There are Three (Familiar) Sheriffs in Town

“Every story is about class, race or gender. This one is about gender.”

And so began Monday’s event “The Women Sheriffs of Wall Street” at Harvard’s Memorial Church. Hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, current Director of the Project on Public Narrative at Harvard, the discussion included former FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair, former SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro and United States Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Suskind started the session with a brief history lesson in American economics, starting in the 1970s, whose hardships he described as a bruise to the country’s ego. Shortly thereafter, Ronald Reagan declared that it was morning in America and ushered in an era of deregulation in an attempt to create confidence in the American economy, whether it was earned, manufactured or willed into the public consciousness. Suskind argued that 2007 was the pinnacle of this trajectory and saw the coming together of two disparate trends: (1) the male-dominated finance industry, which was driving the economy and culture and (2) female regulators, namely, the ones with whom he was sharing a stage, gaining power.

It’s been five years since TIME Magazine baptized these three women as the “New Sheriffs of Wall Street.” Since then, Warren has risen from Harvard Law professor and chief architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the United States Senate and brought financial reform and consumer protection to the national spotlight.

Sheila Bair, who served as Chairwoman of the FDIC from 2006-2011, was a bank teller early in life because her Philosophy degree couldn't get her any another job. Bair said that growing up in rural southeast Kansas kept her grounded in everyday people’s struggles, and she credits her philosophy background with forming her ethics, solidifying her dedication to fight for people, not banks. A self-described Populist Republican, Bair was a political appointee under several administrations and ran an unsuccessful Congressional bid in her native Kansas in 1990. 

2010 TIME Magazine Cover

Mary Schapiro, who served as the 29th Chairperson of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said she “always believed that government was a force for good,” and worked for the federal government right out of law school. Schapiro cited her time playing sports as what gave her a leg up in a male-dominated industry and believes that the expansion of women's sports under Title IX will do a lot of good for young women entering professional life. She said sports teach respect, as well as how to take hits, work as a team and play by the rules - something she said we don’t see enough of on Wall Street.

Elizabeth Warren, who needs little introduction these days, explained that when she first began to study bankruptcy policy, it was during an age of massive misunderstanding over what filing bankruptcy meant. The general public believed that "welfare queens" were gaming the system, but when Warren looked at the data, she instead found that 90% of bankruptcy petitions were due to a major medical issue, longterm unemployment, death or divorce. It turned out that many people filing bankruptcy were college-educated and living in households where both parents worked. In All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan, a book that Warren wrote with her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi in 2006, these statistics were confirmed. Warren found that a household with two working parents in the 2000s had less disposable income than households with one working parent in the 1970s.

Warren recounted a particularly painful memory of hers, of the day her mother walked to Sears to apply for a minimum wage job. Though the story was sad, Warren credits this job with saving both her house and her family. She emphasized that minimum wage jobs simply don’t do that anymore, saying “We cannot have a country where you work full-time and are in poverty. If some billionaire wants to fight me on it, I’m ready."

Bair chimed in, arguing that several lessons could have been learned from the great Recession, both good and bad. The wrong lesson to glean from the financial crisis is that bailouts are acceptable. The other, more important lesson is that short-sighted, greedy behavior wreaked a lot of havoc on our economy and in our communities and that we need to change going forward. 

Suskind asked the panelists if they believed there is a way for the financial services industry to be less focused on these high-risk rewards and winner-take-all setups, and he cited research by Harvard Business School Professor Robin Ely on oil rigs and culture change as an example. Schapiro responded hopefully, citing transparency as a major tool. “It’s amazing what people will stop doing if they have to tell the world they’re doing it.”

As could be expected, the discussion wasn’t complete without a question about Democratic Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. A member of the audience asked Warren what kind of financial sheriff she thought Clinton would be. In response, Warren emphasized that the 2016 race is an opportunity to move forward on these issues. She argued that it’s common sense to be a financial sheriff in today’s political world, as most Americans think that the financial services industry is not working for them and want more regulation on Wall Street. For possibly the first time, there is broad national consensus for making the financial services industry safer and more accountable. According to Warren, it is this opportunity that any Presidential hopeful should seize. 

Want National Security? Focus on Women's Safety: A Discussion of the Hillary Doctrine

In the last seminar of the academic year, WAPPP welcomed Valerie Hudson to discuss research explored in her latest book, The Hillary Doctrine: Sex and American Foreign Policy. Hudson, the George H. W. Bush Chair of The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, is well known for her work on bare branches, the theory that violence is increasingly caused by skewed sex ratios within a society. She has long argued that the security of women is vital to the security of the nation, which - though largely accepted now - was considered a revolutionary concept at the time.

Research for the book began in 2010, and the content was largely written in 2013, after Hudson's co-author Patricia Leidl completed fieldwork in several countries. Hudson emphasized the role that qualitative data played in their research. Data on cultural norms, customs, practices and laws were missing from the current research, so Hudson and Leidl created a massive database to fill this niche.

One might wonder why the idea that women's security affects national security is called the Hillary Doctrine. Hudson explains that though Clinton was the third female Secretary of State, she was the first woman in that role who made women’s issue priorities for the Department. The book, though not about Secretary Clinton herself, explores the effects that her belief in this idea has had on American foreign policy.

Source: Associated Press

The book is presented in three parts. The first focuses on the history of how women came to matter in American foreign policy, starting with the Nixon administration. Hudson explained that Ambassador Swanee Hunt, who wrote the book's foreword, was instrumental in informing this portion of the research.

The second section focuses on the theory and cases that explore whether the Hillary Doctrine is justified. Hudson argues that her past research reveals the doctrine is in fact based on a solid premise. She presents the theoretical argument for what she terms fempolitik, arguing that the realization that women’s security is closely linked to national security is a pillar of clear-eyed realpolitik. She argues that male-female relationships are a foundational issue, while poverty, explosive violence, ill health and other widespread problems are the macro consequences of women's insecurity.

The third and last section of the book focuses on the implementation of the Hillary Doctrine from 2009-2013. Jen Klein, advisor to Secretary Clinton on global women’s issues, explained in an interview for the book that the State Department adopted four initial principles to guide their work on women. These principles stated that their work (1) would be non-partisan, (2) would not impose U.S. views or laws on others (indeed, the policies focused on the agenda enshrined in CEDAW, which the U.S. has not ratified), (3) must be based in evidence, even though the Department also thought it was the right thing to do, and (4) must demonstrate that the benefits created by such policies also apply to national security, not just women’s security. Though these principles were paired with strategic frameworks from major government organizations, Hudson explained that the disconnect between high-level policy and the actual work on the ground manifested itself in a fairly predictable fashion, citing some terribly ineffective initiatives.

