to design something to enhance our marketing strategy. The Sweet
Home line made an impact on our branding, but I didn’t expect it to have
such a strong visceral impact on people. If other companies did what we
do on a similar percentage basis, the world would be turned upside down!”
Taking an unusual tack, Janet Kraus and Kathy Sherbrooke started
their company on a business principle and then searched for the right
service to flesh out their philosophy. They met at Stanford’s Graduate
School of Business and found instant synergy. “We took a 360-degree
view of business, which is all about the different impacts that you have
in the market on customers, on employees, on business partners,” says
Sherbrooke.5 After graduation, they set off in different directions but
planned to team up in the future to build their company. In 1997, they did
just that by starting Circles out of Kraus’ extra bedroom. Understanding
the time-starved professional, they began the trial-and-error process of
trailblazing a new, untried, but immediately welcomed concept in lifestyle
support at the Fortune 500 level.
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Raising money and getting to profitability was difficult during their first
four years. But by Q4 in 2001, after landing $26 million in four capital
rounds—friends and family, angels, and two institutional rounds—they
hit profitability. Circles, now with six hundred employees, $45 million
in revenue, and offices in Boston and Canada, is a concierge company
that offers sevices to large corporations as a benefit to increase employee
loyalty as well as provides a program for customer loyalty that adds a ben-
efit/enhancement to the high-valued customers of credit card companies
and private wealth management firms.
Ever evolving, these days Circles is broadening its reach with a new high-
end, direct-to-consumer service. Kraus and Sherbrooke took a friendship,
an interest in working together, and a business principle versus a predefined
product or service to creating their dream company. Their revenue model
is endless, as individuals and companies will never run out of the need for
convenience in getting services done efficiently for themselves and their
customers. The point here is, as Kraus says, “Every woman entrepreneur
should think that the world is small instead of thinking that it is so big.”
But deciding to build a company early on, as Kraus and Sherbrooke
did in graduate school, is different than realizing later in your career that
perhaps your job, as you have always known it, is coming to an end. That
realization and the ensuing entrepreneurial bug struck Suzanne Bates in
2000. An award-winning television news anchor and reporter in several
markets across the United States for twenty years, Bates was longing to
start her own business. “I noticed that many of the people I admired were
getting paid for what they know. I wanted to transfer my skills and teach
what I know,” she says. So she launched Bates Communications, a strategic
consulting firm specializing in executive and professional development in
communication skills.
Since its founding in 2000, the company has established a national repu-
tation for its outstanding executive coaching program as well as innovative
workshops, training, and development. Bates has also verbalized her spe-
cial expertise in her book, Speak Like A CEO. “I made a transition out of
choice,” she says. “Even if it is not your choice to start your own firm, you
can embrace it with gusto. The positive attitude that you bring to your
business is key to your success. My advice is to commit yourself to it and
jump in with both feet.”6
So we have examples of women starting businesses because they opt out
of corporate America and feel they can do it better. Then there are others
who feel that not only can they do it better, they can do it by building a
company that gives back to the community that supports them. We see
other women who meet early on in their careers and know instinctively
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Women Entrepreneurs r 83

that their synergy can create a company to be reckoned with and yet others
who have spent years developing their craft and know that entrepreneur-
ship is the way to take it to the next level. These are just a few stories
that show the great diversity in what women want to achieve when they
start out on their own. All of these women are role models to many for
many reasons, but mostly they are examples of women who have started
a business out of the determination to be exactly who they are and have
that reflected in their businesses. Each is also a role model for others when
it comes to providing the best workplace for employees. Small or large,
these woman-owned firms understand the need for flexibility for their
employees, as they too must have work/life balance to perform at their
best. And they’re cognizant of the importance of benefits. The Center
for Women’s Business Research, in its Top Facts listing on its Web site
(http://www.cfwbr.org/facts/index.php), notes that women-owned busi-
nesses spend an estimated $546 billion annually on salaries and benefits.
The newest category to this list of entrepreneurial whys and wherefores
is the corporate woman who leaves corporate America in order to help
other corporate women in more than just one company. Having worked in
benefits and sales at Johnson & Johnson and then going back into human
resources at State Street Bank & Trust Company, Mary Gegler has spent
her career working at and learning from corporate America. She started
MBG Associates Leadership Consultants to help those still traversing the
corporate mentality. She understands the corporate dynamics and is able
to assist other women in making their mark on the organization.
“I learned to be good at identifying the next generations of leaders.
Leaders are not born but need to be trained and developed,” she says. “I
saw a lot of talented people with horrible managers, particularly women
who wanted to advance in the company but too often weren’t given the
opportunity to do so. They left and advanced elsewhere.”
Gegler, like many executive coaches, doesn’t need to market herself. Her
clients come from personal relationships and referrals from those who have
worked with her. “They know I understand the corporate environment,
from both the sales and HR arenas and particularly my expertise on com-
pensation issues. I tell my women clients they must fight back—negotiate
their compensation. Men aren’t shy. They negotiate.” Understanding how
the system works is Gegler’s value. Understanding how women can get
ahead is her greatest asset.
Finally, there is the serial entrepreneur who’s unable to sit still as she
constantly has ideas of companies that must be built. Sue Welch has created
three companies so far, each one more complex than the last. Today, as
founder, chair, and CEO of TradeStone Software, she’s tackling global
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84 r Her Turn

sourcing’s most complicated problem to date by unifying domestic and

international buying in one view, no training needed to tap into the system.
She first saw a dire need in global sourcing when she was working in imports
at Zayer Corporation in the 1980s and has been on sourcing’s cutting
edge ever since. IMC Systems Group, founded in 1984, was a pioneer in
international supply chain business applications for PCs. RockPort Trade
Systems, started in 1992, introduced Windows to international buying.
Today, TradeStone brings the Internet to the supply chain in a first-time
anywhere-to-anywhere solution.
IMC was ahead of its time, and when the venture partners got impatient
for their return on investment (ROI), they replaced Welch. Undaunted,
she opened RockPort’s doors the next day, served out her noncompete time
by consulting, and mulled ideas for a new tack for sourcing. The technology
she came up with was so innovative that QRS bought RockPort for $100
million. A year later, Welch intended to retire but instead spent the first
of this two-year noncompete traveling to understand the Third World
supplier’s import/export perspective. The conundrum of separate systems
for domestic and international buying as well as the small supplier’s inability
to tie into the buying engine led to conceptualizing TradeStone. “Quite
frankly, I didn’t think I’d come back to this,” she says. “I thought, how
could I redo it again and do it so it’s fresh and exciting and different? When
you start getting ideas again, you say, ‘Let me just go back and look at it
one more time.’”7
Peg Feodoroff ’s story is a twist on the serial entrepreneur—one of a
woman whose business is cooking along when she realizes she has a greater
mission in life. A successful commercial interior designer for twenty-five
years, Feodoroff’s company, Inspired Interiors, worked with the best com-
panies in Massachusetts on their office environments, not to mention, very
often, the CEO’s home. The idea for her second company arrived just
after she was diagnosed with malignant melanoma and during treatment.
The value of her idea was confirmed by her sister, who had been diagnosed
with colon cancer six months earlier. Feodoroff was appalled at the hospi-
tal gown offered her during treatment. Out in the waiting room, only the
patients were labeled what she calls “defective” by the johnny versus others’
street clothes. Offering real clothing with hidden openings for treatment
would take away the stigma and the humiliation, she believed. As Feodor-
off says, “Anything that the johnny was, we went against.” The company,
Spirited Sisters, with its patient clothing line, Healing Threads, gives back
dignity to those who need it most. “We’re doing this for a reason,” Feodor-
off says.8 At this writing, the fledgling company is hitting its stride. There
is a need, there is a will, and there is a way. Feodoroff is a survivor, in
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Women Entrepreneurs r 85

business and in cancer, not a quitter. Entrepreneurship is what gets more

than twenty-two million Americans out of bed in the morning and will
continue to be the driving force in our economy.

The Workplace Revolution

Women today are meeting their needs to work successfully by creating

their own work environment—and, in the process, they’re revolutioniz-
ing the workplace with the very practices that corporate is slow to adopt.
The 2005 “National Study of Employers” by Families and Work Institute
found that small businesses (those with fifty to ninety-nine employees)
compared to large companies (those with a thousand or more employees)
“are significantly more likely to offer flexibility to all or most employees
than employers of other sizes.” The survey was conducted across a broad
spectrum of one thousand and ninety-two for-profit and nonprofit com-
panies, with 73 percent of the sample being defined as having women in
the “C” level positions. The report revealed that the small company em-
ployer understands from experience the need for “work to work” for both
employee and the company.
Putting the employee in control of his/her starting/quitting time,
paid/unpaid overtime hours, full- or part-time hours, working onsite or
off-site, and job sharing are choices the small business employer and, there-
fore the women business employer, provides. Although she isn’t able to
provide as an extensive a benefit package as the larger companies, today’s
small business employer offers her employees a work/life balance as best she
can—and often better than the corporate workplace she might have left.
A Women Presidents’ Organization survey revealed that 57 percent of its
members regularly “investigate and adjust salaries to ensure pay equity for
positions of equal qualification and responsibility,” confirming that women
business owners understand the need to stay on top of the wage gap.
Women tend to create the kind of workplace that is the opposite of the
corporate culture they fled or that reflects their vision of what a workplace
should and can be. At the beginning of her eighteen years with the Center
for Women’s Business Research, Sharon Hadary still remembers one par-
ticular conference panelist whose comments back then were a harbinger
of what has become an emerging company practice. Hadary recalls, “She
said, ‘You know, most people in business equate quality with the number
of hours worked. We equate quality with quality.’ And then she went on to
say that, instead of losing an employee who wanted to stay home with her
new baby, her company gave the employee a computer so she could work
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at home. Not only were these women saying they wanted the flexibility for
themselves, they were now creating cultures that encouraged that flexibility
for their employees.”
Hadary adds, “Our research indicates that women-owned businesses
are more likely than men-owned businesses to have a gender-balanced
management team and workforce, and that, as men-owned businesses
grow, the workforce becomes much more heavily weighted with men,
whereas women tend to keep that balance even as the company grows.”
As we’ve noted before, women are not opting out of corporate and stay-
ing home as the media would like us to think. In fact, corporate’s loss is
entrepreneurship’s gain. “Corporations are losing the best and the brightest,
and that is too bad. We need women’s leadership in the corporate world,”
Hadary says. “I’m glad, however, that entrepreneurship is here as an oppor-
tunity for women who, for whatever reason, feel that the corporate environ-
ment is not appropriate, whether it’s lack of flexibility, or lack of ability to
move up to the most senior levels, or just the culture of the company itself.”
The female entrepreneur is in control of her work environment and her
time. She doesn’t work less but on her own terms and she delegates her
responsibilities in a new way. Woman-owned businesses are generating
nearly $2 trillion in revenues and 12.8 million jobs—“that’s 12.8 million
people putting food on the table, paying a mortgage, or sending a child to
college because of a business owned by a woman,” Hadary notes. “Women
are creating business leadership by creating jobs, and even the ones who
don’t have employees frequently are creating opportunities for others to
gain economic independence by using contractors.”
Even so, every small business must compete with the mammoth corpo-
ration. Male or female, that competition isn’t easy, but successfully com-
peting is all about connections. Women typically, as we note throughout
this book, have not had the connections or the networks that men have
had for generations. Over the last thirty or so years, supplier diversity pro-
grams, which grew out of the civil rights movement, have offered women
and minorities the opportunity to compete on a so-called level playing
field with their larger competitors. Certifying women-owned companies
for these programs are national organizations such as the Women’s Busi-
ness Enterprise National Council (WBENC). Its certification guarantees
that the company in question is a woman-owned, operated, and controlled
company—a women’s business enterprise.
Today’s voluntary and mandated diversity supplier programs grew out of
the federal government’s concern that it was not doing business with dis-
advantaged companies. Federal contracts began to require the large prime
contractors to subcontract a percentage of their subcontracts to the smaller
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diverse supplier. The goal was to make sure that small companies were
given the opportunity to perform and to be ranked by performance rather
than by size or connection. Soon the larger companies realized the value
of their diversity suppliers and began voluntary in-house diversity supplier
programs for all of their contracts. “They were finding good suppliers offer-
ing good products, good services, with on-time delivery at very competitive
price. These smaller companies could also be more responsive to changes
if they were needed,” says Linda Denny, WBENC’s president.
For the past ten years, WBENC has provided access to markets for
women-owned companies as its certification is the most commonly ac-
cepted and valued by America’s corporations. In turn, Denny believes that
“corporations have learned that women can bring a different perspective
to a product or a service. Women have a different point of view when it
comes to how they make buying decisions, how they build relationships,
especially if it is a consumer or a business-to-consumer company.” Denny
says there’s phenomenal room for growth in supplier diversity programs
these days outside of the United States. “We’re going to work with our
women’s business enterprises to help them understand how they can ben-
efit in the global marketplace. Many of our certified businesses operate
internationally because the corporations they are serving want them to go
with them to India, China, or someplace else.”
Some would call these supplier diversity programs a quasi-quota system,
meaning they provide special opportunities for those that participate. On
closer inspection, however, you’ll see every certification program of this
type is more appropriately seen as a seal of approval for the firms that
perform the due diligence in getting the certification. It is not as simple
a process as you might think. Every part of the business is scrutinized,
from ownership, to employees, to vendors, to customers. Women Business
Enterprises (WBEs), Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs), and Dis-
advantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs) must solidly verify themselves
and their firms to become certified. Perhaps if this much scrutiny were
performed on all companies, we would have less fraud. But the impor-
tant point is that it takes a lot of work and a reliable company to gain
certification. The certified companies then can offer their services to large
corporations with this seal of approval and have the opportunity to get
the experience and the income needed for growth. In many ways, supplier
diversity programs can be looked upon as mentorship programs offered to
the smaller company from the bigger corporation. It is that experience of
working together that can catapult the growth of the WBE.
All this said, there’s tremendous room for improvement. Sixty percent
of Fortune 1000 corporations spend more than $1 billion with outside
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suppliers each year, but only 4 percent of that goes to the WBE. Yet,
those WBEs with $1 million or more in revenue, in comparison with their
smaller counterparts, are more likely to have corporate (34% vs. 12%) and
government (31% vs. 8%) contracts.9
Of course, not all women-owned companies choose or need to become
certified. Many entrepreneurial women see their reflection in other en-
trepreneurial women and believe that by utilizing their services they further
the cause for women’s success. They typically seek out other women-owned
businesses as subcontractors and are much more likely to employ women,
thereby reaching out and pulling up to continue the growth of the sis-
terhood. Yes, sometimes women can see the expertise and value of other
women, and support women’s small enterprises.
If we look back about eighteen years, before the beginning of the surge of
woman-owned businesses, we see that the United States was just beginning
a recession. The Dow Jones dropped more than 25 percent on October
19, 1987. Black Monday is the name given to this day as similar enormous
drops occurred around the world. By the end of October, stock markets in
Hong Kong had fallen 45.8 percent; Australia, 41.8 percent; the United
Kingdom, 26.4 percent; the United States 22.68 percent; and Canada,
22.5 percent. It was during this time that the savings and loans began to
collapse and unemployment hovered at 7 percent. A large percentage of
white-collar jobs were lost in the 1980s and early 1990s, and men, many of
whom had never been unemployed, found themselves unemployable. As
unemployment insurance ran out, many chose to label themselves as con-
sultants out of necessity. Home-based businesses took on a new meaning.
Once thought of as only an alternative for women looking for a hobby,
home-based businesses grew rapidly. According to national research firm
IDC, there are between 34.3 and 36.6 million home-based businesses in
the United States, estimated as generating $427 billion each year.
These facts are important as it took the men who established home-
based businesses to provide the credibility for women who had made
them their bread and butter for years. Today, home-based businesses are
almost as likely to be run by women as men. This phenomenon reminds
us that it is not just women in business who are isolated. In 1991, when
I cofounded a regional women’s organization, the South Shore Women’s
Business Network, for the purpose of providing a place for women to
come and share ideas, learn from each other, and work together to become
successful, 12 percent of our membership was men. Today, the organization
still exists and thrives, not only because it works to help women achieve
their dreams but also because it is open to all those who want to work
together to succeed. My point is that so much focus is given to the large
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Women Entrepreneurs r 89

companies in America—the Fortune 100, the Fortune 500, and the Fortune
1000—that we forget that the true engine driving the economy in our
country is small business.
What’s more important is the fact that women are now the ones driv-
ing the model for entrepreneurship. They’re the role models for the next
generation—our sons and daughters—and for other business leaders, par-
ticularly the men who need prodding in accepting gender equality. To get
to that kind of comfort level, Hadary notes, “These business leaders have to
look around and say, ‘You know what, I see this woman or that woman in
this kind of leadership position, so it’s OK if I want to bring someone into
my senior advisory group who looks like that woman instead of someone
who looks like me.’ ”
I started my newspaper, Women’s Business, for this very reason. Having
been brought up in the newspaper business with my brother who started
the New England Real Estate Journal in 1963, I was always disheartened
by the lack of women who wanted to be quoted in the commercial real
estate world. My experience in the early 1970s and then later in the early
1990s proved that women were part of the equation but uninterested in
getting the press. I would go to industry meetings and very often be the
only woman in the room. But I knew that other women were very much
a part of this industry and would eventually be the leaders because of
their innate talents in the business. Having been in real estate myself, I
knew women genuinely wanted to fit the client with his or her needs.
Residential or commerical, women are an asset in the real estate business.
But knowing and doing are only part of the equation. Without visibility,
even the most successful businessperson cannot rise to the top. I learned
from my brother that visibility is everything in business—the real estate
business and every business. He encouraged me to set out and start my
newspaper to profile women in business and to change the way women in
business were perceived in the region, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and
Rhode Island, and, eventually, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut,
and, through a sister publication, in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. The
stories of women’s success are endless and they provide the reader with the
role models for the present and the future.

Role Models

The motivation of our next generation of women business leaders is

critical to our economic growth. The study “Teen Girls on Business: Are
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90 r Her Turn

They Being Empowered?”10 investigated the perceptions of teen girls to-

ward business and career. Again, the pipeline must be filled by women as
well as men since they continue to seek education in the largest numbers.
The girls’ negative opinion of business as a career, however, was a stunning
outcome of the study. It was found that although boys and girls share
the same basic ambitions toward work/life balance, only 9 percent of girls
listed business as a first-choice career compared to 15 percent of boys—a
40 percent difference. Girls, 75 percent to boys’ 55 percent, suggested that
“helping others” was a key ingredient in what they wanted to do for the
future.
The study of more than four thousand teens found that girls were
much more likely to choose a career in law or medicine than business.
Entrepreneurship was considered by girls as the most desirable business
option because they perceived it as providing more flexibility and control.
The scandals in the news at the time were clearly a reason that both boys and
girls had a negative image of business. When asked to describe business,
the teens used words such as “finance,” “accounting,” and “making money.”
Girls felt their strongest skill was listening whereas boys chose decision
making. The end result of the study was that there are few female role
models for girls to copy.
The media plays a large part in teens’ perception of the world and the
media must begin to reflect what real women in the business world are
achieving. The problem that Candida Brush, Paul T. Babson Professor of
Entrepreneurship at Babson College and quite likely the first person to
do an academic study of women entrepreneurs in the United States, has
with the media is what she calls “hero worship,” and, although it affects
all ages, she speaks specifically to the lack of role models for the female
entrepreneur. Bill Gates, she points out, is constantly portrayed as if he
built Microsoft all by himself—forget the team, the collaboration, and all
the other factors along with taking a risk that go into starting and building
a company.
“The whole worship thing is so pervasive, and what that does, when
you start to think about it, is set role models for women entrepreneurs,
women who don’t necessarily fit the psychological trait envelope that is
portrayed as the key to success, so they have no role models,” Brush says.
“My criticism is that the general media often gets hung up on things that
are really detrimental to anybody other than the person the story is about
because it doesn’t portray an accurate picture of what that person did to
succeed.”
It’s fortunate that organizations such as the Girl Scouts realize the
value that women role models can provide with face-to-face meetings in
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Women Entrepreneurs r 91

programs such as CEO Camps. Organized in the summer as part of the

Girl Scout experience, these camps invite female CEOs to share in a variety
of workshops focused on giving girls insight into what the life of a woman
leader is like. This is just one of the many programs across the country
helping to build girls’ enthusiasm for business. Today’s girls are tomorrow’s
women leaders and women business owners.
And adult business women need role models, too. Networking orga-
nizations like the Women Presidents’ Organization provide a venue for
role modeling both from the standpoint of learning from those who have
made it and from those who are going through similar circumstances. Sec-
ond stage entrepreneurs, according to research done by the Edward Lowe
Foundation, learn best from one another. Notes WPO’s president, Marsha
Firestone, “A peer advisory group allows the entrepreneur to grow some of
her best ideas from her peers and brings the genius out of the group—to
accelerate growth of the company and enhance competitiveness.”

VCs, Angels, and Others

Access to capital is still an issue for company growth and particularly for
women-owned enterprises. Venture capital, angel investing, friends and
family, and bank loans are all important to getting a business up and
running. In the venture capital world, it’s rare for women to find the pot
of gold at the end of the fundraising trail. In fact, women entrepreneurs
are seeing a steady dwindling in their one-time barely increasing success in
raising venture dollars. According to 2007-updated calculations by Dow
Jones VentureOne, companies with women founders raised:

r 6.7 percent of the $26.7 billion invested in 2006,

r 7.37 percent of $24 billion in 2005,
r 7.73 percent of $22.5 billion in 2004,
r 7.99 percent of $19.7 billion in 2003,
r 8.05 percent of $22 billion in 2002, and
r 9.4 percent of the $36 billion invested in 2001.11

Candida Brush spent eight years working on the Diana Project along
with her colleagues, Nancy Carter, Elizabeth Gatewood, Patricia Greene,
and Myra Hart, looking at the venture capital (VC) industry itself to
understand why women are getting such a tiny amount of money. Part of
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the attracting-VC-dollars problem for women entrepreneurs, the Diana

Project researchers discovered, is how few of their gender are in the venture
capital industry itself: less than 9 percent in 2000, with 64 percent leaving
the industry from 1995 to 2000. For a platform that requires contacts
and referrals if a business proposal is going to make it over the transom,
“women entrepreneurs have less chance of getting to the negotiating table,”
the project’s executive summary says.
Springboard Enterprises was founded to coach and connect women
seeking venture capital, yet only one hundred out of two to three thousand
applicants a year received funding, Brush notes. The glass-half-full news
is: “Springboard, however, has proved that there is a large enough pool
of women who are qualified, who have the right experience, who have a
business that has protectable IP, that is scalable, and is a good possibility
for equity funding of some kind,” Brush says.
The Diana Project also pointed to the types of companies VCs will fund:
“In today’s market [2000], the most attractive venture capital candidates are
those who have expertise in fields that traditionally have been dominated
by males, such as engineering, biotechnology and physics.” The same holds
true today. Myra Hart says, “Because the vast majority of companies that
are venture funded have a technology component to them, women are at a
significant disadvantage. The problem begins at the undergraduate level,
where women represent less than 20 percent of the engineering and hard
physical science majors. There are relatively few women who have the
technical training to lead a large, scalable enterprise that is technology-
driven.”
These women do exist, even if they’re far and few between. Christina
Lampe-Onnerud is exactly the type of founder and CEO that Hart is
talking about. She thought big—the multibillion-dollar portable power
sourcing market, that is, the battery market. She had the technology
credentials—a leading innovator in battery design, she holds fifteen patents
with six pending at the time of this writing and, prior to starting Boston-
Power, worked on polymer batteries at Bell Communications Research
and then set up and ran Arthur D. Little’s world-renown battery lab. The
Sonata next-generation lithium-ion battery that hit the market in HP
laptops in summer 2007 advances portability with previously unheard of
recharge time, lifetime, safety, and environmentally friendly features. Even
when those in battery design didn’t see Lampe-Onnerud’s plan for the new
version as one that would succeed, venture capital took to the concept im-
mediately. From her initial idea-dabbling start in 2004, Lampe-Onnerud
had raised $23.6 million by early 2007.12
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Still, for most women, hitting the venture capital trail is so daunting
that there’s quite possibly truth in the rumblings that there aren’t all that
many women VC-seeking candidates in the first place. “So it’s the choice
thing,” Brush says. “A lot of people argue that women don’t want it, and
there is some evidence to support that.”
Angel investors are another alternative for the emerging entrepreneur
but, once again, it is all about connections. The good news is, while there
are few women venture capitalists, more and more retired senior executive
women are turning to angel investing not only to seek a healthy ROI but
also to lend their expertise through hands-on participation in the scaling
of the business. There are plenty of angel-investing networks that are both
male and female, but only a few female-only groups, like Golden Seeds,
are focusing their attention solely on woman-owned firms by using their
business skills and their money to fuel small business growth.
Artemis Woman LLC is one such recipient of angel attention. Founded
by Ann Buivid and Lisa Kable, Artemis is dedicated to creating home
spa and beauty products for women. These two founders brought more
than thirty-five years of combined experience in Fortune 200 companies,
including General Foods, Black & Decker, and Remington Products, to
planning the high-growth enterprise, which in turn helped attract the
angels to their door in 2003. They did try the venture capital route first.
“We had to beg people for money,” Buivid says.13 One venture capitalist,
she relates, asked her, “I have no idea what this microdermabrasion product
does, but can I use it to polish the tires on my car?”
Where the VC community saw no hope, angel investors like Stephanie
Hanbury-Brown, Golden Seeds’ founder, saw opportunity. “It was one
of the first companies we invested in,” she says. “We liked the company
immediately and knew that the founders knew the consumer goods, retail
and manufacturing business well.” Artemis Woman achieved profitability
in its third year of operations with nearly $4 million in revenue. What
female angel investors saw in the consumer products concept and the
management team eluded the traditional male investors who were more
typically interested in technology opportunities.
Educating more women around participation in high-stakes investing
is another way more women-owned companies will reap the rewards of
investor infusion, Brush says. She believes the link that “is missing is not just
more women. It is women needing to learn more about financial options, so
if we can get women where they’re least populated—venture capital, angel
investing, and hedge—then women can participate more fully in wealth
creation. Women entrepreneurs need access to all the resource providers
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94 r Her Turn

and one way to do that is to make sure that the composition of the resource
providers is not a homogeneous group.” At the time of her interview, Brush
was in the midst of planning a Power Investing Roundtable to raise the
bar in women’s management of their personal investment portfolios and,
at the same time, diversify the funding resource pool.
Hanbury-Brown is actively supporting women-owned business with the
angel group that she founded. After twenty years in financial services in
Sydney, London, and New York, mostly with JP Morgan, she founded
Golden Seeds purposely to support women’s ventures and provide them
strategic business advice as well as access to capital. “By identifying women-
led ventures with potential to grow into multimillion-dollar businesses, we
can provide early stage funding and enable accredited investors to invest
with us,” she says. “We support women to utilize both their intrinsic and
financial capital to its full potential.”
For women entrepreneurs requiring more modest funding, the good
news is that the banking relationship for women-owned businesses has
improved dramatically since 1992.14 In 2006, 57 percent of all women
business owners reported having a line of credit for their businesses and 41
percent said they had a commercial bank loan, whereas in 1992, only 35
percent were satisfied with their banking relationship. Women business
owners have built relationships with bankers and other financial experts,
and these relationships are paramount in assisting them with growth. Yes,
women could say, “We’ve come a long way, baby, in getting banks to pay
attention, but we’ve got a long way to go to impress the VC community.”
Regardless, with or without venture capital, women will continue to put
one foot in front of the other and build their dream business and lifestyle
to accommodate their needs. Small business in America today is more and
more woman-owned and represents the future for our economy. It is in
our economy’s best interest when all the resources at hand are put in place
to encourage the growth of small business. The benefits for small business
employees in America are already happening as women increasingly be-
come entrepreneurs and assert their conscience in the understanding that
their employees are people who want to succeed both for the company and
their respective families.

Just Imagine

Women own the majority of businesses in America. There is a true

understanding of what families need in regard to child care and elder care
needs. Men and women are comfortable with telling the truth when it
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Women Entrepreneurs r 95

comes to taking time out from work to attend their children’s events or
their elder’s healthcare appointments. Flexible work arrangements are the
norm. The wage gap disappears—at least in small business—as wages are
based on performance and not gender, and particularly not face time. The
differentiation of the CEO’s salary to that of the entry level employee is by
a matter of a few zeros rather than multiplied two hundred and forty times,
which is the 2005 difference. Productivity and loyalty are appreciated and
compensated. Human capital is the priority and retention is the most
important focus for human resources.
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CHAPTER 7

Legally Blonde—and Black,

Brown, Red, and Gray

“Society as a whole benefits immeasurably from a climate in which all

persons, regardless of race or gender, may have the opportunity to earn
respect, responsibility, advancement, and remuneration based on ability.”
—Sandra Day O’Connor

You might first ask, why a separate chapter on the legal profession? Law
is a part of the business sector, you can argue, and can be covered in the
chapter on business. Perhaps, but the large law firm works in a very different
manner than most business enterprises. First, compensation is based on
billable hours. The only other profession that operates in this way is the
accounting profession, and we have discussed their issues and how the focus
on women’s retention has dramatically changed in just the past few years.
This hasn’t happened for women lawyers. The legal profession also has a
system of management that is very different from other businesses. Law
firms are managed generally by committees of partners. How one attains
partnership, again, is one of the vivid issues that women need addressed
if they are to be well represented, either as clients or as professionals
participating in the practice of law.
“You need diverse people giving advice if you want to make sure you’re
getting the most balanced, comprehensive advice possible,” says Lauren
Stiller Rikleen, a senior partner at law firm Bowditch & Dewey who, after
authoring Ending the Gauntlet: Removing the Barriers to Women’s Success in
the Law, became president of the resulting follow-on Women’s Institute
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98 r Her Turn

at her firm. “People with diverse backgrounds bring different perspectives,

and that’s healthy.”
What’s more, in the argument for a separate chapter on law is the diver-
sity of career paths for someone with a law degree: corporate law, private
practice, in-house counsel, academia, and public service. In fact, twenty-
four of our forty-three presidents were lawyers before taking up residence
in the White House. Women are 30.2 percent of the legal profession and
comprise nearly half of all law school classes today.1 Out of the nationwide
class of 2004, according to the National Association of Law Placement,
56 percent of women chose private practice, 10 percent went into busi-
ness, 11.9 percent sought out government, 12.8 percent became judicial
clerks, 6.1 percent joined the public interest ranks, and 1.7 percent became
academics.
But what opportunities await them within their new career paths? For
an advanced degree that draws such large numbers of women, the juris
doctor in many cases still leads to a profession in which women struggle
to attain leadership positions. In the corporate law firm, women are 44.1
percent of the associates and only 17.3 percent of partners.2 At the Fortune
500 and Fortune 1000 respectively, just over 16 percent and 15 percent
of in-house general counsels in 2006 were women. Across the country,
women comprise 23.3 percent of district court judges and 23.6 percent of
circuit court judges, according to the ABA Commission on Women in
the Profession’s “A Current Glance” compilation. Out of fifty-three chief
justices, seventeen or 32.1 percent are women.3 Only one woman today
serves on the nine-member U.S. Supreme Court. And, just as visibly, there
has never been a woman president.
This isn’t to say that the legal profession hasn’t undergone dramatic
changes for women in the past thirty or so years after more than a century
of snail’s progress. Women entering the field today have aspirations beyond
anything most women of my generation could even imagine. Growing up
in the 1950s, I never heard my parents, or anyone else’s parents, suggest
that their little girl would one day be a lawyer. It was not that we weren’t
encouraged to get a higher education and potentially advanced degrees.
The legal profession, back then, was seen as stuffy and male and very
few women need apply—an environment that permeated law until only
recently.
Back in the 1860s, women began to fight for a career in law through
lawsuits and changes in the law. Apprenticeship at the time was the path
to a law career, and gender discrimination was “deeply rooted in the legal
system.”4 Law schools emerged in the 1870s but it wasn’t until 1920 that
they first opened their doors to women. The last law school to admit
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Legally Blonde r 99

women, Harvard Law School, did so in 1950. Still, career options for
women were limited. Sandra Day O’Connor, the country’s first female
U.S. Supreme Court justice, serving from 1981 to 2006, graduated from
Stanford Law in 1952 among the top of her class. Unable to find a law
firm in California that would hire her as a lawyer—one firm did offer her
a position as a legal secretary—she turned to public service.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the second woman and only other woman to
serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, appointed in 1993 and remaining on
the bench today. The only way she was able to get a clerkship with a
district court judge upon graduation from Columbia Law School in 1959
was through heavy lobbying by a professor. As the story was told at the
Symposium Celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg’s Appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States,
the professor broke down “the judge’s reluctance to hire a woman clerk,
particularly one with a young child, by guaranteeing him a male backup as
a replacement should he be unable to work with her, and threatening to
cut off the judge’s future supply of Columbia clerks should he be unwise
enough to refuse to give her a trial run.”5
Women’s numbers in law school began to grow significantly in the
1970s, and by 1985, more than 40 percent of law students were women.
Numbers, however, haven’t improved parity in salary if looking at women’s
versus men’s weekly pay, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics calcula-
tions.

r In 2002, the mean weekly paycheck for men lawyers was $1,547 com-
pared to women lawyers’ $1,073, a weekly difference of $474.
r In 2003, men earned $1,610 compared to women’s $1,237, or a $373
disparity.
r In 2004, the difference paycheck to paycheck was $455 a week, with
men earning $1,710 versus women’s $1,255.
r In 2005, it was men’s $1,748 versus women’s $1,354. That’s a near
$20,500 annual difference in 2005 alone.

