The Advantages and Challenges of Intellectual Women as Managers
On
the 82nd anniversary of the founding of the Vietnam Women’s
Union Association (20/10/1930-20/10/1012), the Intellectual Women’s (IW) Club
hosted a workshop entitled “Advantages and challenges for intellectual women in
managerial positions”. The purpose of the seminar was to decode some latent gender
steoretypes and policy mechanisms, as well as to dissuss certain possibilities
for overcoming IW difficulties and challenges in leadership during the current
era. During the workshop, IW members also proposed solutions for gaining more
opportunities for women to study, dedicate themselves to society, and advance
their management skills. The discusion focused on how to promote their roles
and contribution for development of the city and the country as well as how to
plan and evenly distribute the female labor force at all levels, such as
departments, institutions, units, and government [1].
The
invited guests included Nguyen Thi Quyet Tam, Deputy Secretary of the Ho Chi
Minh City (HCMC) Communist Party Committee and Chairwoman of the HCMC People’s
Council, Mrs. Pham Phuong Thao,the former Deputy Secretary of the HCMC
Communist Party Committee and Chairwomen of the HCMC People's Council and Prof.
Thai Ba Can, Rector of the HCMC University of Technical Education.
Representatives of the Chairman Board and members of the IW Club were also
present.
Mrs
Nguyen Thi Khanh Tam - Vice President of the HCMC Women’s Union Association and
Editor-in-Chief of the HCMC Women’s Newspaper welcomed all attendees at the
worhshop and also gave a brief report for the management consulting firm Booz
& Company on how the Three Billion Index was created. The Index is a
ranking of 128 countries based on how effectively their leaders have
empowered women as economic agents. The Index is a composite of
established data on women’s economic and social status; it aims to isolate
factors that facilitate women’s access into a larger economy as well as
determine how additional advancements and further integration may be achieved.
There is compelling evidence that women have the potential to be powerful
drivers of economic growth. Our own estimates indicate that raising female
employment levels to that of males could have a direct impact on the GDP of 5%
in the United States, 9% in Japan, 12 % in the United Arab Emirates, and 34% in
Egypt; however, there is evidence to suggest that greater involvement of women
could possibly have an impact beyond what these numbers suggest [1&2].
Although Australian women receive up to 17% lower wages than Australian
men, Prime Minister Julia Gillard can proudly affirm that Australian women are
currently the world’s leaders in economic aspects. Reality indicates
everywhere that women have hugely contributed toward the world’s economy, their
positions of employment and their status in the workforce, however, their wages
and career advancements are not commensuarate with their contribution. Also, it
has been shown that women seem to be more “invasive” of management positions
only in small and medium-sized companies. In the list of large Fortune 500 companies,
female chief executives account for only 14.1% of the total [3].
Where
do Vietnamese women stand? Mrs. Khanh Tam said that “Vietnamese wives are
generally considered to be the ones who hold “the purse-strings in the
household”, and their husbands absolutely trust them with household management
and spending. However, when it comes to organizations, institutions, factories,
schools, and offices, women often hold positions only at the level of deputy or
chief in small departments or divisions. Is this the ‘fate’ of women? Of course
not because in reality many women have obtained high positions such as
rector of a university, director of a ministry, prime minister, and secretary
or chairperson of a province, city, or district. In HCMC, more than 30% of
women work on Boards of Directors, and as General Directors of large
corporations. Many surveys about women in leadership also have shown that the
potential for women in leadership is far greater for them than for men because
women are more flexible, and have a higher level of endurance than men. At the
same time, their appraisal and assessment of staff is more thorough than that
of men, so they know how to utilize people in the right place, at the right
time, and at the right ability. In addition, women know how to resolve
issues with more flexibility, more alertness, and more emotion. In other words
women have ‘cooler heads with warmer hearts’ in dealing thoroughly and sensibly
when doing business. Women also know how to make use of opportunities to overcome
difficulties and how to complete all duties and responsibilities of their
position and thereby they assert their leadership skills in a superior manner
compared with men.
Life
expectancy of women is longer than that of men (over 75 years of age). Women in
the labor force make up over 50% of the total workforce and women with a higher
education have increased more than 50% over the last 10 years. Recent
statistics show that 61% of female students are at the top percentile in
university entry examinations. Regarding health, the labor force, and
their ratio in higher education, women are generally not inferior to men,
while most people also acknowledge that they are the 'purse-string holders in
the household’. Therefore, there is no plausable reason to say it is normal
that the number of women in managing positions is so low.
Ms.
