Gender & Society:

The Ideology of the Two Spheres

REQUIRED READINGS:
The Domestic Sphere in GCCP (p.97-99 – top paragraph
of p 99 ONLY)

Gender Business and Space Control: Yoruba Market

Women and Power in GCCP (p.200-204 ONLY up to
‘Women and power: political systems and
mythologies’) 1
Objectives

• I) Rosaldo’s Framework: Domestic vs. Public Spheres

• II) The Domestic Sphere in Canada
• III) The Public Sphere in Canada: Business & Politics
• IV) Gender Stereotypes & Leadership
• Break
• To read about: Yoruba Market Women in GCCP (see
slides 51-55) (we won’t have time to cover these
slides in class)
• Film: Asante Market Women 2
To recap:
• Agency-Communality Dichotomy

• Men are expected to be Agentic

• “Power and power seeking are central to the constructs of agency and
masculinity” (Okimoto & Brescoll 2010)
• Women are expected to be Communal
• “Communal stereotypes depict women in general as being communal—
they are sensitive, warm, caring and concerned about others. In contrast
men are seen as agentic—they are dominant, assertive and competitive
(Abele & Wojciszke 2007; Ben 1981; Prentic & Carranza) cited in Okimoto
& Brescoll 2010
• These are the two dominant gender stereotypes in our
society
• “These cultural constructs of agency and communality have been shown
to be key characteristics in defining gender stereotypes (e.g. Cuddy et al 3
2004; Eckes 2002; Heilman & Okomoto 2008) Okimoto & Brescoll 2010
Hierarchy

Hegemonic Masculinity

Marginalized Masculinities Femininities

4
• Another component of Gender Stereotypes:
Traits, activities & roles “assigned” to
masculinity or femininity tend to fall into two
different “spheres” -- the Domestic and Public
Spheres

Men associated with Women associated 5

the Public Sphere with the Domestic
Sphere
Domestic & Public Spheres/ “The Ideology of Two Spheres”

• Rosaldo: proposed a framework to observe/examine this

phenomenon (p.97-98): called the Domestic / Public
Spheres or the Ideology of the Two Spheres

• A key point: Rosaldo’s original incarnation of the model =

this split was universal

• A major challenge and critique to her model= The

Domestic/Public split does not occur in all societies (p.
98) **Keep this point in mind during your readings and
when going over slides # 51-55** 6
• What we will do in this lecture:

• 1) describe the Domestic /Public Spheres

• 2) talk about how the Ideology of the Two

Spheres (may) apply to Canada

7
Domestic Sphere
• Denotes the physical location &
types of activities that take place in
association with the home

• Household Labour: Unpaid tasks

performed to satisfy the needs of
family members or to maintain the
home and family possessions

• Household labour does not get

included in the GDP (Gross
Domestic Product = the market
value of all of the goods and
services produced in that country)

• Gendered Feminine 8
• As pointed out in GCCP, Rosaldo didn’t think that women’s
“Domestic orientation” was a “necessary one” (p. 98. “In other
words, biology is not destiny” (p. 98).

• But rather the association between women & the Domestic was
“structurally and culturally constructed” (p. 98) – a major factor
(although not the only one) – the degree to which mother + child
care tasks were associated in a given society (p. 98) – in some
societies, this overlap is greater than in others

• As the author in GCCP writes (p. 101) : “Furthermore, a careful

examination of “domestic domain” indicates that the categories of
“woman” and “mother” overlap in Western society, but the meaning
of motherhood may be vastly different in another society. Women
may not be exclusively defined as mothers and childrearers in terms
of their status and cultural value (see Moore 1998: 20-29 for a
discussion of this point)”
• ***if you want to read further, see slides 74-77 for Moore’s discussion of this 9
point. Slides 74-77 are not testable***
Public Sphere
• Public domain includes political
and economic activities that take
place beyond the localized
household unit