Making partner doesn’t improve pay for women, either. According to

the 2006 “National Survey on Retention and Promotion of Women in
Law Firms”6 by the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL),
there’s an $80,000 annual pay disparity between male equity partners and
female equity partners. “I tell people all the time, it’s not as though anyone
is going to cry that women equity partners make $429,000 and men make
$510,000,” says Cathy Fleming, a partner at Nixon Peabody in New York
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100 r Her Turn

City and president of NAWL. “The truth is, regardless of the amounts
involved, there should be equal pay for equal work at all levels. And with
the profession becoming increasingly female, I joke—although it is only
half a joke—that when it becomes much more of a women’s profession,
being a lawyer will become less prestigious and will pay less.”
In a roundabout way, law firms’ move into advertising—something that
was once considered too flamboyant or perhaps crass for such a distin-
guished profession—may help women’s salaries improve, thanks to newer
transparency. Today, most law firms know only too well the importance
of advertising. In order to distinguish themselves from the hundreds of
thousands of firms, they must make every effort to brand themselves effec-
tively to counter competition. Lawyers are required to bring in business in
order to cover their pay. Rainmaking, or developing business, is the key to
making it to partner. Therefore, compensation for new recruits at law firms
has also become competitive. I remember in early 2000, when the cover
of The Boston Globe business page reported that former Boston law firm
Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault had declared that it would raise the starting
salary of all new recruits to $155,000. The decision was in reaction to the
increased competition from high tech firms in the region that were offering
colossal salaries and often signing bonuses as well as stock options to those
graduating from law school. The result of Testa’s news immediately caused
other law firms of similar size to do the same. The visibility of wages at
law firms for new recruits, I believe, makes for transparency in the hiring
process and helps attract more diversity.
Another major problem for women in the law profession, particularly in
corporate law, is fitting a life into a career coupled with the firm’s perception
as to how a woman can fit her career into her life. Billable hours—the hours
an attorney charges a client—have increased from seventeen hundred hours
annually in the 1970s to today’s twenty-three hundred hours or more,
making for seventy- to eighty-hour workweeks.7
Catalyst’s 2001 “Women in Law: Making the Case” explores why legal
employers are not retaining women in equal numbers to men. The ulti-
mate conclusion: Employers who provide women with mentors, control
over their work, and development and advancement opportunities have
a better chance of retaining women. “These women are saying they want
high-profile assignments, advancement opportunities, and flexibility to get
the job done on their own terms,” noted then-Catalyst president Sheila
Wellington. The study found that more than two-thirds of women and
nearly half of men agreed that family responsibilities represented the most
significant barrier to women’s advancement. Both men (66 percent) and
women (68 percent) found it difficult to balance the demands of work
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and personal life. Interestingly, men are beginning to make the same ca-
reer choices as women, according to the study. Although 34 percent of
women said they had worked part-time compared to 9 percent of men,
45 percent of women and 34 percent of men selected their current firm to
accommodate work/life balance.
Let’s look at an example in which the names have been changed to
protect the individuals and the firm that hired them. Bob and Sue are
recruited from the same law school for ABC LLP. Both begin at an entry-
level position at the firm and at the same salary. During the next three to five
years, both do whatever it takes to be seen as potential leaders in the firm.
Both are mentored by others and are put on the fast track for advancement.
During this period, both marry and start families. Both welcome into their
respective families what could be the next future president of the United
States. Bob takes just two weeks of paternity leave to help with the birth
of his first child and is promoted as he is seen as a mature member of the
firm. Sue takes the twelve weeks she is allowed for maternity leave and the
management team doubts her return.
Now, before you leap to conclusions as to my point here, let me just
say that both Bob and Sue are respected by the company and that no bias
has ever been shown one way or the other. But Bob’s mere two weeks
of paternity leave presented a major hardship on his family, as his wife is
CEO of her own company and cannot possibly stay out of work for more
than two weeks. Bob could have asked for more time but realized that
two weeks was the perception for time off for men with a new child. He
returned to work knowing full well that it would be a major hardship to
his family, who must now depend on outside child care. Oh, and Sue? She
returned to work twelve weeks later with child care in place and ready to
catch up to where she left off, only to find that her path to partnership
was no longer as clear. Her direct reports were happy to have her back,
but her superiors gave her less important client work to help her handle
what they perceived as her lack of sleep and need for flexibility. None of
this was discussed with Sue. It was all just assumed that it was in her best
interest.
My point is that it isn’t Bob’s behavior or Sue’s behavior that has to
change. It is the behavior of the firm that needs an overhaul. We cannot
presume to know how our employees will be motivated to perform. We can
only give them the tools to do the best job possible. Family is important
to men and women and must be important to the law firms that employ
them. As Rikleen points out in her book, women have a higher than average
attrition rate at law firms and “their continued departures are ignored at
the profession’s peril.”8
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So what can and has to change for women to see opportunity in corporate
law firms? First, attitudes toward part-time work. The Association for
Legal Career Professionals (NALP) reports that 14 percent of professionals
in engineering, medicine, and architecture work part-time while only 5
percent of attorneys do. Law firms have a structure that has been around for
two hundred years and, in that time, our society has changed dramatically.
Both men and women have needs for part-time work. Issues such as child
care, elder care, health concerns, and one-parent families affect men and
women. The legal profession must work to create a work environment
and structure that works for today’s attorneys. As technology has created a
24/7 world of work, face time should not continue to take precedence over
quality work time. As a service business, the legal profession is dependent
on the needs of the customer—the client. Work done at home doesn’t
negatively affect the client and should not impact an attorney’s place of
importance to the firm. Yet, law firms continue to struggle with the notion
that those at their desks the longest are the most deserving.
And then there is the pervasive perception that women can’t take on
the stretch assignments because of their family demands, so the firm never
approaches them in the first place—not unlike the bugaboo Deloitte dis-
covered in its own women’s retention difficulties noted in our chapter on
business. NAWL’s Fleming, who has worked at several law firms, relates
this story from a previous workplace: “I’ve heard male partners say, ‘Well, I
have to ask Joe because Maryann has a one-year-old at home and she can’t
do it,’ and I’ll always say, ‘That’s her choice. Offer her the opportunity.
Don’t make the decision for her. Do you want that to happen to you: ‘Gee,
he’s too old to go do this?’ What woman ever unilaterally redirected work
because ‘he’s a father and he needs to get home?’”
Says Rikleen in a telephone interview, “It’s not a very smart business
model to be graduating large numbers of women who get out into the
workplace and then don’t feel there are opportunities to succeed. The
notion of one spouse in the workplace and one staying home is fading very
quickly so you then have to think, as a society, we want to raise healthy
children, we want to be good at what we do in our jobs, we are going
to have to have a workplace that recognizes that there is fluidity that is
required. The legal profession, of all places, ought to be doing that because
in a service business, you generally can do much of the work at different
times of the day. I call it family and flexibility, the importance of the ‘F’
words. It really is about the workplace flexibility that’s needed to address
the very changing world that we live in.
“To me, it all comes down to flexibility,” Rikleen emphasizes. “What
kind of workforce do you want to try to create to make sure that those who
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work there are as productive as they can be and how can the workplace
take some of that stress out of people’s lives? So much can be managed
if companies would be more willing to be flexible around how people
manage their lives. I do think that having a balanced-hours policy that
makes it clear that people can succeed and be promoted while working
reduced hours is critical. I think that so many women leave what they’re
doing because they’re working on a reduced-hours schedule that is either
ineffectively implemented or seen as doing somebody a favor. It should be
because the workplace feels it is a smart thing to do.”
It is true that law firms have made some adjustments to the increasing
numbers of women associates, who are quicker than men to raise concerns
about balancing work and family, partners at several firms say. For example,
when Judith Thoyer in 1974 became the first woman partner at Paul, Weiss,
Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, the large New York firm had no flextime
or part-time schedules. Now, she says, it has adopted both.9 A Lawyers
in Transition task force is a newer trend that helps either gender return
from work after parental leave, care for an elderly or ill family member,
or a retirement that turned out to be temporary, say Valerie Yarashus, a
partner of Sugarman and Sugarman in Boston, and Denise Squillante, a
solo practitioner in Massachusetts. They find that the numbers of attorneys
who must make a transition back into work full-time from being out of the
office altogether is likely higher than those who keep at it part-time. “Over
and over again, lawyers in these situations stress the need for support and
services, including ongoing career services and mentoring,” they say.10 The
fact of the matter is, the large law firm will suffer unless it accommodates
today’s growing demands for tolerable work/life balance. Notes Rosalind
Chait Barnett, senior scientist at the Women’s Studies Research Center
at Brandeis University, “People are leaving law firms, and the numbers are
astonishing. They’re not going home to bake cookies. They’re going to be
in-house counsels or they’re going to small firms where they have more
control over their hours.”11
The current state of women’s retention and their path to partner also
stymies their rise to managing partner, the equivalent of corporate’s CEO.
In the previously mentioned 2006 NAWL study, out of law graduates
in 1996, when women were 44 percent of law students, only 24 percent
have become equity partners at the firms surveyed by the association. It
should come as no surprise, then, that female managing partners only make
up 5 percent of top law firm leadership across the country. The problem
for women begins at the beginning, says Meredith Moore, director of
the Office for Diversity at the New York City Bar Association.12 Junior
attorneys, particularly women, “slip through the cracks very easily in their
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early years at law firms. Firms need to groom talent from a very early point.”
And then, Moore adds, mentoring is just as important once women become
a partner.
Regina Pisa, the youngest law partner, never mind the first woman, to
be named a managing partner and chair of a major law firm, was mentored
for leadership by Goodwin Procter at a time when the elder statesman
(emphasis on “man”) was the one elected to lead the firm. Pisa, truthfully,
was surprised that her gender versus her age caught the public’s attention
as the “first” to celebrate. “Actually, I thought that being as young as I
was, forty-two, was more exceptional than being a woman,” she says.13 It
wasn’t until Pisa was deluged with letters and e-mails from both girls and
women telling her what a role model she was that she thought of her new
position in terms of a milestone for other women.
The newest spin on improving diversity’s lot is the client mandate for
a diversified team handling its account. A recent move by Wal-Mart is
just one more reason today’s leading law firms will need to pay closer
attention to those they charge with handling client relationships. The
national big box retailer announced in July 2005 at an Atlanta conference
on legal diversity that it would limit its legal business to law firms that
had “at least one person of color and one woman among the top five
relationship attorneys that handled its business.”14 Wal-Mart’s general
counsel, Thomas Mars, recognized that he had to act when he found
that eighty-two of the top one hundred relationship law partners handling
the retailer’s business were white men. With legal spending of more than
$200 million, the company’s move to diversify its legal partners sent a loud
message to the law firms it did business with—diversity matters. Wal-
Mart isn’t the only company determined to pressure their outside counsels
to diversify their relationship team. At the same conference, the general
counsels of Visa, Del Monte, and Pitney Bowes, to name a few, agreed
that it is not just about making sure minorities and women are employed at
the legal firms they do business with—they must also be part of the client
relationship management team.
Team player, then, becomes the first step in answering the diversity
problem in the law firm but it doesn’t address the wage gap. As Fleming
notes and ballyhoos during her one-year NAWL term, the compensation
structure within the firm must also change for women’s equality to become
a reality because, in fact, team player is not part of the salary deal. “Orig-
ination,” that is, who brought the client to the firm in the first place, is
generally the most important factor in almost all law firm compensation
systems, she says, so even if a client is now demanding diversity on the
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Legally Blonde r 105

team, that woman is not going to get the paycheck credit for building the
relationship and retaining the client.
“Where clients now demand diversity to keep using a firm, the compen-
sation structure should reflect the diverse attorneys’ contribution,” Fleming
says. “Simultaneously, compensation systems do not reward for team shar-
ing and introducing those coming up in the ranks to the client—in other
words, rewarding those attorneys who make the client an institutional
client. Finally, firms should encourage diversity in the ranks of governance
in the firms. Women need to be on the key committees such as the com-
pensation and executive committees. While women appear to be making
great strides, there still has to be some sort of adjustment or plan to get
where women are leaders in their firms with influence in their firms as
opposed to appearing to be leaders but lacking in real clout.”
And not every major corporation in America has recognized the lack
of diversity as a problem. James A. Hatcher, senior vice president for
legal and regulatory affairs at Cox Communications, says, “I try to include
the white male in this—white males fear diversity efforts.”15 To this I
would respond with the famous words of former President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” White males are
not in jeopardy of losing their position in the legal profession to minorities
or women in this century or ever. Let’s be practical and understand the
importance of having legal recommendations rendered by those who reflect
the attitudes and needs of the customer. The changing demographic in
America requires a change in the make-up of our legal team.

In-House Counsel

The law firm workplace may be driving women out and into alternative
practice, but even the role of in-house general counsel is no panacea in
terms of balance. The 2001 Catalyst “Making the Case” study notes that
of the 57 percent of women trading the law firm for an in-house counsel
position in the hope of better work/life balance, 66 percent did not find
it. Judging from Sharyn L. Roach’s report, “Men and Women Lawyers in
In-House Legal Departments: Recruitment and Career Patterns,” a study
of workplace differences for men and women lawyers working in variously
sized in-house counsel departments in the Northeast, women pretty much
found the same old circumstances.
Roach notes in her summary: “The findings suggest that women in-
house counsel do not enter the same type of practice or organizations,
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106 r Her Turn

obtain the same positions or earn the same salaries as men.” The differences
in practice areas, she concludes, are due in large part to the rewards and
training offered as well as to the recruitment strategies. It’s the firm that
dictates men’s and women’s place at hiring and during subsequent work-
allocation decisions. Those decisions provide the different experiences and
expertise that then “constrain future employment options.”
With regard to the type of company women lawyers shooting for in-
house counsel should join, Sue Reisinger writes that “financial services firms
offer women the best shot at heading a large in-house legal department,
according to Corporate Counsel ’s 2005 survey of Fortune 500 companies.
Of the top twenty-five female general counsels in the survey, ranked by the
size of their legal departments, twelve are at financial firms or at insurance
companies offering such services. Information technology and healthcare
were tied for a distant second, with two women in GC (general counsel)
positions in each field.”16
Katherine O’Hara is general counsel at $1.5 billion publicly traded
PerkinElmer, a technology innovator in health sciences and photonics,
where she has found, not less work certainly, but a more predictable sched-
ule. Switching from high finance to law early in her career, O’Hara was
soon switching out of corporate law for the in-house legal department. “I
thrived on the tremendous responsibility the firm was willing to give me
quite early in my career but eventually I became frustrated with the lack
of control over my life because of the unpredictable demands of practice
with a private law firm,” she says. Working in-house seemed like the right
lifestyle move, so O’Hara in 1994 looked for a role in a consumer prod-
ucts company, a challenge in Manhattan. But she did land a job at Avon
Products as a regulatory lawyer responsible for compliance with the rules
enforced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Consumer
Products Safety Commission, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), and other regulatory agencies.
In 2005, O’Hara learned about the general counsel opportunity at
PerkinElmer. Her title at Avon at that point was vice president and asso-
ciate general counsel. Since the general counsel at Avon was fairly young,
she knew she would need to move on if she wanted to be a GC any-
time soon. “And to be the general counsel of a public company such as
PerkinElmer—it’s a fabulous opportunity,” O’Hara says. “It’s every in-
house lawyer’s dream to be in this position where you have responsibility
for everything: all aspects of the work, both the substantive areas whether
intellectual property or commercial contracts or employment, litigation, or
M&A, plus the managerial responsibility and the fun of working with a
terrific team.” Going forward, O’Hara sees herself at PerkinElmer for quite
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Legally Blonde r 107

a while. “It’s the in-house lawyers who get to translate the legal answer
into something that works from a practical business standpoint,” she says.
“It’s that junction between the legal answer and the business reality that I
find challenging and enjoyable.”17
O’Hara’s career path exemplifies what the search firm representatives
who present at NAWL’s General Counsel Institute tell the senior women
who aspire to the GC office. Cathy Fleming has been in on the planning of
the Institute and has sat in on the presentations. The most important pieces
of information she hears out of the search firm reps are: “‘Make sure every
one of your moves makes sense in terms of increasing your responsibility
and your potential to have the top job.’ And then, ‘When the company
tells you that you have to relocate for three years, you’ve got to go.’”
What Fleming hears from the women in in-house departments is that
today’s general counsel faces pressures and stressors that aren’t that much
different than the private practice lawyer’s. “This isn’t your mother’s cor-
poration anymore,” she says. “In-house counsels work just as hard, they
work the same hours and there’s the same level of expectation in produc-
ing, although they’re producing results and cost-savings while the private
lawyer is producing numbers and dollars.”
Fleming adds that there is less opportunity for upward movement within
the company. “In theory, a law firm would be ecstatic if they had fifty
partners who had $10 million books of business. That’s not true in a
corporation,” she says. “There are limited numbers of managerial positions
and only one top managerial position.”

Here Come the Judge

Gender diversity on the bench is critical to the majority’s civil rights—

remember women’s 52-percent population figure. Having women in the
court system equal to their numbers ensures the very core of our democracy.
Women here are faring better than their other legal profession counter-
parts, but there’s still a way to go in terms of equal representation. Even
the media’s choice for judges on television has been about four to three
men versus women, with Judge Judy perhaps the most well known. In
real life, as noted earlier in this chapter, women do not yet represent a
quarter of district court or circuit court judges. At the chief justice level,
however, at 32 percent, women are edging toward the 50-percent mark.
And once a second woman has, according to a state’s constitution, either
been appointed or elected to a supreme court, women’s numbers steadily
increased.
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108 r Her Turn

A native of South Africa, Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret H.

Marshall tells us, “My becoming a judge, and particularly becoming chief
justice, is a great tribute to this amazing democracy that we call the United
States of America. In this country, if one comes as an immigrant with no ties
or connection, it really is possible to succeed at the highest level.” Marshall
was appointed chief justice by the governor in 1999 and, according to the
state’s constitution, will serve until she turns seventy. She was appointed a
justice in 1996, when she was vice president and general counsel of Harvard
University. Previously, she was a partner at law firm Csaplar & Bok and
then Choate, Hall, & Stewart.
“I should be frank and say that I did not have in mind that I would ever
become a judge,” Marshall says. “In fact, if you had asked me, I would have
been quite startled at the idea.” The second woman to be appointed to the
Massachusetts supreme judicial court (in 1978, Ruth Abrams was the first
woman in the state to be appointed a justice in three hundred and four
years), Marshall ticks off the leadership roles women currently hold in the
Massachusetts court system: chief justice of the superior court, chief justice
of the district court, chief justice of the land court, and chief justice of the
juvenile court. At one point during her tenure on the supreme judicial
court, four of the seven members were women. To Marshall, the value
of women in court leadership is in the judiciary’s reflection of its citizens.
“It’s not that women judges or African-American judges or Chinese judges
will interpret the law differently, but that all public institutions should be
institutions in which everyone can and does participate.”
Marshall’s own value as a woman in a very visible role comes through in
this anecdote.18 “Every morning in hundreds of courthouses in my state,
jurors are shown a video that explains the process. At the beginning of the
video, there is a welcome by the chief justice. Soon after I was confirmed,
our jury commission started receiving many telephone calls from jurors
who said, ‘We served on jury duty and we were welcomed this morning by
a male chief justice. We know we have a female chief justice.’ The video
was not of my predecessor or of his predecessor, but of a chief justice who
served decades back. No one had ever noticed it before. . . That’s what it’s
like to be the first woman.”
Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson describes
what it felt like to be the only woman for so many years. Appointed a
justice in 1976 to fill out a vacancy, she was elected to a ten-year term in
1979 and reelected to two subsequent ten-year terms in 1989 and 1999.
She became chief justice in 1996 because of her seniority in accordance
with her state’s constitution. “. . . [It] wasn’t until the ’90s that a second
woman joined me on the bench. We met at our first dinner party for the
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Legally Blonde r 109

new court. When she got up to go to the ladies’ room, I quickly followed
her, checked all the stalls and said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you for seventeen
years.’”19
At the other end of the spectrum, Mary Ann G. McMorrow, who
in 2005 finished a three-year term as chief justice on the Illinois Supreme
Court, has this interesting twist on gender envy: “In Illinois, approximately
35 percent of our judges are women. Men are so fearful of running against
a woman that two or three men I know have changed their names to very
feminine names. Now, that’s a complete reversal from prior years, so I’m
not complaining. . . [b]ut I really look forward to the time when no one
will notice if there’s a man or a woman sitting on the bench.”20
Aren’t we all! Or at least we should be. So what will get more women on
the bench? There is no particular path to judge or chief justice, Marshall
tells us. “Somebody once said, ‘Becoming a judge is like being struck by
lightning but it’s helpful if you are standing out in the middle of a field.’”
She recommends hard work, excelling at what you do, involvement in
the bar and other associations that in turn provides visibility and valuable
networks, and experience in the particular court where you hope to serve.
And, of course, putting your name in the ring, whether that’s for election or
for appointment. When Marshall served on her state’s judicial nominating
council, she would rectify the lack of women on the list by asking judges
for the names of the highly competent women appearing before them and
then telephoning these women attorneys to recommend strongly that they
(“must”) file an application. She was, in fact, following the example of
Justice Ruth Abrams, who had telephoned her when ambivalent about
submitting her name.
“Today, I think there’s an assumption that women will rise to the top
automatically. But while the numbers are better, we have to keep making
sure that women are being encouraged to apply as judges,” Marshall said
in a Perspectives Magazine panel discussion. “One can’t assume a bench re-
flecting the full diversity of the population will just happen automatically.”

A Proactive Restructuring

The new surge of women lawyers should put women in line to be the
shared keepers of the networks and information that other women will
need to succeed. Of course, that is if they are given the opportunity to
thrive in the first place. The current structure of American law firms leaves
little room for women to prosper once brought on board. Too often once
hired, women are put into straitjackets and held back from performing
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110 r Her Turn

at their highest levels. Although law is a lucrative profession, women are

being left off the gravy train. But because the opportunities that lawyers
provide for business people can be so extraordinary and the nature of the
work they are privy to can be so influential, women must fight to remain
in the know.
My point is that lawyers have a great deal of power. There is power in
information. As a businessperson and business owner, I know that it is not
just legal advice I seek from my lawyer but access to the networks she or he
can deliver. In my experience, lawyers are the most well-networked indi-
viduals in business, particularly those working in any area of business law.
Remember that those high hourly fees you pay—and for a business lawyer
today the range can be anywhere from $250 to $650 and maybe more per
hour—include access to all the knowledge your lawyer possesses. Success
in business is all about knowing where to turn and when. Please under-
stand, I am not in any way suggesting that confidentiality isn’t paramount
in the legal profession. My experience is that nothing is more important in
the legal profession than the confidentiality of a client’s information. I am
telling you, however, that knowledge is power and we all present advice on
the information that we have. Lawyers are the most knowledgeable of any
professional when it comes to knowing what is happening in your business
world.
Things have to change, therefore, if we are to keep these knowledge-
keepers in the firm. Today’s graduates expect to have a life outside of
a career. Men and women coming out of law schools plan on making
partner but have no plan of giving it all to the company. Too often, a
talented lawyer, within a few years of making partner, leaves the firm that
has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in him or her in order to go
to a position as in-house counsel for a client. The lawyer may or may not
find a work/life balance worth attaining, but the firm is left with a very
large hole not easily filled.
Really, the structure of the legal profession as a whole must change.
Let’s not forget those lawyers who choose other areas of practice besides
business. Since most everything we know is based on laws, you can’t get
married (prenuptial), divorced (court), sick (health proxy), retire (trust),
or die (estate) without a lawyer. And, of course, our courts, from district
to federal to supreme, have lawyers prosecuting, defending, judging, and
sentencing. Again—lawyers are powerful people. Women must have every
opportunity to succeed in this profession.
In turn, the legal profession needs the perspective that women bring to
the law. Women and men need a profession that is proactive in restruc-
turing itself to fit a new world and a new way of doing business. Today’s
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Legally Blonde r 111

technology-induced 24/7 work world should benefit the legal profession

rather than cripple it. More and more documentation of the turnover and
poor retention of both men and women should only prod the legal pro-
fession to change. That change will not be for women but because of
them.

Just Imagine

Women leave law school with all the opportunities afforded to their male
counterparts. With encouragement to go into politics, private practice, in-
house counsel, and public service, women thrive in the legal profession in
numbers equal to their representation.
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CHAPTER 8

Women in Healthcare
and the Sciences: Prescription
for Change

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can

change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever had.”
—Margaret Mead

Although the integration of women into the medical profession began in

the 1960s, it is only recently that women are a percentage point shy of
comprising 50 percent of all U.S. medical school graduates. The history
of the earliest settlers in the 1600s was the last time women dominated
this field. Until the 1700s, women cared for the sick with plant remedies
and folk medicine. Then medicine became more of a profession and men
took over. Eventually, medical schools and state licensing regulations were
imposed, and the profession became only for men.1
The first licensed female physician, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, graduated
first in her class in 1849, yet she was refused an association with any hospi-
tal. Eventually, Blackwell began her own practice at home to treat women
and children. Later, she opened the New York Infirmary for Women and
Children and was the first woman to operate a hospital. Blackwell is known
as the pioneer blazing the trail for the women who followed. Women re-
mained a minority in medicine throughout the 1900s, however, making
up 4 percent of medical school graduates in 1905, comprising 12 percent
in 1949 and then plummeting to 7 percent in 1965. Women’s numbers
tripled between 1970 and 1980, and by 2002–2003, 49.2 percent of medical
school applicants were women.
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114 r Her Turn

The Association of American Medical Colleges provided a snapshot of

how women were represented in medical academia in 2005–2006, which
is as follows:

r 50 percent applicants to medical school,

r 48 percent of first-year students,
r 49 percent of medical students,
r 49 percent of graduating medical students,
r 42 percent of residents and fellows,
r 32 percent of medical faculty members,
r 38 percent of assistant professors,
r 28 percent of associate professors,
r 16 percent of full professors,
r 19 percent of division/section chiefs,
r 10 percent of department chairs,
r 43 percent of assistant deans,
r 31 percent of associate and senior associate/vice deans, and
r 11 percent of medical school deans.

It’s clear that the percentage of women choosing the medical field and
administration leadership in medical schools continues to increase. And
career options for anyone with a medical degree are numerous. “The good
thing about medicine is there are many, many more choices to make now
that there used to be,” says Corinne Broderick, executive vice president of
the Massachusetts Medical Society. “You see people going into life science
research areas, academics, a balance of administration and clinical research,
medical publishing, technology—there are so many other things to choose
from. I think the choices and the breadth of what’s available in medicine
can give people more opportunity to have a variety of what they can do
than the traditional path of what we used to see of working your way up
through the system to become chief of whatever.”
Yet with all this progress, women are nonetheless underrepresented in
senior leadership positions. In 2006, fourteen women headed one hun-
dred twenty-five medical schools across the country. None of the nineteen
pharmaceutical companies in the Fortune 500 are run by women. Na-
tionally, women comprise about one-fifth, or 21.4 percent, of hospital
presidents.2 Only 3 percent of those awarded the Nobel Prize in Science
have been women. So, what’s to blame? Is it a matter of wait and time will
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Women in Healthcare and the Sciences r 115

tell a different story? Not likely. Like many other sectors, healthcare and
the sciences are rife with the same barriers and biases that hold women
back.
Ellen Zane, president and CEO of Tufts-New England Medical Center
in Boston, laments that, given “the workforce is 85 percent female in
healthcare, at least at hospitals, you would think there would be more
women in leadership, but there aren’t. It’s kind of lonely. There are lots and
lots of meetings where I sit in a room with twenty people and I’m the only
woman in the room.” Tufts-NEMC is the second hospital where Zane has
led a dramatic turnaround. Her path to the presidency was atypical for an
academic medical center—usually the top spot is reserved for a doctor—but
Zane says women in positions like hers and of her generation typically get
to the top through unusual circumstances. For Zane, it was a community
hospital CEO’s recognition of her managerial talents that catapulted her
up the ladder from her start as a speech therapist until she was proving
herself at the helm of hospital turnarounds with a stint in managed care
leadership in between. Critical mass, Zane believes, is changing women’s
path to the top. “Today, as women think about it and say they want to
get into leadership, it’s often female physicians who like the administrative
side as well,” Zane says. “I think over time you will see more women aspire
to these jobs and get them.”
But will they? According to England’s Royal College of Physicians’
2004 “Women in Medicine Key Issues” statement, women are not well
represented in the upper echelons of the profession, or in all areas of the
profession, for that matter, because they choose medical specialties with
more predictable work schedules or that allow for part-time hours or job
sharing. “Despite more women now coming into medicine, the statistics
show that for whatever reason, they are not moving into the whole range
of medical specialties,” the statement notes.
The question may be: Is the structure of the medical profession, like
that in the legal profession, in need of a revamp to keep up with the
ever-changing needs of the professionals it attracts as well as the changing
world in which we live in? In order to get more women to participate at
the top levels of the healthcare system, where time requirements bump
into family commitments, the need for a structure change is apparent. The
Royal College’s key issues statement calls for a different career pattern in
response to the numbers of women entering the profession as well as new
pathways to move women into leadership positions. The situation in the
United States is no different. The question is: Now that women are here
and are ready to lead the way, how will the profession and the healthcare
system change?
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116 r Her Turn

Lifestyle has become a determining factor for both men and women
in choosing their career paths in medicine. Broderick says, “I think it is
a shared value. Part of the acceptance of it [lifestyle] probably has been
driven by the situations facing women trying to balance childrearing and
dealing with medical debt. I think it is more accepted for men and women
coming into medicine to look at the overall approach that is going to best
fit both their lifestyle, their values, and their needs.”
Dr. Rhonda Rockett, a family practitioner working three days a week in
a Massachusetts group of three doctors, says she chose her specialty with
family balance in mind. The two other doctors in her group are men; one
works four days a week and the other, five days a week. Although she once
worried that patients wouldn’t select her as their primary care physician if
they knew of her limited schedule, Rockett has recently closed her practice
because she had too many patients. Her colleagues, she says, are just as
family oriented as she is. When it comes to vacation time, they take turns
taking the time off because they’re dealing with the same school vacation
weeks.
So, while there is opportunity for flexibility in primary care and even
in psychiatry, the other specialties present a different story. According to
the Women Physicians Congress of the American Medical Association,
twenty-four specialties in 2004 had more than one thousand women com-
pared to only seven specialties in 1970. In 1970, there were 25,201 women
physicians; in 2004, 235,627 doctors were women. The Top Ten specialty
choices for women in 2004 (see Table 8.1), in order of popularity, were
internal medicine, pediatrics, general practice/family practice, psychiatry,
obstetrics/gynecology, anesthesiology, pathology, emergency, diagnostic
radiology, and general surgery.
Specialties like orthopedics, neurosurgery, and urology see few women.
Discrimination, or at the very least incredibly discouraging remarks, are
part of the reason for women’s limited numbers in these fields. In recount-
ing an American Medical Women’s Association member’s experience, Dr.
Susan Ivey, president of the organization, says the female neurosurgical
resident dropped out because the atmosphere was so toxic. “It’s sad to me
to hear that there’s still that kind of internal tension and discrimination
that keeps women who are clearly capable of successfully making it into
surgery from doing so,” Ivey says. “Another young woman who’s a colorec-
tal fellow—which means she’s made it through her five years of surgery,
was chief resident, and made it into this fellowship—is now facing this
same sense of discrimination in that they don’t want her when she finishes.
So even though she made it to the top of the heap, there’s this environment
where she’s not one of the boys and doesn’t belong there long-term. It’s a
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Table 8.1
Percentage Distribution of Female Physicians and Specialty—2004

Specialty Total Women Under Age 35 Age 35–44 Age 45–54 Age 55–64 Age 65-Plus
Internal Medicine 46,245 31% 33% 25% 8.2% 2.1%
Pediatrics 36,636 30% 32% 24% 11% 3.5%
Family Practice 26,305 29% 36% 26% 6.8% 1.8%
Ob-GYN 17,258 29% 34% 25% 8.5% 2.7%

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Psychiatry 13,079 17% 24% 35% 21% 9.6%
Anesthesiology 8,370 16% 32% 31% 15% 5.9%
Pathology 6,037 16% 27% 32% 17% 8.0%
Emergency 5,987 34% 32% 24% 7.9% 1.6%
Radiology/Diagnostic 5,126 23% 34% 30% 10% 1.6%
General Surgery 5,173 43% 31% 20% 5.3% 1.4%

Source: Physician Characteristics and Distribution in the United States, 2006 edition. (c) 2006, American Medical Association,
(used with permission).

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118 r Her Turn

‘we’ll just train you but we don’t want you as faculty’ type of thing. There
are still a lot of stories like these that are playing out and may keep other
women from choosing a specialty because they perceive it as being very
difficult to be successful there.”
Dr. Barbara Rockett, Rhonda Rockett’s mother-in-law, has defied the
usual throughout her career, so it can be done—and it could be accom-
plished even in 1958, when she was the first woman surgical intern at
Boston City Hospital at a time when few women went into surgery at all.
Pregnant during her residency, she was only asked once in an interview
during her career what she’d do if she became pregnant. “I had one child
by then and so I said, ‘I’d be pregnant.’ I still got the job.” In 1985, Rockett
became the first woman president of the Massachusetts Medical Society
and then, in 1986, the first physician and woman elected to a second,
consecutive term. “I guess I have a tendency to say what I think. I never
tried to fashion what I said to win votes,” she says.
Trained in general surgery, Rockett now assists her neurosurgeon hus-
band and so, these days, she can somewhat control her schedule. Finding
child care for her five children was her greatest challenge when they were
young, she says, and then, when they were older, she did things like
serve as the team physician to attend their games. Rockett also took to
leadership in organized medicine: along with deep involvement in the
Massachusetts Medical Society, she also participates on the national level
as a director of the American Medical Association Foundation and the
chair of the Massachusetts delegation to the American Medical Asso-
ciation, and was a former nine-year member of the AMA’s Council on
Legislation.
Dr. Nancy H. Nielsen is in her second elected three-year term as speaker
of the AMA’s principal policymaking body, the House of Delegates, and is
the first woman elected to the post. An internist, she is a clinical professor
of medicine and senior associate dean for medical education at SUNY’s
Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. To her, organized
medicine is a means to improving the quality of healthcare in this country.
“It is my personal crusade to seek health coverage for all Americans,”
Nielsen says. “I have personal, painful experiences with being uninsured or
underinsured. In graduate school, I had two babies through public health
clinics since my health insurance plan excluded pregnancy benefits. One
of my daughters was very ill, and there was no family coverage. I will never
forget what that was like. It is to our shame that we allow this to continue,
and that the number of the uninsured grows yearly.”
Her own opportunities for leadership in medical organizations—“and
there have been many of them”—Nielsen says, have been the result of
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Women in Healthcare and the Sciences r 119

having a passion for something, volunteering on committees and task

forces, and being in the right place at the right time. “So when it comes
time for the leadership roles, one is already known as someone who is
hardworking, trustworthy, and fair. The ability to work collaboratively
is a plus,” she says. So is having a sense of humor about navigating a
male-dominated organization. “One piece of advice was given to me by
a terrific woman physician: She said that if I wanted to understand an
organization, I should make it my job to learn about the finances. I am not
normally drawn to financial issues, but her advice was very sound. If you
understand the finances, you are treated with more respect in groups. But
don’t negate pure luck. It also helps if you like and understand sports—no
joke!”
Mentors and opportunities will get more women to the top in orga-
nized medicine, Nielsen says. “Once the glass ceiling is shattered in an
organization, it is easier for other women to follow. That is a pivotal event
in an organization and is really much more important than just a per-
sonal achievement of the first female to be in a highly visible leadership
role.”
To sum up, while the numbers of women pursuing medical degrees and
the fact that men for the most part appear just as interested as women
in flexibility bode well for a profession with the capability of across-the-
board work/life balance, there should be no complacency about pushing
the envelope on a livable workplace. Sure, time might finish up the job
in areas where work still needs to be done, but women only hit the 50-
percent mark of medical school applicants in the 2005–2006 school year.
Compare that to women comprising just slightly more than one quarter of
all doctors in 2004. If we simply wait for women to hit the physician’s 50
percent—the argument for “change will happen, just hang in there”—then
we’re in for a long wait.

