The Problem with Women and Testosterone!

Well, perhaps the main problem is the effect it has on the men we work with… Women have testosterone too and artificially increasing our levels of it has some interesting effects, as you’ll see if you read on!

Testosterone is the male sex hormone and in a recent experiment by University College, London it was given to women in an attempt to see what differences in behaviour it wrought. They wanted to see what effect it had on group working; how the balance is struck between promoting one’s own ideas and thoughts and ambitions, and considering the needs of the group. Problem solving within groups can have have an advantage over individual solutions. (For more on how women compete see We Women DO Compete)

Testosterone Fuelled Women

To explore this tension further the researchers chose 17 women and paired them with a stranger; they were then asked to solve a computer based problem.

On one occasion each pair of women were given a testosterone supplement and on a second occasion a placebo was administered. Results showed that when they had taken the testosterone they worked less well together and tended to prefer their own solution to that of their partner.

Nick Wright, who led the research said:
“Our behaviour seems to be moderated by our hormones – we already know that oxytocin can make us more cooperative, (JCW see  a previous post on this Neuroeconomics-put women in charge) but if this were the only hormone acting on our decision-making in groups, this would make our decisions very skewed.

“We have shown that in fact testosterone also affects our decisions, by making us more egotistical. Most of the time, this allows us to seek the best solution to a problem, but sometimes, too much testosterone can help blind us to other people’s views. This can be very significant when we are talking about a dominant individual trying to assert his or her opinion in, say, a jury.”

Or at work…

You can read the full research paper here.

Photo Credit: Rawku5

Sexism has ended in Hollywood! Er….no

It was a great week end for media coverage of women in the newspapers. I particularly liked this article from Paul Harris in The Guardian newspaper, although others picked up on this story too. Here it is, edited down although the link will take you to the full story on line:

“Hollywood Women Unite to Break Through the Celluloid Ceiling

With female scriptwriters behind some of the biggest movies, from Juno to Kung Fu Panda 2, it seems the sexism barrier has been lifted. But has it?

Next week the Athena Film Festival will open at Barnard College in New York. The showcase, which commences on 9 February and is in its second year, is aimed at celebrating women film-makers and rewarding their art and successes. It will consist of screenings, awards and the usual parties, but with a feminist slant. Among those getting accolades will be a group of women in Hollywood known as “the Fempire“.

The Fempire consists of screenwriters Diablo Cody, Dana Fox, Liz Meriwether and Lorene Scafaria, who between them have worked on films that range from the quirky indie smash hit Juno to the big mainstream Hollywood comedy Couples Retreat. According to Melissa Silverstein, co-founder of the Athena festival, and the woman behind the acclaimed Women and Hollywood blog, the four women’s award will include the words: “For their creativity and their sisterhood.”

It is the word “sisterhood” that is key. The talent possessed by the women is not in doubt. It is their self-conscious decision openly to promote themselves in solidarity with other women that is different in a movie world dominated by men. It also goes against an enduring Hollywood myth: that women let into the Tinseltown boys’ club won’t help each other out. “There is a mythology that women can’t be friends with each other because they have to compete for jobs. We have to get beyond that,” said Silverstein.

The latest Celluloid Ceiling figures for the top 250 US films produced in 2011 have just been released. They make grim reading. Women made up only 5% of Hollywood directors last year, a drop from 7% in 2010. Even as far back as 1998 the figure was 7%.

“That is a kick in the gut,” said Silverstein. But elsewhere progress is hardly fast-track. In total, women made up 18% of behind-the-scenes roles in Hollywood in 2011 – against 16% in 2010. But that, again, is only an increase of one percentage point over 1998. About 38% of films employed one or no women in the senior jobs that the survey studied.

Overwhelmingly, the pattern in Hollywood is not of progress towards greater female empowerment, but of stagnation or even retreat. In this context the huge amounts of publicity given to the work of women like Bigelow and Hardwicke seem like tokenism at best. “People tend to see them as evidence of creeping progress, that things get a little better each year, and so then we don’t need to think of it as a problem,” said Lauzen. “But in reality the numbers are stable. Surprisingly so. And the number of women directors is actually going down.”

But the decision of women in Hollywood to start forming their own networks raises the question of why Hollywood remains so gender-divided. Of course, it is not alone. Numerous commentators in Davos last week at the World Economic Forum have noted the lack of women present as the planet’s major woes are discussed. In fact, at Davos only 17% of delegates are women. Meanwhile, it has been pointed out that about 84% of guests and reporters on BBC Radio 4′s flagship Today programme are men. But at least in some of these areas progress is being made. In Davos the number of women attending, despite being so small, was at its highest yet – up from 9% in 2002.