Hudson closed by sharing some of the top items off the book’s “to do” list. These included using the bully pulpit to discuss women's issues, developing hard targets and performance benchmarks on women's inclusion, focusing on male accountability, and adding a jus ex bello element to the just war theory, one that focuses on the harms after war has ended that disproportionately affect women. She also emphasized the importance of Presidential will to work on this issue, quickly adding, “depending on who is elected the next President, maybe we won’t have a problem in the will department.” 

The Power of Working Moms

In the week’s WAPPP seminar “It Takes a Family and a Country,” Harvard Business School Professor Kathleen McGinn spoke on the importance of role models, both within the home and on the country level, and how they affect economic outcomes – and welfare outcomes more broadly – of both women and men.

McGinn started by asking a seemingly simple question: What drives outcomes between men and women? In developed countries, women on average are more educated than men, so a traditional understanding of learning or education doesn’t explain the advantage men hold over women in many areas. McGinn and her coauthors, Mayra Ruiz Castro also of HBS and Babson College, and Elizabeth Long Lingo of Mount Holyoke College, looked instead at learning in the home and from famous national figures, or what they refer to as the “role model effect.”

Their research question was “Are non-traditional gender role models in families and in societies related to national, organizational, and individual differences in (1) employment, (2) supervisory responsibility, (3) earnings, (4) allocation of household work and (5) caring for family members?

Studying this effect across 25 countries, McGinn et al used survey data from 2002 and 2012 to see changes in attitudes and outcomes over time. The data suggests that gender inequality has shrunk over the past decade, though unevenly. Women still do more work at home than men do across countries, though in more developed countries, there is less time in aggregate spent on household duties due to technological advances. Gender attitudes have also gotten more liberal over time, which counters recent research that suggests they're stagnating.

What happens when your role model at home is also a
country-level role model?

To measure the effects of gender inequality and its variations within country, McGinn et al defined role models on the micro and macro level. The study described role models at home as working mothers, defined as mothers who ever got paid for work outside the home before the respondent was 14 years old. To measure country-level role models, the study also looked at the average proportion of female parliamentarians in a respondent’s country before he or she turned 14. The focus on role models was critical because they shape what people see as appropriate behavior via exposure. Results indicated that this was especially true for role models within the family.

(1) Employment: The effect of being raised by a working mother is significant for women only. Likewise, the proportion of female parliamentarians during childhood increases women’s likelihood of employment but has no effect on men's employment.

(2) Supervisory roles: Women are generally less likely to hold supervisory positions across countries. There was no supervisory effect of having a working mother for men, but having a working mother had a significant and increasing effect for women. The effect of female parliamentarians is negative for women holding supervisory roles, though McGinn and her coauthors are still trying to understand why.

(3) Earnings: Being raised by a working mother had no effect on men’s relative incomes, while women’s incomes were higher for those raised by a working mother. This effect was mitigated by gender attitudes, however. Perhaps surprisingly, growing up during an era with a relatively large proportion of women in parliament dampens wages, and this effect is more pronounced for men.

(4) Allocation of household work: McGinn emphasized that gender inequality in the public sphere is affected by gender inequality at home, though the cycle flows both ways. Earlier research assumed that households acted as single units with shared preferences, but more recent research has acknowledged and accounted for individual preferences within households. Being raised by a working mother decreases women’s hours and increases men’s hours spent on household work, and growing up during an era with relatively large proportion of women in parliament had the same effects.

(5) Caring for family members: Being raised by a working mom increases both men and women’s role with children, and gender attitudes have no effect. A higher proportion of female parliamentarians increased just men's time spent caring for family members.

In short, having a mother who worked outside the home improved women’s outcomes in the workplace and increased men’s participation in household work. As McGinn put it, "There are few magic pills that have proven to reduce gender inequality in all of these public and private spheres, but being raised by a working mother comes close."

What Do Women Really Want? Equality, to Start

Claiming to know “What Women Want” can be a slippery slope, but fortunately, it was Professor Deborah Rhode of Yale Law School, and not Mel Gibson, making the claim at this week’s WAPPP seminar. Professor Rhode discussed the widespread and varied gender disparities featured in her 2014 book of the same title. She began by speaking about her time in law school and as a young law professor, remembering that gender was noticeably absent from the curriculum, and comments that would be considered sexual harassment today ran rampant and unchecked.

Rhode argued that changing gender disparities begins by recognizing them, though there is a gap between those who recognize such inequality and those who self-identify as feminists. When the definition of feminism is provided, between two-thirds and four-fifths of women identify as feminists, yet when the definition is not provided, only one quarter of women self-identify. This is important because identifying as a feminist is correlated with activism around gender equity issues.

Though we often discuss the harms of gender inequality anecdotally - our friend who struggles to balance her job and parenting duties, the story of a survivor of campus sexual assault in the news - Rhode made the case for just how widespread and systematic these disparities are. This unfortunate truth is exacerbated by the fact that many women who experience discrimination aren't likely to challenge it. Even individuals who have convincing evidence of bias are hesitant to challenge the institution responsible for it; many are deterred by the high psychological and financial cost of challenging their institutions, paired with the low probability of success. The recent gender discrimination law suit by Ellen Pao against a prominent venture capital firm is a prime example of this.

The statistics in many areas of professional and personal life are bleak. Women constitute over a third of MBA graduates but only 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs. Though much of the country's pay gap is driven by women being clustered in low pay industries, similarly situated women also earn less than men, even when controlling for many relevant factors.

Gender pay disparities are the most pronounced among those who opt out of the formal economy, which are disproportionately women. Less than 1% of men with kids under 15 are stay-at-home dads, and women are responsible for twice as much childcare and three times as much housework as men. The fact that the U.S. is one of three countries in the world without paid maternity leave speaks to how far our society has to go on the issue.

Rhode argued that a major way to remedy these disparities within household labor division is to protect women's reproductive rights, which include working towards making abortion safe and unnecessary. Despite the ideological divides over this issue, about two-thirds of women believe the Supreme Court should not overturn Roe v. Wade.

The intersection of economic opportunities and women's security was also highlighted. Rhode pointed out that inadequate safety nets keep women in violent relationships, and this is especially important when we consider that two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women. In addition, the United States has the highest rate of partner homicide in the developed world, and women in the United States Armed Forces are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed in action.

Rhode argued that to change the agenda and move the dial on all of these issues, we must get more women into leadership roles. It's well-documented that the statistics on women in political leadership in this country is dismal. The U.S. ranks 78th in the world in the percentage women in office, below Saudi Arabia. Indeed, only 10% of American governors and mayors of major cities are female.

Rhode was quick to point out that putting women in positions of power is not the same as empowering women, however, arguing that we also need a strong women’s movement to create political support for these issues. She suggested greater dialogue between generations on strategies for activism and applauded young women tackling campus sexual assault, whose activism led to a Presidential Task Force on the subject.

When asked about the potential use of quotas in American government or corporate boards, similar to those recently instituted by European countries, Rhode expressed concern. In addition to what she deemed America's negative knee-jerk reaction to affirmative action programs, she also questioned whether appointing more women would change corporate culture. However, Rhode argued that more disclosure on the gender breakdown within organizations could be used to embarrass institutions that have large gender disparities.

