Women at work: "Damned if You Do, Doomed if You Don’t"

In 2006, Catalyst looked at stereotypes across cultures (surveying 935 alumni of the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland) and found that while the view of an ideal leader varied from place to place — in some regions the ideal leader was a team builder, in others the most valued skill was problem-solving. But whatever was most valued, women were seen as lacking it.

Respondents in the United States and England, for instance, listed “inspiring others” as a most important leadership quality, and then rated women as less adept at this than men. In Nordic countries, women were seen as perfectly inspirational, but it was “delegating” that was of higher value there, and women were not seen as good delegators.

From this NYTimes report by Lisa Belkin.

* * *

In other news, here's some statistics on women in American academia (the linked article has lots more on the status of underrepresented minorities):

... despite the fact that they make up more than 50 percent of bachelor’s degree recipients in fields like chemistry and political science, in those fields they represent, respectively, 13.7 and 26.1 percent of all professors at top 100 departments.