• Paid labour = “Productive” tasks

according to United Nations
System of National Accounts = paid
labour gets included in the GDP
(Gross Domestic Product = the
market value of all of the goods
and services produced in that
country)
10
• Gendered Masculine
Comparing the Public vs Domestic

1) Activities that take place in the Public Sphere tend

to be more highly valued by society than activities
that take place in the Domestic Sphere (e.g.
Gender Asymmetry p. 97)

2) Even though there is cross-cultural variability in

men’s and women’s roles around the world;
Rosaldo argues (p. 97) that the tasks that men do
tend to be “recognized as predominantly
important, and cultural systems give authority and
value to the roles and activities of men”
11
• Does the Domestic/ Public Split occur in
Canada?

• PART 1) The Domestic Sphere in Canada

• To investigate this topic we are going to look at:

Unpaid Household Labour in Canada (Statistics
Canada, General Social Survey data)
1. Primary Child Care:
• consists of activities directly involving children, such as feeding,
helping, teaching, reading to, playing with, medical care, and any
related travel such as taking children to school or driving them to
sports or other activities (Stats Canada) 12
2. Housework
 Primary Childcare and Household Labour in Canada
(slide/stats from
last week)
Changes in
Canadian Fathers’
Participation in
Household Labour
& Childcare (1986
vs 2015)

Activities with the

largest increases
over time of father
involvement:
1) Preparing meals
2) Cleaning,
Stats Canada (2017)
laundry, other
Changes in parents’ participation in domestic 13
housework
tasks and care for children from 1986 to 2015
3) Childcare
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-652-x/89-652-x2017001-eng.pdf
Allocation of Household labour: Time
Stats Canada Study 2 (2005)
Household labour = housework &
childcare

30 hours / household labour/ week

(2005):
WOMEN: % of women who say they
do at least 30 hours per week:
19.8%
MEN: % of men: 7.7%

Household labour hrs/day (2005):

WOMEN = 4.3 hours (vs 4.8 in 1986) Photo Caption: Iain
MEN = 2.5 hours (vs 2.1 in 1986) Newbigin prepares 14
dinner in Toronto.
(Aaron
Harris/Canadian
How do CDNs
compare to other
countries?

-2011 OECD
(industrialized
countries) study of
unpaid household
labour in 29
countries: Title of the
report: Cooking,
caring and
volunteering: unpaid
work around the
world
15
-Used Stats Canada
data
 CDN men: vs other countries = above
2.5 hrs/ day average time spent on unpaid work
M
E
N

4.3 hrs/ day CDN women: vs other countries below

average time spent on unpaid work
W
O
M
E
N

16
2 Trends:

1______________________________________________
Canadian women do more household labor than men

2_______________________________________________
Canadian men do more as compared to past years

17
• Is the Domestic Gendered Feminine in Canada?

• Qualified Yes.

• As Stats Canada (2009) suggests, we are seeing a

“converging of gender roles” in the home. Not
convergence, not equal, but converging. More egalitarian
division of household labour.

18
2) The Public Sphere in Canada

• On one hand:
• i) In 2016, Women
made up 47.7% of
the workforce in
Canada (Stats Canada
2017)
• Source:
• http://www5.statcan.gc.ca
/cansim/a26?lang=eng&ret
rLang=eng&id=2820002&p
attern=&csid= 19
 ii) Stats Canada: Employment rates of women
and men, 1953 to 2014

20
Labour force participation rate: Total labour force expressed as a percentage of the population aged 15
and over. The participation rate for a particular group (e.g. age, sex, marital status, geographic area, etc.)
is the total labour force in that group expressed as a percentage of the population 15 years of age and over
in that group.
• The Problem: This equality does not
extend to the top levels of business &
politics

21
 22
See next slide for details of the McKinsey Canada report
• From the McKinsey Canada report (titled: The Power of
Parity, (June 2017): “Although 53 percent of the degree
holders in Canada are female, women are a minority of
corporate leaders. Our workplace survey of 69 Canadian
companies representing more than 500,000 employees sheds
light on the barriers women face in the workplace. It found
that women make up approximately 45 percent of all entry-
level employees but only 25 percent of vice presidents and 15
percent of CEOs. The first bottleneck for female advancement
appears to occur between the entry and manager levels, and
the second between director and vice-president levels, where
men advance three times more than women do.”

