It's Not Your Gender It's Your Network

8/8/2019 It's Not Your Gender It's Your Network

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Hired! Changing Lanes from the Auto Industry Page 2 Gender and the Workplace Page 4

DOES THE BOYS CLUB stillpresent barriers to women seek-ing $100K+ positions?

After decades of legislation and

corporate policy intended to level the

playing eld and let qualied women

into senior positions, disparities re-main but experts tell TheLadders

that the real problem may lie in the

sociology of networking tactics.

Professional women looking for

high-powered jobs have the career-

development and job-search savvy

they need. However, many of them

still lag behind their male counter-parts when it comes to working their

networks, according to George Wash-

ington University sociologist Lisa

Torres and others who study corpo-

rate hiring patterns.

The Catch-22: Women and men

tend statistically to network with

members of their own sex and

because men have historically been inmore inuential positions, male net-

works are often more powerful.

Gender StudiesBy Matthew Rothenberg, Editor-in-Chief, TheLadders.com

IN THIS PACKAGE:

ILLUSTRATION:Chip Buchanan

Research indicates the glass ceiling

and the gender gap in executive jobsmay be explained by the different ways

men and women use their professional

networks.

Its Not Your

Gender, Its

Your Network

By Kevin Fogarty

See NETWORK Page 2

NETWORKING
mailto:matthewr%40theladders.com?subject=Feedback%20from%20PDF%20Newslettermailto:matthewr%40theladders.com?subject=Feedback%20from%20PDF%20Newsletter


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Its Not Your Gender, Its Your NetworkNETWORKING

ITS BEEN NEARLY HALF A CENTURYsince the CivilRights Act of 1964 outlawed sexual discrimination.Further legislation has been passed to root out sexist

corporate-promotion practices and encourage diversity in the

workplace. Womens groups have lobbied agencies and busi-

nesses to support and mentor female employees, and privateenterprises have funded and cultivated programs to promote

the advancement of women to the highest ranks.

But in 2009, women hold just 20 percent of the senior man-

agement positions in American businesses, according to the

2009 International Business Report by Grant Thornton. The

glass ceiling remains rmly, invisibly, in place.

What is responsible for the invisible barrier that allows em-

ployers to pay lip service to diversity but promote men to 80

percent of the senior management positions?

New research suggests that fewer women reach those jobs

than men because they are less likely to hear about availablepositions from coworkers as early as their male counterparts.

Both men and women tend to circulate the good news about

job openings or opportunities when they hear about them. But

looking at the quality of the job leads in terms of pay and pres-

tige women get poorer quality leads from other women,

said Lisa Torres, a George Washington University sociology

professor who studies the hiring and job-search process in

corporations. Men tend to be in the top positions in organi-

zations so, structurally, theyre in a position to hear about job

openings or opportunities when they arrive and circulate those

to their networks.

Birds of a feather ock together

The problem is not a failure in the career-development or

job-search acumen of seasoned female professionals and cer-

tainly not a statement on the quality of the candidates, Torressaid. It has more to do with the people with whom men and

women feel most comfortable associating, she said.

Torres and Matt L. Huffman, sociology researcher at the

University of California-Irvine, studied groups of men and

women and tracked census data to identify patterns in the

way the sexes network. The researchers detailed their ndings

in a 2002 study, Social Networks and Job Search Outcomes

Among Male and Female Professional, Technical, and Mana-

gerial Workers, published in Sociological Focus.

They discovered that both men and women tend to build

networks comprising people of their own gender a processknown scientically as homophily and colloquially as birds

of a feather ock together. But women tend to recognize the

tendency and try to overcome it building networks made

up of about 50 percent men while mens networks included

very few women, Torres said.

According to Torres and Huffmans theory of social net

working: Because men hold 80 percent of the jobs in se

nior management (a gure that has been steadily declining),

they are more likely to hear about job openings at the senior

I AM WATCHING THE FOURTH DAYof the Third Cricket Test of Australiaagainst South Africa, said Sheri Olinyk onthe night of Jan. 5 from her home in Lon-

don, Ontario. We have a special cable chan-

nel called Cricket Plus with all-day cricket. I

turned it on when I came home from work,

and so I watch it for a couple of hours in

the evening.

The remark is surprising, not just because

few Canadians are cricket fans, but few crick-

et fans anywhere are women. But being alone

among women in a male-dominated group is

nothing new for Olinyk. She is a plant man-

ager for Saint-Gobains construction-mate-

rials plant in Plattsville, Ontario, a position

few women aspire to and a workplace few

women enter. Olinyk spent the previous 12

years in manufacturing positions at several

automotive companies, a similarly female-

averse industry. Its been like this since she

was a young girl.

