Gender and leadership Margaret Hallock Director Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics Barbara Pocock Director Centre for Work + Life University of South Australia

Leadership – is it gendered? Some useful concepts  Gendered organisations  The ‘ideal worker’ norm How women lead – is it different? Lessons for women who lead?

Is leadership gendered? As an empirical fact, yes:  While women make up almost one in two workers in the US and Australia  They make up small proportions of all kinds of leaders  Less than 10% of the world’s leaders are women (UN stats)  Less than one in five members of parliament globally are women  Women reach ‘critical mass’ of 30% of members of parliament in only 28 countries

In the US  In 2012 women make up:  16.8% of Congress (535 seats) (3% in 1979; 13.6% in 2001)  In US state legislatures  Women make up 23.6% of legislators  Women make up 16% of US Fortune 500 companies’ boards  Barely changed from 14.6% in 2006(Catalyst)  14.1% of Chief executives in US Fortune 500 companies in 2010

Australia? 3% of CEOs of top 200 companies are women (2010)  2% in % Board directors of top 200 companies  8.3% in 2008 Federal parliamentarians – 30%  29.6% in 2008

Julia Gillard – first Prime Minister – 1 year

In Professions Women have been rapidly increasing their share of qualifications and experience…but In 2009/10 in the US women made up 47.2% of law students Only 31.5% of lawyers were women And they made up only 19.5% of partners

Labour market is gendered Occupational segregation  Women and men do different jobs

Unpaid labour is also gendered Men and women do different unpaid tasks  Men to garbage, women do care, cooking cleaning  Women do twice as many hours as men – in most countries  In Australia, in 2006, women spent an average of two hours and 52 minutes per day on domestic activities, compared to one hour and 37 minutes for men  Even when both work full-time, women spend on average 46 minutes a day more than men on domestic activities  And it has hardly changed since 1987

A theory of gendered organisations

Organizations and gender Organizations are not gender neutral  Women do not step into organizations that treat men and women in gender-neutral ways They are gendered, and they enact processes which make and remake gendered hierarchies  Joan Acker (1990) ‘Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations’ Gender and Society, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Jun., 1990), pp

How does this gendering happen? The way jobs are organised and valued The way jobs fit with the rest of life, especially care  (sometimes called the division of labour between work in the labour market, or in the home) the construction of symbols and images – eg dress The ways people interact – in conversation, interruption The ways in which people construct their (gendered) identities In the fundamental, ongoing processes of work and workplaces  eg written work rules, labor contracts, managerial directives, and other documentary tools for running large organizations, including systems of job evaluation

The ‘ideal’ worker/leader The ‘worker’ of labour law and workplace norms has a gender:  He is male, he is assumed to be ‘care-free’  He is assumed to be supported at home – a breadwinner with a partner at home  He is the ‘ideal’ worker who sets the norms for working patterns  This is not most women  Who must adapt and morph around the established norms  Eg in Australia – 50% women work part-time and take a life-long pay cut to do so. This is a ‘choice’ around the male norm  Joan Williams (2001) Unbending gender: why family and work conflict and what to do about it, Oxford University Press

When women step into institutions made in the image of the ‘ideal worker’ They are – not infrequently - viewed as different Affected by their reproductive differences  Pregnancy, the assumption of pregnancy  Childcaring and domestic work  Other types of caring – for aged, infirm, disability Closely scrutinized about how they look Sexually harassed Discriminated against

Leadership takes place within: Gendered institutions, like the labour market Gendered organizations, like the workplace SO  Women leaders look different to the established norms of leaders  They behave differently (often) to the gendered norm  Reflecting how they are different to men (whether socialised that way or innately different)  Because of their reproductive roles and concerns  They are (often) negatively affected by their ‘difference’  Sexualised, objectified  They lead differently

Being a woman leader Took me a while… ‘My turn’ to be out front A life-cycle approach to leadership – the right time Key things I’ve learned: 1. Vision – being clear about where we are going 2. Behaving ethically – all the time 3. Managing people well – biggest challenge, always (a craft to learn) 4. Admitting and learning from mistakes 5. Trying not to care about people too much….