WOMEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R002100150044-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 28, 2008
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: April 9, 1984
• Content Type: FORM

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ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
Robert W. Magee
TO: (Officer designation, room number, and
building)
,.FORM , '- 610 uuuOPRE IOSUS''r
OFFICER'S
INITIALS
9 April 1984 STAT
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
STAT
Attached: is an interesting
:sent to me by
At least we can take some
solace from the 'fact`;,that our
rank situation i.s not unique
to CIA.
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STAT
STAT
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GGN.r~?ia/COti'ER. STORY
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No women are on the fast track to the chief executive's job at any FORTUNE 500 corporation.
That's incongruous, given the number of years women have been working in management. The
reasons are elusive and tough for management to deal with. a by Susan Fraker
EN YEARS HAVE passed since U.S.
corporations began hiring more than
token numb:ars of. women for jobs at
the bottom rung of the management
ladder. A decade into their.careers, how far
up have these women climbed? The answer:
not as far as their male counterparts. Despite
impressive progress at the entry level and in
middle management, women are having
trouble breaking into senior management.
"There is an invisible ceiling for women at
that level," says Janet Jones-Parker, execu-
tive director of the Association of Executive
Search Consultants Inc. "After eight or ten
years, they hit a barrier."
The trouble begins at about the $75,000 to
$100,000 salary level, and seems to get
worse the higher one looks. Only one compa-
ny on FORTUNE'S list of the 500 largest U.S.
industrial corporations has a woman chief ex-
ecutive. That woman, Katharine Graham of
the Washington Post Co. (No. 342), readily
admits she got the job because her family
owns a controlling share of the corporation.
More surprising, given that women have
been on the ladder for ten years, is that none
currently seems to have a shot at the top
rung..Exccutive recruiters, asked to identify
women, who might become presidents or
chief executives of FORTUNE 500 companies,
draw a blank. Even companies that have
women in senior management privately con-
cede that these women aren't. going to occu-
py the chairman's office.
Women have'only four of the 154 spots
this year at the Ilarvard Business School's
Advanced Management Program-a presti-
~~ >F,,ihc!! Assoc!A?r e David Kid Stevens.
gious.13-week conclave to which companies
send executives they are grooming for the
corridors of power. The numbers aren't
much better at comparable programs at Stan-
ford and at Dartmouth's Tuck School. But
perhaps the most telling admission of trouble
comes from men at the top. "The women
aren't making it," confessed the chief execu-
tive of a FORTUNE 500 company to a consul-
tant. "Can you help us find out why?"
All explanations are controversial to one
faction or another in this highly charged de-
bate. At one extreme, many women-and
some men-maintain that women are the
victims of blatant sexism. At the other ex-
treme, many men-and a few women-be-
lieve women are unsuitable for the highest
managerial jobs: they lack the necessary as-
sertiveness, they don't know how to get
along in this rarefied world, or they have chil-
dren and lose interest in-or time for-their
careers. Somewhere in between is a surpris-
ingly large group of men and'.vomen who see
"discrimination" as the major problem, but
who often can't define precisely what they
mean by the term.
The discrimination they talk about is not
the simple-minded sexism of dirty jokes and
references to "girls." It is not born of hatred,
or indeed of any ill will that the bearer may
be conscious of. What they call discrimina-
tion consists simply of treating women dif-
ferently from men,. The notion dumbfounds
some male managers. You mean to say-; they
ask, that managerial women don't want to be
treated differently from men in any respect,
and, that by acting otherwise-as I was
raised to think only decent and gentleman-
ly-I'm somehow prejudicing their chances
for success? Yes, the women respond.
"Men f talk to would like. to see more
women in senior management," says Ann
Carol Brown, a consultant to several FOR-
TUNE 500 companies. "But they don't recog-
nize the subtle barriers that stand in the
way." Brown thinks the biggest hurdle is.a
:matter of comfort,.not competence.,; ,At sew,-
nior management levels, competence is as-
sumed," she says. "What. you're looking
for is someone who fits, someone who
gets along, someone you trust. Now that's
subtle stuff. I-low does a group of men feel
that a woman is going to fit? I think
it's very hard."