Changing Lanes from the Auto IndustryTired of taking the back seat as an operations manager at automotive plants, Sheri Olinyk ditched her job in

the auto industry and took the wheel as plant manager at a construction-materials company in Ontario.

By Karl Rozemeyer

4NETWORK

Olinyk

HIRED!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophilyhttp://www.saint-gobain.com/enhttp://www.saint-gobain.com/enhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophily


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management level. Men pass the news on to their mostly

male social networks, and it is likely that news about the job

opening reaches women only after it has reached and passed

several men.

Who is in your network?

It isnt just a matter of being connected, said William

Bielby, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of

Illinois at Chicago. It matters who those connections are.

Bielby is a leading researcher in race and gen-

der bias. He has been called upon as an expert

witness in sexual-discrimination and bias law-

suits involving WalMart, FedEx and Johnson &

Johnson. Bielby said the professional networks

women build fail to deliver the same job leads as

men because of whom they choose to include.

Research into how men and women form pro-

fessional relationships at work shows that wom-en tend to be more effective at networking at

least as far as the size and cohesiveness of their

professional networks are concerned, Bielby said.

But that breadth still does not overcome the concentration of

power in male networks.

Women have tended to be better connected overall, but

they and many of their female contacts tend to work in more

female-dominated jobs, Bielby said. So their networks may

be wider but not reach to as high a level as mens, who tend to

be better connected, particularly in getting professional news,

to more high-status people.

Access is only part of the issue, Torres said. The rest is an

often unconscious decision about who is the most appropriate

target for a tip.

You might tell a male colleague about an opportunity thats

very high demand or involves a lot of traveling, she said, but

not a female friend because you know she has family concerns

that might make that more difcult.

That may show sensitivity toward a colleagues

personal situation, but it doesnt allow colleague

to make up her own mind about whether the job

is too high stress or the travel requirements are

too great, Bielby said.

Gender bias

While men hold 80 percent of senior man

agement jobs, the gap in income is less severe.According to Huffmans review of 2000 census

data, women in senior management earn salaries

that trail mens by only 9 percent.

The gaps persist most notably in access and perception

Torres said.

For example, in technology companies which, like -

nancial services, tend to be male dominated men are 2.7

See NETWORK Page 6

Bielby

It takes a certain type of person

to deal with that kind of environ-

ment, she said of working in a world

of brawny, tough guys. Maybe its

because I grew up as a tomboy. And

when I went to engineering school, I

was the one girl in a class of 600. It

is an environment that I have known

my entire life, so when I go to work

and there is me and 40 guys, and ev-

erybody that reports to me is male,and there might be one administra-

tive assistant on the other side of the

ofce that I am sharing a bathroom

with; this is just what I have become

used to.

What she isnt used to is being at the

top of the operation. Olinyk made

the jump from automotive manufac-

turing to construction materials in

October to attain the top position in

a plant and escape an industry that

seems to be on the decline.

The industry switch got Olinyk the

plant-manager job she always wanted

and a new opportunity to network

with women in her position and men-

tor young women entering the manu-

facturing eld in growing numbers.

The off ramp from automotive

Olinyk, who is a Six Sigma Master

Black Belt (business-management

certication) spent most of her time

trouble shooting problems within

manufacturing and business process-

es at auto plants. After 12 years, how-

ever, the top post of plant manager

had yet to materialize.

I love automotive. I love the pace

and being on the bleeding edge, she

said. I had spent a lot of time in se-

nior positions with different functions

within the automotive industry. And I

had spent so much time over the latter

half of my career being the voice be-

hind the throne that I just decided itwas time to put my money where my

mouth was and take on the role my-

self while trying to make the cultural

transition to a Six Sigma environment.

And Saint-Gobain offered that.

See AUTO INDUSTRY Page 6
http://www.asanet.org/page.ww?name=William+T.+Bielby&section=Presidentshttp://www.asanet.org/page.ww?name=William+T.+Bielby&section=Presidentshttp://www2.las.uic.edu/depts/soc/william-bielby-2.htmlhttp://www2.las.uic.edu/depts/soc/william-bielby-2.htmlhttp://www2.las.uic.edu/depts/soc/william-bielby-2.htmlhttp://www2.las.uic.edu/depts/soc/william-bielby-2.htmlhttp://www.asanet.org/page.ww?name=William+T.+Bielby&section=Presidentshttp://www.asanet.org/page.ww?name=William+T.+Bielby&section=Presidents


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Some of the facts and gures that shape the debate about the glass ceiling and gender gap in American businesses

By Kevin Fogarty

Stereotypes persist

Even with equal qualications and achievements wom-

en are perceived less favorably than men as reected in

evaluations and promotions.

