The Female Factor
Feminism of the Future Relies on Men
by Katrin Beenhold
In 1965, my mother was the only female engineering student in her class in Germany. There were no ladies’ toilets except in the basement, where the cleaners had their lockers, and her professor urged her to find a husband quickly so she wouldn’t fail the exams.
Feminism in those days was pretty clear-cut: It was about women closing ranks to battle blatant sexism, get an education and go to work. It was, as my mother said recently, “about women pushing into the world of men.”
The feminism of the future is shaping up to be about pulling men into women’s universe — as involved dads, equal partners at home and ambassadors for gender equality from the cabinet office to the boardroom.
In the early 21st century, women in the developed world find themselves in a peculiar place. With boys failing in school and working-class men losing their jobs to the economic crisis, pundits predict not just The Death of Macho (Foreign Policy, September 2009) but The End of Men (The Atlantic, July/August 2010).
Reality is more nuanced. Women earn more doctorates, but less money. They are overtaking men in the work force, but still do most housework. They make the consumer decisions but run only 3 percent of Fortune 500 companies.
“In theory, we now have equal rights,” sighed one senior female executive at a French multinational, who tellingly requested anonymity for fear of riling the men at her company. “In practice, we still have babies.”
In the Western world, motherhood remains the barrier to gender equality. Until they have children, young women now earn nearly the same as men and climb the career ladder at a similar pace. With the babies often come career breaks, part-time work and a rushed two-shift existence that means sacrificing informal networks like the after hours beer-and-bonding experience often crucial at promotion time.
So far, the instinct of politicians, companies and women themselves has generally been to sharpen their focus on, well, women.
Many Western countries protect female jobs during maternity leave, and several offer mothers a right to cut back their hours. In the corporate world, (female) human resource officers lobby for flexible work time, and (female) diversity officers organize female mentoring programs. Female executive networks where the ladies can bond are booming. At countless women’s conferences, women debate with women about women and bond some more.
At best, those initiatives are good for tips and morale. At worst, they trap women in their role as primary carers. What they’re not doing is getting more women into leadership positions.
“We’ve got to wake up,” said Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, chief executive of 20-first, a gender management consultancy. “We’ve got to start focusing on the guys.”
The only thing that can level the playing field at work is a level playing field at home. And that requires a major shift in public policy and corporate culture.
In the few countries where fathers take paternity leave on a significant scale, that leave is highly paid and not transferable to the mother. Predictably, the Nordics have led the way. Iceland, which comes closest to reaching gender equality according to the World Economic Forum’s gender gap index, has gone furthest, reserving three months — a full third — of its leave for fathers. Nine in 10 Icelandic men take time off with their babies. A lawmaker, Drifa Hjartardottir, described the 2000 law as “one of the biggest and most important steps taken towards gender equality since women’s right to vote.”
It took a male prime minister to sell the legislation to the country, and it took male leaders in Sweden and Norway to pass similar laws. It was a man who championed Norway’s boardroom quota obliging companies to fill at least 40 percent of the seats with women.
Would a female Spanish prime minister have been able to appoint a cabinet that is 50 percent female in 2004?
Unlikely, thinks Celia de Anca, of IE Business School in Madrid. “When you want to change a culture,” she said, “it’s easier for a representative of that culture to sell the change.”
Basically, guys are the more effective feminists because other guys are more likely to listen to them.
Feminism of the Future Relies on Men
by Katrin Beenhold
In 1965, my mother was the only female engineering student in her class in Germany. There were no ladies’ toilets except in the basement, where the cleaners had their lockers, and her professor urged her to find a husband quickly so she wouldn’t fail the exams.
Feminism in those days was pretty clear-cut: It was about women closing ranks to battle blatant sexism, get an education and go to work. It was, as my mother said recently, “about women pushing into the world of men.”
The feminism of the future is shaping up to be about pulling men into women’s universe — as involved dads, equal partners at home and ambassadors for gender equality from the cabinet office to the boardroom.
In the early 21st century, women in the developed world find themselves in a peculiar place. With boys failing in school and working-class men losing their jobs to the economic crisis, pundits predict not just The Death of Macho (Foreign Policy, September 2009) but The End of Men (The Atlantic, July/August 2010).
Reality is more nuanced. Women earn more doctorates, but less money. They are overtaking men in the work force, but still do most housework. They make the consumer decisions but run only 3 percent of Fortune 500 companies.
“In theory, we now have equal rights,” sighed one senior female executive at a French multinational, who tellingly requested anonymity for fear of riling the men at her company. “In practice, we still have babies.”
In the Western world, motherhood remains the barrier to gender equality. Until they have children, young women now earn nearly the same as men and climb the career ladder at a similar pace. With the babies often come career breaks, part-time work and a rushed two-shift existence that means sacrificing informal networks like the after hours beer-and-bonding experience often crucial at promotion time.
So far, the instinct of politicians, companies and women themselves has generally been to sharpen their focus on, well, women.
Many Western countries protect female jobs during maternity leave, and several offer mothers a right to cut back their hours. In the corporate world, (female) human resource officers lobby for flexible work time, and (female) diversity officers organize female mentoring programs. Female executive networks where the ladies can bond are booming. At countless women’s conferences, women debate with women about women and bond some more.
At best, those initiatives are good for tips and morale. At worst, they trap women in their role as primary carers. What they’re not doing is getting more women into leadership positions.
“We’ve got to wake up,” said Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, chief executive of 20-first, a gender management consultancy. “We’ve got to start focusing on the guys.”
The only thing that can level the playing field at work is a level playing field at home. And that requires a major shift in public policy and corporate culture.
In the few countries where fathers take paternity leave on a significant scale, that leave is highly paid and not transferable to the mother. Predictably, the Nordics have led the way. Iceland, which comes closest to reaching gender equality according to the World Economic Forum’s gender gap index, has gone furthest, reserving three months — a full third — of its leave for fathers. Nine in 10 Icelandic men take time off with their babies. A lawmaker, Drifa Hjartardottir, described the 2000 law as “one of the biggest and most important steps taken towards gender equality since women’s right to vote.”
It took a male prime minister to sell the legislation to the country, and it took male leaders in Sweden and Norway to pass similar laws. It was a man who championed Norway’s boardroom quota obliging companies to fill at least 40 percent of the seats with women.
Would a female Spanish prime minister have been able to appoint a cabinet that is 50 percent female in 2004?
Unlikely, thinks Celia de Anca, of IE Business School in Madrid. “When you want to change a culture,” she said, “it’s easier for a representative of that culture to sell the change.”
Basically, guys are the more effective feminists because other guys are more likely to listen to them.
Read the Full Essay @ The New York Times
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