Hooray for Hollywood?

Meanwhile Hollywood still stands out in its intransigence and – at the high-profile level of director – for going backwards. There is likely to be no easy solution. “I don’t think there is a magic bullet,” said Lauzen, citing Hollywood studio’s testosterone-fuelled corporate culture and it’s “clubbable” atmosphere.

Silverstein agrees: “It is a very small club and there are very few woman decision makers at the top level.”

Both Lauzen and Silverstein believe that true change in the film industry– which lags notably behind television – will mean getting women into more behind-the-scenes roles, especially powerful positions. Of course, that is precisely where the groups like the Fempire and Maven Films will come in. Women have to start projects and help other women along, gradually transforming the world behind the camera so their choices and tastes can eventually affect the world in front of it.

They also have to defeat the idea that women are only good at movies that women are believed likely to watch. After all, Bigelow’s Oscar-winner was a war film and the biggest female-directed hit last year was Kung Fu Panda 2, a family animation feature not aimed at a specific gender market.

Optimism

There are also a few signs of optimism elsewhere in the ecology of Hollywood. While the giant studios that produce and market most of the main Hollywood films are bastions of male dominance, especially the higher up you go, the media that reports on those behemoths is increasingly woman-led. In fact, many of the highest profile Hollywood journalists are women. Queen of the pile is the legendary Nikki Finke, founder and editor of the website Deadline Hollywood. Then there is Sharon Waxman, editor in chief of its rival website The Wrap. Meanwhile, Bonnie Fuller has started the gossip website Hollywood Life. But it’s not just online that women rule the roost. At the Hollywood Reporter – often considered the trade bible of the movie industry — the editorial director is Janice Min. This mini power-shift has itself led to the occasional sexist backlash.

But for now a lack of women in power in Hollywood is still hiding behind the success of a few big names. “You don’t see a lot of overt sexism. But you do see a lot of denial,” said Lauzen. ” End of article

So it’s not just our own dear BBC that is playing down women’s contributions. In fact, I see it everywhere. As an exercise I took a look through through my liberal type newspaper this morning. A good quarter of the paper is devoted to sport but there was not one woman’s sport featured, not even a hint. It was as if women don’t play sport at all… Fortunately this same newspaper managed to find space for some fashion shots of young under weight women wearing unwearable clothes (that’s a contradiction, I know but I’m on a roll here!)

Speak Up

I’ll say it again; wanting women to have a transparently fair opportunity is not about doing men down. It’s about trying to raise awareness of the issues and practices which are so long ingrained that most of us don’t even see it any more. My Speak Up course is emphatically not about putting men down; it’s about putting women up. We’ll be looking at some of the issues for ambitious women in the workplace and, together with the latest research, coming up with strategies which will work for individuals. We can’t change the whole of society but we can make a start!

Full details of the Speak Up one day course for women, at the gorgeous Royal Crescent Hotel are available by clicking here.

Women Are Difficult at Work?

Whenever I post something about gender issues someone will invariably feel compelled to tell me that they have worked with “difficult women“; that women don’t support each other, are ‘bitchy’ (hate that word) and that they once had a female boss who was awful.

Most of the time I resist the impulse to say “So what?”

For the purposes of clarification and so in future I can refer such folk (and it’s men and women equally) to this post, let me explain:

• wanting a fairer representation for women at work
• wanting to see women represented in serous news programmes
• wanting to see more women in senior positions
• wanting businesses to have more women on boards
• running a course for women who want to progress
• coaching women who want to progress in their careers
• wanting to see what women bring to the professional world is valued alongside the attributes of men

does NOT mean that I think women are better than men and infallible.

Women get it wrong sometimes.

Men get it wrong sometimes.

We are different and bring different gifts to the table. I want to see a world where we make space at the table for both and not run things so one half of the population has an advantage.

If you enjoyed this post, do take a look at A Feminist Paradox, and am happy to hear your views too!

Photo Credit: Nextia

Is the Glass Ceiling Women’s Fault?

Woah, steady on me! Am I now blaming women for centuries of discrimination? Adding to the guilt which we women are so good at carrying around? (Erica Jong- “Show me a woman who doesn’t feel guilty and I’ll show you a man”). Has it really been been our fault all along!