Women who comprise less than half the workforce in a

business are also more likely to be pushed toward tasks

that are stereotypically feminine, such as support work.

Given equivalent positions, men are perceived as more

inuential than women. Men are also more likely to resist

inuence from women.

Research shows that women are not afforded as much

of a repertoire of behaviors when it comes to assertive-

ness. That is, women are either viewed as not assertive

enough or too assertive.

Women are more likely to be stereotyped as family fo-

cused and unwilling to travel and therefore tend to

be passed up for promotions. This is called the mother-

hood assumption by researchers.

Source: The Prevalence of Gender Stereotyping and Bias, Anita Borg

Institute for Women in Technology

2008 Womens salary differential compared to men All women: 79.9 percent

Women who have never married: 94.2 percent

Source: U.S. Dept. of Labor

Gender and the Workplace


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Olinyk began looking at jobs in

early summer 2008 but did not make

a concerted effort to move until Au-

gust. She used OpsLadder to post her

resume and was put in touch with

different recruiters, one of whom in-troduced her to Saint-Gobain. She ac-

cepted the job in October, just as the

Big Three automakers Chrysler,

Ford and General Motors made

their case to Congress for a federal

bailout to avoid bankruptcy.

Although the construction industry

in the U.S. faces diminishing demand

for materials and a crisis just short of

the one facing the automakers, Olinyk

is cautiously optimistic. Internationalexports and the weak Canadian dollar

are all plus factors for Saint-Gobain,

she said.

I think that the Canadian economy

is somewhat more robust than what is

going on in the States right now, she

said. We dont quite see the reces-

sionary uctuations as you see on the

U.S. side in most cases, although we

do lag behind because the economies

are so tied. Any industry in Canadadoes market a fair amount of their

product in the States. Fortunately for

the business that I am in, it is actually

a global consumer base, so I am ex-

porting to Europe and to China and

to South America, she said. So that

does cushion the blow somewhat.

The other thing that we see is the

positive assistance that we get from

monetary exchange, so when the Ca-

nadian dollar is a little bit down (asit traditionally has been over the last

25 years), it does give us a little more

leverage and give us a competitive ad-

vantage.

The plant, which is within driv-

ing distance of her London, Ontario

home, was also a major factor for

Olinyk, who has two grown daughters

and elderly parents nearby. So every-

thing, she recalled, came together

very nicely.

Transferrable skills

Saint-Gobain SA is a French mul-tinational that was founded in 1665

to produce the glass for the Hall of

Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles.

Today, it is one of the worlds top

100 industrial corporations, produc-

ing an array of construction and

high-performance materials. It is a

huge company, and they are into so

many different things, she said. It

doesnt have a name like GE, but they

have just about as many employees.

They have places all over (the world). They do special building materials

and concrete and glass, and we (at

the Plattsville plant) are in the abra-

sives business. Every time I open one

of the newsletters, I see all kinds of

weird and wonderful things I didnt

know about.

At Saint-Gobain Canada, Olinyk

has full P&L responsibility for a fa-

cility that manufactures and con-

verts sandpaper, where she said sheapplies the same Six Sigma process

and leadership aptitude she honed at

auto plants.

It doesnt matter whether you are

making widgets or trinkets or atomic

bombs or jet liners, she said. It re-

ally doesnt matter what the outcome

product is. You really have to focus

on leadership, and managing people

and processes. And if you can do

that, you can go into any industry andbe successful.

I dont think industry really matters

that much, she said. If you are go-

ing to want to take a leadership role,

you have to take a leadership role no

matter what it is that you are doing.

Its a mans world?

Not many women consider opera-

tions management in either auto- or

construction-materials manufactur-

ing plants. For those who do, Olinyk

hopes her years of experience can

make this career path more accessible.

It is not an easy life, Olinyk admit-

ted. It can get very tough. Theres a

lot of stress. You give up a lot as far

as your personal life, your family life.

It can very nasty. It can get very ver-

bal, and you have just got to be able

to take it.

It turns out, the experience is not

as unique as Olinyk had assumed.She recently attended a womens-only

conference at Smith College, North

Hampton, Mass., where she discov-

ered what good company she is in.

It was really a unique experience

for me because I was meeting a lot of

other women from engineering back-

grounds who have done wonderful

things in their careers, she said. I

truly found out that although I may

be unique in my neighborhood, thereare more people out there like me

than I ever assumed.

The idea of networking with other

women in engineering and construc-

tion is a fairly new phenomenon

to Olinyk, but she said she feels an

added sense of responsibility to assist

younger women now nding success

in her specialty.