23
https://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/gender-equality/the-power-
of-parity-advancing-womens-equality-in-canada
Why the underrepresentation of
women at the top levels of business?
The 3 most common attempts to explain this situation:
1. Pipeline Problem/ “Just Give It time” argument (slides 25-28)
2. “Double-Bind”: Gender Stereotypes lead to disadvantages at
top levels of business/leadership for women (slides 32-43)
3. “Opt-out” Revolution (which we discussed is a myth last
class)

+ 4. Not “Leaning In”: Women haven’t mastered career

advancement skills.
• Like the “opt-out revolution”, this is another idea that has
gotten a lot of traction, without a lot of data to support it. We
will only touch briefly on this topic in slide 28—if you want to
read more on this topic see slides 64-71 ***they are not 24
required reading for the class/test
Not in the “pipeline”?

• To narrow down our investigation of women in the

pipeline—focus on Business degrees (Students &
Graduates)
• Business degrees are one of the main ways that men and
women can attain leadership positions in corporate
Canada
• “Business schools have a key part to play in helping to balance
gender ratios in corporate Canada”
https://www.canadianbusiness.com/lists-and-rankings/best-mba-
programs/2016-top-23-women-enrolled/
• Our question is: Are Canadian women in the pipeline as
students and graduates? 25
Not in the “pipeline”?
• (1) AS STUDENTS?
• Data from Canadian Business MBA Guide
• Across Canadian universities, women make up a large
proportion of the students in MBA programs (33% to 60%)
• In 2016, at least 23 MBA programs in Canada had programs
where 40% or greater of the cohort were women
• 2017 data: At the U of C, the proportion of women in MBA
programs is 35%
• Check out the lists at:
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/mba-guide-2013-mba-list/
• https://www.canadianbusiness.com/lists-and-rankings/best-
mba-programs/2016-top-23-women-enrolled/
• https://www.canadianbusiness.com/schools/calgary-
haskayne-mba/ 26
Not in the “pipeline”?
• (2) AS GRADUATES?

• Stats Canada provides data on university graduates in

Business, Management and Public Administration programs
at CDN universities for 1992 & 2008
• In 1992, women made up ______%
51% of university graduates in
Business, Management and Public Administration programs .
• In 2008, _____%
53% of grads in these programs were women
(Stats Canada 2012: Women in Canada at a Glance)
• General Degrees: Since 1991, Stats Canada data tells us that
the % of CDN women that hold a university degree has been
higher than men. In 2009, 34% of CDN women had a
university degree vs 26% of Canadian men

• Take home point: Women are in the pipeline

27
One more thing. Perhaps the lack of women in top
leadership positions has something to do with the way
women lead. Do men and women lead differently?

• Cut to the Chase: The largest peer-reviewed study on this topic

suggest few leadership differences between the sexes exist
• Hyde’s 2005 meta-meta-analysis of gender similarities and
differences. Included 636 meta-analysis studies on leadership
(e.g. task style; democratic vs autocratic; interpersonal style;
effectiveness)
• Overwhelmingly the effect size for sex differences in leadership
variables is in the close-to-zero (d ≤ 0.10) or small (0.11 ˂ d ˃
0.35) range
• To give you 1 example: when the variable is “Leadership
Effectiveness” (N=76 meta-analyses) effect size = 0.02

28
• Take Home Point: Men & women lead in similar ways
 Underrepresentation of Women in CDN
Political Landscape
• Federal: 2015 (election):
Women make up 26% of
Members of House of
Commons: 88 seats out
of 338
• Alberta: 2015 (election)
Women make up 33% of
the legislature
• Calgary: 2017 (election):
Calgary City Council:
3/15 seats (Councillors & House of Commons
29
Mayor) held by women Canada, Ottawa

= 23%
Who is
this?