In closing, Rhode made sure to remind the audience that it is difficult to know what women really want because we don’t know what preferences would be in an equal world. There are currently far too many ways in which society constructs and constrains the choices of women, so our desires might be very different in a world in which women could really choose.

When to Compete: Do Women Know Better?

Women are more attuned to competitive environments and change their behavior accordingly, argued Harvard Business School doctoral candidate Pinar Fletcher, at this week’s WAPPP seminar. Titled “Competing at All Costs: Gender and Dysfunctional Competition,” the presentation focused on destructive competitive behavior and how it varies by gender and environment.

Past research featured in a 2013 WAPPP seminar, indicated that there are significant gender differences when it comes to competition. A randomized control trial revealed that 73% of men chose to compete in winner-takes-all competitions for potentially higher pay over working independently for lower pay under piece-rate pay schemes, while just 35% of women chose the winner-takes-all option. Researchers have been trying to explain this gender gap for years now, and Fletcher hopes to use the field of behavioral economics to better explain the issue.

Some arguments frame this gender difference as a problem, arguing that women’s propensity to not compete is a weakness, but Fletcher pointed out that men often lose money by choosing the competitive scheme. Since men are not always benefitting from their higher propensity to compete, it could be useful to examine the competitive context.

Fletcher’s research, which she conducted with coauthor and HBS Professor Kathleen McGinn, looks explicitly at destructive competitive behavior, i.e. competitive behavior that aims to hurt competitor(s) but has the potential to give net losses or net gains to the instigator. In an organizational context, the factors that determine the costs and benefits of destructive competitive behavior are (1) the incentive systems, (2) the performance feedback systems, meaning what your performance is compared to, and (3) behavioral norms of the work environment.

There are two organizational contexts in which this kind of competition can occur: high intensity and low intensity. Low intensity environments are still competitive, but individuals feel that their performance matters regardless of how they compare with others, usually because they receive feedback in relation to how they did over time or based on objective standards. Here, the expected payoff of destructive competitive behavior is uncertain because the costs of competing in that manner outweigh the benefits. High intensity environments are just the opposite, stressing that winning over someone else is key. In these environments, there is more certainty that destructive competition will bring more benefits than costs.

Fletcher’s hypothesis was that the propensity for destructive competitive behavior would be greater in high intensity environments than in low intensity ones but predicted that an interaction between gender and competition intensity would mitigate these differences. The authors predicted that in high intensity situations, the certainty of the expected payoff of competitive behavior would wipe out any gender differences, while in low intensity situations, the ambiguity would allow gender differences to creep back in.

Fletcher and McGinn conducted three randomized control trials involving partnered tasks with varying payment schemes, all of which confirmed these hypotheses. The first and second studies focused on incentive systems and social comparison/performance feedback, while the third study focused on behavioral norms.

The first study, in which everyone was paired with a relatively well-performing competitor, participants were assigned to either a high intensity or low intensity environment and made decisions in “strong” – or certain – contexts as well as “weak” – or ambiguous – contexts. In strong situations with high intensity competitions, men and women competed just as much as men.
In weak situations with low intensity competitions, men performed better than women. However, as Fletcher noted, women’s actual net payoff was greater on average than men’s.

The second study manipulated the incentive scheme and performance feedback type separately to parse apart how men and women reacted differently to incentives. This study replicated the findings of the first study, showing that women change their competitive behavior in response to the environment, while men exhibit the same competitive behavior across conditions. Additionally, men factor in incentive scheme to some extent, but not as well as women do.

The third study revealed that the overwhelming majority (~90%) of destructive competitive behavior was driven by a utilitarian or self-serving justification but that it varied by the competitive behavioral norms of the environment.

In short, men are more likely to engage in reflexive competitive behavior, while women are more context-dependent and attuned to the “rules of the game,” but gender differences in destructive competitive behavior only reveal themselves in low intensity competition settings. In addition, women in high intensity settings perceive their competition to be with female colleagues, while the perception in “low intensity” settings is competition with their male colleagues. Women reap more benefits from destructive competition in high intensity situations, however, so future research looking into women’s advantages in these settings may help organizations perform better. 

Negotiating Across Gender: A Workshop

If you’ve ever found yourself in need of a better salary, a title that reflects your skill set, or a bigger staff to get the job done, then this week’s WAPPP seminar applies to you. Harvard Kennedy School Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and WAPPP Research Director Hannah Riley Bowles used the workshop to guide attendees through a research-based negotiations toolkit she recently created. Bowles argued that these main takeaways can help anyone - not just women - succeed in their professional negotiations.

1. Apply negotiations skills broadly. Bowles encouraged attendees to think about negotiation skills broadly, since academics and the media tend to focus too closely on salary negotiations. Through negotiation, employees can enhance their recognition and rewards (i.e. securing a new title or getting their name on research), seize opportunities to expand their authority (i.e. budget or who reports to them), overcome barriers, since more powerful employees are more prone to action, and make their work more personally meaningful.

The research: A recent Simmons CGO Survey of 364 female executives revealed that 80% of participants reported recent career negotiations. The most commonly cited opportunity that involved negotiations was seeking a new position or leadership opportunity, demonstrating that negotiating is about more than just salary.

2. Avoid ambiguity. Bowles encouraged attendees to consider the importance of ambiguity in negotiations. Research shows that ambiguity can lead to a heightened potential for gender-specific attributions, especially if the employees are operating in a gendered environment. There are two types of ambiguity at play here: norm ambiguity, or the degree of clarity about norms for appropriate negotiating behavior, and structural ambiguity, or the degree of clarity about zone of possible agreement and appropriate standards for agreement. When you provide employees with these standards, however, the gender gap disappears.

The research: A study that Bowles conducted on MBA graduate job market outcomes highlighted the power of ambiguity. Controlling for 30 variables that might otherwise explain the difference in income, Bowles found an overall gender gap of $5,000 (on an average salary of $100,000). In low ambiguity situations, such as investment banking and consulting, which comprised 70% of the sample, there was no gender gap difference. However, in high ambiguity situations, Bowles observed a 10% salary gap, leading to an average gender gap of $11,000 a year.

3. Be conscious of where you get your information. Bowles cautioned to make sure that our information search itself isn’t gendered, as we are likely to compare ourselves to those who are similar to us, therefore creating a self-perpetuating cycle. Since informal networks enhance access to information and advocacy channels, it’s important to reach outside of convenience networks to get information.

4. Watch out for stereotypes – both others’ and your own. There are several kinds of stereotypes in negotiation. Explicit and implicit biases might be more familiar to us; the former is easier to recognize and therefore avoid or correct, while the latter is harder to detect. There is also descriptive stereotyping (assumptions about what an individual will do) and prescriptive stereotyping (assumptions about what an individual should do). Bowles explained that self-advocacy violates society’s prescriptive stereotypes of feminine behavior, which in turn limits willingness to work with or hire the woman who violated that norm.

