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Let's start with the artwork to support this story highlighting a recent study out of Spain,reported in a London paper, conducted by German psychologists, saying that women bossses don't mentor, support,or promote other women.
At the end of the post by Rob at Businesspundit, he offers the link where people can purchase the poster.
Yeah, I'm going right out and getting that one.
Then there are the headlines promoting the story that was originally posted in the London Times on December 31,2006.
The Times Headline: Office queen bees hold back women's careers.
Businesspundit offers this headline: Are Women's careers held back by other women?
RWDB-J.F. Beck's headline goes for a big bang: If Women Ran The World- KABOOM, and Bostonworks- The Job Blog headlines with:Note to Queen Bees It's Time To Buzz Off.
The problem with all these headlines and the festive artwork that is someone's idea of humor, is that it assumes this study, conducted in Spain with about 700 people, is valid and relevant.
The headlines assume that just because someone did a study we should be treating it as if it is gospel.
Yes, the study is fodder for clever headlines. Yes it's controversial--at least if you are a woman in business-- but does it deserve carte blanche coverage without any discussion about the validity of this study?
If you go beyond the headlines, you will immediately begin scratching your head and asking,"Were study participants Spanish? German? British? American?"
Just how many women executives are there in Spain?
If a cross-cultural sample was used, are there any differences in the cultures? The Times article doesn't provide any of this information, instead choosing to report the findings as truth or is that truthiness?
The research, carried out by Garcia-Retamaro and her colleague Ester Lopez-Zafra, has just been published in the journal Sex Roles.
They used 705 participants living in southern Spain to evaluate the credentials of a male and female employee of a make-believe corporation who were proposed for promotion to a managerial position as a production supervisor.
After reading a description of the role and company, the participants were told to read each potential leader’s CV and imagine their characteristics and likely success by evaluating them on several issues related to the job.
This included looking at the likelihood that the candidate would receive an increase in salary, whether they had the right skills and if they would win the acceptance of colleagues. They also assessed how likely they might be to receive promotion and were asked to take into account stereotypical traits of men and women such as sensitivity or aggression.
The study says: “Female participants had a stronger tendency than male participants to view the female candidates as less qualified than the male candidate . . . they also thought that the female candidate would fare worse in the future in her job than the male candidate.â€
So far, only one blogger has chosen to view the story with a skeptics eye. After posting the story in Hit&Run Nick Gillepsie asks.
Given the level of fictiveness built into the study (not to mention the small sample, etc. etc. etc.), I'd be interested in seeing actual employment advancement figures. But can "705 participants living in southern Spain" be wrong? Hmm...
As is often the case, the comments to Gillepsie's post tell a story of stereotypes and personal reality. As this comment from Karen,
I have to say that my experience confirms the study's conclusions. The
two worst bosses I've ever had, and my nominations for the two worst
humans on the planet not in charge of third world countries were
never-married women in their 40's. (I was in my mid-twenties and
thirties when I worked for each of 'em. They're both in the late 50's
now.) The three single men I've worked for -- one divorced with kids,
one never-married, and one gay -- were wonderful. The married women
were wonderful. (The one married man with housewife was pretty bad, but
he was only in charge of my department for about six months, and was
dealing with fifteen major disasters at once, so I can't form a
stereotype from him being a bully.)
Now, my current boss is a never-married woman who's a few years younger
than I am, and she's delightful. My guess is that the Boss Beasts'
horribleness was a product of being in the first large wave of women
with professional educations. They were raised to be wives and mothers
but they never did that, and resented like hell
