By Sally Raskoff
Recently, I was in a bookstore and overheard a person contemplating buying a Martha Stewart publication. But she seemed conflicted. She had said that she didn’t want to “add to Martha’s empire,” but clearly the publication piqued her interest.
Martha Stewart is certainly not the only strong, assertive business woman of her generation to be castigated. I immediately thought of Barbra Streisand. Ms. Streisand hadn’t been convicted of white collar crime as has Ms. Stewart, but when Barbra was in the business of creating movies, she was harshly criticized for supposedly being a very difficult person to work with (as well as all the colorful terms often used to describe strong and assertive women). Both her professional skills and personal characteristics, not to mention her physical attributes, were evidently fair game for critics.
Her movies drew acclaim and audiences, but the criticism ran unabated. She made amazing movies in part because she exhibited behaviors that were she male, would have been credited for her success. Her reputation as a strict taskmaster kept people working on their craft and brought her movies in on time and on budget. She had a vision for each of her creations and ensured that her cast and crew brought that vision to light. Many male directors exhibit the same control and command yet are lauded for being consummate directors, not castigated as difficult people.
Many other women have experienced this same double standard. Have you ever heard a friend or relative complain about a female boss differently than a male boss? Are the behaviors of female managers framed or interpreted differently than that of male managers? Occupational sexism is nothing new, yet it changes form in interesting ways at different time periods and locations.
Two movies, one from 1988 and one from 2006, illustrate some of the changing views we have on women at work and women in management. In Working Girl, Melanie Griffith stars as Tess, a working class but intelligent and ambitious secretary who (with the help of Harrison Ford) finally works her way into a junior management position, no thanks to her manipulative boss, Sigourney Weaver. At the end of this movie, Tess shows up for work at her new job and confuses her secretary for her new boss. Once that confusion is cleared up she demonstrates that she will be a benevolent boss who can get her own coffee.
2006’s The Devil Wears Prada is an update on the ambitious intelligent young woman story, albeit set in a different industry than Working Girl. Anne Hathaway plays Andy, who gets a job as assistant to the assistant of Meryl Streep’s “Devil” boss. Like Melanie Griffith’s Tess, Andy learns much on the job, changes her appearance as she learns the norms of the workplace (and this new social class level), and eventually prevails and feel accepted and successful at work. However, in this happy ending Andy leaves the “devil” and her job at the end of the movie, to go “back” to being “herself” and gets another job in which she can keep her original boyfriend, social group, and ideals. Although her new job is more in line with her educational preparation (Andy went to college, unlike Tess), it remains to be seen whether she can balance this job with her personal life. Looking at these movies, they reflect the conflicted and confusing attitudes we have about women, work, and power in our respective eras.
Andy, the more current heroine, keeps her man and jettisons the job, eschewing the “trade-up,” exactly the opposite of what Tess had done. We seem to have moved from an era in which women were encouraged to “have it all” to one in which, once again, women must choose between work or family. In The Devil Wears Prada, young women are concerned about paying too high a price for achieving their work goals, especially if work changes their personal life.
The enemy in both movies is radically different as well: Tess has to work her way through the jungle of male oppressors (including Kevin Spacey in one of his first roles), while Andy’s challenges are the many women who work at the magazine or model for it—her only friend is the sassy style director played by Stanley Tucci. Thus, the problem for women in the workplace changes from sexist men to catty women.
The remark I heard in the bookstore and these popular media examples of gender in the workplace suggest that not only are women held to a different standard than men are, but that women are also encouraged more than men are to factor in personal and family considerations when they make decisions about their careers.. Does research reflect these conclusions?
Recent studies and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data do show that women have been moving into managerial occupations over the last forty years. Women are in charge of more people today than they were in prior years. More women were working in managerial and professional specialty occupations in 1995 (48.0%) compared to 1975 (34.8%). BLS data from 2006 show that figure is up to 50.6% (Download raskoff_sexism_tables.doc
). However, that same data shows that men are still more likely to hold higher management positions. Women in management also earn less than the men, and the differences in earnings magnify in the higher levels of managerial occupations. Many studies show that women who hold management jobs—especially high-level management jobs—are less likely to be married and to have children than are their male counterparts.
This does not mean they don’t get married, but it may mean they don’t stay married. Sociologist Mary Blair Loy studied women’s devotion to work versus family and found that older women tend to see a conflict between work and family, but many younger women blend the two and alter their expectations and practices in both areas.
Though many attitudes about women in the workplace have evolved positively over the years, it remains true that women in management are often subject to a double standard: if they are competitive or aggressive they may be successful, yet derided as unfeminine. Women who employ a more cooperative and nurturing style of leadership may be considered acceptable leaders of other women, but not necessarily of men. Increasingly, business schools are acknowledging the success of this style of leadership, yet it is still often reserved for lower levels of management or female dominated firms. Popular magazines have addressed this too; a recent issue of Self magazine featured an article on how to “Feel happier at work” by trading in the old ways of thinking (“It’s all about you” and “Be ruthless”) for new ways of thinking (“Be humble and empathic” or “Be nice”).
Are women who devote themselves to work like Martha, Barbra, and Tess doomed to live life solely in their profession at the expense of a rewarding personal life (unless they stop working)? Men at the top often have wives to take care of their social and personal lives—a benefit unavailable to most women. Are women like The Devil Wears Prada’s Andy who change their ambitions so that they can divide their devotions among different aspects of life, doomed to achieve less in their work lives if they are placed on a Mommy Track or otherwise not seen as fully competent as their male peers?
There are no easy answers or solutions—except maybe in the movies. In the Legally Blonde movies of 2001 and 2003, Elle succeeds in work, gains a respectful and supportive significant other, and also retains her busy social life, but she is often missing focused ambition. Her work goals arise from frustrating personal issues and, no matter the challenge, she remains herself and gets the job done. Can we accept Elle for herself and see her success as the result of her hard work or do we laugh at the mere idea of a blonde pink perky young woman as intelligent and able to reach her goals (once she has some)? In the Legally Blonde universe, Elle accepts people for who they are no matter their personality, intelligence, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or devotion to work, family, or both. This is no easy task out here in the real world.