30
 • From “The Atlantic” article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/
international/archive/2016/
11/clinton-woman-leader-
world/506945/
“There is no one reason—no
finite number of reasons—why
Hillary Clinton lost the U.S.
presidential election. No amount
of poring over polls will tell us
the precise degree to which bias
against women influenced the
vote. What we do know is this:
The United States still doesn’t
have a female leader, as it hasn’t
for the last 227 years. America
remains outside the club of 67
nations, out of 144 surveyed
countries, that have had a female
prime minister, a female
president, or both over the last
50 years, according to the World
Economic Forum’s latest study on
the gender gap in politics.” 31
Let’s look at another idea to explain the lack of
diversity at top levels of business/politics

• “Double-Bind”: Gender Stereotypes lead to

disadvantages at top levels of
business/leadership for women

32
 The “Double-Bind" for Women
• On one hand, women can succeed in jobs - idea of gender stereotype in leadership
stereotyped as ‘Masculine’; such as jobs
within the political realm or leadership jobs in
business - these traits assigned to masculinity
• Meaning, they can be seen as competent,
they have the ‘agentic’ skills for the job
• On the other hand, these women are
frequently assumed to lack ‘communal’
qualities
catch 22 • “People tend to assume not only that
professionally successful women possess
agentic qualities but also that they suffer
from a deficit of stereotypically feminine
communal qualities” (Benard & Correll,
2010)
• So called ‘Agentic Women’ are frequently
viewed as hostile, cold, deceitful, bitter,
selfish, devious and personally disliked
(Heilman 2001)

• The Double-Bind = The problem is not that - success in this stereotype leads to backlash 33
women can have ‘agentic’ skills, but that they
are presumed to lack communal qualities if
they have ‘agentic’ skills
Women & Politics
• In the following slides we will look
at a study by Okimoto & Brescoll
(2010) which sought to investigate
these dynamics as one potential
source of gender bias in politics
• They wanted to know: Does
violation of our society’s
prescriptive gender norms— i.e. a
woman is perceived as lacking
communal qualities—lead to voter
“backlash” in politics ?
• “Backlash effect” (Rudman 1998):
refers to the negative
characterization of women who
violate communal prescriptions Hillary Clinton, former US
- not about having ge...tic skills but not having them
Secretary of State
CNN political contributor Alex Castellanos commenting on
Hillary Clinton (2008): "[S]he is a tough -- that tough lady, tough 34
in politics, that's been her great strength. But let's face it, she
can be a very abrasive, aggressive, irritating person, and a lot of
voters, I think, see her that way."
Study Design (Okimoto & Brescoll 2010)
• Participants told the purpose of the study was to investigate first
impressions and memory about political candidates

• Reviewed the website biography page of two fictitious U.S. senators;

one male (John Burr) and one female (Ann Burr)

• Provided information about their committees, their political career

history, and biographical and educational background; Information
was pretested for equivalence (e.g. qualifications, committee work) ;
no pictures were presented; no political affiliation was presented

• The content of the biography was equivalent in all conditions, with

the exception of 4 manipulated variables [(1) male or female x (2)
no-power-seeking information or power-seeking information] 35
Power-seeking
• The senator’s power-seeking intent was manipulated by the
inclusion of two additional sentences in the biography.

• In the power-seeking conditions, participants read:

• “The Oregon Sun-Sentinel described him/her as “one of the

most ambitious politicians in Oregon…a politician that has
always had a strong will to power.” Burr him/herself has been
quoted as saying that “Being hungry is everything…it’s key to
gaining influence in politics”

• In the no-power-seeking condition, no additional information

was provided 36
Study Design
• After reading the biography,
• (1) the participants completed a number of memory
questions as part of the cover story;
• (2) reported their impressions of the senator—”the
specific emotions they felt toward the senator”;
• (3) were asked several binary questions about their
perceptions of the senators, e.g. “uncaring-caring”, or
“tough-not tough” and
• (4) who they would vote for

37
Results
1) Voters were less likely to vote for the power-seeking female
politician. The female power-seeking politician had the lowest
voter preference.

