Importance of Women In Management Education

The root of women’s lack of participation in business is firmly planted in image the aggressive, hierarchical image that business seems to convey to women. A lack of successful role models is a top factor in that negative message. This was observed by UAO.

UAO Accreditation also noticed that if the young girls don’t see proper role models then they may not even give a business career a second thought. It was discussed that the more we make young girls aware of careers in business, the more we’ll see women in those careers. Online universities and institutes need to break the myth that girls can’t add, subtract, and divide as well as men can. And they should create a marketing strategy that tells women about careers in business.

uao accreditation Importance of Women In Management Education

A few case studies were also presented that are too heavily centered on male experience. Eighty to 90 percent of protagonists are male. When there is a female protagonist, she’s usually in trouble. That’s discouraging, and it’s something that needs to change. Unfortunately, the role models that are available can reinforce the idea that business and family are mutually exclusive terms.

New, controversial research in the book Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children exacerbates this perception. Author Sylvia Ann Hewlett found that many successful women in business planned to have children; in their pursuit of success, they just “forgot,” she writes. As a result, some women “feel as if they’ve been robbed” of the chance to start a family. Some have criticized the book’s findings, but its message to women is clear: You can have children or a career in business, not both.

On top of that, Time recently published a list of women who resigned from high-powered positions to be with their families: Karen Hughes stepped down from her post as aide to George Bush to spend more time with her family in Texas; Jane Swift dropped out of the Massachusetts gubernatorial race soon after giving birth to twins; Candace Olsen, CEO of the Web site , resigned to take care of her two children. In the face of such press, institutes may have their work cut out for them.

Though UAO has noted that more corporations are adding family-friendly incentives such as flex-time and onsite day-care to their perks, but they are not yet the norm. UAO suggests that work-family programs need to be strengthened. If a woman wants to work part-time for a few years, she should not worry about getting bumped off the track to successful positions. She should not be penalized.

It will take initiatives on many different fronts not only to cultivate more role models, but to make business a more prominent and palatable career option for women. The problem as it manifests at the MBA level is only the tip of the iceberg, believe women’s groups. UAO along with many corporations, business schools, and organizations is encouraging positive role models in the media and business case studies; they’re also sponsoring programs at high schools and working to change the corporate mind-set that women must put their careers first, or risk being left behind. They maintain that only by focusing on the pipeline at all levels middle school, high school, college, graduate school, and the corporate world can online institutes expect to see an increase in the number of women in their ranks.