Women are doing men’s work. And doing it every bit as badly

My Y chromosome fixed me with a hard stare and asked "Are you sure you want to write this?" But I am aware that we have a history of badly messing up our working lives and workplaces. So I will take a deep breath and…

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In 1977, Rosemary Crompton, a sociologist and prominent feminist, called for the “feminisation of the workplace”.? She did not explicitly mean more women in the Boardroom, nor increased opportunity for young women starting out on their careers, nor even greater provision for childcare. Crompton was instead calling for a workplace where people trusted each other more, where people cared for each other and offered support, rather than applying the corporate dagger between the scapulae. Crompton wanted a world where jobs featured consideration and openness rather than covert chicanery and the old school tie.

?Crompton wanted the end of the patriarchy and its unfair practices.

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Post Crompton

Fast forward to 2023. A time when, the Office of National Statistics shows us, that progress is being made in terms of gender pay disparity. The bridge is shorter, and the gender pay gap for full-time workers under 40 is trending close to zero in the UK. We are not there yet but it won’t be long.

?We can hypothesize that places with more advanced workplace outlooks than the UK, perhaps much of Europe, Australasia, California and the Eastern Seaboard are at least in a similar position.

Clicks and cliffs

Remember that this is just a freeze frame. We are at a point on a pendulum swing. Until the 1980s the underachievement of girls at school was a major concern. From the 1990s girls have outperformed boys in all areas of the education system. These girls, women now, are moving increasingly into the big jobs.? Impatience is manifest, the figures still demonstrate unfairness, but the glass cliff, so fabulously highlighted by gender psychologist Michelle Ryan is being razed.

?But if you are tempted to over-rev the engine, jamming the JCB even harder against the cliff face, then don’t. Can the enthusiasm. Because from a psychological perspective, things aren’t going that well. Crompton’s goal is not being realized.

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New gender, same behaviour

Women in power are showing themselves to be every bit as selfish, every bit as shortsighted, in short, capable of being every bit as useless as men.

?And yet right now, we have a unique and fabulous opportunity to make work more effective, more profitable and so much happier than it has been at any time since Victorian ‘time and motion men’ introduced working patterns that have ruined billions of jobs and soured just as many lives.

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Shirley Williams, the daughter of feminist trailblazer Vera Brittain, was a British politician. Williams - in formation with the impressive Barbara Castle – was a formidable proponent for equal rights, recognition and fairness . In the 1980s Williams wondered (about whom you may care to guess), “When a woman has to be like a man, why does she have to be like a man that nobody likes?”

?And in the 21st century, even when assuming increasing power, it seems that women are still acting like men that nobody likes. Crompton is being traduced.

While it is, of course, impossible to eradicate sex and gender bias* in my work, it is minimized through research as much as possible. And it is here that we see no sign of women managers being any kinder, more considerate or in any way different from the men, at any time since my work began.

Managers that are decent and managers that are hideous are not delineated by age or gender at all. In terms of workers’ well-being, engagement and performance, these factors are insignificant. Once in power, there is no statistical difference between how men and women manage their fellow humans. And a small stat to remember here is that 70% of workers leave their jobs because of some issue with management,

Looking around

Look at the articles in the appendix of this piece (right at the bottom). They are taken from the same newspaper on the same day (Sunday Times, 13th August 2023). Not that long ago, ripping off the country to make yourself a small fortune out of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) during a national emergency; or stepping over the body of a dying porter – because saving him might cost you the chance of climbing the world’s second highest mountain - are things that few women could have contemplated. But now, well…it’s what men would do.

?There is some putative, qualitative evidence, which I am exploring, that younger female bosses may tend towards ‘kind and inclusive’ policies. This sounds good, but these policies are only kind and inclusive towards people who share the same views as the bosses promoting them. There would seem to be a freezing out of non believers. However there is at least as much evidence suggesting that this bias is as much generational as it is managerial amongst late millennials and early Gen Zs (where women may be hitting management positions ahead of men). These 20-somethings are people who may simply prefer their own views to those held by older cohorts, and give preference to those who hold them. And generational bias is as old as, hmm, at least as old as Pete Townshend

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As recommended by...

