 DEBATE Spare me the Stereotypes FRIDAY 12 OCTOBER 2007
There were three ways for women to overcome female stereotyping, Heather McGregor, Director of UK head-hunting firm Taylor Bennett, told a debate on how to improve attitudes to women in the workplace. "Firstly be good at your job, and then people won't care if you come in late," she said. "Secondly, make sure people know you're good at your job. I think all women should devote at least five per cent of their time to their own PR, which isn't actually much when you think that most men devote 50 per cent of their time to it. "And lastly, all women with sons should raise them in equal opportunity homes, and that means both sexes should do the washing up, the tidying up and the laundry." She went on: "There is still a perception amongst employers that if your menstrual cycle is still functioning then you're about to get pregnant.” McGregor added: "We have to rise above this by not just claiming that we are as good or better than men, but by becoming so successful that we prove it." She said she believed most stereotypes began early in life and did not just concern gender. She told the participants about the time she was asked to take her son to his school in Britain for a French-themed breakfast. "They were all going to eat croissants, and I was asked to bring him dressed as a French boy,” she said. “I was worried about this as I thought all French children went to school wearing Yves Saint Laurent, but it turned out the school wanted him in a striped jumper and a beret with a string of onions round his neck." But she said the hardest stereotype of all to crack was about men, not women, and achieving a situation where the woman went out to work and the man looked after the home. She said: "We as women have to learn not to stereotype men and the notion of house-husbands, so that they're happy to stay at home, which will then allow us to go out to work. "That said, the best way to get yourself a house-husband is still simply to earn 1.3 million pounds a year," she added. "Women cannot have it all. It's a complete myth. You have to choose. I personally chose, and I chose to put my career first. In my life, my order of priorities is first my job, then my children, then my husband and finally me. That's why I weigh 90 kilos,” she said. "If I put myself first, I'd be down at the gym every day and I'd be a nice size ten." Norma Jarboe is Director of the UK's Opportunity Now organisation for employers committed to creating an inclusive workplace for women. She said that research carried out by her company into barriers to female advancement at work found that as well as glass ceilings for women higher up the career ladder, there were what she called 'sticky floors' for more junior female staff. She said: "We saw that younger women at the start of their careers found it hard to get promoted anywhere beyond the lowliest positions. We found each of these problems was due to two things: the stereotyping of women's roles and abilities and a lack of role models.” Jarboe added: "Both of these begin at families and schools, so it is crucial that parents and teachers impress upon women that they are able to do a wide range of jobs instead of just funneling them into things like the caring professions, which are traditionally lower paid." Elisabeth Kelan, a researcher into women in business at the London Business School, outlined the hidden costs of stereotyping. "There are economic costs, like the electronics firms that make pink gadgets, pink phones, pink ipods, all aimed at women,” she said. “But they must be losing money because our research found that only nine per cent of women actually liked pinked-up products.” "There are also personal costs. We asked men and women to tell us their career stories and we found that while women tended to say they had got where they were through luck or chance, the men mostly stressed that they achieved success through hard work,” Kelan added. "So when it comes to the promotion interview, the men get the jobs because they appear to be more driven." In answer to a question from the audience about house-husbands, Kelan said studies that there was never likely to be as many house-husbands as housewives because men tended to marry economically downwards, while women sought men who they saw as professionally 'solid'. In conclusion she said when it came to one of them giving up their job to run the home, it was rarely the man. _______________________________ |