September/ October 2006

Building pie charts or baking apple pie?

The male attitude toward executive women

Dwayne Whitten The perception of women in the workforce generates a lot of controversy, and although it has improved over time, according to the article “What Men Think About Executive Women,”acceptance of the female executive may not be as widespread as most men attest.

In 1965 a survey of 2,000 executives, half men and half women, was taken to find the male and female attitude toward executive women. The survey was representative of the executive population in the United States and was performed again in 1985. In 2005 the same survey was given to 286 executives and analyzed once more, this time by Mays’ Dwayne Whitten, an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Information and Operations Management.

According to the survey, men’s attitudes about executive women have increased to the point where they are equally favorable when compared to women’s responses. Similarly, the attitude of men toward working for executive women has soared over the past 40 years to now be relatively equal to that of women.

Where differences begin to emerge in attitudes is with the belief that the business community will never fully accept female executives. Women today have less faith than men that they will be accepted in executive roles. Females also feel more strongly that they must be exceptional to succeed.

In general, supportive attitudes of women as executives have increased significantly since 1965. But the present research found that men tend not to acknowledge that females still face barriers for success—even though women say they still encounter them. Since women hold fewer than 20 percent of corporate officer positions in Fortune 500 companies, and only eight of those companies have female CEOs, Whitten and his co-authors conclude that, “on the likelihood of full acceptance and the necessity of exceptional performance…men’s perceptions are overly rosy.”

The report suggests that this may be because men have learned to offer politically correct responses to questions about their attitudes. “Executive men may be saying the right words,” said Whitten, “but if the gender composition of the typical boardroom is any indication, they’re probably not behaving accordingly.”

“What Men Think About Executive Women” is in the September 2006 Harvard Business Review. The article was co-authored by Baylor University’s Dawn S. Carlson and Mays PhD alum K. Michele Kacmar of the University of Alabama.

— Ashley N. Coker


September/ October 2006
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