In Conversation with Germaine Greer: The “Homosocial” World of Power

In Germaine Greer’s view, one of the main obstacles for women is that men are homosocial, i.e., have social non-sexual relationships with members of their own sex, while women are heterosocial, i.e., have non-sexual relationships with both men and women. Men socialize in separate spheres and build their power base in a world that remains largely elusive and inscrutable to women. Without a power base to stand behind them, women can’t withhold approval or say “no”.

And unfortunately, she says, “the corporate world changes women more quickly than women can change the corporate world." To make progress, we need to find a new way.

I was lucky enough to sit next to Germaine at yesterday’s Luncheon Society event. Whether you agree with her or not, she is a quip machine, describing banking as a form of “fiscal pornography” and the corporate world as "profoundly masculinist", where women still need to be a "man's woman". She also decried Michelle Obama’s pose as the “face of receptivity”. Germaine would clearly prefer that all women hew to their own ambition without spending so much time worrying about their romantic relationships with men.

"I only wear clothes with holes in them and women should stop worrying about their next purse," she declared. If more of us had Germaine's humor and mind, I suspect we would all do the same.

The Dynamic World of Women and Work

In Richard Florida’s latest article in the Atlantic, “How the Crash Will Reshape America" he predicts the US population will “be sparser in the Midwest and also, ultimately, in those parts of the Southeast that are dependent on manufacturing. Its suburbs will be thinner and its houses, perhaps, smaller. Some of its southwestern cities will grow less quickly. Its great mega-regions will rise farther upward and extend farther outward. It will feature a lower rate of homeownership, and a more mobile population of renters. In short, it will be a more concentrated geography, one that allows more people to mix more freely and interact more efficiently in a discrete number of dense, innovative mega-regions and creative cities.”

These changes reflect the needs of a changing workforce, one that requires an emphasis on talent-rich ecosystems and an ever greater emphasis on the intangible sector of the economy, ie, engineering, design and professional occupations.

There are also dramatic changes looming for the gender landscape of the US job market. According to a recent article in the New York Times, more men are losing jobs than women in this recession. And, this may be the tip of the iceberg. According to the US Department of Education, the number of women with graduate and professional degrees is projected to grow by 16 percent over the next decade, while the number of men with these degrees is projected to grow by 1.3 percent. (Silvia Hewlett – Off-Ramps and On-Ramps, p 15)

With the future economy’s greater emphasis on the knowledge economy, women will be garnering a greater proportion of highly skilled jobs vis-à-vis men. And given that the Millenial generation holds more egalitarian gender views, (which are an important determinant of the wage gap - see my December 8 post "Will Stay at Home Boyfriends End the Wage Gap" below) the wage gap is likely to lessen.

These changes do not necessarily speak to progress for women in becoming top wage earners or joining the ranks of top management. It clearly speaks to solving the pipeline issue, but pipeline alone will not change the gender composition of top jobs. Companies need to focus their energies on retention and promotion of mid-level women. This means developing women leaders through skill building, managing conflict and ensuring that their jobs are satisfying. According to Sylvia Hewlett's book "Off-Ramps and On-Ramps", 52% of women in business leave their jobs because their careers are unsatisfying.

Part of the solution is moving companies from a view of compliance vis-a-vis diversity to a view of financial performance. At a recent meeting of 25 senior executives, I mentioned a Catalyst study which showed that having women in top management made a huge difference in financial performance. As far as I could tell, noone in the room had heard of the study or even the hypothesis and confirmation that women at the top results in improved financial performance. (This better performance probably reflects higher retention rates for both men and women and the evidence that diverse groups are better at solving complex problems.) The group, all men with one exception, felt very strongly in favor of a diverse workforce. This desire was not expressed in terms of goals around performance. They expressed an inherent interest in diversity and a couple mentioned that their own job performance was tied, in part, to achieving diversity at their companies. For even greater impact, senior executives need to link gender diversity and the bottom line. Otherwise, it will be hard to muster the necessary commitment to address women's virtual absence at the top.

Criteria for Promotability to the C-Suite

At a recent event of the "When She Speaks" series (an excellent monthly women's event highlighting various speakers and panels, sponsored by Schwab and IBM and open to all businesswomen), Evelyn Williams, a Stanford Business School professor, mentioned a recent study by Charles O’Reilly on promotability. In that study, he found that the most important criteria for selecting top-level executives is the number of hours worked. Needless to say, this helps explain why we see so few women at the top of corporations - women choose these mega-schedules less often than men. There was a general nod of agreement in the room of 50 businesswomen. To the room, this criteria seemed fair and reasonable.

