On women in leadership and gender equality

PROLOGUE: This post is meant to evoke thought and promote debate. Therefore, please do not take it seriously...

Readers – This trail of thought started a couple of days back when a friend sent across an article on Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister. Now, my friend is not from Pakistan, and does not know much about Pakistan or its politics, but she was intrigued by this article and wanted to understand more. In case you didn’t already know, Hina Rabbani Khar is a rather young and attractive lady. Now, that’s not the way I would like to introduce an important member of our cabinet, but these details are critical to the plot – the main reason for all the table talk and media coverage around her.

Hina Rabbani Khar hails from a powerful feudal family. Her family holds unquantifiable tracts of land in her district constituency, and has a very strong hold on elections there. In fact, she is one of the very few women parliamentarians not on a “quota” seat for women. 22% of Pakistan’s parliament is comprised of women, but only 4% out of this 22% have actually been elected by the people in their constituencies, with the remaining 18% having been brought in by their parties on the quota system. Now, women need to be represented in parliament, but the politics and party dynamics around this quota system are very messy or to put it more softly, less than ideal – a “second best outcome” as I like to say.

Hina Rabbani Khar went on an official visit to India a few months back. Always a big event, since you are probably well aware of the history of animosity between the two countries. The media coverage in India was mostly centered around her exquisite looks, her Prada shoes and her Gucci handbag, whereas the coverage back home (as perhaps expected) was more polarized to the extremes. Some hailed her as an effective tool of diplomacy, someone who can project our “soft image”, whereas others were flabbergasted by the show she put on as a glamour princess.

What she had to say about foreign policy was barely heard – it was irrelevant. Not only did she not achieve much, I don’t think she could achieve much, given that the big relationship plays between India and Pakistan are usually not made by the foreign minister, but by the other power players. As a professional and a woman leader, I support her credentials. She seems to be smarter and more tactically astute than most in our cabinet, but her family background does raise questions on whether a meritocracy truly exists in our government. Indeed, the bar in our cabinet is very low, and there are many significantly more talented candidates for that position – they just do not hail from powerful backgrounds.

But just the fact that she is in a highly visible public position as a woman leader can have a positive impact. There is a JPal (Abdul Lateef Jameel Poverty Action Lab – they do some terrific work – www.jpal.org) study on how a visible woman leader can have an impact by positively reshaping social attitudes. Although in this specific case, someone who is so “westernized” and out of touch with her people, is unlikely to influence many. She probably does not reach many people in the public sphere, since foreign policy is not that sexy or interesting anymore, especially coming from the foreign minister – those that she does reach are probably going to dismiss her out of hand as someone with twisted values or worse the product of some western conspiracy.

Speaking of western conspiracies; the conversation with my friend went over to the western world. It’s an old topic –why women still significantly trail men in science and engineering, especially at the very cream of the crop, and also why they still haven’t been able to shatter the glass ceiling. In a bit of a mischievous and un-PC (politically correct) mood, I quoted the same reasons as Larry Summers.

Larry Summers is another interesting character. He was the former President of Harvard University. He is an incredible individual, an inspiration to me personally in many ways. An economist by training, he has devoted a large part of his career to public service, including serving as Treasury Secretary at the tail end of the Clinton administration. We seem to share the same general management attitude and approach to public service. Henry Kissinger once said that Larry Summers should be “given a White House post in which he was charged with shooting down or fixing bad ideas”.

Indeed, he was slated for a senior role in the Obama administration, until he made a serious gaffe. As President of Harvard University he presented a few controversial hypotheses on why women trail men in engineering and science – especially as tenured professors, etc. He had caveated and prefaced his speech, clearly mentioning that his ideas were meant to provoke and start a debate – but this was not enough. He lost his job, and any sort of opportunity in the Obama administration, even though he apologized repeatedly for his gaffe. You can find his ideas on Wikipedia, the source for all things controversial and non-controversial:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers#Differences_between_the_sexes

The question since the dawn of my intellectual awakening has always been that between intrinsic differences and social or cultural issues. It’s so complex that it has to be a combination – but as I will show you through the rest of this post, these positions are being politically high jacked and peddled around selectively in ways that make me cringe, and in ways that stifle the debate.

