Others besides me have noticed that most whistle-blowers of late have been women — former Enron vice president Sherron Watkins, retired FBI agent Coleen Rowley and former WorldCom audit executive Cynthia Cooper. To underscore the point, Time made these three its Persons of the Year in 2002. Recently, HealthSouth financial executive Diana Henze joined the ranks of female whistle-blowers.
Could it be that women generally are more ethical than men? Yes, wrote Harvard University’s Carol Gilligan more than two decades ago in the book “In a Different Voice.” While some hemmed and hawed, Gilligan’s argument was largely embraced by feminists. Now others are saying that women are more likely to be the straight shooters who cry foul when they see their corporate companions jiggering the books. “Women Are More Likely to Blow Whistle” announced a 2002 headline in the Los Angeles Times.
“Women see things in a much bigger context than do men,” says Judith Rosener, a professor at the University of California at Irvine. In “Ways Women Lead,” a 2002 Harvard Business School e-book, Rosener proclaims that a woman’s way of leading — interactive, cooperative, inclusive and personal — is profoundly different from the traditional male way of leading, which she calls “command and control.” She goes on to say that women consider the larger implications of their actions when making a business decision, while men focus on the immediate: that is, how much money they’re going to make, or whether they’re likely to get caught.
Rosener’s statements barely caused a ripple, and women generally nodded in agreement. In contrast, all hell broke loose when Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, said that one reason women don’t ascend to the highest positions in science might be due to the “intrinsic aptitude” of men in this area. Incidentally, Summers also listed old-fashioned gender discrimination and the lower likelihood that women will take jobs requiring incredibly long hours as other reasons women do not get the top jobs in the sciences, which has been largely overlooked in the firestorm following his comments. (This isn’t the first time Summers has been in the hot seat. Previous comments about other matters also provoked controversy, and his “imperious, abrasive” leadership style has become part of the discussion about whether he should stay or go.)
All this happened back in mid-January, but the issue is still blazing in practically every major media outlet. Yet where was the fury when some saw in the ranks of the women whistle-blowers not only a greater willingness to come forward than shown by their male peers, but also a difference in style — and yes, morality? There was none.
We generally agree that women are more likely to consider how their actions affect others, thus making them more collegial than men in their work habits. And no one doubts that women are more in touch with their feelings, are better able to express them and, consequently, have better interpersonal skills. A woman prefers to share how she feels, while her mate would rather debate whether Barry Bonds’ steroid-fueled records ought to have an asterisk after them.
The root of this touchy-feely stuff can be traced to a specific section of the brain, the limbic system. Females have a larger, deeper limbic system than males do — which is believed to make women more empathic than men, and better caretakers to boot. The upshot of this is that, by and large, moms, more than dads, want to stay home with the kids and to not work killer hours once they do go to work, regardless of the rewards.
Whether the seat of women’s empathy developed over centuries in the cave, when men were out hunting and women were gathering and taking care of the babies, is immaterial. The Human Genome Project found that the differences between the races is minuscule (one-hundredth of 1 percent) compared with the difference between the sexes (a whopping 1 to 2 percent). The difference is there, and today we have to deal with what is, not with what we wish for.
Brain biology points up another variation: Women’s brains have a larger corpus callosum — the connective tissue between the right and left sides of the brain — whose job it is to transfer data back and forth. Consequently, women integrate incoming data faster than men do. Women’s intuitive “sixth sense” about when the baby in the nursery is going to start squawking, or the boss is about to blow a gasket, or what someone else’s response will be before it’s stated probably has its origins not in the netherworld, but right there in the highly active corpus callosum of the female brain. What’s more, males tend to have more concentrated activity on the left side of the brain (thus the term “left-brained”) and less interaction between the right and left sides, while women have greater access to both sides.
Where is the seat of mathematical ability? you might wonder. Ahem, it’s in the left side of the brain. And like it or not, that brings us back to Summers’ inopportune comment that men do better at the high end of the sciences because of a “different availability of aptitude at the high end.”
The average IQ scores of females and males are equal because IQ tests are designed to purposely eliminate sex biases in the scores. But looking deeper, one finds that females and males score differently on separate parts of the test. Men do better on spatial questions, women on reading and other verbal skills.