The experience of an executive at a large
Northeastern bank illustrates how many
managerial women see the problem. Promot-
ed to senior vice presidents ' everal years ago,
she was the first woman named to that posi-
tion. But she now believes it will be many
years before the bank appoints a woman ex-
ecutive vice president. "The men just don't
feel comfortable," she says. "They make all
sorts of excuses-that I'm not a banker [she
worked as a consultant originally], that I.
don't know the culture. There's a smoke
screen four miles thick. I attribute it to being
a woman." Similarly, 117 of 300 women ex-
ecutives polled recently by UCLA's Gradu-
ate School of Management and KornlFerry
International, an executive search firm, felt
that being a woman was the greatest obsta-
cle to their success.
A common concern among women, partic-
uhiriy in 1w and investment banking, is they
the best assignments go to men. "Some de-
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Executives with careers and childrenface intense pressures. Karen Gonsalves, with Michael, 2, cud Michelle, 6, quit to consull%rurn her home.
} partments-like sales and trading or merg- colleagues receive, even some men acknowl-
ars and acquisitions-are considered. more: edge widespread male reluctance to criticize
macho, hence more prestigious," says a; . a woman. ',`There are vast numbers' of men
woman at a New York investment bank. "It's who can't do it,".says Eugene Jennings, pro-
nothing explicit. But, if women can't get the fessor of business administration at MIichi-
assignments that allow them to shine, how gan State University and a consultant to a
~ean they advance? dozen large companies. 'A male banking exec
,_ amen also worry that they don't receive utive agrees: "A male boss' will haul a guy
the same kind of coiisfrudtive' criticism that aside and just kick ass if the subordinate per-
me} 4p.,,While these women probably over- forms badly in front of a client. But I heard
estimate the amount of feedback their male about a woman here who gets nervous and
tends to giggle in front of customers.- She's
unaware of it and her boss hasn't told her.
But behind her back he downgrades her for.
not being smooth with customers."
Sometimes the message that has to be
conveyed to a woman manager is much more
sensitive. An executive at a large company
says he once had to tell a woman that she
should either cross her legs or keep her
knees together when she sat. The encounter
was obviously painful.to him. "She listened
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Companies send few women to Hanard'sAdvanced Manag, mentProgra'n:. `TJris 1982 photograph is used in the latest promctfonal material
to me and thanked me and expres?ed shock-` and women managers at two Northeastern .",heads the Simmons College GraduateSchootl;.,
at what she was doing," he recalls, with a retailing?corporatioris. While their sample of .-of Managernent.~ `` That's!-,,stupid manage-':-.I-,'-
touch of agony in his voice. "My God, this is companies was not large, after their results ment. We just mean the'chance to compete
'
something only your mother tells you. I
m a
fairly direct person and a great believer in
equal opportunity. But it was damn difficult
for me to say this to a woman whom I view to
be very proper in all other respects."
, Researclt,by Anne Harlan, a human re-
source manager at the Federal Aviation Ad-
ministration, and Carol Weiss, a managing
associate of Charles Hamilton Associates, a
Boston consulting firm, suggests that the sit,;
uation doesn't -necessarily improve as the
.lumber of women., in an Organizatidr in-
cceases:,"Their study, conducted at the
Wel}esley College Center for Research on
Wgmen and completed in 1982, challenges
the theory advanced by some experts that
when a corporation attained a "critical mass"
of executive women-defined as some-
where between 30% and 35% job discrimi-
nation would vanish naturally as men and
women began to take each other for granted.
Harlan and Weiss observed the effects of
different numbers of women in anorganiza-
tion during a three-year study of 100 men
were published, other companies said they ' equally." Again, a semantic chasm separates '
had similar experiences. Harlan -md Weiss women and men:"Wome"nike Hermig and'
found that while overt resistance drops Jardim-tlimk"ot'affirmative 3c"Gori as a vigor-
"
quickly after the'firstiew"worZen
become
managers; it seems to pick up -agn as the
number of tivumen reaches,15%. In one com-
pany they studied; only 6% of the managers
were women, compared with 19% in the sec-
ond company. But more women in the sec-
ond company complained of discrimination,
ranging from sexual harassment to inade=
quate feedback. Could something other than
discrimination-very different corporate cul-
tures, say-have accounted for the result?
