A Vicious Cycle

When Neil French claimed that the reason women don’t make it to the top in advertising because of their care giving responsibilities, he was generalizing from a few and creating problems for the many. This generalization often seeps into management thinking such that women are not given the same kinds of opportunities as their male colleagues—they get less challenging assignments and/or need to prove themselves with more lateral moves before they are promoted. Frustrated at this lack of challenge or opportunity in their jobs, they leave. And when they leave it is assumed that they do so to give care, when, more likely than not, they have taken another job. That is the vicious cycle—erroneous assumption leads to limited opportunities leads to turnover. There are things women can do and things their organizations must do. Women need to be aware of this cycle and proactively negotiate for their own opportunities. Companies need to pay attention to inequities in the assignments they give to promising women and men. They can also be more creative in how they structure work so that people, both men and women, can better manage their work and personal lives—then maybe the entire cycle will no longer be a problem.