The Sciences

The number of women in the sciences is another area of concern since

far more men than women go on to get master’s degrees and PhDs, with
women only more recently coming into the attainment of advanced degrees.

r In 2004, women in all science and engineering (S&E) fields earned

50.4 percent of bachelor’s degrees, 43.6 percent of master’s degrees,
and 37.4 percent of PhDs, according to tabulations by the National
Science Foundation (NSF).
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120 r Her Turn

r Women broke the 40-percent mark in S&E bachelor’s degrees in

1988. Nine years later, in 1997, women were 40 percent of those
earning both master’s and PhD degrees for the first time.
r Women were best represented in biology/agricultural sciences, psy-
chology, and the social sciences and were particularly underrepresented
in mathematics/computer sciences and engineering.
r In 2004, women earned 42.1 percent of physical sciences bachelor’s
degrees, so perhaps their numbers will boost their attainment of mas-
ter’s (35.5% in 2004) and PhD (25.9%) degrees.
r Here’s an interesting twist—out of all the sciences individually tab-
ulated, only math/computer science is seeing a decrease in women’s
numbers and yet there’s sustained interest here at the master’s level.
Women earning math/computer science bachelor’s degrees peaked in
1985 at 39.5 percent and have steadily decreased year over year to
29.1 percent of bachelor’s degrees earned in 2004. The good news is,
women are sticking with the field or perhaps switching into it at the
master’s level, where their representation in math/computer science
master’s degrees has hovered in the 30- to 35-percent range since 1983.
The downside: Women’s numbers at the PhD level have fluctuated in
the 20- to 25-percent range since 1997.

What does this mean for the workforce? According to NSF, in the
year 2000, the science and engineering industry employed nine hundred,
ninety-four thousand, and four hundred women compared to just over
three million men. Experts agree that it goes back to the classroom where
boys continue to be encouraged in the sciences more than girls. Shirley
Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the 2007
recipient of the National Science Board’s Vannevar Bush Award, says
youngsters “need the involvement of their teachers, their peer groups, of
people who can serve as role models.”3 But, if role models are required, we
need more women to go into the field to provide the mentoring and the
role modeling necessary to encourage girls to pursue the field. And then
the question becomes, once women get there, can they be sure that they
will be treated fairly?
In 1994, Dr. Nancy Hopkins, a research scientist at MIT, brought what
was probably the first public attention to how her gender was holding her
back. She joined the MIT faculty in 1973 after receiving her graduate
degree and postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. She had moved through the
ranks at MIT alongside her male peers not particularly aware of any gender
bias. After all, “science is about truths,” she has said, and therefore how
could gender discrimination take place? Deciding to change her research
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Women in Healthcare and the Sciences r 121

from viruses to the development of zebra fish, she requested an additional

two hundred square feet of lab space. When her small request was denied,
she decided to take a look at how much space her fellow scientists, both
male and female, were using. Her findings spawned a revelation that now
has made history. Hopkins, a full professor with tenure, had fifteen hundred
square feet of research space while her male counterparts averaged three
thousand to six thousand square feet. Even male assistant and associate
professors had an average of two thousand square feet.
After ten months, when she was unable to make any headway with her
request, she realized it was time to get the support of other female faculty
members. Having never thought about the number of women faculty up
to this point, she again was surprised to find only fifteen tenured women
compared to one hundred and ninety-four men. She collected her data and
put it into a letter to the then-president of MIT, Charles Vest, and asked
all of the other women to sign it. All but one did. Vest immediately began
an investigation into any and all potential areas of gender discrimination
at the school. When the report was ready to be released, Vest insisted on
complete transparency so that other colleges and universities could begin to
take the subject seriously, and so MIT could begin to tackle the problem.
One could say that, when it comes to the debate about equality for women
faculty in science and engineering, Hopkins was responsible for the shot
heard ’round, not the world, but every college and university in America.
Since then, MIT and at least eight other universities have agreed to meet
regularly to review salaries and the proportion of other university resources
provided to women faculty. The Ford Foundation funded MIT’s Gender
Equity Project in recognition of the university’s public acknowledgement
of gender bias.4
This story points out how easily gender discrimination can go unnoticed
and how detrimental it can be not only to the women involved but also
to society, which depends on the opportunities researchers have to do the
work. The positive piece is the call-to-action reaction, but can we assume
that discrimination for women scientists has now disappeared? Unfortu-
nately not, since women still lag far behind men in patents, according to a
study published by the journal, Science. Out of four thousand, two hundred
and twenty-seven biological scientists working at U.S. universities between
1967 and 1995, women were about 40 percent as likely as their male peers to
apply for patents. In 2004, U.S. universities reported nearly $1.4 billion in
patent licensing income and royalties on product sales of $1.1 billion, so the
importance of being listed on a patent is important for both recognition and
advancement in the institution. The study concluded that it was a lack of
connections that was holding women back from the patenting process and
that awareness of the problem was the first step to removing the obstacle.5
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122 r Her Turn

Susan Ivey, the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA)

president who’s an associate professor adjunct and director of research
at Health Research for Action at the University of California, Berkeley,
had to fight for the right to put her name on her own research. When
the Massachusetts General Hospital online newsletter asks in a July 2006
article6 why women remain underrepresented among medical science in-
vestigators, the answer can quite likely be found in women’s stories that
parallel Ivey’s—except that the others might not have bucked the system,
or worked the system the way Ivey did. Principal investigator status at
most academic medical institutions is extended to the tenure track only,
a track that is populated with few women. So if you are writing a grant
and publishing research but are not on the tenure track (remember the
earlier-noted Association of American Medical Colleges’ 16 percent of
women full professors), it won’t be under your name, but under the PI who
can “sponsor” your work. The “Percentage of Women” article notes the
dearth of women “lead authors” but doesn’t see the problem as endemic to
academia’s structural hierarchy and women’s place in it.
Ivey chalks up her personal activism to closing in on forty when she was
faced with chasing after PI sponsorships. A family practitioner for thirteen
years before earning the degrees necessary to teach and research health
policy at University of California, Berkeley, she says, “I didn’t have the
time to cotton to somebody to let their career shine while I was trying to
build mine, so it really was an urgency that I felt that maybe a younger
researcher wouldn’t have felt.” By reading through job descriptions, Ivey
found a position where she could be a principal investigator on an approved
project-by-project basis. Once she attained that status “with a lot of fighting
and bureaucracy,” she “went back to the drawing board to pass the sniff
test” to be the PI on all of her projects. “It’s a funny system where there
aren’t a lot of people who are thinking about pushing women ahead, and
so if you’re not advocating for yourself and pushing yourself, no one else
is necessarily thinking about doing it for you,” Ivey says. Here again, the
system needs changing if women are to be rewarded and recognized for the
work that they are actually doing but that remains hidden in an antiquated
scheme for professional status that, basically, retains the gender status quo.

The Business of Science

Advocating for yourself is also part of the mantra for women aiming for
leadership in the pharmaceutical industry. “Female employees must realize
that to reach the upper echelons, they must take an active role in their
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Women in Healthcare and the Sciences r 123

own advancement. Those who sit back and wait for corporate structures
to guide them or who lack a clear focus of what they want to achieve, what
skills they need and how they intend to reach their goals will likely find
themselves disappointed,” notes the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Associ-
ation in its “Power” study.7 At the brink of the new millennium, fewer
than 10 percent of senior managers in some forty pharmaceuticals were
women, and fifteen of those companies had no women at all in their top
positions. Things can’t be much better today. The release of the “HBA
E.D.G.E. (Empowerment, Diversity, Growth, & Excellence) in Leader-
ship Study” was anticipated sometime after the writing of this book. Its
purpose is “to identify for the first time key insights and benchmarks that
will allow companies to accelerate the progress of women into the most
senior position in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.” The
expectation is to update findings hereafter every few years and to evolve
into an industrywide investigation of all of the life sciences.
In the 1999 study’s survey, 77 percent of women felt they had yet to
achieve equality with the men at their companies while just over half of the
men felt women had achieved equality. General consensus among respon-
dents was that women maintained the minority status at the top because
of a lack of training and opportunity to gain line management experience.
The outlook of many women was bleak: Thirty-four percent of women
in upper management and 43 percent of women in middle management
thought there was more opportunity for rising to the top at pharmaceu-
tical companies other than their own and even greater opportunity for
advancement outside of pharma altogether. Seventy-eight percent of the
women surveyed believed pharma undervalued women—and half of the
men agreed. To advance, the survey study notes, “Many women still be-
lieve that to be promoted to senior management, they need to be more
successful, skilled, educated, and hard working than men. In doing so,
they feel they must be aggressive without appearing ‘pushy.’ Men do not
see themselves under this self-restriction.”
Interestingly, men and women agreed on the need for better work/life
balance in the face of sixty to eighty hours a week on the road—mostly for
their personal welfare but also for their family lives. There wasn’t much
hope held out for change. According to the report, “One respondent noted:
‘Until more senior managers lead more balanced lives, they will not see the
value of it in others’ lives throughout the company.’ ” In fact, and here’s a
huge problem for the future leadership of the country’s pharmaceuticals,
only 5 percent of those who said they aspired to top leadership were willing
to sacrifice their personal lives to get and stay there. Four out of ten would be
willing to make some sacrifice, and one in four would not make any further
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124 r Her Turn

sacrifices to get to the top. The report notes, “An upper management
woman responded: ‘Until two years ago, I would have answered that I was
more ambitious and would willingly sacrifice more of my personal life than
I would currently be willing to do. Having hit the glass ceiling, I’m no
longer willing to sacrifice for this company.’”
There was also unity of the sexes in recommendations for making
work/life more bearable. “Interviewees also call on senior management
to provide less lip service and more action, and to lead by making decisions
that offer all employees day care, senior care assistance, European-style
vacations, and other mechanisms that can help restore a better balance
between office and home life. When companies implement such actions,
respondents claim, everyone benefits: women and men, young and old.”
Self-advocacy, however, doesn’t play much for the male managers in
chemical companies when it comes to advancing their women reports,
according to the NSF’s “It’s Elemental: Enhancing Career Success for
Women in the Chemical Industry,” out in March 2007. The study is the
first to look at what advances and what holds back women in science, tech-
nology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) industrial settings, which
represent the largest employer of STEM graduates. While managers, and
particularly male managers, rated the ability to relocate higher than women
did as a factor for career success, women noted “blowing your own horn”
and “to be on highly visible projects” as the keys to promotion. Women
also noted sexist discrimination, although those who felt positively about
their workplace reported lower levels of discrimination. “While women
are taking on leadership roles in STEM industries, the number of women
in those roles and the rate at which it is happening is disappointingly
slow,” concludes Judith Giordan, a program director for NSF’s Integrative
Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program.
In the NSF survey, both men and women called mentoring hugely im-
portant. Deborah Dunsire’s story is a case in point. With a mentor who
complemented her own drive, she rose through the ranks of global drug
development with such aplomb that in 2005 publicly traded Millennium
Pharmaceuticals recruited her to become its president and CEO. Charged
with leading the transformation from research to manufacture/distribution,
she’s continuing to find her own power in, as she says, “moving the bound-
ary forward.” Dunsire began her career as a general practitioner in South
Africa and fell into drug development by happenstance. Planning to switch
to ophthalmology, she filled in time between selling her practice and start-
ing the residency by answering an ad for a clinical research position. Al-
though the transition was difficult at first, once she was exposed to the
global scope of drug development, Dunsire was hooked. Her boss/mentor
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Women in Healthcare and the Sciences r 125

gave her opportunity after opportunity to push herself out of her comfort
zone as well as suggested that she get international experience.
From a line position at then-Sandoz Pharmaceuticals in South Africa,
Dunsire moved to headquarters in Switzerland for a product rollout and
then returned to a line role, this time in the United States. After Novartis
acquired Sandoz, she led the U.S. oncology business and then the North
American division. Millennium recruited her and since then has brought
its first oncology drug to market. So there is potential for women in top
leadership in the sciences—as well as great reward. A passion for the better
good is what keeps Dunsire motivated. “Over time,” she says, “I’d like
people to say that Millennium is an innovative company that creates great
medicines and thrives in the economic environment of the United States.”8
As a newer industry, is biotech more accommodating to women than
the big pharmas? Perhaps. Mara Aspinall, president of Genzyme Genet-
ics in Massachusetts, believes that there’s less history to get in the way
in a relatively new industry like biotech. “It’s not about everyone who’s
known each other for thirty years and their father’s father who has been
in the industry,” she says. “Most biotechs are relatively small companies,
with twenty or fewer employees. Smaller, younger companies don’t have
the inbred politics and processes that may discourage women in senior
management.” Aspinall came to Genzyme with business development and
consulting experience backed by an MBA. She joined Genzyme in 1997
as vice president of corporate development and was president of Genzyme
Pharmaceuticals for four years before heading the Genetics business in
2001. Genzyme Genetics has more than tripled in size since Aspinall’s
start and is one of the country’s largest diagnostic testing companies. Hard
work, a great team, and a culture of meritocracy are the foundation of her
leadership success, Aspinall says.
While Genzyme has promoted numerous women into leadership roles,
elsewhere in the industry there is still a lack of women in leadership.
“Biotech, as a new industry, has been more open to women but, as yet,
there are few women CEOs,” Aspinall points out. “Women are entering
the sciences and junior management ranks in greater and greater numbers.
Biotech, however, is not as successful as it should be at retaining talented
women over the long haul in senior positions.”
Aspinall also notes that there aren’t enough women founding biotechs.
Part of the problem can be in landing the funding, asserts Springboard
president Amy Millman: “While women in biotech have zero difficulty
defending their product or technology to their peers, they have a hard
time selling their capabilities, their expertise and their ability to execute to
anyone outside their comfort zone.”9
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Nonetheless, women are finding ways to start their own businesses with-
out outside capital, just as they did in the early days of women’s business
entrepreneurship when banks, never mind the venture capitalists, wouldn’t
fork over a loan. Bootstrapping her company, Jean Qiu chose biomedical
research in late 2002 precisely because of its emerging status and self-
funding potential. Today she’s founder, president, and CEO of Nexcelom
Bioscience, a Massachusetts company revolutionizing the lab with the first
disposable vs. glass slide and subsequent follow-on innovations.
In anticipation of running her own business, Qiu, an electrical engineer,
honed her skills at 3M in Minnesota. First she helped develop the first
blue-green semiconductor laser for reading CDs (marking the beginning
of the dozen patents that bear her name) and then went on to second and
third careers within 3M, developing advanced plastics into new product
concepts and commercializing the Healthcare Group, her purposely chosen
entry into the healthcare field. All the while, Qiu was absorbing the 3M
way of “make a little, sell a little” for her own purposes. By 2001, she was
ready for her entrepreneurial leap. She chose biomedical research—“if you
want to do a start-up, you have to work in a field that doesn’t have a lot
of barriers for small players”—and moved to Massachusetts for its biotech
strength. The slide she developed is actually quite high tech. “We’re doing
nanomanufacturing, creating a very microscopic nanoscale feature on the
plastic,” she says.10 By 2006, Qiu had introduced a benchtop automated
reader that replaced “eyeballing” an estimate or using a huge, lab-shared
machine, and was breaking the million-dollar revenue mark.
Again, as we saw in our business chapters, women in science and engi-
neering are making their way in fields still dominated by men. The same
holds true for women in medicine. And again, we can’t rely on the the-
ory that women’s increasing numbers will fix any inequities over time.
Time’s ticking away. Scientific advancements aren’t going to slow down
until more women can bring their talents to the bench. Drug development
isn’t going to wait until more women are at the top of businesses that turn
advancements into tangible, available, lifesaving, and health healing prod-
ucts. Patients aren’t going to hold off on making appointments until they
have more women physicians to select as their practitioners and specialists.
We need change now.

Women’s Health

Women’s impact on the sciences is most dramatic in the area—the new

area—of women’s health. The increasing female participation as physicians
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Women in Healthcare and the Sciences r 127

in medicine has caused a sea change in the care for women. This evolution
has sparked a dramatic overhaul as to how women’s health is viewed by the
profession. In 1991, then-President George H. W. Bush appointed Dr.
Bernadine Healy director of the National Institutes of Health. As the first
woman appointed to the position, she launched a $625 million Women’s
Health Initiative involving one hundred and fifty thousand women in a
fifteen-year study on preventing heart disease, breast and colorectal can-
cer, and osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. Up to this point, very
little research had been done on women’s health. In 1993, a law was
passed requiring no bias in medical research. Since then, there has been
a dramatic push for educating women about their health and the health
of their families. The 2005 “Women and Diversity WOW! Facts” re-
ports that women are the decision makers for 67 percent of healthcare
spending and 92 percent of long-term care insurance decisions in the
country. So whether it’s her health or his health, women are the driving
force.
This new focus on women’s health spurred an industry of women’s
health centers across the country. Many centers decided to care for women
with women physicians only. More and more women demanded to be
cared for by women, feeling that their health issues would be given greater
understanding. I was fortunate to work with a pioneer in the establishment
of women’s health centers, Rina Spence. In 1995, Spence opened the first
Spence Center for Women’s Health in Cambridge, Massachusetts, fol-
lowed by two more in that state and one in Washington, DC. The plan
was to roll out forty more centers across the country. As the coordinator
for business development, I saw incredible demand from the beginning.
Women who had not been to see a doctor since giving birth came to the
Spence Center to be seen and heard by a female physician. The ability to
have in one place all of their care—gynecology, mammography, bone den-
sity, X-ray, cardiology, gastroenterology, dermatology, as well as what was
considered at that time as nontraditional care: chiropractic, acupuncture,
and massage therapy—was appreciated by women.
It was the beginning for women in recognizing how they should be
treated by the healthcare system. Unfortunately, Spence Centers didn’t
have the opportunity to expand around the country due to the disparity
between the reimbursement for care by the insurance companies and the
cost of that care. The fee-for-service part of the business couldn’t make
up for the lack of reimbursement for traditional medical services. But the
concept was a model for others in the healthcare world to build on. Today’s
push and success of concierge medicine is a direct result from the type of
care Spence Centers and others, Canyon Ranch for example, provide. The
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128 r Her Turn

build-it-and-they-will-come motto was proven, yet the cost coverage for

adequate healthcare remains a national problem.
Women’s health is now a specialty and has inspired greater attention
by the biotech and pharmaceutical communities as well. Just look at the
shelves in grocery stores and drug stores—you can’t miss women’s cereals
and women’s vitamins, the very basics of health maintenance. And the
advancements for women’s health have been huge. Heart health is perhaps
the best example. Today it’s commonly recognized that men’s and women’s
heart attack symptoms are different. Newer is the discovery of the different
roles plaque plays in causing heart failure in men versus women. All of this
is because of women initiating the focus on women in clinical testing
and health advancements versus the old school men-only models. Still,
our healthcare system continues to be a national problem in need of an
overhaul, and it is clear that as patients, physicians, scientists, and policy
leaders, women could very well be the major drivers in the solutions for its
future in America, if only given the chance.

Women’s Progress

If we look closely at the top where scientific achievement is measured,

the Nobel Prize in Science, we learn that just 3 percent of those receiving
this prestigious honor have been women. If somehow after reading this
far in this book, you can still consider the supposed innate abilities of
female versus male, remember that it was not until after the 1920s that
women were even allowed to pursue higher education in mathematics and
science. That is your great-grandmother’s, grandmother’s, or your mother’s
generation, depending on how old you are. Then it is important to note
that up until 1970, women interested in working in research in universities
did so as volunteers without pay. Yes, Marie Curie, probably the best
known, if not the only known female winner of a Nobel Prize for Science,
worked for years without any compensation or position. The Federal Equal
Opportunity Act passed in 1972 reversed state laws and university rules
that previously had banned the hiring of wives of university professors, even
though most of the research teams at the time were made up of husbands
and wives. According to the book, Nobel Prize Women in Science, in 1998,
70 percent of American women physicists were married to scientists. Only
the men in these research teams received the pay, the position, and the
accolades as the wife was assumed to be an assistant on the project. But the
wives’ passion for the research kept them engaged and, just as with Nancy
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Women in Healthcare and the Sciences r 129

Hopkins’ story, these women believed their work would speak for them
and their performance.
Likewise, academia’s tenure track in the sciences poses much the same
quandary for women as you’ll see in higher education in general. As an ex-
ample that points to the need for change and also holds up in general when
conversing anecdotally, the University of Arizona College of Medicine’s
2000 Grace Project found the following.

r Women took longer to be promoted to associate professor.

r A greater proportion of women felt they did not know the require-
ments for being promoted.
r Women were more likely to have considered changing track.
r Yet there was no significant difference between the sexes in delaying
the tenure clock—an important finding in terms of the argument that
women don’t succeed because they’re too focused on family.

The summary conclusion: “Promotion to higher ranks takes longer for

women, and the tenure track as currently structured seems to carry partic-
ular challenges for women.”
Additionally, when it came to salary in the Grace Project, female full
professors earned 11 percent less than their male colleagues and female
assistant professors earned 9 percent less, with disparities evident among
both the clinical and tenure-track faculty. The reality, the report notes:
“Women in most departments at the UA College of Medicine are less
likely to be rewarded for their terms of salary even after accounting for
rank, track, years in rank, specialty, departmental leadership roles, clinical
revenues, and research productivity.”
Since the 1960s, America has seen some increase in women earning
science degrees but still, the United States ranks below thirteen other
countries in the percentage of twenty-four-year-olds with a math or science
degree. Notes Maria Klawe, dean of Princeton University’s engineering
school, “We have to change our culture to one that believes that it’s really
important to have a population that is well educated in math and science.”11
In France, all students are required to take math and physics, and there
the number of women scientists is higher. Thirty-five percent of the ad-
vanced doctoral degrees in physics are earned by women in France. Com-
pare that to women earning a quarter of physical sciences PhDs in this
country and an estimated 7 percent of employed female American physi-
cists and astronomers. Are there more Lawrence Summer thinkers out
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130 r Her Turn

there discouraging women, even unconsciously, from trying to achieve

their dream of a scientific career? Or is it, as we have seen in business
and law and will soon read in higher education and nonprofit, that be-
cause women reach their career peak at the same time they reach their
childbearing peak, the workplace structure and the old rules and ways of
doing things are barriers that get in the way? It’s time for a change of
attitude. It’s time to inspire another budding Marie Curie (Nobel Prize
in Physics, 1903; Chemistry, 1911), Barbara McClintock (Nobel Prize in
Medicine or Physiology, 1983), and Linda Buck (Nobel Prize in Physi-
ology or Medicine, 2004) to dream what is possible and to discover the
next cure and/or scientific advancement for (wo)mankind. Women have
the education. Women have the aptitude. Women have the desire to heal
and to explore the world of science and medicine. Women need release
from the archaic attitudes that have left them on the sidelines for far too
long in the scientific fields. Our health and future depend on it.

Just Imagine

Girls and young women are encouraged to be excited about math and
science at an early age. Sciences of all types are viewed as cool and are
encouraged for girls and boys in America—the only answer to Amer-
ica’s ability to compete globally. Women have role models in engineering,
technology, the life sciences, and medicine at the college level, and into
the workplace. Our healthcare system has been restructured to encourage
women to go into all medically related professions, including administra-
tion and public policy roles, and to institute better healthcare for all.
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CHAPTER 9

Bias in Higher Education:

The Firestorm

“To me, leadership is a culture, not a person. What a leader does is to

encourage everyone to think creatively and even aggressively, to problem
solve, to find the new paths, and then support that.”
—Ruth Simmons

The tipping point for women in higher education arrived when Harvard’s
now ex-president Lawrence H. Summers not only casually commented
in 2005 that innate differences between men and women might be one
reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers than men, but
then he also went on to question whether discrimination actually plays a
role in the lack of female professors at universities. His remarks created a
firestorm of attention that turned a white-hot spotlight on the bias against
women at institutions of higher learning. Thank you, Lawrence Summers.
It had previously taken a generation of women to insist that girls be given
an opportunity to be heard and recognized in elementary schools and on
through high school. Finally, there are now rumblings at the next level,
higher education and its faculty, where women must be afforded the same
recognition. After all, professors shape the intellect and social conscience
of their students, “and, hence, of our society. Offering students a faculty as
diverse as the world they live in and ensuring the fairness of the promotion
process is thus of tremendous importance.”1
But the rumblings are going to have to crank up to thunderous decibels
because there is still much to overcome in academia for women’s success
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132 r Her Turn

in faculty and senior executive positions. While the American Association

of University Women’s (AAUW) “Tenure Denied” notes that women are
graduating from colleges and universities in record numbers, their arrival
at critical mass is not reflected in their professional status. Only one-third
of associate professors and one-fifth of full professors are women. Instead,
women mostly remain stuck in the lower-echelon positions in academia,
where they represent more than half of instructors and lecturers, and nearly
half of assistant professors. Compound the one-fifth full professor status
with the trend of women PhDs opting out of academia and into other
sectors that promise greater opportunity, and higher education is on the
brink of major talent drain.
According to the American Council on Education (ACE), women tend
to be less likely to pursue tenure-track faculty positions at research uni-
versities after earning their doctorates.2 Harvard Magazine paraphrases
Caroline M. Hoxby, professor of economics at Harvard University, this
way: “ . . . the future of scholarship depends on drawing from the largest
possible pool of talented individuals. While women are at least equally
represented in selective schools’ student bodies, and so are being prepared
for high-performing careers, they are being disproportionately attracted
to nonacademic professions which have made far more progress in hiring:
law, business, and medicine. That should lend urgency in the academy to
more effective searches.”3
In other words, the competition for qualified candidates is fierce and
if universities are interested in drawing from the full pool of the best
and brightest, they must be flexible on issues such as work/family balance
and take a look at how they are attracting women to pursue tenure and pro-
moting them to the president’s chair. The ACE’s “The American College
President: 2007 Edition”4 reports little change in the percentage of women
among newly hired versus seasoned presidents since the organization began
collecting data in 1986. Just as in other professions, there must be enough
female role models at the highest level to provide women the ambition and
the confidence that the top is attainable. Considering that, according to
the ACE “Tenure-Track” report, women comprise 51 percent of earned
PhDs, it behooves higher education to figure out how to attract and retain
half of its potential workforce who today have myriad choices to work
outside of academia’s walls.
The good news is, women are increasingly focusing their attention on
advanced degrees. Why? The answer is simple. Just as we’ve seen in other
areas of our society in our history, when women see an obstacle to conquer,
they do so. It may take years, decades, or centuries, but once the doors
are opened, women don’t walk but run to the head of the line. Education
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Bias in Higher Education r 133

is one of the answers to leadership in this country and around the world.
Education has always been the promise to higher wages. Education is
the possibility, not a guarantee, to power, emphasis on “not a guarantee,”
particularly in the case of women PhDs. It’s time that women in academia
have a clear path to full professorships and top administrative roles so that
higher learning institutions’ faculty and administration better reflect their
student populations.

Tenure Track or Tenure Off-Track?

It wasn’t all that long ago that higher education was viewed as too
taxing for women and that many schools of medicine, law, and business
did not admit women. “Before Title IX of the Education Amendments
of 1972 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers could,
and did, refuse to hire women for occupations deemed ‘unsuitable,’ ” says
the president of AAUW, Ruth Sweetser. “They fired women when they
became pregnant or limited their work schedule because they were female.
Schools could, and did, set quotas for the number of women admitted or
refused women’s admission altogether.”
Certainly, women have made great progress in attaining education,
which makes the time now most critical in matching their leadership op-
portunities with their numbers. But if you look at the reasons behind the
barriers to women’s promotion in academia, the same gender-bias culprits
exist as thirty to forty years ago.
Tenure is a promise of lifetime employment and can only be taken away
for adequate cause. Those choosing the teaching profession have a right to
assume that tenure is based on their academic excellence and service and is
not biased. Here is where tenure can begin to go off track for women. Not
only do standards and requirements for tenure vary institution to institu-
tion, but there is also no straightforward publication of what constitutes
a tenure guarantee within an institution—another finding in AAUW’s
“Tenure Denied” report. Some reasons cited for refusing women tenure:
“One department chair argued that a woman professor didn’t need her job
as much as a man did because she was married,” a woman professor “did
not seem sufficiently ‘collegial,’ ” and another “was deemed ‘too feminine.’ ”
The married professor, it was assumed, would be supported by her husband.
The less collegial woman did not conform to how her colleagues thought
a woman should behave. Who can guess at what “too feminine” means?
Candida Brush, who holds the entrepreneurship chair at Babson College
and has been in academia for more than twenty-five years, also finds danger
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134 r Her Turn

in the promotion process. “In some schools, the process is where the faculty
votes on the candidate and that can be a very messy process because people
might vote for things that have nothing to do with the candidate, like: ‘I
didn’t have this so why should I vote for this person?’ ” When the president,
provost, and board of trustees have the veto power to reject a candidate,
which is typically the case, “since they’re so far removed and they may
not know the candidate, that can set up situations where stereotypes or
perceptions would be the basis for the decision rather than the merits for
the case,” Brush adds. “I’m not saying that this necessarily happens, but
the potential is there.”
Tenure is generally offered five to seven years after a candidate is hired,
and here is another offsetting factor for women. Traditionally, the tenure
clock has not stopped ticking—a key problem since many women are
on the tenure track from ages thirty-three to forty, right in the midst of
their childbearing and early childrearing years. Even though there are now
approved maternity leaves and there is some movement in stopping the
clock for childbirth, plenty of women are not choosing the tenure track
at all. The ACE “Tenure-Track” report found that women with children
under the age of six were half as likely as married men with same-age
children to enter tenure-track posts. University of California, Berkeley,
researchers call this the “leaking pipeline for women PhDs”—when women
completing doctoral programs opt out of the tenure race in numbers that
are highly disproportionate to their male peers or when women who do
jump into the race are 20 percent less likely than their male counterparts
to achieve tenure (see Figure 9.1)
Furthermore, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation report notes that junior
faculties working at schools that have established policies to help with
work/family conflicts do not take advantage of them out of fear of dis-
crimination in future promotion and tenure decisions. So we’re back to the
prehistoric worry over pregnancy and families getting in the way of promo-
tion, not to mention acceptance. If women do step out of the professoriate
to tend to personal issues, reentering a tenure-track position is no easy
matter since a liner progression is still expected. As in previous chapters,
the same solution exists in higher education—individuals’ careers must
be viewed from the lifelong perspective, not the immediate, here-and-
now, what-can-you-give? (or more to the point, what-can-you-give-up?)
framework—but it is a solution still awaiting implementation.
And then there is the dire result of not receiving tenure. Often the
candidate who is denied tenure also loses his or her job with very lit-
tle information as to how the decision was made. It is very difficult to
prove gender discrimination when tenure is denied since so much of the
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Bias in Higher Education r 135

Figure 9.1
Leaks in the Academic Pipeline.
Assistant
Graduate Professor Associate Full
School PhD (Tenure- Professor Professor
Entry Receipt Track) (Tenured) (Tenured)

Women PhDs
Water Level Women PhDs
Water Level
Women PhDs
Water Level

Leak!! Leak!! Leak!! Leak!!

Women Women Women

Women (27% less (20% less
Married
with Babies (21% less likely than likely than
(28% less men to men to
likely than
likely than become an become a Full
single
women Associate Professor
women to
without babies Professor) within a
enter a
to enter a maximum of
tenure-track
tenure-track 16 years)
position)
position)

* Results are based on Survival Analysis of the Survey of Doctorate Recipients (a national biennial longitudinal data set
funded by the National Science Foundation and others, 1979 to 1995). Percentages take into account disciplinary, age,
ethnicity, PhD calendar year, time-to-PhD degree, and National Research Council academic reputation rankings of PhD
program effects. For each event (PhD to TT job procurement, or Associate to Full Professor), data is limited to a maximum of
sixteen years. The waterline is an artistic rendering of the statistical effects of family and gender. Note: The use of NSF data
does not imply NSF endorsement of research methods or conclusions contained in this paper.

Source: From Mary Ann Mason, Marc Goulden, and Nick Wolfinger, “Leaks in the Aca-
demic Pipeline,” University of California (used with permission).

process is subjective and ambiguous. As the AAUW “Tenure Denied”

report notes, “Pinpointing sex discrimination amidst the tangled web of
subjective judgments behind a tenure decision is a Herculean task.”
For those women who do receive tenure, the statistics compiled in
the ACE “Tenure-Track” overview aren’t all that great, either. Women
at all faculty ranks are significantly less happy than white males when
it comes to work/life and career satisfaction. Women report feeling that
they must compromise their values in order to fit into the academic cul-
ture. Twelve percent of associate professors are likely to leave academia
within three years of their start, and women associate professors holding
that rank for ten years or more are especially likely to feel that they’re
stagnating. Even tenured women report lower satisfaction than their male
counterparts on colleague relationships, professional development, overall
career experience, and the integration of their professional and personal
lives.
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136 r Her Turn

Not surprisingly, there are fewer married women than men with tenure.
The Harvard Magazine article notes that 44 percent of tenured women in
its faculty of Arts and Sciences are married and have children, compared
to 70 percent of the tenured men. A worse ratio was the number of tenure
offers extended to women within the FAS in 2004: four out of thirty-two.
Action was underway to improve the situation, particularly in the form of
thorough searches for prospective professors and aggressive recruiting.
In their first “Do Babies Matter?” Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden5
found that men having children within five years of receiving their PhDs
were 38 percent more likely than their women counterparts to achieve
tenure. In their “Do Babies Matter? (Part II) Closing the Baby Gap,”6
they asked men and women who had secured their first assistant professor
job before becoming a parent if they would still like to have a baby. “The
short answer: Men do and women don’t. ‘Married with children’ is the
success formula for men, but the opposite is true for women, for whom
there is a serious ‘baby gap.’ ”
In “Part II,” Mason and Goulden say, “Only one in three women who
takes a fast-track university job before having a child ever becomes a
mother. Women who achieve tenure are more than twice as likely as
their male counterparts to be single twelve years after earning the PhD.
. . . [W]omen who are married when they begin their faculty careers are
much more likely than men in the same position to divorce or separate from
their spouses. Women, it seems, cannot have it all—tenure and a family—
while men can. On the other hand, the ‘second tier’ of women PhDs—
those who are not working or who are adjunct, part-time, or ‘gypsy’ scholars
and teachers—looks very different. Second-tier women have children and
experience marital stability much like men who become professors.”
Their survey of the University of California faculty provided Mason and
Goulden with the confirmation that the current structure of American
research universities forces a fast track that, for women, results in choosing
between work and family. “Many faculty members reported having sacri-
ficed time with family to demonstrate they were committed to their work.
One faculty member advised, ‘Avoid having kids before getting tenure. I
wish it wasn’t so, but I had to learn it the hard way myself.’ Another faculty
member observed, ‘You should know that female graduate students are
telling us over and over again across the nation that they are not going to
become faculty members because they do not see how they can combine
work and family in a way that is reasonable.’ ”
Mason and Goulden advocate for “stopping the tenure clock for child-
birth” as well as for providing “generous childbirth leaves, modified duties,
and onsite child care.” Any initiatives to help attract and promote women,
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Bias in Higher Education r 137

they say, “depend on a collective will to change the campus culture. Passive
and active resistance on the part of men (and even many women) poses a
serious roadblock to cultural change.”
The AAUW recommends that the tenure process be more consistent
and better communicated. Institutions must take all the supposition out
of the process and provide written tenure policies and procedures to all
faculty and potential employees. If you are a female applicant, you must
do everything you can to avoid the risk of discrimination in the tenure
process. Simply asking for any written information that the university
has on its tenure policies is the first step in protecting yourself. Learn
everything you can about the department head you will be working under
and ask what teaching and scholarship credentials are necessary for you to
become tenured. Don’t be afraid to ask. Your long-term career depends
on it. Women have worked long and hard to reach the level of tenure at
universities and colleges across the nation, but the struggle has just begun
when it comes to attaining their rightful place in the highest ranks of
academia. Every time another woman attains tenure, it is a win for all
women. But there’s a long way to go. As AAUW’s Sweetser says, “The
outstanding performance and investment that women are making in their
educations today has yet to translate into full gender equity among tenured
faculty—and into full gender equity in the workplace as a whole.”
For the university administration, the ACE “Tenure-Track” report ad-
vocates for a lifetime view of faculty careers, more work/life balance poli-
cies, and a ten-year tenure track with reviews at set intervals. Institutions
of higher education will also want to pay attention to Rensselaer Poly-
technic Institute’s (RPI) new initiative to increase women’s representation
in its higher-ranking positions universitywide. Announced on March 27,
2007, and funded by a $239,960 grant from the National Science Founda-
tion (NSF), the RAMP-UP (Reforming Advancement Processes through
University Professions) program is to be a national model for advancement
reform. Noted RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson during the RAMP-UP
kick-off celebration, “Understanding and unraveling the myriad twenty-
first century challenges requires tapping the entire talent pool, including
the ‘new majority’ [young women and ethnic minority youth who represent
nearly two-thirds of the country’s population]; engaging students early in
science to excite the next generation of scientists, engineers, leaders, and
decision makers; and reevaluating and reforming university advancement
processes to ensure that all academics are extended an unbiased, equal
opportunity to excel.”
There are four key components to the RAMP-UP initiative: a designated
faculty coach at each of RPI’s five schools; a pipeline search for women in
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138 r Her Turn

industry, national labs, and other nonacademic sources for tenured, full-
professor positions; career campaigns in which senior faculty mentor junior
women faculty as they begin the advancement process; and a faculty work-
shop offered each semester on a major issue around women’s advancement.
Under Jackson’s leadership that began in 1999, Rensselaer has experienced
33 percent growth in women faculty, to 29-percent representation. Due to
her many firsts as an African-American woman, including chair of the Na-
tional Regulatory Commission and president of a major national research
university, Time described Jackson in 2005 as “perhaps the ultimate role
model for women in science.”7
In truth, all of those in education are important role models for the next
generation. When the message is sent loud and clear to young women ex-
ploring a career in higher education that women wanting to have children
need not apply, the profession and all of society lose. We are all victims
when a culture of a specific vocation does not advance with society. And,
it is particularly puzzling that those in a profession who are often labeled
“liberal” or “left of the center” have not figured out how to retain and
promote half of the PhD holders. Today’s tenure system must be reengi-
neered before the women pursuing an academic career choose to follow
other options with more opportunities. The sexism that exists in the tenure
process affects everyone. Students benefit from a diverse faculty that has
been treated equitably.

