Some time back, I came across an article buried in one of the journals I take. I don’t even remember the title, but it was an analysis of why women haven’t made the strides that many expected in U.S. business, especially since we’re now entering the third generation since it’s been at least technically possible for a large number of women to be considered for corporate executive positions. The author(s) discovered that, in general, women were superior to their male counterparts in every aspect of business – except one, and that one “lack” made all the difference. What was that “lack?” The inability to build and maintain wide-spread and growing networks and alliances. Further, the authors also noted that this lack was prevalent even when there were enough women in an organization to do exactly that.
In a way, considering the history of the species, none of this should come as a shock. How else could a bunch of semi-intelligent monkeys end up as the top species in a world that featured, on an individual basis, species that were tougher, stronger, faster, and more deadly?
In more recent history, say the last 6,000 years or so, more than a few examples tend to support the “male groupie” theory. With the possible exception of Christian Science, virtually every religion that has transcended “local cult” status has been launched and networked into prominence by men. The vast majority, if not all cultures, feature interlocked male networks, beginning in early adolescence. And failure to go along with the group, especially those groups that function as gangs, can be anything from painful to deadly, as human history has demonstrated. What seems to get overlooked about these group dynamics, however, is that they remain predominantly if not overwhelmingly male, and that personal and physical power rather than overall ability determines the group dynamics, whether it’s a local gang or an investment bank. Study after study has shown that tall men get more respect and more money than shorter men who are more able, and even short men get more money than more able women. The tall guys are also generally able to build and control wider networks.
As far as business goes, there are other trends. One is setting up structures and office politics where, somehow, especially when there are few women, they almost invariably end up being positioned [by men] in a way that they’re competing against each other, or against the only man who’s on the outs. After more than thirty years in government, business, and academia, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this scenario.
Here in Utah, we’ve just witnessed another graphic example of what happens, even when you’re male, and you go against the group, or the good ol’ boys. Late in 2008, the Bush Administration directed the Bureau of Land Management to make 149,000 acres in Utah available for oil and gas leasing, with an auction set on December 18th, despite wide-spread environmental protests that the land was environmentally protected. A 29 year old student, Tim DeChistopher, unable to even witness the auction unless he registered as a bidder, did in fact register as a bidder. As a protest, he bid for parcels of land for which he could not pay, effectively keeping the lands from being auctioned off. He was charged with fraud and disrupting the auction. Subsequently, federal judges declared that the Bush Administration’s actions were illegal, and the Secretary of Interior withdrew the land from consideration on environmental grounds. Even so, for two years, the federal prosecutors pursued the case, and last week the student was convicted of two felony counts for disrupting an auction declared illegal by the courts two years earlier. Interestingly, enough, since the courts made the auction moot, in effect, Tim DeChristopher defrauded no one. But he didn’t go along with the good ol’ boys, and he made them look bad. That means he may go to jail, and he won’t be accompanied by any of the Bush Administration officials who also effectively violated federal law.
My favorite case along these lines was the conviction of Martha Stewart for inside trading. She went to jail for using inside information in trying to make some extra cash on stock trades of her own stock of her own company paid for with her own money. Should she have been convicted? Absolutely – but why should she have gone to prison, when her offense involved mere thousands of dollars and when virtually no men convicted of the same type of offense, often involving far larger dollar sums, got much more than fines, probation, or slaps on the wrist? And recently, more to the point, not a single man involved in all the offenses that caused the financial melt-down of the economy has been even charged, let alone convicted, or sent to prison. Have any of the thousands who created fraudulent securities, based on fraudulent mortgages, with fraudulent ratings seen the inside of a courtroom? No… the good ol’ boys of finance, with their interlocking networks, have sold the world a bill of goods that the financial crash was somehow an act of God [also male, in most theologies].
So Tim DeChristopher and Martha Stewart get convicted, and the executives of Goldman-Sachs get billions in bonuses.
In the end, little has changed in the last thirty years. Despite the fact that women, according to the study, do everything better than men – except gang-mentality bullying of a slightly more refined nature, charitably called networking – they still only represent three percent of the chief executives of the thousand largest companies in the U.S., despite the fact women-run companies tend to perform better.
As for that study… I haven’t seen a single follow-up, or another mention of it or other studies along that line. I can’t imagine why.