Social or cultural issues are important. It is the main reason why women still trail men in non-western societies. When I was 5, I left Saudi Arabia, where women are still not allowed to drive, and moved with my family to Pakistan. I was shocked to see that women had that kind of freedom in Pakistan – the kind of freedom to get behind the wheel of a car. In fact, I remember telling my 1^st grade class that “when I grow up, I will make sure that women are not allowed to drive jeeps”. Driving a jeep was the ultimate freedom, or symbol of rebellion, that could not be spared for women (I suppose by this time I had come to accept that they could drive sedans). A quick note is in order here – as shocked as you might be by my early attitudes – I have changed.

But when it comes to feminism and equality, intrinsic differences are taboo – too politically incorrect – cannot be discussed. It is politics and it is social engineering. When I was 16, I spent the summer interning at an NGO in Islamabad. Part of the induction training was a day-long sensitivity workshop on gender equality. Now gender inequality is a huge issue in Pakistan, which in spite of my Saudi beginnings, I am deeply passionate about – simple intellectual discourse doesn’t help push the cause. But the core foundation for the equality argument was that there are absolutely no intrinsic differences, which is a position I am just not able to accept. Larry Summers went a little over board, and actually provoked the issue himself, getting destroyed in the process. He should have known better – but so should the people (or rather society) that destroyed him.

Women in Western societies have come a long way, so much so that men are now in danger. Indeed, at the belly of the curve (that is the average), boys are trailing girls in educational attainment, and women are now outnumbering men in the workforce. Again, it’s not that simple – a combination of social issues and intrinsic differences. Today’s boys have it very hard – there are intrinsic issues in their make-up; an inability to focus, stay centered, etc. which are exacerbated by a society which has become highly sexualized, and provided them with tools like video games, which are taking them deeper into the abyss. Philip Zimbardo, the eminent psychologist, famous for the Stanford prison experiment, recently articulated this in a TED Talk titled “The demise of guys”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJgZ4s2E3w

We know from the Larry Summers fiasco that at the tail ends of the distribution, it’s still a man’s world – lucky for me. There are programs such as the McKinsey Women’s Initiative, which help bridge this gap. Diversity is important and indeed, the composition of a top institution like McKinsey should mirror that of the society that it serves. But diversity is complex – whether or not we are prejudiced against someone, either overtly, or subconsciously based on social engineering and attitudes, and whether or not this is based on a superficial characteristic which is relevant or irrelevant to the job or position at hand, makes my head spin. Gender is one of our main and highly visible characteristics which we need to balance, but what about the other ones? OK – stop – let’s just keep the topic simple and focused on gender.

 At the risk of making the same gaffe as Larry Summers, what if it is intrinsic differences which are driving the numbers? Wait – I should know better. In today’s society we cannot even acknowledge that there could be the possibility of a slight likelihood of the most minimal chance that the intrinsic differences hypotheses is a valid driver. Or rather as men we don’t have that license, but women have every right to do so, especially when it works to their advantage.

So when women start to do well, as they are now starting to in the corporate world, intrinsic differences are spelt out – even celebrated. An article in the McKinsey Quarterly which I read about a year or so back, showed that women leaders in business were more effective on 4 out of the 5 dimensions of leadership, and that the 5^th one was a tie – mostly driven by intrinsic differences, if not for the gender specific roles that women are given in today’s world (which a few years back in the feminist age, they would have blamed for all their problems).

So even though this was all taboo in yesterday’s feminist world, let us celebrate it today. I guess political pockets which become very powerful over time can perpetually highjack the debate, and start to take their power to the next level – contrarian folk, so fond of intellectual discourse, like yours truly, have to tread carefully. Please don’t hang me like Larry Summers for speaking my mind, or even trying to have a discussion. My hands are up. I have raised my white flag. I shall pay reparations with full interest for my forefathers’ sins. They were terrible sins indeed.