President Is Gender Neutral, Right?

If women are opting out of academia and, when they are opting in, are
not making it on the tenure track, then who’s left to lead an institution
of higher learning? Forget the fact that, at this writing, Harvard just ap-
pointed Drew Gilpin Faust as its first woman president, putting women
in charge of 50 percent of the Ivy League. In 2006, according to the
ACE’s “The American College President: 2007 Edition,” only 13.8 per-
cent of presidents leading doctorate-granting institutions nationwide were
women. Women do comprise 29 percent of two-year, community college
presidents—where, interestingly, the boards of trustees are more diverse,
but more on that later. Overall, women represent 23 percent of presidents
in higher education. As Donna Burns Phillips, director of ACE’s Office of
Women in Higher Education (OWHE), says, “The high-profile hires have
the tendency to give the impression that equity has been accomplished—
‘See, the president of Harvard is a woman; women are just fine now’—and
of course that is not born out by the facts.”
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Bias in Higher Education r 139

It is true that the percentage of women presidents has doubled since

the ACE began collecting data from more than two thousand colleges and
universities across the country—from 9.5 percent in 1986 to 23 percent
in 2006—but we’re talking twenty years to getting less than a quarter
of the country’s higher education presidents to look like the majority of
their student body. Remember, females outnumbered males in college
attendance in 2000, according to the AAUW. And there is no continued
momentum in filling higher education presidencies with women today. In
1998 and 2001, 19.3 percent and 21.1 percent of presidents, respectively,
were women. At the doctorate-granting institution, women presidents’
13.8 percent today is up from 13.3 percent in 2001 and 13.2 percent in
1998.
Phillips worries about the pipeline to the presidency, and not just in
terms of women. The typical president in 2006 was a white male with a
doctorate degree, sixty years old, married, in office for eight-and-a-half
years, and previously was a provost or chief academic officer. A massive
turnover is expected over the course of the next decade, and the question
ACE is beginning to ask now is: Who will be left? Is everyone in the
pipeline for the presidency now in the same age group as the soon-to-be
retiring presidents? Anecdotally, Phillips says, the answer is yes.
Apparently, there’s no time like the present to prepare for becoming a
college president. That is exactly what ACE does with OWHE—prepare
people in higher education administration through its network system
of state chapters and national forums and conferences for top leadership
positions. “We do this because higher education, unlike corporate America,
does not tend to grow its own,” Phillips says. “Very few institutions work
specifically at developing males or females within their own institutions
with the idea of moving them up. This is not to say that internal candidates
never get the position, but that’s not the same as having a specific intent
to develop people within your institution who can move on.”
The paths to presidency for both sexes noted by participating presidents
in the “2007 Edition” survey include (1) already serving as a president
(21%) (2) serving as provost or chief academic officer (31%) and (3) com-
ing from outside of academia (13%). It’s odd that the provostship is still
the usual path to presidency, Phillips points out, because provosts rarely
do much fundraising—they’re busy running the campus. What OWHE
often helps women focus on is the finance piece: fundraising, budgeting,
and negotiating—the areas in which women are deemed “weak” as a gen-
der when considered for the presidency. Women must provide “visible
proof ” of their ability to handle money, Phillips says, whether inside the
institution—“we recommend that they go to the development office and
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140 r Her Turn

say, ‘I want to learn how to do this’ ”—or outside through major fundraising
as a member of a nonprofit board.
Adding finance to the resume is especially pertinent today: The surveyed
presidents report spending most of their time on fundraising, followed by
budgeting and financial management. Even with the finance credential,
however, women face a tough time being considered during the search
process. “One of the things to which I attribute the slow growth rate in
terms of women in presidencies is that colleges and universities are on the
whole financially strapped right now, and when money gets tight, boards
of trustees tend to be even more conservative than they are at other times,”
Phillips says. “And when they’re being conservative, there’s still that old
stereotype that women don’t know how to handle money.”
So, what does this all mean for women? The New York Times reported
in 20078 how shaky the top position at most universities is due to the
sometimes volatile relationship of the president and the faculty. After the
no-confidence vote of the Harvard University faculty for former president
Lawrence Summers, faculties across the country have felt the need to have
their collective voices heard. The position of president at most universities
has become similar to that of a CEO of a company. First and foremost, the
pay scale of the position has increased to a point where it is dramatically
out of scale with the rest of the faculty. Some university presidents receive
more than $500,000 in compensation, putting them more in line with
corporate America. Of course, with the high cost of education, the role of
president has changed as well. Today’s president must not only hire and
fire faculty, but must also attract large donors and make sure to keep their
institutions on the cutting edge and marketable.
Some women have made it to president and their success will help future
generations. But where will women come from to fill the pipeline? The
numbers of presidents brought in from outside of academia are dwindling.
There are only so many university women presidents, so critical mass and
comfort level aren’t helping. And while adjunct and part-time professor-
ships may be more attractive to women for their flexibility and to colleges
and universities for the savings in salary, benefits, and longevity payouts,
the situation does not get women in line for promotion to president.
The need for flexibility once again rears its head—63 percent of women
presidents in the ACE’s report9 were married compared to 89 percent of
male presidents, and 24 percent of women were either divorced or were
never married, compared to only 7 percent for men. It can be argued that
the choice is up to the woman, but as Phillips notes, “It’s a forced choice as
a result of pressures that perhaps don’t need to be there.” Universities and
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Bias in Higher Education r 141

colleges must revamp their internal structures to support women and men,
whether on the faculty side in attaining tenure, or on the administrative
side by grooming administrator talent for promotion. If higher education
is busy fundraising now, wait until the economics of failing to draw and
retain faculty and administrators hit their bottom line.
On the bright side, women’s visibility at the helm of some of the country’s
largest and most prestigious universities helps with role modeling. “If I
were a twenty-one- or twenty-two-year-old woman contemplating what I
might do and I thought I might want to go into academia, the landscape
of opportunity for leadership looks very different from what it did thirty,
forty years ago,” says Ann W. Caldwell, chair of ACE’s Commission on
Women in Higher Education and, at the time of her interview, about to
retire from her role as president of MGH Institute of Health Professions.
Caldwell calls herself “an accidental president,” invited to turn around
a troubled institution. Then, she was vice president for development at
Brown University, where she oversaw a five-year $534 million fundraising
campaign, and, before that, she was a vice president at Wheaton College.
Although she had turned down initial prodding to accept the president’s
job, she did finally say yes when told by the board chair, Matina Horner,
herself a former college president, “They need a leader. If you know how to
lead, you can do this job.” Not knowing about healthcare and overseeing a
graduate school without having a graduate degree herself, Caldwell relied
on faculty to bring her along—and told them so. Mutual trust got them
through.
“Women have to be willing to take a risk, to be willing to move away
from their comfort zone of what they know and what they’re good at,”
Caldwell says. “I think men are more comfortable doing that than we
are. Women always feel as if they have to have every credential, every ‘t’
crossed and every ‘i’ dotted and then maybe they’ll be ready. The truth
is, you’re never completely ready and you learn while doing. And if you
have enough confidence and curiosity and enough faith in the other people
you’re working with, you might as well take a shot.”
So, what will women bring to a higher education presidency? In her first
year leading Brown University, Ruth Simmons wasted no time in getting
things moving: She restructured the administration for the right support by
reshuffling positions and hiring a provost, a new vice president for finance
and administration, a new vice president for development, and a first-
time vice president for planning physical plant improvements. She secured
consensus and approval for a $37 million commitment to increase faculty
salaries, increase faculty numbers, and accept students without knowing
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142 r Her Turn

their financial status. And she was closing in on completion of a complex

review of the governance process to ensure all-inclusive, forward-moving
decision making.10
Caldwell, who through collaboration with her faculty and staff during
her tenure doubled enrollment, updated programming, and secured the
school’s largest gift ever to put toward a $20 million capital project, be-
lieves that a different perspective is a woman’s greatest contribution to
leadership. The diverse group of senior leaders that she worked with at
Brown University brought a variety of perspectives to the table, regardless
of the issue. “It was a much richer discourse from what I had ever experi-
enced. It’s not so much what women bring, but when everyone at the table
is the same, I don’t think you make as good decisions because you don’t
have as much input from different backgrounds and experiences to bring
to complex and difficult issues.”
Interestingly, Caldwell notes that if she had gone through a traditional
search process for the Institute presidency, she never would have been
chosen. Instead, she knew the board chair through previous work. Which
brings us to what may be the greatest stumbling block for women in their
aspirations to become president of a higher education institution—the
board of governors. We’ve already mentioned the inclination to cling to
stereotypes when times are tough. Couple that with the predominance
of white males comprising boards of trustees and fewer women in the
pipeline, and there is little ostensible chance for seeing more women leading
institutions of higher education. Where women are most representative is
in the community college presidency—the very schools with the most
diverse boards. So this is something women anywhere can do to help
get more women in the lead in higher education—serve on a college or
university board and begin to make the changes that will match the faces
in the classroom to the face in front of the class and at the head of the
higher learning institution.
How does a university improve its recruitment, promotion, and retention
of women? It must support an increased number of women in university
administration and populate its recruitment committees with more women,
as these actions reflect the desire to attract women as serious candidates
for these positions. There is a need for greater flexibility in the path to
president and, at the same time, for more formal mentoring and guidance
structures for women who aspire to academic leadership. Too often, women
are tapped only for administrative roles before finishing their tenure track
and then no longer have the credential other faculty will find adequate.
There is no reason to wait the decades or centuries that it will take
to reach parity in academia. Once again, observers see the collaborative
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Bias in Higher Education r 143

style of women leaders as a plus in higher education and particularly at

the college and university level. The need to work with faculty, alumnae,
donors, and students is critical to every university’s success. This trend
will most certainly continue as the women now leading bring a style of
consensus building to the table. It’s time more women take the positions
they have trained for and receive the prominence that accompanies those
roles to hasten the change that is so desperately needed.

Just Imagine

More women reach full-professor status and lead universities and

colleges across the country, thereby providing role models to the next
generation and proving that anything with an education is possible.
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CHAPTER 10

Women and Nonprofits:

Wage and Donation Gaps

“Giving back is a part of participating. Helping others merely mirrors what

so many have done to help us. And we are where we are today not just
through our own efforts, but because of the path blazed by those who have
gone before us.”
—Cathleen Black

The business of nonprofits—and what a growing business it is! Called a

growth industry by Action Without Borders, there were approximately a
million-and-a-half nonprofits with combined revenues of more than $670
billion in 2006 employing approximately thirteen million Americans. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics states that there will be a 10-percent increase in
the number of nonprofits by 2010. The motivation behind the growth pre-
dictions is increasing layoffs in the private sector. There is also a correlation
between the increasing number of nonprofits and the mood that lingered
over the country after September 11, when the decision to “do well by doing
good” became a mantra across the land in finding work that is meaningful.
The response to this frame of mind has been an increase in certificate pro-
grams in nonprofit management offered by graduate schools nationwide.
What’s women’s stake in all of this? Nearly half of all foundation CEOs
and 70 percent of program officers are women, according to Women &
Philanthropy, the nonprofit that promotes women’s representation in so-
cial change and strives to increase resources allotted to women-and-girls’
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146 r Her Turn

issues. But don’t be fooled by these numbers. There are still plenty of
problems to address when it comes to women and philanthropy.
Women have long been a force in the nonprofit world as volunteers, but
are only recently moving into leadership positions in these organizations.
As has already been noted in this book, during our history, women have
done the work needed by society that either wasn’t professionalized or
didn’t require pay. As we fast forward to the 1950s and 1960s, during
times of economic growth, the majority of women’s work became almost
exclusively volunteer. If you had asked me when I was growing up what
women did, I would have answered, “Help out at school, bake cookies
and cakes for school and church bake sales, teach Sunday school, lead
Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, drive sick people to hospitals, and wrap
presents at Christmas time for orphaned children.” These are the things
my mother did and this was my experience with women’s work outside
the home. Of course, all of the organizations that this volunteer work was
provided to were nonprofits. I later learned that this work had monetary
value, just as the work my dad did. The leaders of the nonprofit world
were men and were, and are, paid very handsomely for their work. The
nonprofit world has always depended on the work of volunteers, and those
volunteers have generally been women. But as women have gained the
education and experience necessary to lead nonprofits, the issue of equal
pay for equal work is most relevant in this sector.
At the top positions of national associations, millions of dollars separate
the pay of top male and top female earners. In the 2006 National Journal
survey of salaries and compensation for national associations, professional
societies, think tanks, and labor unions,1 the highest-ranked woman, at
Number Twenty-Four out of the Top Fifty, earned $1.24 million (total
salary, benefits, and allowances). The Top Three: “[The late] Jack Valenti,
formerly of the Motion Picture Association of America ($11.08 million);
Thomas Donahue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($6.78 million);
and Craig Fuller, formerly of the National Association of Chain Drug
Stores ($3.13 million),” writes Karla Taylor in an Associations Now article.2
As she notes, compare the Number Three male ($3.13 million) to the
Number Three female on the Top Ten best-paid women’s list, who earned
$667,161. Out of the forty-eight CEOs receiving salary, benefits, and
allowances of more than $1 million, only two were women.
The same can be said for any career path—law, politics, healthcare and
the sciences, nonprofit, and education. Women are perfectly capable of
making important contributions but obstacles can either have them fleeing
to more accommodating options or compromising their own values in
order to make it as a round peg in a square hole.
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Women and Nonprofits r 147

The message for women today in the nonprofit world is clear: There
are plenty of opportunities for you to fulfill your desire to give back and
make the world a better place—but don’t expect to have your work valued
equally with the men who have sacrificed themselves by not going into
(or staying in) the private sector where the real money is made. The Na-
tional Journal ’s survey confirms that 16 percent, or ninety-five of the five
hundred and ninety-seven surveyed organizations, were headed by women.
Another significant survey, conducted by the American Society of Asso-
ciation Executives and the Center for Association Leadership entitled the
“2006 Association Executive Compensation and Benefits Study,” shows
that among nine hundred and twenty-five organizations, women held the
top job at 38 percent of them, up from 33 percent in the smaller 2004
survey sample of six hundred and fifty-nine organizations. The survey also
found that women earned just seventy-two cents for every dollar that her
male counterpart received in the smaller associations. So nonprofits, like
other professions, are promoting a wage gap. As Taylor writes, “. . . When
it comes to running an association, the Y chromosome is worth a lot of
money.” Today’s nonprofit must operate like any well-run business in or-
der to survive, and, naturally, competitive salaries are a large part of that
equation.
Why the divide? What we see in nonprofit is exactly what is holding
women back in just about every sector. For one—women are holding
themselves back. They haven’t followed the “right” career path and so
they’re missing essentials for the top job, or they aren’t negotiating their
pay, or at least talking about their compensation so the numbers and the
outrage can get out there. And then, once again, men have to take some of
the blame. They have to get outside of their comfort zone and start giving
women a leg up.
The problem, according to Leonard Pfeiffer, managing director of
Leonard Pfeiffer & Co., is that women at the top aren’t bringing in
comparable dollars to their male counterparts because they never have.
“Organizations will pay an increase over what you’re earning now, but it
won’t be enormous,” he told Taylor. Rather than bring a woman earning
$225,000 up to the job’s $350,000 salary, he imagines the board saying,
“Let’s give her a 25-percent bump; she’ll be happy, and we’ll save $70,000.”
It’s time the men in charge start seeing the inequality they’re perpetuating
and start valuing the job and the gender fairly. Otherwise, they’ll be quite
sorry when the majority of nonprofit leaders finally wise up and find better
opportunities elsewhere.
The “Daring to Lead 2006: A National Study of Nonprofit Executive
Leadership” report3 revealed that women, who are twice as likely as men
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148 r Her Turn

to lead a nonprofit, lead less than 50 percent of nonprofits with budgets

greater than $10 million. This study also found that women are paid less
than their male counterparts in nonprofits of every size. (See Figure 10.1.)
The study surveyed two thousand executive directors in eight cities and
learned that 75 percent of the executive directors planned to leave their
current positions in less than five years. These executive directors reported
frustrations with their boards, their funders, and the lack of support and

Figure 10.1
Nonprofit Executive Leadership

Executive Gender Overall

Women
Men

Executive Gender
Over $10 Million

Men
Women

Source: From “Daring to Lead 2006,” published by CompassPoint Nonprofit Services (used
with permission).
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Women and Nonprofits r 149

concern for their below-market compensation. Although 26 percent ad-

mitted to not having asked for a raise, they believed they could make more
in the for-profit sector. Again, it’s time women are equally valued before
there’s a mass exodus. To compound matters, the nonprofit sector must be
concerned with the fact that the majority of its leadership is composed of
baby boomers, in their fifties, thinking about retirement when there is no
succession plan. Without a happy, willing pipeline, what will become of
the nonprofit sector in the years to come?
Another study, sponsored by the United Way of Allegheny County and
the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University,
looked at one hundred and eighty-one nonprofits in western Pennsylvania.
It found that women leaders earned $27,861 less than their male counter-
parts. Studies such as these lead today’s very educated, experienced woman
to look more closely at the choices she has in both the for-profit and
nonprofit worlds. She will need more than a “feel good” reason to pursue
nonprofit, particularly if her compensation package does not equal that of
her male competitor.

Women’s Contribution

Why are women so important at the salaried levels of nonprofits? An

interview with Marian Heard, former president and CEO of the United
Way of Massachusetts Bay (UWMB), provides an example of how one
woman turned around two nonprofits that were in crisis and continues
to effect social change at the national level. After getting the Bridgeport,
Connecticut, United Way chapter on the road to recovery, Heard moved on
to the Massachusetts Bay chapter, which then served eighty communities in
Greater Boston. At her start in 1992, UWMB was Number Eighty-Seven
in fundraising efforts among United Way chapters across the country. By
the time Heard left in 2004, the chapter was nationally ranked Number
One among United Way chapters in fundraising, stature, and portfolio of
youth and family programs.
The first woman at both United Ways, Heard says her gender never got
in the way. “I think, quite frankly, it’s been an advantage. I could kiss people
without having second thoughts about it,” she says with her trademark
sense of humor. “I’ve been told that nobody kissed in Boston until I came,
that until then people were all very formal and shook hands from three
feet away.” But don’t think Heard is all good-fun and glad-handing. “I
inherited United Ways that needed an extra measure of attention,” she
says. Whether that attention was restructuring around business principles
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150 r Her Turn

or ensuring donor “euphoria” over giving, as she calls it, Heard’s work drew
attention outside of the national United Way. In 1992, then-President
George H.W. Bush appointed Heard the founding president and CEO of
the national Points of Light Foundation, of which she has been board chair
twice and remains a board member today. Then-President Bill Clinton
named her CEO of the steering committee of the President’s Summit for
America’s Future, the largest gathering for a single domestic issue in the
country’s history. She’s now involved in MENTOR, a national women’s
leadership initiative garnering support for the mentoring of more than
seventeen million youth across the country.
Deeper empathy, greater quick-decision capacity, and an ability to juggle
are some of the characteristics Heard believes women versus men bring to
the nonprofit sector. Listening, asking the right questions, and coalescing
people around the table are her strategies “that always result in a format,
a formula, and a plan for implementation, whether it’s fundraising or
designing program initiatives.” Her leadership style is “what I call the
Clint Eastwood form of management: I want to know everything—the
good, the bad, and the ugly—and I want to know it now, not necessarily
in that order.”
Here’s another example of what women bring to the nonprofit sector.
While national executive director of the American Red Cross from August
2002 to December 2005, Marsha J. “Marty” Evans rebuilt the reputation
of the Red Cross during some of its toughest challenges: the hurricanes
of 2004, the tsunami of 2004, and then Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma
in 2005. Also, Evans was heir to the damage done by damning headlines
over giving processes post-September 11 and a tainted-blood scandal.
“We rebuilt systems. We worked on some of the organizational man-
agement issues that had surfaced after 9/11, and we rebuilt our capability to
respond,” Evans says. “To be perfectly honest, I inherited an organization
that was flat broken. Public trust was really low. Yet, at the height of Ka-
trina, we had extraordinary public trust rebuilt. We had raised more than
$2 billion in the Katrina disasters, and I think of all the large organizations
performing in the extraordinary circumstances at Katrina, the Red Cross
was the best of all.”
Evans ultimately resigned due to differences with the board, but she
outlasted her predecessors at an organization that was turning over CEOs,
men and women, at the rate of five acting or permanent heads in seven
years. She doesn’t attribute the problems at the Red Cross or the news
coverage surrounding its problems to her being a woman, however. “I
don’t think there was any media glare because of my gender. The media
glare was because of all the extraordinary problems I inherited—all the
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Women and Nonprofits r 151

controversy over 9/11 and the blood issues. It was a matter of how many
alligators were trying to get in the boat.”
Prior to the American Red Cross, Evans was national executive director
of Girl Scouts of the USA. There, she says, “Gender was a real plus.
There were men staff members in the Girl Scouts, and I was sensitive
to any reverse sexism they might feel.” The interesting gender piece of
Evans’ story is board governance and what women bring to the table
when they are the primary representatives on the board. For years, the
Girl Scouts had thoughtfully examined governance, Evans points out. “It
really is extraordinary, as I think about it in hindsight—how much time
and attention was spent on philosophy and concepts of governance. For
example, many of the members had local Girl Scout experience but there
was great attention paid when one joined the national board to the fact
that you were now on the national board and you were responsible and
accountable for the Girl Scout movement.”
In contrast, Evans points out, a good number of the American Red
Cross’ board members during her tenure believed they represented their
local chapters. “The Girl Scouts long ago started grappling with this issue
of balancing local versus national, and they have some of the best publica-
tions and programs for local boards as well as new national board members
to scope out the subtleties of the different levels of governance.” Evans
compares her dealings with the Girl Scouts and American Red Cross as
“night and day,” although she’s quick to point out how passionate people
were about their missions at both organizations. “We did a lot of manage-
ment changes [at the American Red Cross], but at a certain point I didn’t
control the board,” she says. “The board was fifty members and chaotic.”

The Second Career

One more thing about Marty Evans. She represents a growing trend:
Men and women making a second career out of the nonprofit sector. Evans
was a rear admiral in the Navy when the Girl Scouts recruited her, and
she signed on because she liked the fact that it was an organization about
helping girls grow into confident, strong adults, and that she would be the
national executive director, and that she could improve what she considered
an underperforming organization. Even though fundraising was not part
of her job at the beginning, Evans made it so during her tenure in order to
leverage a budget beyond cookie sales and membership dues. As much as
Evans sees a correlation between the military and the nonprofit—both are
volunteer organizations, provide opportunities for leadership management,
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152 r Her Turn

and have budget challenges that require getting more out of people than
money allows—she sees a challenge in terms of getting women’s numbers
up in nonprofit leadership from this new recruitment pool.
“You see women getting to a certain point and they just go off the career
track. They don’t want to hang around to gut it out anymore, and I think
that’s unfortunate to the extent that the future leadership of nonprofits is
drawn from the business community. When women opt out and go off the
upward mobility track, they’re really taking themselves out of the possibility
of both the private sector as well as the public sector,” Evans says. “On the
other hand, I think as women come through the for-profit ranks and they
get stopped at the top level C-jobs, there are opportunities to move over
to the nonprofit and have as large a scale and scope of responsibility, and
maybe it’s a little more hospitable.”
There is a strong trend of women in their fifties leaving corporate jobs
or selling their own businesses to move into the nonprofit sector in order
to fulfill a need and lend their business acumen to the business of run-
ning a nonprofit. Search firms are working with those whose skills can
be transferred to help them succeed in the nonprofit world. As corporate
leaders or business owners, these women understand budgets and they have
made the connections necessary for fundraising, which is so often the most
important qualification needed to lead today’s nonprofits.
The important point here is to understand that it is because women
have broken the barriers to running large businesses that they have built
the reputation needed to make a go of running a large nonprofit. But for
the nonprofit sector to fully engage all available talent, women need to
win in other areas besides just business to swim in the recruitment pool.
Across America, men have built reputations not only in business but also
in politics. Across the country, men move easily from a political life with a
small salary into a nonprofit life tripling their compensation. The success
of many nonprofits is based on the ability of the executive director or
president to lobby a particular constituency successfully, a talent the local
politician knows well. Once again, most women take a backseat to men as
they have yet to make their mark as strong lobbyists. Nonprofit success,
like business success, is based on solid connections within the community
it operates.

Negotiating the Nonprofit Way

Whether it’s a man or woman who takes the job in the local nonprofit
after a successful career in business or politics, compensation comes down
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to negotiating the best package possible. The “Daring to Lead” study con-
firmed that women lag behind men in negotiating their compensation and
responsibilities. I’ve heard over and over again from nonprofit fundraisers
and executive directors that women never, and I mean never, negotiate their
time, their giving, or their salary. Yet, men do it all the time. Alexandra
Friedman, development officer for individual giving at the AIDS Action
Committee in Boston, says, “When we ask a man to be on our board
or for a particular donation, he immediately maps out what he wants in
return. He makes it very clear how his effort for the campaign can be a
win-win. Women never do this. I believe this is why they get burnt out or
feel that they are being bled dry.” Very often, a board member becomes a
staff member of a nonprofit. These negotiations must start at the moment
of involvement.
Women, listen up! You have a right to negotiate your time, your money,
and your work for nonprofits and for-profits. You can’t expect to get even
unless you do the negotiations work. The wage gap in the nonprofit arena
has little chance of ending until women take it upon themselves to demand
parity. And since nonprofits are required to make all their financials public,
the homework assignment for women before signing on is simple. First,
set up a meeting with the executive director and other management team
leaders at the organization. Ask questions about the mission of the organi-
zation, turnover of staff, and participation of volunteers. Read several years’
worth of annual reports so you can gauge the consistency of the leadership
and the volunteer involvement. Make sure you don’t lose sight of what
your needs are because of your passion for the cause. Every nonprofit must
run like a successful business to succeed, and part of that success comes
from allowing its staff to feel fairly and adequately compensated. Never
underestimate the power of negotiation. If you don’t ask, you won’t get.

Women-and-Girls Programming

It is no less important here—and perhaps in many ways more important

as it is essential to have women in the nonprofit sector—for women to
be valued equally if the money from the philanthropy spigot is to flow to
programs for women and girls. The role of philanthropy in the nonprofit
world and the lack of women leading nonprofits and writing the checks
all have a dramatic effect on what gets funded. The depressing amount
of philanthropy—about 7 percent of every dollar, according to Women
& Philanthropy—currently going to programs focused on the needs of
women and girls is spotlighted as one of the major reasons women must
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lead in America and support their sisters. Women’s leadership can end the
disparity of giving levels in the nonprofit world.
Or so one would hope. The correlation hasn’t proved to be true if looking
at the 7 percent of giving versus women’s representation among foundation
CEOs (50%) and program officers (70%). So, what’s the disconnect? The
characterization of “women and girls” as a task already checked off the to-
do list, for one. “There’s a feeling, to quote a phrase, that ‘we did that,’ ‘we
did women and girls,’ ‘that problem is solved, ’” says Sara Gould, president
and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women and vice chair of Women &
Philanthropy. “And it’s looked at as a problem to be solved when, in fact,
women and girls are fully 50 percent of the population, so we’re not talking
about a special interest group or a problem to be solved. We’re talking
about 50 percent of humanity. Yet there is a feeling among institutions
that women have attained equality, so that’s the end of the conversation.
But, in fact, women have not, first of all, attained equality, and even if we
were farther along, I don’t think that’s the end of the conversation. I think
that’s the beginning of the conversation.”
And then there’s the familiar drumbeat heard throughout every chapter
in this book: There are plenty of women worker bees but few who are in
positions of authority. In the case of the philanthropic sector, the lack of
representation shows up somewhat at the CEO level, but more significantly
at the trustee-level boards, where women are 25 percent of those sitting
around the giving-decision table. There is also a discrepancy when looking
at the size of the foundations that women lead. “If you go up the chain
of command, there are fewer women,” points out Nicole Cozier, Women
& Philanthropy’s director of programs and planning. “But also, when you
look at the breakdown of where these CEOs are located, you’ll find that
they tend to be in community foundations, family foundations, and smaller
foundations. When you look at the assets of these foundations, there again
is a drop-off in terms of the representation of women CEOs leading those
more-moneyed foundations.”
The women-and-girls’ equation also gets lost in the diversity discus-
sion, when attention generally shifts to race or ethnicity for donor de-
cision makers. “When women’s issues first came out in the 1970s, they
were more ‘straight forward.’ One could say, ‘Look, women are 50 per-
cent of the population, but aren’t getting their fair share; we need to
increase resources,’ and make that case,” Cozier says. “The issues have
become much more complex over the years. It’s about more than being
a woman, it’s about being an African-American woman, it’s about being
a low-income woman, it’s about any number of intersections of experi-
ences. This complexity of issues isn’t necessarily reflected in how the field
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Women and Nonprofits r 155

generally goes about moving resources. That’s going to continue to be a

challenge.”
What can be done so women-and-girls’ issues see a greater chunk of the
philanthropy dollar? Emphasize gender analysis in giving, Cozier suggests.
“We have to stop looking at funding women and girls as the ‘right thing to
do,’ even though it still is, and start recognizing that without factoring in
how women are impacted by different issues and how women contribute
to resolving issues, our efforts are just not going to be effective.” In order to
catapult more women to the board decision-making level, where, like we’ve
seen on other boards, there’s comfort in the old boys’ homogeneity sitting
around the table, “[t]hat’s going to take a major intervention,” Gould says.
“We do not have the next two hundred to three hundred years that it would
take for that to happen naturally, even if it would happen in that period of
time. It takes an intervention to really motivate people and move people
to do something different than what they would usually do.”

Her Part

Because nonprofits must rely on the generosity and community involve-

ment of companies in their region—once again the volunteers with time
and money to give—women must succeed in this sector as well as in the
for-profit sector. Without women’s success, the commitments needed for
the causes representing women and girls pay a heavy price.
Teresa Heinz Kerry, chairman of the Heinz Endowments and the Heinz
Family Philanthropies, is an example of a woman as the decision maker
who understands that she can change women’s lives by focusing her foun-
dation’s attention on the issues that face them. Her spotlight on such con-
cerns as women’s environment-related health issues, women’s economic
opportunities, and children, youth, and family are making a difference
across America. She sees her role as a catalyst in furthering thoughtful
advancement. “I look for alternatives. I want to bring people together who
might even view each other as enemies. Otherwise, too often, people don’t
talk. They don’t have the whole conversation. This is the disservice I con-
stantly see perpetrated on people’s lives. If I can promote conversation
and smart decision making that lead toward health and economic stability,
that’s what I do.”4
Following are some examples of her action to benefit women.

r Heinz convened the first Conference on Women’s Health and the

Environment in Boston in 1995. Now an annual event attracting
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156 r Her Turn

several thousand participants, the organizing themes have included

“Women’s Health and the Sexual Environment,” “Women’s Health
as We Grow Older,” and “Mind Over Media: Women’s Health and
the Cultural Environment.” The 2007 theme, “Women’s Health &
the Environment: New Science, New Solutions,” also went on the
road to Pittsburgh for the first time.
r In 1998, the Heinz Family Philanthropies and Good Housekeeping
magazine launched a collaborative effort to help educate around the
importance of savings and retirement security. Heinz established the
Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement and created a magazine
supplement entitled, “What Every Woman Needs to Know about
Money and Retirement.” Today, it is available in Chinese, English,
Portuguese, and Spanish, with millions of copies distributed nation-
wide. This same information was also used to create radio public
service announcements.
r The Heinz Plan to Overcome Prescription Expenses (HOPE) has
provided the basis of a number of states’ adoption of plans that offer
seniors choosing to participate sliding-scale premiums, deductibles,
and co-pays.

