By Jessica Titlebaum (Chicago)

Understanding and breaking stereotypes was a hot topic at the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) Summit last week in Chicago.  The NCWIT was established in 2004 with support from the National Science Foundation to increase the amount of women in computing and technology. NCWIT does not consider themselves a women’s network rather a change leader bringing men and women together to recruit, develop, and retain women in information technology.

One of the speakers at the Summit was Dr. Shelley Correll, a professor at Stanford University who studies how gendered expectations shape the everyday experiences of men and women in achievement-oriented settings. She spoke on the value of understanding biases and stereotypes within the hiring process.

Dr. Correll began her presentation referring to a study about the number of female musicians performing in orchestras. A study co-authored by Cecilia Rouse, an associate professor at Princeton University, and Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard University, confirmed the existence of sex-biased hiring by major symphony orchestras and illustrated the value of blind auditions.

According to Correll, females only represented 5% of the musicians that played in symphony orchestras in the 1970’s. When blind auditions were introduced, musicians played behind a screen so the sex of the musician was hidden, 50 percent of the musicians that moved on to the second round of auditions were females.  Today, females make up 25 percent of the musicians in symphony orchestras.

“This study points out two things,” said Correll. “The first is that gender stereotypes bias the evaluations of individuals in ways that are often male advantaging. The second is that these biases can be reduced or eliminated.”

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

According to a new study by Treasury and Risk magazine, twice as many women as men in finance (80% versus 41%) see a glass ceiling for women in the corporate space.

This is only one of the notable divergences in views between men and women about gender in the corporate workplace. For example, the study also revealed that women are generally dissatisfied with corporate efforts to promote senior level diversity – only 43% of women would give their company’s initiatives an A or B grade, while 80% of men would.

But while it’s clear that more women see challenges to their advancement than men do, times are changing. In fact, the percentage of men who do acknowledge that there are unseen barriers to women’s advancement is increasing at a rapid rate. The percentage of men who do acknowledge a glass ceiling has increased significantly since just last year when it was only 29%.

Is it this just a statistical quirk, or does it mean times are changing for women in the industry? Either way, the vast difference between male and females regarding fairness for women in the industry is alarming. Despite (or maybe because of) decades of work to promote diversity in finance, the majority of men do not believe there are hidden biases that prevent women from advancing as quickly as they do – and this could be a barrier in itself.

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Recently, Marie Claire published an interview with Sallie Krawcheck, one of her first since her ouster last fall from Bank of America, where she was President of Global Wealth and Investment Management.

Krawcheck expressed her dissatisfaction with programs designed to develop women. She said:

“But if you look around Wall Street and corporate America, we’re putting women on diversity councils; we’re putting them in mentoring programs; we’re giving them special leadership training, telling them how to ask for promotions — but we are not promoting them. My goodness, we’re just making women busier. There needs to be a rethink about how to make them successful in these organizations.”

So-called “fix the women” approaches amount to little if companies aren’t willing to address the systemic, cultural reasons keeping women out of top jobs.

It’s about changing attitudes – and that’s much more difficult to manage than setting up networking or development initiatives.

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the report by Lord Davies of Abersoch on women in the UK boardroom, which argued that companies should take action now to increase the number of female board directors. The report called for a target of 25% women on boards by 2015. In order to do this, it suggested, 33% of board appointments would have to go to women over the next year. The Davies report catapulted the issue of boardroom gender diversity into public discourse and for the past year, companies have been urged to diversify their table of power.

This week Lord Davies released “One Year On,” a review of progress made over the past year, in conjunction with Cranfield School of Management’s annual “Female FTSE Board Report,” revealing that many UK companies have stepped up to the challenge.  Davies wrote:

“In the three years prior to my report the number of women on boards had effectively plateaued, stalling at less than a single percentage-point rise year-on-year. Over the past year, however, we have seen the biggest-ever reported increase in the percentage of women on boards.”

Research produced over the past year had shown that companies were not making progress fast enough to meet Davies’ 2015 target – but a twist in the data indicates that the UK may just meet that goal. He added, “…should we maintain this momentum we would see a record 26.7% female board representation by 2015. This is great news, and demonstrates how a voluntary business-led approach can work.”

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