While some argue that this is a result of conditioning — when girls take up throwing a ball, their spatial ability increases by leaps and bounds — conditioning doesn’t explain why males’ IQ scores are more variable than females’. More males than females end up at the low end of the IQ scale, and not surprisingly, relative to females, there are more male high school dropouts and more men in prison. But the opposite is also true: More males than females have extremely high IQs. And like it or not (I don’t like it), this is probably why the world has more male geniuses à la Einstein, Mozart and Michelangelo. We can thank the goddess Nike for Marie Curie, but where’s another woman in our pantheon?
Oddly enough, those who argue against the existence of gender differences in ability are likely to fervently believe that biology, and not one’s mother, determines homosexuality; demand same-sex medical trials; and adhere to the theory that, indeed, women are more collegial than men when they make decisions.
Despite the biology, environment, of course, is critical in shaping who we become. The numbers of women pursuing careers in the sciences has skyrocketed in the last couple of decades. At the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology nearly half the student body is female. And at medical schools nearly a third of the students are women, while at law schools half are female.
Yes, women can do the math. A new way of thinking about male and female abilities, beginning in the ’60s, has opened all kinds of doors. But we are talking about the great mass of people, the averages, here — not the dim boys who drop out of school or the geniuses who devise a new theorem or discover a new element.
There’s still a great deal we don’t know about what is ingrained and what is instilled, but acting as if the differences between the sexes are purely anatomical, or merely the product of our environment, does not serve us well. Ignore the differences, and we forfeit the opportunity to encourage and enhance the talents of all of us, from the ordinary student to the truly gifted, regardless of sex.
When mathematically talented 12- and 14-year-olds took the SAT in 1980, the journal Science reported, the ratio of males to females who scored over 700 (out of a possible 800) was 13-to-1. Now the ratio is only 2.8-to-1, a clear sign of progress. What we have to do is continue to make sure that that “one” is nurtured to succeed in whatever she wants to do — whether it is to be our next Madame Curie or not.
This story has been corrected since it was first published.
The storm of controversy that swirled in the media in response to Harvard University president Lawrence Summers’ thoughtless hypothesizing last month that innate sex differences might account for the dearth of women in high-level positions in science doesn’t show signs of abating anytime soon. Indeed, next week the university’s faculty is to meet for the second time to express its unhappiness with Summers, who ultimately could be forced to resign.
Much of the press coverage simply reinforced the gender stereotyping evident in Summers’ comments. Readers of the New York Times, for instance, learned interesting — but irrelevant — facts, such as the existence of sex differences in green spoon worms. And in the New Republic the outcry of women’s groups was derided as a fatwa. But those who still don’t understand why the Summers controversy represents a setback for women’s equality, need look no further than the media’s coverage of Carly Fiorina’s dismissal as CEO of Hewlett-Packard last week, which more than anything else linked her firing to the fact that she is female.
USA Today’s headline screamed “Did Glass Ceiling Just Slam Down?” The paper quoted an industry analyst who asserted that if Fiorina had succeeded in her position, it could have “opened wide the doors for women, but now any board director on the fence has an excuse to not take the chance.” Did I miss the coverage of how board directors were going to think twice about hiring male CEOs after Kenneth Lay, Gerald Levin, Michael Eisner and countless other men were fired from their CEO jobs?
USA Today further reported that “the stock of the eight Fortune 500 companies run by women rose 2.2% in 2004 vs. 9% in all S&P 500 stocks.” It is gimmicky, and statistically meaningless, to compare the stock earnings of eight companies with the stock earnings of 500 companies. I’m just a girl, but even I know that that sample is skewed. When male CEOs preside over low stock earnings, nobody raises gender issues, nor do their failures have broader implications for other male leaders.
USA Today featured a box with the eight Fortune 500 companies run by women that showed that investing in them in 2004 “was not a good strategy.” The companies — from Avon to Rite Aid to Xerox — were not even in the same sectors. To imply that the companies were not as successful because they were run by women is part of the same attitude that informed Summers’ statement that being female was a determinative factor above all else.
If only this view had been limited to one newspaper. The Los Angeles Times referred to Fiorina as the “high-gloss chief executive,” and the New York Times informed readers that management specialists say “it is naive to pretend that Ms. Fiorina’s downfall will not have an impact on women’s aspirations.” Walter D. Scott, a professor at Northwestern’s business school, told the Times, “There are still a lot of people who do not feel women are as accomplished as men, and they will simply shake their heads and say, ‘I told you so.’”