It really wasnt available when I was

starting out, she said. And now it isnice to know that they are out there.

I guess I have learned to stand on

my own two feet. But I am aware of

younger ladies who are coming up the

ranks now. I tend to want to spend

a little bit more time with them, and

take on a mentor role with them.

4AUTO INDUSTRY


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times as likely to be promoted to top technical or managerial

positions as women; they are far more likely to be viewed as

competent; and they are four times as likely to have a partner

who takes on the bulk of responsibility for home and family,

according to a 2008 study byCaroline Simard, director of re-

search at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology.

One-third of women in technology companies deliber-

ately delay having children to pursue career goals, and far

more women than men are likely to believe extended work

days and a lack of sleep are necessary to achieve success, the

study concluded.

Even without gender bias, the greater num-

ber of connections men have to higher-level

contacts make it more likely theyll hear about

a particular opportunity than even a woman

with the same background and similar con-

tacts, Torres said.

And the higher up the ladder a candidate

goes the more likely unconscious bias about

race, gender or competency is to intrude

on the decision-making process, Bielby said

especially in something as informal as

a job reference.

Passing on a job lead is ultimately an exer-

cise in subjective judgment, Bielby said. So

when someone is thinking whom to tell about

an opportunity and that decision is oftenmade unconsciously in just a split second

it may be stereotypes of what men or women are competent

that makes you more or less inclined to tell a specic person.

We like to think were beyond those days where stereotypes

matter, but were not that far removed from it, Bielby said. In

my experience during nancial-services litigation, for example,

even with brokers who work only on commission, youd think

there couldnt be any bias there because the numbers tell the

story. But the real issues were not the commission formula, it

was in the soft decisions made about how do distribute leads

or referrals and the accounts of people who leave.

Farther down the ladder, its easier to quantify levels of per

formance, Torres said.

As you get higher, the judgments invariably get more sub-

jective. Thats one reason there is still quite a pay gap between

men and women in similar jobs, she said. As you get higher

on the ladder, job performance is based more on evaluationand subjective assignment. A woman lawyer may handle more

cases, but are they the big cases? I may produce more as a

knowledge worker, but is what you produce really rst tier

compared to someone else?

Trying to legislate or organize job references

to eliminate gender bias is not a good idea, Tor

res and Bielby agreed. That would just squelch

the process altogether.

Overcoming the gender network

If women want to equal the effectiveness of

male social networks, they need to emulate the

men in those networks, said Torres. If male

dominated professional networks are passing

jobs leads to other men before women, wom

en should put themselves in the path of those

leads, Bielby said. Women must add more men

especially high-status men to their pro

fessional networks. Furthermore, they need to

make their interests and competencies as clear

as possible, he said.

The basic insight about how job leads are

passed along, which has been around for years, is that they

come through weak ties acquaintances or friends of

friends, who we dont necessarily know that well, Bielby said

When you pass along a job lead, often thats based more on

assumptions about someone you only know vaguely than any

thing specic about them.

What you can do, he added, is cement that connection by

following up with specic information about what kind of job

youre looking for or sending a resume or link to a Web page

with that information.

Top 10 Ways to Use Social Media to Give Backto Your Network

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Are You a Hunter or a Farmer?

I Attended a Networking Event. Now What?

4NETWORK

Career Advice from TheLadders

We like tothink werebeyond

those dayswherestereotypesmatter, butwere notthat farremovedfrom it.

William Bielby
http://www.anitaborg.org/news/research/http://www.anitaborg.org/news/research/http://www.theladders.com/career-advice/Top-10-Ways-Social-Media-Give-Back-Networkhttp://www.theladders.com/career-advice/Top-10-Ways-Social-Media-Give-Back-Networkhttp://www.theladders.com/career-advice/five-networking-lessons-learned-high-schoolhttp://www.theladders.com/career-advice/five-networking-lessons-learned-high-schoolhttp://www.theladders.com/career-advice/hunter-farmer-job-searchhttp://www.theladders.com/career-advice/best-ways-follow-up-after-networking-eventhttp://www.theladders.com/career-advice/best-ways-follow-up-after-networking-eventhttp://www.theladders.com/career-advice/hunter-farmer-job-searchhttp://www.theladders.com/career-advice/five-networking-lessons-learned-high-schoolhttp://www.theladders.com/career-advice/five-networking-lessons-learned-high-schoolhttp://www.theladders.com/career-advice/Top-10-Ways-Social-Media-Give-Back-Networkhttp://www.theladders.com/career-advice/Top-10-Ways-Social-Media-Give-Back-Networkhttp://www.anitaborg.org/news/research/http://www.anitaborg.org/news/research/

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It's Not Your Gender It's Your Network