She Hurts

“Female CEOs are approximately 45% more likely to be dismissed than male CEOs”[1]

“he will rule over you.” Genesis 3:16

She hurts more

In the space of a few weeks, I heard of three female leaders that had lost their jobs. As I listened I felt sad and devastated and couldn’t stop thinking about them. Was it a coincidence that they were all women? Compelled and intrigued, I set about researching. I wanted to find out if others had noticed this too and as I looked it didn’t take long to discover I was not alone. Numerous academic research and articles have been written on this topic. And as I read and processed the questions flooded in…

Why is this happening to women?
Is it harder to be a female CEO than a male CEO?
Can women learn from this and survive the chop?
Is it harder to be a woman in leadership than a man?
And, like my series She Needs, does this research apply to female leaders in the church?

Visha Gupta wrote a paper entitled “You’re Fired! Gender Disparities in CEO Dismissal”. The research looks at two hypotheses…

Hypothesis 1: The likelihood of dismissal will be higher for female CEOs than for male CEOs.

Hypothesis 2: We expect male and female CEOs are equally likely to be fired in underperforming firms, but female CEOs are more likely to be fired than male CEOs in well-performing firms.

And the results?

As the title says… “Female CEOs are approximately 45% more likely to be dismissed than male CEO’s”. The journal goes on to say, “perhaps even more importantly, we find that while the rate of male and female CEO dismissal is similar when the firm is performing poorly, female CEOs are significantly more likely to be dismissed than male CEOs when the firm is performing well.”[2]

This paper shows a problem but does not go into the why. There are however plenty of other papers on this subject. Here are four reasons that I found as to why female CEOs are more likely to be dismissed than males…

Competence is generally questioned

In this article Pierre Chaigneau comments on the vulnerability of female CEOs. He says “previous research has shown that a man’s competence is often assumed in leadership roles while a woman’s competence is generally questioned.” [3]

2. Often outsiders

Author Ken Favaro looks at how CEO’s are often internal recruits. He comments that often external female candidates take a job that has already been rejected by several internal male candidates. He says “Women are more often outsiders, so they’re more vulnerable. They don’t know the organisation. They can’t diagnose the problems as quickly and don’t understand the culture or how to get it to work for them. And they aren’t necessarily given more time to deliver.”[4]

3. Suffer from bias

Caroline Oelschlegel from Strategy& suggests “perhaps there is a bias against women, so they are judged more harshly.”[5]

4. Sloppy seconds

Carolin Oelschlegel suggests that because women are often the second choice they are more likely to fail. “CEO’s hired internally have better business results over the long term than those who are brought in. She says when predominantly male boards decide they want to hire a woman, it could be because the role is seen as too difficult and other men have turned it down. The woman is going into a job with a high chance of failure to begin with.”[6]

I wonder what you make of these reasons, I wonder if you have experienced any of these yourself?

I am interested in social research about women and asking whether it applies to the church. So I’ve decided to start a new series called “She Hurts”. The research above is focused on female CEO’s, in this series I don’t want to limit the discussion as few women will be a CEO or a leader of a charity or a church. I want to broaden this out and discuss the pain and struggles women face in leadership because they are women.

I want to explore this theme through the stories of my friends. I’ve called this series “She Hurts” because I want to look at the way women have been hurt in leadership. I’m publishing this series because I believe that women should not struggle alone. As we hear other stories, it gives us space to process our own.

The hope of this series is three-fold.
1. To listen to the experience of Christian female leaders.
2. To hear how the authors leant into God in their season of pain.
3. To learn from their reflections about perseverance and growth.

She hurts because…

So why is this happening to women? I’m not denying that men face pain and struggles in leadership. But why are female CEO’s 45% more likely to be dismissed than men? I’m grateful that the Bible not only makes sense of this, it gives us hope and provides a solution too.

Genesis 3 shows us the root of where the power struggle begins. An effect of the curse on humankind is that there will be enmity between men and women. Have a look at Genesis 3…

“And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring[a] and hers;
he will crush[b] your head,
    and you will strike his heel.”

16 To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
    with painful labour you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
    and he will rule over you.”

This passage seems to be saying that the effect of the fall is worse for women. Cynthia Westfall makes this point, she says “In Genesis 3:16, her action has direct consequences on women rather than all of humanity. For Eve, the consequences flowing from being deceived and falling into transgression affect her role in giving life to the human race: pregnancy, labour, and pain are multiplied, and the woman will crave a relationship with her husband in which she will be subjected to him. Furthermore, the consequences of Adam’s action are added to those for the woman, so that women experience double jeopardy: death, increased labour, and a cursed earth as well as multiple issues with childbirth and subordination in marriage.”[7] This is an important reason to explore the pain and hurt that women feel.

When women hurt, the church hurts too

She Hurts is not just female leaders, there is another “she”, that is the church, the bride of Christ. When women hurt, “she” hurts too. 1 Corinthians 12 speaks about the church as a body. When the church functions well each person has a part to play, this metaphor gives us great hope. Look here at these words from 1 Corinthians… “but in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.”

It would be outrageous for one body part to say to another, you are not needed. We see here that the Bible speaks clearly against this. In 1 Corinthians 12:21 you see an inner monologue where the author personifies the body parts. “The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”. When we say to women we don’t need you, its as ludicrous and non sensical as the body telling its body parts that they are not needed.

He came to reverse the curse

Jesus as the Son of God had every right to rule women and men, yet he came to serve them and include them. He came to reverse the curse in Genesis 3, Philippians 2 shows us how, not by ruling but by serving.

“Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!” Philippians 2

It was through his servant nature that Jesus reversed the curse and by his actions we see what he thought of women.

Over and over again we hear the disciples criticizing Jesus for the way he was with women. Here we see two examples of Jesus serving women and facing criticism for it…

A sinful woman heard that Jesus was at the house of a Pharisee, she came and poured perfume, wept and anointed Jesus and the disciples say…”If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner” Luke 7

A poor women prepared Jesus for his burial in a way that none else did, she poured a years’ worth of perfume over Jesus and yet, the disciples ”rebuked her harshly. “Leave her alone,” said Jesus” Mark 14

Jesus himself not only had 12 male disciples, but woman joined him too. It was women that funded his missions, women were co-workers and women were the first to testify to his incarnation and resurrection. It didn’t stop there, women were essential to the birth and growth of the church in Europe. Paul testifies about this not only about the women he met on the river Bank in Philippi. But also the long list of women co workers in Romans 16.

Why a series called She Hurts?

I’ll leave it now to my friends to tell their stories. Each blog is written by a different female leader. The stories will remain anonymous for the honour and respect of the women involved. Subscribe to receive the She Hurts series.

Amy’s story - A story of hurt in leadership