Since the beginning of socialization, every aspect of day to day life has been gendered. This notion stems as far back as men being hunters and women being gatherers, which is solely a result of their physical build and capabilities. As society has vastly evolved, women have still been stuck in the home, performing housework chores while the men go out in the world and work long and hard days for the money. Due to this, men have been seen as the breadwinners, and women were deemed as the homemakers. In fact, Elman and Chesters (2017) uncovered that, “men’s gender socialization as ‘breadwinners’ and familiarity with performance of stereotypically masculine occupational tasks might have discouraged postsecondary attainment in adulthood”. This illuminates the fact that these gender roles influence people’s perceptions just as the perceptions reinforce the gender roles; we are stuck in a never-ending cycle where women seem to be at the backburner of in regards to occupational ability. There is a lot of societal discrepancy in regards to what occupations men and women should fulfill, and most people attribute men’s success to them “[being] perceived as more capable leaders” (Cook & Glass, 2014). As a result of this, the main argument then arises: do women and men actually differ as leaders? Further analysis and research sheds light on this widespread and controversial topic and might even bring about a revolution in dismantling gender stereotypes and stigmas.
In order to understand whether or not men and women differ as leaders, it is imperative to closely analyze and compare common traits that are amongst them. Amongst the narrow, yet numerous, amount of successful women leaders, Tarana Burke is an individual who has made a profound impact on the lives of young African-American women, white women, and members of the LGBTQ community.
The well-proclaimed African-American Civil Rights activist, Tarana Burke, is credited for fueling the “Me Too” campaign, which helps bring awareness to victims of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse. More often than not, women are shamed for bringing about allegations of sexual mistreatment, and if they do come front, they are almost always denounced for doing so. This has been an ongoing issue in society and has gone on to be detrimental to the well-being of young women, and even men, who experience this trauma. Tarana Burke was educated enough to be aware of this problem, being that it also affected her life immensely. At a very young age, Tarana immediately began to experience a multitude of troubling incidents while growing up in the borough of the Bronx. These incidents helped fuel the motivation for the beginning of Burke’s career in Alabama. Burke moved down south to study at Alabama State University, and this is where and when she began working with the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement, the Black Belt Arts and Cultural Center, and the National Voting Rights Museum & Institute (Wright, 2018). In 2003, Burke co-founded a program for girls called Jendayi Aza, and the program eventually evolved into a non-profit organization in 2006. It was during this time that Burke first used the words “me too” in an attempt to empathize with a young woman who confided in her about the abuse she experienced by her mother’s boyfriend. These simple words “me too” pushed Tarana to work with, and later also empower, those individuals, who are mostly young women, who have endured sexual assault and other forms of abuse (Smith, 2017). Based off of her own personal involvements, she later launched the whole “Me Too” campaign in 2003, but that is not the end of her immense societal impact. Today, “she continues this work for a nonprofit devoted to helping young women live self-determined lives” (Adetiba, 2017). Tarana Burke is currently the Senior Director at Girls for Gender Equity, which is located in Brooklyn, New York. This non-profit organization attempts to help build the personal development skills of girls, primarily focusing on girls of color. In addition to this work, Burke also travels around to teach empowerment skills at schools and various work places across the United States. Melanie Campbell, who is the convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable, asserted how, “[she] believes that it is vitally important to lift up Tarana Burke for her vision, steadfast leadership and commitment in fighting for over a decade to ensure women and girls of color, who are victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault, have their voices and stories told and recognized. Too often, our stories are not shared” (“Black Women’s Roundtable”, 2017).
