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Show The Salt Lake Tribune BUSINESS Sunday, August6, 1995 USA: Gift or Cross, Women Have Choices By Paulette Thomas THE WALL STREET JOURNAL After two decades on Wall Street, Mary Rudie Barnebyis finally in the driver’s seat. At 43, she has a staff of 20 and commands more than $250 million in pensionassets. She has been cited as one of America’s 50 most powerful women managers. A Mistress of the Universe? Barneby has certainly reached a stratum of prestige and indepen- dence that few women in other countries could hope to match. But success on this scale for American women comesat a high personalprice. At her unadornedoffice in midtown Manhattan, Barnebytallies up hersacrifices: a first marriage, time with her son, a suburban home, a second child. She’s matter-of-fact about the trade-offs involved in her drive to the top. ‘Womenherehavechoices,” she says. “That's ourgreatest gift and greatest cross.” American women encounter fewer of the cultural barriers to success foundin Japan or Mexico, but neither do they get the government-guaranteed benefits of Western Europe that ease the strain of rearing a family while working. In the United States, success requires careful navigation through murky waters — avoiding dead-end staff jobs, improvising in child-care crises and excelling at genderpolitics. “Executive women haye to thread the eye of the needle,” says Dee Soder, an executive consultant in New York. “You have to be feminine but not too feminine. Aggressive but not too aggressive. High on initiative but still a team player. Men can have quirks that women can’t have.” In the first quarter of 1995, U.S. women earned only 75.9 cents for every doliar earned by men. Moreover, womenhold only 5 percent of senior-level managementjobs in America's 1,000 biggest companies, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Just two : women are chief executives of » those firms — the same number as 20 years ago. Yetthere are signs of progress. : More than a third of entrepreneurs now are women. Some 570 women serveon corporate boards of the Fortune 500, compared with 46 womenin 1977. Even so, professional women are juggling many demands. Barnebytakesit as a given that child carefalls to her. She has one son, Charlie, 9 years old; her husband, a chief investmentofficer for anotherfirm, hasfive children from a previous marriage, three of / whom are grown. Whendisputes erupted between their two nan- nies, she was the parent who mediated. Andbusiness travel is particularly tough when it’s Mom waving good-bye. Two years ago, while Barnebywas on the road pursuing ciients, her husband got a call from their son's school. Charlie : had announced to the school nurse that morning: “I haven't : eaten in three weeks.” Later, Barneby asked him why he would say such a thing. “I just felt that way,” he said, adding casually, “Don't travel so much.” The constanteffort to balance family and work makes guilt sec- ond nature for women,she says. “We can't work with total abandon,” she says. Barneby says she probably wouldn't have had a career in businessat all if not for an Equal “Executive women have to thread the eye of the needle. You have to be feminine but not too feminine. Aggressive but not too aggressive. High on initiative but still a team player. Men can have quirks that women can’t have.”? Employment Opportunity Commission order in the 1970s that Merrill Lynch & Co. hire more women and minorities, She responded to the company’s recruitment efforts after majoring in psychology and philosophy at New York University. Barneby turned down a sales job ai the Wall Street firm, convinced she didn't have the right skills. At 22, she says, she couldn't imagine herself ‘calling up a 53year-old man and selling him a bond.” But she accepted a post performing inhouse efficiency studies and made it a steppingstone te more influential positions. It set the pattern for her career: finding a niche job no one else wanted and forging a visible success. Butshepaid a price — with her first marriage. She and her husband, who was pursuing a more sedate academic career, drifted apart. The marriage collapsed after six years, when she was 28. After her divorce, she turned to her career for solace andfelt a new sense of freedom. She worked every Saturday, after 12hour days during the week, and also acquired an M.B.A.at night. “I worked like a crazy person,” shesays, “and it was joyous.” A workaholic life wasn’t enough, however.At age 33, while still single, she became pregnant and decided she wantedthe baby. But she worried about what her boss would say. As the head of marketing services, she was now among the highest-ranking womenat the firm. For five months she hid her pregnancy, stretching her skirt waistbands ever wider by looping rubber bands through the buttonholes. Whenshe revealed her news, her superiors congratulated her warmly. But Barneby recalls the first day she entered the office wearing maternity clothes as her most difficult ever: She felt conspicuous in her flowing dress, “dragging motherhood into the office.” Raising her son away from the grit and tumult of New Yorkrequired Barnebyto get out of her suburban New Jersey neighborhood by 6 a.m., leaving Charlie in the care ofa live-in nanny, and return after 8 p.m. And that was when ‘she wasn’t traveling. She saw her son on weekends ‘and when he wassleeping,” she says. When Charlie was 2%, she moved to Manhattan.Shelater remarried, and her husband adopt- ed Charlie. At work, meanwhile, she became a vice president, responsible for strategic planning, sales promotion and new-product development in the huge Merrill Lynch consumer department, supervising about 200 people. Still, Barneby yearned for more: a job where she would contribute to the bottom line. Again, she found a niche. Because of her strategic-planning work, she was among those who recognized a huge opportunity in retirement planning for corporations. She