Unfortunately, when Summers and his defenders suggest that there is a genetic reason for the underrepresentation of women in science, they open the door for that argument — basically just old-fashioned stereotyping — to be made more widely. That 20 percent of positions in science, engineering and technology development are held by women, as noted in the New Republic, proves nothing but that 20 percent of those positions are held by women. As any sixth-grade science student knows, the effect is the not the cause. So one would hope that university presidents, journalists and scientists would know better than to equate the two.
To argue that a small number of women in a given sector means ipso facto that gender differences are responsible is reckless and, to date, scientifically baseless. Fewer than 5 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and only 14 percent of U.S. senators are female. Is this proof that innate sex differences are keeping women from achieving in these areas? Consider that not so long ago, the prospect of a female president or secretary of state was unthinkable. Now we’re up to two female secretaries of state, and Sen. Hillary Clinton is a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. As has been widely noted, women were once believed to be inferior musicians — until orchestras began blind auditions behind a screen, hiding the gender of the musician.
Until they can cite a supporting body of evidence, Summers and others shouldn’t make comments that disparage all women. If you aren’t convinced, replace the word “Jew” or “black” for “woman” in the coverage of Fiorina.
Summers’ defenders have offered some alternative explanations to genetics for the dearth of women in science, such as discrimination that leads to stereotyping about women’s abilities and the lack of adequate child care, which would allow women to pursue careers while raising children. And in more rigorous careers such as science, many women are unable or unwilling to commit to the years of education and training that are required to reach the top echelons because of their family obligations. With all these other factors indisputably contributing to the dearth of women in the sciences and at the higher levels of other professions, the desire of Summers and his supporters to tie the phenomenon to an inherent lack of ability is perplexing.
One irony in all this is that HP’s board, which watched closely as a woman failed to run the company effectively, has included a woman on its shortlist of internal candidates to take over where Fiorina left off. If this well-established company is able to separate Fiorina’s performance from her gender, then is it too much to expect the media, the analysts they quote, and the academics who are weighing in to do the same?
Hewlett-Packard apparently knows that many factors account for Fiorina’s failure that have nothing to do with her genetics. She was the first outsider brought in to run an insular company that was accustomed to doing everything the “HP way,” and she has been described as a cultural mismatch. She was bold and charismatic but by most accounts better at the big picture than at day-to-day management. She led a lifestyle of private jets, yachts and large compensation packages that was foreign and alienating to most people who worked at HP. Most important, she oversaw a failed merger with Compaq.
Fiorina’s situation recalls that of Steve Case when he became chairman of AOL Time Warner after orchestrating the disastrous merger with AOL. But when Case was pushed out, nobody attributed it to his gender. And when Gerald Levin — the other half of the duo who orchestrated the merger — was fired, he was quickly replaced by another man, and nary was a word mentioned about men’s inherent inability to run major corporations.
I am part of the first generation to be told that girls can do anything boys can do. Yet the truth is, it’s still hard for women to reach the top echelon of many professions. Nevertheless, I would rather tell young women to reach for the stars than give them messages that they might fail because of their genetic makeup.
True equality will be achieved when women are allowed to fail just as men do, all the time. Former NOW president Patricia Ireland famously said that equality exists when an average woman moves up the career ladder at the same pace as an average man. Equality also exists when a female CEO loses her job for bad performance and it is treated the same way as a male CEO who loses his job for bad performance. We clearly still have a long way to go.
Once upon a time — just over a year ago — Wall Street was prone to
hypersensitivity. Brokers and traders watched Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan as if he were some sort of financial third base coach. Any
perceived sign from the Fed chairman could sent the Dow tumbling, or off to
another record high. It was during this period that mere rumors of the
resignation of Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin shook the international currency market, and rattled Wall Street.
But when word finally came down Wednesday that Rubin was returning to the
private sector, markets reacted with what has become their typical equanimity. The Dow mourned briefly, with a 200-point fall, before ending the
day back above 11,000, not quite 26 points down for the day, while tech stocks rallied.
In short, Wall Street took the news of the departure of one of its own from
Clinton’s inner circle with little more than a sigh. The unflappable market
simply went about its business.
“The markets didn’t react because everybody knew this was coming,” said
Michael Murphy, founder of the California Technology Stock Letter. “He
probably would have left a year ago if not for the impeachment stuff. But
that would have been seen as bailing on the president.”
Rubin will leave Washington July 4 and be replaced by his deputy, Lawrence
Summers. Though early indications are that Summers will sail through the
Senate confirmation process, there may be more skepticism on Wall Street.
