Being a leader doesn't require a certain job title or salary level.
Women
who hold this false belief limit themselves. Why stay within your salary level? It's important to understand that leadership involves your ability to influence others, regardless of your position, gender, age, or any other trait. The fact is that leadership transcends hierarchical role or status.It's not a skill set that magically comes with the job title. Rather, it's what makes people earn a job. So practice leadership, whatever your role. It is the practice of leadership skills that makes a person a leader and dedicates them to professional progress. Whether you're a career professional or a janitor, a CEO or a homemaker, take a step forward.
Not only were women in categories not related to nursing paid less during the war, due to the hospital administrator's concept of their lower social status, but they were penalized again a generation after the war, when former nurses campaigned for them, differentiating themselves from other relief workers. You may not admit it in so many words, but many women refrain from taking the initiative, as if waiting for someone to authorize them to take control or guide people. In general, women suffer a penalty for sympathy, as women who demonstrate authoritarian behavior run the risk of disliking them, complicating their leadership trajectory. In Australia, the national gender pay gap is 17.3%; women represent only 35% of all full-time employees and 21% of ASX directors; and the labor participation rate for women is only 59.5%, compared to 71% for men. However, aboard the Knickerbocker, after the battles of the Seven Days in 1862, when Bradley found cabins full of dirty clothes, she hired “four girls (of color) to fix the mess, so she was obviously looking for lower-ranking women to take care of the tasks she herself wanted to avoid.
As Alice Eagly points out in Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership, and my experience as a women's coach confirms that there is often an incompatibility between gender and leadership stereotypes, where the stereotype of leadership is understood as agency (safe, aggressive, ambitious, decisive, active) and more aligned with the male stereotype. Elite women volunteered for this job because they could do it, and they strove to differentiate themselves socially from women who accepted salaries. This is one of the most common myths about women in the workplace, but survey data and other research suggest that when high-performing, highly educated professional women leave their jobs after becoming mothers, only a small number do so because they prefer to dedicate themselves exclusively to motherhood. The women whom Amy Morris Bradley had considered among “the USSC aristocracy” —Louisa Schuyler and Abby Woolsey— were decisive in the creation of a nurses' training school at Bellevue Hospital in New York as early as 1873. While legendary nurses such as Harriet Patience Dame and Mary Ann Bickerdyke were pensioned by special congressional laws in the 1870s and 80s, they believed that a standardized pension would offer fuller access to elderly and needy women. Even after pension requirements were lowered, allowing women in other employment categories to demonstrate that they had done work equivalent to nursing, finding witnesses to corroborate their claims before the “competent authority” often became an insurmountable obstacle. It is often perceived that they are more difficult to work with, whether as co-workers, subordinates or bosses, and this is particularly true when people directly observe women participating in wage negotiations.
We found that women aspired just as much as men to become chief executives or to hold an equally high position, but even among those who had no children, women were still lagging behind men from day one in terms of pay, wage increases and promotions. In fact, this idea is rooted in gender bias, as traits such as trustworthiness, authority, decisiveness and assertiveness are more commonly associated with men. Hundreds of women spent more time than her on arduous relief tasks and dozens of them performed roles on the battlefield. Leadership is not limited by gender or job title; it is an attitude that can be adopted by anyone regardless of their background or circumstances. Women have been historically underrepresented in positions of power due to cultural biases and stereotypes about their capabilities. However there are many examples of successful female leaders who have broken through these barriers and achieved great success in their respective fields.
Women should not be discouraged from taking initiative or pursuing leadership roles due to outdated misconceptions about their abilities; instead they should be encouraged to take charge and make their mark on society.