Let me commend you instead to Germain Greer speaking in 2017 who said “Women are drawing level with men in this profoundly destructive world that we live in and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s the wrong way. We’re getting nowhere.”

?Greer, like many, has noted that the patriarchy remains in place at the top, but its foundations are crumbling. In the West at least, we can change the way business is run. Perhaps the women currently in the middle ranking managerial positions, are just waiting their time until the Boardroom is theirs before they unleash unfettered kindness and consideration. But right now women are doing a great job of imitating previous practice and thus doing a rotten job of improving anything.

As the male pedestal is kicked over, Greer says, “Women need to aim higher and achieve more than simply drawing level with men and entering into traditionally male-dominated fields.”

?Please...

Science is on their side; Greer and Crompton are correct. When we go against the patriarchal stereotypes and trust people at work, when we give them encouragement instead of brickbats, when we listen to colleagues' concern and show we care about them, pushing beyond what has been done so badly before, results are fantastic.? Well-being, engagement and performance figures soar.

?What we require are not women adhering to the Shirley Williams quote, but all of us, boys, girls, trans people*, adopting what have been perceived as female traits. Remember Handy's often quoted aphorism of "Business is full of clever people doing stupid things"

If we have a 21st century (going into a 22nd century), managerial environment where we replace male stupidity with either an equal gender mix of the stupid, or even – if trends continue as they seem likely to do – a stupid matriarchy, acting as the men used to do, then people’s lives down the line are not going to change all that much. There will still be discrimination, inequality, unfairness, and a lack of trust. Organizations will continue to make mass use of workplace spying systems, management will still know best and the concomitant infantilization of the workforce will carry on as before,

“We have decided that they can have a ping pong table and a beer pump to play with. If they are good, they can wear jeans on Friday and we might even install a slide.”

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BJK: Everybody's star

It may feel to us, to the people living through it, as though social change is glacial. Yet we have gone from 1950s stasis – based on a society that was centuries, even millennia old – through the contraceptive pill, Billie Jean King (never underestimate the role of BJK), equal pay, and equal opportunity, and we are still shoving a pendulum that right about now is approaching its sweet spot.

?We have the blink of an eye to hop on and make a difference. Then not just women, but every one of us, needs to feminize the workplace.

?That term may sound outdated, even uncomfortable, and as it is touching 50 years old it probably is. So, whatever phrase you want to use, if we can make the workplace one of courtesy, consideration, love, care, trust and respect, everybody wins.?

To the women increasingly moving into positions of power, this request “Please, set a trend, don’t follow one. Stop mirroring ersatz male managers, and break the fusty old mould. Then women won’t have to act like men; instead, men can start acting like women. ?This middle-aged git, for one, will help you all that he can. Because then, everybody wins.

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*My apologies to trans people reading this article. At the moment there are insufficient data on the quality of trans people in management positions to allow me to comment with any authority on effectiveness or otherwise.

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References

Crompton, R, & Gubbay, J (1977) Economy and class structure. London: Red Globe Press

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Davey, M (2017) “Equality is a ‘profoundly conservative goal’ for women, Germain Greer says”, The Guardian (8th March 2017), London

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Office for National Statistics (2022), Gender pay gap in the UK:2022 taken from (23rd August 2023) https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/genderpaygapintheuk/2022

Photographs

Germaine Greer By Helen Morgan - https://www.flickr.com/photos/helenmorgan/10527263475/ , CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114546663

Billie Jean King by Jonathan Exley from Billie Jean King Enterprises, Inc.

Shirley Williams By University of Essex . from United Kingdom - Regius Professorship Lecture, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56219002

Appendix