European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 16, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday september 16, 1991 the stars and stripes a Page 13 commentary James j. Kilpatric business still not giving women fair shake in recent weeks we have heard a great Deal about the dismal prospects of the United states in the next Century. Our High school students fare poorly in International Competition. Their Scholastic aptitude test scores Are dismal. Everything is getting soft and the country is going to the powwows. Maybe so but a couple of reports from the department of labor suggest that not All is lost. American employers for the most part Are overlooking a resource that could make a tremendous difference Over the next 40 years. They Are ignoring women. This is when you think about it a thoroughly dumb thing to do. Last months report on the a Glass ceiling in business and Industry has been Well publicized. An earlier report by Clifford Adelman women at thirty something provides an abundance of facts to support the thesis. For a variety of reasons Well qualified women tend to Rise to a certain executive level a and there they Stop. The Glass ceiling study looked closely at nine Fortune 500 companies. These were scattered across the United states. They ranged in size from 8,000 employees to More than 300,000 employees but they showed an identical pattern. Within these companies qualified women run into artificial barriers that prevent them from advancing to top positions in management. Some of the barriers Are organizational. Most top executive jobs Are filled from within and most promotions depend heavily on tenure. Typically a High ranking executive will have served 25 years with the company. Promotions also depend upon the nature of a candidates experience work in sales or production counts for More than achievement in research or Public relations. Networking is a practice that works against women this is the informal system by which top jobs result from word of Mouth referrals. There is a network of old boys but not of old girls. Many Large corporations depend upon executive committees at lower Levels of management if women Are not named to these committees they lose the experience that goes into promotions and raises. Other barriers Are attitudinal. Sexual stereotypes persist. Justice William Brennan described them two years ago in the Case of Ann b. Hopkins of Price waterhouse. After five years with the company her name was put up for promotion to partner. Thirteen of her evaluations were excellent she had landed a fat contract for the firm her work was outstanding and so on. But a on too Many occasions Hopkins aggressiveness apparently spilled Over into  she was criticized for being brusque profane unduly harsh difficult to work with in sum. She was a a a Macho woman. One partner was full of helpful advice if she wanted to make partner she should walk talk and dress Quot More Femini Nely a put on some makeup get her hair done. Justice Brennan saw catch-22. Under this in tolerable and impermissible approach women Are Quot out of a Job if they behave aggressively and out of a Job if they don�?Tt.�?�. Whatever the causes the evidence is Clear. In the admittedly limited Sample of the Glass ceiling study Only 6.6 percent of top executives were women. In Charleston. S.c., two women reporters for the Post courier took a look locally. At South Carolina electric amp Gas Only one of 18 top executives is a woman. At publicly owned Santee Cooper women held two of 11 top spots. At South Carolina National Bank the score was two of 40. At the College of Charleston two of 13. Arc women As a class less qualified the Adelman study looked at the High school class of 1972 and followed graduates for 14 years. Both in High school and in College women a academic performance was Superior to menus. Women went on to College at the same rate As men they won More scholarships completed degrees faster and had higher Grade Point averages. Their achievements in mathematics were notably higher than menus. Why Arentt these findings reflected in the executive suite t he defensive response of management is that in time they will be reflected. Women will be brought increasingly into lower management Levels and will be pushed toward the top. A yeah a says the vice president of my own corporation with a Small note of weariness in her voice a a they be been saying that for  c a Versal press evolution of the Boss evolution of the Secretary Ante �jwt9p Ellen Goodman salad bar approach to Medicine is the Norm Over the past Winter two women of a certain age brought their biological stories to their Friendly neighbourhood gynaecologist for a midlife checkup. Each woman shared her symptoms a who the hell is fooling around with the thermostat in this body a and her family history. Each received a thorough examination. One of this duo however left with a package of teeny weeny hormone tablets while the other did not. What made this surprising was that these women not Only had the same complaints and the same doctor a they had the same family history. They were Sisters. Of course upon further conversation the two figured out that in fact they had proffered fairly different versions of their medical heritage. They had picked Independent anxieties off their common ancestral tree a one emphasized cancer the other did not. But the notion that fairly minor discrepancies could steer a major decision one Way or another is still enough to give either of them us. Hot flashes. I retell this family Story now because another oestrogen study has just been added to the menopausal pile. The new England journal of Medicine reported thursday on a 10-year study of 49,000 nurses. Their study indicates that women who take oestrogen after menopause Cut their risk of heart attack almost in half. So we draw another daily feature onto the composite portrait of risks that is emerging like a most wanted poster in the police station. Oestrogen will probably Cut the risk of heart attacks and osteoporosis. But it is believed to raise the risk of uterine cancer and May or May not raise the risk of cancer of the breast. Add progesterone to the hormonal mix and the risk of uterine cancer goes Down. But nobody knows what that will mean for the breast or the heart beating within it. Does this begin to sound like the salad bar approach to Medicine which would you rather have cancer or a heart attack broken Bones or cancer of the uterus step right up and choose your late. Done to bang your head on the sneeze guard. These Days it Isnit raging hormonal imbalance that drives a Post menopausal woman berserk. Its raging medical debate. Some 30 to 40 million american women Are now searching for i. Right. They want a definitive answer on oestrogen and instead they re getting the daily Odds. The answer to this is of course More research. I belong to the cohort of women who believe that we will Only get serious research on these subjects As the first critical mass of women doctors passes through the life Cycle. But research does no to necessarily clarify things. It May just add new items to the salad bar. In just the past months for example we found out that finnish men who lowered their cholesterol blood pressure and weight were More Likely to die of heart attacks than those who went about their bad old ways. We read that British men who drank booze in moderate quantities had a lower rate of heart attacks than those who drank totally Tea. What have we Learned give up cheese Here or move to Finland your liver or your heart is this True for the British Goose As Well As the Gander dress this salad with confusion. The oestrogen research done with these nurses does try to assess the Overall Odds. Heart disease is a much greater killer of women a yes it is so a than breast cancer. Anything that greatly Lowers the Chance of a heart attack is going to save lives even if it slightly raises the chances of cancer. But that Isnit an answer for one sweaty patient holding her own family a history in the waiting room. Increasingly medical research subdivides us by risk factors and background by race gender ethnicity lifestyle diet and of course genes. We Are moving into an Era of information glut and decision making gridlock. Medicine is increasingly individualized and Dill use. The uncertainties that characterize the debate about oestrogen Are becoming the Norm. The practice of salad bar Medicine Means in essence that doctors who once told us what we should do Are More Likely now to Tell us what we can do. I hey Lay out the options before us. Rack up the risks. And there we arc on our own. With an empty plate and shaky set of tongs tithe fio Tor Elolf