Pamela Stone, CUNY: "Opting Out"—NOT: Challenging Stereotypes and Creating Real Options for Women in the Professions

The following are my notes from Stone's presentation at the HBS Gender & Work Conference, March 1 2013

It's hard to believe we are here 50 years after women were admitted to Harvard Business School to talk about women “opting out.”

Women are underrepresented in professions and leadership positions; not an issue of recruiting them into these fields, rather an issue of keeping women in these fields.

High-achieving women’s time out of career: up to 40% report taking some time out during their careers (Reimers & Stone, 2008; Hewlett & Luce, 2005; Goldin & Katz, 2008). What accounts for women taking these voluntary and very costly exits? One interpretation: women are choosing to be home (“Why women still can’t have it all,” “The case for staying home,” “I don’t know how she does it,” “The ten year nap,” and so on).

Personal story: Back when Pam was a soccer mom, a friend named Ann she knew from the soccer fields helped organize an effort at the end of the season to get parents together to give the coach a gift. Ann spearheaded the effort and gave a speech thanking the coach. When Pam thanked Ann for a nice job well done, Ann said, “Well, I guess a law degree from Yale is good for something;” Pam’s back-story about Ann did not include a law degree from Yale Law School; what was she doing staying at home? It sounded like Ann was wondering the same thing.

Stone (2007) interviewed 54 women with higher education degrees who lived across the country and worked in a variety of occupations. They’d graduated in the 80s and 90s, and 2/3 were in male-dominated professions (law, medicine, etc.). What’s driving these women to quit? Why are they leaving?

Some of the most powerful myths about why these women “opt out":

Myth #1: They are traditional.

   
The reality is that they’re at home, but that’s not necessarily a place they want to be. Stone’s interviews documented a loss of sense of status and self and of professional identity, and a feeling that they’re not the kind of role model they want to be for their children, especially for their daughters.

Myth #2: They are not competent or ambitious.

Interviews suggested otherwise; very strategic about their educations, advanced degrees (25% MBAs, 13% JDs, 4% MDs, etc.)

Myth #3: They quit because of family.

Virtually all women said they told their employer they were quitting because of family because they wanted to work again in the future, and to say otherwise would be burning bridges. Saying you were leaving for family reasons was the socially acceptable reason to give, but the real reason for quitting was workplace pushes, such as 60 hour weeks. 2/3 worked part-time before they quit, trying to forge solutions to keep working, but these solutions became the problem. No overtime pay, working 20 hrs on the books but 40 in reality, felt very marginalized, significant responsibilities were taken away, basically demoted more to assistant level; felt stigmatized, second-class citizens; these policies actually disincentivized women to stay in their careers.

Myth #4: They will only leave anyway.

Not necessarily. Many signals to the women that women were seen as “over” once they became mothers, or started working flexibly. Assumed to be no longer being committed, etc. Women often hung in there for a long time; many worked past the birth of their second child, through school age. These were women who didn’t “have” to work and could have quit anytime, but hung in there as long as possible; worked for the “best” companies (e.g., 100 best companies to work for according to Fortune and Working Mother), yet still felt this way. Importantly, all of these arrangements were privately brokered according to the whim of their supervisor. Story after story of arbitrary and capricious decisions being made that affected women’s careers. Managerial discretion put them in a “special favor” status, whereby their supervisors wanted women to keep the arrangement low profile, as though what they were doing was taboo or something not to be proud of. This created inherently vulnerable and unstable situations.

Stages of career disengagement: seamless entry --> advancement and upward trajectory --> motherhood and career --> workplace inflexibility and stall --> career exit

Follow-up: 0% returned to former employer. Whereas 65% worked in male-dominated professions before they quit, only 25% did so when they returned to work. Found other professions (e.g., engineer became teacher). Re-entry and redirection, “starting over,” not opting out, want to continue working, but their workplaces did not make possible.

All kinds of terms to describe this – sequencing, opting out, off-ramping, down shifting – that connote a positive easy feeling to what is happening, not the limited options and dashed opportunities and loss of identity, aspirations, and economic independence that women face. These terms also don’t connote the cost to employers of losing competent professional talent, experienced workers and diverse voices, right when they were ready to be promoted to leadership roles.