The research: Using a study of a fake resumes with a gender-neutral name, Bowles found that women who advocate for themselves are perceived much more negatively than women who advocate for others.

5. Enhance negotiations through relationships, and enhance relationships through negotiations. Bowles argued that explaining why what you’re asking for is legitimate in your employer's eyes will enhance your chances of getting what you’re asking for. In addition, signaling concern for your organizational relationships can mitigate the social cost of such negotiations. While some question whether teaching organizations to reward women who act relationally and don’t reward the women who don’t is helpful for women's professional prospects, Bowles asserted that the skills she encourages women to use are good practice for any employee facing a negotiation situation.

Keeping the Peace: the Case Study of an All-Female Peacekeeping Unit

This week’s WAPPP seminar, “All-Female Contingents on the Front Lines of Peace and Conflict,” covered the case study of the all-female peacekeeping unit in the southern Philippines charged with ensuring that the 2014 ceasefire agreement between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is upheld. Margaret Jenkins, Research Associate at Georgetown University's Institute for Women, Peace & Security and a current WAPPP Fellow, presented her research on the subject, as the first half of a two-year research project on the effectiveness and experience of all-female contingents working in conflict zones.

Despite the goal of having women make up 20% of UN peacekeepers by 2015, under 5% of current peacekeepers are female. Jenkins considers this unit in the Philippines to be an innovative insight into why progress is so slow, calling it an “in your face” example of gender mainstreaming in this field. She argued that the case is so important because it a) amplifies the debate over mainstreaming via an all-female unit and b) lends itself to comparative research with all-male units.

After decades of fighting between the Moro insurgency and the Government, which left 100,000 people dead and thousands more displaced, a political agreement was signed - although not ratified - between the two parties last year. Following this agreement, Mary Ann Arnado, Secretary General of the Mindanao Peoples Caucus, suggested the creation of an all-female peacekeeping contingent in addition to the other, largely conservative, Muslim and all-male units in the area.

As might be expected, there has been pushback in response to the all-female contingent. The women in the unit have noted that they feel like they haven’t been taken that seriously, while some are concerned that their duties as peacekeepers violate their religious obligations to live within strict gender norms. Some outsiders have expressed concern that the unit’s purpose is based on foreign or Western ideas, as well as questioned whether the unit is tough enough or if its members have the necessary skills and awareness for the task at hand. The unit has responded strongly to such concerns, citing international law to defend their legitimacy and building relationships within the communities served.

Though some might assume that fighting gender-based violence (GBV) would be a priority for an all-female unit considering that women are overwhelmingly the victims of gender-motivated crimes, the unit has a particular jurisdiction that does not focus on GBV. They are tasked primarily with monitoring the ceasefire, just like other civilian protection groups in the region. However, Jenkins recounted incidents involving rape in which the local communities and tribes called on the local knowledge of the all-female contingent for help.

Jenkins examined the cohesion and diversity of the unit and found that diversity is central to the contingent. The women serve in a very diverse region with a long history of sectarian violence, to the point where many of the women in the unit had never interacted with a woman of another religion prior to serving together in this mission. The unit itself is comprised of indigenous women, Christian women and Muslim women all from same area, with ages ranging from 22 to mid-60s. A major policy lesson Jenkins took from this case is how the effectiveness of the unit lies in the women’s local knowledge and this dedication to diversity. 

Much of the justification behind creating and maintaining an all-female contingent is based on essentialist arguments - i.e. that women bring something unique to the table, such as their inherent peacefulness, experience as caregivers, etc. - which many in the field find problematic. Jenkins emphasized the need to analyze the effectiveness of such units, the same as how any other peacekeeping unit would be evaluated. She hopes that her future research will focus on a similar all-female peacekeeping unit in Sudan, which has recently been recognized internationally, as well as all-female UN contingents.

How Selective Mistreatment is Stalling the Revolution: Sexual Harassment at Work

“Are we in the best of times or worst of times for gender equality?” asked Jennifer Berdahl, Professor of Leadership Studies: Gender and Diversity at the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business, at this week’s WAPPP seminar. Titled “From Sexual Harassment to Selective Mistreatment: The Regulation of Gender at Work,” Professor Berdahl’s presentation highlighted that while women have come far in higher education and the workforce since the 1970s, progress has stalled in the last two decades.

Professor Berdahl’s research examines how social treatment in the workplace may play into these outcomes, focusing on sexual harassment. She categorized sexual harassment into three categories: gender harassment, which is the most common, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion, i.e. quid pro quo, which is far less common. Though sexual harassment is largely understood to be men exercising organizational and economic power to coerce women into sexual behavior, we know that women can harass men, too. Berdahl and her colleagues were interested in examining the form that male harassment takes and whether it can be considered sexual harassment, given that the gender power differentials aren’t the same.

To do this, Berdahl et al. conducted a study of university students, asking them about experiences typically deemed to be sexual harassment to determine if they felt threatened by them. The study found that 14% of men had been harassed and that they were significantly less likely to be threatened by this behavior from women. The most harmful harassment they experienced concerned being labeled as “not man enough” from both men and women, which Berdahl labeled as gender harassment.

Anita Hill testifying before the U.S. Senate, 1991.

In another study of university men, Berdahl et al. found that sexual harassment was more common towards women who embodied more masculine traits, despite these women being no more likely to identify behaviors as offensive and harassing. This finding is more consistent with the idea that the harassment stems from a gender role violation and not from sexual interest.

Using a sample of faculty and staff at a large university, Berdahl found that general mistreatment of all employees was much more common in male-dominated settings, and women without children were the most commonly mistreated. Gender atypical employees were targeted for mistreatment, whether they were considered to violate gender norms occupationally, in their behavioral roles, or via their family roles.

Berdahl questioned the extent to which this mistreatment affected advancement. Since mistreatment is typically a peer dynamic based on social acceptance, and advancement is based on being noticed and deemed worthy of respect, it’s possible that those who violate social norms might still get ahead. To examine this, Berdahl et al. paired personality measures and mistreatment measures with advancement measures out of their sample of faculty and staff. Women who were colder and more assertive were the most mistreated but also received more raises than women with more typically feminine qualities. This might imply that women’s advancement itself is one of the sources of women’s mistreatment, as a woman might be disliked among peers but promoted by superiors.

In short, Berdahl explained that gender is actively regulated through social mistreatment at work, from gender and sexual harassment to mistreatment at large. This discourages both women and men from entering and remaining in non-traditional roles at work and home and allows for gender segregation and inequality to continue. Going forward, Berdahl hopes to conduct more research on the intersection of gender and race, examine the importance of culture and leadership and separate out types of mistreatment to better understand them.