While 100 hour workweeks may seem necessary to gain seniority, organizations risk missing out on womens’ unique perspectives and leaderships skills if they place too much value on an unrelenting workpace.

•In a Catalyst study, Fortune 500 companies with the highest percentage of women on their boards performed significantly better financially than those companies with the fewest women on their board: 53% higher return on equity, and 66% higher return on capital.
•A recent Washington Post article by Deborah Spar argued that the financial crisis might have been averted if more women had been in charge.
•And from Kristof’s recent New York Times editorial, “There seems to be a strong consensus that diverse groups perform better at problem solving” than homogeneous groups, Lu Hong and Scott E. Page wrote in The Journal of Economic Theory, summarizing the research in the field.

Marie Wilson provides an excellent outline of the distinct benefits of women’s leadership in her book "Closing the Leadership Gap, Add Women, Change Everything”. She cites Sally Helgeson's research on women’s greater focus on the ecology of leadership and managing for the long range – clearly skills that have been lacking in the finance and auto manufacturing industries of late.

White House Task Force on Women: Yes or No

There are new White House rumblings about creating a task force on women. Many groups, including Women Count and The White House Project have called on the White House variously to create a Presidential Commission on Women or a Woman's Office at the White House. In theory, this is a good idea. We need talented folks ensuring that women's advancement is appropriately framed, monitored, and promoted. In practice, what we most need is passionate advocates for women to be present when all decisions, large and small are made, ie, who is assigned to head up bank nationalization, how are financial industry risk tolerances redefined for a new era, or who is invited to the next White House Saturday night cocktail party? A women's task force, office or commission, by definition, would not be invited to all important meetings, unless the specific topic is women.

I'm in favor of groups whose purpose is advancing women's interests and keeping their perspectives front and center. I'm concerned if these groups become a substitute for what really matters: a seat at every table. A group that is assigned to represent women's interests seems inherently marginal to the need for a constant presence. Instead, or perhaps, in addition, Obama and Biden need to ensure that every meeting and important decision are influenced by persons who are deeply committed to and willing to spend their political capital on the advancement and inclusion of women.

More Sanchez Sisters; Fewer Lehman Brothers

Quoting from Kristof’s op-ed on Februay 8, “At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, some of the most interesting discussions revolved around whether we would be in the same mess today if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters.” It should go without saying that many have mused similar counterfactuals about other crises, eg, would the Middle East have such serious religious and ethnic conflict if women held over 40% of all political positions. Or let’s indulge in a domestic kissing-cousin hypothetical: would the US have invaded Iraq if 40% or more of our federal elected officials were women?

Back to the evidence and again lifting from Kristof’s op-ed, “there seems to be a strong consensus that diverse groups perform better at problem solving” than homogeneous groups, Lu Hong and Scott E. Page wrote in The Journal of Economic Theory, summarizing the research in the field.”

Not usually one to gainsay economists and their tepid if properly modest conclusions, there is a large (and growing) body of evidence which leads to an obvious conclusion: we need more women in every crook and cranny where important decisions are made. Rather than cite all the evidence, eg, that women are more trusted by voters than men (regardless of whether they are in fact more deserving of this trust), or women’s barriers to greater leadership, let’s look at what works in getting more women into leadership positions – enhanced networks, improved skills, and powerful mentors. Groups that provide these tools, like Emerge America and Catalyst, are seeing forward strides for women. More of that.

Emerge Reaches Tipping Point in Many States

In our 3rd convening of Emerge Affiliates from our eight states, I led a visioning exercise to come up with future headlines for 5, 10 and 25 years from now. One of my favorites was an imagined headline in the National Enquirer: “Emerge Graduate Gives Birth to Five-headed Baby”. When Emerge bumps news of an Elvis sighting, you know it is having huge impact. Other favorite headlines included: “10,000 Women Gather for Emerge Convention”, “Half of Democratic Governors Across the States are Emerge Graduates”, “Emerge Credited with Filling Over Half of All Elected Positions with Women”.

After hearing updates from Emerge leadership in our states, I realized we already have a perfect headline: “Emerge Reaches Tipping Point in Many States”. In Nevada, our Executive Director, Erin Bilbray Kohn was elected to be the national committeewoman to the DNC, unexpectantly jumping ahead of many other candidates. In Maine, where three Emerge alumnae have been elected to the House of Representatives, top elected officials and party leaders drive endless hours to present to the Emerge class. In Massachusetts, our Executive Director was chosen by the party to co-chair a woman’s candidate recruitment program. And in Arizona, every elected Democratic woman is assumed to be an Emerge graduate.