“It’s more a matter of ideas than work,” Heinz says. “I see the ideas
coming to fruition, and it’s satisfying to know that an intelligent process
does work.”
To note other examples of women’s impact, when they see a need in
their community, they can call upon their education and their experiences,
and go out and start a nonprofit. I personally have worked with others to
form four nonprofits. All are still operating as 501c3s, bringing women
together for the purpose of growing their businesses, accessing capital
and resources for these businesses, and assisting the local government in
identifying qualified women for appointed office.
Lynn Margherio started Cradles to Crayons while she was also nego-
tiating, on behalf of the Clinton Foundation’s HIV/AIDS Initiative, a
first-ever reduced rate of 50 to 90 percent off the lowest market prices for
drugs and tests by working with developing countries and pharmaceuti-
cals and their suppliers. She had been home to visit family at Christmas
and noticed all the toys, clothes, and supplies her nieces and nephews had
quickly outgrown. The need that she saw to fill was two-fold: The haves
needed to find a place for perfectly good items while plenty of have-not
kids were going without. Researching her idea just like she would any busi-
ness plan in her consultancy role, she found that social service agencies,
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Women and Nonprofits r 157

homeless shelters, and hospitals needed help in acquiring donations. The

larger organizations that collected clothing typically turned around and sold
the items. And, in the cold calls she made, elementary schools, churches,
synagogues, day care centers, and nursery schools told her they were ready,
willing, and able to put donor and volunteer muscle behind a connecting
organization if the needy received the items for free. Today, Cradles to
Crayons makes sure that poor and homeless children have everyday ba-
sics, from cribs to underwear to books and toys, by filling out individual
needs lists with volunteer help. Starting out in Boston, Cradles to Crayons
launched in Philadelphia in 2007, the outgrowth spearheaded by a woman
who had mobilized volunteers in that city during the Katrina effort. “I
don’t see why there can’t be an organization like ours in every community,”
Margherio says.5
Launching and heading a nonprofit isn’t the only role women can play in
getting socially responsible efforts off the ground. Martha Crowninshield
says she “backed into” her role in supporting the International Multiple
Sclerosis Genetics Consortium, which was called “a landmark effort to
search for the human genome for genes that put people at risk for mul-
tiple sclerosis” by USA Today. When we talked with Crowninshield in
2007, the consortium was preparing to submit its findings for peer re-
view publication. General partner emerita of $2.5 billion venture capital
investment partnership Boston Ventures, Crowninshield applied basic in-
vestment principles to helping secure $15 million for Phase One research.
She also personally donated $1 million to the cause. Crowninshield, who
has MS, learned about the genetics consortium from an MS physician
and research scientist at Harvard Medical School who was involved with
establishing the groundbreaking research collaboration.
“I was trying to figure out whether and how I could make a contribution
because I’m not a scientist,” she says. “And then I realized that many
of the people who would make contributions to this kind of cause could
benefit from having the proposal outlined in a manner in which they were
familiar. It would be like a business proposal in language that they readily
understood: What were the timelines, what would the governance be, who
would be making the decisions about how the money would be spent, when
would you get to go/no-go—what would be those markers? The content
was the work of the scientists. My role was to help organize the material
using the more traditional language of business so that it would be familiar
to the people who would be able to make and be interested in making
contributions to the project. At that point, time was of the essence. We
needed meaningful donations quickly so that we could get this consortium
funded.”
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The right kind of outreach was necessary to enlist a return on invest-

ment based on advancing science for an eventual cure of an illness. The
governance piece was important, Crowninshield says, because six institu-
tions are involved: Harvard; MIT; University of California, San Francisco;
Cambridge in England; Duke; and Vanderbilt. Now Crowninshield is the
founding cochair of the advisory council of the Harvard NeuroDiscov-
ery Center, an innovative collaboration across diseases and laboratories
connected with Harvard Medical School.
What women bring to the nonprofit leadership table is exactly what they
bring to the other parts of their lives. As Gould says, “To overgeneralize,
possibly, women bring a great deal of creativity, they bring the ability to
put things together with few resources because that’s often the situation
they find themselves in, and they also bring a fairly wide view of how a
problem can get solved and even what bears on a problem.” Finally, it can’t
be said enough that women bring empathy to every situation and that that
characteristic serves the nonprofit world best. The ability to transcend their
own reality and for more than a moment understand the world of those
they serve is a strength that the nonprofit world relishes.

Follow the Leaders

The nonprofit industry is in need of women role models at the highest

level in order for current and future generations of women to see that they
can “do well by doing good.” Perhaps, Melinda Gates, cofounder of the
Gates Foundation, can be just that. In a 2006 interview in The Wall Street
Journal,6 Gates speaks out about her role in a question-and-answer session.

WSJ: “How to you, as a woman who is viewed as being reserved, counter

the impression that you have been living in Bill’s shadow?”
Mrs. Gates: “Ha, ha! I think it’s really important for people to understand
Bill and I are behind the foundation and it’s important for people
to understand it’s us as a couple . . . [A]s our children get older, I
decided to speak out more publicly . . . [A]s our children start going
to school for the first time, the time I have spent at the foundation
has increased.”

Melinda Gates is well aware of the impact she has on the visibility for
women in nonprofits and in running foundations. Her visibility goes a long
way to bring women into the forefront of history in leading foundations.
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Women and Nonprofits r 159

Barbara Lee, who started the Barbara Lee Family Foundation to pro-
mote women’s political aspirations as well as the contemporary arts, sees
herself as a role model for other women to follow as they become the
majority of wealth holders in the future. “Role modeling is, in fact, why I
decided to be public about my giving and my work, which was a very big
thing for me. It would have been easier to be anonymous and quiet, but I
believe so strongly that women need role models, that women need to be
public about their giving in order to inspire other women to give.”
To fill the pipeline, girls need role models, too. Marian Heard, who
saw her mother collecting money for everything from the American Red
Cross to UNICEF, learned a lesson in giving that didn’t sit well at the
time but certainly resonates now. “When I was a child, my mother made
me baby-sit and not charge when neighbors didn’t have the money. It was
a concept that was foreign to a child who wanted to earn money.”
According to a 2000 survey,7 27 percent of high school girls participate
in service with volunteer groups through school compared to 18 percent
of boys. From an early age, girls are encouraged to nurture, help out, and
look out for others, either at home or in formal programming. During
Marty Evans’ tenure at the Girl Scouts, a Share Our Strength patch was
initiated at five different age levels. “For the younger girls, it was the notion
of giving and, then, for older girls it was organizing giving. I think people
have to learn social responsibility at a young age,” Evans says.
A surprise to Cradles to Crayons’ Margherio was the community out-
pouring of volunteerism—particularly in terms of the numbers of families
who volunteer together as a way to spend time together. Kids have even
requested specific donations on invitations to their birthday parties in lieu
of receiving presents themselves. Does role-modeling get any better than
that?
Role-modeling also parlays inside the nonprofit, where it’s critical to
boost women up the chain of command. “I would bet that if you talk
to any leader,” Women & Philanthropy’s Cozier says, “they will say they
can identify key people over the course of their careers who took an in-
terest in them and made a difference in how they progressed through
their career, the choices that they made and the opportunities they had.
We don’t institutionalize that enough. It’s often left to the individuals.
In my own experience, I have been fortunate enough to have people tell
me, ‘I really want to help you because when I was your age, somebody
helped me,’ and that’s a really important piece to this leadership puzzle.
But we also have to recognize that people tend to connect with and sup-
port those like them, so this is only one strategy among many that we
need.”
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Writing the Check

As women become more successful and have the means, they naturally
turn to writing checks for nonprofits, or do they? Women & Philanthropy’s
Web site lists various gifts from women in an array of causes, which
demonstrates the breadth of women’s philanthropic interests. But Sara
Gould, Women & Philanthropy’s vice chair, questions whether women
of wealth actually control their checkbooks. “Women of wealth who grow
up with wealth often are told that the management of the wealth is taken
care of, that it’s in the hands of the advisors. The experience of women
with wealth has been that they have been kept from the true control of
that wealth and have often had to fight to get control.” Adds Women &
Philanthropy’s Nicole Cozier, “Being a woman doesn’t necessarily mean
that top of mind is that experiential feeling of, ‘I am passionate about
women; I need to give to women.’ On an institutional level, we have seen
that even though there are significantly more women in the field, giving
to women and girls has only moved very moderately. On an individual
level, women give a lot to their universities, to their churches—things that
move them as individuals. These issues aren’t necessarily related to gender
directly, and so it’s important to try to find out how to reconnect these
women donors to issues of relevance to women and girls—part of that
is identifying and illustrating how the things that do have an impact on
women and girls can have an experiential connection with the donor.”
Martha Crowninshield believes that women will come around, and soon.
As the baby boomers with business backgrounds begin to get involved, she
says, they “start looking at these organizations as businesses, bringing
transparency to the financials, bringing understanding to what kind of
goals funders will want and what funders will want to see. They will begin
transitioning their wealth into philanthropy and realize what they can do
with their philanthropic efforts.”
To help get to the connections that Cozier speaks about, Marian Heard
has this advice for nonprofit leaders: “We need to listen and find out where
women want to focus. We need to provide enough options and we need to
then suggest the appropriate vehicle so they can then fulfill their dreams
and wishes.” In other words, women will and do write the checks when they
see that their philanthropy has impact on something they have a particular
interest in.
Finally, Marty Evans says, “If you look at trends in women wealth
holders, their giving patterns are different from men’s. If you talk to women,
it will be this fear of giving away everything and then not being able to
take care of themselves carried almost to an extreme. It all boils down to
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Women and Nonprofits r 161

encouraging philanthropy at a young age, and then the other piece of it is

designing gift structures like trusts and the legal structures that help take
care of one’s current needs while at the same time make sure that their
requests are structured so that they can leave behind a legacy.”

Just Imagine

As the majority of wealth holders in America in 2010 and beyond,

women are changing the direction of philanthropy in this country. The
programs for women and girls are given equal funding to those earmarked
for boys and men. It is not just the money and resources that help raise
women-and-girls’ issues to parity but also the attention these programs
attain that benefit the society at large. The legacy of our society, girls and
boys, are the greatest benefactors of our generosity.
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CHAPTER 11

When Women Rule: A Woman

in the White House

“I guess they’re called women’s issues because if women did not focus on
them, there really wouldn’t be any chance of getting them done.”
—Nancy Pelosi

It has been eighty-six years since women fought for and won the right to
vote. And where are we now? For a gender that tips the balance in terms
of numbers, we are nowhere near proportional representation in terms of
holding elected offices. In 2007, women’s representation in Congress—16
percent—hit an all-time high. That’s up from 10 percent in 1992, the
year the media declared “The Year of the Woman” because more women
ran for and were elected to national office than ever before. Clearly, we
have a long way to go to achieve women’s constitutional right of equal
representation in the political spectrum in America. Why is this? Do we
all fall too easily for the media’s trap of, “She isn’t electable?” In contrast to
one popular misconception, electing a woman to the nation’s highest office
will NOT put everyone at risk because of monthly hormonal changes,
poor fashion choices, or delinquent parenting. And if you think I am
being too glib here, just ask a group of women or men how they view a
particular woman candidate. Unfortunately, the above biases are just some
of the ridiculous comments you will hear as to why “she” can’t be our next
governor, representative, senator, or president.
An example of this is a study The White House Project conducted dur-
ing the presidential campaign in 1999. The study compared the newspaper
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coverage of candidate Elizabeth Dole with that of then-Texas Governor

George W. Bush, Arizona Senator John McCain, and publisher Steve
Forbes, all Republicans running for the White House. Four hundred and
sixty-two stories totaling thirty-nine hundred paragraphs were studied
from August 1, 1999, through October 20, 1999, from the Des Moines
Register, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, USA Today, and the
Washington Post. Dole (19.9%) received less coverage than Bush (52.4%)
but more than McCain (13.5%) and Forbes (9.7%). The quality of coverage
on issues, however, is what is important. Dole received 17 percent of the
paragraphs on issues, compared to 33 percent for Bush, 40 percent for Mc-
Cain, and 22.5 percent for Forbes. Dole, however, received the majority of
personal coverage—35 percent of all paragraphs that included descriptions
of her clothes and personality. Interestingly, the research found that Dole
was more often paraphrased than the other candidates, 55.5 percent of the
time compared to Bush’s 44 percent, McCain’s 37 percent, and Forbes’ 33
percent. The researcher believed that the discrepancy could be attributed
to the fact that the gender ratio of the reporters was 65-percent male to
23-percent female.1
The point of looking at this research is to show how in politics the
perspective of those reporting on the race and its participants has a direct
affect on how we the public view the candidates. We cannot dismiss the
gender stereotype that permeates our culture. If our attention is focused on
some candidate’s attire and personality more than it is on the issues, aren’t
we likely to believe that that candidate is not as serious on the issues? I am
not just pointing a finger at the media here. We are all suspects when it
comes to judging how a candidate will perform if we base our opinions on
traditional stereotypes. So what are we afraid of? What’s the worst that can
happen if women rule? Can you honestly say that the men are doing such
a bang-up job that we wouldn’t want to even consider a change? Why is
it that twelve (as of this writing) other countries around the world are led
by women? What do they know that we in America don’t know? Perhaps
politics in America is in need of greater compassion and empathy.
Marie Wilson, founder and president of The White House Project,
works daily to advance women’s leadership in all sectors, including the
goal of getting women elected up to the U.S. presidency. The nonprofit,
nonpartisan organization provides groundbreaking research on female can-
didates who have successfully run for office. She thinks that once there are a
number of women running for a particular political office, say three or four,
then the spotlight will shine on issues and not on gender. Imagine an equal
ratio of male-to-female candidates seeking a party’s presidential nomina-
tion. Imagine no longer hoping for just one woman to run—and then
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When Women Rule r 165

no longer basing women’s potential for success on just that one woman.
What will convince more women to run for political office? The positive
role modeling of more women. To that end, Wilson says, “We also have a
special focus on getting female leaders and experts on the Sunday morning
political shows. [Our] SheSource provides qualified women for the variety
of topics covered by these shows so that other women can see themselves
for future elected office.”
Barbara Lee, the Barbara Lee Family Foundation’s founder and princi-
pal, is leveraging the governorship in order to get more women onto the
national scene through research and active support. “History teaches us
that the pipeline to the presidency runs through the governor’s office. Four
of our last five presidents served as governors, and voters have shown again
and again that they see gubernatorial experience as good training for the
top job. Yet, in the entire history of our nation, only twenty-seven women
have served as governor,” she wrote in 2006.2 Lee says that it was in 1998
that she began asking how to get more women “above the fold on the front
page of the newspaper, and that’s usually the president or the governor of
your state.” That year, ten women ran for governor. The two incumbents
retained their seats but the other eight women lost. What she has seen since
is that states that do elect a woman governor are doing better at electing
women at every level. Also, several states, once a woman has been in its top
job, have gone on to elect more than one woman governor. Connecticut
(where Ella Grasso became the country’s first woman governor in her own
right in 1975), Washington, Kansas, and Texas have elected two women
as their governors. Arizona has had three women governors.
Jeanne Shaheen, who was elected governor of New Hampshire for three
terms until she ran for U.S. Senate in 2002, is now the director of the
Harvard Institute of Politics. In her classes she routinely asks students to
raise their hands if they want to pursue elective office. While most of the
men want powerful positions, very few women raise their hands. “There
is no doubt that women running for office face different challenges than
men,” Shaheen says. “We know that women candidates start by facing an
electorate where male voters prefer a male candidate to a female candidate,
while women voters are ambivalent about gender. Research also shows that
senior citizens, who are the most likely to vote, are the least likely to vote
for a woman.”
Shaheen is hopeful, however, that with 2007’s record number of women
governors, record number of women serving in Congress, a woman running
for president, and the U.S. House of Representatives being led by a woman
speaker for the first time, “the road may be getting a little bit easier.” She
believes the confidence to run for elective office for her female students
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166 r Her Turn

can come not only through the classroom but also through leadership in
extracurricular organizations at school and on sports teams.
U.S. House Chief Deputy Whip Diana DeGette, a representative from
Colorado, sees the same show of hands when she asks the same “running
for office” question while talking to high school groups. “I think part of it
is because politics has always been a really confrontational business,” she
says. “And then there are the scandals. I always have people say to me,
‘Oh, I would never do that. That seems so dirty,’ or, ‘I would never want
the public scrutiny.’ I always say, ‘I don’t know what you do in your private
life, but if you have a normal life, then that’s not a problem.’ I always try to
remind them about the great accomplishments you can make with public
policy if you’re in elected office.”
Making those accomplishments is exactly why DeGette transferred out
of a law practice in impact litigation and into politics. While also volun-
teering on campaigns, she says, “I realized at some point that I could either
do law cases and help one person at a time or I could run for office and help
people on a much larger scale by passing legislation.” In 1992, a twenty-
seven-year veteran state senator announced his retirement. DeGette won
the seat in a heavily targeted Statehouse race and then became a highly
visible leader passing significant legislation. In 1996, when Pat Schroeder,
the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado, announced that she
was retiring from the U.S. House of Representatives, DeGette was her
state’s assistant minority leader—additional visibility that helped her over-
come a difficult election and win a seat in Washington, where she is now
in her sixth term.
What DeGette sees as a key difficulty in getting more women to run
for top offices is the age at which they begin their political careers. As
noted earlier, when DeGette first ran for Congress, her daughters were
two and six. “When I got to Congress, I was one of only a handful of
female members who had young kids and, even to this day, ten years later,
we still only have a handful of young women with kids. We need to get a
bench at the highest levels of Congress and in governorships because we
need to have more than just one or two women at that level, and, in order
to do that, women have to start running for office when they are younger,”
DeGette says. “When I came to Congress in 1996, I was thirty-nine years
old. I was one of the two youngest women in my class. The youngest man
in my class was twelve years younger than I was. A lot of women wait
until they raise their families and then they start running for office, and
what that means is, by the time they get the seniority and the clout, they’re
already too old to run on a national ticket.”
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Wilson also knows that getting women involved also means starting
young, and so The White House Project works closely with the Girls’
Leadership Project,CosmoGIRL! and the Girl Scouts of the USA. The Project’s
“Pipeline to the Future: Young Women, Motivation and Success in Politi-
cal Leadership” survey was conducted by Lake Snell Perry & Associates in
April 2000 to gauge young women’s interest in running for political office.
The study showed that 43 percent of young women say yes to the idea of
running even though they admit to viewing politics as rich, old white guy
territory. The main turnoff for young women (75%) in getting into politics
was that they believed they couldn’t make a difference or accomplish their
goals. Their perception of local politics was much more positive than that
of national politics. Wanting to make an impact on their local community
was far more interesting and motivating than effecting change at a national
level.
All and all, the findings of the study showed that young women want
to help to make their communities a better place to live and will run for
office if they are shown that they can make a difference. So the message
to young women is to get involved in extracurricular activities leadership,
which can be practice for future leadership, and local politics, which can
be the stepping stone for a larger campaign. And then it’s important to
continue following through with the right supports. “It’s not just about
making the case for why a woman should get your vote,” Wilson says. “In
the United States, it’s also about raising money and knowing the right
people to build a campaign.”

Show Me the Money

Ah, one of the pieces to the “she isn’t electable” conundrum: money.
MONEY = INFLUENCE = POWER. The Allianz “Women, Money
and Power Study”3 presents a serious picture of where the wealth lies in
America. Women control 48 percent of estates over $5 million and, as
noted earlier, by the year 2010 will control 60 percent of the wealth in
the United States. So if women have the money, why don’t they have
the influence that will get them the power? Because they aren’t ready
to put that money toward women political candidates. Swanee Hunt,
Hunt Alternatives president, says, “Like it or not, money talks in political
campaigns, and it has become a barrier that has kept many women out of
politics. Historically, women have not had the kinds of professional and
social networks that men have, although that’s starting to change.”
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168 r Her Turn

In the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name

given to a group organized to elect government representatives. The Fed-
eral Election Campaign Act states that an organization becomes a PAC
by receiving contributions or making expenditures in excess of $1,000 for
the purpose of influencing a federal election. The Center for American
Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University reports thirty-six
PACs in 2005 that either gave principally to women candidates or boasted
a largely female donor base. You can compare that to more than four
thousand federally registered PACs with various other focuses and you can
easily do the math and comprehend that less than 1 percent of federally
registered PACs are vigilant about getting women elected. These donor
networks provide the power, money, and influence that are necessary to
get the job done.
EMILY’s List (Early Money Is Like Yeast) is the nation’s largest polit-
ical network. Its Web site declares that more than one hundred thousand
Americans from across the country are committed to their objective of
recruiting and funding viable women candidates. Before its founding in
1985, “no Democratic woman had been elected to the United States Senate
in her own right.” EMILY’s List was the nation’s largest PAC in the 2006
election cycle, raising more than $34 million, with an average contribution
of less than $100. Since its founding, EMILY’S List “has raised over $240
million to elect sixty-seven pro-choice Democrat women to the United
States House, thirteen to the United States Senate and eight governors.”
Other women PACs focus their attention on Republican women,
women in specific states, women minorities, and more. The message from
the success of these networks of female donors is that we have only begun
the work that must be done to get women elected to national office. As
long as money is the answer to getting elected, women of all ages, all
backgrounds, and all economic means must participate to ensure women
their place in the political structure.
Funding, DeGette concurs, is a tremendous problem for women run-
ning for office. “I see that even to this day, where, Number One, women
as donors tend to give a lot less money, so a wealthy woman, if I go to her
and say I need a campaign contribution, would give me $100 whereas a
wealthy man would give me $1,000. And then, particularly, the business
community has traditionally not been as supportive of female candidates
and that, I think, is just part of the gender issues in our society in gen-
eral. I remember when I first ran for Congress and I was first elected to
Congress, I had a very difficult time getting the business community to
even meet with me even though I had been appointed to the Energy &
Commerce Committee, which is one of the most important committees to
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When Women Rule r 169

business in the House. I think I’ve overcome that now, but it took me ten
years.”
Too often my experience, particularly with businesswomen, has been
that they believe that politics is a dirty business—just like DeGette’s hear-
ing that it’s “so dirty.” My answer to this is women have begun to change
what they didn’t like about the business world by taking the reins and
starting their own. It’s time we did the same with politics. The longer
women allow themselves to stand on the sidelines complaining about our
nation’s politics, the longer it will take to see change. Getting involved
means running yourself, backing a woman candidate, or writing a check.
Barbara Lee is one of the women who has put her money to work to
make sure more women nationally have the chance to run for public office.
Supporting women in politics is as much a part of her philanthropy as
is supporting the contemporary arts. “Women need to be thinking about
giving and actively devoting their time to politics the way they devote their
time to volunteerism and community service,” she says.
Too often women don’t see the connection between their lives and those
that serve them in public office. Perhaps—no, definitely—this will change
when women lead the way in public service in state and federal offices. As
Nancy Pelosi is quoted at the beginning of this chapter, “They are called
women’s issues because if women didn’t focus on them, they wouldn’t get
done.”

Too Silent a Majority

The organization, Women’s Voices. Women Vote (WVWV), conceived

of and founded by Page Gardner, who serves as president, provides the
research that assists women in reaching out to constituencies too often
forgotten. Its February 2006 study4 provides groundbreaking information
particularly regarding married and unmarried women and the dramatic
differences in their involvement in the nation’s political process. As with
everything else in life, knowledge is power, and the research of WVWV is
critical to determining how women can affect the outcome of elections in
the future.
For example, in the 2004 election, although there was a high turnout in
many segments of the population, the study found that five million regis-
tered unmarried women did not vote and another fifteen million unmarried
women were not even registered. The reason this information is important
is that together with unmarried men, who are also less politically active,
unmarried people will make up the majority of the heads of households by
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170 r Her Turn

the 2008 election. In 2004, 65 percent of eligible women voted compared

to 62 percent of men, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Just think what
power women will have if all women register! What does this have to do
with getting women elected? Everything! This brings us back to networks.
DeGette says, “Women need to start understanding the importance of
getting involved in campaigns, and that means taking out their checkbooks
and writing the checks but it also means volunteering and helping in other
ways. Women need to understand that politics is a necessary way to effect
social change and to pass laws that they care about for their families and
their communities.”
By joining the network, women not only get themselves connected but
they also serve as role models for the other women who aren’t involved or
even registered to vote, and in the process create the momentum necessary
for overcoming disinterest and distaste, thereby changing the perception
of politics from “dirty” to white-glove clean. The political structure in
America goes back to the days before women had the vote and, since then,
change has been slow. The current political structure has continued to
disenfranchise a majority of our people—whether on purpose or not is not
really important. Too many people feel they have no real choice by the
time the candidates are whittled down to the party favorites. The political
parties themselves are too often reactive rather than proactive and therefore
turn the voter off before she or he has an opportunity to get involved.
The nastiness of the campaigns and the media coverage is a clear reason
many have chosen not to seek elective office. Massachusetts’ only woman
governor, Jane Swift, can attest to how difficult it was to be in the media’s
glare. Elected lieutenant governor in 1998, Swift later became the first
and only U.S. governor, albeit acting governor, to give birth while in
office. Announcing in December 2000 that she was pregnant with twins,
Swift continued with her duties while the media attention swirled. With
the support of then-Governor Paul Cellucci, she did what any expectant
mother does—she did her job.
The twins were born by the time Swift was acting governor due to
Cellucci’s appointment to a U.S. ambassadorship. Even though she chaired
a meeting of the Massachusetts Governor’s Council by teleconference from
her hospital bed before even going home with the twins following their
birth, the media was relentless in its negative portrayal of a new mother at
the helm. Work/family balance became the front-page story regularly in
Massachusetts, and every working mother was put on trial. How interesting
it is that even women began to question Swift’s ability to do her job. Women
who work and know plenty of other women who do their jobs admirably
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When Women Rule r 171

with one, two, three, four, and more children allowed the media to question
working women in general.
So where was the media attention in June 1994, when John Engler,
running for governor of Michigan, announced that his wife was due to give
birth to triplets in December of that year? The suggestion that his focus
should be on his wife, and home, and family as they prepared for their family
to arrive was nonexistent—and dramatically different from the concern that
Jane Swift’s mind would be off the job before and after the birth of her
twins. Certainly we know that giving birth and preparing for birth are
two very different jobs. But “pregnant” is not “sick” and “giving birth”
does not mean “losing one’s ability to work.” We deserve the best leaders
possible, and leadership qualities cannot be stereotyped.
The qualities that women, and particularly mothers, can bring to the
job, and particularly politics, is the understanding that the legislation that
is enacted and our diplomacy with others must be in the best interest
for future generations. “According to psychologists Felicia Pratto and Jim
Sidanius, women are more supportive than men when it comes to people-
oriented policies such as government-sponsored healthcare, guaranteed
jobs for all, and greater aid to poor children.”5 We cannot live in a vacuum
nor can we lead only for the moment.

Breaking the Mold: The Candidate of the Twenty-First Century

First, more women need to come to grips with wanting and being comfort-
able with power. “One of the big issues is that men jump into a job thinking
they can do the job whether or not they have the experience,” Barbara Lee
says. “Very often, women censor themselves and think that they don’t have
enough experience when they actually do. One thing we need is to have
women promote other women, so when women see a woman who has
the drive to make a difference and is ready to commit to public service,
women actually need to ask her to run. It’s surprising how few women get
asked to run compared to men.”
Women can get their feet wet by starting from the beginning in politics.
Too few women seek local office such as selectman and mayor. The public
needs to know their leaders well in order to support them in the long-
term. Every state in the union has chapters of organizations like National
Women’s Political Caucus, National Organization for Women (NOW),
League of Women Voters, EMILY’s List, WISH List, and more. These
multicultural, intergenerational, and multi-issue grassroots organizations
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172 r Her Turn

were created to increase women’s participation in the political process.

Chapters of the National Women’s Political Caucus work locally to recruit,
train, and support pro-choice women in every level of government in
the respective state. So if you are someone who has been thinking about
political office and, while reading these pages, you’re finally fired up to take
a step—here are some places where you can find support.
Jeanne Shaheen got her start in politics by volunteering on several
Democratic campaigns before running for the New Hampshire state sen-
ate in 1990. Politics is open to all walks of life and provides an accessible
proving ground within its structure. As such, Barbara Lee believes a very
successful businesswoman could run for state treasurer or secretary of state
as a way to develop her base of support. Martha Coakley, in preparation
for running for district attorney one day, ran for state representative first.
Although she lost that race, she says, “I don’t regret it for one minute.
I learned a lot about politics and how to shake hands and walk into a
room of people I didn’t know.”6 Coakley, by the way, was elected a district
attorney after that trial run and, during her eight-year tenure, established
high regard among voters for her tough but fair, thoughtful, and inclusive
approach during some of the state’s most publicized and troubling cases.
The visibility and her skill at handling difficult situations gave voters the
confidence to elect her Massachusetts’ first woman attorney general in
November 2006.
And then, when women are comfortable with seeking power, they have
to figure out how to project themselves in a way that is true to their values
while still resonating with the voters. “People still perceive women as having
one set of qualities and men as having others,” Lee says. Women are rele-
gated to the nurturing side of government like education and healthcare—
and they do care about these things. Men are seen as the ones who can
deal with the hard topics: economics and security. Case in point: Sha-
heen attributes her 2002 loss and the losses of other women candidates
in the Senate and House of Representative races to the prominence of
national security, homeland security, and foreign policy post-9/11. “The
voters’ perception that women are not as tough as men is the most difficult
stereotype for women candidates to overcome,” Shaheen says. She recom-
mends that women play their strengths and emphasize what they do better
than men: build consensus in solving problems and be task oriented in a
collaborative and democratic way. “In today’s often partisan and polarized
environment,” she says, “being able to build bridges and reach consensus
in solving problems is a critically important skill to have.”
Lee believes key qualities for women candidates are dignity, toughness,
and authority. Toughness and authority go hand in hand, and dignity is
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When Women Rule r 173

what she calls “grace and grit.” The balancing act for women is to overlay
a traditional feminine style with being competent, strong, and decisive.
The male versus female approach to power was a subject broached during
Diane Sawyer’s interview of the “Sweet Sixteen” women senators during a
January 2007 series on ABC’s Good Morning America.7 “I want to point out
this is a tough, tough group of women,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, a
Democrat from Missouri. “Don’t [cross] these women if you want to mess
with America, if you want to do something that harms our country. I think
that, at the same time, we talk about how we are good at finding common
ground and we care very much about collegiality.”

The Women Who Have Been There

The Sweet Sixteen are exactly what we are in dire need of—more women
who can instill the confidence and drive in other women to run for political
office, who can do the same for the next group of women until women’s
numbers exponentially increase at all levels of elected government. Nancy
Pelosi, the first woman to lead a major party in the U.S. Congress, couldn’t
be any more front and center as a role model. Coming from a family of
public servants—her father was the mayor of Baltimore for twelve years
after representing the city in Congress for five terms and her brother
also served as Baltimore’s mayor—she has represented California’s Eighth
District in the House of Representatives since 1987.
Capturing as much attention as Pelosi is now back in 1981 was Sandra
Day O’Connor, a former Arizona State Republican legislator who was
appointed by then-President Ronald Reagan as the first woman to sit on
the U.S. Supreme Court. During her twenty-four years in the country’s
highest court, she approached cases as narrowly as possible in order to avoid
the generalizations that could provide fodder for future cases. Retiring from
the Supreme Court in 2006, she continues her involvement in the highest
level of government as a member of the Iraq Study Group of the United
States Institute of Peace.
Here are other, recent women to emulate. Janet Reno served as the
first U.S. Attorney General in 1993. Madeleine K. Albright was the
first woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State when she was appointed
by then-President Bill Clinton. She was the highest-ranking woman in
the U.S. government, but since she was not born in the United States,
she was not eligible to serve as president. Geraldine Ferraro was the
vice president on Walter Mondale’s 1984 presidential run. Gender was
the talk then, just like gender is the talk now. Elizabeth Dole ran for her
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174 r Her Turn

party’s presidential candidate in 2000 to the earlier mentioned sorry press

coverage.
Just as important are diverse role models, as America is a melting pot
of cultures and does best when young people can see themselves reflected
in their leaders. Shirley Chisholm, a New York Democrat, was the first
black woman to serve in Congress and she remained in the House of
Representatives from 1968 to 1982. In 1972, Chisholm also ran for pres-
ident, again the first black woman to do so. She died in 2005, leaving a
legacy of working to improve opportunities in the inner city and to increase
spending on education, healthcare, and other social services. Carol Mosley
Braun, an Illinois Democrat, was the first African-American elected to the
U.S. Senate and, a senator and an ambassador, she also ran for president
in 2004. Condoleezza Rice became the first woman to hold the office of
National Security Advisor when she was appointed by President George
W. Bush. Elaine Chao became the first Asian-American woman to serve
in a presidential cabinet when she was appointed Secretary of Labor.
In a speech given at Brown University on April 8, 2006, Senator Hillary
Clinton spoke about leadership, and specifically women’s leadership, in
America and around the world. She said, “It means standing for what you
believe and inspiring others to do the same. Even when people do not
agree with you, it is important to decide what you think is right, and you
decide how you will pursue the particular perspective that you agree with.
Now I know that leadership sometimes carries a cost. It requires standing
up for your views even when they are not popular. . . . I think that as we
talk about leadership, particularly at the beginning of this century in our
country, there are many challenges that are not easily addressed. There are
no easy answers when we think about our position in the world, when we
think about some of the problems we have here at home.”
Clinton is one more woman who understands that when it comes to
leadership, both genders must be prepared and willing for the commitment,
and that it will take all of us working together to keep America strong.
Speaking to male and female students in this speech, she is quick to
point out the importance of standing strong by one’s convictions and the
importance of one’s passion.
She continues, “But I’m very proud of the fact that women are assuming
positions of responsibility increasingly here at home and around the world.
We are a steady and growing presence. I’m very proud of the fact that
women are now earning more than half of the bachelor’s degrees awarded
in our country, that women own nearly half of all privately held businesses,
that in every sphere of life here in America, women are stepping up and
being willing to take responsibility for their decisions and their views. And,
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When Women Rule r 175

I deeply respect the fact that not only in our country, but more importantly
around the world, women are exercising leadership at great personal cost.
Women are breaking new ground in their efforts to not only articulate but
obtain the rights of humanity and citizenship.”
Clinton understands better than most women the importance of the
delicate balance necessary when women assert themselves and their ideas.
For women, confidence is too often seen as arrogance, and assertiveness is
too easily viewed as aggression. But she realizes the significance of having
women’s voices as part of the important conversation that will take place
in our country going forward.
So, women have the money, the numbers, their own political structure,
and the role models. When are we going to have a woman in the White
House? Hunt muses, “Particularly in these times of war and uncertainty,
America needs women in leadership positions. In a country as diverse as
the United States, a leader’s ability to unite is critical. A woman leader
will move beyond religious, cultural, racial, and regional differences to find
common ground. I feel sure our country is ready for a woman now.”
Other countries have successfully elected women to their highest offices:
Michelle Bachelet, president, Chile, since March 2006; Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf, president, Liberia, since January 2006; Angela Merkel, chancellor,
Germany, since November 2005; Maira Das Neves, prime minister, Sao
Tome and Principe, since June 2002; Luisa Dias Diogo, prime minis-
ter, Mozambique, since 2004; Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, president, The
Philippines since 2001; Tarja Halonen, president, Finland since 2000; He-
len Clark, prime minister, New Zealand since 1999; Vaira Vike-Freiberga,
president, the Republic of Latvia, since 1999; Mary McAleese, president,
Ireland since 1997 (the country’s second female president); Chandrika Ku-
maratunga, president, Sri Lanka, since 1994; and Portia Simpson Miller,
prime minster, Jamaica since 2006.8
All of these women and thirty-six more are members of The Council
of Women World Leaders, an organization of current and former women
presidents and prime ministers. Launched in 1998, the council’s mission is
“to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action
on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.”
Five ministerial networks have been organized: Environment; Finance,
Economics, and Development; Women’s Affairs; Health; and Culture.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright serves as chair of
the Women’s Ministerial Initiative.
When we speak of women’s networking organizations, it doesn’t get
any more powerful than this group. If you want a visible example of what
women can and will do when they rule the world, you’ll want to follow the
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176 r Her Turn

Figure 11.1
Percentage of Women in Parliament by Country.

