Why aren’t more women rising to the top? Maybe it’s because no one wants them there. Not even women!
WomenCo. conducted an informal survey of employees of a downtown San Francisco internet company and the responses revealed shocking statistics: 77 percent of men surveyed prefer male bosses and 11 percent of men want a female boss.
And what about women? 66 percent of them want a male boss.
Only 16 percent of women and 11 percent of men judged gender to be irrelevant; they would pick a boss based on skill, knowledge, and management expertise.
Although the study is not statistically significant, but it certainly provides food-for-thought.
The real question is: What’s up with women?
Some of the reasons men cited for preferring male bosses were that they could relate to men better, and that men were easier to interpret (read: “not moody”). Several of the men however chose men because of horrendous experiences with female bosses. One participant responded:
“I have had two really bad experiences with female bosses: they were really bad at managing, mentoring, people development. Both had babies while I reported to them, and got really bad afterwards when they came back (in terms of showing utter and complete disrespect for my time by showing up late to meetings, getting things to me last minute or late causing me to have to work extra late nights and week-ends where it could have been completely avoided).”
Ouch. Do we do that? Have women become so obsessed with balancing their biological and environmental responsibilities that they believe it is fine to show complete disregard for men or women they perceive as not sharing the same burden?
And the women who preferred men: “With a male boss, I don’t feel the need to compete for professional attention. And I must say that females are sometimes very envious of my beauty.”
That sounds like women have been unable to separate their Stone Age instinct to compete for a mate from our professional desires to get ahead.
On the bright side, women who preferred female bosses did so because women are better at building communities and at general organization.
This article is reprinted from WomenCo.
