Chipping Away at the Glass Ceiling in Athletic Administration

Diverse Issues in Higher Education
by Pearl Stewart, August 23, 2011


When Dr. Vivian Fuller testified in 1992 at a congressional subcommittee hearing on gender inequities in intercollegiate athletics, she specifically addressed the lack of women in athletic administration.

“Women should not be limited to traditional positions in such as assistant or associate director of athletics. ... In particular, when director of athletics positions become vacant, institutions should consider hiring a woman for the job,” she said in her prepared statement.

Full Story: http://diverseeducation.com/article/16251/

Still Few Women in Management, Report Says

The New York Times
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
Published: September 27, 2010

Women made little progress in climbing into management positions in this country even in the boom years before the financial crisis, according to a report to be released on Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office.
As of 2007, the latest year for which comprehensive data on managers was available, women accounted for about 40 percent of managers in the United States work force. In 2000, women held 39 percent of management positions. Outside of management, women held 49 percent of the jobs in both years.

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/business/28gender.html?_r=1

For a copy of GAO's "Women in Management: Female Managers' Representation, Characteristics, and Pay," GAO-10-1064T September 28, 2010, go to: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-1064T

The B-School Glass Ceiling

Inside Higher Ed
February 23, 2010

Female professors at business schools tend to remain in the mid-faculty ranks after earning tenure, while their male counterparts are more likely to continue onward to full professor, according to a new study.
The study by Shani D. Carter, chair of the management and marketing department at Rhode Island College, is scheduled to be presented later this week at the annual conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development. It utilizes data from 1988 to 2004 provided by the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty.
While, during this 16-year time period, there were inequities in the distribution of males and females throughout the faculty ranks of all disciplines, Carter writes that these gaps were particularly stark in the field of business. For example, in 1988, the largest proportion of male and female faculty members were at the instructor level. As of 2004, the largest proportion of female faculty members were instructors, but a plurality of men (38.2 percent) were at the level of full professor. Additionally, the percentage of male full professors grew from 18.9 percent to 38.2, while that of female full professors only went from 6.4 percent to 13.8.

Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/02/23/business

France to push women into the boardroom

TimesOnline
January 21, 2010

The French version of the glass ceiling has just been cracked open by parliamentary vote. With the backing of President Sarkozy's administration, the National Assembly last night passed a bill that aims to force big companies to appoint women to 40 percent of their seats on the board.
The quota is likely to reach the statue books, with amendments, later this year, making France the biggest state so far to use the law to break the boys only culture of the boardroom. Norway introduced a 40 percent rule in 2002 when women accounted for only 6 per cent of board seats there. Spain has also just passed a similar law.
The measure will mean an upheaval because the boards of France's top companies remain male bastions, along with those of southern Europe (see chart below). Women occupy just 10.5 percent of board seats in the 650 publicly quoted companies to which the new law will apply. Corporations will have six years to reach the 40 percent mark. After that, all board appointments will be voided if they do not maintain at least a 60-40 share between men and women.

Full Story: http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/charles_bremner/2010/01/france-pushes-women-into-the-boardroom-.html

Outback Steakhouse To Pay $19 Million For Sex Bias Against Women In 'Glass Ceiling' Suit By EEOC

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
December 29, 2009

Consent Decree Includes Online Application System, Creation of Executive HR Position

DENVER – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today announced that Outback Steakhouse has agreed to pay $19 million and furnish significant remedial relief to settle a major class lawsuit alleging sex discrimination against thousands of women at hundreds of its corporately-owned restaurants nationwide.
According to the EEOC, Outback discriminated against its female employees with respect to the terms and conditions of employment, and denied women equal opportunities for advancement. The EEOC alleged in the lawsuit that female employees hit a glass ceiling at Outback and could not get promoted to the higher-level profit-sharing management positions in the restaurants. Moreover, the EEOC also alleged that women were denied favorable job assignments, particularly kitchen management experience, which was required for employees to be considered for the top management job in the restaurants.
“There are still too many glass ceilings left to shatter in workplaces throughout corporate America,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “The EEOC will continue to bring class lawsuits like this one against employers who engage in gender discrimination on a systemic scale. Hopefully this major settlement will remind employers about the perils of perpetuating promotion practices that keep women from advancing at work.”
The settlement stems from a lawsuit filed by the EEOC in September 2006 under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado (EEOC v. Outback Steakhouse of Florida, Inc., and OS Restaurant Partners, Inc. d/b/a Outback Restaurants, No. 06-cv-01935).In addition to the monetary relief, the settlement, contained in a four-year consent decree signed by Federal Court Judge Christine M. Arguello, requires that Outback:
Institute an online application system for employees interested in managerial and other supervisory positions;
Employ a human resource executive in the newly created position of Vice President of People;
Employ an outside consultant for at least two years who will determine compliance with the terms of the decree and analyze data from the online application system to determine whether women are being provided equal opportunities for promotion; and
Report every six months to the EEOC on carrying out the terms of the decree;
EEOC Regional Attorney Mary Jo O’Neill of the agency’s Phoenix District, which has jurisdiction for Colorado, said, “We are pleased with the initiatives that Outback has agreed to in this settlement and look forward to seeing its efforts to promote women into management positions realized. Ensuring that all of the talent in a workforce is fully utilized simply makes good business sense.”
Rita Byrnes Kittle, senior trial attorney in the agency’s Denver Field Office, who jointly led the litigation effort added, “The EEOC brokered this far reaching and comprehensive settlement in the public interest to foster a discrimination-free workplace at Outback. We are particularly pleased about Outback’s commitment to a new process for employees to apply for promotion online and for hiring managers to make their selections from the online applications. We think this new process will help give women a fair opportunity to advance in the company.”
The $19 million in monetary relief contained in the settlement will be administered through a claims process in which an administrator will send letters to all female workers employed at corporately-owned Outback restaurants from 2002 to the present who have at least three years of tenure.
EEOC Denver Trial Attorney Stephanie Struble, who jointly led the litigation effort, said, “We encourage women who believe they were discriminated against by Outback to come forward and complete the claims form to obtain monetary relief. We also encourage all current female employees at Outback to take advantage of the new application process and let Outback know that they are interested in promotion.”
According to company information on its web site, “Outback Steakhouse was founded in Tampa, Florida in 1988. There are over 950 Outback Steakhouse restaurants throughout the world.”
The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the EEOC is available on its web site at www.eeoc.gov.

