My field is academia and I have been involved in various groups and committees focused on the status of women in colleges and universities. From these and my own experiences, I have developed a hypothesis of sorts that may explain the continued under-representation of women in my field: a pipeline that selects for the very very best. This phenomenon is in no way restricted to academia, however, or only to women. Rather I suspect this may well be true in a variety of organizational structures including government. Follow me below for a fuller explanation...
There has been a fair amount of hand-wringing and excuse-offering in the past decade about the continued lack of representation of women and minorities in the upper ranks of higher education, particularly, in the STEMs (science, technology, engineering, and math). Supposedly, the increased flow into the pipeline starting in the 70s and 80s should have paid off by now with a proportional increased out-flow of women into the highest ranks, especially in the sciences. But that hasn’t quite happened. Despite graduation rates exceeding that of men for both undergraduate degrees and many graduate degrees, women still hold a minority of tenured faculty leadership positions, an even smaller proportion of division chief and department chair appointments, and even fewer provost, dean, and university president positions. If the explanation isn’t the flow into the pipeline, what is it? One obvious explanation is a continued climate of discrimination, albeit more subvert than in years past. However, that conclusion rests on the assumption that women exiting the pipeline WANT these positions but just can’t get them. And I am not so sure there is a huge pool of women out there chomping at the bit to be university Assistant Vice President of Administrative Paperwork. And while examples of discrimination are still not hard to come by, I just don’t but this as the reason women and minorities are still underrepresented at The Top.
A popular alternative explanation, then, is that the pipeline itself is the problem. The entry point is comparable to that of white males, but the pipe continually narrows (and is full of holes) with normal career progression. Women and minorities enter their pipe in a gush, but leave in a trickle. The pressure with which women exit the pipeline is not sufficient to propel them to the upper ranks. This theory might go on to posit that there are simply insufficient numbers from which to select those future leaders. However, I absolutely reject the idea that a lack of qualified women and minority candidates results in proportionally less representation in leadership positions.
So while I agree with the leaky pipeline theory; I would argue that the flaws of the pipeline are not simply retention but rather selection. Most people are familiar with the phrase, "If you can’t Do, Teach." The rest of that phrase is "If you can’t Teach, Administrate." I submit that the very architecture of higher-ed administration was created as a solution to the problem of mediocre professors that are a statistical part of any bell curve. The fact that so many businesses – not to mention the federal government – are disproportionably top-heavy attests to the common problem of mediocre achievers. In professional environments where firing these individuals is not an option (a la tenure or civil service), the traditional solution has been to promote the problem. And if there is not already an administrative position open, create a new one. THIS, in my humble view, is how the ranks of higher-ed administration and countless similar organizational structures have swelled with white males. And it is also why this distribution has not shifted with the pipeline. Precisely because they have to succeed despite a pipeline with serious negative pressure along the way, women and minorities that emerge from the top of the pipeline are GOOD at their jobs. And dedicated to them. These are not the people that typically choose to shift gears; trading their area of expertise for the rewards of administration.
So, what is my solution, you ask? I say let’s stop focusing on the women and minorities that fight their way through the pipeline – they are going to be fine. If we are truly committed to a higher-ed leadership that is demographically reflective of the larger community, then we must go back and catch those academics that leave the pipeline at the early stages. The minority pipeline is selecting for only the very best, the very far right of the bell curve. And we are missing all those that would fall closer to the middle or even to the left of the mean. We need to refocus our strategy on those that can’t make the tenure climb, those that don’t want to put in the long hours, those that can’t compete with their ultra-selective and highly-motivated minority peers and PROMOTE THEM – they are leadership material.
To return to the idea that this hypothesis is applicable outside of academia, I submit that Barack Obama is a perfect example of a minority who has succeeded in his field by being the very very best. He is one of the few to exit the flawed pipeline and, as a result, is head and shoulders above his contemporaries. His rise to presidential candidate is, therefore, not the least bit surprising. The same may be said about Hillary Clinton, but with some caveats (her use of family connections is far more akin to the white male pipeline than the current female pipeline).
In summary, election of Barack Obama may herald the beginning of a trickle of outstanding black candidates to reach the top despite the flawed pipeline. But it will not signal the end of racial differences in achievement in this country. We will have achieved pipeline parity only when a failed businessman, former alcoholic, room-temp IQ black man is elected President of the US.