Business Beagle
Spunky chick
Finance Industry
Songshi QuanThe Gender Divide in Business
June 11th 2008 05:19
The Business Beagle had the debateable pleasure of reading a news article from AAP titled… “Businesswomen ‘more likely to talk’”. Now, aside from the immediate thought, “…women more likely to talk? What’s so odd about that?” this report also made me ponder the true effects of this type of article and indeed, this type of study.
In a nutshell, the report went to great lengths to point out that 37% of surveyed women were prepared to seek advise from business owners and partners compared with just 6% for men. And, further to this, 22% of women surveyed were more willing to seek advise from family and friends compared with 16% for men.
What was interesting about this article was that it had no conclusion. It was a ‘comprehensive’ study of 200 people and it hypothesised nothing. Are women better business owners / managers because of their seeming willingness to seek advise or discuss issues / problems with others? Is this even a fair and reasonable way to determine business acumen or performance?
The cynic in this Beagle noted that the article conspicuously went on to mention the launch of a new networking website for women with real time discussion groups and forums, a convenient and timely networking tool launched at a time when businesswomen are being told that their peers are talking amongst themselves and you might be missing out!
But, the Business Beagle is supportive of networking and sharing information, so I’ll even give you the link to this new networking site, feel free to check it out and report back your thoughts. - www.therubyconnection.com.au
But for me, the problem here is that the article further highlights the gender debate, men versus women. Or is that women versus men? I don’t want to appear to be putting one before the other now, as this Beagle is neutered anyway!
In my humble opinion, business is A-sexual. Whilst each individual brings to the boardroom table unique skills, ideas, and talents, the value of these qualities is completely unaffected by the person’s gender. In any field of endeavour you will find men and women who excel for reasons based on their individual arsenal of abilities.
Are men better then woman? That’s like asking if your left thumb is better then your right thumb? Well? Is it?
There are some fields of endeavour where men are paid more then women for the same job. Fair? NO. Shall we campaign against it? HELL YES! Equally, there are those who feel that we should have more women in certain fields, an example I read about a while ago was politics and how the Labour party at the time was considered more progressive then the Coalition because it had a greater quotient of women in the cabinet as compared to the men. Nothing scares me more then hearing that places are being filled in any profession, but especially the Country’s policy-making apparatus – Federal Cabinet, based on a quota system.
This dog is not a woman, but I cannot imagine very many women being happy with the idea of progression in their chosen field based on the quota system.
“Gee, darlin, you’re in luck, we just happen to not have any women on our Board of Directors and you’ve applied for the job, so bingo, boingo, bam, you’re in!”
Not only should that horrify the female applicant, along with any other qualified male applicants of course who just got overlooked because they’re packing a middle stump, but it should justifiably horrify the respective shareholders. After all, rather then get the best PERSON for the job, we ended up with the right GENDER for the job in order to deflect the possibility of future bad press from equal opportunity protestors.
One word – Meritocracy.
Business owners, look it up.
Men and women, two halves of the same race. We need each other, pure and simple. Whether to further the human race or just for someone to fight over the remote control with, we need each other. And any demographic division of the two for any purpose other then to gauge retail shopping habits is counter-productive and insulting to the opposite side of the gender coin that you are intending to promote.
That article I mentioned didn’t articulate any final conclusion to the study, but the inference and the statistics provided, to me, tend to indicate that the author feels women are more successful in business because they are prepared to talk more, or in the case of promoting their new website, network more. I have met many successful men and women in business and I doubt very much that any of them would stand up and claim their gender to be a contributing factor.
Grr…woof!
The Business Beagle
In a nutshell, the report went to great lengths to point out that 37% of surveyed women were prepared to seek advise from business owners and partners compared with just 6% for men. And, further to this, 22% of women surveyed were more willing to seek advise from family and friends compared with 16% for men.
What was interesting about this article was that it had no conclusion. It was a ‘comprehensive’ study of 200 people and it hypothesised nothing. Are women better business owners / managers because of their seeming willingness to seek advise or discuss issues / problems with others? Is this even a fair and reasonable way to determine business acumen or performance?
The cynic in this Beagle noted that the article conspicuously went on to mention the launch of a new networking website for women with real time discussion groups and forums, a convenient and timely networking tool launched at a time when businesswomen are being told that their peers are talking amongst themselves and you might be missing out!
But, the Business Beagle is supportive of networking and sharing information, so I’ll even give you the link to this new networking site, feel free to check it out and report back your thoughts. - www.therubyconnection.com.au
But for me, the problem here is that the article further highlights the gender debate, men versus women. Or is that women versus men? I don’t want to appear to be putting one before the other now, as this Beagle is neutered anyway!
In my humble opinion, business is A-sexual. Whilst each individual brings to the boardroom table unique skills, ideas, and talents, the value of these qualities is completely unaffected by the person’s gender. In any field of endeavour you will find men and women who excel for reasons based on their individual arsenal of abilities.
Are men better then woman? That’s like asking if your left thumb is better then your right thumb? Well? Is it?
There are some fields of endeavour where men are paid more then women for the same job. Fair? NO. Shall we campaign against it? HELL YES! Equally, there are those who feel that we should have more women in certain fields, an example I read about a while ago was politics and how the Labour party at the time was considered more progressive then the Coalition because it had a greater quotient of women in the cabinet as compared to the men. Nothing scares me more then hearing that places are being filled in any profession, but especially the Country’s policy-making apparatus – Federal Cabinet, based on a quota system.
This dog is not a woman, but I cannot imagine very many women being happy with the idea of progression in their chosen field based on the quota system.
“Gee, darlin, you’re in luck, we just happen to not have any women on our Board of Directors and you’ve applied for the job, so bingo, boingo, bam, you’re in!”
Not only should that horrify the female applicant, along with any other qualified male applicants of course who just got overlooked because they’re packing a middle stump, but it should justifiably horrify the respective shareholders. After all, rather then get the best PERSON for the job, we ended up with the right GENDER for the job in order to deflect the possibility of future bad press from equal opportunity protestors.
One word – Meritocracy.
Business owners, look it up.
Men and women, two halves of the same race. We need each other, pure and simple. Whether to further the human race or just for someone to fight over the remote control with, we need each other. And any demographic division of the two for any purpose other then to gauge retail shopping habits is counter-productive and insulting to the opposite side of the gender coin that you are intending to promote.
That article I mentioned didn’t articulate any final conclusion to the study, but the inference and the statistics provided, to me, tend to indicate that the author feels women are more successful in business because they are prepared to talk more, or in the case of promoting their new website, network more. I have met many successful men and women in business and I doubt very much that any of them would stand up and claim their gender to be a contributing factor.
Grr…woof!
The Business Beagle
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