Gender Discrimination Begins Much Earlier Than Exec Levels, Report Shows

Workforce Management
May 12, 2009

‘Holding Women Back,’ which is based on responses from 12,800 leaders in 76 countries, finds that women face gender discrimination from the very beginning of their careers.--

Despite discussion regarding women hitting the glass ceiling once they reach the executive level, discrimination starts much earlier in their career, according to a recent paper by Development Dimensions International.
“Holding Women Back,” which is based on responses from 12,800 leaders in 76 countries, found that women face gender discrimination from the very beginning of their careers.
“Our data suggests that when you look at the things that would help people develop in their careers, women wouldn’t get the same opportunities as men did,” said Ann Howard, DDI’s chief scientist.
One of the main areas where employers fail to include women is in their high-potential programs, where they identify those employees who managers believe could make strong leaders someday.
According to the study, there were 28 percent more men than women in high-potential programs at the first level of management and 50 percent more men than women in such programs at the executive level.
The problem with many companies’ high-potential programs is that there is often no standard procedure to identify candidates, Howard said. Usually it’s up to the managers to choose candidates, she added.
“I’m not saying that there is some evil plot here,” Howard said. “It’s just that managers might think about future executives as men because that is the traditional norm at the company.”
Many companies don’t track how many women participate in high-potential programs, which also adds to this problem, said Jan Combopiano, vice president and chief knowledge officer at Catalyst, a New York-based organization dedicated to helping businesses build inclusive workplaces for women.
“It’s really important that there is accountability tied to these programs,” Combopiano said. “It’s critical for overcoming gender stereotyping.”
Another way to make sure that women have the same opportunities as men to advance their careers is by having a formal succession planning program in place, Howard said.

Full Story: http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/26/42/17.php

Cracks in the Ceiling

AmLaw Daily
Posted by Dimitra Kessenides
By Patricia Gillette
April 28, 2009 5:00 AM

Timing is everything.
Two years ago, I embarked on a study called The Opt In Project to look outside of the legal profession for examples of the successes and failures of retaining women and advancing them to leadership positions. At the time, I was a partner at Heller Ehrman. I had been working as a labor and employment lawyer for nearly 30 years and had started to believe that people in large law firms were too focused on part-time and mentoring/client development training programs as The Solution to the exodus of women from those firms.
Working with my colleague Anne Mercogliano (she was then a diversity coordinator at the firm), the hope was that our research would shed some light on the challenges faced by women in the legal profession and lead us to recommendations that might, over time, result in meaningful change.
Our findings were discouraging, interesting, surprising, and even hopeful. One point in particular made a strong impression on me. The factors that were pushing women away from law firms were the same ones cited by Gen Y lawyers entering the profession as important to their careers: a desire for a more balanced work life, even if that meant reduced pay. I was struck by the fact that the women voicing these concerns in law firms were seen as outliers; in corporations, the women were driving change.
In May, 2007, we published The Opt In Report (download the report here), presenting the argument that law firms must rethink their traditional structures in order to survive--from the way lawyers progress in their careers to the way clients are billed for services. Those changes, in turn, were needed to keep women in the profession.

