Lean In Part 16

2. U.S. Census Bureau, "Table FG1 Married Couple Family Groups, by Labor Force Status of Both Spouses, and Race and Hispanic Origin of the Reference Person," America's Families and Living Arrangements, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement (2011), http://www.census.gov/hhes/families/data/cps2011.html.

3. U.S. Census Bureau, "Table FG10 Family Groups," America's Families and Living Arrangements, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement (2011), http://www.census.gov/hhes/families/data/cps2011.html. Calculation derived by focusing on all family groups with children under eighteen.

4. Tina Fey, Bossypants (New York: Little, Brown, 2011), 256.

5. Gloria Steinem, "Gloria Steinem on Progress and Women's Rights," interview by Oprah Winfrey, Oprah's Next Chapter, YouTube video, 3:52 minutes, April 16, 2012, published by Oprah Winfrey Network, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orrmWHnFjqI&feature=relmfu.

6. Beth Saulnier, "Meet the Dean," Weill Cornell Medicine Magazine, Spring 2012, 25.

7. Jennifer Stuart, "Work and Motherhood: Preliminary Report of a Psychoa.n.a.lytic Study," The Psychoa.n.a.lytic Quarterly 76, no. 2 (2007): 482.

8. Nora Ephron, 1996 commencement address, Wellesley College, http://new.wellesley.edu/events/commencementarchives/1996commencement.

9. Robyn J. Ely and Deborah L. Rhode, "Women and Leaders.h.i.+p: Defining the Challenges," in Handbook of Leaders.h.i.+p Theory and Practice, ed. Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana (Boston: Harvard Business School Publis.h.i.+ng, 2010), 377410; Deborah L. Rhode and Joan C. Williams, "Legal Perspectives on Employment Discrimination," in s.e.x Discrimination in the Workplace: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Faye J. Crosby, Margaret S. Stockdale, and S. Ann Ropp (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), 23570; and Ann Crittenden, The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001).

10. Pamela Stone, Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); Leslie A. Perlow, "Boundary Control: The Social Ordering of Work and Family Time in a High-Tech Corporation," Administrative Science Quarterly 43, no. 2 (1998): 32857; and Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1997). Joan Williams, a law professor and founding director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, refers to these penalties as "flexibility stigma."

11. Jennifer Gla.s.s, "Blessing or Curse? Work-Family Policies and Mother's Wage Growth over Time," Work and Occupations 31, no. 3 (2004): 36794; and Mindy Fried, Taking Time: Parental Leave Policy and Corporate Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998). Depending on the type of flexible work practice, women in nonprofessional jobs can pay steep penalties as well. For example, Webber and Williams (2008) examined two groups of mothers (professional and low-wage workers) and found that both groups experienced penalties for working part-time (less pay, demotions, etc.). See Gretchen Webber and Christine Williams, "Mothers in 'Good' and 'Bad' Part-Time Jobs: Different Problems, Same Result," Gender & Society 22, no. 6 (2008): 75277.

12. Nicholas Bloom et al., "Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment" (July 2012), http://www.stanford.edu/~nbloom/WFH.pdf. New research also suggests that work from home practices like telecommuting can have downsides such as increasing work hours and intensifying work demands made upon employees. See Mary C. Noonan and Jennifer L. Gla.s.s, "The Hard Truth About Telecommuting," Monthly Labor Review 135, no. 6 (2012): 3845.

13. New research suggests that working long hours reduces productivity. Harvard Business School professor Leslie A. Perlow found that by forcing consultants at the Boston Consulting Group to work less, they became more effective. To enable one scheduled night off per week, Perlow had the work teams engage in open and honest communication so they could divvy up work more efficiently. She also had the work teams devise plans and share information so that the consultants could cover for one another during their night off. As a result of these relatively small changes, the consultants felt better about both their work and their work-life balance. Consultants and their supervisors evaluated their work more highly. Fewer people quit. Team communication improved. And a larger share of consultants who took time away from work felt like they were delivering value to their client compared with the share of consultants who continued to work very long hours. See Leslie Perlow, Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012).

14. Colin Powell with Tony Koltz, It Worked For Me: In Life and Leaders.h.i.+p (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 40.

15. Joan C. Williams and Heather Boushey, The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict: The Poor, The Professionals, and the Missing Middle, Center for American Progress and Center for WorkLife Law (January 2010), 7. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/three_faces_report.html.