WHY? -why did she get the least votes?

2) For the female politician, power-seeking information increased
feelings of “moral outrage” (e.g. contempt, disdain, anger);
feelings of “moral outrage” were stronger for the power-seeking
female politician vs the female politician not expressing the power-
seeking condition
3) For the male politician, power-seeking information did not
increase feelings of moral outrage
4) + female power-seeking politician was seen as less communal
(e.g. as measured for binary associations like caring-not caring,
unsupportive-supportive) than the non-power seeking female 38
politician
• Why the findings of “Moral Outrage” for the
power-seeking female candidates?

• Moral outrage: It is a response to behavioural

transgressions: “An emotional response to what
other people do [that is wrong], not what we do
ourselves. Moral outrage is a response to the
behaviour of others. ” (Goodenough 1997)
transgression against the dominant stereotype

39
• The authors of the study suggest that the voters’
perceptions of the power-seeking female politician
as lacking communality is driving the moral outrage.
They write:

• “Consistent with past research, power-seeking

intentions led to an implied communality deficit, but
only for the female politician; the power-seeking
female target was seen as less caring and sensitive
than the non-power seeking female target” (Okimoto
& Brescoll 2010)

• Take home point: In other words, the “backlash”

against the power-seeking female politician occurred,
at least partly, because she was presumed to have a
“communal deficit”; a “communal deficit” violates/
transgresses our society’s prescribed communal 40
expectations for women
41
42
Harvard Business Review: other studies
find the same thing:
• Cooper (2013): “[Five decades of] peer reviewed studies
continually find, that high-achieving women experience social
backlash because their very success – and specifically the
behaviors that created that success – violates our
expectations about how women are supposed to behave.
Women are expected to be nice, warm, friendly, and
nurturing. Thus, if a woman acts assertively or competitively,
if she pushes her team to perform, if she exhibits decisive and
forceful leadership, she is deviating from the social script that
dictates how she “should” behave. By violating beliefs about
what women are like, successful women elicit pushback from
others for being insufficiently feminine and too masculine. As
descriptions like “Ice Queen,” and “Ballbuster” can attest, we
are deeply uncomfortable with powerful women. In fact, we
often don’t really like them.” 43
• http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/04/for-women-leaders-likability-a/
May 2015: www.cbc.ca/radio/day 6
45
In Sabin and Kirkup (2016) Competing Masculinities and political campaigns,
the authors write: “In our study, we looked at 756 editorials and opinion
pieces published in the ten highest circulating Canadian English-language
newspapers during the 2015 federal election. We scanned the articles for uses
of traditional and subordinate terms [see next slide] to describe Stephen
Harper, Thomas Mulcair, and Justin Trudeau. What we found was striking”.

46
From: Sabin and Kirkup (2016) Competing Masculinities and political campaigns

Describing the list, the authors write:

“We generated a list of five key terms commonly associated with

hegemonic masculinity, developed using hegemonic masculinity
theory and the political science literature on gender and the media.
We also developed a list of five key terms commonly associated with
subordinate [marginalized] masculinity.” 47
• In Sabin and Kirkup (2016) Competing Masculinities and
political campaigns, the authors suggest:

• “Ultimately, Justin Trudeau’s victory in the 2015 general

election may signal a shift in the hegemony of traditional
forms of masculinity in Canadian politics.”

