It took a revolution to clear the way for women's full participation in the business world, but obstacles remain in the form of structural biases. So argues Debra Meyerson, PhD '89, a visiting professor in the department of management science and engineering. She co-authored "A Modest Manifesto for Shattering the Glass Ceiling," published in a recent issue of Harvard Business Review.
Stanford: The companies where you did your research are forward-looking firms trying to build an atmosphere where teamwork is valued. So, where is the problem?
Meyerson: Despite the rhetoric, when it came time to promote leaders or when you asked people, "What does it really take to get ahead here?" they would point to attributes like self-promotion, risk-taking, being outstanding -- attributes that in some ways stand quite at odds with making teams function effectively. On the surface, these attributes seem fairly gender-neutral, and that's kind of the point. They just affect men and women differently. For example, we hear all the time from companies, "We are really trying to get women into leadership positions, but they just won't step up and take risks." There's a good reason for this. Women, who are in the minority, will be much more visible. It will be much more consequential if they make a mistake. It will be seen as much more indicative of their lack of competence if they fail.
Do you see these issues in academia?
You couldn't design a career system that is more gendered than a tenure system. It's a career system that is up-and-out at precisely the same time as a biological clock is ticking. It's a legacy of a time when academic institutions were built around male experience.
What about Silicon Valley, where companies are more entrepreneurial and seem to be breaking many old rules about how organizations function?
There are ways in which our arguments don't quite apply in the dot-com world, but there is also some evidence that it is worse. There is certainly more resistance to seeing these inequities, and there is this deep, entrenched mythology about meritocracy out here -- that if you are good, you will get ahead, period. You see women advancing, but when you compare their experiences to men's experiences, it's not the same. Because of this mythology, it's difficult to see the pattern, to compare notes with other women, to step back and say, "It's not me; there is something systemic here."