Khanh Tam raised the question as to how the capacity of women in management in
society should be increased, particularly since intellectual women are one of
the greatest resources in Vietnam society. First and foremost, she said that we
need specific solutions to deseminate, advocate, and raise genernal public
awareness on gender equality and women in leadership. Generally, women often
allow their husbands to develop their own careers while the women take charge
of all housework to assure that their husbands are able to keep their minds on
their work or study. When women are promoted to higher positions, they fear
that their husbands will feel inferior or would feel as if they are an ‘uneven
pair of chopsticks’ when women are elected to be leaders, the majority of men
do not feel convinced, do not support women, and do not acknowledge their
authority, which makes women’s jobs even more difficult. This leads to a
resulting low rate of women in leadership and also women themselves not wanting
to participate in leadership positions because there are too many hurdles and
problems.
Secondly,
we need to create policy mechanisms that have sufficient conditions for women
to continously obtain training and education and to create conditions for women
to devoting and showing their abilities and talent at work. Thirdly, women need
a supportive system in order to have balance between their family and work.
Finally, women need to overcome their feelings of inferiority, repudiation,
contentment as a wife, as a mother, and even as a daughter-in-law to fulfill
their filial piety to their husband’s parents. More importantly, women
need to surmount their mentality to ‘bar other women on the the way to
progress’. It is said that women like to look at everything too thoroughly, too
meticulously, which sometimes results in “seeing only a tree without seeing the
forest”. This mentality sometimes may constrain women from seeing the caliber
of other women.
Next,
Prof. Thai Ba Can, the Rector of the University of Technical Education
expressed that he was very honored to speak about Vietnamese women. There are
many articles that have sung the praises of Vietnamese women and their
qualities. These praises were based on real-life evidence in war, in labor, and
in the process of building the country. Women's endurance is infinite both
during a time of war and in time of peace. Agreeing with the other
participants, he said that women in pedagody outnumber men at all school
levels, especially in kindergarten and elementary levels. The majority of
female teachers contribute greatly to the training and formation of the
personality of generations to come. Most interesting though is the 61%
ratio of female students who graduate with outstanding credentials from
schools which indicates the huge potential, strength, and talent of women.
In
terms of management, Prof. Thai shared a message told him by his elementary
teacher. She said that historically, during the matriarchy, Vietnamese women
had great ability in social management, and their working time was always
longer than that of the men. The experience of women in leadership, therefore,
should be better than that of men.” Therefore, the development of the country
would be at a disadvantage if we did not promote women as managers in the
twenty-first century. Moreover, with regard to the history of social and family
management, women have also had profound and longer-lasting experiences which
have lasted until this day. In addition, women generally have many
wonderful traits such as flexibility, hardworking, dedicated, driven,
thoughtfulness and they can easily create unity in institutions.
Despite
all these advantages, women have not been adequately promoted because of the
following four major reasons:
·
There are certain
exceptions such as humility that sometimes make women too shy to fight for or
accept important and high positions. Some women are too sensitive when someone
talks about their drawbacks. Their expression of emotion is sometimes
inappropriate as they may cry during a meeting, which implies that they are
weak and incapable of leadership;
·
Due to their
inequality and socially underprivileged families, women have to be married
early, usually after secondary or high school, and so they do not have
opportunites to continue their higher education;
·
Promotion conditions
based on qualifications are such that it is difficult to promote women to
management positions, especially for those who are aged 35 or 36 without a master’s
degree. It is even more difficult for women having families without master’s
degrees. In fact, promotion opportunities seem to fit women who are not married
and who have completed their master's and doctorate degrees at a young age less
than 40.
·
Other barriers for
women are the age requirement for elected managers and their retirement age;
men retire at age 60, while women retire at age 55. From 25 to 40 years
of age, women have to focus on childbirth and taking care of children. When
they reach the age of 50, they have no opportunity to be promoted. This creates
the mentality of marginalization or exclusion, so that they do not want to
strive for a higher education or career development after 50. This mentality is
also common among men once they are at age 55. In other countries, they do not
regulate the planning age for high positions because to achieve these positions
requires profound knowledge, time, and experience. This is a huge drawback for
policy on age requirement and planning; this truly constrains women from being
appointed to senior positions at the age of 45-50 [3].
Prof. Mai Hong Quy – Rector at the University of Law, said that in the past year
eight female students graduated with distinction from the University while no
male students had obtained degrees with distinction. In addition, the ratio of
female students obtaining an accredited degree was 30 percent. However, when it
came to employment, no females were assigned as the head of a law office or law
firm. Moreover, she confided that her school has attempted to assign female
leaders to different departments, unfortunately, not many because of the
mandatory retirement at age 55. There are too many barriers regarding
mentality, social perception, ideology, family, and policy restrictions that
limit women from proceeding further on the journey to leardership, though
expectations for leadership is always higher for women. For example, if a
female leader is part of a broken family, people blame her for not knowing how
to balance family around work, forcing many women to choose between them.
