Can Women Really Just Lean In? Gender Dynamics in Professional Positions and Career Outcomes

• In Event: 589 - Regular Session. Gender Bias, Segregation, and Opportunities at Work

Abstract

In 2013, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg directed women to “lean in” at work by taking individual initiative to move into leadership positions. Yet, research continues to show that women with the same credentials and training still cannot reach the same level as men at work. By utilizing 73 semi-structured interviews with men and women who obtained MBAs from a prestigious business school and investigating their career trajectories, we show that organizations and family life can impact men and women’s decisions about work and careers. Similar to previous research we found that men are often externally recruited and promoted, which can then in turn put them on career promoting trajectories. And some women, compared to men, are more likely to leave the workforce due to a lack of ability to balance work and family at a particular organization. It should be noted that these women are only one quarter of our sample, however, so while some women do embrace traditional gender divisions of labor in the household, we find that the majority of women (and even half of the women who exit the labor force) demonstrate high work commitments and a desire to progress in their careers. This suggests that gendered organization theory may better explain the differences in women’s and men’s trajectories than would theories that emphasize women’s devotion to home.
 

Authors

• Sarah Elizabeth Patterson, Pennsylvania State University

• Sarah Damaske, Pennsylvania State University

• Christen Sheroff, Pennsylvania State University