Benjamin Wigand
http://www.wsj.com/articles/sheryl-sandberg-when-women-get-stuck-corporate-america-gets-stuck-1443600325?mod=rss_Technology
Sandberg’s article focuses on “when women get stuck, corporate America gets stuck” . She explains it as, it have been proven that gender diversity in executive as well has regular job positions increase profits, creativity and productivity. Sandberg uses this quote to bring up how women are a small minority in executive positions in corporate America.
Another reason I found Sheryl Sandberg’s article interesting was because she brought up a noteworthy perspective on why less women are CEOs than men. Her argument is, yes women are choosing not to be in CEO positions, but it’s not only because of family reasons, women face massive levels of stress in the CEO positions that isn’t necessarily equal to the stress men face. For this reason less women are interested in executive positions.
Her solution is to change the U.S. culturally so women leadership is embraced rather than stigmatized. An example she gives is a mother or father might be proud of a son who steps up and “leads” children on the playground, but with a female, she seems “bossy” or “controlling”. Also even though businesses are becoming more flexible, 90% of women and men believe that extended leave will hurt their careers. You can see how this is a problem with maternity leave if they are right.
I have one solution to helping with equality in the work place and work on changing a social stigma. My idea would be allowing men choosing to take paternity leave if the women would prefer to work. Some companies in the US already offer this possibility, however many businesses don’t allow paternity leave. It seems to be a double standard/social stigma of sorts in society that men cannot perform as well as women when it comes to taking care of a child. Both women and men believe this, however, it’s not fair that women have to hurt their careers by taking maternity leave. If we were to argue that women and men are supposed to be equal in society, then a man should be able to nurture and take care of a child just as much as a woman (biological differences set aside, Aka. breast feeding). It doesn’t solve all the problems in the work force, but it is one more thing that can change to help level the playing ground.