Challenges pile upon challenges when female leaders take more time to assert
themselves in order to convince their subordinates to follow their orders, or
they must be super smart in order to win compliance or attention from their
subordinates. Therefore, women must be the best, the fiercest, and the most
determined in order to fulfill their positions allowing people to criticise
them as fascists.
Prof.
Quy also suggested that women in management truly need specific support from
their family, senior leaders, and society in order to assist them to help them
maintain and do well in leadership roles. Society is wasting a bountiful and
skilled labor force because of the policy limitations on age and retirement
requirements for elected managers. Women have no opportunity to be promoted to
higher positions once they reach the age of 50, therefore discouraging them,
and their desire to strive for more and better. They must also retire at age 55
just at the time when they are mature regarding age, are professional, have a
high degree of expertise and experience, and the ability to persuade other
people; this is totally unfair, consequently we need to fight not only for our
generation but for future generations, especially for women in the fields of
education and science. In addition, the issue of self care is important though
women in management are always swamped with work. They should at least spend
from one to two hours a day relaxing and recharging their energy. Women should
be able to enjoy things that they deserve such as traveling, fitness, and
entertainment in order to nurture their holistic health. If they are sound in
mind and body, they will be able to make good decisions at work and affirm to the
people around them that they are excellent leaders.
Dr. Phan Thi Thu Nga - the Head of Scientific Management, Department of Science and
Technology at HCMC said that she has been in charge of the Science and
Technology Division for 27 of the 32 years she has worked there. More than 40
percent of the key cadres have retired because of the retirement age policy,
which has created a shortage in human resources. The young female colleagues in
her division are busy with family and caring for their children; it takes them
approximately 10 to 15 years to care for them. Despite their being busy with
housework, many female colleagues earned their graduate degrees, worked very
hard and strove for improvement and success in their research work. When
appointed or assigned tasks, women are not prioritised in order to remain
fairly competitive as are men. According to Ms. Nga, any women appointed as
leaders are excellent and exceptional. The paradox is that women's retirement
age is 55 when they have good health, experience, expertise, good reputation,
more free time, and the desire to devote their time to work and society. What a
waste!
Ms. Ung Thi Xuan Huong - Director of the Justice Department stressed that women in
management perform better in their job than men. For instance, they do not
carry out business while drinking at restaurants or bars or while playing
tennis, and they also do not take bribes when dealing in business. In addition,
women are more subtle, gentle and thoughtful, and they are dedicated to their
work; however, women suffer many more disadvantages. Using her co-worker as an
example she illustrated how truly disadvantaged women are. Her co-worker was on
a list for being appointed to a manager. However, she was not able to climb up
the management ladder because she was married and had two children. Caring for
her children took away all of her free time, so she had to finally give up a
promotion. Now her children are grown up and she has more free time to
contribute to her work, however, she is 45 yeas old and consequently she has no
opporunity to pursue her doctoral degree or for potentially being promoted to a
position in the institution. This clearly shows that no matter how late or
early they get married, family is always the biggest concern for women [4
&5].
Ms.
Huong added that when collecting suggestions on retirement age and in
particular for elected women leaders, we should ask men their opinions as well.
Both sides will provide persuasive examples. She also agreed with the other
opinions that when women are in a leadership position, there are more demands
on them and people also expect more from them than from men. When rising to a
leadership level, men have the edge whereas women do not. This is the reason
why the proportion of women in leadership is very low at all levels, locally
and centrally. Therefore, there is an urgent need to reform the policy on
retirement age as well as the requirements for promotion to managerial
positions [4 & 5].
To
summarize, in addition to the many challenges that women in general have to
face, the attendees agreed that it is very difficult for women to obtain the
education they need to become intellectuals; yet it is even more challenging
and difficult for intellectual women to become managers. However, women do have
the advantage of being hardworking, productive, effective, convincing, and
flexible. All participants agreed with the suggestion that when it comes to
gender equality, we need to have more involvement at all levels. We need to
build on supportive systems, sanctions, and accountability to the head of each
agency, law enforcement, and policy changes.
By Doan Thi Ngoc
References
[1] http://www.booz.com/global/home/press/display/51226251
[2] http://www.booz.com/media/uploads/BoozCo_Empowering-the-Third-Billion_Full-Report.pdf
[3] http://phunuonline.com.vn/the-gioi/24h-qua/vai-tro-cua-lao-dong-nu-duoc-danh-gia-cao/a77198.html
[4] http://phunuonline.com.vn/xa-hoi/hoat-dong-hoi/-khi-nu-tri-thuc-lam-cong-tac-quan-ly-/a77329.html