Norway

Germany

Switzerland

U.S
Women
France Men

U.K .

Japan

0% 50% 100%

Norway 37.9 percent, Germany 25.3 percent, Switzerland 24.5 percent, United States
14.6 percent, France 14.5 percent, United Kingdom 13.6 percent, and Japan 11.5 percent.
Source: From “The 40-Percent Rule,” Ms. Magazine (Summer 2006). Used with the per-
mission of Ms. Magazine, © 2006.

council and their collective voice on world issues. Their successes individ-
ually, nonetheless, remain under scrutiny from our country’s perspective as
to whether women can truly lead a nation. Irene Natividad, president of
the Global Summit of Women, in a Pink Magazine article says, “If these
women fail, there will be a subliminal perception that women can’t cut it,
even though their male predecessors couldn’t do it either. When it comes
to women in politics, the U.S. is not progressive. In the Interparliamen-
tary Union’s ranking of countries by the percentage of women in electoral
bodies, we’re in the middle of the list.”9 (See Figure 11.1.)
It’s up to women to unite to make women’s political leadership in this
country happen. Women must understand what their power is, how to
work together to use it, and why it’s time to stop whining and take control.
Yes, I said it, “whining.” First, women must do more to support women
candidates with their money. We are fortunate that raising money has
not been a problem for Hillary Clinton as she is well entrenched in the
political structure that could well make her our first woman president.
Second, women must stop holding other women to a higher standard than
the men running against them. We are all guilty of this, and you know it.
Too often I hear women complain about the woman running for office as
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When Women Rule r 177

someone who is not likeable. We rarely hear the same thing about men.
Men know that business and politics are not about “like” but about “getting
the job done.”
Marcia Angell, in a 2007 Boston Globe editorial,10 pondered how “in
polite company, people often insist with a virtuous air that the right thing
to do is to vote for the best candidate without regard to gender. But
that this is a limited view of what’s at stake.” We have had forty-three
presidents—all have been men. The rest of the world has moved forward
with women at the helm, why not the United States? Angell writes, “Here
comes Clinton—well qualified, talented, and smart. Why the unease about
her? To hear people talk it has nothing to do about gender. What we hear
is she is polarizing, opportunistic, too tough (or not tough enough), and
finally, that most self-fulfilling of all prophecies, not electable.” There it is.
She said it. She is not electable. Why? Angell goes on, “All of the parsing of
Clinton’s personality and policies ignores the elephant in the living room:
She is a woman, and the first woman with a serious shot at the presidency.”
Again I ask you, what are we so afraid of?
Having a beer or a glass of wine with a candidate is not nearly as
important as making sure that that person represents, and follows through
on, your issues. It is a fact that when women are elected, they bring a
different perspective and emphasis to the issues that are important to all
Americans. For example, in 1999, all U.S. legislators (male and female)
agreed that education was the priority issue, yet men named taxes as the
second priority whereas women named healthcare. When asked about
their priorities in foreign policy in 2000, women legislators were more
likely than men to include social concerns such as health, education, fair
labor practices, and birth control.11
Once again, diverse voices at the table representing a broad spectrum of
grassroots interests and concerns are needed to maintain America as the
global leader. Throughout the world, women’s labor is a key ingredient
to the global economy. Women’s continued focus on human rights is
critical to international alliances in the twenty-first century. If women are
to reach a political majority, we must work together and understand that,
as former CNN reporter Gail Evans says, “Women will have a female
president when they want one.” Why? Because, according to the Center
for American Women and Politics, and as noted earlier, more women vote
than men.
I believe that 2008 will be the real year for women, not only because
I believe we have the best chance to have a woman president but also
because women will work together to make it happen. A 2006 CBS News
poll12 showed that 92 percent of American adults would vote for a qualified
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woman from their political party for president, while a February 2007 USA
Today/Gallup poll13 found 88 percent would vote for a “generally well-
qualified” woman for president. The results show a continuing increase of
support for a woman president from similar polls: 52 percent (1955), to 73
percent (1975), to 82 percent (1987), to the current 90-percent range.14
So-called women’s issues will be on the forefront of the debate, including
healthcare, education, and security and safety at home and aboard, whether
a woman runs for president or not. Descriptive words such as “compas-
sionate,” “empathetic,” and “nurturing” will be words that candidates won’t
want to shy away from. For the first time, women will be proud to be seen
as feminine. They will follow the lead of women like the German Chancel-
lor Angela Merkel who, although she did not deliberately call attention to
herself as a woman, ran in sharp contrast to her “macho, cigar-chomping
predecessor, Gerhard Schroder.”15 Or perhaps, more specifically, women
will run on a platform similar to Segolene Royal, France’s Socialist party’s
2007 candidate for president. She brought attention to her femininity by
introducing herself to audiences as the mother of a family of four and
announcing that “I want to do for the children of this country what I was
able to do for my own children.” In her book, The Truth of a Woman, Royal
argued that a world run by women would be “a less violent place.”16 Or
our first woman president could follow the example of Chile’s first woman
president, Michelle Bachelet, and appoint for gender balance. Bachelet
appointed ten women and ten men to her Cabinet and required gender
parity in all government appointments.
America is more than ready for a woman. And, I continue to ask you,
if not now, when? What will it take to make every woman and man
understand that the issues confronting America’s future can be artfully
addressed by a woman? Women’s issues are America’s issues: healthcare,
education, the environment, and global diplomacy. The question is: What
will you do to help?

Just Imagine

More women are in political office, locally and nationally. A woman be-
comes president. Our daughters, granddaughters, sisters, aunts, and friends
finally believe that anything is possible for a woman in America. America’s
image around the world changes in an instant.
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CHAPTER 12

What’s in It for Men

and Women?

“Women are not going to be equal outside the home until men are equal in
it.”
—Gloria Steinem

The women’s movement has benefited men as well as women since its
inception. Each time a door has been opened for women, the men in their
lives have joined in their greater satisfaction as complete human beings.
More education for women has meant better partners, colleagues, and
associates for men. Better working conditions, more attention to equal-
ity, and greater focus on outside activities create a more balanced work
environment for men and women.

Pride

Men have missed out on the joys of parenting, community involvement,

volunteer work, and downtime long enough. It’s time for a change in our
attitudes toward the sexes. We must each define who we are and who we
want to be without allowing the media, our employers, our parents, or the
world to do it for us. Society works best when individuals are given their
God-given right to the pursuit of happiness and to be all that they can be.
With women ready to assume true partnership at work and at home,
quality of life becomes an issue that applies equally to men and women.
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By sharing leadership, both benefit. The dream of a better life for our
children is as important to men as it is to women. Men have daughters,
granddaughters, nieces, aunts, wives, mothers, and female associates, and
they wish for every advantage for those they care about. A CBS News
poll1 found that the majority (65%) of women today consider themselves
feminists and, perhaps more startling, 58 percent of men are comfortable
with the title. These men and women responded affirmatively upon hearing
this description of a feminist: “Someone who believes in the social, political,
and economic equality of the sexes.” From my experience, this is not at all
surprising. We have reached a time in our history when men and women
want what’s best for each other. We do not want gender to stand in the
way of what we desire as human beings.
My experience has shown me time and time again that men who have
daughters really care about the future of women. When I launched Women’s
Business in 1998, one of our first advertisers was a father whose daughter
had just opened her own law practice. He bought her a year’s worth of
advertising. He cared about her success and wanted her to be visible in her
industry and among her potential clientele. To this day, ten years later, she
is still a regular advertiser. I can’t count the number of subscriptions men
have bought for their wives and daughters, or how often a husband has
nominated his wife for an honor that the newspaper awards. These are true
examples of the importance of women’s success to the men in their lives. In
other instances, I am often asked by fathers to consult with their daughters
on getting a new business off the ground or to help their daughters get
networked into the community. These men get it. They know that it isn’t
easy to be successful and that being a woman is one more obstacle to face.
They care enough to reach out and ask for help for their daughters, wives,
sisters, and female friends. They understand that there are different tracks
to success and that the traditional career path is not yet available to most
women. So they look for the alternative. They look to those women who
have access to the networks they want for the women in their lives to
belong to.
On her first interview with Diane Sawyer after becoming the first woman
speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi shared the outpouring of support she
had received from men with daughters. They understood that this moment
in history meant that their daughters could believe in their dreams and
ambitions and relate. It is difficult for men to understand this as they have
always had role models. When I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, father-
and-son businesses were everywhere. It was assumed that, if a man had a
business of his own and a son, the son had a career path to follow. You rarely
heard a story of a dad bringing his daughter into the business. Although,
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What’s in It for Men and Women? r 181

Christie Hefner, daughter of Hugh Hefner, has not only been successful
at Playboy Enterprises but she was also selected by Forbes Magazine as
one of the “100 Most Powerful Women in the World.” Of course, there
are many other famous and not-so-famous women who have taken over
from a father or a husband in the past, often after a death, and today more
likely due to careful planning, and they have been successful at taking the
company to the next level. But the majority of family business stories is
still one of men bringing their sons into the business and then turning it
over to them. They become the role models for others to follow.
With women owning nearly half of all businesses, however, the scenario
is about to have a dramatic change. A 2006 Center for Business Women’s
Research study 2 found that while 91.4 percent of women and men busi-
ness owners planned to pass their businesses on to their children, women
thought of their daughters in their succession plans nearly twice as often as
men (37% vs. 19.2%). Men overwhelmingly considered their sons (75.6%),
and women thought of their sons slightly more often than their daughters
(46.6% of women). Interestingly enough, in companies with revenues of
$4 million or more, women are as likely as men to pass the business to a
daughter (23.9% overall). (See Figure 12.1.)
The complexity of the mother-and-daughter relationship can be an ob-
stacle but with the current trend of successful women-owned businesses
growing, these are obstacles that will be met and conquered. I’ve personally
worked with mother-and-daughter companies to help them talk through
the issues that are not typical of other employer/employee firms. My ex-
perience revealed the biggest challenge was the “letting go” by the mother.
Having worked with other companies with sons and fathers and sons and
mothers, this struggle is fairly typical of family-run businesses. Mothers
and daughters just tend to have a bit more of an emotional bond that is
inclined to get in the way of advancing the agenda. An outside mediator is
beneficial for every family-run business. As more and more daughters take
the helm at firms, whether from their mothers or their fathers, they will
be able to learn from each other the tricks to making it work. The key to
achieving a successful transition is about giving children the opportunity
at an early age to get a feel for what the work is about.
I remember being involved in the first Take Your Daughter to Work
Day in 1993. Not having a daughter, I contacted the Girl Scouts and
suggested that we collaborate on a special program in connecting women
without daughters to daughters of women who didn’t work. In 1993, fifty
Girl Scouts came to a meeting of the South Shore Women’s Business
Network and met with their role models for the day—women who had
businesses but no daughters. We listened to a presentation on business
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182 r Her Turn

Figure 12.1
Family Members Chosen to Inherit the Business: Percentage Planning to Pass
the Business on to a Family Member.

Son

Daughter
WBO
MBO

Other

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

WBO = Women Business Owners; MBO = Men Business Owners.

Source: From “Exit Strategies of Women and Men Business Owners,” Center for Women’s
Business Research (2006), (used with permission).

and then each girl went to work with a member of the group. It was a
fabulous opportunity to expose girls to what business is all about and their
potential place in it. The Take Your Daughter to Work concept quickly
evolved into taking your daughter or son to work so as to be politically
correct and inclusive. The opportunity for young children to understand
the nature of work is as important today as it was in 1993, or in the 1950s
when my dad took me to work with him without the urging of a dedicated
day. I learned at an early age what a real estate developer did and what
fun it was to watch my dad wheeling and dealing. He inspired me then to
think big and always look at the big picture. And, he taught me to believe
in myself. That confidence has brought me through every difficulty, every
time.
The Simmons School of Management and Committee of 200 study
referenced in Chapter 5 proved that the more exposure teens have to
business, the more interested they become in pursuing it as a career. The
entrepreneurs I have known in my life, both male and female, have often
been people who had at least one entrepreneurial parent. Again, role models
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What’s in It for Men and Women? r 183

are critical to how we choose to map out our lives. Surgeon Barbara Rockett,
introduced in Chapter 8, and her surgeon husband’s five children are an
example: Two are doctors (one of whom is married to a doctor), one
is considering premed, and one uses his MBA in working with medical
groups of doctors; only one is out of the medical field altogether.
I am often asked why it is that women are not forthright at asking
for help. Whatever profession they choose, they tend to hold back and
think they have to do it all on their own. Men instinctively ask for help
and delegate responsibilities from the start. The debate on whether this
difference is the result of men having played more team sports than women
should be coming full circle since girls have played more team sports since
the passage of Title IX in June 1972. It reads, “No person in the United
States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied
the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education
program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Girls today have
the advantage of learning early on about teamwork. The dramatic success
of women on college campuses today may partially be a result of their
greater involvement in teams early in life. We are what we learn and what
we are inspired by. The important point is that both men and women
have daughters and want to believe that they will have equal opportunity
to pursue their dreams. Our pride in our children is what keeps us working
for a better tomorrow.

Women as Boss

The next generation is already different in many ways from this gen-
eration. They are women and men for whom “change is constant, com-
munication is instant. They are more comfortable with globalization and
working in different ways, anywhere and anytime,” says Catalyst’s presi-
dent, Ilene Lang. The question is: What advice can we give them? Lang
relates a story about giving her son some career advice upon his college
graduation and realizing something for herself. Remembering the 1967
movie, The Graduate, and the significance of the one-word answer to
Dustin Hoffman’s what-to-go-into dilemma—“plastics”—Lang wanted a
similarly catchy answer for her son. This is what she told him, and what
she discovered for herself as well: “When I was in business school, people
said ‘computers,’ and they said computers because that was an industry
that was desperate for talent in the 1960s and 1970s and they would hire
women—and that was really important. But, I don’t have a pithy little
one-word answer for you. I will tell you to go find a company with a great
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reputation, where there is integrity in the leadership, where they will train
you and invest in your future.”
And here is Lang’s epiphany: “Lo and behold, my son chose a company
with a woman CEO. When I thought about that, I figured out the one
word: The one word is ‘women.’ If you want to find companies that are
going to be around forty years from now, the word of advice to the future is
‘women’—that’s where the competitive advantage comes from, not because
women are better, but because companies that develop and advance women
are working toward sustainability, because they can include differences, and
they can see a world in the future that is different from the past and seek
meritocracy comparable with representation, and that’s the true measure
of a company that is reinventing itself.”
Yes, there are advantages for both men and women as they have the
opportunity to work for and report to women. It breaks the stereotyping
of bosses of the past and provides a new meaning to who sits in the corner
office. It can’t be said often enough that these gender role reversals, as they
may be seen by this generation, will prepare the next generation for gender
parity in all situations—paving the way for what needs to be a respect for
men in the home. Mr. Mom, Madame President, Ms., Mrs., and Mr.
should all be titles of respect. Let’s reach beyond the glass ceiling at the
office and the linoleum floor at home by envisioning men and women in
both places. For the first time in our history we may have the occasion
to watch a new role model evolve—that of First Gentlemen. Every first
has the opportunity of designing the role for others to follow. I look
forward to watching the next generation of men respond to this important
role traditionally held by a woman, and making history around the world
utilizing the power that this new positioning represents. An ambassador
to other countries, the First Gentlemen will speak volumes about equality
of the sexes in America.

Family Time

As I speak on college campuses, I find that most young women do not see
the challenges that face them as career women. They see themselves able to
compete directly with men as they are confident about their education and
abilities. They are unfamiliar with the struggles of their sisters from past
generations and believe that their performance will speak for itself and get
them to where they want to go. They have heard of glass ceilings and old
boys’ networks but they see only opportunity ahead. Today’s young women
also know that they have options—the ability to choose what profession
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What’s in It for Men and Women? r 185

to pursue and how high to reach. They feel equally prepared as their male
counterparts for the future.
Several years ago I spoke to a group of Boston College undergraduates.
They were the elite at the school and had to be selected to be a mem-
ber of this particular group that invited in business leaders to talk about
different areas of business and the opportunities that awaited them upon
graduation. As I often do when I speak to students, I told the story of why
I started Women’s Business and how important visibility is for both men
and women. As usual, during the question-and-answer period, I was asked
many questions about starting a business, getting funding, knowing my
market, and balancing it all with a husband and child.
What was most interesting about the session was that the questions
about balance came from the young men in the room and not the young
women. These young men wanted to know how they could have a business
and a family all at the same time. It was clear that their concerns were
based on the fact that family meant that someone had to work all hours
and someone had to stay home with children. From their experience, the
young women in their lives had every intention of having a career. How
interesting it is to see life from a different perspective. These young men
wanted to know if I believed that they could take paternity leave without it
affecting their long-term careers and salaries. Many wanted to know what
I thought about stay-at-home dads.
Clearly, the questions on today’s students’ minds are quite different
than when I was in school in the late 1960s. Having a long-range plan
of when to get your education, get married, start a family, buy a house,
start a business, plan for your children’s education, and save for retirement
is something both young men and women are thinking about. There is
no playbook on just how to do it right, however. When I am asked these
questions by young women, and it happens every time I visit a college
campus, I generally give my flip answer: “Don’t get married if you don’t
have a boyfriend. Don’t have a baby if you aren’t pregnant. And if you
want to start a business, you better get a day job because that’s what will
pay the bills.” This usually snaps them back to realizing that all of this
planning just isn’t going to work. Life happens and we must do our best
to be prepared to make the most of it.
My point is that, for male or female, the rules have changed and each
must go after life with all the vitality he or she can muster. It is interesting
to note that right now on college campuses across the country, women are
excelling more than ever. From valedictorian to leaders in campus groups,
women have found their calling. As their numbers on college campuses
have increased, women’s power has increased, once again proving there
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186 r Her Turn

is power in numbers. There is currently an outcry to get males back on

track with their education and their outlook for the future. If only this
trend taking place on the college campus will catapult itself into the world
of work and politics that we have been discussing, then we will see true
gender parity with this generation.
I adore watching young fathers with their children and know that today’s
children will have a better opportunity to see themselves for the future when
no boundaries have been placed on what they can or cannot be. And yes,
I know as well as you that not all families are made up of a man and a
woman. How wonderful it is for a gay couple to have the opportunity
to choose between who will have the joy of staying home, or the shared
responsibility of juggling child care as they both head out to work.
It is clear that nothing in our society is as simple as it was decades ago,
but this is not a reason not to see the bright light ahead. By standing up for
equality of the sexes in everything we do, we have the opportunity to do
what is best for our children while doing the best for ourselves, whether that
means one parent stays home or parents rely on workplaces and government
to participate in providing healthy, child-safe environments. Studies show
that women-owned firms are more accommodating to parents when it
comes to child care or elder care. Women understand better than anybody
the demands that are placed on women for the care of loved ones.
With more women running companies, more women in the board-
room providing guidance for human resource departments, more women
in politics to focus on social concerns here and abroad, more women lead-
ing hospitals or sharing responsibilities in medical groups, more women
standing at the front of the college classroom, and more women allocating a
nonprofit’s funding equally to women-and-girls’ to that of men-and-boys’
issues, America can strengthen its image in the world and reclaim its lead-
ership status. Men win when their choices are respected and they become
positive role models as father, caretaker, homemaker, and cheerleader for
their children and others. There are many things we can “do over” in our
lives, but reliving our children’s childhood is not one of them.

Family Leave/Parental Leave

The question is: why? Why, in the richest country in the world, has
so little attention been given to what is best for families? Why, when it
is clear that the family structure is in trouble, does the United States and
the companies and the organizations in it increase working hours rather
than look for greater productivity and effectiveness as other countries have
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What’s in It for Men and Women? r 187

done? So much rhetoric is espoused by politicians about the importance

of family values, yet little if anything is done to protect employees from
being exploited during the most critical moments in their family’s lives. As
was mentioned earlier, the United States is embarrassingly far behind other
countries around the world, and women and men have been penalized long
enough for our leaders not making family life the first priority. In countries
such as China and Russia, state-run nurseries have been established, and
women have paid maternity leave and a guaranteed job when they return.
In Sweden, men and women have a parental leave law in which men
are encouraged to participate in order to become more involved in the
family—and they are—70 percent of men take advantage of Sweden’s
parental leave.
Closer to the United States, the Canadian Labor Code entitles female
employees a standard seventeen weeks of mostly paid, job-protected ma-
ternity leave. The law also grants both male and female employees up to
thirty-seven weeks of job-protected parental leave, so there is additional
leave, though unpaid, for women, and generous time for men with some
pay. Maternity and parental leaves are compensated by unemployment
insurance, which consists of fifteen weeks of benefits at 60 percent of
the employee’s regular wage. All leave benefits are taxable income. This
is the federal standard regarding maternity and parental leave laws, but
each province can vary. There are conditions of employment, such as six
consecutive months of continuous employment with the same employer,
before a female can receive the seventeen weeks of absence. The law also
demands that when the employee returns to work, he or she is reinstated
back to his or her former position with the same wages and benefits. If
the position is no longer available, a comparable position must be offered.
“Parental leave may be taken any time during the fifty-two-week period
starting the day the child is born or, if adopted, the day the child comes
into the employee’s care,” according to the Canadian Labor Code. These
are just more examples of countries that put families first.
Limited women’s involvement in the decision making at the legislative
level has kept America back in this policymaking arena. Recommendations
for paid leave were part of both the 1963 President’s Commission on
the Status of Women report and the 1967 NOW Bill of Rights. As
more women reach the highest levels of government, more attention will
be placed on what’s best for families—men, women, and children. It’s time
to focus our national attention on what is best for families in America.
Clearly, the present course we are on is not working. Work/family balance
is a win for men and women. That’s why the time for a woman to lead is
now.
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Equal Pay

The United States continues to have the strongest protections in terms

of guarantees for equality. But legislation against discrimination, as we
know, does not mean discrimination doesn’t exist. The Equal Pay Act of
1963 was passed when women were making an average fifty-nine cents
for every dollar a man was earning. Today, that number averages in at
seventy-seven cents for every dollar a man makes. Equality is too often in
the eye of the beholder, and we now know that this pay gap begins within
the first year after graduation from college.3
Regardless of hours worked, occupation, parenthood, and other factors
typically affecting pay, 25 percent of this early gap was unexplained—and
determined likely to be “due to sex discrimination.” As we have discussed,
the wage gap affects men as well as women. Jobs should not be gender
specific, and compensation should relate to the talents and skills needed,
not the sex of the participant. Period. The newest census figures show
that women earn less than men in every state. The narrowest gap was in
Washington, DC, where women earn ninety-one cents for every dollar
that a man earns. Women in the finance and insurance industries earn just
fifty-five cents for each dollar a man earns. The hope is that as these two
industries focus their attention on the women consumer, women in these
professions will become more valuable.
The legal profession as well is riddled with inequities. Within all areas
of the legal profession, men’s median income is $102,272, with women
earning slightly less than half that.4 This disparity puts the legal profession
at the head of the class for wage gaps. In a country where every available
worker is needed—and more so when the Baby Boomers retire—a wage
gap is not just illegal, it is counterproductive. Women supporting families
and women without families deserve equitable pay for equitable work. We
know well that women generally outlive men and that, although they hold
the majority of wealth in the country, they also are the majority of the
poor. As our government struggles with how to fund the future of social
security and Medicare, the first order of business must be to guarantee an
end to the wage gap.

Give Peace a Chance

What do I see with more women at the helm in political positions?

Legislation that benefits families, including the enactment of universal
healthcare and education rather than incarceration becoming the norm,
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along with a more humanitarian approach to our country’s social problems

to transform our inner cities. Globally, women’s power would be seen as
strength, not because of harsh words or harsh sanctions, but because of a
strong middle class and a commitment to peace. The greatest difference
between men and women may just be the most important reason why
we need more women in government: the ability and desire to build re-
lationships rather than control those around us—diplomacy over tyranny.
Anyone who has ever worked for a woman knows well her style is about
bringing about consensus and working toward a common goal.
Women nonetheless are very capable of aggression and will fight might-
ily for what they believe in and when they feel they or those around them
have been wronged. But they also understand the importance of peace. Men
and women benefit when peace is the major objective. Former ambassador
Swanee Hunt says, “Women are adept at bridging ethnic, religious, polit-
ical, and cultural divides. Through my work as chair of The Initiative for
Inclusive Security, I’ve interviewed women around the world. Particularly
in conflict regions, women have proven adept at cutting across international
borders and internal divides. Ironically, women’s status as second-class cit-
izens has been a source of empowerment, since it has forced women to find
innovative ways to address problems.”
America’s current relationship with many world leaders is tenuous at
best. Our longtime standing as the strongest nation on earth and a land
of the free where anyone can realize a dream is loosing ground. Hunt
says, “Global anti-Americanism is on the rise. America and its leaders
need to understand why the world loves and hates us. Bringing more
women into decision making could fundamentally change the way America
does business. Rather than dealing with North Korea or Iran by severing
diplomatic relations, I expect a woman would engage all players at the
negotiating table. She can empathize with the experience of being ignored,
and thus she’ll reach out to others.” I respond with: The alternative—the
severing of diplomatic relations—is unacceptable and foolhardy.
When women lead in America, the world will take notice and be pre-
pared to work with us on issues common to us all. We Americans have
been role models for the world. It’s time we make ourselves better role
models. We live and work in a global economy and therefore, as our planet
becomes smaller, every woman and man must consider what is best for all
nations and people on the earth. Our humanitarianism and actions toward
peace are at a critical juncture in history. We must have inclusive leadership
and social responsibility as our mission at home and abroad.
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CHAPTER 13

Getting a Place at the Table

“One can never consent to creep, when one feels an impulse to soar.”
—Helen Keller

Ten Recommendations

It’s time for women and men to take action. But how? What can we do to
change the power structure that exists today? I have ten recommendations.
First, every woman must become less judgmental about the other women in her
life. We have more in common with each other than with the other gender,
and it is our responsibility to educate ourselves to this fact. Every woman
knows what I mean when I say this. Every time we criticize another woman
for any reason, we lose. We particularly lose if we share our criticism with
someone else. Women—be honest. You know that this is true. When
you find fault with other women, you present the case that women are
faulty—and that includes you. Too often, women criticize other women in
the workplace and men view this as the greatest form of disloyalty—a stab
in the back. Men know and understand the importance of backing each
other up in the workplace in the spirit of being supportive. Women have
yet to learn this.
A 2006 Psychology Today article makes the case that a woman’s worst
workplace enemy is another woman. The perception that this is true is just
as, if not more, dangerous for women because “it reinforces some inchoate
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portrait of the woman executive as insecure bitch, easily threatened, overly

emotional, less able to focus on achievement because she is preoccupied
with squelching young talent.”1 Whether or not this is true, we know that
there are fewer women at the top in every profession and every industry,
and therefore it seems as though we must compete among each other to
get there. The article suggests that perhaps women are disappointed as
they have expectations of sisterly cooperation.
The truth is that studies show women at the top are less likely to mentor
young women than the men at the same firm. This may be because, once
at the top, women feel as though they must spend as much time as possible
relating to those in the same position in order to keep what they’ve fought
to earn. I’ve heard this over the years from senior executive women who
felt “playing the game” was more important to their career than bringing
in others to watch their backs or join their ranks.
Men very rarely, if ever, criticize another man to others. They keep their
thoughts to themselves and let the chips fall where they may. You may
think I am being insincere with this opinion, but I promise you, degrading
other women will never put you in a good light or help other women
succeed. It is true that when she wins, you win. We need more women
winning than women losing, as my earlier story regarding Carly Fiorina
illustrates. One woman’s fall—if it can in truth be called that—must not
bring us all down.
Second, career women and women who choose to stay home must find common
ground. When books such as Get to Work 2 chastise women who choose to
stay home to raise a family, they only further the gap that exists between
these two groups. Author Linda Hirshman declares that women who
choose to stay home have made a meaningless choice. She believes value
can only be found in a flourishing life—defined as one that includes a love
of work. I believe that a flourishing life can be found at home or at work by
both men and women. The fact that our society continues to accept only
women in the role at home is what is meaningless. The homemaker role
is as important as any other occupation this country has to offer. I’ve been
there. Shame on those who want to find fault with those who find value
in creating a home for spouse and children and providing the foundation
for a healthy life. There is plenty of tedious work done in so-called work
environments that causes the average woman or man to go nuts. Making
a bed, cleaning a house, and crafting a meal are not nearly as tedious as
some of the tasks one might perform in corporate America—and love of
that work, most likely, will not be the motivator.
In other words, it is time we value the work that is done at home—the
shaping of the next generation—and accept that there are many ways of
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Getting a Place at the Table r 193

doing it. Women and men are capable of nurturing the next generation,
and when we as a society demean the chore of raising children, we demean
the role itself. Is there a performance review for this job? Ask yourself this—
what, if any, performance reviews have you been accustomed to that really
took into account the long-term importance of the job? Most performance
reviews only take a look at the goals and objectives of the months previous
to the review process. The review criteria are generally based on short-
term rather than long-term goals. No one can disagree with the fact that
parenting is a long-term job, and no performance review early in the process
can determine the long-term affect of being present in a child’s life. The
youngest generation, as I have said time and time again in this book, is
everyone’s responsibility, and until we really become accountable to this
fact, we as a country are hurting ourselves as a world leader. Think about the
fact that in the past twenty years, our technology has substantially changed
the way we work. Computers, cell phones, PDAs, teleconferencing, and
more have allowed work to be done 24/7 anywhere on the planet. Yet, our
idea of parenting hasn’t changed much. The work/life balance that is so
desired just doesn’t add into the equation. Women who want to have it all
find that they can’t do it all at the same time. So what is the answer to this
dilemma?
The answer is in my third call to action: Men and women: Don’t allow the
media, or anybody else for that matter, to define who you are. Hunter, gatherer,
assertive, aggressive, CEO, assistant, and on and on. You and only you
should decide who you are and what you bring to the table. Leaders are
people who know themselves well and go about expressing themselves to
anybody and everybody they come across. Leaders are not afraid to stand
out in a crowd, to be different, to take risks, or to make mistakes. It’s
the nonconforming that allows leaders to advance their ideas and be seen
separately from others. Women are the perfect nonconforming leaders
with their intuitive leadership style.
Remember grammar school, when the teacher picked on the boys time
and time again because they were louder and out of their seats repeatedly?
(Yes, I once was a teacher). Life isn’t grammar school. We no longer have
to kowtow to the boys just because they spend so much time out of their
seats and in our faces. The true leaders may just be those who are able to
restrain themselves and are ready to get the job done. The hip and hollerin’
that goes on in movies such as The Boiler Room or Two for the Money may be
fun to watch, but it clearly shows the juvenile side of business at its worst.
Are all men really risk takers? It’s time you looked behind the curtain to see
that the one you think is the all-knowing, all-powerful ruler is just like the
little man in The Wizard of Oz—a simple man using his tricks to appear
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great and powerful. Or, in other words, not that different from you and
me.
The smoke and mirrors used by too many leaders keep the potential next
group of leaders (women and some men) at bay—or have them leaving in
droves to make their mark elsewhere. The time is now for men and women
to stand up and scream, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it
anymore!” (Thank you, actor Peter Finch, in the movie, Network). We
are the richest country in the world and have the greatest resources at our
disposal, yet we haven’t been able to figure out how to utilize the talents of
100 percent of our population.
Fourth, it is time to demand equality. That means, as a start, quotas for fe-
male representation in the boardrooms across America. It is not enough to
report annually on the progress that corporations are making in recruiting,
interviewing, and selecting women to join them in the boardroom. It is not
enough to measure annually the number of women earning their rightful
place in the top senior executive positions at America’s corporations. It
doesn’t make sense for us to expect that the next generation of women will
watch as this generation of talented women is rejected for these positions
and will still want to pursue the dream that ends in disappointment.
So, if we don’t change this now, when? As has been pointed out, women
are losing ground in the race to the top, and this loss has, and will continue
to have, a dramatic affect on how young women perceive their opportunity
for corporate success. When Norway boasts 28.8 percent of women on
board seats, Sweden 22.8 percent, Finland 20 percent, and Demark 17.9
percent, versus our 14.6 percent, we in America must demand change.3
Improving the statistics is not just about performance. It is also about
changing the comfort zone’s definition. Quotas are the way to show in-
telligent people year after year that diversity is beneficial, not only for the
company’s bottom line but also for the shareholders. That will be the tip-
ping point. Without quotas, there will be no urgency and no change. Like
water, comfort seeks its own level.
And then we must demand that there be equal gender representation
with appointees to state and federal government offices. These are the
people who make the laws that govern us all, and women are the major-
ity. Just as our ancestors demanded no taxation without representation,
women must demand representation now. We must not allow the press
to characterize women as ignorant regarding foreign policy as they did
with Geraldine Ferraro. What she told CBS News about her 1984 vice-
presidency run has every chance of being repeated today, but in a different
year, and with a different face: “I had been in Congress not a tremendously
long period of time, but I certainly had more knowledge about foreign
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affairs and other things than Ronald Reagan did when he became presi-
dent of the United States. So, I was secure. I didn’t have a problem with
how I would deal with the Soviet Union. But the press did. Ted Koppel
did. I mean, I was taking a test every time I went in for an interview.”4
We have qualified women to fill the positions locally and nationally.
We have the vote and the money and now we must use it to put women
in power. Yes, I’m asking you, no, begging you, to vote for women. It is
the only way women will truly have equal representation in government.
You have seen how the dialogue changes when women have a voice in
government. A focus on education, healthcare, national security, and equal
wage is in the best interest of every American. If not now, when?
We must demand that the White House Women’s Office of Initiatives
and Outreach be reopened to continue the work it began in the early 1990s.
The office, launched by then-President Clinton and directed by Betsy
Myers, was established, as Myers said “to provide women a seat at the
policymaking table.”5 The office coordinated federal agencies’ programs
that addressed the interests of women with the women they were designed
to assist. Most important, the office provided women a voice and a chair at
the table of government. Until true gender equality is reached in American
government, women have the right and the need to be heard through a
separate office when necessary. Women are the consumers and the voters
and the most educated, so they should not have to wait another forty-seven
years, or seventy-three years, or two hundred years, or however many more
years it will take for the current structures to catch up with what is needed
now.
My fifth point: We, men and women, must take it personally that there is
a wage gap. If you find that you are not being paid fairly, bring it to the
attention of your boss. Often, this is all it takes to have the matter rectified.
If you are not taken seriously, you must do the work in your organization
to find out if the problem is gender based. You can log on to the WAGE
Project, http://www.wageproject.org, and get information to see if you
have a case. Or check this site just to read about what other women are
doing about wage discrimination. If you are in a leadership position, you
can follow Fidelity Investments’ Ellyn McColgan’s example and ferret out
the wage inconsistencies: “I don’t know if people look for it like I do. I go
to the women’s names on the list and I look to see whether or not they are
being paid equitably. I have found unconscious inequities in compensation
and when I do, I go back and fix them. You look at two people—a man
and a woman side by side—and say, they’ve been here the same amount of
time, done basically the same work, so why isn’t she making as much as he
is? That’s not right, it has to be fixed.”
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Evelyn Murphy, founder and president of the WAGE Project Inc., says
she has learned two things since starting the project: “First, I underes-
timated how hard it is for women to talk about this [their wage]. They
need their job and they are afraid of losing it. They have a great fear. They
need the paycheck. Second, the dialogue must get started. Women won’t
act until they talk about it.” So I ask you, if not now, when? There is no
excuse for a wage gap in our country based on gender. As we have discussed
earlier, the wage gap hurts both men and women and must be rectified.
Unless we address the discrepancies in pay scale across all industries for
gender and race, we, as a society, are not doing the best we can for all our
people.
The next generation, Murphy says, are already benchmarking salary and
learning to negotiate: “Those already on the job need to get informed about
ways to get promoted. Those in mid-career need to gather their allies, talk
about what their pay is and how to rectify it. And, finally, professional
women, high-earning professional women, have to believe that they have
been affected.” Take a look. Take a stand. It’s never too late. Men and
women must stand up when they believe wage discrimination is at work.
Getting a place at the table means more than just getting a seat. It means
security in knowing that every chair has equal clout.
Sixth, we must understand the importance of women’s organizations, sup-
porting them every chance we get, not only with our involvement but also with
our checkbooks. Almost every industry has a trade organization devoted to
the issues of women in the trade. If you are not a member of your re-
spective women’s trade organization, ask yourself why. Too often, I hear
from women that they just want to be treated equally by their peers, not
as a woman and particularly not as a representative of a women’s organi-
zation in the industry. Unfortunately, these women do a major disservice
to the women who put all their energies into securing a place in history for
them in their respective industries—not to mention a great disservice to
themselves.
Think about the difference women make in your life every day. Think
about the difference a women’s organization makes in empowering women
to keep at it and fight for every opportunity they can to achieve success.
Here’s an example of how you can make a difference. TV station owner
Diane Sutter, president and CEO of Shooting Star Broadcasting, started
a ten-month executive MBA-style broadcast leadership program for the
National Association of Broadcasters because so few women and minori-
ties are owners, 5 percent and 3 percent respectively, in contrast to their
50-percent sales staff representation. “It’s designed so the people who
teach the course are the bankers, the brokers, the venture capitalists. The
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Getting a Place at the Table r 197

participants get the relationships that they frequently haven’t had access
to and, secondarily, they learn. So it’s relationships and information that
have not been available to them,” she says.
I know that once you “get there” it is difficult to reach back and bring
others along. Evelyn Murphy told me this six years after she was out of
the Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor’s Office: “I was so busy watching
what was coming at me, I never realized how important it was that I watch
my back. I wish I had brought more women up behind me to assist me
going forward.” Women may get to the top but without the pipeline of
women behind them, they are isolated and need to rely solely on their own
resources. It’s time that the pipeline is filled with women, and that women
at the top can depend on those around them to support them. It’s time they
be part of The Club. It’s time for women, instead of fearing that they will
be seen as a peculiarity by the shareholders, the market, the customer, the
media, and their peers, take their place among the leadership in whatever
field they choose to pursue.
Too often, I hear from women that once they get into the male-
dominated arena, they fear that bringing other women in will label them
as biased. Can you imagine—one woman in a sea of men suggesting that
another woman be brought in is seen as bias? If you believe in the power
and intellect of women and the importance of diversity, you, woman or
man, will want to bring more women to the table. This is the world I want
to live in and this is the precedent that America must embrace in order to
continue as the world’s most powerful country.
Women’s trade organizations give credence and visibility to the im-
portant roles women play in an industry, particularly in the industries
viewed as male territory. The Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS)
was founded in 1977 to provide professional and personal advancement and
develop industry and government recognition for the increasing involve-
ment of women in the transportation industry. Today, the international
organization has more than thirty-nine chapters and forty-five hundred
members successfully connecting with women and men and helping to
shape a diverse workforce. How many Americans know that Jane Gar-
vey, appointed by then-President Bill Clinton in 1997 to head the United
States Federal Aviation Administration for a five-year term, ran the $13
billion organization with fifty thousand employees during one of the most
critical chapters in American history, the horrific tragedy of September 11?
Since that day, America has relied on the people involved in the trans-
portation industry to provide the highest level of security and safety. Garvey
restored America’s faith in air travel after the terrorist attack on our na-
tion and she did it by building consensus and collaboration. Senator John
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198 r Her Turn

