Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Why not many women go to B school


As many would complain why the ration of Men to Women in B school is 30-70% instead of the around 50-50 at Law school and medical school, the proposed reasons are :
1. B schools interfere with the age when women want to start to have family. The average working experience of 5 years mean women will enter B school at the age of 27. This maybe an obstacle for some ( definitely for Indonesian women remembering my parents/family nag for me to get married soon.. )
2. Lack of Role Model.. and here's where I want to point you GALS to this special report by Business Week on Women Entrepreneurs and role models of women entrepreneur
3. Gender stereotyping that believe men are better managers than women ( ERR... ?)
4. "Women tend to be more risk-adverse than men. Elissa Ellis, executive director of the Forté Foundation, says women are even more cautious than men about holding onto their jobs and forgoing B-school during a economic downturn, -- partly because women earn less and have less of a financial cushion."
5. "Curriculum. Until recently, the culture at many business schools was a boy's club -- replete with beer busts and golf outings. The classroom curriculum also tended to turn off females, who are usually more interested in using their careers to contribute to the greater good of society, according to Catalyst studies. Students add that the case studies rarely include women subjects or women-friendly businesses, which makes it harder for women to relate."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I applaud you for not letting these issues you cite keep you from pursuing your dreams!

I am especially glad you found the Women Entrepreneurs on Business Week, as I teach entrepreneurship at UMBC (http://www.umbc.edu/activate) in Maryland (not an MBA program, but a practical year-long class that gets women to start their businesses) and one of my students, Kerrie Brady, was featured online.

In fact, I believe that owning your own business is so empowering - especially for women who want to have a family - that I wrote a book about it that will be coming out by Wiley in June (and is available for pre-order on Amazon.com) called "The ParentPreneur Edge: What Parenting Teaches About Building a Successful Business". If you are any of your friends are thinking about starting a business and want to have a family (or just have a life!) the book has a lot of tips and advice on how to do that.

Best of luck to you!