The book Women on Top, by Jane Adams takes a look at several angles for the woman who wishes to move up in the corporation. The book also looks at key facts such as the successful woman in a man's world and expresses concern on the sexual triangle. This book was the focal point of my topic on successful women in the business world. Throughout the rest of this paper I will incorporate other books and scholarly items in which I used to structure how influential women are in the workplace and how they have become successful (Adams).
When Jane Adams interviewed a successful female entrepreneur about what makes a person successful? She replied that success was “a woman who is both successful and caring, a woman who does not feel she has to hide the caring side of herself in order to achieve, to be number one.” Typically the success by a man is counted by how much product he can sell and how much income he can generate within a fiscal year. This is not the case with women because women tend to add more of a caring aspect to things whereas men do not (Adams pg 3).
Women find it a lot harder to achieve this success. American business has slowly started to open its doors for women. Men were not the only gender turning women away during the earlier corporate times. Women realized that their greatest potential could be at home rather than in a corporate setting. The affirmative action movement in the 1960's pushed industries, corporations, and universities to increase the number of women in their institutions or they would loose federal funds and contracts (Adams pg 3-6).
Women's influence on the corporation has dramatically increased through the times of the affirmative action movement to present day. Women now constitute twenty- two percent of all managers and administrators in the United States; this is a fourteen percent increase from 1947. The rate of change between administrative positions has stayed steady at about five percent. Even though women have been making strides in entering the workforce, one percent are in the top management position. Wages are another aspect in which one can see a difference in when comparing men to women in the corporate world (Brown pg. 267).
The U.S. Department of Labor is predicting that the number of women in the workplace will increase. Wages and the amount of money that women receive will continue to rise. When looking at the statistics in the above stated information you can see the increase that has arisen in the last sixty years (Adams pg. 99-120). Investigators noted that they believe that this problem would disappear if the ratio of female to male increased. There isn't an exact notion to what woman's role in the business world will be but in my opinion and by studying the past the percentages will increase (Brown pg. 268).
One might wonder why there aren't comparable amounts of women to men in regards to authority positions. A possible reason for this is because of sex role stereotypes. Most Americans see people in manager positions within a corporation as masculine (Adams pg 3, 4). The Harvard Business School did a surveyed 2,000 executives and the results stated that they believed women to be “temperamentally unfit for management.” The ideal management leader is shown to be competitive, aggressive, dominant, firm, vigorous, and dependent (Adams pg. 99-120). When looking at the “ideal” qualities of a manager it is obvious that many women do inhibit these qualities. Roslyn Willett a distinct business leader stated that men are more aggressive and perceive things in an imaginative way and women are more realistic (Adams pg. 99-120). The quality of being imaginative is a good quality in a manager and the quality that women have of being realistic is both good in the business world. Charles Fukami stated believes that the real reason that we have these stereotypes results from more competition for fewer jobs in a poor economy (Bartos pg 74).
There is proof that women make good leaders in companies. The book America's New Entrepreneurs by Linda Harrison expresses a number of women who have made great strides in business. Examples such as Mary Kay Ash from Mary cosmetics, Norma Lea Beasley CEO of SafeCo Land, and Dale Hanson Bourke president of Publishing Directions. The stories of these women are beneficial to society because they show how they overcame the norm of male dominated work force. These women were able to become successful because they put their mind do their work and used their qualities to take their business to extraordinary means (Harrison).
Another advance in the business sense that women have been associated with is the microenterprise industry. Microenterprise programs are strategies in developing poverty stricken nations. Interest has been shown by female entrepreneurs in order to start these small businesses in other parts of the world. Statistics show that between 1982 and 1987 there has been an increase of microenterprise business of 2.6 million to approximately 4.1 million. This is twice the growth rate of all U.S. business during the time period (Dignard).
MicroFem is an urban microenterprise program that is managed by a group of woman entrepreneurs. The goal of MicroFem is to offer microenterprise training as a route toward economic independence for low-income women. The belief is that the women entrepreneurs are able to relate to the people they are doing business with, and in doing this, the entrepreneurs will be able to help the women get out of poverty (Dignard).
Lastly, I feel that it is important to bring up the role of a personal relationship between a male and female in the workplace. The various articles that I have read regarding this topic say that it is important to keep issues regarding a relationship that deals with the relationship outside of the workplace. This situation can be very difficult for the success of women in the workplace. The book states that it is not impossible for these relationships to work but it can be a situation that needs special attention (Bartos pg 62).
One can see that through corporate business strategies and microenterprise strategies that women are indeed useful in the business world. Studies have shown that women play a key role and have qualifications that any corporation would like to have. Even though most women are shown to have less of an aggressive notion towards things, with the partnership of a coworker that's male this would make a good team. Mary Kay Ash and MicroFerm are organizations that are proof that women can do well as leaders in companies. Throughout the coming years I believe we will see the increased level of women participation within the workforce. Women not only provide the skill set needed to help run a business but they have a different viewpoint that is important to being diverse.