Learning to Listen: How Voice and Agency Can Improve the Lives of Women Globally

In the first WAPPP seminar of 2015, Jeni Klugman, former director of Gender and Development at the World Bank and current WAPPP Fellow, spoke on the importance of women and girls having agency over their lives. The seminar, titled “Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity” touched on the findings of the World Bank’s recent publication of the same name.

Klugman started by defining voice and agency, both of which have become buzzwords in development work in recent years. The World Bank defines voice as being “able to speak up and be heard, and to shape and share in discussions, discourse and decisions,” while defining agency as the ability “to make decisions about one's own life and act upon them to achieve desired outcomes, free of violence, retribution, or fear.”

Women’s position globally has improved in recent decades, but not nearly enough. Since the 1979 passage of CEDAW, the 188 signing states have outlawed gender-based discrimination and violence. Still, more than 700 million experience violence by a husband or boyfriend over the course of their lifetimes, with rates at high as 40% of women experiencing this violence in regions such as the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. The well-documented costs of intimate partner violence make this problem an economic priority, as well as a moral one, for many of the world’s leading institutions.

Klugman highlighted the growing literature on measuring women’s agency. Early strands of such research, influenced by Nobel laureate and Harvard professor Amartya Sen, took a multidimensional approach and made sure to not equate agency with assets. This subjective survey data had its limitations, however, and the World Bank soon turned instead to objective demographic and health surveys, finding that the best indicators were related to what people said they did as opposed to more abstract concepts.

Many of the World Bank’s findings were unfortunately unsurprising. Agency indicators were worst in regions with low education levels and in rural areas. Marriage also predicted less agency, as being married reduced sexual autonomy, and this effect was even stronger for those who were married as a child. Risk factors of intimate partner violence included alcohol, women’s own attitudes towards violence, circumstances of marriage, such as marrying young or being in a polygamous marriage, previous child abuse and living in a conflict state. 

Education had a protective effect for women, but only for women who had received secondary education and above. Additionally, women who live in countries with domestic violence laws in place were 10% less likely to experience violence from an intimate partner.

Klugman closed by highlighting areas where changing norms and progressive laws and enforcement look promising. Broad-based participation in the change process that includes men, boys, community leaders and elders seems to hold the most potential, while there are more partial results if only women are involved in the intervention. The identification and agreement on core international indicators is a good step in the right direction, Klugman argued. She also pointed to databases such as WAPPP’s Gender Action Portal as important ways to translate research into policy and practice.

Intersectionality at Play: the Parliamentary Representation of Women and Ethnic Minorities

While there has been much research on women’s political representation and ethnic minorities’ political representation, there is very little about the intersection of these two, argued WAPPP Fellow Liza Mügge in this week’s seminar. In her lecture, titled “Gender and Ethnicity in Parliamentary Representation,” Mügge, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, presented her findings, which are part of a stream of research on gendered representation of minorities.

Professor Mügge explained that parliamentary representation of minority groups is important, both because equal representation is a social justice concern, but also because research shows that having political representation close to actual proportions within the population of a particular society is necessary for that society to remain peaceful.

Mügge conducted an analysis of the makeup of the Dutch Parliament starting in 1986, the year that that the first ethnic minority Member of Parliament (MP) was elected. The analysis focused on both descriptive and substantive representation and named three transition phases for an individual to be elected to office: 1) ineligible to aspirant, 2) aspirant to candidate and 3) candidate to elected. Mügge then used an intersectionality lens to understand why there were many more minority women than men in office in the 1980s and 1990s and how candidates can learn from their specific challenges and successes.

Member of Parliament Sadet Karabulut

In phase one, the primary criterion to transition from ineligible to an aspirant is Dutch citizenship. With a massive increase in naturalization during the 1990s and the fact that post-colonial immigrants were already Dutch citizens, this was not a significant barrier. Education level also factors in, and Mügge argued that part of the success of ethnic minority women is due to the education gender gap: 54% of ethnic minority undergraduate students are female. Ethnic minorities are disadvantaged in labor market participation, and political participation varies greatly by nationality, with Turks and Moroccans’ turnout close to that of those with European ancestry at about 57%, while Antillean immigrants are much lower at 18%.

In the second phase, how diversity is regulated and the availability of identity networks are crucial. The Green Party and Social Democrats have highly institutionalized women sections for networking and strategy and strong, though informal, minority sections. Mügge argued that the gender progressiveness of the Social Democrats especially has spilled over to include ethnic minorities, thereby helping female minority candidates win.

In phase three, the challenge comes down to whether the candidates are given winnable seats. Only 6% of all ethnic minority candidates across the elections studied were in a winnable seat, though there was not a significant difference between male and females candidates. 

Many, but not all, of the factors that boost women’s participation also increase ethnic minority representation. Leftist ideology that has often supported more gender parity in government also supports ethnic minorities in general, but civil society networks work for ethnic minority women much better than for ethnic minority men. 

Mügge concluded by explaining the issue in terms of demand and supply. The large increase of eligible citizens since the 1990s has created MP supply, while changing ideology and the availability of networks has created demand. At the end of the day, the political parties are the most influential gatekeepers, however, and they continue to greatly affect gender and ethnicity representation in Parliament. 

What Soil Can Tell Us About Sex Deficits

Soil can help explain child sex ratios in rural areas of India, argued Eliana Carranza, Technical Advisor at the World Bank’s Gender Innovation Lab, in this week’s WAPPP seminar, “Soil Endowments, Female Labor Force Participation and the Demographic Deficit of Women in India.”

Sex ratios – defined in the world of demography as the ratio of females to males in a population – are typically split with the number of females and males. Variations in ratio are often visible by age group, but the biggest variation in sex ratios is actually seen via geography. For example, a few countries in the Middle East and South Asia show a distinct and persistent deficit of women, including India.

The World Bank study that Carranza presented was recently published in the American Economic Journal and argues that child sex ratios in rural India can be explained by differences in soil texture. Carranza argued that these ratios are affected by women’s employment opportunities in agriculture, which vary across different kinds of soil.

This is because the soil texture in a certain region determines the depth of land preparation required to produce a crop there. Deep tillage, which reduces the need for labor in female-dominated tasks such as transplanting, fertilizing and weeding, is only possible in loamy soil textures. Therefore, districts with larger fractions of loamy soils exhibit lower rates of female participation in agriculture. The lower demand for female labor reduces the economic value of girls to a household, leading to lower ratios of female to male children.

The study sees a significant effect of soil texture on agricultural workers' opportunities, which disproportionately affects women. There is not the same effect on the overall male population, since men have other types of employment opportunities, while there are no real alternatives available for women in these regions.

The study found that an additional 10 percentage points in the share of female agricultural laborers in the rural work force is estimated to increase the relative number of rural 0-to-6 year olds by 44 girls per 1000 boys. This would bring the sex ration from an average ratio of 925 to 969, which is above the natural outcome for children of that age. The deficit of girls could be erased by a less extreme 5.8 percentage point increase in share of female laborers in rural workforce.