48
Take-home messages
• Gender stereotypes about agency and communality are
very pervasive

• But remember gender is malleable; our ideas about

gender are not fixed; the traits we associate with
masculinity and femininity are changeable

• For the next week, pay attention to how these gender

stereotypes play out in your life; how you judge other
people and how your actions may be judged by other
people 49
• Use slides 51 – 55 to help steer your reading; we
won’t have time to cover these slides in class

50
Introduction to Asante Market Women:
Domestic / Public Split is not universal

• Major challenge and critique to Rosaldo’s model:

The Domestic/Public split does not occur in all
societies (p. 98)

• **Draw on: (1) p.97-98 in GCCP; (2) “Gender,

Business, and Space Control” in GCCP; & (3)
Movie: Asante Market Women

51
Some societies do not
conceive of the public
world as a man’s world
E.g West Africa: Public world is
arena where both men and
women have important roles
(Movie: “Asante Market
Women”)

Women market trader,

Ghana

52
Yoruba market women, Nigeria
 Gender, Business, and Space Control in
GCCP
• The “Market” is the social
and economic hub in most
African countries

• P. 201: “[the market] space

is useful in such ways as
information exchange, social
interactions, social control,
influence building, and
networking” Kejetia Market, Ghana

53
Gender, Business, and Space Control
in GCCP
• Yoruba market women of Nigeria

• Links between women as wives, mothers, & traders

(p. 202-204)
• Women received their start as traders with help
from husbands & on marriage through gifts (e.g.
bride price)
• Women increased their trade business, as they
increased the number of children they had
54
• Work ethic among the Yoruba: “Everyone must
work” (p. 202)
Yoruba Women’s Participation in, & Control of, the
Market, In GCCP

• (1) Women participate in the market as traders (women

make up the majority of traders in many Nigerian
markets)
• Women trade to make money to support their children/
families
• “to earn respect, fame and prowess” (p. 202)

• (2) Powerful women control the market as heads of

trading guilds
• Provides opportunities to interact with and negotiate
with political authorities 55
Movie: Asante Market Women
Kejetia Market, Kumasi,
Ghana

Ghanaian women are in

charge of the
produce section of
Kejetia market

Yam sellers, Nkoranza

market, Ghana 56
Yams are the most prestigious
produce section

57

Fufu (pounded yam) (r), Peanut

Market structure
• Women control the market
through the “Queen mothers”
(watch for “Oba” in the movie)

• Different produce sections

have different Queen mothers

• Generally elected, but some

gain their position (Oba)
through influence = illustrates
the connections between the
Yam market, Techiman, Ghana
market and political
structures in society
58
1) Matrilineal Society

• In a matrilineal society, one’s descent group

would consist of all members related to a person
through connection with your mother

• Included: your mother, her mother, your

brothers, and your sisters (you share a mother
with them), your mother’s brothers and sisters
(they share a mother with your mother) and
your mother’s sisters’ and brothers’ children
(their mother and your mother share a mother).
59

• **Not Included: women’s father and husband

2) Extended families the norm in Ghana
• Consanguinity: relationships by blood; the
people to who you are related by blood

• Conjugality: relationship by marriage; the

relationship between husband and wife

60
• Western countries (Europe & North America):
focus on Conjugal relationships
• Asante: women’s relationships are built around
Consanguineal relationships

• Conjugal: Women as wives generally exhibit

deference to their husbands ; as well,
traditionally men may have more than one wife

• Consanguine: Women as mothers and

daughters, women can be the recipients of
deference and the wielders of power and 61
authority
When watching the movie:
• Keep in mind #1: The communal stereotype of
femininity does not describe the Asante women
you meet in the movie. If you tried, you would
find it difficult to fit them into the narrow
confines of how our society defines femininity.
Watch for ‘Oba’ in the movie.

• #2: How does the matrilineal system shape

women’s participation in the market?
• How does polygyny (men can have more than
one wife) shape women’s participation in the
market? 62
• #3: Consider the concept of “breadwinner” in
Asante society (vs. the concept of “breadwinner”
in North America).

• #4 After watching the movie, how would you

describe the role of women as market traders (the
public) vs their roles as wives and mothers (the
domestic).

63
• Slides 65-77 are not required reading for class/
test. They are not testable.

