
Top Bitch
Women in leadership are a tad like a dog dancing on its back legs in high heels, while everyone just waits for it to fall on its face. Yes, there are many people who think that. For hundreds of years to be a boss meant to be a man. So, what’s the big deal? Well, research shows that female leaders are at risk of receiving less professional respect comparing to their male counterparts. Not surprisingly my gossip research with few ladies in the corp world supported this finding. They shared a dirty little secret — they would rather work for a man than a woman. Maybe familiarity indeed breads contempt because respect for women seems to be slower to arrive. Let’s have a look how it comes about. The conditioning starts with in a family. You quickly figure out who is who in the zoo, and respect your dad, and with mum, well you can always get your way, unless she wants to deal with a bitch PR.
Psychology itself is not a feminist best friend. Starting with evolutionary psychology, there are things in women that just do not work the way they do in men. Only around 15% of homicides are committed by women, and I am guessing that’s about the same percentage of women in senior leadership position. Do you need to be capable of murder to succeed in business…I dare say yes, because I don’t want to say that you have to have balls. Extreme simplification but maybe women are born with Pollyanna gene more so, then with a Genghis Han one. I know Mags Thatcher could beg to differ…
And what would Freud say? Simple, the problem lies in women not having a penis. Once women realize their incompleteness (sans penis) they start to share with men, contempt towards other women. Crazy?! Perhaps. In a meantime, female leaders are here to stay, and guess what, research shows that companies with women in senior leadership positions are doing much better long term than those without, and that should be enough to generate respect.
