Why Business Loves Older Women

Special Guest post by Anjana Ahuja, Ph.D for Psychology Today

What makes a powerful woman?  Check her birthdate.

 

There’s something that unites the female chief executives, politicians and policymakers on Forbes magazine’s 2010 list of the most powerful women in the world.

• Irene Rosenfeld, Kraft CEO, aged 57
• Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, 56
• Hillary Clinton, 63
• Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo CEO, 55
• Gail Kelly, Westpac CEO, 54
• Nancy Pelosi, 70.

Of course, it’s in the numbers. These women are in what we might call their business prime, which is rather different from their biological prime. Where are the female equivalents of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, a mere stripling at 26, or David Cameron, the 44-year-old British Prime Minister who, while in office, has become a father for the fourth time? Scanning the magazine’s separate list of top-paid young CEOs reveals a similar age profile: not a single female appears. The gentler sex is also, once she gets into the boardroom or the voting chamber, the older sex.

Whoever heard of a “career man”?

Of course, it might simply be that, because of discrimination, women take longer to ascend to positions of power and are therefore older once they take the throne. But look at the sexism evident in media coverage whenever a young woman takes a prominent business position. When was the last time you read of a male appointee being quizzed about his childcare arrangements? And have you noticed how we don’t have the term career man, only career woman? So often, the term is used to denigrate women who step into the boardroom, to reflect an unspoken belief that their families are shunted into second place. The exceptions to the Forbes list are celebrities, such as Beyonce and Lady Ga Ga – but youth and beauty are especially prized in the worlds of music and fashion.

Once a woman reaches menopause or once her children are grown up, women seem to be taken much more seriously in the boardroom.  This might explain the very noticeable presence of post-menopausal women in the Forbes list. Is it possible that older women not just have the advantage of experience and authority, but also are taken more seriously once they are no longer perceived as biologically necessary for group survival?

To learn more about this subject, check out a book Dr. Ahuja co-authored, titled: Naturally Selected: The Evolutionary Science of Leadership, which goes some way to explaining the underrepresentation of young and middle-aged women in positions of power. While there has been decades of discussion whether social conditioning is to blame, Ahuja and her co-author believe the origins of male domination in public life stretch right back to our evolutionary beginnings, two million years ago.

 

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