Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/63429
YourTurn Guilt and Pride May 26, 2002—Graduation day at the Brandeis University Graduate School of International Economics and Finance (GSIEF). I sit on the plat- form with the other faculty members and watch as our newly-minted graduates stride across the stage. When my eyes light on these women graduates, I feel a peculiar mixture of pride and guilt—pride that they have progressed from anxious first- year students who didn't know a debit from a credit, to these confi- dent graduates capable of demystify- ing a spreadsheet and deconstructing a business plan. And guilt because I know that I haven't really prepared them for what lies ahead. The fact is that, along with every- by Jane Hughes many of us are conditioned to pre- fer being liked to winning a point. It is an even greater challenge for many of our foreign women stu- dents, from cultures where it is well- nigh unthinkable for a woman to speak out in public, let alone for her to challenge a man's point of view. So it is not at all unusual for a woman to hand in brilliant treatises on paper, yet sit in silence through- out every class session. (This is so prevalent among Asian women, in particular, that it is sometimes called the "Asian-woman syndrome.") As one of a few full-time women Hughes and family one else, I sold them the myth: They will have a glorious professional career ahead, and it doesn't matter one iota that they are women rather than men. I told them nothing about the reality of detaching a screaming toddler from your legs so you can dash out the door, late again for the morning meeting; of the (male) co-workers whose idea of entertainment on a cross-country flight is rating the female flight attendants' secondary sexual charac- teristics; of the boss who threatens to fire you when you ask to work days, not nights; of the colleague who tells you how happy he is that his wife doesn't have to work; of the husband whose notion of sharing the burden is taking out the trash once a week (if he's in town); of the nanny who quits/tells you she's pregnant/feeds ice cream to your lactose-intolerant son—on the day of your board meeting. The bottom line is this: Did we do a good job of preparing these women for their business careers? 62 BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2002 technical skills are superb, better than those of any generation ever to enter the business world. They have a deeper understanding of cost/benefit analysis, risk/return tradeoffs, cash flows, and business models than b-school graduates had just two decades ago. Their computer literacy is world-class. They can create finan- cial derivatives that markets only dreamed of 20 years ago, and they can manipulate mind-numbingly complex computer models to value and trade them. Also, graduates of GSIEF—where more than 50 per- cent of our student body is not American and we focus intensely on global issues—are truly international- ized. They think nothing of jetting to Prague for spring break and would be equally at home working in London, Buenos Aires, or Singapore. They present themselves well, In some ways, absolutely. Their too, moving with confidence and grace from their job interviews to the boardroom. Anxiety about speaking out in public is a special challenge in teaching women, since faculty members at GSIEF, I take this challenge very seriously. I moti- vate women to speak out in class by, first of all, making one-third of their final grade contingent on classroom participation—that's the stick part of my strategy. When that doesn't work, I try the carrot; I call the woman into my office and have a long con- versation with her. I ask, "What are your long-term goals?" Then, I tell her what it's like to be the only woman in a conference room full of men. I tell her how important it is for women to have the tools we need to force ourselves into a discussion, even when we sense that the men would rather not hear from us. Often this approach works, and the difference between these women's demeanor in their first semester at GSIEF and their last is awe-inspiring. But sometimes it doesn't work; the woman is simply so intimidated and so conditioned that she cannot push herself to speak pub- licly even when she knows her grade and, ultimately, her career will suffer. However, if we get an "A" for the technical and presentation skills of our women graduates, we get a "C" for the role models we give them.