As always, I was very engaged by Emerge’s state leaders and the reasons they are so committed to Emerge's work. One woman told us about her dream of moving to California at age 16, not to surf, but to work with Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta. She movingly recollected how she missed her father for most of her childhood as the daughter of a migrant worker. I also marvel at the innovation and commitment to serve diverse needs. Emerge New Mexico had its first deaf participant this year and raised a lot of additional money to hire multiple sign language interpreters for the seven full weekends and their events throughout the year. I'm looking forward to that headline “Emerge Alumna Serves as First Deaf Member of the US Congress."

Kirsten for President

I am thrilled that Governor Patterson appointed Kirsten Gillibrand to Clinton's seat. Unlike Caroline Kennedy, Gillibrand has the skills and grit to retain her Senate seat in her next election. Kirsten is a prodigious fundraiser and campaigner, a pioneer in transparency, and a leader in economic development for her region. As a congresswoman, Kirsten represented a conservative upstate New York district and she supported gun rights, much to the chagrin of some progressives. Now that Kirsten represents the entire state, we will see some of her policies shift to a more centrist stance and she has already declared her commitment to controlling handguns. Most importantly, she has the charisma of a rising star, and yes, she has sharp elbows and ambition. Hallelujah. These characteristics differentiate her from other politicans and are the key to her potential to rise further. Kirsten reminds me of the charismatic Governor Jennifer Granholm, who other than her Canadian birth and the feeble state of Michigan's economy, is one of the few women that I can imagine becoming the first woman President of the United States. I'm ready to write Kirsten a check for 2016.

The More Things Change...

When I first saw this image, I thought someone had used photoshop to place a posse of white men around President Obama. Quickly, I realized that this was a real image. Clearly, there's a lot of work to be done to surround the President with a full spectrum of perspectives. Thanks to Andrea Dew Steele and Catalina Ruiz Healy for bringing this photo to my attention.

Inauguration 2009: Frozen Toes, Heightened Rapport and Other Highlights

From the moment I boarded my flight to Washington, DC to go to the Obama Inauguration, I noticed that people were quick to smile and seemed eager to strike up a conversation about the exciting day in front of us. Of course, I had to wonder how much I was projecting my own excitement onto others.

On MLK Jr day, a day of service, I was a judge for young social entrepeneurs ("the young people") in the Do Something program. The young people were pitching their ideas about new programs. I was particularly star-struck by a serious, freckly, doe-eyed, 11-year old boy. He told me about the foundation he started four years ago, when he was seven, the Little Red Wagon Foundation. It provides relief kits to victims of natural disasters. His pitch was about taking his program national. Nancy Lublin, the CEO of Do Something, said at the outset that the "old people" should offer ideas to the young people as if they were capable adults that were ready to accomplish big things. After meeting 10 of them, I was happy to see what Nancy meant.

Over the days preceding the Inauguration, there was much chatter about the weather and which parties everyone was going to. We froze our toes, waiting in a mile-long line to go through metal detectors. During the inauguration itself, I cried when Aretha Franklin sang the national anthem. She made it her own and, to me, she captured the emotion of the moment. My one disappointment was that people boo-ed when Bush was announced. The inauguration is a celebration about the future, not a time to once again show our disapproval of the former President. I was glad that the brief round of hissing was not heard on television and broadcast around the world.

My toes re-froze that evening as I made a dash from the warmth of our car to the Convention Center in open-toed high heels. When I arrived at the Western States Ball, I saw a man who looked like a young Richard Branson and realized that he was, in fact, Sir Richard Branson. I walked over to him and talked with him about the UK’s Obama-love. After we spoke, I stood nearby and watched him interact with a few other well-wishers and noted his phenomenal openness. He spoke to anyone who approached him with the level of engagement that each person brought to him. One woman, who had some green-lit tassels hanging in her hair sidled over and said “I love Virgin’s black lights. If you put yellow highlighter on anything, like your hand, it glows in black light, and so I love Virgin America’s planes.” Branson gave her his electric smile and thanked her with an enthusiastic kiss on the cheek. I marveled at the voraciousness of his curiosity and openness and his enormous talent at just being himself.

Born Equal, Except…

A colleague in her twenties was surprised to find check boxes on a vendor form for “women-owned” and “minority-owned” businesses. She said with surprise and not a small bit of outrage, “I thought everyone was equal. This is unfair if some companies get an advantage just because of their owners.”

I was struck with her genuine view that the disconnect between rhetoric and reality is untenable. In rapid succession, I felt happiness that equality is so very REAL to her, frustration that Millenials see equality when the world is not yet close to this goal, and then hope in the belief that this passionately-held view will actually take hold as the Millenial generation dominates our culture.

