LinkedIn Pulse: Sally Blount

Sally Blount, dean at the Kellogg school of management, wrote an article originally published on Kellogg Insight and then republished for LinkedIn Pulse. She writes about the 3 pivot points that keep women from rising to the C-suite. Those points are mainly time frames, or ages, where women make mistakes or devalue their career goals and replace with personal gain. She outlines first and foremost the attendee difference between men and women in business school. Women account for 60% of college graduates yet only 25% of MBA programs are female. She goes on to the second phase, where caregiving roles become focal, whether that be for children or parents. The third phase is when women are at the point of high status within their careers but see less value in money and more value in meaning. These women outweigh purposeful work for titles and raises, and therefore look to turn down more work and consider extracurriculars to find meaning, possibly quitting their careers.

The Dean of Paul College, Deborah Merrill-Sands, came to my Women In Business meeting last year to talk about women in the workforce, her own experiences, and ask for our input. She had some interesting stories of silent sexism such as being expected to keep minutes at meetings where she was of the same status and same workload but the only women in those meetings. She asked us why we thought Paul was decreasing in female attendance. I was more than happy to raise my hand and explain that often times in group projects, I feel that men expect me to do all of the work, and they rarely contribute even 30%.

At the time of this meeting I was in 2 different group projects. In one, I had never met 2 of my group partners. They never responded to my emails, never showed up to class, and never made an effort to connect. Of course, I was the only girl in this 4 person group. Luckily, the other group member met with me for the project. Though he was an exchange student that had difficulty understanding assignments, I gave him a lot of credit for trying to participate and always being more than willing to meet and discuss. I met the 2 other boys on the LAST day of the class when they came up to me before the professor arrived, and explained they were very busy and asked me to include their names on the project report. The other group I was in consisted of me and 4 boys. These boys were constantly, of course, "too busy" to get together. I wrote our first paper alone but asked if anyone else could print it for class because I did not have a printer. They agreed, however, the next day in class NONE of them showed up. The rest of the group work went as you would expect, with our final powerpoint presentation being incomplete after they told me to "take a chill pill" when I asked them to finish their respective slides before class.

It was bittersweet when every girl in our 80 member group agreed. They all had their stories and wanted to be heard, because as females, we are told we are dramatic. If I was told before my enrollment as a business student that the sexism would start so early and be so brutal, I would have reconsidered my major.