‘Queen bee’ CEOs get scrutiny and flak while ‘king wasps’ get a free pass

[redqueen]

...

Welcome to what social scientists say is a common double bind for women leaders. Women are so rare in the upper echelons of power —4 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs —that their every move is closely watched, harshly judged and often found wanting. Especially when it comes to how they treat other women.

Joly, the new chief executive officer of Best Buy, announced recently that he was ending the innovative, flexible work style the company pioneered —Results Only Work Environment, or ROWE —that defined work as something you do, not someplace you go, and gave employees control over when and where they did it.

Both Mayer’s and Joly’s decisions were momentous steps away from the flexible work schedules that enable employees to do good work and also have lives. But we’ve turned the klieg lights on Marissa Mayer. Most people have never heard of Hubert Joly.

“This is one of the reasons why it’s so difficult to be a female executive,” said Joan Williams, a law professor and director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California at Hastings who has been following the fallout from Mayer’s decision. “Everything you do is hyper-scrutinized. And you are completely judged if you don’t put a particular social agenda —advancing women —incredibly high on your priority list in a way that men don’t have to. Mayer bans flexible work and we can’t stop talking. Men do this all the time and we just never hear about it.”

...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/queen-bee-ceos-get-scrutiny-and-flak-while-king-wasps-get-a-free-pass/2013/04/11/89d40d76-9acc-11e2-9a79-eb5280c81c63_story.html

[mercuryblues]

1. in the

Style section no less. What the hell. Women don't read the business section?

[redqueen]

2. I notice that happens regularly.

Stories related to feminist type issues get stuck in style, or life and style type sections.

Reminds me of what Deborah Copaken Kogan said, about editors being the gatekeepers.

[DonCoquixote]

3. queen bees and Wasps

I admit, there are less Queen bees, and the martha Stewarts go to jail, while Ken Lay gets a pass, but as people like the Yahoo Ceo show, that CEOS of all stripes tend to be wicked.

[ismnotwasm]

4. The entire culture is appalling

And she has seen plenty of male-dominated work environments blind to the double bind they have created for female leaders. Once, she was called in by a major law firm to coach the only female senior partner, an employee who brought in a lot of business but was considered a nightmare to work for. Ostrow investigated and found that the woman did need to improve her communication and team-building skills. But Ostrow also found that she was introverted and shy rather than cold and inaccessible.

“The thing that was so astonishing to me was that I found out about the horrendously bad leadership of all these men at the firm. They were back-stabbing her in just awful ways,” Ostrow said. “I went to the head of the firm and said: ‘You’ve got a bigger problem here. Why are you putting her in a position of being the only one coached when you have all these other jerks?’ They said there was nothing they could do about it.”

And This doesn't say what kind of change;

Sharon Mavin, dean of the Newcastle Business School at Northumbria University in Britain and author of “Queen Bees, Wannabees and Afraid to Bees,” said that numbers matter.

Mavin — who coined the term “Venus Envy” to describe the sometimes simmering hostility between women in management — said some studies have found that when female leaders make up a critical mass of at least 20 percent, they are more likely to change workplace culture than simply try to fit into it. Then workers, who tend to react to female bosses as women and to male bosses as bosses, may begin to see them differently.

Change for a improved workplace environment? Lets hope so.

The micro- attention on women CEO's while typical, sexist and disgusting, if it has any positive outcome, is the attention placed on their male counterparts in articles like these, and CEO's in general.

[Nikia]

5. As a new supervisor in my company, I feel this pressure

I did have problems with one female and one male employee who thought that I was an evil tyrant, even though I was 10 times more polite and nice than my male predecessor who regularly had angry emotional outbursts, even when someone had done nothing wrong. They are no longer with the company. I do feel that I have to make an effort to be tough or my authority will be questioned. On the otherhand, I feel that I could never get away with the overagression and angry outbursts that the male supervisors and managers seem to get away with. I am lucky in that my best friend at work is a strong female supervisor over mostly male employees. While I think that she really has it together, I know that she has been criticized for crossing the acceptable female aggression line that the men are regularly crossing. This is at the most gender equal company where I have worked too.

[seabeyond]

6. isnt it interesting though. it always kinda hits me upside the head, cause i am not expecting it.

but it is there so readily.