The Female Deputy - Why individual success stories cannot absolve structural inequality.
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In Germany, according to the Federal Statistical Office, only 29.1 percent of leadership positions are held by women, despite a nearly equal share of employed women and men. What is more, number of women in leadership roles has stagnated for years. In the rest of Europe the situation of women is better as the the EU-wide average is 35.2 percent. Anyone familiar with these numbers understands that female workers who look upward hardly see any female role models there—and thus learn how limited their own chances of advancement are.
Should there be any doubt about the importance of female role models for women, academic analyses and specialist literature quickly assuages that uncertainty. In fact it makes the importance of such role explicitly models clear, if an only if one bothers to take a look.
They strengthen self-confidence and the perception of one’s own career options, with positive examples in particular fostering self-efficacy. They also help women approach challenging leadership roles with greater confidence—for instance by integrating successful patterns of behavior. Keyword: empowering mimicry.
Research also identifies the causes of limited advancement opportunities and persistent underrepresentation. Unconscious biases that lead to psychological distortions in recruiting, entrenched routines, and stereotypical role models are cited, as are the lack of work–family compatibility and DE&I washing without genuinely lived diversity in companies.
All of this is empirically verifiable fact.
And yet, some women engage in maximum denial of those facts.
“My lived experience doesn’t reflect this. I’ve always had female role models. We should discuss women’s careers only in a positive context.”
This was said to me recently by a mid-fifties academic woman—by all accounts a very intelligent, thoughtful one.
What triggered her?
A fairly simple question of whether women simply lack the ambition to move into leadership positions or whether there are deeper, structural issues in German society and German work culture. The Women in the Workplace report by Lean In and McKinsey was the first to identify a statistically significant ambition gap between men and women. Eighty percent of women aspire to the next career level; among men, the figure is 86 percent. Now, one could say only 6 % that is not a lot. True, but statistically significant doesn't mean in large numbers, it refers to an observed result that is unlikely to have happened by random chance, suggesting a real effect or relationship exists .
As usual, in the media, the suspicion quickly arose that women simply don’t want to be in leadership roles badly enough.
For me, that reading falls short.
Her statement not only fails to acknowledge the reality of other women in the workplace; it practically screams privilege, unrealistic expectations, and a paternalistic image of women.
Michelle Obama, former U.S. First Lady, may have had it right. In 2018 she said that the idea that women could simply “do more” and thus overcome career barriers is an illusion. She emphasized that women often cannot “have it all at the same time,” and that structural hurdles cannot be overcome by sheer force of will alone.
So why some people continue to delude themselves? Is that really such an inconvenience to accept facts instead of framing? Wouldn't it be easier to work with the cold hard and problematic truth to find an actual solution instead of silence?
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References:
https://medienrot.de/pr-branche-gender-pay-gap-erhoeht-sich-zahl-der-frauen-in-fuehrungspositionen-sinkt/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/03/michelle-obama-lean-in-sheryl-sandberg
https://www.forschung-und-lehre.de/karriere/man-kann-nicht-sein-was-man-nicht-sehen-kann-5252
researchgate.net/publication/264684932_The_Influence_of_Role_Models_on_Women%27s_Career_Choices
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