Another woman that has been honored with the title of a great leader is Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Ginsberg had been the victim of a mass amount of discrimination on the basis of her sex but still fought through to make it to the top. Justice Ginsberg is one of two current female Supreme Court Justices and four total to ever be appointed. That alone is an exceptional accomplishment, and Ginsberg did not get there easily. Bader went to Cornell University to receive her Bachelor’s degree, and she then went on to become one of only nine women in a class of over five hundred at Harvard Law School in 1950. Upon graduation from Harvard Law, Bader was forced to confront the gender discrimination that was so rampant in her desired field of choice. After years of child raising, dealing with the death of her husband, and teaching positions at different universities, Ruth Bader Ginsberg was finally promoted to a full-time professor in 1969. She became the leader of the A.C.L.U.’s Women’s Rights Project where she pursued a series of cases that helped convince the Supreme Court that gender discrimination is a real violation of the Constitution. Ginsberg made such an impact by “[borrowing] from the strategy of Thurgood Marshall, who, as head of the N.A.A.C.P.’s Legal and Educational Defense Fund beginning in 1940, had pursued his agenda step by step, case by case, over fourteen years, all the way to Brown v. Board, decided in 1954” She was so impactful, that she was later given the title of “the Thurgood Marshall of gender equality law” (Lepore, 2018). Ruth Bader Ginsberg has been idolized for her accomplishments and for defying all odds of making it to where she is now, and she further inspires young feminists around the world.
On the opposite side of the gender spectrum, men have been notably known to excel in leadership roles. Men have always been seen in society to be a strong and capable leader in any circumstance, and this notion is strongly reinforced in daily life situations. Amongst the many qualified and influential leader’s male is Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is perhaps the most prominent and well-known Civil Rights activist, where he played a crucial role in ending the legal segregation of all African-American citizens in the United States. Some of King’s other major accomplishments includes being responsible for the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1964. King is recognized as one of the most effective and encouraging African American leaders in history, and he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 (“Martin Luther King, Jr.”, 2018). King ran two community campaigns between December of 1961 and June of 1963, and they proved to be the turning point in King’s leadership skills. King was forced to leave Albany, New York due to a divided black community, a tightly-knit white community, and an unsympathetic government. King and his colleagues were forced to learn from the mistakes they made in New York in order to come up with a better strategy for their work in Birmingham (Frady, 2003).
The last individual that should be included in the discussion of these leaders is the sixteenth president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Born on the twelfth of February in 1809, in a small town in Kentucky, Lincoln did not have many resources available to him that would bring him a successful life. Lincoln had acquired only enough literacy to sign his name in his early years, and so he worked as a farmer and carpenter. Seeing a brighter future for himself, Lincoln began to self-educate himself and became literate through rehearsing his ABC’s and consulting with his older sister for education advice. Lincoln sporadically went to school, and through this time he began to engrain in himself the proper self-confidence and self-assurance needed to become a capable leader. Lincoln became well-liked and well-respected by his peers, which helped provide him a strong foundation (Horrocks, 2011; McPherson, 2000). After many years of being involved in politics and having an immense impact on the state of the Nation at the time, through his service as a senator, Lincoln became president. The time in which Lincoln served as head of the country was one in which the Nation was divided between North and South: the union and the confederacy. He was a quiet leader, yet a great orator so he gained acceptance and liking by both the North and the South. He was talented at compromising between both sides and received high recognition. Abraham Lincoln then was able to deliver the Emancipation Proclamation and unified the entire nation by being an exceptional leader and (superficially) abolishing legal slavery of African-American individuals.
