By Jamie Brian
If you were to walk into a meeting of business executives, law firm partners, or medical school professors, there’s a good chance that you would see fewer women than men at the table.
While women make up 50.8 percent of the United States population, the percentage of women in leadership roles significantly lags men in multiple job sectors. For example, a 2021 report from the Women Business Collaborative (WBC) found that only 8.2 percent of Fortune 500 company CEOs are women.
In the legal profession, women make up 45 percent of law associates but only 19 percent of equity partners (lawyers who own a law firm). In Congress, these numbers are even less: of the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, just 121 are held by women. In fact, since the U.S. House of Representatives’ founding in 1789, women have held just 3.3 percent of seats. And in the medical profession, only 25 percent of medical school professors are women.
These statistics don’t encompass the entire landscape of American professions, but they do provide us with a snapshot of who holds power in our institutions. Leaders shape the future; they give voice to areas of concern and make decisions that affect all of us. In many job sectors, those powerful voices are overwhelmingly the voices of men.
This is a problem because the people in power do not reflect the demographics of the communities they serve. Male voices can’t speak for female voices because they have not had the same lived experiences as women. We are the only people who can write our own stories.
In the past decades, women have trail-brazed their way into careers that traditionally have been held by men, such as STEM careers, the military, and government. However, it’s no longer enough for women to just have a seat at the table: we need more women in leadership roles.
There’s a popular quote that states, “You can’t be what you can’t see.” Women make up half of the U.S. population, but we are not seen in 50 percent of leadership roles.
This does not mean that we are incapable of being good leaders. Harvard Business Review proved this in a 2019 study that analyzed thousands of employees’ reviews of their male and female supervisors. Women outscored men in taking initiative, high integrity and honesty, motivating and inspiring others, and resilience.
These are the qualities that would make a great leader. We need more people in power who inspire others and act with integrity.
Maybe it’s our resilience that sets us apart from male leaders. Women know what it’s like to be undervalued, underrepresented, and underestimated. But despite this adversity, we keep pushing forward because we believe in our own strength.
We can become the generation that bridges the gap in gendered leadership roles. In the process, we can use our voices to uplift others
Women's Center 