The lady leadership problem
by digby
If the press really wonder what might be fueling some of this reported angst among Hillary Clinton’s supporters, they might want to take a look at this and ask if they aren’t simply afraid that the country is going to make their decision based on this rather than a serious problem with her policies and philosophy:
Last year, when Glassdoor released its annual ranking of employees’ highest rated CEOs based on their feedback during the year, just two women appeared among the top 50 (actually 51 due to an error), with one, Yahoo!’s Marissa Mayer, nearly dead last.
This year, however, women have completely disappeared. Among the 50 CEOs that garner the highest praise from their employees, the faces are all male.
There are, of course, few female CEOs who might end up on the list to begin with. Among companies in the S&P 500 index, just 23, or 4.6 percent, have a woman in the top position. Those ranks aren’t likely to swell anytime soon: women make up just 25 percent of executive and senior officers at these companies and those that are in the highest ranks are stuck in jobs unlikely to lead to the corner office.
But even women who do make it into leadership have to deal with the fact that Americans still like to see a man in charge. Both men and women say they prefer men as a senior executives at Fortune 500 companies. When asked, more Americans say they’d prefer to work for a man than for a woman.
Women also face a backlash when they try to act like bosses. They are penalized at work both personally and financially when they act assertively. Female leaders are more likely to be called abrasive, aggressive, strident, and emotional. Women are also more likely than men to get negative feedback on their work performance.
If she loses it could be because of any number of things, many of which will obviously be of her own doing or because of the obvious superiority of the man who beat her. But you can’t blame some women supporters for worrying that it doesn’t matter what she says or does — that this fundamental attitude about female leadership still guides the thinking of many people in our society.
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