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The Latest News About Executive Women

Center for Women's Business Research

"Contrary to common perception, most U.S. businesses operate without employees and women-and men-owned firms are very similar in this respect. Fully 75% of all firms do not have employees. Similarly, 81% of women-owned firms also are without employees." The message here is that women dominate the business landscape, but not in large numbers at "the office." Rather, we conduct business in our homes, or embrace entrepreneurship the way we used to embrace that weekly paycheck. The reality that is becoming more and more prevalent around us is that women are smart, intuitive, ambitious, and unwilling to be bossed around. We operate as executives in an office of one, as effectively as we did in an office of 100. Watch out, world. Executive women are on the move!

Women: Unless you work for Victoria's Secret, leave the cleavage at home

According to a USA story from August of 2005, "Women who send flirtatious e-mail, wear short skirts or massage a man's shoulders at work win fewer pay raises and promotions."While this may seem intuitive, or at least common sense, in a world where reality TV dominates and "Desperate Housewives" turns suburbia into a Playboy mansion, what to wear and how to act in a professional setting could easily be confusing to the average young woman with eyes on a corner office. Sexuality in the office isn't new. We saw it on TV decades ago - remember the nighttime soap, Dallas? Today we have Boston Legal, and the various renditions of Law and Order where the only women not showing cleavage are in uniform. When Donald Trump announces on his show that he considers his daughter a good-looking young woman, and he would date her if she wasn't his daughter, while said daughter sits casually at his side - blouse unbuttoned down to there - is it any surprise that some young women think their sexuality will get them up that corporate ladder faster and with more to show for it, than not? Sad to say, the message is clear: if you have it, flaunt it.

The USA story cites a study done at Tulane University where 164 women were questioned on their use of sexuality in the workplace. The 10 questions asked of these MBA grads stretched from, "I flirt with people at work," to, "I emphasize my sexuality at work by the way I dress, speak, and act." The results were that..."Almost all the women in the Tulane study who said they used sexual behavior said they did so infrequently. But executive coach Debra Benton, who has long asked business leaders about the pros and cons of sexuality in the workplace said that if a similar survey were given to men, they would say that women use sexuality "all the time." Women need to be aware that when they say, "It's a nice day," men will often conclude "she wants me," Benton says."Perhaps these MBA students need proper mentoring from executive women already sitting in corner offices. In those companies that are hiring recently graduated MBA students, male and female alike, the need to arrange sessions on appropriate behavior and attire beyond sexual harrassment training and company dress codes, seems obvious. The underlying factor is one of learning the basic tenents of respect - for oneself, one's co-workers, and surely for one's clients. -- Yvonne DiVita

Par Excellence is the respected voice amidst the chatter of other women's magazine titles. In Par Excellence top female executives share information on all the topics that their counterparts crave, including networking, executive coaching, mentoring, financial planning and financial strategies for women, fashion, technology, marketing trends, family, healthy lifestyle, success strategies, diversity & inclusion and much, much more.