While women make up nearly half of today’s work force, they are still paid around 81% of what men are for the same work. It is imperative that men and women are compensated and treated equally in the twenty first century. The movement needs Transformational Leaders like Shelley Zalis, Founder and CEO of The Female Quotient, uniting leaders across industries to collaborate around advancing equality and bringing focus to women. This organization and its founder are remarkable in that they have a foothold in every major sports market, bring knowledge to corporations, and put a spotlight where it is needed.
Northouse discusses Kouzes and Posner’s model of fundamental practices that create extraordinary moments of leadership. This model describes Shelley’s objective or mission perfectly. The five fundamental practices are, Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act and Encourage the Heart (Northouse, 2016).
So how are Ms. Zalis and The Female Quotient using these practices to change societies views on women’s equality? There is no better place to start then their Female Quality Lounge, it is a pop-up discussion forum where women can discuss issues and ways to improve the system, it is important to note that men also participate in these discussions. There are female CEOs, business owners, and other women in power who discuss their journey, the good and the bad, and their hope for the future. This is a great way to inspire women of not just this generation to stand up and be heard.
By using the FQ Media or more specifically social media, The Female Quotient reaches millions of people every day. They challenge the process by asking the hard questions, but mostly by challenging the companies they visit or who participate to make the changes needed for equality. To help enable them to act FQ provides the research and the tools companies need to understand the situation and how change can better their company or organization.
The Femael Quotient’s great strength in my opinion, is their ability to model the way and encourage the heart. The women who sit on these panels tell heart wrenching stories of what it took for them to get to the top, they speak of mistreatment and inequality. They also, however, speak of the rewards of making it, and the women who insured them to keep moving forward. These women give hope and knowledge to the next generation of girls who see these women as role models and mentors.
For more information go to www.thefemalelquotient.com
Resources
Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Seventh Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Lyne Sabrina Kolb says
Hi there,
I was immediately drawn to your blog post because I plan on writing about issues regarding gender and leadership for the final policy paper. It’s a complete shame that women still earn less than men in 2020 and that the glass ceiling, which is the unseen barrier between women and higher-level leadership positions, (Northouse, 2016, p. 399) is still a problem we face. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, March 31, 2020 is equal pay day, which means that women have to work this far into the 2020 year in order to earn what men did in 2019 alone, (United States Cencus Bureau, 2020, p. 1). That’s about 1/3rd of an extra year that Women in general have to work, but that doesn’t even take into account that women of other races or ethnicities have an even larger wage gap, (Bleiweis, 2020, p. 3). According to figure 1, in 2018 for every $1 a White man earned; Asian Women earned $0.90, White women earned $0.79, Black women earned $0.62, American Indian or Alaska Native women earned $0.57, and Hispanic or Latino women earned $0. 54, (Bleiweis, 2020, p. 4). This means that some women have to work almost a half a year longer than White men in earn what they do in one year.
According to Northouse, Women tend to lead with a more transformational style and practice contingent rewarding more often than men, (Northouse, 2016, p. 402). This resonates with what you say about needing transformational leaders who would lead, collaborate, and advance the concept of gender equality. The Leadership Labyrinth described by Northouse is a separate theory from the glass ceiling. It posits that a woman’s path to leadership is more of a journey that can be successfully maneuvered, but it is fraught with challenges from beginning to end, (Northouse, 2016, p. 399). While this gives me some more hope than a glass ceiling theory, It’s still unacceptable in my opinion. When I researched The Female Quotient, they have a line on their first page that I particularly agree with; “Gender equality is not a female issue; it’s a social and economic imperative,” (The Female Quotient, 2020, p. 1). Gender inequality (or any inequality for that matter) should be an unacceptable concept to all people because of the social and economic impacts that the world is missing out on due to the barriers and challenges women face with leadership. Instead of focusing energy and intellect on important advancements, we have to focus on how we maneuver the labyrinth.
I really like the idea of the Female Quality Lounge that you talk about, but I think that a very important aspect to solving the problem is missing; the men. There is no way that women can become equal without the help of men on our side, and in order to do that we need to include them in the conversation, educate them, and get them to advocate for equality too. Some of the strengths to understanding gender and leadership is that research and therefore education can help women reach higher-level leadership positions, and that research can bring awareness to the gender gap situation and the barriers, (Northouse, 2016, p. 409). The problem with this is that a lot of the current research has been done with a focus on Western culture, meaning the research is not representative of all women globally, (Northouse, 2016, p. 410). Different cultures will definitely have different barriers and problems for women, and there needs to be research and aid for them and their own leadership labyrinths too.
From your explanation of how The Female Quotient operates, it looks as though they use a lot of pathos to persuade their audiences, which is an appeal to their emotions, (Center for Leadership, 2020, p. 6). While pathos is a wonderful persuasive method, it may not be wise to rely on it alone specifically because of one of the prejudices, or stereotyped expectations, (Northouse, 2016, p. 404) that I personally hear on a regular basis, which is that that women are too emotional or that we can’t control our hormones. I think that it would be beneficial for The Female Quotient to build up its ethos, or its moral credibility, as well as incorporate some more logos, or logical reasoning, (Center for Leadership, 2020, pp. 2-11) in order to be much more persuasive to those who are not persuaded by ethos alone. We will need to use all of the tools at our disposal to combat inequality and keep moving forward.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge about The Female Quotient, I didn’t know about them before today, but I’m always happy to learn about movements that help women in leadership.
All the best,
Lyne K.
References
Bleiweis, R. (2020, March 24). Quick Facts About the Gender Wage Gap. Retrieved from Center for American Progress: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2020/03/24/482141/quick-facts-gender-wage-gap/
Center for Leadership. (2020). How Leaders Communicate. Retrieved from Center for Leadership: http://centreforleadership.com/key_ideas/aristotles-ethos-pathos-logos/#:~:text=It%20leads%20us%20towards%20practical,their%20logos%20deals%20in%20reality.
Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Seventh Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
The Female Quotient. (2020). Home Page. Retrieved from The Female Quotient: https://www.thefemalequotient.com/
United States Cencus Bureau. (2020, March 31). Equal Pay Day: March 31, 2020. Retrieved from United States Cencus Bureau: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/2020/equal-pay.html