bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

SCMP Reporter

IN the English city of Birmingham, a host of men in white coats recently got to their feet to address the British Psychological Society Conference, all set to reveal to the world a few truths about that apparently baffling social phenomenon: the successful working woman.

  First the good news: women who make it to the top, they told us, tend to be more able than their male colleagues.

 Successful women are more highly motivated and determined. And they have greater personal and professional skills.

  Women have to be better, they explained, because it is harder for them to get promoted than men.

  To get on, they have to penetrate that so-called glass ceiling, the invisible layer of discrimination which keeps senior management jobs safe for the boys.

 I must admit that this startling conclusion - the result, apparently, of top-level university research - didn't exactly come as a surprise.

  It seemed remarkably similar to something working women have been saying for the last 30 years.

  If the scales are weighted against you, of course you're required to be outstanding to succeed.

  But that wasn't all. As if to reassure any men who might feel offended or even, dare we think it, threatened by the news that women might surpass them, the researchers were quick to sweeten the pill.

  Women executives, they added, pay for their success with a greater risk of emotional problems.

  They are often ''very tense'' and even ''very neurotic''.

  They are also quieter and more restrained than men; qualities I would associate not so much with a neurotic personality as with one under siege in a hostile environment.

  The scientific details of studies such as these never seem to be publicised. It's the cliches the media wants.

  How large was the sample? Would a mixed-sex test sample show different results? And ''neurotic'' in whose opinion?   We are never told.

  It is an impossible argument. The more women protest and say they are no more unbalanced than their male colleagues - I can think of a few from my own working life - the more they will be called paranoid.

  But the real tragedy is that instead of challenging stereotypes, this sort of study really perpetuates them.

  It takes as its basis the assumption that women executives are designed to be lumped together as a category, a sub-group to be compared with the mythical male ''norm''.

  Women executives, in general, are this and this, it tells us.

  Forget the personality and work history.

  This is managerial performance determined by hormonal make-up.

  As soon as the headlines roll off the presses, you can feel them being crystallised into myth in offices all over the country, used not to help women but to bolster prejudice.

  The next time a woman executive clashes with her male colleagues, how will the men tackle it?   ''Neurotic,'' they will say to comfort each other. ''It's true. It was in the paper.''   Those men in their white coats have a lot to answer for.



The hormone assessment test