Harlan and Weiss say no, that the two coin-
panics were eminently comparable.
Consultants and executives who think dis-
crimination is the problem tend to believe it
persists in part because the government has
relaxed its commitment to affirmative action,
which they define more narrowly than some
advocates do. "We're not talking about quo-
tas or preferential treatment," says Marga-
ret Hennig who, along with Anne Jar-dim,
"ous eflort`dri''tlie p' of'compviies?fo ensure
that. women-are`treated equ.. y.and that sex-
i s - , prejudices a r e a t permitted ' t o ' operate.
Nfen fimk ht e term means reverse discrimi-
nation; giVufg'wcimen.pral treatment
T:egislation such as the Equal Employment
Opportunity Act of 1972 prohibits companies
from discriminating against women in hiring.'. ?.
The laws worked well-indeed, almost too
well. After seven or eight years, says Jen-
pings of Michigan State, the pressure was off
and no one pushed hard to see that discrimi-
nation was eliminated in selecting people for
senior management. Jennings thinks' the ..':.
problem began in the latter days of the Car-
ter Administration, when the economy was
lagging and companies worried more about.!.-::
making money than about how their women t l' ?
managers were doing. The Reagan Adminis-
tration hasn't made equal opportunity a pri-
ority either. i.%". t?.',
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What about the belief that women fall be-
hind not because of discrimination, but be-
cause they are cautious, tin aggressive, and
differently motivated than men-or less mo-
tivated? Even some female executives be-.
lieve that women derail their' careers by
choosing staff jobs over high-risk," high=
reward line positions. One woman, formerly
with a large consumer goods company and
now president of a market research firm,
urges women to worry less about sexism and
more about whether the'jobs they take are
the right route to the top. "I spent five years
thinking the only reason I didn't become a
corporate officer at my former company was
because of my sex," she says. "I finally had
to come to grips with the fact that I overem-
phasized being a woman and underempha-
sized what I did for a living. I was in a staff
function-the company didn't live and die by
what I? did."
EN AND WOMEN alike tend to
believe that because women are
raised differently they must man-
age differently. Research to sup-
port this belief is hard to come by, though.
The women retail managers studied by Har-
lan and Weiss, while never quarterbacks or
catchers, had no trouble playing on manage-
ment teams. Nor did they perform less well
on standardized tests measuring qualities
like assertiveness and leadership. "Women
dpn'tmanage differently," Harlan says flatly.
In a much larger study specifically ad-
dressing management styles, psychologists
Jay Hall and Susan Donnell of Teleometrics
International Inc., a management training
company, reached the same conclusion.
They matched nearly 2,000 men and worn-
en managers according to age, rank in their
organization, kind of organization, and the
number of people they supervised. The
psychologists ran tests to assess every-
thing from managerial philosophies to the
ability to get along with people, even quiz-
zing' subordinates on their views of the
boss. Donnell and Hall. concluded, " &Iale,
and female managers do not differ in the
way they,manage_eheprganization's techni-
cal and human resources."
Data on howwomens expectations-and nd
therefore, ... arguably,, .their; performance-
may differ from men's are,mor&confusing.
Stanford Professor Myra Strobe, studied
150 men and 26 women who graduated
from the Stanford Business School in 1974.
When she and a colleague, Francine Gordon,
polled the MBAs shortly before graduation,
they,,discovered that the,yomen_hadjmuch
lower
,,expectations: for.;their peak .earnings.
The top salary the women expected during
their careers was only 60% of the men's.
The chairman's support is crucial, says Merck's equal-employment czar Larry Branch.
Four years later the ratio had fallen to 40%.
