pcl@ihnp4.UUCP (Paul C. Lustgarten) (11/15/83)
From an AT&T-BL internal newsletter for members of supervision:
WOMEN, MEN DIFFER IN CAREER VALUES
Who's more career-minded, male managers or female
managers? If you chose the former, you're a little behind
the times, according to a recent survey conducted for the
American Management Associations.
The survey asked managers and chief executive officers
to discuss the values that guide their personal and pro-
fessional lives. To see if responses differed according to
gender, sub-samples of l30 male respondents and l30 female
respondents were broken out and matched on the basis of
age, income, education and level.
The results held a few surprises. While male and female
mangers have a lot of values in common, they differ in
some significant and surprising ways.
More women than men, for example, said they would give
up an important function at home if it conflicted with an
important job-related activity. Women were more likely to
say they would relocate the family if it meant a higher
paying or more responsible job.
On the other hand, fewer women said they would turn
down a promotion if it meant a significant change in
lifestyle, or if they had doubts about their abiity to
handle it.
One thing both female and managers agreed on was that
they would resign if the boss insisted that they do
something they considered unethical.
In response to the question, "What gives you the most
satisfaction in life?" 60 percent of the female managers
and 37 percent of the male managers said it was their
career; 28% of the women and 47% of the men said "home
life"; l2 % of the women and l6% of the men answered
"other interests."
"Perhaps the women have had to overcome more barriers
-- internal and external -- to achieve the same managerial
status as men of comparable age and education," the
report's authors speculate. "This may well require a
higher degree of career orientation."
What personal qualities did the managers in the sample
say they value most? The women managers said abilty,
ambition, cooperation, skill and flexibiity significantly
more often than the male managers did. They ranked ability
first, while the men gave the top spot to achievement.
Both groups ranked competitiveness last.
"The 'bottom line,'" the report concludes, "seems to be
that our stereotypes about women in the workplace --
particularly women managers -- no longer hold up and
deserve careful re-examination."dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (11/16/83)
Any survey based on polling "female managers" and "male managers"
is likely to show such results. The only was these women got to be
managers in our discriminatory world was because they are relatively
more career-oriented.
Dave Sherman
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{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!davestevesu@azure.UUCP (11/18/83)
The quote from the AT&T-BL internal newsletter in a previous
article concluded by saying:
"The 'bottom line' seems to be that our stereotypes
about women in the workplace -- particularly women
managers -- no longer hold up and deserve careful
re-examination."
Stereotypes do not deserve re-examination, they deserve
discarding.
Steve Summit
tektronix!tekmdp!stevesu