Vertical-Earth

In our society, ideas about gender differences are changing rapidly. The changes are especially marked in the areas of “gender-appropriate” roles and interests. During the 1950s, when your authors were in undergraduate school, one of them could not be on the debate team because she was female and this activity was deemed more useful for males, who were more likely to become lawyers or politicians and thus would benefit more from the experience. During that same period, Life magazine interviewed five (male) psychiatrists who suggested that women’s ambitions were the “root of mental illness in wives, emotional upset in husbands, and homosexuality in boys.”25 As late as 1981, this same publication introduced the first female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, with the headline, “President Goes A-Courtin’“•26
Some of the greatest changes in gender differences have been in education and work. In 1950, only 24 percent of all college degrees went to women; 1994, women earned 53 percent of all degrees awarded.27 In 1962, 43 percent of females between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-four were in the labor force; by 1990, this was up to 75 percent. Between 1980 and 1990 the number of female professionals rose 100 percent and the number of female managers just about doubled. These changes in education and work are beginning
show up in changes in women’s perceived leadership potential. A recent study reported that, for the first time, women were slightly more likely than men to emerge as leaders in mixed-sex groups.28 Moreover, these female leaders do not simply take on “masculine” traits, such as dominance and control motives. They represent a blend of gender-related qualities: They are competitive and independent, yet sensitive and supportive. These trends are likely to continue.