Carranza's policy prescription is relatively simple: provide more economic opportunities specifically for women. Previous studies show that increasing income is not enough to close the gender gap, and neither is creating more employment opportunities overall. In regions dominated by non-equalitarian perceptions regarding the role and value of women, women’s employment opportunities have even greater influence on labor force participation, which in turn affects child sex ratios.

Photo Source: The World Bank

How We're Keeping Girls Out of STEM: Teaching and Messaging

In this week’s WAPPP seminar “Paying the Price for Sugar and Spice: How Girls and Women are Kept out of Mathematics and Science,” Stanford Professor of Mathematics Education Jo Boaler argued that the STEM disciplines are impoverished by the current lack of women’s participation.

Professor Boaler started the seminar by presenting the problem in basic terms: STEM achievement is equal by gender across K-12, but the participation in these areas is not, leading to a significant gender gap. A recent meta-analysis of 259 studies involving three million people revealed that academic achievement in STEM was almost equally split between genders, with girls ahead in 49% of studies and boys ahead in 51% of them.

There is a significant disparity in participation, however. The decline in women earning college degrees in mathematics and computer science in the last two decades has led to severe differences when it comes to PhD attainment, which in turn affect the pipeline for professors and other specialists in these fields.

While some believe that these differences are due to preferences and the gap is therefore not as big of an issue, Boaler argued that girls' choices are restricted by the environments that parents and educators create. She argued that there are two neglected areas that contribute to this gap: 1) teaching and 2) mindset and messaging.

The problem is the current use of traditional instead of inquiry teaching, Boaler argued, saying that mathematics is currently taught dryly. Studies show that when math is taught as a multi-dimensional subject involving inquiry, every student benefits, and the gender gap also disappears. Essentially, girls underachieve and opt out in traditional math classrooms, while boys perform the same in both. 

Beliefs and messages matter as well. This is what Boaler refers to as the elephant in the classroom: the idea that some kids aren’t going to be good at math, no matter what. New knowledge about brain plasticity shows that this isn’t true. If we take the time to learn an issue deeply, our brain makes new connections that can strengthen over time and carry us into adulthood. Boaler explained that this means that no one is born with a “math brain.”

This new neuroscience demonstrates that speed is not necessary or sufficient for learning math and that when we're anxious, our working memory is blocked. In short, stress makes doing math difficult. What’s more, time tests can be the early onset of math anxiety for many students, and this anxiety affects girls worse than boys. Boaler wrote about both these issues for Atlantic last year in a piece entitled “The Stereotypes That Distort How Americans Teach and Learn Math.”

Professor Boaler does not just study this issue, however. She’s also a practitioner. Last year, she created Youcubed, an online portal that provides seminars on how to better learn and teach math. 40,000 people participated in the first course, and by the end of it, 95% of participants said they would change teaching or parenting. This could have huge effects for girls in STEM classrooms.

Feminism in the Free Market

In this week’s WAPPP seminar, “Feminism Triumphed and Tamed: The Politics of Knowledge in Gender and Development,” Elisabeth M. Prügl, a Professor of International Relations and Political Science at the Graduate Institute of Geneva explored a critique of what some have come to call “free market feminism.”

While there have been many gains in the fight for gender equality in recent years, there is concern among some feminists that feminism itself has been co-opted by major institutions and by the forces of global capitalism. These scholars worry that feminism is no longer critiquing but rather supporting the existing power structures that have long disadvantaged women.

To analyze this deeper, Professor Prügl narrowed in on the largest global development institution, the World Bank. After conducting a close reading of World Bank documents from 2001 to the present, she argued that there are three dimensions of what happens to feminist ideas when they enter the neoliberal discourse: (1) integrations and instrumentalizations, (2) slippages, and (3) silences.

Firstly, feminism has been integrated into many institutions and into the idea of capitalism itself. To demonstrate this, Prügl used what she refers to as “the business case,” or the argument made by institutions that have a core mission apart from gender equality that more equality creates better economic outcomes. The narrative is not unique to the World Bank; it has become increasingly common in global institutions and on far-reaching development campaigns. 

Prügl posits that by focusing on the business case, we narrow the political imagination of what policies will actually improve women’s lives. We may ignore reproduction and childcare policies or oversimplify issues by making heteronormative assumptions and commitments.

Prügl argues that the problem definition is hugely important, as definitions are very tightly linked to solutions, and might even be defined after the solution has been found. She says that this is especially true in the case of neoliberalism, where it has already been decided that the market can solve everything.

Preferences also become an issue when discussing integration in the push for equal economic opportunity. Under conditions of equal opportunity, inequality results from preferences. Yet Prügl argues that it’s also possible that the outcomes an individual has experienced for her entire life shape her idea of what is and is not possible for her – and therefore actually change her preferences.

Prügl argued that slippages of feminist ideas occur in neoliberal institutions, with direct effects on markets, such as business registration and labor law. The idea of agency can also move away from its feminist definition in these circumstances. While those in the economic development sphere often define agency as the power and opportunity to take risks or seize opportunities, gender experts discuss it as the capacity to make decisions about one’s own life free of violence, retribution or fear – factors not always considered by economists.

Silence on feminist issues in the realm of global capitalism is also a concern for some. Prügl argued that gender expertise largely remains at the level of microeconomics, while the macroeconomics of equality are not discussed, and modernization, growth and globalization are taken as unquestioned goods. 

Prügl concluded by stating that gender mainstreaming has been both a failure and a success in recent years. She argued that the world changes due to the impetus from the knowledge and power we as individuals participate in validating, stressing the importance of a feminist critique of the current state of affairs. 

The Three E's to Reach Equality: Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship

At this week’s WAPPP seminar, Monika Queisser, the Head of the Social Policy Division at the OECD's Directorate of Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, made the economic case for gender equality. Her presentation "Progress and Policies to Achieve Gender Equality in Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship," was based off of the OECD 2012 report of a similar name. The report focuses on what Queisser calls “the three E’s” – Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship.

Education is a top focus of the report because it’s the pathway to employment across the world. The OECD reports that more girls are attending school than ever before. Every one-year increase in a population’s average education level accounts for a 9% increase in GDP per capita. But not all education is created equal. Women are severely underrepresented in STEM, where graduates have the most potential for future earnings and career development. Currently, 70% of engineering graduates are men. This contributes to the persistent global pay gap. Women earn an average of 16% less than men, and this gap rises to 21% among top wage earners.

Queisser argued that gender equality strengthens the labor force and boosts the economy for everyone in turn. The aging population and falling fertility rate in most OECD countries currently leads to a shrinking labor force. To remedy this, there is a need for more migration and/or for women to participate at higher rates. We must break down the economic barriers that are holding women back from full participation, Queisser argued. More women need to work, and those that want to should be able to work full-time.

