Women’s Career In Men’s Business

It is a popular belief that men and women are start off their careers on an equal footing and have equal chances to succeed. Why then there are not many women occupying high rank positions in government or top management? And those women who managed to advance in their careers see it as a lucky concourse of circumstances or unexpected chance. They tend to explain their success as: “It so happened”. Aren’t women less ambitious than men? Sociologists’ findings suggest otherwise. Women always search for more clever, savvy, successful and creative partner in life that speaks for women’s exceptional demands.



Women have completely different attitude towards career than men. Career for a woman is primarily a source for personal growth, contentment and self –actualization as well as an opportunity to be engaged in a favorite work. For men, career is understood as holding prestigious and promising positions. There is a prevalent belief in our society that career plays very little role in the life of a true woman. Family, children, stability and cozy home environment are more important for a true woman than her career aspirations. Indeed, these are really important things in life and not only for a woman but also for a man. So, woman’s career ambitions should not be disregarded.

Assuming a woman has settled down to a married life. She has got kids and a cozy home. What comes next? According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, once basic needs are met the higher needs in this hierarchy come into focus and the issue of self-actualization (i.e. career) comes up. A woman steps out of her comfort zone to broad lands of business and finds herself in … a tough world ruled by men. A great number of women accustomed to a warm and friendly family atmosphere take aback and give up their career aspirations. Others accept the rules of the game created by men and wrestle desperately for a place in the sun. They suffer from their own stereotyped patterns of behavior dictated by business environment as well as male mentality and logic. Carrying on a stubborn fight against man’s methods of running business, women often lose the fight.

Here is the question: shall these rules be accepted? Whether man’s approach of making a career is to be followed? Is it worth for a woman to act like a man in a male-dominated business world i.e. being on “male’s territory”? Women’s nature are differ from the men’s one so the methods of achieving goals shall be and will be totally different. So, what are our advantages over men?

1. Women are gifted with a great number of wonderful qualities that are to be appreciated by wise managers. These are loyalty, devotion, self-consistency, self-discipline, honesty, patience and adaptability. Women are not likely to take risks. They would rather prefer all-win choices. If logic does not work it should be wise to switch from intellectual area of conversation into the emotional one that is considered to be “women’s territory”.

2. Women who achieved success in business admitted that such feminine qualities as abilities to cooperate with people, diplomacy and working out the smallest details helped them advance in their career. A capable woman is quick in the uptake at the emotional level. She is easy to put herself in client’s or customer’s shoes and utilize it effectively.

3. Another indisputable advantage of a woman in a male-dominated business world is that she possesses a gift of eloquence and is able to convince opponent anything she chooses.

4. There is another factor that has been known in psychology since the Freud times. A priopi, men are not ready to compete with women since men give women credit for their greater abilities such as giving birth to a baby. This is what men will never accomplish under any circumstances. There are purely feminine life spheres where men are banned to enter. And business is considered to be solely “men’s territory” where women are not allowed at all since they actually may succeed there!

5. Whether men like it or nor but they will have to accept a women as a serious adversary. She has to make double efforts to be equal to men in our society. The fact that women succeed in getting this status in male-dominated environment points to the fact that women possess high potential.

6. It should seem that men have all the trumps in hand. They inherit pragmatic thinking, logic, coherence, harshness, ability to counter hardships, analyze situation with composure, take on full responsibility (unwilling to share it with anybody) and so on. On the contrary, wise women are great at getting what they want. It is easy for women to have their own way. Men counteract aggression with aggression since they have no right for retreat. And this is their weak point for they become less flexible. They always go on contrasting with each other in terms of strength, intellectual abilities, ambitions… Women are free to act more flexible: step aside or even step back accepting own weakness that may disarm her partner.

7. Being a business woman it is easy to switch from male style of behavior to female one while interacting with men in business. This is the most correct way of behavior for a woman who decided to gain a foothold in hereditary man’s walk of life. That is why as soon as a woman completely assimilate with men, she can easily be defeated. But when a woman acts in intuitive and emotional zone then men get confused when dealing with her.

8. In practice, women are more capable of succeeding even in traditionally male’s professions.

9. According to HR agents, female job applicants have advantages in appearance since they are more well-groomed and well-attended. They can better present themselves and have greater speech skills.

10. When a woman says: “There is something fishy about this person”- it turns out she is right. And it has nothing to do with intuition which is not respected by men. Women are quicker to react to insight information while dealing with people and better to perceive the signs of body language.

11. Intel corporation survey counts in favor of women. It turns out that women are more apt to deal with several tasks at once. Contemporary lifestyle requires the multi-task solving abilities than ever before and women are the best candidates for this role.

12. And this argument speaks well for female managers. Women possess effective rather than suppressive abilities in exercising an influence over people. That is the reason of why women succeed in approaching “suppress-free” management style that help them reveal and nurture creative potential among employees, maintain loyalty towards work and inspire self-motivation.

13. For decades IQ has been the measurement of ability to perform certain type of work. Men usually have a higher IQ rate than women, In recent years IQ rate yield the pass to EQ - Emotional Quotient. Scientists proved that intellect alone is not enough for climbing a corporate ladder successfully. Psychologists assert that quite often problems at work may arise due to emotional immaturity rather than professional incompetence.

Posted in: The Business

Tags: emotion women, Emotional Quotient, emotions women, EQ, IQ, Men Business, Men In Business, Mens Business, Successful, Women Business, Women Career |

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