Wednesday quickly turned into a Rubin lovefest among the overwhelming
majority of political pols and market watchers alike. “Bob has been
acclaimed as the most successful Treasury secretary since Alexander
Hamilton, and I think that acclaim is well deserved,” Clinton said. “I will
miss his cool head, steady hand and kind heart.”
Greenspan eulogized Rubin as “one of the most effective secretaries of the
Treasury in this nation’s history.” Even conservative Republican Sen.
Phil Gramm of Texas, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, offered a
backhanded compliment, saying of Rubin: “Of all the officials in the
Clinton administration, he has had more credibility with me, and I think
with Congress, than any other.”
Even Robert Reich, who as Labor secretary during Clinton’s first term was a consistent agitator from Clinton’s left flank for lowering interest rates and increasing government spending, praised his former colleague. “I think he did a good job,” Reich said of Rubin.
Reich and Rubin often clashed in the early years of the Clinton administration, with vastly divergent economic philosophies. Ultimately, Clinton sided with Rubin and Greenspan, and Reich left the White House to teach at Brandeis University and be a commentator on public radio.
Though he offered praise of Rubin’s tenure at Treasury, Reich added there is an “unfinished agenda,” in terms of Clinton’s economic policy, to “expand the circle of prosperity so the working and lower class can share in this bounty,” he said. “We should expand the earned income tax credit, raise the minimum wage and … give everybody in the bottom half a chance to get on the escalator,” of upward mobility.
Rubin, a former bond trader and investment banker, is given much of the credit for the nation’s economic prosperity during the Clinton years. He has been with Clinton since the beginning of the administration. In 1993, he was named director of the National Economic Council, before taking over as Treasury secretary for Lloyd Bentsen in 1995. Rubin quickly gained a reputation as a deficit hawk, and in the process, cemented the president’s confidence in him. He will be remembered for coordinating mega-billion dollar bailouts of rocky economies in Southeast Asia and Latin America, which admirers say staved off a global financial crisis that seemed imminent just last summer, but which detractors say beggared those nations.
During his tenure in the Clinton White House, he presided over the most aggressive bull market in history. When Clinton took office in 1993, the Dow was stuck below 4,000 and the nation had an annual budget deficit of $255 billion. Today, the market closed above 11,000, and the president reported a multi-billion dollar budget surplus when he submitted his spending plan to Congress.
Despite his tough stance on the budget, even liberal advocates for low-income communities praised Rubin and lamented his departure. “He’s been an outstanding Treasury secretary,” said Robert Greenstein, director of the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “He blended a concern for responsible fiscal policy with taking very strong principled positions against excessive and unwarranted tax cuts. He exhibited an unprecedented passion for a Treasury secretary for promoting economic development in poor, inner-city communities.” Rubin was a champion of expanding the earned income tax credit, for instance, which uses the tax code to provide a wage subsidy for low-income workers.
But not everybody was mourning Rubin’s departure. “The dirty little secret of the Clinton administration is that the United States has increased its bond indebtedness by $2 trillion, and most of the policies that led to this were backed by Rubin,” said Doug Henwood, founder of the influential Left Business Observer.
Rubin was instrumental in liberalizing the flow of capital between countries, a trend that left-wing analysts charge has ravaged foreign economies. “The kinds of liberalization measures he championed have contributed to the devastation of the economies of Mexico and Southeast Asia,” Henwood said. “Most of the outside world is in recession or depression, and the U.S. has been the beneficiary of that. I think his resignation is his way of signaling ‘all clear,’ that the worst of the crisis is behind us.”
Rubin was the darling of Wall Street “because he was one of them,” Henwood continued. A lot of people on Wall Street look at Summers as more of a pointy-headed Harvard boy, whereas Rubin was one of their own. “(Summers) is also known as an abrasive prick and a lot of people don’t like him. He may have to prove himself by being more of a hard-ass than Rubin was.”
But Murphy predicted that Summers would be well-received by the investment community as the Clinton presidency slowly winds down. “He’ll be fine. He’s only got a year and a half, and his ideology is in the right place for Wall Street.”
Rubin had been contemplating a return to the private sector for at least the past year, but stayed on during the president’s impeachment and Senate trial to avoid the perception that he was abandoning Clinton. Murphy says Rubin’s departure is just another reminder that the Clinton years are coming to a close.
“The lame duck presidency began a while ago,” Murphy said. “I think the blue dress was the beginning of the lame duck presidency.”
