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An exploratory field study inquired whether women like to be supervised by a female manager. The more jobs held by female respondents, the less they preferred having a woman for a boss. Additionally, there was negative bias related to the age of the female manager. There were no similar effects between male subordinates and managers of either gender. In fact, the more jobs males had in their careers, the more they believed that females make the best boss. Implications are discussed toward whether the glass ceiling for females is being perpetuated to some degree by other females in subordinate positions.
INTRODUCTION
As ambitious young women are endeavoring to carve out careers in male dominated business environments, they might expect one thing to work in their favor: a female boss1. The reality is that younger women complain that they feel disparaged by senior female bosses who have achieved upper level management positions. Senior female bosses are more likely to support male subordinates than younger female subordinates (Mizrahi, 2004).
In the United States, nearly 60% of adult women are in the workforce (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011). Presently, despite advances in women's higher education and entrance into traditionally maledominated disciplines and occupations, women remain underrepresented at the highest levels of corporate decision-making and management positions. According to a 2010 census of men and women in top corporate leadership, women held 51.4% of all managerial and professional positions but were only 13.5% of all Fortune 500 executive officers (Catalyst, 2010). Further, the growth in the share of women in these top positions has slowed dramatically in recent years (Ritter & Yoder, 2004; US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2008).
Diversity in the workforce has led to increasing acceptance of female leadership by both genders, which is crucial to the promotion of women to higher levels in organizations. At the same time, the presence of pressure to conform to fashionable ideas termed "political correctness" (Bernstein, 2009) has become more pervasive. A question that might be raised is whether expressed attitudes favoring women in management reflect a genuine commitment to seeing more women actually achieve higher positions, or simply wishful thinking driven by conformity to a general contemporary ideal.
The dominance of masculine cultures has rightfully been credited with...