• Slides 65-72 are extra information about the “Lean

In” Argument for people who want to read further.

• Slides 73-77 are extra information about different

concepts of mothers

64
The “Lean In” Argument
• A frequently touted “explanation” for the gender gap
in senior leadership is that women haven’t mastered
the skills needed to get ahead in the same way men
have. In other words, are women not “leaning in”?

• “[We] hold ourselves back in ways both big and

small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising
our hands, and by pulling back when we should
be leaning in. We internalize the negative
messages we get throughout our lives—the
messages that say it’s wrong to be outspoken,
aggressive, more powerful than men.” ― Sheryl
Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to 65
Lead
• First of all, what does it mean to “lean in” in the business world?
What are the skills that “high potentials” in the business world
should have?

• Carter & Silva (2011) write: “Career self-help books, corporate pundits, and
mentors alike contribute to the conventional wisdom imparted to high
potentials in the pipeline: career advancement depends on individuals’
actions—and more precisely—on doing “all the right things” to get ahead.
Prescriptions about what it takes to get ahead have been so ubiquitous they
have coalesced into a detailed description of an “Ideal Worker,” someone
who:
• • Actively seeks high-profile assignments,
• • Rubs shoulders with influential leaders,
• • Communicates openly and directly about their career aspirations,
• • Seeks visibility for their accomplishments,
• • Lets their supervisor know of their skills and willingness to
contribute,
• • Continually seeks out new opportunities,
• • Learns the political landscape or unwritten rules of the company,
and
• • Isn’t afraid to ask for help
66
• Carter & Silva (2011) further ask: “Mastery of these skills seemingly paves
the way to the top. But do these tactics really get high potentials to the
top? And do the same strategies work for both women and men?”
• Study of 3,345 “high potentials”, men and women who stayed
on a “traditional” career path following graduation from a full-
time MBA program (Carter & Silver 2011)

• To determine what individuals do to advance in their careers,

the authors surveyed “high potentials” about tactics they
used. The tactics clustered into nine career advancement
strategies (e.g. Get Trained Through Experience, Make
Achievements Visible, Blur Work-Life Boundaries)

• The authors used a cluster analysis to group the nine career

advancement strategies into four distinct career advancement
strategy profiles: Climbers, Hedgers, Scanners, and Coasters.

67
1) CLIMBERS Seek to Advance in Their Current Company
• Almost one-third of high potentials were “Climbers” (32% of men
and 31% of women).

2) HEDGERS Use Both Internal and External Career Advancement

Strategies
• One-quarter of women (26%) and men (25%) fell into the “Hedgers”
category
• ***This was the best strategy to employ in terms of attaining senior
leadership

3) SCANNERS Keep a Finger on the Pulse of the Job Market

Approximately one-quarter of high potentials were “Scanners” (28% of
women and 24% of men).

4) COASTERS Put Less Emphasis on All Tactics

• “A perhaps surprising number of these high potentials were
68
“Coasters,” relatively inactive when it came to their use of career
advancement strategies (19% of men and 14% of women)”
• Take-home message: Similar proportion of men
and women used the different strategies, e.g.
32% of men and 31% of women “high
potentials” were “Climbers” vs 26% of men and
25% of women were “Hedgers”

• Both men and women had mastered the

different career advancement skills of the “Ideal
Worker” (e.g. Climber & Hedger)
69
 The authors conclude:
• “In this report we address the question of whether the gender gap
persists because women and men adopt different strategies to advance
their careers. Is it the case that men are more proactive, articulating
their aspirations and asking for more opportunities? Are men more
likely to be an “ideal worker,” doing “all the right things” to get ahead?”

• “The short answer is no.”