Did this mean that women were less ambi-
tious or were willing to take lower salaries to
get management jobs? Strober doesn't think
so. She says a major reason for the women's
lower salary expectations was that they took
jobs in industries that traditionally pay less,
but which,. the women thought, offered op-
portunities for advancement. Almost 20% of
the women in her sample went into govern-
ment, compared with 3% of the men. On the
other hand, no women went into investment
banking or. r eal estate development, which
each employed about 6% of the men. Strober
points out, however, that investment bank-
ing and big-time real .estate were all but
closed to women in the early 1970s. "One
way people decidevhat. their,:aspirations
are, she says, 'is to-look around.and see
what seems realistic. If you look atfield apd
seeno`women advancing, you niav modify
your goals."} :.~.~ .
Some of what Mary Mne Deyanna founfd
.in-_her?. examination of MBAs contradicts
Strober's conclusions. Devanna, research co-
ordinator of the Columbia Business School's
Center for Research in Career Development,
matched 45 men and 45 women who graduat-
ed from the Columbia Business School from
1969 to 1972. Each paired man and woman
had similar backgrounds, credentials, and
marital status. The star tingsalaries of the
women were 98% of the mens. Usingdata
collected in 1980, Devanna found a big differ-
ence in the salaries men and women ultimate-
ly achieved, though. In manufacturing,_the
highest paying sector, women tiara}ed
$41,818 after ten yea rs,vs.,$59,733. for the
men. Women in finance had salaries of
$42,867 vs. $46.786for_themen, The gap in
'the', service industries was smallest: $36,666
vs. $38,600. She then tested four hypotheses
in seeking to explain the salary differences:
(1) that women are less successful because
they are motivated differently than men, (2)
that motherhood causes women to divert at-
tention from their career's, (3)'that women
seek jobs in.low-paying industries, and (4)
that women seek types of jobs-in human re-
sources, say-that pay less.
Devanna found no major differences be-
tween the sexes- in the importance they at-
tached to the psychic or monetary rewards
of work. "The women did not expect to earn
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acrd even fewer-3%m-had no children.
Statistics on how any women bear chit-
dren and then leave the corporation are in-
complete. Catalyst, a nonprofit organization
that encourages the participation of women
'in business, studied 815 two-career families
in 1980. It found that 37% of the new moth-
ers in the study returned to work within two
months; 68% were back after 41 months;
87% in eight months. To a company, of
course, an eight-month absence is a long
time. Moreover, the 10% or so who never
come back-most males are convinced the
figure is higher-represent a substantial cap-
ital investment lost. It would be naive to
think that companies don't crank this into
their calculation of how much the women
who remain are worth.
Motherhood clearly slows the progress of
women who decide to take long maternity
leaves or who choose to work part time. Bul
even those committed to working full time on
h?ir return believe {fiey are.sometimes held
back=-purposely or inadvertently. "Men
make too. many assumptions- that women
.with children aren't free to take on time-con-
Karol Emmerich became pregnant, Dayton Hudson worried she'd quit, so it promoted her.
less than the men," she says. Nor did she theme-a conviction that women don't take
find that motherhood led women to abandon their careers seriously. Even though most
their careers. Although several women took fernalemanagers were regarded as extreme-
maternity leaves, all returned to work full ly competent, the men thought they would
time within six months. Finally, Devanna eventually leave-either to have children or
found no big differences in the MBAs' choice because the tensions of work became too
of industry or function, either when they much. Both are legitimate concerns. A wom-
took their first jobs or ten years later. an on the fast track is under intense pres-
Devanna concluded that discrimination, sure. Many corporate types believe that she
? no't? lev'ei of motlva(ion or choice of job, ac- gets much more scrutiny than a man and
coupfcd=for the pay tif1;errences. Couldrihe must work harder to succeed. The pressures
pr tfenf simply hav'ficen performance- increase geometrically if she has small chil-
that the women didn't manage as well as dren at home.
men? Dcv,inna claims that while she couldn't Perhaps as a result, thousands of women
take this variable into account specifically, have careers rather than husbands and chil-
she controlled for all the variables that dren. In the UCLA-KornJFerry study, of,e
should have nude for a difference in perfor- ecutive women, 52% hadnevei:. married,
mince-from family background to grades in