The report found that when a couple has their first child, women tend to start reducing their paid work hours, while men start increasing them. Women make up for this loss in paid hours by increasing their unpaid work. Though policies could and should help change this, a cultural shift is also necessary. Even in countries with progressive maternity leave policies and strong social welfare, such as the Netherlands, there is still a cultural norm for women to work part-time.

In the report, the OECD laid out recommendations to achieve gender equality in these three areas. Gender equality in education attainment and choices should be promoted, though Queisser admitted that it's hard to alter the choices that children make because of deep-seated biases in our culture. Increasing the number of women in decision-making positions, instituting paid maternity leave, actively reduce the wage gap and implementing family friendly policies for women who are self-employed are all crucial for achieving gender equality in these areas. In addition, countries are encouraged to produce gender-specific data and monitor progress on this issue.

In closing, Queisser said her central question is always how the countries that are doing well got to where they are today. She used a popular example for how policy can dramatically change culture. Iceland, which created a positive tax credit for second earners who are women in the 1960s, consistently tops the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index. Queisser, a self-described optimist, argued that a combination of improved policy and shifts in our cultural norms could bring us closer to gender equality in this century.

Photo Source: OECD

Risky Business: How Environment Affects Women's Decision-Making

The concept of risk as a major factor in decision-making has been thoroughly examined since the 2008 financial crisis began. In this week’s WAPPP Seminar, “Risk in the background: How Men and Women Respond,” risk was examined using the lens of gender to better understand the causes and effects of the choices individuals make. Alexandra van Geen, a 2014-2015 WAPPP Fellow and Assistant Professor at Erasmus University's School of Economics in the Netherlands, discussed her research on the effect that gender has on risk-taking in different contexts.

While acknowledging that previous research states women are generally more risk averse than men, Professor van Geen pointed out that this assumption is based on experiments involving isolated risks. Decisions to take risks rarely occur in isolated situations, however, due to the fact that there is both background risk (current risk) and realized risk (past risk) to consider. Instead, van Geen sought to measure the effect that gender has on risk in more realistic decision-making situations.

In a study conducted at Harvard’s Decision Science Laboratory, 160 students split evenly by gender were placed in an experiment where a third party threw a die to determine each student's payoff. To simulate what van Geen refers to as “background risk,” each participant had a 50% chance of receiving either $2 or $30. In addition, there were two fixed sum groups, one that received the low payout of $2 and one that received the high payout of $30, automatically.

Some of van Geen’s findings confirmed what many already understand to be true about gender and risk: as a baseline, women are more risk averse and less risk-seeking than men. However, van Geen found that women take more risks after receiving the fixed sum or with the presence of background risk, i.e. the roll of the dice in the experiment.

This reduction in risk aversion can be explained by women's sensitivity to the income effect, as in, the potential to earn money without risking a loss. In fact, the effect of income and potential income from past wins (via winning in the dice roll) eliminated gender differences in risk-taking altogether. One potential explanation for this is that women are more sensitive to income because of their higher baseline risk aversion. Additionally, men may narrowly frame a decision and not consider past or present risk in the same way that women do.

The income effect does not explain all the behavior around risk, however, van Geen argued. The effects of the experience of winning in and of itself was also examined. Winning produces several outcomes: (1) emotion, (2) subject expectations (i.e. belief an individual will keep winning once they have, or "gambler's fallacy"), and (3) an elevated level of hormones, namely testosterone. This study found that men increased their risk-taking after winning, despite the fact that there was no apparent income effect on men, indicating that it was the experience of winning itself that altered future behavior.

From these experiments, van Geen concluded that women experience an income effect that reduces risk aversion, while men don't experience an income effect at all. This effect is transient, however, and women eventually return to their baseline risk preferences. The presence of background risk also decreases women’s risk aversion but not men’s, which can also be explained by the effects of income and potential income. Lastly, men increase risk-seeking behavior after winning, while there is no effect for women.

Risk can have serious impact on decision-making, which in turn affects policy, van Geen argued, closing with a few potential policy implications of her research. Policy changes could encourage women to make riskier microfinance investments that lead to better outcomes, while behavioral nudges could discourage male day traders from being overconfident and seek too much risk after a win. Understanding how context affects gender's relationship with risk may help us close these micro-gender gaps, which could then chip away at larger inequities.

The Contingent Power of Women in African Armed Groups

This week’s WAPPP seminar, “Rebel Queens and Black Diamonds: Gender Politics in African Armed Groups,” was named after two female rebel fighters, Rebel Queen of Sierra Leone and Black Diamond of Liberia. In the seminar, WAPPP fellow Zoe Marks discussed the research on gender politics within rebel groups that led her to these women, primarily with Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

Through her field work in Sierra Leone, which experienced a brutal civil war from 1991-2002, Marks found that 17% of women reported experiencing sexual assault in their lifetime, which she argues is likely an underestimate. However, Marks discussed how these statistics have created a paradigm in which women are victims and men are perpetrators that has led to the dominant discourse over sexual and gender-based violence. While sexual violence in Sierra Leone varied over time, it was less common than other forms of abuse, and women also participated in the violence.

Women and girls make up 10-30% of non-state armed groups worldwide, which is a much higher rate than in state militaries. Marks hypothesizes that this is due to the fact that rebel groups use broad based recruitment because they need all the people they can get. In addition to serving as soldiers and spies, women carry supplies and work on base producing and cooking food. They are also the wives and girlfriends of the male fighters, though a significant number of the relationships are forced and oftentimes violent, as was the case with the RUF.

To try to better understand the social-organizational context for women in rebel groups, Marks looked into the sources of female power in the RUF. She found that power largely existed on the individual level, not in groups or networks of women. As is traditional in Sierra Leonean culture, age and marital status contributed significantly to a woman's status in the group. Martial status, i.e. whether a woman was trained in warfare and had weapons herself, could also elevate her position. Marks argued that though some women were able to obtain military dominance, this rarely translated into political power once the conflict has ended. Instead, it was largely the commanders’ wives who were invited to peace talks.

She added that gender relations within rebel groups varies greatly, ranging from the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, with its progressive stance on gender equality, to the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. Made famous in 2012 by Joseph Kony, LRA uses marriage as a reward for commanders and to clamp down on immoral behavior, with the understanding that civilian rape hurts the public image and mission of the group.

Marks closed by citing research from Hudson et al, which listed the micro-aggressions of global gender inequality as (1) lack of bodily integrity and physical security, (2) lack of equity in family law, and (3) lack of parity in decision-making. Marks argues that these issues aren't actually that micro; they all help explain women’s experiences in war and gender politics in rebel groups, both in western Africa and worldwide.

Making the Law Work for Working Women

When Sarah Iqbal, currently the Program Manager for Women, Business and the Law at the World Bank, first started working on development issues there in 2008, she says she often found herself explaining why the obstacles women faced when trying to start businesses and get jobs mattered on a global scale. Now, she says, there aren’t enough data to meet the demand for such information.