sought a job running Merrill Lynch's start-up division --arisky step down on the corporate ladder. Underherwatch, the division grew by $500 million in two years. It’s nota glass ceiling, she says, that prevents women from reaching the top: Instead, she envi: a room divided by a one-way mirror, with the male executivesall on oneside, talking among themselves and competing with each other. “Wecan see them,but they can’t see us.” DEE SODER An executive consultant in New York MEXICO: Women Must Work Harder By DianneSolis ‘THE WALL STREET JOURNAL In Mexico, the country that gave machismoits definition, wo- men havehadto fight extra hard to get into the executive suite. Maria Elena Juarez has beena fighter all herlife. She says that in Mexico, “for a woman, it takes double the effort, perhaps even triple the effort”thatit takes men to succeed. The 48-year-old Juarez, a part- ner in the executive-search company Amrop International, has faced discriminationin her career and confronts major obstacles when trying to place femaleclients in executive positions. At first glance, Mexico looks progressive. It has had an equal rights amendmentsince 1974.Its labor law provides women with three months of paid maternity leave, plus child-care centers and extra rest periods for women nursing babies. It was in Mexico City that the United Nations held its first conference on womenin 1975. Butthereality here is quite different. Government-run childcare centers have waitinglists of several years. Women often get fired when their pregnancies are known. In June, a group of women’s social-service agenciesfiled a complaint with the Mexico City Human Rights Commission over the commonpractice of requiring married women applying for jobs to undergo urine tests for pregnancy. One way some women ensure the test comes back negative: They supply their husbands’ urine for the test. Juarez says she has succeeded because she had family role models and support, but she also had to blaze her own path andsacri- fice her personal life to get beyond cultural limitations. “I’m not your classic submissive Mexican woman,” she says. She traces her assertiveness to an unconventional childhood. She was the only child of a divorced mother who ran a small clothing store outside Mexico City. Early on, Juarez’s uncle decided she should learn English to get ahead in life. She becamethefirst woman in her family to go to college, majoring in business administration — an unusual choice for 4 womanat the time — at a bilingual university in Mexico City. Juarez worked her way up to research director at an executivesearch company. At 35, she left to become a partner at a small search firm run by two other wo- men. She says simplythat they recruited her for her international expertise, but moving to smaller firms is becoming more common among Mexican women. While they head just 16.3 percent of businesses, they run 33 percentof microbusinesses, or those with one to 10 employees, according to a study by Gina eaboneyey at the A of Mexico. Please Recycle! ENTREPRENEURS WANTED Reface it Kitchen Systems, the premier kitchen and bath renovation franchise, is coming to Salt Lake City! An excellent opportunity to join the fast growing homeservice industry. Only twoterritories available. Call Now! For more information 1-800-726-5266 “Womenhavenootherchoice,” says Denise Dresser, a political scientist who also is overseeing a study of women-led microbusinesses. ‘Womenhave nolegal recourse against sexual harassment or discrimination in Mexico.” “Any woman worth 2 cents gets out of the corporate world and starts a consultancy or her own business,” says Anna Fusoni, a past president of the Association of Mexican Entrepreneurs. Having proved that she could makea go of the business on her own, Juarez joined Amrop 10 years ago and now specializes in placing executives in the computer industry. Along the way, she got married and divorced. Her marriagelasted three years, and she says her professional ambitions were a sourceoftension.‘‘Of the successful women I know, few are married, and if they are married,it’s to very open men,” says Juarez, whohasno children. Juarez lives by herself in a condominium near her office. She hasn't had any trouble renting, butit isn’t uncommonfor men to frown onhertype oflifestyle outside of Mexico City. Other single womentell of difficulties living on their own: One 35-year-old lawyer in Monterrey had a hard time finding an apartment because landlords didn’t think it proper for a womanto live alone and work. Inthis climate,finding posts for womenclients is difficult. Juarez says that multinationals are more receptive than Mexican companies, and notes that the Mexican units of Compaq Computer Corp. and Blockbuster Entertainment Inc. are headed by Mexican women. But getting Mexican companies to consider women for top posts takes considerable persuasion, she says. Sometimes male employers describe what they wantin a candidate, and “implicitly it means a man,” she says. However,Juarez is hopeful for the women coming behind her. When she started out some 20 years ago, she never had a female client. Now about 10 percent of her clients are Mexican women — almost all headed for managerial posts earning at least $100,000 a year. In addition, more women are becoming educated; law schools, medical schools and accounting schools now reflect Mexican society, with their ranks half full of women. Last year, women nearly tripled their representation in the Mexican Senate and nearly doubled their representation in the lower house. Whenplacing womenclients, Juarez argues that companies can’t afford to ignore a huge section of the workforce when looking for talent. “There are more qualified women,” she says, “and ies have to take 2 of good-quality brains.” BEST ONE oe * BUSINESS! me$15,000, REINVEST PROFITS . 