Older generations need to beat back the temptation to see Millenials as naïve. They are actually our hope for a fundamental change in attitude that will drive behavior towards greater equality. How do we bottle that?

With the Middle East in Flames...Would Women Do It Differently?

With images of bloodied Palestinians across the news, I am acutely struck by the sameness and senselessness of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. What will ever make the difference? It truly makes me wonder: what would women do? Not just one, two or even twenty percent women in power. Thinking BIG: if women held a majority of power on both sides, be honest, what does your instinct tell you? Wouldn't we have a different solution? Since that is so unrealistic as to be trite, where else do we begin to shift the struggle in a credible way?

Sacre Coeur! Delanoe Cries "Faux", not "Non", to Caroline Kennedy's Candidacy

The New York Times published a letter from the mayor of Paris expressing his view that Caroline Kennedy's appointment would be "surprising and not very democratic". The only problem: the letter was a fake. Why did the editors miss this hoax when it arrived with a dot.com address instead of a dot.fr address, which one would expect? The New York Times has been circumspect if not tepid in its editorial commentary on Caroline Kennedy. Perhaps, they are looking for a foreign bad guy to say what they really mean.

Must Democracy’s Big Tent Include Torture, Kleptocrats and Plutocrats?

These are truly surreal times for democracy. We have two senate seats, whose most popular candidates (Caroline Kennedy and Beau Biden) imply a plutocracy and one seat up for sale. At the same time, our President just gave a news conference with the audible cries of a protester being beaten in the adjacent room. What kind of example are we setting for the countries that we would wish to emulate us?

I’m sure Caroline Kennedy is qualified to be a Senator. I’m not a believer in endless dues-paying to status-quo enforcing political machines because that can result in very average candidates. It also creates a bias against women who typically begin their political careers later in life, after raising their children. The question is: who has the grit, political nose, aggressiveness, and charisma to get things done? Someone like Kirstin Gillibrand, a congresswoman from upstate New York, who just won her second term in Congress, has all of these qualities.

It is disappointing to read Willie Brown’s take on Blagojevich. In it, he encourages us to think more acceptingly of the GREY inherent in democracy, "Keep in mind, politics is a crazy business. When you're appointing people, you expect them to be supportive of you. You expect them to be loyal to you. You expect them to work for your re-election." Similarly, there are many recent writings that suggests Blagojevich is just a slightly more egregious example of everyday politics in Washington, including this post by Melanie Sloan of the ethics watchdog CREW. Yet, we must expect more from public officials. The public expects and deserves that its representatives appoint the most qualified, competent public servant who will bring integrity and the ability to accomplish great work.

The “Madoff Index”: Is Your Investment Strategy in Keeping With Your Stakeholders?

The cluster bomb of the Madoff scandal is now reverberating throughout the progressive non-profit world. The JEHT Foundation, which funds progressive groups like Human Rights Watch, will suddenly close its doors in January. That begs the question: how many non-profits had their endowments and operating funds in alternative investments like Madoff’s hedge funds? And how much are non-profits taking into account their donor’s investment risk tolerance?

What about the latest news that CALPERS has lost 25% of its investmenst this year, requiring it to raise fees on state government and ultimately on the taxpayer?

Taxpayer funded and donor funded investments must take into consideration the risk profile of their funders. Fiduciary obligation is nothing new. What's new is the awareness and scale of losses. Future donation and taxpayer forms should include a short quiz on how funders prefer their money to be invested. Those profiles could be used to create a weighted average risk profile so that all funders felt that their money was managed at an appropriate risk level.

No wonder there's been such flight to T-bills. My irrational side wishes all these groups had been more conservative with their funding, particularly knowing that restoring funding levels in a down economy will be a monumental task.

Linguistic Thoughts on “Hook-up” Nation

An Op-ed in Today’s New York Times discusses the prevalence of hook-ups in lieu of dating among today’s teenagers. Hook-ups occur when groups of friends get together and some couples pair off for some level of physical intimacy. This is reportedly a result of collapsed advance planning, delayed marriage and relaxed values. The difference may also reflect a difference in semantics. Younger people have attached negative connotations to the word "dating": they view dates as pressure-cookers.

In any case, the de-formalization of mating rituals is real and has spread to older generations (ie, those in their 30s and 40’s). To the extent that I‘ve encountered it in my own dating life, it feels like a virus of passion-free ennui. It seems to mostly affect the lives of those who focus on building a great lifestyle. Those who emphasize building a life of significance, such as having a family or anything beyond simple material success, seem relatively immune.

