August, 2008 Archive

Women judged more harshly for anger

August 7th, 2008 by Jsanders in Behavorial Differences, Gender Stereotypes

Maya Dollarhide writes for CNN.com/living:

“In three studies, 463 men and women between 18 and 70 years old watched video of actors pretending to be job seekers or employers. The participants then wrote down which applicants should get the job, the type of responsibility they could handle and how high their salaries should be.

“We found that the women (on the tapes) who were judged as angry lost out in every category,” says Victoria Brescoll, an assistant professor at Yale University’s School of Management. She and Eric Uhlmann, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, conducted the research.”

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Mandated gender parity on corporate boards?

August 1st, 2008 by Jsanders in Recruiting & Retaining Women, Women's Issues

Lorrie Lykins writes about this very controversial topic for TrendWatcher, The Institute for Corporate Productivity. Lykins writes: “Several nations are saying “enough is enough” when it comes to what they view as a persistent glass ceiling in today’s boardrooms. The average percentage of board directorships held by women is just 9.7% in Europe and 15% in the U.S. (Catalyst, 2008). In recent years some European governments have decided that the wait for gender parity on boards has gone on too long, and they’re using legislation to compel publically traded companies to appoint more women to their boards (Wachter, 2008).

This trend is sparking a debate about the advantages and disadvantages of such laws and, more practically, about whether more countries will follow suit in coming years. Norway is blazing the trail. It passed legislation in 2003 mandating that public companies address gender imbalance on their boards with the requirement that women hold 40% of the board seats by 2008. Companies that failed to comply faced sanctions ranging from fines to closure. At the time, 6% of directors in Norway were women (Wachter, 2008).

The legislation gave companies five years to comply with the quotas and, despite rigorous and vocal opposition at the outset, business has generally complied. Five years later, Norway now boasts unprecedented board representation for women – 44.2% in 2008 (Catalyst, 2008).

But the road has not been smooth.”

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Gender communication – eye contact differences

August 1st, 2008 by Jsanders in Behavorial Differences, Communication Style Differences, Gender Communication

Patti Wood, a body language expert, discusses in her blog the differences in eye contact between men and women during communication. There are gender differences indeed!

Patti writes