Join the Club

The Globe and Mail ~ Globe Careers ~ Wednesday February 19, 2003

Why aren’t more women looking for careers in business? MBA Students Sherry Pedersen, Francesca Birks-Denegri and Rebecca MacKinnon write about how they broke the barriers and what they’re doing to help others.

None of us ever thought we would be part of a women’s club.

To our generation, women’s lib is defunct, a remnant of the sixties and seventies. We like to view the world as gender neutral place that does not judge us on the fact that we are women, and offers us the same opportunity as the next Joe or Jane. As far as we can tell the only limit on how high we can climb is the amount of air in our lungs. Nor do we feel that it takes special women to be successful in business.

Don’t get us wrong. We’re not satisfied with the gender-based wide gap – in the United States, female managers earned 73 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2000, compared with 86 cents in 1995, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office. We don’t see why we shouldn’t earn every dollar on the dollar if we are performing the same tasks as our male co-workers, especially as we are expected to pay back the same student loans as men.

Nor are we pleased about the fact that women account for only 10.5 per cent of all directors of companies in the 2002 Canadian Spencer Stuart board index. And why is enrolment in master of business administration programs not gender balanced? A typical MBA program has only approximately 25-per-cent female enrolment. The stone cold fact is that the business world is neither gender neutral nor gender balanced, but it is time that it should be. So we are part of a crusade at the University of Toronto – a 21st Century women’s club – to achieve the coveted 50-per-cent ratio for full time MBA programs. If law and medicine can do it, why not business?

Why not indeed?

* * *

Rebecca MacKinnon

As a small town girl, the idea of working in a high-rise office tower cubicle was my idea of hell. I grew up with a strong sense that “contributing to society” was essential to a satisfying career. With family members in medicine, law and education – professions where people in need are helped – a career in business seemed inherently shallow of self-centered. (A recent U.S. study by the Simmons College Graduate School of Management found that just 10 per cent of more than 3,000 girls surveyed were interested in a business career. The key concerns: work-family balance and being in a profession that would allow them to help others.)

The “suits” were the wicked ones, concerned only with their paycheck and how to make the next quick buck. They spoke a language we didn’t understand, used industry jargon to trick people out of their money. I believed that employees in these office buildings must be sad, lonely and greedy people, perhaps like Mr. Burns of The Simpsons who famously remarked “family, religion, friendship: these are the demons you must slay if you wish to be successful in business.”

Until I met some perfectly normal commerce undergrads in university, I thought that business attracted mainly such personalities. Only gradually, through career mentorship programs, and conversations with friends, did the dynamic, creative and positive nature of business reveal itself.

With fewer role models and a dearth of educational opportunities, many women never learn about the beneficial and rewarding aspects of business.

Some believe that women are drawn to “nobler” professions such as medicine or teaching, and view the business world as a place where selfish interests prevail. Women, more so than men, are groomed from a young age to nurture; we are taught to express our feelings to one another openly, and comfort those in need. It is not surprising, then, that women do not seek out careers in business, which seemingly emphasize the bottom line.

It’s a shame, however, because a career in business may be your chance to affect society positively.

Corporate governance and ethical standards have been a hot topic with the accounting fiascos of the past year. And it is worth mentioning that Time magazine’s people of the year featured this past year’s whistle blowers, who happened to be women, and who decided to draw the curtain on their less ethical counterparts.

As board members, women have the opportunity to infuse the business world with communications and co-operative skills stemming from our nurturing side.

It may surprise some women to hear that opportunities abound to give back to the community, through community services and products, not-for-profit organizations, or charitable donations given by corporations. Financial Institutions, for instance, contribute profits to charitable causes.

* * *

Francesca Birks-Denegri

I grew up in a family where it didn’t matter if you were a girl of a boy. In fact, the girls outnumbered boys both in quantity and in attitude.

My parents raised us to never take no for an answer. I remember the time my dad tried to teach me how to dive. It was an excruciatingly hot summer day, and my father would not let me off the diving board, even when I protested that I just could not do it. I chalk it up to the strict overachiever’s diet my father was raised on as a boy.

My mother was certainly not expected to go on to achieve the undergraduate degree that she eventually did at the Catholic University of Lima, even though her father was a historian and academic. My father was expected to not only be an undergrad, but also to obtain his law degree, and eventually enter the family business.