Tarana Burke and Martin Luther King, Jr. both made profound impacts on groups of minoritized communities, and one is a woman while the other is a man. They collectively shared the same drive and inspiration to create change, and seemed to have the resources available to them to make such impactful changes. Both of them are respected equally and can be accredited with the same honors. Although King did end legal segregation which was a massive milestone in the Civil Rights Movement, Burke fueled a movement that is just beginning, and one that will hopefully lay the ground for more justice to be served. They same can be said for Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She was at the forefront of fighting for women’s rights and an open feminist ally, showing that someone in her power can fight for equality and other types of social justice. Ginsberg has also stated in interviews how she admires Burke for her work, saying that, “…[t]he number of women who have come forward as a result of the #MeToo movement has been astonishing. My hope is not just that it is here to stay, but that it is as effective for the woman who works as a maid in a hotel as it is for Hollywood stars” (Rosen, 2018). It could be argued that Abraham Lincoln had the opportunity to create such a dramatic change in their world due to his gender, and the same goes for King as well and that might be true. Lincoln was alive in a time period where women had absolutely no say in the political realm and if they wanted to make a change they would have to go through a man to do so. It is for reasons like these that we must applaud individuals like Ruth Bader Ginsberg for breaking down those barriers between women and success and showing that women can be front-runners. ADD MORE COMPARISONS AND CONTRADICTIONS BETWEEN LEADERS HERE
Some accredit women’s inability to be successful leaders as a result of “a particular focus on women’s lack of assertiveness, drive and/or competitive spirit” (Cook & Glass, 2014). Cook and Glass (2014) make a reference to Sheryl Sandberg’s Tedtalk on the lack of women in top leadership positions. They say in their discussion how she urges women to “have the confidence to reach for opportunities”, which then emphasizes the idea that women are innately not confident, and that if women more assertive then they would be able to obtain leadership opportunities. When analyzing the amount of women leaders today, the results are quite shocking. According to an analysis written by Soklaridis et al. (2017):
… in the USA, half of all medical students and residents and one-third of full-time faculty are women. This trend is also seen in business. In 2015, the proportional representation of women in full-time two-year MBA programs reached 40 per cent. Yet women continue to be under-represented in leadership. In Canada, men are two to three times more likely than women to be in a senior management position. There is only one-woman CEO of a company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange). In the USA, women hold 4 per cent of CEO positions at companies indexed on US stock markets. Not only are women under-represented in executive leadership positions, but when they do hold these positions, they earn significantly lower salaries than men. When the salary gap is adjusted for education and work experience, men earned 17 per cent more in 1995, 19 per cent more in 2000 and 18 per cent more in 2006. Worldwide, women currently earn what men were earning ten years ago.
Overall, it seems that women and men differ as leaders in the ways that they are perceived by their colleagues. There are some gender differences that affect their leadership capabilities, but these differences can be attributed to societal influences. There is no doubt that men and women have the same worth and value when it comes to being effective leaders, and on the surface each gender (for this analysis a dichotomous structure is used) has the opportunity to achieve the same amount of success. This assertion is reinforced through a study done by military perceptions that was published in the Harvard Business Review, “A unique and fascinating data set allowed us to explore the language used to describe individuals in subjective performance evaluations and provides evidence that, as we suspected, language in performance evaluations is applied differently to describe men and women” (Smith, Rosenstein, & Nikolov, 2018). The effectiveness and capability of men compared to women leaders is largely influenced by the words we use to describe their personal capabilities, as a result of priming each word to assume a certain gender. It is crucial to note that the descriptive jargon that gets assigned to each gender has real-life implications on employees, and in turn, the corporations that they work for. Smith et al. (2018) assert that, “language in performance evaluations can tell us what is valued and what is not in an organization… they make decisions based on their potential for advancement based off these values.” The conclusion here that can be made is that due to due broadly held societal beliefs about gender roles and the subsequent leadership abilities that stem from these roles, people usually picture a male leader. Even when women and men function in equal leadership capacity and ways amongst colleagues and peers, it is still the men, and not the women, who are seen as leaders by the group. As the research conducted by Smith et al. (2018) shows how, “even in this era of talent management and diversity and inclusion initiatives, our formal feedback mechanisms are still suffering from the same biases, sending subtle messages to women that they aren’t “real leaders”— men are.” However, with the right women rising up to the top and using their platforms to speak for those who for whatever reason cannot, then they will show that women are capable to hold the same positions of power as men. Our personal qualities are influenced by our nurturing and upbringing, and if we teach our children that women can and will be successful, then the world will see a drastic shift in women holding powerful leadership roles.