Why Congress Needs Women: Bringing Sanity to the House and Senate (Women's Psychology) by Michele Paludi

Author:Michele Paludi [Paludi, Michele]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781440832727
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
Published: 2016-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

Maternal Penalty

An additional factor that affects women leaders is motherhood. Besides the very real challenges of balancing work and family life for employed women who still typically carry the predominant burden of childcare responsibilities are the stereotypic perceptions of mothers. As research has documented (Correll, Benard, & Paik, 2007; Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2004), when raters are asked to evaluate male and female managers or consultants who are equally qualified, a woman who also is portrayed as a mother is perceived as less competent and less promotable, and is paid less, than the same woman who is not a mother. For men, not only is being a parent not a strike against them, but in some cases they actually are paid more than their nonparent male counterpart. Indeed, the pay gap between mothers and non-mothers is larger than the pay gap between women and men (Avellar & Smock, 2003; Crittenden, 2001).

The explanation for this “motherhood penalty” rests on two related factors: the stereotypes of mothers as not being committed workers (Correll et al., 2007) and the lower status attributed to “mothers” compared to “employees” (Ridgeway & Correll, 2004). For men, being a father does not signal a negative change in status; indeed, fathers may be viewed as even more responsible and committed to the job than their nonparent counterparts. Because of their lower status, employees who are mothers appear to be judged by a harsher standard than are employees who are non-mothers (Correll et al., 2007). This dynamic is identical to the harsher standard applied to women as a group compared to men as a group, as described earlier. In many ways, the difference in standards is more pronounced when based on employee parental status than it is when based on employee gender.

Pregnancy itself can also be a discriminatory cue, since it reminds observers of women’s traditional child-rearing role. Glick and Fiske (2007) review research that documents that women are more likely to be patronized and viewed as incompetent when pregnant than when not pregnant. They are particularly unlikely to be viewed as suited for a leadership position.

Given the earlier discussion, it is perhaps not surprising that female leaders are less likely to be married and/or to have children than are their male counterparts (Lyness & Thompson, 1997). Even when they are married or are mothers, women executives often take pains to keep their personal and professional identities separate.

In general, cues that trigger traditional female stereotypes (e.g., pregnancy and motherhood) are associated with more discriminatory evaluations of professional women since communal traits in women are seen as antithetical to the agentic traits expected in leadership positions.

Congresswoman Linda Sanchez once quipped:

You can’t be the perfect member of Congress and the perfect mother 100 percent of the time. (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lindasanch632587.html)

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