40 MONTHS, MAKE UP TO $10,000 AMONTH © PART OR FULL TIME & CALL 4-800-527-8363 TODAY JAPAN: The Land Of the Rising Sexism By Valerie Reitman THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Emiko Muto’s awakening came last year, when, at the age of 34, she realized Japanesesociety had no place for her: not as a professional, notas a wife. Her cherished career unrayeled when her job as an account executive at an ad agency was changed from full-time to a contractual position — and hersalary was cut 30 percent. She hasn't been able to find another fulltime job. Mutotried to find what she jokingly calls “permanent employment” in a far more acceptable women’s Int fox 4MB RAM, 850MB HDD, 4MB PC! Video, 444 , ZKCO-ROM kit $4499 tower, aRO on ee marriage. posts, and 14 percenthave profes- sionalor technical jobs. Career womenalso work among crowdsof young“Office Ladies,” who wearidentical uniforms, answer phones,greet visitors, operate elevators and serve tea —- generally until they marry and leave the company. The small gains women have madesince the passage nine years ago of equal employment opportunity legislation have shrunk in Japan’s dismal economicclimate. Growing numbers of workers million yen (about $37,000) from 4.45 million yen. Living alone in an $800-a-month studio apartment in Tokyo, she has been dipping into her savings to make ends meet. She got a rude introduction to sexist office policies at her first job, as an “‘office lady” in a realestate developer's office. Her uniform: a mint-green skirt and blouse. Her duties included serving tea or coffee to the 60 men in the office, remembering precisely how much sugar and milk each took. Unhappy, she used her savings to go to the United States for a year, where she traveled by herself and studied English. She was impressed with American wom- en’s freedom,andtookit to heart when her Italian-American hostfamily mother in California encouraged herto “try everything. You can doit.” Muto returned to Japan and joined a Frenchstart-up company that hired her in its administrative division. The foreign company was an oasis from muchof the sexism found in Japanese workplaces. But things changed when the French companyhired a Japanese man to be personnel manager. He had a traditional Japanese mindset and started excluding women from important meetings, Muto says. She became bored and moved to her present firm, where she works on a cosmetics account. Nowthat sheis in her mid-30s, her prospects for changing jobs have diminished. Wantads in Japanare as specific as personal ads in the United States: They often are divided into categories by sex, require applicants to send photos and often specify that applicants be younger than 35. Sheis also gettingpolitically active. In March,she and a haif-dozen other working women formed what has become a 72-member Women’s Unionthat lets women know what their rights are and mediates workplace disputes Since local newspapers publicized the group's activities, the Women’s Union has received more than 300 cails from women calling to complain about arbitrary dismissals, demotions and sexual harassment. Muto hopes to use her assertiveness to help other Japanese women whoare moretimid. ““Women don’t haveinformation,” she says. “I want to be a bridge to oth- er Japanese working women.” arg Ce $99 feVi Copy ‘DISCOUNT COMMISSIONS"5 ‘300. White Discount rities eeOe Temple #410 + Member:SIPC ‘ Edition or eal Ron Baker8838797| 5 CADILLAC CLOSE OUT OverMillion Dollars in Inventory x% Million £6 Million Hurry while the selection is still good ratios Only: RAM, 420M HOD,tM VA Video, occupation: She registered with a dating service, paying $3,000 for referrals to prospective spouses. But her search for a husband has been as depressingas her jcb hunt. The two dozen men she has dated were mostly looking for “servants to cook and clean and support them,” shesays, not independent-mindedpartners. Muto’s alienation is common among Japanese career women, Theyfit in neither the professional world northetraditional world. They must grapple with a powerful conventional wisdom that dictates they belong in the kitchen, not the workplace. At home, they receivelittle help from their husbands, whotypically live separate social lives that revolve around the office. Economist Tomoko Fujii describes the men she once worked with at a Japanese brokerage firm:‘Their corporate life is just an extension of their privatelife. They are using women as tools at home and doing the same at the office. It's not easy to change them.” Japan remains decades behind the U.S. when it comes to advancement for career-minded women. In a government survey of 744 career womenlast year, twothirds said they had been unfairly treated because of their gender. Much of this bias stems from the continued acceptance of ageold gender roles. Even Japanese women embrace suchthinking.In a 1992 poll of 1,000 women by the Tokyo city government, 56 percent agreed that “the husband should be the breadwinner and the wife should stay at home.” That figure is far higher than polls foundin other wealthy countries in similar surveys. Just 13 percent of Swedish women thought wives should stay home, as did 20 percent of Britons, 22 percent of Frenchwomen, 24 percent of Americans and 25 percent of Germans. This mindset makes it all the tougher for Japanese women who do want careers. They have few female mentors: Just 1 percentof working women hold managerial such as Muto have been turned into “keiyaku shain,” or contract employees with no benefits, from seishain, or lifetime employees. Many womencan'tget either kind of position andare forcedto settle for part-time work. Nearly one of every three womenworkingin Japanis a part-timer. Japan’s hierarchal employment structure severely limits job mobility. With very few exceptions, large corporations hire only newly minted college graduates who work for their employers until they're in their 50s. Promotions are based on strict senioritybased pecking order. Consequently, top managers arevirtually all elderly men. 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