女强人经常被问到的问题

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When the questions get personal By Elaine Moore

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背景

Some prominent businesswomen believe they are being asked to disclose more about their personal lives as they climb the career ladder than their male counterparts.

One seemingly innocent but frequently asked question illustrates the keen interest in the balance that women have to achieve between their professional and private lives –“how do you make it work?”

Campaigners say that this question would hardly ever be put to a man and that it implicitly raises doubts over women‟s commi tment to their professional lives.

Similarly, in a recent interview for FT Executive Appointments, one female chief executive declined to answer questions about her home life, saying her own achievements might then be attributed to having a supportive husband and family – or to being single or childless.

Deborah Meaden, the entrepreneur whose profile rose dramatically when she began appearing on the BBC‟s popular television show Dragons‟ Den, has developed strict boundaries around the parts of her life that she will and will not discuss.

“I was fairly nervous about mentioning anything at the start, but I am clear now about what I will and won‟t talk about,” she explains. “You will never see a picture of my home, but there are stories that I have decided I do n‟t mind talking about – like the fact that I keep pigs and sheep. Who my friends are and what I do in my private life is not public information,” she says.

But she believes that the scale of interest in her personal life is the result of her media career, as much as her gender.

“There are more men in business and so it‟s a fact that if you are a woman you are a rarity and therefore you will attract more interest. And there is interest in how your life works because the traditional form is that women look after the family. But a lot of business people go about their life without anyone being interested in their home life.”

Caroline Garnham, founder and chief executive of Family Bhive, the social networking website for wealthy individuals, says many high prof ile women fear the “JK Rowling experience”, where unwelcome public interest is extended to their children, who become a target for the media.

But, she adds, parents who maintain a balance between home and business are interesting. “People are interested in how women manage their lives. And I think that‟s fine, it just depends on how the question is asked.”

Peninah Thomson, director of the FTSE 100 Cross-Company Mentoring Programme, is less sure that pursuing a line of questioning about successful women‟s ho me lives is a good idea.

“It‟s perhaps not surprising that women executives are frequently asked about how they balance their professional and their personal lives, but I‟m not sure it‟s helpful,” she says.

“It runs the risk of implying that senior women m ay be grappling with challenges that are insurmountable, when the evidence is that professional women are succeeding in resolving those challenges –that they can be addressed.”