The Hindu Business Line : Behind every woman sleeps an ambition

WOMEN hate men, and vice versa, are all old stuff. Women hate `ambition' is what could surprise you. But Anna Fels writes in the latest issue of Harvard Business Review just that in her article "Do Women Lack Ambition?"

For men, ambition is what drives them past their peers, something they learnt when speeding their bikes on roads, and something they continue to do when stepping on the gas to overtake in the wrong places. That's why you have the CEO pump his hands violently when his company's results top market expectations.

For women, however, the word is a bad one. It implied `egotism, selfishness, self-aggrandisement, or the manipulative use of others for one's own ends', writes Fels, after interviewing many subjects.

But it was not that women had no ambitions as kids; each one visualised herself as playing very important roles such as novelist, president, actress and so on.

Two things were common in girls' wishes, notes Fels: "One was mastery of a special skill: writing, dancing, acting, diplomacy. The other was recognition: attention from an appreciative audience."

That's fine, but as years get added, and girls become women, their outlook changes. Even as they have access to almost anything that was a male domain, instead of celebrating their achievements, "women too frequently seek to deflect attention from themselves."

Queerly, they shift the credit elsewhere and shun recognition. That makes it an accounting problem, one may say, to go after that wayward credit, but the point that the author drives at is that all women `relinquish recognition' and `remove themselves from spotlight'.

I know you wouldn't agree because what you see on the TV and during social occasions might suggest otherwise, but the author states: "Women, after all, may just be less interested in personal attention than men. Or maybe they simply don't care about the types of recognition that men strive for."

At no other point in history were so many options available to women to pursue.

"But doing so is socially condoned only if they have first satisfied the needs of all their family members: husbands, children, elderly parents, and others," notes the HBR article.

"If this requirement isn't met, women's ambitions as well as their femininity will be called into question."

That's quite a burden to carry, but at least five tips that Fels offers to `get ambitious about ambition' are: Organise, don't expect things to fall into place, provide for structures of recognition, blow your own horn, and realise it's never too late. Each woman has "to carve out a life for herself with adequate meaning and satisfaction", and there are just too many to choose from. And, don't shy away from being `pushy'.

Another observation about the man-woman divide is about capabilities.

Boys and men have "an inflated estimation of their capabilities", while girls and women, even when they perform better then their male peers, "routinely underestimate their abilities."

This, according to the author, could be responsible for women not attaining what they aspired for in the first place.

However, in `later life', after their children are settled, women "develop a new resilience and energy". Fels wonders if the `newfound strength of these women reflects the fact that their sexual identity is no longer assailable'.

And global demographic maps shift towards a higher median age, one thing you can be sure of is more of such `powerful creatures'.

Do we see the men retiring to their hammocks already?

SayCheek@TheHindu.co.in