Women's work: challenges still exist for women in the workforce

The number of working women in America has almost quadrupled in the past 50 years and the nation has seen women rise through the ranks in many traditionally male-dominated careers.

Nine years ago, Eileen Collins became the first female astronaut to pilot a space shuttle; last year, Nancy Pelosi was elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; and on Jan. 1, Ellen Kullman will become the first female CEO of DuPont.

But despite the progress working women have made, they still face challenges in the workplace because of their gender, said Judy Czyzewski, president of Wilmington Women in Business, a networking organization for professional women.

Equal pay between men and women is the major issue that affects working women in nearly every industry, said Czyzewski, 38, of Brandywine Hundred.

Women in Delaware earn 79.6 percent of what their male counterparts earn, which is slightly higher than the national average of 77.6 percent, according to the AFL-CIO.

The wage gap can be partly explained by the lower value some employers place on the work of women, Czyzewski said, but another factor is how women approach salary negotiations.

“Not all women ask for what they want or what they deserve,” she said.

But progress has been made in closing the wage gap.

The AFL-CIO reports that pay for women in Delaware increased 11.5 percent in the past decade while pay for men increased only 4.1 percent. Even still, at that rate, Delaware women will not earn equal pay until 2034.

Pay is not the only inequality women can face in the workplace, she said. Some companies are led by men who only communicate with their female employees in a demeaning way.

“Women, especially if they are not secure in their abilities, have a tendency to allow themselves to be belittled and held back,” she said.

Czyzewski knows firsthand about the inequalities that exist in corporate culture. She worked for an organization early in her career she said was led by a group of male bullies who showed her no respect.

After dealing with that treatment for a while, she said she began to question her own capabilities and it was only after she became more confident that she realized she had to change jobs to get the respect she deserved.

The corporate world, which employs more than 20,000 Delaware women, has been faster to change than some industries, she said, and strong, confident, hard-working women have had a lot to do with it.

It was confidence that helped Rebecca Dengler rise to the rank of teaching professional at Ed “Porky” Oliver Golf Club in Wilmington, despite the fact that golf is an industry dominated by men.

Dengler, 44, of West Chester, Pa., is one of only a handful of female golf professionals in the region and she said it is unbelievable that more women aren’t employed on the links.

At golf conferences, she said she’ll be lucky to see more than two other women in a room with 300 golf professionals and, at one of the most recent conferences she attended, every speaker addressed the crowd as “gentlemen.”

“It’s just like a snapshot of our society,” she said. “I still don’t think women are valued for their worth in a lot of areas.”

Golf has been a slow industry to change partly because of the sport’s tradition of exclusivity, she said. Dengler remembered seeing a clipping of a magazine article from the 1950s titled “Keeping women off the golf course.”

Fifty years later, not a lot has changed, she said. Dengler left a job at a golf course because she was not treated fairly by her male bosses. The industry’s male dominance increases the likelihood of that type of situation, she said.

While it is frustrating to be in an industry with such a heavy male majority, she said it is important that women maintain their own personality, despite the pressures of their work situation.

"I don't think women need to mold themselves like men," she said. "I don't think we should be palling around with the guys at night smoking cigars. That's not us."

The golf industry will someday be forced to change by the economy, Dengler said, especially since 3 million fewer rounds of golf were played last year nationwide. Women golfers are an untapped market that golf courses will need to reach to be successful, she said, and more female golf professionals will be needed to teach new women golfers the game.

But for now, Dengler said she operates in what is very much a man’s world.

Male dominance has also been a tradition that has been slow to change in the radio industry, said Jane Bartsch, general manager of WJBR.

Only about 14 percent of radio station general managers are women and the high number of male radio station owners probably has a lot to do with that, said Bartsch, 59, of Wilmington.

“But it’s not just the people above you; it’s the people beneath you. There is a stigma,” she said. “There are a lot of men who don’t like to work for a woman.”

When Bartsch was hired by WJBR five years ago, she said the tension she felt from the station’s male employees was almost palpable. Her predecessor was a man and she could tell the station’s culture was very male-dominant, she said.

“By the end of my first day, a couple of women came into my office and said, ‘We are so glad you are here because it’s been like a locker room,’” she said.

Her open-door policy and her management style quickly showed the employees that she was a fair, hard-working and dedicated leader, she said, and she has not encountered any gender issues since then.

Bartsch has led many radio stations over her career and said she has never been passed up for a job because of her gender, but the working world was very different when she started her career in the early 1970s.

She worked in advertising in New York City before she began her career in radio and said she watched male employees receive raises and promotions ahead of her, but she never let it hold her back. The confidence she built early in her career was instrumental in her rise to the top of the executive ladder, she said.

“If in your environment, you think it’s a man’s world, so what. That’s not the worst challenge in the world,” she said. “And if it means you’ve got to work a little harder and work a little smarter and be a little louder, then do it.”