16. Economic Policy Inst.i.tute, "Chart: Annual Hours of Work, Married Men and Women, 2554, with Children, 19792010, by Income Fifth," The State of Working America, http://stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-income-table-217-annual-hours-work-married/. a.s.suming a fifty-week work year, middle-income married men and women with children worked 428 more hours in 2010 than in 1979, or an average of 8.6 more hours per week.

While some groups of Americans may have too much work to do, other groups, particularly low-wage, less-skilled workers do not have enough. Sociologists refer to this trend as the "growing dispersion" of work hours between more and less educated workers. For more on the dispersion of work hours, see Arne L. Kallenberg, Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s to 2000s (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011), 15254; and Jerry A. Jacobs and Kathleen Gerson, The Time Divide: Work, Family, Gender Inequality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).

17. Peter Kuhn and Fernando Lozano, "The Expanding Workweek? Understanding Trends in Long Work Hours Among U.S. Men, 19792006," Journal of Labor Economics 26, no. 2 (2008): 31143; Cynthia Fuchs Epstein and Arne L. Kalleberg, eds., Fighting for Time: s.h.i.+fting Boundaries of Work and Social Life (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2004).

18. Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce, "Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek," Harvard Business Review 84, no. 12 (2006): 51.

19. Sarah Perez, "80% of Americans Work 'After Hours,' Equaling an Extra Day of Work Per Week," Techcrunch, July 2, 2012, http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/02/80-of-americans-work-after-hours-equaling-an-extra-day-of-work-per-week/.

20. Bronwyn Fryer, "Sleep Deficit: The Performance Killer," Harvard Business Review 84, no. 10 (2006): 5359, http://hbr.org/2006/10/sleep-deficit-the-performance-killer. For reviews on the cognitive impact of insufficient sleep, see Paula A. Alhola and Paivi Polo-Kantola, "Sleep Deprivation: Impact on Cognitive Performance," Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 3, no. 5 (2007): 55367; and Jeffrey S. Durmer and David F. Dinges, "Neurocognitive Consequences of Sleep Deprivation," Seminars in Neurology 25, no. 1 (2005): 11729.

21. Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, and Melissa A. Milkie, The Changing Rhythms of American Family Life (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006), 7477. This study of the amount of time parents report taking care of their children finds that in 2000 both employed and nonemployed mothers spent, on average, almost 6.5 more hours per week on caregiving than their counterparts reported in 1975. Findings like these lead the authors to conclude, "It is as if a cultural s.h.i.+ft occurred that propelled all mothers toward spending more time with their children" (p. 78). The increase in the amount of time parents spend with their children is largely explained by parents combining caregiving and leisure activities, which means that "either child care has become more oriented toward fun activities, or that parents are more frequently including children in their own leisure activities" (p. 85). This move away from adult-only leisure activities combined with an increase in mult.i.tasking while spending free time with children points to a willingness among parents to sacrifice personal time in order to spend more time with their children. A 2009 study found that in comparison to nonemployed mothers, full-time employed mothers spend less time per week in every leisure activity ranging from TV watching to community and socializing activities, resulting in ten less hours of leisure time per week. As opposed to mothers, there is little difference in the amount of leisure time between fathers with wives who work full-time versus fathers with wives who work less than full-time. See Melissa A. Milkie, Sara B. Raley, and Suzanne M. Bianchi, "Taking on the Second s.h.i.+ft: Time Allocations and Time Pressures of U.S. Parents with Preschoolers," Social Forces 88, no. 2 (2009): 487517.

22. Sharon Hays, The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996).

23. The NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, ed., Child Care and Child Development: Results from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (New York: Guilford, 2005).

24. National Inst.i.tute of Child Health and Human Development, Findings for Children up to Age 4 Years, The NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, NIH Pub. No. 054318 (2006), 1, http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/upload/seccyd_06.pdf.

25. Ibid.; see also NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, "Child-Care Effect Sizes for the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development," American Psychologist 61, no. 2 (2006): 99116. In some cases, the U.S. study showed that children who spent longer hours in child care exhibited higher instances of behavioral problems such as temper tantrums or talking back. These problems arose less often in high-quality child care settings and largely subsided by the sixth grade. As Kathleen McCartney, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a princ.i.p.al investigator of the study, noted, "The child care hours effect is small by any standard. Any risks a.s.sociated with more hours in child care need to be weighed against the benefits of maternal employment, including decreased maternal depression and more family income" (e-mail to author, February 26, 2012). For a discussion of these findings and issues, see Kathleen McCartney et al., "Testing a Series of Causal Propositions Relating Time in Child Care to Children's Externalizing Behavior," Development Psychology 46, no. 1 (2010): 117. For a meta-a.n.a.lysis of maternal employment and children's achievement, see Wendy Goldberg et al., "Maternal Employment and Children's Achievement in Context: A Meta-a.n.a.lysis of Four Decades of Research," Psychological Bulletin 134, no. 1 (2008): 77108.

