Women Leaders: Their Potential, Their Challenges

EVANSTON, Ill. --- For a nation where numbers of women and men are nearly equal, why is it that less than 5 percent of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies are women, and in the U.S. Congress, less than 20 percent of its members are female?

Three faculty experts will examine the challenges that women face in ascending to and retaining leadership positions and, in turn, how they might shape their companies, organizations and even society at large at a policy research briefing hosted by Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research (IPR) Friday, Dec. 4, from noon to 1:30 p.m. in Chicago.

The event, “Madam President? Women Leaders: Their Potential, Their Challenges,” is free and open to the public; it will be held in Wieboldt Hall on the University’s Chicago campus, 340 E. Superior St.

Registration is required at http://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/events/prb2015.html by Wednesday, Dec. 2. 

The three faculty experts will contrast women and men’s leadership styles, discuss field experiments that increased the number of women in leadership roles and assess how women might better make themselves heard in public discourse.

Panelists include:

“Women as Leaders: Negotiating the Labyrinth”
Alice Eagly, James Padilla Chair of Arts and Sciences, professor of psychology and IPR Fellow, Northwestern University

“Gender Inequality in Deliberative Participation”
Christopher Karpowitz, associate professor of political science, Brigham Young University

“Women’s Political Empowerment”
Lori Beaman, assistant professor of economics and IPR Fellow, Northwestern University