McCain said, “She’s reached out to a lot of segments of the industry and
she’s done a good job listening to them.” Garvey is not only a role model,
she has also provided visible recognition that women do succeed in the
transportation industry and therefore she has made it easier for others to
follow.
President George W. Bush appointed Mary E. Peters the fifteenth
secretary of transportation in September 2006. Peters, like Garvey, rose
through the ranks of the private and public sectors of the transportation
industry for more than twenty years. These are just two of the thousands
of women in an industry that is all too often thought of as male-only—all
the more reason a trade organization like WTS is so necessary. You see,
the pictures in your head about who does what are based on years of media
influence, family background, and basic environment. Women have been
at the forefront of many arenas—even industries in safety and security.
Just because we don’t see them reflected often in the media or come into
contact with them in our everyday lives doesn’t mean they don’t exist. This
is just one of the many women’s trade and/or professional organizations
that have been launched to support the advancement of women. It is an
example of a women’s organization whose mission has helped advance
women. Its members span across the country, Great Britain, and Canada
and are in charge of roads, bridges, airports, subways, railroads, and all
other forms of transportation. Its meetings are attended by women and
men, and the networking fosters a comfort factor important to the trade.
Seventh is the visibility factor. I have been asked many times during my
ten years in the newspaper business: “If there are so many high-powered,
influential women in the region, why don’t we see them?” Even my lawyer,
when I started Women’s Business, asked, “What will you do when you run out
of successful women to write about?” There is no chance of that. Women
are achieving success in every industry every day in this country regardless
of the lack of media coverage and despite the obstacles in their way. Your
job is to go out and support them. You must hire them, promote them, buy
from them, and vote for them. You must, men and women, realize that
America is better when we make the most of the talent we have available.
This is especially important for women running for elective office. Sta-
tistically, in contrast to the way things used to be, when women run for
office—they do win! The Center for American Women and Politics and
the National Women’s Political Caucus both report that the percentage of
women in federal, state, and municipal legislatures has been rising steadily
for the past decade. I’ve given the example of more women holding U.S.
Senate seats than ever before in U.S. history. So to “get even,” that is, to
compete on a level playing field and get the visibility they need, women
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Getting a Place at the Table r 199

candidates must be supported with your energy, time, money, and, of

course, a check mark next to their name in the voting booth!
And eight, here’s a charge for my opposite sex: Men must become more aware
of the subtle discrimination that hovers in most office environments. They must
then demand that it stop. Men must also mentor more women and help
them move upward on the management ladder and the path to leadership.
Men and women working together as equals at all levels is the goal.
Management thought leader Tom Peters saw the light after meeting
with a group of high-powered women in 1996. “I thought I was as thought-
ful as a male can be thoughtful,” he says. “I thought I was with the program.
I walked out of that meeting a changed man. There was nothing funda-
mentally emotional about the meeting. They spent three hours telling me
tale after tale about the way women were treated as brainless, ignored, on
and on by lawyers, bankers, automobile dealers, and everyone in between.
I decided to take them at their word and so I started to talk about this
stuff within a week. At the end of an hour-and-a-half presentation, I’d be
surrounded by two guys and twenty-five women regaling me with more
stories of the same sort.”
Sexual harassment training must be accepted as a primer on how to work
with the opposite sex. There are still many obstacles in the workplace for
women and men to work through successfully together. These obstacles
cannot stand in the way of having equality as the benchmark for success.
Whether it’s working together or living together, men and women can and
must find conduct that succeeds.
Nine, the push for gender equality must start as early in life as possible.
The education of the next generation, both boys and girls, is critical to
the success of women’s leadership. Gender stereotyping is as harmful for
girls as it is for boys, reports Carol Gilligan, author of In a Different
Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development.6 Walk through any
baby department and you’ll see onsies stamped with “Princess” in pink and
“Stud” in blue. Am I suggesting swapping out these newborn-sized outfits?
No. I’m saying, don’t buy them at all. Acceptance and encouragement of
the innate skills and talents of both sexes is the answer to raising healthy
children.
This doesn’t discount the value of single-sex activities such as the Girl
Scouts or the Boy Scouts, which provide early opportunities to develop
leadership skills. Leadership, however, should be a value that’s also taught
and realized in mixed company, since it is only in the mixed company of
women and men that true leadership will advance. Women must get into
the mainstream of what has been male-dominated up to now and act with
clarity, strength, and vision. In this way, both women and men can work
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200 r Her Turn

together to ensure that the next generation of women will have an equal
and powerful place at the leadership table.
And ten, whether or not we see a woman president soon, the task is clear. We
must spring into action. We must recognize talent at all levels and not discount
someone because of gender. Men have the right to take care of their children
and women have the right to bring home the bacon. Stereotypes from
the past will not move us forward. All of the elements are in place for
change. We are ready to surpass the political progress of so many of our
European and global neighbors and share leadership at every level, not by
putting children at risk but by elevating them to our collectively achieved
first priority. It’s time there be a true balance of power. Yes, I want women
to have their 52 percent of power. America is ready for the challenge of
new leadership—shared leadership. America is ready for women to lead.
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CHAPTER 14

Finally: Woman to Woman

“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined
to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which
we have no voice or representation.”
—Abigail Adams
“If society will not admit of woman’s free development, then society must be
remodeled.”
—Elizabeth Blackwell
“Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women’s
denigration of themselves.”
—Betty Freidan
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which
you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you
think you cannot do.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt
“There cannot be true democracy unless women’s voices are heard. There
cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take
responsibility for their own lives. There cannot be true democracy unless all
citizens are able to participate fully in the lives of their country.”
—Hillary Rodham Clinton

It’s time to speak directly to the women reading this book. It’s time to beg
you to take everything you’ve read and will read to heart—to understand
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202 r Her Turn

completely that it is up to you and you alone to turn the tide for women
in America. What I’m asking you to do is not easy, as you have been
conditioned to put yourself and other women second. You have been
brought up to be fair and just and to make sure that you never show a sense
of bias—until it comes to you and other women. How do I know this?
Because you’ve told me over and over again. When you have an opportunity
to make a decision to bring another woman on board, you tell me, “I can’t
just pick a woman because she is a woman. I have to view the candidate’s
skills and abilities and choose the best one for the job.”
Really? If I asked you to select the best fitting dress you could find, you
wouldn’t go to the store and try on every single size. You’d go directly to
the rack with your size and start from there. In other words, you would au-
tomatically narrow your search and in the end you would have successfully
chosen the best fitting dress. That’s what I’m asking you to do with women.
If women aren’t selecting women to get ahead, then who will? You know
as well as I do that you support women every chance you get when it comes
to community service projects, breast cancer awareness organizations, and
much more. Why is it so difficult to support the women who aspire to
leading roles in our universities, hospitals, foundations, government, law
firms, C-suites, and boardrooms? These are the areas where women can
and are ready to make a difference. Yes, I know the men you know tell
you that there is equal opportunity at the top. The best candidate will be
chosen to move forward. So where are the women at the top? Is it your
assumption that there really are so few qualified women to lead? You know
better.
Deloitte & Touche’s Sharon Allen says just the opposite regarding the
numbers of candidates for corporate boards, and really, you can substitute
just about any leadership position for the business version in her discus-
sion. She says, “Many times you hear, ‘Well, there aren’t enough qualified
women available’ and I think that they are just not looking far enough and
not throwing the broader net to find them. We’ve undertaken a series of
workshops within our corporate governance service line that we call ‘Di-
versifying the American Board,’ designed for external participants. We’ve
had great groups, and they’re just a small sampling of people who are in-
terested in participating on corporate boards and don’t otherwise have the
connections to get into the process. In part, it’s a matter of matching up
capabilities with opportunities.”
It is natural for people to work with people they know, like, and trust.
Men are more comfortable with men. Their wives are more comfortable
when they work with men. It is up to women to bring more women onto
the golf course, into the clubhouse, anywhere where men congregate to
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Finally r 203

ensure they feel comfortable. If you are a woman who enjoys being the
token woman in the room, pay attention right now because this is for
you. You may think you are being heard. You may think you’ve broken
down barriers but you haven’t because you can’t change the dialogue or the
perspective alone. I’ve heard too many times from men that when a token
woman is asked to suggest someone to join the group, she often chooses
another man. Is it competition she fears? Is it jealousy? Is it only seeing
what’s in it for her and not seeing what can be in it for someone else? I don’t
have the answer. I only know that the attitude must change. Until we have
an equal number of men and women in leadership positions, things will
not change. Women will continue to earn the majority of college degrees
and stay right where they are—somewhere in the middle—unless you are
ready to effect change.
The Number One cry across America in the past decade from career
women is that they want to be taken seriously. It tops every survey list
of what women want. Go into any bookstore and look at the magazine
section. Seek out the Women’s Interest section. Is this all you are interested
in? How is it possible this section hasn’t changed but added more of the
same in the past thirty years while you and I have been expanding our
horizons? Magazines on fitness, weight control, glamour, celebrities, food,
make-up, clothes, gossip, television, and homemaking: Have women no
interest in business, politics, education, medicine, law, and more?
Take a moment to talk with the bookstore staff about a new book on
leadership for women. They will tell you to look in the Women’s Studies
section. You’ll be told the same thing at the library. “What? No Men’s
Studies section?” I have asked. The librarian was not amused. Neither was
the bookstore manager. Think about how truly seriously women are treated
in every aspect of our lives. Think about what you can do about it. Think
about what we can collectively do about it.
Ten years ago, my eyes were opened by a minister preaching on the
importance of women supporting other women. He compared our journey
with that of other immigrant groups in America. But, he stated, “The
difference is women do not work to elevate each other. Instead, they put
their gender aside and choose to elevate the men in their lives.” For a
moment, I was indignant. Who did this guy think he was, telling me that
I wasn’t doing my best to help other women? I continued to listen as he
described beautifully the Irish immigration to America during and after the
Potato Famine. The anti-Irish, anti-Catholic sentiment at the time pushed
the new settlers to form tight communities in major cities and eventually to
learn that change could only be made through the ballot box. They focused
their attention and work toward government and law enforcement. By the
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204 r Her Turn

1850s, they were a major force in police departments in all the larger cities
and held ranks all the way up to police chief. Their successful organization
placed them at the head of labor unions and politics, and they voted 80 to 95
percent together as Democrats. The election of our thirty-fifth president,
and first Catholic president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, can be attributed
to the hard work and determination of this immigrant population. This
is an example, the minister explained, of what a group can do to elevate
itself to power in this country. The light went on in my head. Of course,
women must put women first if we expect to attain true equality. Again, if
not women, then who?
Women have been struggling for equality in America since the day they
arrived. What has changed is that women can have it now if they would
just take it. So what’s stopping women? Perhaps this story will help shed
some light on how easy it is to gain power. You don’t have to be a resident
of Boston to know the strength of being a Boston College graduate, known
as an Eagle. If you are lucky enough to have gone to Boston College High
School (male-only), Boston College, and Boston College graduate school,
Triple Eagle status, your future is secure. Don’t get me wrong; There is
nothing wrong with this. The number of BC alums in the Boston area is
staggering, and the networks are therefore very powerful, as they should
be. But where are the powerful networks for women? Women have built
networks, but none that compare with this example. Do you see how the
search is narrowed when one of your own applies? I am not suggesting
there is bias here. Just the contrary. These networks exist to provide a leg
up for those in them. Every college and university emulates the examples
mentioned. Women must create networks that not only support them but
also put them in places of power.
When we look at politics, a similar story appears. Many, no, too many
people vote the party line out of the assumption that the candidates of
one’s party are more closely in line with one’s values and interests. Of
course, in recent years, party lines have blurred and voting for the party
doesn’t guarantee you anything. Nonetheless, many do it, particularly if
they are not aware of a candidate’s platform. So where am I leading with
this? My survey of one thousand women on the question, “Would you vote
for a woman for president in 2008?” gathered the following representative
responses.

“I always do my best to vote for the best candidate, regardless of political

party or other variable such as gender or race. I would certainly give a woman
presidential candidate serious consideration and would vote for her if I felt
she was the best qualified among those running, but I wouldn’t vote for
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Finally r 205

someone solely based on gender, particularly for president since that office
is so very, very important.”
“I will vote for a woman president in 2008 only if I think she is the best
candidate to deal with the issues that are important to me. I won’t vote for a
woman president just because she is a female.”
“I will if she is a candidate who can articulate a vision, a plan, and take a
stand on issues that I believe are important. In other words, I won’t vote for
her just because she’s a woman, but because she is speaking the language of
leadership I can support and buy into.”
“That depends. I would like to say I will vote for a woman regardless, but in
good conscience I cannot just vote for a woman simply because women have
been left out of the political leadership. I will need to evaluate the candidates
to determine who I believe will cause the least harm to the world.”
“I’d vote for the right woman, but not just any woman. I’d love to see a
strong female candidate run and win. I’ve always believed that our only true
chance for peace in the world is if we could get the leading women from
the war zones and troubled areas around the table and have them create the
terms for moving forward. If the mothers, daughters, wives, and sisters put
their efforts together, I am confident they would find a creative solution to
keep their sons, brothers, husbands, and friends alive and living in peace.
We know where the men have gotten us—it is time to give the women a
chance.”

These are just a few of the responses received. Can you hear the dilemma
in the comments above? Women want women to lead, but only the right
ones. Do we hold men to this same litmus test? Don’t we compromise on
our values when we’re in the voting booth and are faced with two men
candidates, neither of whom fully shares our views? Will the right woman
meet my test and your test? Has any woman been able to meet the test
of all women? This is exactly what is holding us back! Do you honestly
believe that any woman who makes it onto the ballot for president of the
United States hasn’t proven herself along the way?
It’s time for women to lead in America, and only women can truly
make it happen. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Women must hire
women, promote women, and vote for women. Do it for your daughter,
your granddaughter, and the next generation of women. Do it for your son,
your grandson, and the next generation of men. Do it for yourself. America
deserves the best leadership in the world, and women have struggled far
too long and far too hard not to be considered worthy of the task. The
decision for women to lead in America is in your hands. The time is now.
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Notes

Introduction
1. Catalyst, “2006 Census of Women Corporate Officers, Top Earners and
Directors of the Fortune 500,” (2006).
2. The White House Project, www.thewhitehouseproject.org.

Chapter 1: The New “Problem That Has No Name”

1. Sam Roberts, “51% of Women Are Now Living without Spouse,” The New
York Times ( January 16, 2007).
2. Stephanie Coontz, “Marriage, Poverty, and Public Policy,” prepared for the
fifth annual conference of the Council on Contemporary Families at Fordham
University (2003).
3. Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America (January 18, 2007).
4. Jennifer Millman, “ Why So Few Senior People of Color and Women on
Wall Street?” DiversityInc, DiversityInc.com (2007).

Chapter 2: Vive La Difference

1. Stephanie Goldberg, “ When the Chief Justice Is a Woman,” Perspectives
Magazine (Spring 2005) 13(4).
2. Carol Hymowitz, “Raising Women to Be Leaders,” The Wall Street Journal
(February 12, 2007).
3. “The Importance of Sex—Forget China, India and the Internet: Economic
Growth Is Driven by Women,” The Economist (April 2006).
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208 r Notes

4. Mickey Meece, “ What Do Women Want? Just Ask,” The New York Times
(October 29, 2006).
5. Carol Hymowitz, “High Power and High Heels,” The Wall Street Journal
(March 26, 2007).

Chapter 3: A Look Back to Look Ahead

1. Estelle B. Freedman, No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future
of Women (Ballantine Books, 2002).
2. Jennifer A. Hurley, editor, Women’s Rights, Great Speeches in History (Green-
haven Inc., 2002).
3. Corona Brezina, adapted from Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” Speech: A
Primary Source Investigation (The Rosen Publishing Group Inc., 2005).
4. Stuart A. Kallen, Women of the 1960s (Lucent Books, 2003).
5. Women in the Labor Force: A Databook, U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of
Labor Statistics (September 2006, edition).
6. CNN News ( January 4, 2007).

Chapter 4: The Time Is Now

1. Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, “The Allianz Women,
Money and Power Study” (August 2006).
2. Elizabeth Woyke, “A Tale of Two Inflations,” BusinessWeek (March 12,
2007).
3. Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader (Addison-Wesley Publishing Com-
pany Inc., 1989), 113.
4. Dawn-Marie Driscoll and Carol R. Goldberg, Members of the Club, the Com-
ing of Age of Executive Women (The Free Press, 1993).
5. Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader (Addison-Wesley Publishing Com-
pany, Inc., 1989), 13.
6. Penelope Patsuris, “The Corporate Scandal Sheet,” Forbes (August 26,
2002).
7. Leslie M. Dawson, “ Women and Men, Morality and Ethics—Sexual Dif-
ferences in Moral Reasoning,” Business Horizons (July–August 1995).
8. Martha Burk, “The 40-Percent Rule,” Ms. Magazine (Summer 2006): 57.
9. Helen Graves, “Digging Deep is DBA for Mother-Daughter Mary
O’Donnell-Keon Duggan,” Women’s Business ( July 2003).
10. Helen Graves, “Judith Nitsch Sets Groundwork for Big Plans in Construc-
tion,” Women’s Business (October 2001).
11. Evelyn Murphy, Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get Paid Like Men—and
What to Do About It (Simon & Schuster, 2005).
12. Hunt Alternatives, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC.
13. Swanee Hunt, “Let Women Rule,” Foreign Affairs (May/June 2007).
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Notes r 209

Chapter 5: “Business as Usual?”

1. Public Accounting Report, “2006 Survey of Women in Public Accounting”
(December 2006).
2. Catalyst, “2006 Census of Women Corporate Officers, Top Earners and
Directors of the Fortune 500” (February 2007).
3. “Forget China, India and the Internet: Economic Growth Is Driven by
Women,” The Economist (April 2006).
4. Jody Heymann and researched by the Institute for Health and Social Policy at
McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, “The Work, Family, and Equity
Index,” the Project on Global Working Families ( January 2007).
5. JacTyne Badal, “To Retain Valued Women Employees, Companies Pitch
Flextime as Macho,” Theory & Practice column, The Wall Street Journal (Decem-
ber 11, 2006).
6. Ellyn Spragins, “Love & Money: I Adore You But Not Your Portfolio,” The
New York Sunday Times ( July 7, 2002).
7. Graham Bowley, “Soul Survivor,” Financial Times (November 11/12, 2006).
8. Julie Creswell, “How Suite It Isn’t: A Dearth of Female Bosses,” The New
York Times (December 17, 2006).
9. Patricia Sellers, “It’s Good to Be the Boss,” Fortune (October 16, 2006).
10. Business Women’s Network, “ WOW! 2004 U.S. Women’s Market” (2004).
11. Toni Wolfman, “The Face of Corporate Leadership: Finally Poised for
Major Change?” New England Journal of Public Policy (Spring 2007).
12. Sumru Erkut, Vicki W. Kramer, and Alison M. Konrad, “Critical Mass on
Corporate Boards: Why Three or More Women Enhance Governance,” Wellesley
Centers for Women (2007).
13. Mindy Fetterman, “Best Buy Gets in Touch with its Feminine Side,” USA
Today (December 20, 2006).

Chapter 6: Women Entrepreneurs

1. Center for Women’s Business Research, National Numbers, http://www.
nfwbo.org.
2. Helen Graves, “There’s No Horsing around for Becky Minard and Smart-
Pak,” Women’s Business (December 2006).
3. Helen Graves, “Building Community Is Lois Silverman’s Dream Come
True,” Women’s Business (March 2007).
4. Fortune Small Business, “2005 List of Best Bosses” (September 21 2005).
5. Helen Graves, “Circling in on Lifestyle Target,” Women’s Business (November
2006).
6. Hope Williams, “Multiple Careers Can Be Double, Triple (and More!) the
Reward,” Women’s Business (August 2003).
7. Helen Graves, “Sue Welch Supplies Sourcing’s Next Level Time and Time
Again,” Women’s Business (September 2005).
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210 r Notes

8. Helen Graves, “Spiriting Control, Empowerment,” Women’s Business

(November 2006).
9. Center for Women’s Business Research, Top Facts, http://www.cfwbr.org/
facts/index.php.
10. Deborah Marlino and Fiona Wilson, “Teen Girls on Business: Are They
Being Empowered?” Simmons School of Management and the Committee of 200
(Spring 2002).
11. From 2006 FY Women in Management VC Data (Venture One) and 1Q
2007 Quarterly U.S. Financing Report from Venture One and Ernst & Young
(used with permission).
12. Helen Graves, “The Battery Gets a Big Boost from Christina Lampe-
Onnerud,” Women’s Business (April 2007).
13. Amy Barrett, “This Time It’s Mine,” BusinessWeek (February 16, 2007).
14. Center for Women’s Business Research, Top Facts, http://www.cfwbr.org/
facts/index.php.

Chapter 7: Legally Blonde

1. Commission on Women in the Profession, “A Current Glance at Women
in the Law 2006,” American Bar Association (2006).
2. National Association for Law Placement (November 2005).
3. Commission on Women in the Profession, “A Current Glance at Women
in the Law,” American Bar Association (2006).
4. Lauren Stiller Rikleen, Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women’s
Success in the Law (Thomson Legal Works, 2006).
5. Ibid., 18.
6. National Association of Women Lawyers, “National Survey on Retention
and Promotion of Women in Law Firms,” Chicago, IL.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., 7.
9. Jonathan D. Glater, “ Women Are Close to Being Majority of Law Students,”
http://lawschool.com (posted March 21, 2001).
10. Valerie A. Yarashus and Denise Squillante, “Transition In by Working Out
Supports through a Task Force,” Women’s Business (February 2007).
11. Lisa Eckelbecker, “Rikleen Book Details Law Firms’ Failure in Helping
Women Succeed,” Worcester Telegram & Gazette News (July 23, 2006).
12. Melissa McClenaghan Martin, “The Gender Gap: Breaking through the
Glass Ceiling?” New York Law Journal (December 29, 2006).
13. Helen Graves, “Regina Pisa Manages Law Firm with Charge for Change,”
Women’s Business (May 2000).
14. Meredith Hobbs, “Wal-Mart Demands Diversity in Law Firms,” Fulton
County Daily Report ( July 6, 2005).
15. Ibid.
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Notes r 211

16. Sue Reisinger, “Female GCs: Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Hope,” Cor-
porate Counsel ( June 21, 2006).
17. Helen Graves, “Katherine O’Hara Perfects Science of Applying Broad
Expertise,” Women’s Business (November 2006).
18. Stephanie Goldberg, “ When the Chief Justice Is a Woman,” Perspectives
Magazine (Spring 2005) 13(4).
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.

Chapter 8: Women in Healthcare and the Sciences

1. Estelle B. Freedman, No Turning Back, The History of Feminism and the Future
of Women (Ballantine Books, 2002).
2. American College of Healthcare Executives, North Franklin, Suite 1700,
Chicago, Illinois.
3. Catherine Arnst, “Getting Girls to the Lab Bench,” BusinessWeek (February
7, 2007).
4. News Office, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “Leaders of 9 Uni-
versities and 25 Women Faculty Meet at MIT, Agree to Equity Reviews,”
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/gender.html (posted January 30, 2001).
5. Paul Basken, “ Women Scientists Lag Far Behind Men in Patents, Study
Says,” The Boston Globe (August 4, 2006).
6. News & Information, “Percentage of Women Leading Medical Research
Studies Rises, but Still Lags Behind Men,” Massachusetts General Hospital,
http://www.massgeneral.org/news/releases/071906jagsi.html (July 19, 2006).
7. Susan Youdovin, Helen Eldridge, Anne Camille Maher, and Robin Madell,
“The Power Study, Pharmaceutical Company Climate for Women,” Healthcare
Businesswomen’s Association (May 1999).
8. Helen Graves, “Deborah Dunsire Moves Cure Impact, Boundaries For-
ward,” Women’s Business (October 2006).
9. Crispin Littlehales, “Missing: Entrepreneurial Women in Biotech,” Bioen-
trepreneur ( January 2006).
10. Helen Graves, “Building a Business on Sense of Purpose,” Women’s Business
(November 2005).
11. Catherine Arnst, “Getting Girls to the Lab Bench,” BusinessWeek (Febr-
uary 7, 2005).

Chapter 9: Bias in Higher Education

1. Susan K. Dyer, editor, “Tenure Denied: Cases of Sex Discrimination in
Academia,” American Association of University Women Educational Foundation
and American Association of University Women Legal Advisory Fund (October
2004).
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212 r Notes

2. Michael A. Baer and Claire Van Ummersen, principal investigators, Amer-

ican Council on Education’s “An Agenda for Excellence: Creating Flexibility in
Tenure-Track Faculty Careers,” American Council on Education (February 2005).
3. John Harvard’s Journal, “Women and Tenure,” Harvard Magazine (March–
April 2005).
4. “The American College President: 2007 Edition,” American Council on Ed-
ucation (February 2007).
5. Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden, “Do Babies Matter? The Effect of
Family Formation on the Lifelong Careers of Academic Men and Women,”
University of California (2002).
6. Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden, “Do Babies Matter? (Part II) Closing
the Baby Gap,” University of California (2004).
7. Julie Rawe, “Steering Girls into Science,” Time (February 23, 2005).
8. Karen W. Arenson, “At Universities, Plum Post at Top Is Now Shaky,” The
New York Times ( January 9, 2007).
9. “The American College President: 2007 Edition,” American Council on Ed-
ucation (February 2007).
10. Helen Graves, “Ruth Simmons Positions Change around View of Educa-
tion’s Role,” Women’s Business (November 2002).

Chapter 10: Women and Nonprofits

1. Bara Vaida, “Pots of Gold,” National Journal (February 10, 2006).
2. Karla Taylor, “Let’s Talk about Sex,” Associations Now (September 2006).
3. Jeanne Bell and Timothy Wolfred (CompassPoint Nonprofit Services), and
Richard Meyers (The Meyer Foundation), “Daring to Lead 2006: A National
Study of Nonprofit Executive Leadership,” CompassPoint Nonprofit Services
and the Meyer Foundation (2006).
4. Helen Graves, “Teresa Heinz Sets Foundation for Health, Economic Well-
Being, and Choice,” Women’s Business ( June 2001).
5. Helen Graves, “Supplying the Everyday Is Essential to Lynn Margherio,”
Women’s Business (March 2007).
6. Marilyn Chase, “Melinda Gates, Unbound After Shunning the Limelight
She Assumes a More Public Role at Her Global Health Foundation,” The Wall
Street Journal (December 11, 2006).
7. Frances A. Karnes and Kristen R. Stephens, Empowered Girls. A Girl’s Guide
to Positive Activism, Volunteering, and Philanthropy (Waco, TX: Prufrock Press,
2005).

Chapter 11: When Women Rule

1. Sean Aday and James Devitt, “Style over Substance, Newspaper Coverage of
Female Candidates: Spotlight on Elizabeth Dole,” The White House Project Ed-
ucational Fund Series: Framing Gender on the Campaign Trail (September 2000).
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Notes r 213

2. Barbara Lee, “A Woman’s Place in the White House,” Albany Times Union
(March 19, 2006).
3. Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, “The Allianz Women,
Money, and Power Study” (August 2006).
4. Women’s Voices. Women Vote, “The State of Unmarried America—A De-
mographic, Lifestyle, and Attitudinal Overview of America’s Emerging Majority”
(February 2006).
5. Swanee Hunt, “Where Quotas Work,” Los Angeles Times (October 15,
2005).
6. Helen Graves, “Responsive Representation Is Martha Coakley’s Goal,”
Women’s Business ( January 2007).
7. Diane Sawyer, “‘Sweet 16’ Women Senators Talk Defense, Obama,” Good
Morning America ( January 17, 2007).
8. Hunt Alternatives Fund, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC.
9. Taylor Mallory, “Eleven Female World Leaders,” Pink Magazine (Au-
gust/September 2006): 96.
10. Marcia Angell, “Hillary Clinton and the Glass Ceiling,” The Boston Globe
(February 19, 2007).
11. Estelle B. Freedman, No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the
Future of Women (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002).
12. “Ready for a Woman President?” CBS News poll ( January 20–25, 2006).
13. Jeffrey M. Jones, “Some Americans Reluctant to Vote for Mormon,
72-Year-Old Presidential Candidates,” The Gallup Poll (February 20, 2007).
www.galluppoll.com
14. Gallup poll, noted in “Ready for a Woman President?” CBS News poll
( January 20-25, 2006).
15. Gideon Rachman, “Why Royal Is a Sign of the Feminisation of Western
Politics,” Financial Times (November 18/19, 2006).
16. Ibid.

Chapter 12: What’s in It for Men and Women?

1. Poll: Women’s Movement Worthwhile, CBS News (October 23, 2005).
2. “Exit Strategies of Women and Men Business Owners,” The Center for
Business Women’s Research (2006).
3. “Beyond the Pay Gap,” American Association of University Women (April
2007).
4. Christopher Conkey, “Snapshot of America: Who’s Richest, Poorest, Where
Single Men Are,” The Wall Street Journal (August 30, 2006).