Scholars have noted that while the preponderance of evidence shows that maternal employment has no adverse effect on young children's development, maternal employment in the first year of life has been linked with lower cognitive development and behavior issues for some children. Several factors moderate these findings, ranging from the level of parental sensitivity to the quality of the care babies receive. See Jane Waldfogel, "Parental Work Arrangements and Child Development," Canadian Public Policy 33, no. 2 (2007): 25171.

Whether care is provided by a parent or another caregiver, studies consistently find that it is the quality of the caretaking that matters most. Children need to receive care that is sensitive and responsive to their particular needs. For a discussion, see Jane Waldfogel, What Children Need (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).

26. National Inst.i.tute of Child Health and Human Development, Findings for Children up to Age 4 Years; National Inst.i.tute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care and Research Network, "Fathers' and Mothers' Parenting Behavior and Beliefs as Predictors of Children's Social Adjustment and Transition to School," Journal of Family Psychology 18, no. 4 (2004): 62838.

27. NICHD Early Child Care and Research Network, "Child-Care Effect Sizes," 113.

28. A UK study of eleven thousand children revealed that the children who demonstrated the highest measures of well-being came from families in which both parents worked outside the home. Controlling for maternal education and household income, children from two-job families, especially girls, had the fewest number of behavioral difficulties, such as being hyperactive or feeling unhappy and worried. See Anne McMunn et al., "Maternal Employment and Child Socio-Emotional Behavior in the UK: Longitudinal Evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study," Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 66, no. 7 (2012): 16.

29. Robin W. Simon, "Gender, Multiple Roles, Role Meaning, and Mental Health," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 36, no. 2 (1995): 18294.

30. Marie C. Wilson, Closing the Leaders.h.i.+p Gap: Add Women, Change Everything (New York: Penguin, 2007), 58.

31. Melanie Rudd, Jennifer Aaker, and Michael I. Norton, "Leave Them Smiling: How Small Acts Create More Happiness than Large Acts," working paper (2011), http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/aaker/pages/doc.u.ments/LeaveThemSmiling_RuddAakerNorton121611.pdf.

32. Mary C. Curtis, "There's More to Sheryl Sandberg's Secret," Was.h.i.+ngton Post, April 4, 2012, http://www.was.h.i.+ngtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/theres-more-to-sheryl-sandbergs-secret/2012/04/04/gIQAGhZsvS_blog.html.

10. LET'S START TALKING ABOUT IT

1. Gloria Steinem, "In Defense of the 'Chick-Flick,' " Alternet, July 6, 2007, http://www.alternet.org/story/56219/gloria_steinem%3A_in_defense_of_the_'chick_flick'.

2. Marianne Cooper, "The New F-Word," Gender News, February 28, 2011, http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2011/new-f-word.

3. Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (New York: Crown, 1991).

4. Richard H. Thaler and Ca.s.s R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).

5. Corinne A. Moss-Racusin et al., "Science Faculty's Subtle Gender Biases Favor Male Students," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109, no. 41 (2012): 1647479.

6. For a study on job applicants, see Rhea E. Steinpreis, Katie A. Anders, and Dawn Ritzke, "The Impact of Gender on the Review of Curricula Vitae of Job Applicants and Tenure Candidates: A National Empirical Study," s.e.x Roles 41, nos. 78 (1999): 50928. For a study on gender bias and scholars.h.i.+ps, see Christine Wenners and Agnes Wold, "Nepotism and s.e.xism in Peer Review," Nature 387 (1997): 34143. For the study on bias in orchestra tryouts, see Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse, "Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of 'Blind' Auditions on Female Musicians," The American Economic Review 90, no. 4 (2000): 71541.

7. Economists Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse examined the hiring practices among top orchestras in the United States and found that changing to blind auditions, in which judges could hear but not see the applicant, reduced discrimination against women. They estimate that the switch to blind auditions accounts for 30 percent of the increase in the proportion of women among new hires. See Goldin and Rouse, "Orchestrating Impartiality," 71541.

