Enduring Inequality

Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Harvard Business School’s decision to admit women to their MBA programs, Dean Nitin Nohria pledged to double the number of women featured in the case studies HBS develops. HBS, which produces pedagogical materials utilized in business education globally, currently features women protagonists in merely nine percent of its case studies. We certainly believe that increasing the percentage of businesswomen featured in case studies is a positive development, but the currently lopsided gender ratio is evidence of a systemic problem in the corporate world. Women continue to face discriminatory barriers in business that handicap their ability to climb the corporate ladder. We hope that increasing the number of women featured in business school case studies will be part of a larger effort toward true equality in the business world.

Women have historically been poorly represented in business. The Cult of Domesticity influenced the American woman through the mid-1900s (and arguably beyond), limiting her ability to enter upper-level management. Women first entered the workplace in subsidiary roles, including assistants and receptionists. Granted, World War II-era Rosie the Riveter heralded a more prominent role for women in the labor market, and women have since made significant strides in business ownership and management. Women continue, however, to trail their male counterparts.

Today, women on average earn less than men. Even in the tech startup world of Silicon Valley, an ostensibly meritocratic and dynamic arena, women are credited with founding fewer than 5 percent of tech startup companies.

These statistics demonstrate a disheartening level of gender inequality in business, and HBS’s commitment to female protagonists does not reflect a sudden influx of women in higher management. In order to find female protagonists, HBS will have to start analyzing midlevel management, a rung on the corporate ladder that is characterized by a more balanced gender ratio

Gender parity, at least in the business world, has quite demonstrably not been achieved. Organizations that promote women in business however, have enormous potential to narrow the gap. Women 2.0 is one such organization, dedicated to facilitating networking and advising to women interested in tech entrepreneurship.

Efforts to dispell the deeply ingrained stereotypes about women in business can also benefit from businesswomen like Marissa Mayer. The President and CEO of Yahoo!, Mayer famously balances motherhood with work and can serve as an icon for the American businesswoman.

The HBS pledge to increase the ratio of female to male protagonists is no doubt positive, and helps to rectify some of the gender imbalance of which America is still guilty. It also follows a spate of encouraging developments at HBS, a historically male-dominated school that has made innovative, exemplary strides to open its academic environment to women. On a national scale, however, more must be done to tip the scales toward parity. The struggle of the American businesswoman is a reflection of our societal ideals, and will require fundamental changes to our psyche to rectify. Producing more case studies of women, though a start, is just the beginning.