In this week’s WAPPP Seminar, “Women, Business and the Law: Removing Restrictions to Enhance Gender Equality,” Iqbal discussed the findings of the Women, Business and Law 2014 Report. The report scrutinizes the laws and regulations across the globe that affect men and women differently so as to limit women’s opportunities and incentives to work.

In a survey of 143 economies, 90% were found to have at least one legal difference restricting women’s economic opportunities. The restrictions came in a variety of forms, from property rights restrictions to long lists of jobs that women were prohibited from doing. 15 of these countries had laws allowing husbands to object to – and therefore restrict – their wives’ employment.

The study looked at seven indicators of gender economic equality to make these determinations: (1) ability to access institutions, (2) property use, (3) whether there were restrictions on type of employment, (4) whether incentives to work are provided, (5) ability to build credit, (6) court accessibility, and (7) the degree to which women are protected from violence.

The report found that there were three main obstacles for women’s advancement in business. The first is women’s lack of autonomy to interact with government institutions or conduct official transactions. Iqbal illustrated this by discussing “head of household” rights and responsibilities, such as paying taxes or sending children to school, which are usually delegated to men.

Second, Iqdal explained that marriage is often the trigger for such loss of rights. While single women have as many rights as single men in almost every country studied, women give up some of their autonomy upon marriage in many countries around the world. Lastly, limited property rights are a major factor contributing to women’s restricted economic opportunities, since property can be used as collateral for loans to start small businesses, for example.

Fortunately, there is hope that progress is being made on this issue. Within five years of the ratification of CEDAW, rates of reform in the countries studied had doubled. The report also found that having women legislators increased the likelihood of reform in that country. Over the two year period examined, Women, Business and the Law recorded 59 legal changes in 44 economies. Of these changes, 48 increased gender parity, 11 were neutral to gender parity. None reduced gender parity.

In addition to collecting this data, Women, Business and the Law are working with countries to make their laws less restrictive for women's economic opportunities. Iqbal closed by arguing that “what gets measured gets done,” and that despite the clear challenges ahead, a good first step is measuring the problem in order to tackle it.

Photo source: The World Bank

Are Two a Crowd?

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has discussed how she was often confused with Sandra Day O’Connor when they sat on the Court together, despite not looking alike and holding significantly different ideological views. It’s important to note that this mistake was not made by passersby being interviewed on late night television but by the lawyers arguing before the Court itself.

This is one of many examples that Professor Denise Lewin Loyd employed at this week’s WAPPP seminar, "Are two heads always better than one? Stereotyping of minority duos in work groups," to explain the unique problems that individuals who are part of the minority on boards, task forces or committees often face. Loyd, an Associate Professor of Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, argues that in many cases, being part of a minority duo on a larger team is even worse than being the only minority.

Past research indicates that single minorities within a group are often subject to “token pressure,” whether in the form of increased visibility, stereotyping or pressure to assimilate. Loyd conducted a study of 228 students on the issue, which concluded that this token pressure leads to discomfort, demonstrating that it’s a negative experience for the minority groups in question.

Though we might assume that token pressure would decrease when another minority member is added to the group, there is evidence to the contrary. Research featured in the Harvard Business Review even suggests that the presence of two women on a board may be seen as a subgroup and that those individuals have to give extra care to not look like they're conspiring.

Professor Loyd tested this hypothesis via an experiment she conducted with colleagues Mary Kern of Baruch College, CUNY and Judith White at Dartmouth. Using avatars, Loyd et al collected responses from 170 male participants to see how they viewed women in different settings in which they were the minority. Participants were asked to read a narrative involving a female employee who was part of a team where she was (1) the only woman, (2) one of two women or (3) one of three women on a team of seven, ten or 14. The decision-making and production tasks assigned were relatively agnostic so as to control for the fact that certain tasks may be perceived as more masculine or feminine.

Loyd et al found that women were viewed as significantly less potent and marginally warmer as part of a duo than while acting solo. While there are some limited situations where warmth is advantageous, being perceived as less potent is a clear negative. As part of a trio, women were not seen as less potent but were perceived as marginally warmer than as a duo. A second study involving female-minority groups performing a complex task revealed that men gave female duos worse performance evaluations, despite no significant difference in completion time and quality.

This research suggests that there is something uniquely negative about being part of a minority duo in a larger group. The phenomenon could be partly explained by the claim that minority duos make the category to which they belong more salient to the greater group. This could be a concern for women, who while still significantly underrepresented on corporate boards and in public office, are slowly gaining ground.

How ‘No’ Can Get Women to the Top

For the past decade and a half, scholars have examined why American women are in very few corporate managerial positions compared to their male counterparts, despite representing 30% of elite MBA programs. The disparity is usually explained in several ways: (1) women have different job preferences, (2) women and men have performance differences when it comes to managerial tasks (i.e. women aren’t as good at these jobs), and (3) women face discrimination in the workplace, which prevents them from getting to the top. Recently, however, some researchers have begun to explain the problem with a bit more nuance.

Lise Vesterlund, an Economics Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, discussed an alternative theory based on research she conducted with coauthors Linda Babcock and Laurie Weingart, both professors at Carnegie Mellon University. In this week’s seminar, Breaking the Glass Ceiling with “No”: Gender Differences in Declining Requests for Non-Promotable Tasks, Professor Vesterlund looked at the assignment of undesirable tasks to better understand the issue.

She based her research on the premise that employees who accept more non-promotable tasks are promoted less often. A survey she conducted among MBA students indicated that women were more likely than men to accept such tasks, largely due to fear of the professional consequences of saying "no." As an economics professor, Vesterlund wanted to look at both the potential demand and supply side causes of this gap. The demand side is whether women are asked to perform non-promotable tasks more often than men, while the supply side is women’s response to such requests.

In a study involving freshmen and sophomores at Carnegie Mellon, Vesterlund et al placed students in random, anonymous groups of three, where they were tasked with hitting a button to make an “investment” that benefitted every member of the group, but gave the least to the individual who actually hit the button. This action represented a non-promotable, undesirable task in a corporate setting that needed to be completed despite no one wanting to do it. In a second part of the study, students had to ask another member of their group to hit the button for them.

The results revealed that both the demand and supply sides of this issue were to blame. While the vast majority of students pressed the button in the last possible seconds of each round – revealing that they were likely motivated by desperate self-interest and not altruism – women pressed the button significantly more often than men. In the second part of the study, Vesterlund also found that both men and women were more likely to ask a woman in their group to hit the button. In response to this, female participants complied 75% of the times that they were asked, while male participants’ decisions were split 50/50.

Vesterlund argued that since beliefs about women’s propensity to accept non-promotable tasks are central to this problem, women saying “no” more often might actually make a significant difference. She also suggested that some simple institutional changes, such as random assignment to event planning, committees, and other undesirable tasks, could allow women to take on more promotable assignments.