FIVE TAKEAWAYS FROM WOMEN AND LEADERSHIP

If you’re looking to feel better about women’s place in the working world, Deborah L. Rhode’s Women and Leadership won’t help. Her detailed examination paints a depressing picture of how limited women’s progress in the United States has been (and Canada isn’t faring much better). But it’s important to know this in order to correct it. Here are 1 your takeaways: Politics is a terrible place for women. Canada has more representation than the U.S. at some levels, but Ottawa’s first female mayor Charlotte Whitman highlights how far behind North America remains. “Whatever women do, they must do twice as well to be thought half as good.” Rhode shows how women have no room for error, and even the smallest mistake is taken as a sign a powerful woman is only 2there to fill a quota. Management is no better. “There are more men named John running S&P 1500 companies than there are women,” Rhode writes. When women reach the top, they often face a glass cliff such as taking over a failing company. And when pursuing the corner office, selfpromotion “is also disproportionately punished.” Unlike men, ambitious women 3are seen as power-hungry. The law supports gender equity so the practice of it should too, right? Ha! Women face double standards when billing hours; if they aren’t doing enough, it’s seen as a failing of gender. Women of colour are often used as tokens to sign new clients. Have a case involving race? Firms often pitch a black lawyer to work on it, even if it’s outside her area of expertise. 4 Academia isn’t as enlightened as you think. Rhode does offer a glimmer of hope before shutting it down. “The relatively greater progress that women have made in academia also fosters the perception that the ‘women problem’ has been solved” – despite the fact women take up more than half of undergraduate spaces but “account for less than a quarter of college presidents and a third of chief academic offi5cers at doctoral institutions.” Corporate boards – need I say more? Hard quotas have closed this gap in Norway, and Ontario has adopted “comply or explain” mandates for companies to increase female representation or explain why they can’t. But Rhode notes that the misperception that there simply aren’t enough leaders in the pipeline and the (wrong) attitude that quotas undermine meritocracy have prevented women’s advancement in corporate boards.