I have lived in formal cities like New York and Paris and did not experience this style of dating. There is no equivalent French word or expression for the concept of “dating” in French. And as a result, if you have two dates with a French man, he’s your boyfriend.

I view many attitudes of younger generations as the positive result of a more egalitarian and practical culture. I have yet to discover the advantage of this new-fangled mating ritual. Perhaps, it's simply a practical strategy to keep marriage at bay. Age at marriage is the most significant factor in predicting marriage stability. According to NBER research by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, couples who are 30 and older at marriage have practically a nil chance of divorce.

A hook-up is devoid of the intimacy, passion and oneness that can drive an exuberance to marry. When the time is right, perhaps, we can borrow expressions from other languages to add some spice to our youngsters’ dating lives. For example, in the poetic Persian language, a common term of endearment translates roughly to “I sacrifice for you”. Now, that’s exciting.

A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity

Yesterday, on NPR's morning edition, Bill O'Reilly discussed his new memoir "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity", a moniker give to him by a grammar school nun, presumably with great affection. O'Reilly notes that anyone who "puts themselves on the line" risks being called evil. "Some people thought Jesus was evil; they nailed him to a cross," O'Reilly said. I LOVE the title of his book and deeply admire those who take a stand. With people like Bill O'Reilly, the question is whether they strike the most effective balance between being outrageous and being courageous.

Will "Stay-at-Home-Boyfriends" End the Gender Wage Gap?

A 24-year old market researcher told me that her same-aged gainfully employed boyfriend dreams of quitting his job and becoming her stay-at-home-boyfriend. They neither live together nor have children. The boyfriend simply would like to pursuit his interests during the day and finds nothing untoward in this choice.

If this attitude were pervasive among Millenials, we'd see the end of the wage gap among this generation in a hurry. In a recent study reviewed in Time magazine, researchers found that sex role stereotypes alone could explain a large proportion of the difference in earnings between men and women. Men with traditional views of gender roles (ie, men who have a wife to do all the housework and child care) have the highest income and earn 71% more than and women with traditional views of gender roles (those with two full-time jobs). Men who hold egalitarian views have much lower wages than traditional men and these men earn just 7% more than egalitarian-oriented women - even today.

Perhaps this is one of the keys to why younger women seem so unconcerned about feminism. Their generation's views towards gender roles are vastly more egalitarian than previous generations and they already assume a fairer outcome in wages.

With fewer men holding traditional gender roles, will there be fewer jumbo salaries and what does that imply for income inequality more broadly?

Might the Needs of Women Abroad Resonate With Young American Women?

Cecile Richards praised the appointment of Hillary Clinton to Secretary of State because of its positive implications for women's health in developing countries. She states: "in some parts of Africa, women have a one-in-10 risk of dying in childbirth" I welcome Cecile's focus on what Hillary will represent to women in developing countries.

Young women have consistently rejected a domestic feminist agenda as so much uninteresting gas-bagging. I wonder if an appeal to younger women about the rights of women in other countries might have more resonance to them than appeals about women's well-being at home.

The End of Ideology? Millenials Embrace Pragmatism

In previous posts, I've marveled at how Millenial women find feminism irrelevant, somewhat like Alaskans' view towards heatstroke. As another indication that Millenials embrace a more pragmatic and less ideological view, Richard Cizik, the chief lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, told Terri Gross on Fresh Air, that he looks forward to working with President-elect Obama on climate change and reducing unintended pregnancies. He said his views had softened over the past four years because he is becoming more like younger Evangelicals. Cizik stated that younger Evangelicals have different views towards gays and they are particularly concerned about the environment. Paraphrasing, Cizik said, "It is Godly to work towards Creation Care."

Older generations need to be be wary of being dismissed by Millenials if they continue with their customary appeals to ideology and group identity. Millenials are undeterred by slippery slope arguments over issues such as abortion. They seem ready to jump on a taboggan and slide down those slippery slopes into some practical solutions.

The Misery Index Redefined

Reagan famously called the sum of the rates of inflation and unemployment "the Misery Index". In the current recession, a better indicator, particularly regionally, would be the sum of the rates of unemployment and foreclosures.

Lately, it's been worrying to see a convergence of libertarian and liberal economists on many major economic policy issues. Yikes, does that mean it's so bad that there are no other options? I wonder what would happen if an economist constructed a Misery Coefficient: the extent to which the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times agree on such matters as government bailouts for the financial and auto manufacturing sectors and fiscal stimulus spending. Perhaps it should be called the Panic Index. Would we be at a historic high? And if so, what does that imply?