Yes, of course. For capitalist reasons alone, to block out an entire gender doesn’t make good business sense– you’re limiting your talent pool and that will cost you good ideas and hard workers. But constitutionally, do most women have what it takes to make it in business? Maybe– maybe not. In Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In, she talks about all the women around the country who have good ideas but are too timid to suggest them, implement them, raise their hands, sit at the table. So Sheryl mentors them and encourages them and prods them along to stand up and LEAN IN. And that’s great! Hopefully, generations from now, those women who learned to be assertive and tell a group of men what she is thinking, then will raise young girls and hopefully pass those traditions along. But if I am a CEO of any gender, do I want to hire someone who is too timid to speak up? No way!
Another data point: http://www.mbawomen.org/. The National Association of Women MBAs is hosting a conference in DC later this year. Here are some of the topics: “how to ask for what you want”, “redefine your power”, “dress for success”, “Nashville- more than a double standard: women in leadership”
This makes it look like women need to be taught that which seems to come naturally to men. How could a man respect a woman who needs to be taught such fundamental things? So, the obvious question is: do women really need this training? If so, why are they trying to do something that seems counter to their constitutions? Not EVERY woman just like not EVERY man should have a high-powered corporate job. And if SO MANY women need to be taught this, then the gender disparity in business makes perfect sense.
I am fine with mentoring women and prodding them and molding them into a different, more businessy type of woman. But women need to stop complaining about the pay gap and glass ceiling and everything else. There are some great women out there in business, running companies right along side the men. Therefore, there IS NO glass ceiling. I don’t begrudge men for ONE SECOND not wanting to hire someone who is too timid to even touch the “glass ceiling”. If more women in business are timid that the proportional amount of men, then it makes sense that women earn less than men. That’s very logical.
Real feminism let’s women do WHATEVER THEY WANT and that doesn’t mean they have to wear pants, cut their hair, behave like men, be assertive or work in business! They can be timid and mild and sweet and nice and be perfectly happy! Businesses probably can’t put the latter description to work as easily as the first so they may hire fewer women but the one’s they hire that fit the first category will be AWESOME! And these new female hires will in turn inspire other women who naturally gravitate toward business. Therefore, women won’t get jobs for “being women”– a quality that she has no control over and didn’t result from any effort at all. Women will get jobs because they were the best candidate for the position. That will be when we have true equality. The more we guilt men to hire us to fill quotas, the more women they will get in their ranks who weren’t natural fits and therefore won’t do as well as another candidate and this will ONLY perpetuate the stereotypes and trends for salaries and women in business in the wrong direction.