Does this mean that my father was my public role model, and that my mother slipped quietly to the more private domestic background never to be seen or heard? I don’t think so.

While my father pushed me to achieve higher learning, it was often my mother who berated me for poor marks and tried to create encouraging incentives via stickers and knickknacks to do better.

And just as much as I noticed that my father was the breadwinner for most of my childhood, I also absorbed how much my mother cared for her brood, ran charitable organizations between meals, and even took a swing at running her own business, a store specializing in South American goods, way before culture was a fad phenomenon, or a buzz word in the media. If anything, both of their personal histories have informed and compelled me to take the path less driven on.

While my father told me not to take no for an answer, my mother made me understand why I shouldn’t. What I got from my father was the confidence to pursue an MBA. And what I got from my mother was the drive to pursue it.

* * *

Sherry Pedersen

Part of the problem with women entering the senior ranks of business is our learned patterns of socializations. To lead a team of senior executives, a business person’s tool kit requires a few basics: experience leading teams, a network, the drive and desire to be the best in class, and a good mentorship to turn to when facing challenging problems.

The way we are socialized in our youth shapes the adults we become. Sadly, I am not at all convinced that young women are being equipped to be titans of industry.

Growing up, girls pay fewer team sports than boys. While my brother played volleyball, basketball and baseball competitively, I took piano and art lessons and tried out ballet, swimming and tennis. Not only is the team aspect missing from these activities, for the most part the competitive element is also missing.

Girls tend to have a single best friend while boys hang out in groups. A game of road hockey takes a bare minimum of four players to have any semblance of offence and defense, while playing house really works just fine with two, one to play the mommy and one to play the daddy. These early social patterns seem to explain some of learned social behavior as adults. Men network in large groups, whereas women communicate one-on-one.

Two ears ago, I found myself preparing to embark on this grueling adventure we call an MBA. I was a former translator with no real team experience, with no female mentors to speak of and a very loose network of friends and acquaintances. I would rather go home and read a book than go out for beers after work with colleagues.

It is little wonder that women have difficulty breaking into the circles of corporate power when we have no idea how to network and form alliances.

So one day, I found myself a successful female mentor who had done many of the things I want to do myself, became captain of the Rotman dragon boat crew thinking this might hit leadership, team work and competition all in one go, and attended all the networking events that I possibly could. Hopefully, my new tool kit will arm me well for the battle to reach the top. As Sony founder Akio Morita said: “Business is war.”

* * *

Statistics say that our generation will have at least four careers over our lifetime. The question is, who do you want to control those choices? Each of us has already had at least one career and we wanted to make sure the next ones are great. The degree is arming us with the skills to excel in dynamic, diverse and mobile careers: from basic – presentation skills, financial statement analysis, organizational design skills – to advanced – negotiating and managerial skills, strategic planning and implementation; from strategic – exposure to very successful business people, through speaker series and networking events, and leadership opportunities, through club activities – to personal – confidence in ourselves and the ability to market what we have to offer and to seek new opportunities.

So what’s stopping you?

Don’t let it be a lack of so-called relevant work experience. Women from a variety of backgrounds – including film production, fine arts, mathematics, Spanish literature, engineering and health care – have excelled in business programs. In fact the diverse perspectives foster creativity in managerial decision-making and enrich the experiences of current and future colleagues and clients.

Perhaps you think that business is still a boy’s club. Well, maybe it is, but so what? Cassie Campbell could have stayed at home and cried about hockey being a men’s sport too, but look at the gold-medal Olympian now. The point is, it will always be a boys’ club if no one else knocks at – or down – the door.

As well, a new generation of decision makers is starting to move on to the business scene and they think like we do: The rigor of your analysis and the determination in your voice wins you the job, not the belt and suspenders you wear.

In the meantime, as executive members of the school’s women in management association, we’re pulling to get to our 50-per-cent mark in a few years through such things as:

• Mentorship programs to provide guidance on how to be effective executives.

• Youth outreach programs to cultivate interest at younger and more impressionable stages.

• Conferences to foster networking opportunities among career oriented women.

Our goal is to attract more women to business and, more importantly, to top management positions, creating a more gender neutral setting. Because in the long run, the only time we ever want to think about statistics is when evaluating the probabilities of success in our projects and corporate goals.

Sherry Pedersen, Francesca Birks-Denegri and Rebecca MacKinnon are MBA students at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.


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