Full Story: http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2009/04/women.html

Glass ceiling

The Cavalier Daily
Maria Chee
Sent: Thursday, April 9 2009

A glass ceiling often exists for women and ethnic minority groups in academia as in corporate America. It is an invisible and artificial cap on advancement, a bar to leadership level seen but not reached. It results from socioeconomic and political structural conditions, historical legacy, power relations, cultural interactions and lived experiences, among others, not from these people’s preference for supporting roles.
Asian Americans in the workforce have reported difficulty getting mentors or sponsors and exclusion from informal networks. Traditionally, Asian Americans have concentrated in the science, technology, engineering and math — the STEM disciplines, although that has been changing. Many naturalized citizens and immigrants arrived as adults for doctoral training. Some have cited the lack of competitive communication skills, social capital, and cultural understanding for operation in American organizations. Those who are American born or raised also encounter obstacles. For example, behaviors appropriate in their cultural milieu are perceived to be lacking leadership caliber in corporate America, not unlike women and other ethnic minorities.
The Asian American population is highly heterogeneous; categorically it faces the “foreigner” stereotype. Individuals and media continue to perceive and portray them as foreigners. U.S. born Asian children who are similar to other American children are found to be subject to persistent disadvantages merely because they look foreign. Glass ceiling can involve unintended and implicit biases reflected in people’s attitudinal orientations and institutional practices. The above provides just a few perspectives.

Full Comment: http://www.cavalierdaily.com/letters/2802/

Not Just a Glass Ceiling

The New York Times
September 10, 2008
Editorial

Women and minorities are not the novelty they once were in Congress, statehouses and legislatures, or even, starting with this election, on the presidential campaign trail. But elective office is still overwhelmingly a white male occupation. A new study suggests that may have less to do with the glass ceiling than with the pipeline: too few women and minorities are being appointed to top state jobs where they can get the experience and the public attention to establish a political career.
The report, from the Center for Women in Government and Civil Society at the State University of New York at Albany, tallied how many women and minorities were appointed by governors in the 50 states to leadership jobs between 1997 and 2007. The answer is: not enough. Of 1,834 top state jobs — including advisers to governors, department and commission heads — 643 were held by female appointees, or about 35 percent of the total. Minorities held less than 16 percent.
Gains varied significantly from state to state. In 15 states, including New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut, the number of female department heads doubled from 1997 to 2007. In another 11 states, the number fell, and in Iowa, Alabama and North Carolina, the number of women appointees dropped by more than half. [To read the entire editorial, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/opinion/10wed4.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin ]

Our Own Glass Ceilings

The Washington Post
By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, May 28, 2008; A13

As Hillary Clinton cracks her head against what she likes to call "the highest and hardest glass ceiling," there's no doubt that she craves the presidency as much as any man does.
But a new report from the Brookings Institution suggests an unexpected reason for the relative paucity of women elsewhere in political office and the dearth of credible female presidential candidates: an ambition gap.
"Somewhat surprisingly," write political scientists Jennifer Lawless of Brown University and Richard Fox of Loyola Marymount, women's underrepresentation "is not because of discrimination against women candidates. In fact, women perform as well as men when they do run for office. In terms of fundraising and vote totals, the consensus among researchers is the complete absence of overt gender bias."
Rather, the "fundamental reason for women's underrepresentation is that they do not run for office. There is a substantial gender gap in political ambition; men tend to have it, and women don't."
Surveying thousands of business leaders, educators and political activists, Lawless and Fox found "clear and compelling evidence that women, even in the highest tiers of professional accomplishment, are substantially less likely than men to demonstrate ambition to seek elected office." These results held true regardless of age, partisan affiliation, income and profession.
Equally unsettling, they note, this ambition gap is not shrinking. The number of women seeking political office grew steadily during the 1980s, and surged in the early 1990s -- remember the Year of the Woman? -- but has since leveled off. Today, women account for fewer than one out of four elected statewide officials, one in six members of Congress, and -- perhaps most relevant considering the traditional road to the presidency -- eight of 50 governors.
Why this reluctance to take the political plunge? "Women are less likely than men to be willing to endure the rigors of a political campaign," Lawless and Fox write. "They are less likely than men to be recruited to run for office. They are less likely than men to have the freedom to reconcile work and family obligations with a political career. They are less likely than men to think they are 'qualified' to run for office."
Oh, boy -- oh, girl?-- does that ring true.
The women in the survey were far less likely to be married or have children than the men were, and those who did had their hands full: 60 percent of the women, compared with 4 percent of the men, said they were responsible for the majority of child care.
As Beloit College political scientist Georgia Duerst-Lahti put it, "Women may now think about running for office, but they probably think about it while they are making the bed." Chugging down the Mommy Track may leave little time for pursuing a third, often all-consuming career.
The ambition gap also reflected an underlying, and pronounced, cockiness gap. One-third of men, but just one in five women, rated themselves "very qualified" to hold political office; twice as many women (12 percent) as men (6 percent) considered themselves "not at all qualified." Men were more likely to try for federal office, women for the local school board. Nearly half the women, but fewer than a third of the men, said they did not "have thick enough skin" to run.
Those responses resonated with my own experiences. Becoming a parent tempered my career ambitions in ways I never anticipated. There are jobs I once wanted -- jobs I'd be good at, actually -- that now I would not pursue. [To read the entire article, go to:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/27/AR2008052702557_pf.html ]
marcusr@washpost.com