• “Among the high potentials we studied, more than half of both women
and men had adopted the full range of advancement strategies
attributed to an ideal worker [Climbers & Hedgers]. However, men
benefitted more than women when they adopted the proactive
strategies of the proverbial ideal worker. Even when women used the
same career advancement strategies—doing all the things they have
been told will help them get ahead—they advanced less than their
male counterparts.” 70
Results: Doing “All the Right Things” Helped Men—But
Not Women—Advance Further and Faster
From the study:
1) Men in the most proactive group—Hedgers—received the greatest
advancement payoff. Twice as many men Hedgers ( 21%) as women
Hedgers ( 11%) had advanced to senior executive/CEO level by 2008.
• Additionally, compared to other men, male Hedgers advanced furthest,
followed by men Climbers, Coasters, and Scanners.

3) For women it was a different story

• Not only did women lag behind men Hedgers in advancement, there
was no difference between women Hedgers, Climbers, or Scanners.

• While women in the Hedgers group did advance further than Coasters—
women doing comparatively less to get ahead—being proactive didn’t
71
provide as great an advantage for women Hedgers as it did for men
Hedgers
• Take Home Message: This research suggests women are
“Leaning In” but are not being rewarded in the same way
that men are for using the same career advancement
strategies

72
• Slides 74-77 are not required reading for class/ test. They
are extra information about the different concepts of
mother for people who want to read further

73
Different concepts of ‘mother’
• Moore (1988) explains this idea (p.25):

• “The concept of ‘mother’ is not merely given in natural processes

(pregnancy, birth, lactation, nurturance), but it is a cultural
construction which different societies build up and elaborate in
different ways. It is not just a matter of the cultural diversity in the
way in which women perform their role as mother—in some
cultures mothers are warm, caring and full-time, while in others
they are authoritarian, distance and part-time (Drummond, 1978:
31; Collier and Rosaldo, 1981, 275-6). It is also a matter of how the
category ‘women’ in each culture is linked to such attributes of
motherhood as fertility, naturalness, maternal love, nurturance, life-
giving and reproduction.” (continued on next slide)
74
Different concepts of ‘mother’
• “In Western society, the categories ‘women’ and ‘mother’
overlap in substantial and clearcut ways. Ideas about the
attitudes towards women are crucially linked to ideas about
marriage, family, the home, children and work….The result is a
definition of ‘woman’ which is crucially dependent on the
concept of ‘mother, and on the activities and associations
which that concept draws to itself. Other cultures do not, of
course, define ‘woman’ in the same way, neither do they
necessarily establish a close relationship between ‘woman’
and home or the domestic sphere as Western culture does.
The association between ‘woman’ and ‘mother’ is by no
means as ’natural’ as it might at first seem” (p. 25) (next slide)
75
Different concepts of ‘mother’
• Moore elaborates on this idea (p, 28):

• “It has been noted that in a wide range of different societies the
concept of ‘woman’ is not elaborated through ideas about
motherhood, fertility, nurturance and reproduction.
Readings on Australian Aborigines, American, Asian and
African hunter-gatherers and hunter-horticulturalists led to the
discovery that themes of motherhood and sexual reproduction
are far less central to such people’s conceptions of ‘woman’ than
we had assumed. Contrary to our expectations that motherhood
provides women everywhere with a natural source of emotional
satisfaction and cultural value, we found that neither women nor
men in very simple societies [non-industrial] celebrate women as
nurturers or women’s unique capacity to give life…Women the
Fertile, the Mother and Source of All Life was, quite remarkably,
absent from all available accounts (Collier and Rosaldo, 1981: 275-6) 76
Different concepts of ‘mother’
• A bit more to think about—Moore writes (p. 26):

• “The biological facts of motherhood do not produce a

universal and immutable mother-child relationship or unit…
Philip Aries (1973) has pointed out that childhood as we
understand it in Western culture today is a recent
phenomenon. The notion of a separate child’s world distinct
from that of adults, with special activities and diets, standards
of behaviour and dress, is peculiar to a specific historical
period. The idea that mothers have always been isolated in
their home with their children, organizing their days around
the primary tasks of childcare, an acting as moral guardians of
society through their responsibility for socializing the young, is
not generalizable to all periods of Western life, let along to all 77
other cultures”