Part of the steps and requirements leading up to the student teaching experience for future agricultural educators at Penn State is for both the cooperating teacher and student teacher to select a book to read together. This book could be related to teaching, leadership, classroom management, or any other topic under the sun that could help us grow personally and professionally as future teachers.
After some online excerpt reading and reviewing opinions of a lot of different books, my cooperating teacher (Gretchen Dingman) and I decided on "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead" by Sheryl Sandberg. This book is essentially about where all the women have gone in the workforce. Women make up more than half of college students and earn more than half of the degrees handed out, but this still does not translate to the workplace. So where have all the women gone and why?
Here are some of my initial observations and thoughts of why women struggle to achieve the top leadership positions in the workforce as they try to find the sweet-spot of balancing work and life:
1. Internal Barriers
It is a simple fact and proven in many case studies that most men are overconfident (this does not insinuate that it is negative) and most women under-confident. If you asked a college male to estimate their GPA, they would say a number above what it actually is. For women it is the opposite, they would say something below what they actually have. Why? Because women lack the confidence that men do. This is caused by a variety of reasons, but one that stuck out as I read this book was that women often are not given the credit they deserve.
The author of this book was named Forbes fifth most influential woman ahead of many other well-known women a few years ago. Critics acclaimed her success to "getting lucky" and "being at the right place at the right time." What a slap in the face. Sheryl Sandberg worked her tail off to rise on the career ladder through Google and become the Chief Operations Officer at Facebook through hard-work, perseverance, and believing that she had every right to be successful as anyone else. Had the critics been talking about the fifth most influential man, they would have said their "hard-work" and "progressive thinking" enabled them to become so successful. Thus, if women believe that they have to be "lucky" to be successful, how can anyone expect a high level of confidence. How can anyone expect women to come charging from the gate saying "I can and I will," instead of "I think and I might."
2. Institutional Obstacles
Each and every American, especially women, can be grateful to have the opportunity to live in a nation where we have the blessing of freedom and liberty that other people around the world are still fighting for. Across the globe, women are treated as property by their husbands, are not given the opportunity of education, are sold into the sex trade, and are cast out of their homes if they are a victim of rape. The United States is decades ahead of these countries, but there are still simple ideals that women are fighting for in the workplace.
For example, the United States is currently one of the countries not leading the charge for better maternity leave in the workforce. Paid maternity leave is not even required in the USA, though many companies do offer this to female employees. How can we expect to attract and retain more women in the workforce if they have to fear financial struggle, falling behind at work, or dismissal if too much time is taken off for the natural desire to have children?
This issue reaches even farther than just this one example. Currently, women make 79 cents to every dollar men earn. Out of 195 independent countries in the world, only 17 are led by women and only 22 percent of all seats in parliament are held by women. Furthermore, only 23 percent of S&P 500 CEOs are women and only 25 percent hold senior executive positions, 19 percent hold board seats, and 19 percent are elected congressional officials. How are women supposed to overcome these almost insurmountable odds to reach the top of whatever career path they chose. The root of the problem is that women are not seeking these types of leadership positions because they do not believe they can do it or that they are not qualified. Thus, how do we get more women to even attempt to go after these types of roles?
3. Societal Expectations
From the moment we are born society and human nature is constantly and indirectly influencing our lives one way or another. We are raised in a cultural with the notion that women should go to college, graduate with a degree, get married, have children, raise them, and then what? Are women allowed to work full-time and not feel guilty about not being with their child? Are women allowed to love their careers and still love their families? Can women balance work and life together?
This goes beyond the issue of whether you can have children and a career at the same time, it brings into question how men and women can have the same behaviors, but be judged differently in society.
For example, a man who is ambitious is categorized as goal-driven, hard-working, and opportunistic. A woman, who is similarly ambitious, is categorized as cold, aggressive, and hard to work with. People may even say that she would not make a very nurturing mother. Since she is expressing behaviors that have somehow been universally dubbed as typical "men-characteristics" it becomes a negative trait to society. Why would we want to make women feel that being ambitious, taking charge of their careers, and seeking to be the best as anything less than what it would be for a man?
Society has pushed women into a box of what is "acceptable" and "lady-like." By doing so, every women has a disadvantage even before we have left the starting gate. It is a constant battle between making a splash in the workforce and rising through the ranks, and worrying that other people are judging, spreading rumors, and thinking less of you for doing something you love.
*In my next blog post I am going to discuss a few of the pieces of advice that the authors gives for women to make it to the top and fill the leadership positions that they so rightfully can*