Sally Ride
Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 9:17 AM
I recently had the honor of meeting one of our cultural icons—Sally Ride! In 1983 Sally was the first American woman to enter space. Nowadays we may not remember, or even know (depending on your age!) that women were not always part of the astronaut program.
As good luck would have it, we were both slated to speak to Deloitte’s Executive Committee on the same cold January day. And despite our different backgrounds, we were able to find a common ground. My presentation dealt with the differences in men’s and women’s habits in purchasing professional services. Sally cited a recent Academy of Sciences report that indicates that more than 20 years after she literally shattered the glass (well atmospheric) ceiling there is still built-in bias against women in academia and in business.
Research continues to show that when you put a male name on a resume, it gets a more favorable response than one with a female name. And, when author gender is disguised, review committees accept more papers for publication from women. (They also accept more foreign submissions and papers from lesser-known academic institutions but that is a story for someone else’s blog.) And so it goes, with each little bias contributing to what Sally called an “accumulation of disadvantage.”
Disheartening? Yes. But I am encouraged that there are women like Sally Ride reminding us that we have come a long way but there is much work left for all of us to do. I’ve renewed my commitment to making sure that everyone better understands, appreciates, and promotes the unique strengths of women.
As we parted, I gave a copy of my new book, PrimeTime Women, to Sally. She promised to send me her latest book—about Mars!
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