8. Emily p.r.o.nin, Thomas Gilovich, and Lee Ross, "Objectivity in the Eye of the Beholder: Divergent Perceptions of Bias in Self Versus Others," Psychological Review 111, no. 3 (2004): 78199; Emily p.r.o.nin, Daniel Y. Lin, and Lee Ross, "The Bias Blind Spot: Perceptions of Bias in Self Versus Others," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28, no. 3 (2002): 36981.

9. Eric Luis Uhlmann and Geoffrey L. Cohen, "Constructed Criteria: Redefining Merit to Justify Discrimination," Psychological Science 16, no. 6 (2005): 47480. Overall, this study found that when a man possessed a particular characteristic or trait, then that quality was rated as a more important hiring criterion than when he did not possess that quality. Even typically female qualities such as "being family oriented" or "having children" were rated as more important hiring criteria when a man had these qualities than when he did not. This kind of favoritism was not shown toward the female applicant. In fact, when it came to possessing a strong educational record, the study found a trend toward the reverse in that when a female applicant had a strong educational record that quality was rated as a less important hiring criterion then when she did not possess a strong educational record. However, this reversal trend did not reach statistical significance.

This study found that evaluators redefine hiring criteria for gender-stereotypical jobs to match the specific experiences and credentials that a candidate of the desired gender happens to possess. For the stereotypically male job of police chief, the male candidate was favored. But when the authors conducted the same kind of experiment for a stereotypically female job of women's studies professor, the female applicant got a boost. In this case, having a strong record of public advocacy on women's issues was rated an important hiring criterion when the female candidate had the strong record and not important when the female candidate did not have a strong record. No such favoritism was extended to the male candidate. Other research supports the idea that evaluators can subtly s.h.i.+ft the criteria they base their hiring decision upon to the detriment of gender- or racial-atypical candidates. For example, a 2008 study by Phelan et al. examined the hiring criteria used to evaluate male and female agentic (highly competent, confident, ambitious) or communal (modest, sociable) managerial job applicants. The results found that evaluators "weighed competence more heavily than social skills for all applicants, with the exception of agentic women, whose social skills were given more weight than competence." The authors conclude that "evaluators s.h.i.+fted the job criteria away from agentic women's strong suit (competence) and toward their perceived deficit (social skills) to justify discrimination."

Uhlmann and Cohen report that in the police chief experiment the pro-male bias was driven largely by the male evaluators. While both male and female evaluators tended to construct hiring criteria favorable to the male candidate, men exhibited this bias more. When it came to hiring evaluations, male evaluators gave more positive evaluations to the male applicant than to the identical female applicant, while women gave equivalent evaluations. In the women's studies professor experiment the bias was driven by the female evaluators. It was the female evaluators, not the male evaluators, who redefined hiring criteria to the female applicant's benefit and who favored the female candidate over the male candidate in hiring evaluations. Importantly, this study found that when evaluators were asked to commit to the hiring criteria that were important for a job before learning about the applicant's gender, neither men nor women showed gender bias in their hiring evaluations. This finding suggests that to reduce discrimination, unambiguous standards of merit should be agreed upon prior to the review of job candidates.

This study ill.u.s.trates that people can s.h.i.+ft hiring criteria so that they fit with the experiences and credentials of the person (male or female) they would like to hire, particularly for gender-stereotypical jobs, thereby using "merit" to justify discrimination. Since those who felt most confident about their powers of objectivity showed the most bias in the police chief experiment, the authors suggest that this group may have felt "that they had chosen the right man for the job, when in fact they had chosen the right job criteria for the man" (p. 478). Due to time constraints, the authors did not a.s.sess self-perceived measures of objectivity in the women's studies professor experiment. Also see Julie E. Phelan, Corinne A. Moss-Racusin, and Laurie A. Rudman, "Competent Yet Out in the Cold: s.h.i.+fting Criteria for Hiring Reflect Backlash Toward Agentic Women," Psychology of Women Quarterly 32, no. 4 (2008): 40613. For more research showing that belief in one's objectivity is linked with an increase in gender discrimination, see Eric Luis Uhlmann and Geoffrey L. Cohen, " 'I Think It, Therefore It's True': Effects of Self-Perceived Objectivity on Hiring Discrimination," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 104, no. 2 (2007): 20723.