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WOMEN IN TOP LEADERSHIP POSITIONS Accordingly, the ideal worker is in any case an unencumbered employee. Literature (Acker 1990) also calls it a disembodied worker, the shape of whom is naturally close to a male worker. For this reason, those who have any nurturing and caring responsibilities - predominantly women -— are excluded. According to the model, therefore, employment is a male norm, since it basically creates a system of expectations tailored to men. Essentially, “the concept of a universal worker excludes and marginalizes women who cannot, almost by definition, achieve the qualities of a real worker because to do so is to become like a man". It is equally necessary to distinguish the “invisible” segregation based on prejudice from visible physical segregation as a further obstacle. This is basically a component that plays an important role in workplace organisations in redistributing positions. The basis for this is that men tend to spend a lot of time building up their professional relationships. Thus, this factor becomes an essential part of their work. Some researchers base this phenomenon on human capital theory. As women collect less social capital than men, they are less likely to be in a leadership position.'?? According to Alice Eagly and Linda L. Carli, social capital has become an essential part of job advancement. “This suggests that social capital is even more necessary to managers’ advancement than skilful performance of traditional managerial tasks.”!*4 So executive nominations are made in closed circuits, in the “old mens club". Carli and Eagly describe a similar occurrence with their aforementioned concept of social capital investment. (See obstacle IV: the lack of social capital investment, on page 46.) They state that women generally spend very little time with their peers in their free time, these occasions primarily meaning partaking in certain sports events (hunting, poker, football or other, mainly masculine activities), which women tend not to prefer or are not even allowed to participate in. Although, while these events are officially not considered part of work, it has been proven they provide social capital for men allowing them to further their workplace positions as well." In other words, it can be claimed that social capital is what influences or shapes the redistribution of leadership positions in most cases, not only professional performance. It has long been recognized that the phenomenon of uneven distribution of nominations and rewards among scholars is common in science (Zuckerman, 1970). This is the so-called “Matthew effect”, which generally speaking, means 132 Acker quoted, ibidem. Dreher, G. F.: Breaking the glass ceiling: The effects of sex ratios and work-life programs on female leadership at the top, Human Relations, 56(5), 2003, 543. Eagly—Carli: Women and the Labyrinth. Cf. Nagy: Szervezet és nemek, 60. Eagly—Carli Women and the Labyrinth. 133 134 135 136
