Are We at the Top?: A Response to the Women in Leadership, Notre Dame Forum

On September 16, 2013, I seated myself in the Leighton Concert Hall at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center for the first event of the Notre Dame Forum on Women in Leadership. By 7 pm, the stated start time of the program, I looked around and discovered an unfortunately sparse audience. The hall was far from packed, which surprised me considering the inspiring and intriguing panelists booked for the evening’s panel.

“Getting to the Top at the Pentagon,” featured three panelists, including a Notre Dame Alumnus as its Moderator. Moderator Anne Thompson graduated from Notre Dame with a Bachelors of Arts degree in American Studies and is the acting Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent at NBC News. General Ann Dunwoody is the former Commanding General of the U.S. Army Materiel Command and a Four-Star General. Accompanying Dunwoody on stage was Michèle A. Flournoy, who is currently a Senior Advisor at the Boston Consulting Group. From 2009 to 2012, Flournoy worked as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, in which she was the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense.

These women enjoy careers about which many women and men can only dream.

The Notre Dame Forum website boasted the following as a description of the event.

“In the first event of this year’s Forum, we welcome the Honorable Michèle Flournoy, the highest-ranking civilian woman in Pentagon history, and General Ann Dunwoody, the first woman to achieve the rank of four-star general. In a conversation moderated by Anne Thompson of NBC News, and titled “Getting to the Top at the Pentagon”, Flournoy and Dunwoody will share their experiences as leaders, as well as their insights about the challenges facing the Pentagon and the United States today.”

Flournoy and Dunwoody’s career stories are inspiring regardless of their female gender, and consequently they spent the majority of the panel offering advice on leadership in general. As a female student at the University of Notre Dame, I expected to gain more insight on being a woman in a leadership role and after the conversations I’m sad to say I’m still searching for such advice.

Father John Jenkins opened the panel with a brief introduction about the Forum’s history and purpose as well as notes on the panelists. In retrospect, the introduction was a clear forewarning of the trajectory of the program. Father Jenkins boldly stated that Flournoy and Dunwoody are women who “shattered the glass ceiling.” For those unfamiliar with the concept of the “glass ceiling,” it describes an unacknowledged barrier preventing women from rising to the tops of their professions due to structural issues and discrimination against their female gender. While it is undeniable that Flournoy and Dunwoody succeeded in climbing the ladder of success in their specific career fields, I would argue that their personal glass ceilings were not shattered but instead “perforated.” The correction of this adjective reveals that while some women have enjoyed success in advancing in their careers, it is not a general victory for all American women.

Thompson’s first question to our guests asked how they have dealt with gender discrimination in the workplace. This question was extremely applicable to Dunwoody, who has never had a female as her boss. When Dunwoody joined the Army it was during the integration of women into the regiment army, and the idea was certainly not embraced by all of the oranization. Flournoy advised females in the audience, “If you encounter bias, let it be the other person’s problem – don’t let it hold you back.” Similarly, Dunwoody reminded us, “Be the best you can be, and stay on your moral high ground.” She continued, “When you meet and exceed the standards, then those biases fall away.” Flournoy continued, “Focus on being excellent in your work [and] your job is to not let it [the bias] bring you down.”

Personally these comments disheartened me, as I felt instructed to just “shrug off” gender discrimination. I don’t mean to diminish the achievements of these women, but to me the advice stated, “Don’t let the bias in the workplace against your female gender get to you – shrug it off and you will get to the top.” I find this problematic because it indirectly allows for the persistence of sexism and inequality for women in the workplace, and for American women in general.

I hoped the Forum would have addressed how women can challenge the oppressive system and not only achieve success but also make real changes in workplace institutions. So I approached the microphone in Leighton Concert Hall and asked Flournoy and Dunwoody if they believed that gender equality in the workplace – that a real structural improvement – was on the horizon, or if gender discrimination and bias would always be something we’d have to “shrug off.”

Both women asserted, “doors will keep opening” for women in the professional field and each generation we will be closer to gender equality. They’ve seen improvement for women in their own careers and emphasized that our efforts as women trying to climb the professional ladder, our efforts are not futile. Furthermore, they stressed that our personal contributions as professional women will help the next level of women trying to get to the top. We are part of a collective, as American women, and when we each do our part, change can be made.

Thompson also posed the age-old question, “Can women have it all?” and the answer to this question gave me the most hope for the future of women in America. Dunwoody argued, “We’ve let someone identify ‘it all’ when you need to find your own ‘all.’” She inquired, “Do you have it all or do you have what you want.” Fluornoy chimed in, “We’re in a period where the system is starting to change, and people need to be more full and balanced human beings.”

These ladies critiques on the notion of “having it all,” were in my opinion the strongest comments of the night. They emphasized that “it all” has become grossly generalized, and in this revealed the diversity of American women. Not every woman wants to work at the Pentagon, but she should still be able to be successful in whatever she feels called to do.

The subsequent events for the Notre Dame Forum on Women in Leadership have yet to be announced. Overall, I was inspired by the impressive women speaking on the panel but was disappointed in the Forum’s accomplishments. I hoped it would have addressed the issues on women in leadership roles in America – what discrimination we face and what we can do to challenge and change it. This Forum has so much potential in starting conversations on campus. It is my hope that the last two events will be better advertised and better attended, and that the issues will be appropriately addressed rather than neatly wrapped up in a few trite points.

Watch a recap of the Forum here.

Left to Right: Anne Thompson, Michèle A. Flournoy, Anne Dunwoody.

Photos

• achievement
• discrimination
• feminism
• gender
• gender bias
• success
• women