Chapter 13: Getting a Place at the Table

1. Judith Sills, “ Workwise: Catfight in the Boardroom,” Psychology Today (De-
cember 2006).
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214 r Notes

2. Linda R. Hirshman, Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World (Viking
Penguin, 2006).
3. Toni G. Wolfman, “The Face of Corporate Leadership: Finally Poised for
Major Change?” Women’s Leadership Institute, Bentley College (2007).
4. “The Quest to Become Ms. President,” CBS News (February 5, 2006).
5. Betsy Myers, “A Shortsighted President Shortchanges Women,” The Boston
Globe (April 10, 2002).
6. Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Devel-
opment (Harvard University Press, 1982).
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Women’s Organizations
and Resources

American Association of University Women

111 Sixteenth St., NW
Washington, DC, 20036
Telephone: (800) 326-AAUW
http://www.aauw.org

American Council on Education Commission on Women in Higher

Education
American Council on Education
One Dupont Circle NW
Washington, DC, 20036-1193
Telephone: (202) 939-9300
http://www.acenet.edu

American Medical Women’s Association

211 N. Union Street, Suite 100
Alexandria, VA, 22314
Telephone: (703) 838-0500
Fax: 703 549-1205
http://www.amwa-doc.org

American Society of Association Executives

1575 I Street NW
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216 r Women’s Organizations and Resources

Washington, DC, 20005

Telephone: (888) 950-2723
http://www.asaecenter.org

Catalyst
New York
120 Wall Street, 5th floor
New York, NY, 10005
Telephone: (212) 514-7600
http://www.catalyst.org
San Jose
2825 North First Street
Suite 200
San Jose, CA 95134
Telephone: (408) 435-1300

Center for Women’s Business Research

1411 K Street NW, Suite 1350
Washington, DC, 20005
Telephone: (202) 638-3060
http://www.womensbusinessresarch.org

InterOrganization Network (ION) and its Member Organizations

ION: http://www.IONWomen.org
The Boston Club: http://www.thebostonclub.com
The Board of Directors Network (Atlanta):
http://www.boarddirectorsnetwork.org
The Chicago Network: http://www.thechicagonetwork.org
The Forum of Executive Women (Philadelphia): http://www.foew.com
Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives/Graduate School of
Management, University of California-Davis: http://www.fwe.org:
www.gsm.ucdavis.edu/census
Inforum Center for Leadership (Detroit): http://www.inforummichigan.org
Milwaukee Women Inc. (inclusive):
http://www.milwaukeewomeninc.com
Women Executive Leadership (Miami):
http://www.womenexecutiveleadership.com

Ms. Foundation for Women

120 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, New York, NY, 10005
Telephone: (212) 742-2300
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Women’s Organizations and Resources r 217

Fax: (212) 742-1653

http://ms.foundation.org

National Association of Women Lawyers

American Bar Center, MS 15.2
321 North Clark Street
Chicago, IL, 60610
Telephone: (312) 988-6186
Fax: (312) 988-5491
http://www.abanet.org

The Committee of 200

9080 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1575
Chicago, IL, 60611-7540
Telephone: (312) 255-0296
http://www.c200.org

The White House Project

434 West 33rd Street, 8th floor
New York, NY, 10001
Telephone: (212) 785-6001
http://www.thewhitehouseproject.org

Women’s Business Enterprise National Council Headquarters

1120 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite 1000
Washington, DC, 20036
Telephone: (202) 872-5515
Fax: (202) 872-5505
Certification & Affiliate Relations Office
1506 N. Greenville, Suite 230
Allen, TX, 75002
Telephone: (972) 359-0697
Fax: (972) 678-4689
http://www.wbenc.org

Women & Philanthropy

c/o Council on Foundations
1828 L Street, NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC, 20036
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218 r Women’s Organizations and Resources

Telephone: (877) 293-8809

Fax: (202) 887-6240
http://www.womenphil.org

Women Presidents’ Organization

155 East 55th Street, Suite 4-H
New York, NY, 10022
Telephone: (212) 688-4114
Fax: (212) 688-4766
http://www.womenpresidentsorg.com

Women’s Transportation Seminar

1701 K Street, NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC, 20006
Telephone: (202) 955-5085
Fax: (202) 955-5088
http://www.wtsinternational.org
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Bibliography

Barnett, Rosalind and Rivers, Caryl. Same Difference: How Gender Myths Are
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Bates, Suzanne. Speak Like A CEO. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005.
Bennis, Warren. On Becoming a Leader. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,
Inc., 1989.
Boyd, Julia. The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The Life of the First Woman Physician.
Sutton Publishing, 2005.
Brezina, Corona. Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman?” Speech. A Primary Source
Investigation. The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 2005.
Burns, Jennifer Bobrow. Career Opportunities in the Nonprofit Sector. Ferguson, an
imprint of Infobase Publishing, 2006.
Driscoll, Dawn-Marie and Goldberg, Carol R. Members of the Club, the Coming of
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Evans, Sara M. Tidal Wave. How Women Changed America at Century’s End. The
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Fiorina, Carly. Tough Choices, A Memoir. Penguin Group, 2006.
Freedman, Estelle B. No Turning Back, the History of Feminism and the Future of
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Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New
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Hirshman, Linda R. Get to Work, A Manifesto for Women of the World. Viking
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Kallen, Stuart A. Women of the 1960s. Lucent Books, 2003.
Karnes, Frances A. and Stephens, Kristen R. Empowered Girls. A Girl’s Guide to
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Kipnis, Aaron and Herron, Elizabeth. Gender War: The Quest for Love and Justice
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Mattern, Joanne. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: Fighting Together
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Murphy, Evelyn. Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get Paid Like Men—and What
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O’Beirne, Kate. Women Who Make the World Worse and How Their Radical Feminist
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Index

AAUW. See American Association of American Association of University

University Women Women (AAUW): Educational
Abrahamson, Shirley (Chief Justice), Foundation of, 51; on tenure track,
20, 108–9 137
Abrams, Ruth (Chief Justice), American Council on Education
109 (ACE): on female presidents, 132;
ACE. See American Council on on tenure track, 132
Education American Federation of
Affirmative action: The Big Dig and, Labor-Congress of Industrial
48; controversy of, 50; Peters on, 74; Organizations (AFL-CIO), 3
South Shore Women’s Business American Medical Association
Network and, 47–48. See also (AMA), 45, 118
Quotas American Medical Women’s
AFL-CIO. See American Federation Association (AMWA), 122
of Labor-Congress of Industrial American Red Cross, 159;
Organizations restructuring of, 150–51
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 134 AMWA. See American Medical
Allen, Clinton, 47, 68, 70 Women’s Association
Allen, Sharon, 61, 74–75; on retaining Angel investing, 91–94; Brush on,
women, 56 93–94; for entrepreneurship, 93;
AMA. See American Medical Hanbury-Brown as, 93
Association Angell, Marcia, 177
America: feminism in, 35–37, 180; “Ask a Working Woman Survey,” of
Hunt on, 189 AFL-CIO, 3
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222 r Index

Aspinall, Mara, 10–11, 125 movement and, 41; WPO on, 85.
Association for Legal Career See also Home-based businesses
Professionals (NALP), 102
Assuming Control (Hart/Brush/Green), Caldwell, Ann W., 141, 142
60 Campaigning: DeGette on, 168;
money for, 167–69; Wilson/Hunt
Baby gap, in higher education, 136 on, 167
Bader Ginsberg, Ruth, 99 Careers, highly visible, 198–99;
Bank loans, 94 Durham on, 20; Phillips on, 138
Barnett, Rosalind Chait, 103 Catalyst, 3, 56, 72, 105; company
Barriers: Broderick on, 116; money as, exposure by, 75; on women leaders,
167; for women, 2, 13–16, 115, 123, 56–57
146, 163; Zane on, 115 CAWP. See Center for American
Bartz, Carol, 67 Women and Politics
Bates, Suzanne, 82 Center for American Women and
On Becoming a Leader (Bennis), 43 Politics (CAWP), 168
Bennis, Warren, 41, 43 Center for Women’s Business
Best Buy, 73–74 Research, 5, 41, 78; on business
The Big Dig: affirmative action and, inheritance, 181, 182; on small
48; DBEs and, 49; Nitsch and, businesses, 83
48–49 Childrearing: Alfred P. Sloan
Biotech industry: Aspinall/Millman Foundation on, 134; Aspinall on,
on, 125; entrepreneurship in, 126; 10–11; choice of, 12–13; Kanter on,
Qiu and, 126 11–12; media on, 11; men and, 10,
Blackwell, Elizabeth (doctor), 113–14, 185–86; women responsible for,
201 9–10, 15, 51. See also Baby gap;
Brabeck, Peter, 74 Family balance
Braun, Carol Moseley, 36, 174 Circles, business principle of, 81–82
Broderick, Corinne: on barriers, 116; Citizens Adviser, on corporate boards,
on healthcare opportunities, 114 69
Brush, Candida, 60, 90, 91, 133–34; Civil Rights Act: of 1964, 33; Title
on angel investing, 93–94; on VC VII of, 33–34
industry, 93 Clinton, Hillary, 176, 201; Angell on,
Businesses, small: benefits for, 94; 177; on leadership, 174–75
Center for Women’s Business The Club, 46; discrimination and,
Research on, 83; certification of, 88; 42–43; men’s membership to, 42;
challenges of, 80–81; competition old boys’ network and, 42
of, 86; diversity of, 83; flexibility of, Concrete ceiling. See Glass ceiling
85, 86, 94–95; humanity and, 95; Congress: DeGette on, 166; women
services available to, 48; starting of, in, 36–37, 39, 164, 166
79–80, 82–83; stock markets and, Consumer power: Gilbert/Gallina on,
88; supplier diversity and, 86–87; 73; of women, 24, 39, 69, 73–74, 76
women as owners of, 4–6, 41, Corporate America: changes in, 45;
48–50, 76, 77–78; women’s entrepreneurship and, 86; human v.
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Index r 223

monetary capital in, 45; retention 74–75; women retention and, 56,
in, 63; scandals of, 43–44, 68; 60–61, 102
women’s leadership in, 41, 76; Denny, Linda: on supplier diversity
women’s movement and, 41 programs, 87; on women-owned
Corporate boards: Allen, Clinton, on, companies, 49–50
68, 70; Citizens Advisers on, 69; Diana Project, 91–92
Deegan and, 70; discrimination Disadvantaged Business Enterprises
in, 73; diversity in, 69, 73; Hart (DBEs), 48; The Big Dig and, 49;
and, 70–71; ION on, 72; money/ certification of, 87
investments influenced by, 68–69, Discrimination: The Club and, 42–43;
73–74; as old boys’ network, 70; in corporate boards, 73; in
Wellesley Centers for Women on, healthcare, 116; at higher education
71; women on, 4, 68–73 level, 131–32; of Hopkins, 120–21;
Corporate Counsel’s 2005 survey, Ivey on, 116, 118, 122; in legal
106 profession, 98–99; during patent
Cozier, Nicole: on giving, 155, 160; on process, 121; Peters on, 199; sexual
volunteering, 159; on women’s harassment and, 199; Sweetser on,
representation, 154 133; tenure track and, 137; wage
Cradles to Crayons, 156–57, gap and, 188
159 Dole, Elizabeth, 164, 174–75
Crowninshield, Martha: on giving, Driscoll, Dawn-Marie, 42
160; nonprofit and, 157–58 Dunsire, Deborah, 124–25
Curie, Marie, 130; unpaid research by, Durham, Christine M., 20
128
The Economist, 22, 57
“Daring to Lead 2006: A National Education: on equality, 199; higher
Study of Nonprofit Executive wages and, 133; for leadership,
Leadership” report, 147–48, 199–200; women and, 15, 27
153 Education, higher: advancement in,
Databook on Women in the Labor Force, 139, 142; baby gap in, 136; career
34–35 satisfaction in, 135; competition in,
Daum, Julie H., 67 132; discrimination at, 131–32;
DBEs. See Disadvantaged Business presidents and, 138–43; promotion
Enterprises process of, 133–34; restructuring
Decision making, ethical, 44 of, 141; retention/promotion/
Declaration of Sentiments: recruitment in, 142; role models for,
rectification of, 31; on women’s 132, 141, 143; Summers on, 131;
grievances, 30–31 tenure track/offtrack and, 133–38;
Deegan, Gail, 70 women v. men, 131
DeGette, Diana, 17, 166, 170; on EEOC. See Equal Employment
campaign funding, 168 Opportunity Committee
Deloitte & Touche USA, 202; career Elections: media and, 164; Shaheen
customization of, 61; Peters/Allen, on, 165–66; Wilson on, 165; of
Sharon, on, 61; quotas used by, women, 165
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224 r Index

EMILY’s List, 168, 171 Rockett, Rhonda, on, 116; tenure

Employment, women: Industrial and, 134, 136–37; women and,
Revolution and, 30; statistics of, 184–86, 193
29–30, 34 Family policies: foreign v. United
Ending the Gauntlet: Removing the States, 59, 187; in workplace, 14–15
Barriers to Women’s Success in the Fanning, Joseph, 62–63
Law (Rikleen), 97 FAS. See Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Enron, scandal of, 43, 55 FDA. See Food and Drug
Entrepreneurship: angel investing and, Administration
93; bank loans for, 94; in biotech FDR. See Roosevelt, Franklin Delano
industry, 126; corporate America Federal Aviation Administration,
and, 86; early planning for, 81; as 197–98
economy driving force, 85, 89; Federal Election Campaign Act, 168
Hadary on, 78; mindset of, 82; role The Female Brain, 52–53
models for, 90; serial, 83–84; sole The Feminine Mystique (Friedan), 9, 35
proprietor v., 79; teen girls and, 90, Feminism: in America, 35–37, 180;
182; VC industry for, 91–93; Welch Friedan and, 35, 36; Steinem and,
as, 83–84; women and, 78–89; 35–36
work environment of, 86; WPO on, Fiorina, Carly, 192; media on, 66–67
78 Firestone, Marsha, 78, 91
Environmental Protection Agency Fleming, Cathy, 99–100, 102; on
(EPA), 106 in-house counsel, 107; on wage
EPA. See Environmental Protection gap/diversity, 104–5
Agency Flextime, 13, 61; advantages of, 62;
Equal Employment Opportunity Lawyers in Transition and, 103
Committee (EEOC), 33–34; funds FMLA. See Family and Medical Leave
of, 51 Act
Equality, 31; education on, 199; for Food and Drug Administration
men/women, 27–28; women’s (FDA), 106
struggle of, 204 Fortune 100, 75, 89
Equal Pay Act, 33, 50–51, 188 Fortune 500, 3, 6, 44, 57, 67, 68, 75,
Equal Rights Amendment, 27 89, 98, 114; on Deloitte & Touche
Ernst & Young, 62–63 USA, 56; 50 Most Powerful
Evans, Marsha J. “Marty,” 150, 159; Women of, 23, 24
on giving, 160; nonprofit as second Fortune 1000, 68, 75–76, 87, 89, 98
career of, 151–52 Friedan, Betty, 9, 201; feminism and,
35, 36
Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), Friedman, Alexandra, on negotiations,
136 153
Family and Medical Leave Act
(FMLA), 58 Gallina, Anna, 73
Family balance: legal profession and, Garvey, Jane, 197–98
101; in pharmaceutical industry, Gates, Bill, 90
123–24; Rikleen on, 102–3; Gates, Melinda, 158
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Index r 225

Gegler, Mary, 83 Healthcare: discrimination/flexibility

Gender: decision making and in, 116; glass ceiling in, 119, 124;
differences of, 44; legal profession lifestyle barriers for, 116; men in,
and discrimination of, 98–99; media 113; opportunities of, 114;
and child, 22; Norway’s quota restructuring of, 115; senior
system of, 47; tenure track and, 46 leadership positions of, 114–15;
Gender Equity Project, of MIT, 121 specialty choices in, 116, 117;
Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get women in, 113–19, 127; women’s
Paid Like Men—And What to Do representation in, 113–14
about It (Murphy), 3 Healy, Bernadine (doctor), 127
Get to Work (Hirshman), 192 Heard, Marian, 149–50, 160;
Gilbert, Julie, 73 leadership style of, 150; on women’s
Gilligan, Carol, 199 empathy, 46
Girl Scouts, 50, 73, 146, 159; Evans Higher education. See Education,
and, 151; role models and, 90–91 higher
Giving: Cozier on, 155, 160; Hirshman, Ashley, 192
Crowninshield/Evans/Gould on, Home-based businesses, 88
160; men v. women and, 160; to Homemakers, career women v.,
nonprofits, 154, 160–61, 196–98 192–93
Glass ceiling, 40, 184; breaking of, 37; Hopkins, Nancy (doctor), 120–21,
in healthcare, 119, 124; media and, 128–29; discrimination of, 120–21
63 Horner, Matina, 141
Goldberg, Carol R., 42 Humanity: importance of, 45; politics
Gould, Sara, 155; on giving, 160; on and, 188–89; small businesses and,
women’s representation, 154 95
Government: women and, 33, 171–72, Hunt, Swanee, 52, 167, 175, 189
175, 176. See also Politics
Grace Project, 129 In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory
The Graduate Management and Women’s Development
Admission Council, 61 (Gilligan), 199
Great Depression, 32 Inflation, 40
Green, Patricia, 60, 91 In-house counsel: Fleming on, 107;
legal profession and, 105–7;
Hadary, Sharon, 41, 78, 85–86, 89 O’Hara’s career of, 106–7;
Hanbury-Brown, Stephanie, 93, 94 opportunity for, 107; Roach on,
Hart, Myra, 58, 60, 91; corporate 105–6; wage gap in, 106
boards and, 70–71; Diana Project InterOrganization Network (ION): on
and, 92 corporate boards, 72; Wolfman of,
Harvard Magazine: on tenure track, 69; for women’s advancement,
136; on women representation, 46–47
132 Investments. See Money/Investments
Hatcher, James A., on diversity, 105 ION. See InterOrganization Network
Healthcare Businesswomen’s Ivey, Susan (doctor), on
Association, 123 discrimination, 116, 118, 122
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226 r Index

Jackson, Shirley Ann, 120, 137, 98; perspective needed in, 110–11;
138 power of, 110; retention in,
Judge(s): Abrahamson as, 108–9; 100–101, 111; structure of, 110;
diversity and, 107; legal profession wage gap in, 99–100, 104–5, 188;
and, 107–9; Marshall as, 108; women in, 98, 109–10. See also
McMorrow as, 109; media and, In-house counsel
107; women as, 107–9
Marble ceiling. See Glass ceiling
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, 10, 11–12, Margherio, Lynn: nonprofits and,
39–40 156–57; volunteers and, 159
Kerry, Teresa Heinz, 155–56 Marshall, Margaret H., 20, 108; on
Klawe, Maria, 129 judges, 109
Maternity leave: benefits for, 187;
Lampe-Onnerud, Christina, 92 countries using, for fathers, 60, 187;
Lang, Ilene: on career advice, 183–84; countries using, for mothers, 59,
on company changes, 75 187; from work, 11, 27, 28–29,
Lawyers in Transition, flextime and, 58–59
103 MBEs. See Minority Business
Leaders: availability of, 61; corruption Enterprises
of, 43–44; disappearance of, 43; McCain, John, 164, 197–98
female government, 52; Gegler on, McColgan, Ellyn, 24, 195
83; Hadary on, 89; Peters on, 52, McMorrow, Mary Ann (Chief
57–58 Justice), 20, 109
Leadership: Clinton, Hillary, on, Media: agenda of, 64; business
174–75; in corporate America, 41; perception by, 90; child gender and,
diversity of, 22; education for, 22; on childrearing, 11; elections
199–200; Hadary on, 41; of and, 164; freedom of speech/ideas
healthcare, 114–15; Heard’s style of, in, 21; on Gates, Bill, 90; glass
150; Kanter on, 39–40; media and, ceiling and, 63; leadership and, 15;
15; men and, 179–80; Moore on, men’s image by, 193–94; role
104; need for, 46; Nielsen on, models in, 1–2; on Singleton, 65;
118–19; in nonprofits, 146; Sullivan sisters and, 21; Swift on,
opportunity for, 14, 15–16; political, 170; women’s image by, 22–23, 50,
167; women’s exclusion from, 1–7; 63–68, 78, 193–94, 203
Zane on, 115 Members of the Club
Lee, Barbara, 159, 165, 169, 171, 172 (Driscoll/Goldberg), 42
Legal profession: advertising and, 100; Men: childrearing and, 10, 185–86;
billable hours for, 100, 102; career The Club membership of, 42; in
path of, 98; diversity in, 104–5; healthcare, 113; leadership and,
family/flexibility and, 101, 102–3; 179–80; media’s image of, 193–94;
gender discrimination in, 98–99; networking of, 24–25; as
judges and, 107–9; management in, nonjudgmental, 192; pay of, 3;
97; National Association of Law women’s success and, 180; women
Placement on, 98; opportunities for, v., 19, 71
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Index r 227

“Men and Women Lawyers in New York Stock Exchange (NYSE),

In-House Legal Departments: 71
Recruitment and Career Patterns” Nielsen, Nancy H., 45, 118–19
(Catalyst), 105 NIH. See National Institutes of Health
Military, WAC/WAVES and, Nineteenth Amendment, 32
32 Nitsch Engineering: Nitsch and,
Millman, Amy, 125 48–49; as WBE, 49
Minority Business Enterprises Nitsch, Judith, 48–49
(MBEs), 48; certification of, 87 Nobel Prize, 128, 130
MIT, Gender Equity Project of, Nobel Prize Women in Science, 128
121 Nonprofits: Cradles to Crayons as,
Money/Investments: as barrier, 167; 156–57; Crowninshield and,
for campaigning, 167–69; corporate 157–58; diversity in, 154; female
boards influence on, 68–69, 73–74; contribution to, 149–51; for-profits
power and, 167; of women, 167 v., 152; giving to, 154, 160–61,
Moore, Meredith, 103–4 196–98; growth of, 145; Heard on,
Ms. Magazine (Steinem), 35 149–50, 160; leadership positions
Murphy, Evelyn, 3, 196, 197; on in, 146; Margherio and, 156–57;
EEOC, 51 negotiating in, 152–53;
opportunities in, 147; pipeline for,
NALP. See Association for Legal 149, 159; recruitment for, 152;
Career Professionals restructuring of, 155–56; role model
National Association of Law for, 158–59; satisfaction in, 148–49;
Placement, 98 as second career, 151–52; success of,
National Association of Women 152; volunteers in, 146, 155, 159;
Lawyers (NAWL): on retention, wage gap of, 45–46, 146, 147, 149;
103; on wage gap, 99–100 women and, 4, 145–61;
National Institutes of Health (NIH), women-and-girls programming of,
127 153–55; women representation in,
National Journal, 146 154
National Organization for Women Norway, gender quota system of, 47
(NOW), 34, 36, 171 NOW. See National Organization for
National Organization for Women’s Women
Bill of Rights, 27–28 NSF. See National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation (NSF), NWPC. See National Women’s
119; employment outlook of, 120; Political Caucus
RAMP-UP program of, 137 NYSE. See New York Stock Exchange
National Women’s Political Caucus
(NWPC), 34–35 Obstacles, women’s views of, 13–16
NAWL. See National Association of O’Connor, Sandra Day, 99
Women Lawyers Office of Women in Higher
Networking, of women/men, 24–25 Education (OWHE): of ACE, 138;
New York Infirmary for Women and on presidency pipeline, 139–40
Children, 113 O’Hara, Katherine, 106–7
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228 r Index

Old boys’ network, 184; The Club humanity and, 188–89; impact by,
and, 42; corporate boards as, 70; 167; pregnancy and, 170–71;
Gould on, 155; Wolfman on, 72–73 recruitment for, 171–72; role model
Opportunities: for advancement, 43, for, 173–74; structure of, 170;
57, 72–73, 109–10, 123, 129, 142; women in, 4, 17–18, 171–72, 204–5
for in-house counsel, 107; for Power: Lee on, 171; money and, 167;
leadership, 14, 15–16; for legal of women, 2, 40, 55, 110, 123, 171,
profession, 98; in nonprofits, 147 176, 200, 204
OWHE. See Office of Women in Pregnancy, 30; politics and, 170–71
Higher Education President(s): Caldwell as, 141, 142;
family balance of, 140–41; financial
PAC. See Political action committee knowledge and, 140; of higher
Paid leave: maternal, 59; paternal, 60, education, 138–43; Horner as, 141;
62, 185; in Sweden, 187 pipeline to, 139; role/pay of, 140
Parent Teacher Association (PTA), 46 President’s Commission on the Status
Patent process, 121 of Women, 33
Pay: higher education and, 133; of Principal investigator (PI), 122
nonprofits, 146; of women/men, 3. Professional Women’s Network
See also Wage gap (PWN), 47
Pelosi, Nancy, 13, 37, 169, 173, 180 Psychology Today, 191–92
Peters, Tom, 52, 57–58, 61, 74, 199 PTA. See Parent Teacher Association
Pfeiffer, Leonard, 147 Public Education for the Council on
Pharmaceutical industry: advancement Contemporary Families, 12
opportunities in, 123; employment PWN. See Professional Women’s
outlook for, 123; family balance in, Network
123–24; mentoring for, 124;
women’s mantra in, 122–23 Qiu, Jean, 126
Philanthropy. See Nonprofits Quotas, 194–95; Allen, Sharon, on,
Phillips, Donna Burns, 138, 140 74–75; Brabeck on, 74; debate on,
PI. See Principal investigator 74–75; Deloitte & Touche USA
Pipeline: academic, 135; Daum on, 67; using, 74–75; diversity and, 194; of
filling of, 76, 90; for nonprofits, PWN, 47; targets v., 75
149, 159; to presidency, 139; to
White House, 165 RAMP-UP. See Reforming
“Pipeline to the Future: Young Advancement Processes through
Women, Motivation and Success in University Professions program
Political Leadership,” 167 Real estate, women and, 89
Pisa, Regina, 104 Reforming Advancement Processes
Political action committee (PAC): through University Professions
EMILY’s List as, 168; Federal (RAMP-UP) program, components
Election Campaign Act on, 168; of, 137–38
funding from, 168 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s
Politics: Angell on, 177; DeGette on, (RPI): growth of, 138; women’s
17, 166, 170; diversity in, 174, 177; representation and, 137
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Index r 229

Research: PI for, 122; for sciences, Schroeder, Patricia, 17, 166; FMLA
unpaid, 128–29 and, 58
Retention: Barnett on, 103; in Science, on patent discrimination, 121
corporate America, 63; Deloitte & Science and engineering (S&E): role
Touche USA and, 60–61, 102; at models in, 120; women in, 119–20
Ernest & Young, 62–63; in higher Sciences: mentoring in, 124; tenure
education, 142; in legal profession, track of, 129; unpaid research for,
100–101, 111; NAWL on, 103; of 128–29; women in, 119–22;
women, 42, 56, 58–63, 102 women’s health and, 126–28. See
Return on investment (ROI), 84 also Biotech industry;
Rikleen, Lauren Stiller, 97; on Pharmaceutical industry; Science,
attrition rates at law firms, 101; on technology, engineering,
family/flexibility, 102–3 mathematics industry
Roach, Sharyn L., 105–6 Science, technology, engineering,
Rockett, Barbara (doctor), 118, 183 mathematics (STEM) industry,
Rockett, Rhonda, 116 124
ROI. See Return on investment S&E. See Science and engineering
Role models: for entrepreneurship, 90; Self-expression: Bennis on, 41; of
Fiorina as, 66; Firestone on, 91; women, 20–21
Gates, Melinda, as, 158; Girl Scouts Senate, 36–37; women in, 36–37
and, 90–91; for higher education, Shaheen, Jeanne, 172; on elections,
132, 141, 143; Hopkins as, 120–21; 165–66; as governor, 165
Jackson on, 120; Lee as, 159; in Simmons, Ruth, 141–42
media, 1–2; need for, 182–83; for Simmons School of Management,
nonprofits, 158–59; Pisa as, 104; for 61–62, 182
politics, 173–74; in S&E, 120; Singleton, Shirley, 65
women and, 63, 76, 83, 89–91, 130; Small businesses. See Businesses, small
WPO as, 91 Sole proprietor, entrepreneurship v.,
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (FDR), 79
43, 105; WAC/WOWs and, 32 SOMWBA. See State Office of
Rosenberg, David, on inflation, 40 Minority and Women’s Business
Royal College of Physicians, key issues Assistance
by, 115 South Shore Women’s Business
Royal, Segolene, 178 Network, 181; affirmative action
RPI. See Rensselaer Polytechnic and, 47–48
Institute’s Speak Like A CEO (Bates), 82
Spence, Rina, 127
Salary. See Wage gap Spragins, Ellyn, 63–64
Sarbanes-Oxley, 55; corporate boards State Office of Minority and Women’s
of, 68 Business Assistance (SOMWBA),
Scandals: of corporate America, 48
43–44, 68; of Enron, 43, 55; Steinem, Gloria, 35
negative business views from, 90; STEM. See Science, technology,
women and, 55 engineering, mathematics industry
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GGBD147IND C9924/Donlan Top Margin: 5/8in Gutter Margin: 3/4in August 22, 2007 16:30

230 r Index

Stereotypes, 20; of bosses, 184; of UNICEF, 159

businessmen, 24; Phillips on, 140; United Way of Massachusetts Bay
removal of, 200; types of, 19; of (UWMB), restructuring of,
women, 9–10, 14, 41 149–50
Stock markets, 88 University presidents. See President(s)
Sullivan sisters, 21 UWMB. See United Way of
Summers, Lawrence: on higher Massachusetts Bay
education, 131; on women’s math
skills, 11 VC. See Venture capital industry
Supplier diversity: Denny on, 87; Venture capital (VC) industry, 91–94;
growth of, 87; WBENC and, Brush on, 93; Lampe-Onnerud and,
86–87; for WBEs, 88 92
Sweden, 187 Volunteers: Cozier on, 159; in
Sweetser, Ruth, 133, 137 nonprofits, 146, 155, 159; women
Swift, Jane, 170 as, 146

Take Your Daughter to Work Day, WAC. See Women’s Army Corps
181–82 Wage gap, 95, 148; addressing, 196;
Teen girls, entrepreneurship and, 90, discrimination and, 188; Fleming
182 on, 99–100; in in-house counsel,
“Teen Girls on Business: Are They 106; in legal profession, 99–100,
Being Empowered,” negative 104–5, 188; McColgan on, 195;
perception of, 89–90 Murphy on, 196; NAWL on,
“Tenure Denied” (AAUW), 133; on 99–100; in nonprofits, 45–46, 146,
discrimination, 135; on women 147, 149; Pfeiffer on, 147; small
professors, 132 businesses and, 85
Tenure track: AAUW on, 137; ACE The Wall Street Journal, 21; on Gates,
on, 132; Alfred P. Sloan Melinda, 158; on networking,
Foundation on, 134; denial of, 24–25
134–35; discrimination and, 137; Watkins, Sherron, 68
family balance and, 134, 136–37; WAVES. See Women Accepted for
FAS statistics of, 136; gender and, Voluntary Emergency Services
46; Grace Project on, 129; of WBENC. See Women’s Business
sciences, 129; Sweetser on, 137 Enterprise National Council
“Tenure-Track” (ACE), on career WBEs. See Women Business
satisfaction, 135 Enterprises
Tough Choices: A Memoir (Fiorina), Welch, Sue, 83–84
66 Wellesley Centers for Women, 71
Training, cost of, 60 White House, 5; Hunt on, 175;
The Truth of a Woman (Royal), 178 pipeline to, 165; women in, 163–78,
Tufts-NEMC. See Tufts-New 200, 204–5
England Medical Center The White House Project, 163–64,
Tufts-New England Medical Center 167; media coverage of, 164;
(Tufts-NEMC), Zane of, 115 Wilson and, 164
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GGBD147IND C9924/Donlan Top Margin: 5/8in Gutter Margin: 3/4in August 22, 2007 16:30

Index r 231

White House Women’s Office of organizations, 207–10; pay of, 3; in

Initiatives and Outreach, 195 politics, 4, 17–18, 171–72, 204–5;
Wilson, Marie, 164; on campaigning, power of, 2, 40, 55, 110, 123, 171,
167; on elections, 165 176, 200, 204; promotions of, 63;
WIN. See Women’s Initiative qualities of, 5, 58, 171, 172–73; real
Wolfman, Toni, 69; on old boys’ estate and, 89; recommendations
network, 72–73 for, 191–200; relationships of,
Women: accountability of, 44–45; 52–53; representation of, 6, 39, 52,
aggression/peace and, 189; barriers 56, 76, 113–14, 115, 119–20, 132,
for, 2, 13–16, 115, 123, 146, 163; 137, 145–46, 154, 194–95;
career negotiation of, 62; career v. retention of, 42, 56, 58–63, 102;
homemaker, 192–93; as caregivers, risk taking of, 141; role models and,
45; childrearing and, 9–10, 15, 51; 63, 76, 83, 89–91, 130; sacrifices of,
confidence of, 16, 21–22, 63, 175; 28, 29; scandals and, 55; in sciences,
in Congress, 36–37, 39, 163, 166; 119–22; scrutiny of, 68; in S&E,
consumer power of, 24, 39, 69, 119–20; self-expression of, 20–21;
73–74, 76; in corporate America, in Senate, 36–37; as small business
41, 76; on corporate boards, 4, owners, 4–6, 41, 48–50, 76, 77–78;
68–73; curiosity/questioning ability Spragins on, 63–64; in STEM
of, 71–72, 76; education and, 15, industries, 124; stereotypes of, 9–10,
27; elections of, 165; empathy of, 14, 41; support for, 180–81; teen
46; employment/life girls and, 90, 182; unpaid research
expectancy/reproductive labor of, by, 128–29; visibility of, 198–99; as
29–30; entrepreneurship and, volunteers, 146; voting habits of,
78–89; equality struggle of, 204; 169–70, 177; wartime support of,
family balance and, 184–86, 193; 28; in White House, 163–78, 200,
giving and, 160–61; government 204–5
and, 33, 171–72, 175, 176; Great Women Accepted for Voluntary
Depression and, 32; in healthcare, Emergency Services (WAVES), 32
113–19, 127; as higher education Women Business Enterprises
presidents, 138–43; in highly-visible (WBEs), 48; certification of, 87;
careers, 20; historical advancement Nitsch Engineering as, 49; supplier
of, 28; as judges, 107–9; as diversity for, 88
judgmental, 191–92; leadership “Women in Law: Making the Case”:
exclusion of, 1–7; in legal on in-house counsel, 105; on
profession, 98, 109–10; mantra of, retention, 100–101
67–68, 122–23; media’s image of, “Women in Medicine Key Issues,”
22–23, 50, 63–68, 78, 193–94, 203; 115
men v., 19, 71; military service and, “Women, Money and Power Study,”
32; money of, 167; National 167
Association of Law Placement on, “Women on Boards: Missed
98; networking of, 24–25; Nobel Opportunities” (Catalyst), 72
Prize and, 128, 130; nonprofits and, Women Ordnance Workers
4, 145–61; obstacle views of, 13–16; (WOWs), FDR and, 32
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GGBD147IND C9924/Donlan Top Margin: 5/8in Gutter Margin: 3/4in August 22, 2007 16:30

232 r Index

Women & Philanthropy, 160; on of, 29–32, 37; Nineteenth

nonprofits, 145, 153–54 Amendment and, 32; small
Women Presidents’ Organization businesses and, 41
(WPO): on entrepreneurship, 78; as Women’s Transportation Seminar
role model, 91; on small businesses, (WTS), 197
85 Women’s Voices. Women Vote
Women’s Action Alliance, Steinem (WVWV), 169
and, 35 Workplace: entrepreneurship and, 86;
Women’s Army Corps (WAC), FDR family policies in, 14–15; Hadary
and, 32 on, 85–86; maternity leave from, 11,
Women’s Business (newspaper), 2, 89, 27, 28–29, 58–59; mentorship
180, 198 programs in, 43; revolution of,
Women’s Business Enterprise 85–89; talent retention by, 17
National Council (WBENC), 49, WOWs. See Women Ordnance
86; certification by, 86; supplier Workers
diversity programs and, WPO. See Women Presidents’
86–87 Organization
Women’s health: attention to, 128; WTS. See Women’s Transportation
research for, 127; revolution of, Seminar
126–27 WVWV. See Women’s Voices.
Women’s Initiative (WIN), 56 Women Vote
Women’s movement: benefits of, 179;
corporate America and, 41; history Zane, Ellen, 115
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GGBD147ATA C9924/Donlan Top Margin: 5/8in Gutter Margin: 3/4in August 24, 2007 17:18

About the Authors

VICKI DONLAN is Publisher and Founder of Women’s Business as well

as its Web site, www.womensbiz.com, that reaches over 500,000 readers.
A regular guest on New England Cable News and a popular speaker at
businesses and business networking organizations, Donlan is a founder of
the Alliance of Women’s Business and Professional Organizations.

HELEN FRENCH GRAVES is the Founding Editor of Women’s Busi-

ness. An award-winning journalist, she has written for the Boston Globe,
BostonHerald.com, Community Newspaper Co., and the Brockton Enterprise.