Why can't a woman be like a man?

“Why can’t a woman be like a man?” asked Professor Higgins in the 1964 film “My Fair Lady”. More recently we received a query from a (male) reader: “Why are women so rule-governed and why do they fear the unusual? Often found in HR, they seem to lack imagination and seek safety, precedent and control.”

Is this question simply to enliven our lives with the ever-popular ‘battle of the sexes’ or is something here really of note?

Surely, the need for safety, precedent and control is not exclusively female. We have found elsewhere that safety and security does not top the rankings in women’s hierarchy of needs, as Maslow has it. Indeed, research carried out on this site indicates that priorities of the women’s group seem to be:

1. Self-Actualization
2. Esteem
3. Safety and Security
4. Physiological
5. Social

Self-actualization is more the motivator. So where is the source of the concern?

‘Female’ professions?

Our reader added in passing, “Often found in HR…” Is this significant too or just another devaluation of the function?

Well, there do seem to be several professions which are seen as female. For example, in the UK, clinical psychologists are overwhelmingly women. HR seems to be another. The common theme of these two professions may be that they are seen as ‘helping’ professions rather than ‘executive’ professions. (Psychiatrists appear to be overwhelmingly male, for example.)

The feminine view meanwhile, is that women are often constrained professionally. Their presence in HR or any other such ‘female orientated’ job may not always be by first choice. The general expectation is - or should be - that professional people rise to organizational positions having satisfactorily attained the standards set and meet the required criteria. But the truth might just as well be that women occupy such roles because there are no other takers or that men are considered more “suitable” for the more challenging jobs.

Risk-avoidance

Women often report that male colleagues, co-workers and superiors have no objections at all to them doing more than their scheduled tasks in order to complete team assignments. At the same time, the men are usually less than appreciative of female initiative. Thus, women may place a higher value on control, predictability and continuity and tend towards – or even be socialized into - ‘best practice’.

Women have few precedents in higher management, fewer role models, and mentors fewest of all. Novelty involves risk, and the fear of failure may breed an unwillingness to indulge natural curiosity and explore new things. So, if the assumptions in our reader’s question are true (that women are rule-governed and fear the unusual), the reasons may be more to do with the way they are treated in organizations, than with characteristically  ‘female nature’ as such.

Curiosity and innovation

Managers have two ways in which to resolve problems - by the book of ‘standard received wisdom’ or by innovation. The former way is easier, and much more safe. It appeals to recognised authority, and relies upon precedent as it follows the beaten track. The latter way on the other hand, involves risk and is far more difficult. Involving hard work, curiosity and creativity, it pushes out the boundaries, which others may wish to protect.

Curiosity, a response to the environment, is a form of exploration. It contemplates the “why”, rather than just “how” or “what” of activity. It has been defined as:

A desire (need, wish, want etc.) or inclination to know or learn especially about novel or strange things, but also to the application of care or careful attention to any object in general, or to a learning task, or to a craft.

Curiosity is highly individualized - an intrinsic process of creating, maintaining and resolving conceptual conflicts. It imagines change and constantly reprioritizes goals. Curiosity facilitates direction and intensity of learning, and it stimulates creativity in finding solutions.

Conceptual conflicts

New ideas or new information can be uncomfortable. Sometimes they interfere with the way we are used to understanding things. This is often called “conceptual conflict” – as in the cry, “It just doesn’t make sense to me!”

We can resolve such conflicts by remaining true to our current beliefs or by using the new ideas to change the way we see things. These two reactions are called ‘assimilation’ and ‘accommodation’. David Beswick, following Jean Piaget’s mention of the terms, explained:

Assimilation - avoiding, ignoring, and rationalizing new information so that it ceases to be uncomfortable. This is typically single loop learning - not questioning basic premises, but maintaining continuity with ‘the way things are around here’.

“People who readily assimilate what they experience to what is already known will not experience very much curiosity. That might be because they experience little conflict when they do not have a sufficiently differentiated map of the world for a novel event to cause much conflict, or because they are too anxious to perceive its unique characteristics and act defensively to put it away with as little trouble as possible.”

Accommodation - finding unusual information interesting, valuing discontinuity and enjoying paradox, being dissatisfied with the status quo. Typically, this involves double loop learning - questioning basic premises, being innovative, seeking revolutionary, groundbreaking change.

 “The highly curious person will have a high regard for the uniqueness of the signal and for the integrity of the cognitive map … He or she will seek the best possible fit, and typically that will require seeking additional information to build a suitable new integration of the incoming information with what was known before. So questions will be asked, calculations might be made, things will be turned over and looked under, there may well be much wondering and doubting …The result is that a new order of representation of the world is developed.”

Thus, conceptual conflicts are the beginnings of creativity. However, if people fear the new and seek safety in the old, they will tend to stick to established rules, custom and precedent. There is at least some anecdotal evidence that women in organizations avoid new ideas and risks, to avoid the responses they (expect to) get when they do.

Retaining committed resources

Studies suggest that the ‘psychological contract’ between the male-dominated company and the employee is strongly influenced by gender. Women may feel that they are neither esteemed nor rewarded in a similar fashion to men because top management generally underrates their performance, their contribution and their organizational commitment. Employers do not take actions to retain the best women personnel, preferring to put the onus on the women themselves to continually prove their worth to the system.

As researchers Koshal et al have stated:

“… only 52% of the women feel that their organizations are committed to using the talents of women and only about 20% see that business community is ready to accept women in key managerial positions.”

It seems relevant that in sixty percent of the companies studied, the senior and middle level women managers numbered less than five percent. Women might begin to feel that their professional choices is are clear. They must ‘adapt’ to the situation, or look forward to attrition at the top (as noted in the article “Why women leave you”).

Women and ‘controlled’ curiosity

Rule-governed managers seek safety, precedent and control. Prizing continuity, they seek to avoid change. Their well-ordered map of the world is jealously guarded. This may well connect with what Robin Stuart-Kotze refers to as Chameleon behaviour. If people are ‘punished’ – whether literally or not – for standing out, they will seek to block innovative behaviours. People who are humiliated for taking risks that backfire,

“… learn quickly, and they learn not to stand out from the crowd, not to take risks, and not to take initiative - in short, to be invisible.”

The unstable position of women in most organizations, may motivate risk-avoidance that is reinforced, because as we said above:

“…men are usually less than appreciative of female initiative. Thus, women may place a higher value on control, predictability and continuity and tend towards – or even be socialized into -‘best practice’.”

Frustration, uncertainty, anxiety, threat, belittlement, and lack of power or control take their toll on creative performance. We find from the article “Women at work” the net results are that:

“Within the boundaries of socially imposed isolations in the patriarchal structure, the feminine gender has become adept in the art of rule following, suppressing and repressing the natural mode of open systems … For women in organizations, theory x (the authoritarian approach) seems alive and well.”

If our reader has a point, women’s curiosity, which delves into new experiences and fosters change, may well be ‘controlled’ to maintain the status quo. And this, as it might be, is in response to their situation.

The question that should be asked is not why the ‘women in HR’ of the reader’s experience are as they are, but why the organization needs to invest in mediocrity. The workforce must be valued as important human resource assets to bring value to the system. The professional dysfunction of these companies could hurt business long term.