Well, no, of course not. But I am suggesting that maybe it’s time to examine what is going on in our heads and how much that is a barrier to our progress. Maybe we create some of our own limitations based on what we see around us and if we could free ourselves from that straitjacket we may find ourselves smashing that glass ceiling! Regardless of what is going on around us…

Women’s Strength

It takes some doing to cast off the images and impressions that we have grown up with. We’re in a kind of double bind; legislation has changed in our favour and most organisations at the very least pay lip service to the idea of gender equality, if not actively promote it. Yet there are still few women in senior positions and the role models are mainly male. The behaviour rewarded is generally male. Maybe we women look at those roles and think “I don’t want to be like that, that’s not my style, that’s not me”. That’s certainly true of a lot of the women I coach; what’s on offer doesn’t appeal and many of them end up running their own businesses or dropping out of the competition. (Sam Roddick is a great example of what I mean, see her interview with me here).

Grab the Opportunities

And there is research out there telling us that women are being hardest hit by the recession and that we are still underpaid in comparison to our male colleagues etc. All pretty dispiriting stuff. If we’re not careful we can be overwhelmed and begin to think that there is no point in trying. The truth is it’s not easy for any one, man or woman, to get to a senior position. Yes, I still believe it is harder for a woman for all sorts of reasons but it’s clearly not impossible and I think it’s eminently desirable. There is a lot on offer to help us, if we choose to take advantage of it, like the government saying it is considering imposing quotas for the number of women on British boards if there isn’t a change. What better time to try for a seat on the board! I’ve spoken with some recruitment companies who tell me that they are being asked to put more women on the shortlists they submit but are having trouble finding enough!

Be Honest

So take a few moments to reflect and ask yourself honestly, am I my biggest barrier to career advancement? And if you come up with a yes, you’re not alone. And I’m not having a go at you; there are good reasons why we feel as we do. Yet I know from my coaching of professional women that once we get our heads in the right place, it all becomes a lot easier. Have the confidence to just go for it!

“We are not touched so much by events themselves but by the view we choose to take of them” Epictetus. Choose a different view and the world could be your oyster!

And if you’d are interested in working one to one with me I have a few spaces becoming available this Spring and I’m also taking bookings for my March Speak Up course now!

I’m a Feminist, Do You Want a Fight?

It’s really strange but sometimes when I say I’m a feminist I could swear people hear the words, ‘Do you wanna fight?’ That one word can produce such hostile and defensive responses, often accompanied by a list of women in power to disprove the need for me to have such nonsensical ideas. (Interestingly it’s always the same list of women, rather proving my point…)

So for the record…

I LOVE MEN.

Being a feminist is not, in my book, about putting men down. Helping women succeed does not mean I want men to fail.

I do not think women are better than men.

I do not think men are better than women.

I do think women are often unwittingly placed at a disadvantage because our business world is largely man made, male behaviours are the norm and those are rewarded. I occasionally get cross about that; I’d passionately like to see a world where what both genders bring to the table is valued equally. I work with women to help them overcome some of these hurdles, as well as on other issues – see here. But it’s not at the expense of putting down men. (And in truth, I sometimes work with men too!)

Radio Interview

In a recent radio interview I was asked “So you think women make better politicians than men? You think they would be better at politics than men?”

“No“, I replied, “but I do think politics would be better“.

In truth, I think the whole world would be better if we fully included and made space for, at all levels, the qualities and strengths that women bring. Until we make that possible, I think we’re missing out on a lot of talent and potential.

So, take off the gloves, sit down and let’s talk! What do you think?

Photo Credit: Paigefiller.com

Women Suffer More Than Men!

November 2011 and the latest set of figures to be released by the Government show that 1.02 million women were unemployed by September this year. That’s the highest level since 1988, when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister.

The figures reveal a sharp divide between the genders, with women coming of far worse than men.

Unemployment among men fell by 40,000 during the quarter-year to September, to reach 1.43 million; at the same time, the number of women out of work rose by 31,000.

The headline employment figures are boosted by a record 4 million workers setting up as self-employed, and tens of thousands more people taking part-time and temporary jobs because they can’t find permanent, full-time work. I don’t know how many of those are women and what sort of salaries they are earning, but I’d be really interested to find out. (See Women, Where’s Your Ambition?) In my experience of coaching women, self employment is one way women escape the male dominated world of work. Sam Roddick had some pithy things to say about that too!

I don’t know, maybe David does need his special advisor! Sam, (Roddick, not Cameron) you got much on…?

Photo credit: Biewoef