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The Women on Top Theory

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The Women on Top Theory

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Foreign Policy has published an article on women’ss political leadership. Studies show that when women comprise around 25 percent of a group, their influence dramatically reshapes culture. Is 2016 the year women change the world?

For the first time in history, the inner chambers of global leadership may go genuinely coed. The anointment of Theresa May as Britain’s next prime minister, the seemingly endless rule of Angela Merkel in Germany, the brightening prospects of Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential race, and the presence of women on the shortlist to succeed U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (though last week’s straw poll wound up with men in the top slots) could mean that as of early next year, global summitry will see nearly as many pantsuits and scarves as it does suits and ties. Those ready to welcome the newcomers to the ranks of the world’s most powerful stateswomen will include South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Chilean President Michele Bachelet, and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

Pundits who dare to prognosticate over whether these leaders will each bring a distinctive, somehow more female approach to matters of war and peace, trade, policing, or public welfare do so at their peril. They risk stepping in a minefield of stereotypes and preconceptions that history’s shortlist of female heads of major states — Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, and Benazir Bhutto — have already defied. But research and theory suggest that once women attain a loosely defined “critical mass” of representation — generally accepted as between 20 and 30 percent — within institutions and decisional bodies, their influence grows perceptibly. This idea originated with Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who in herseminal 1977 article, “Some Effects of Proportions on Group Life: Skewed Sex Ratios and Responses to Token Women,” postulated that when women exceed one-third of a group they can form coalitions, provide mutual support, and reshape the group’s overall culture. The research suggests that the relatively sudden potential presence of a critical mass — a collective of women — simultaneously leading some of the West’s most powerful countries and institutions has the potential to reshape at least certain aspects of how global business gets done.

 

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Foreign Policy has published an article on women’ss political leadership. Studies show that when women comprise around 25 percent of a group, their influence dramatically reshapes culture. Is 2016 the year women change the world?

For the first time in history, the inner chambers of global leadership may go genuinely coed. The anointment of Theresa May as Britain’s next prime minister, the seemingly endless rule of Angela Merkel in Germany, the brightening prospects of Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential race, and the presence of women on the shortlist to succeed U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (though last week’s straw poll wound up with men in the top slots) could mean that as of early next year, global summitry will see nearly as many pantsuits and scarves as it does suits and ties. Those ready to welcome the newcomers to the ranks of the world’s most powerful stateswomen will include South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Chilean President Michele Bachelet, and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

Pundits who dare to prognosticate over whether these leaders will each bring a distinctive, somehow more female approach to matters of war and peace, trade, policing, or public welfare do so at their peril. They risk stepping in a minefield of stereotypes and preconceptions that history’s shortlist of female heads of major states — Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, and Benazir Bhutto — have already defied. But research and theory suggest that once women attain a loosely defined “critical mass” of representation — generally accepted as between 20 and 30 percent — within institutions and decisional bodies, their influence grows perceptibly. This idea originated with Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who in herseminal 1977 article, “Some Effects of Proportions on Group Life: Skewed Sex Ratios and Responses to Token Women,” postulated that when women exceed one-third of a group they can form coalitions, provide mutual support, and reshape the group’s overall culture. The research suggests that the relatively sudden potential presence of a critical mass — a collective of women — simultaneously leading some of the West’s most powerful countries and institutions has the potential to reshape at least certain aspects of how global business gets done.

 

Focus areas