Blog #8 -Education & Gender in Business School

Closing the Gender Gap at Business School

October 21, 2011

4:57pm
By LOUISE LOFTUS
Published: October 19, 2011

Summary

The European Institute of Business
Administration, or Insead, in France, has partnered with the Forté Foundation,
an American initiative funded by business schools and corporations to offer
financial aid, mentoring and networking assistance to guide women toward taking
leadership roles. Increasing child-care options, offering flexible working
hours and instituting boardroom quotas has not worked for many companies. The
academic world has strived to get women into M.B.A programs, as well. Since
2005, Insead’s enrollment has gone up from 17% to 33%. This is with the help of
women only scholarships and networking events. They have done research to figure out why many
women do not seek out this type of higher education. It was found that most of
the M.B.A’s are desired and/or needed in childbearing years.

Analysis

I thought this article was very interesting because it ties in gender issues, as
well as education issues. As we have talked about in class for the past couple
of days, women in all parts of the country have unequal opportunities. One of
the first couple places it starts is in education. In various countries, men
will get the opportunity to go to school before a woman. I was really
interested in the reason why women do not seek to get their M.B.A. It makes
sense now that I have read this article. Most of the time one needs experience
to go back to get this type of degree, which is around the age 24-30 when you
want to start having kids. Another reason that I guessed was maybe because of
the “glass ceiling” we discussed in class. Women may think that since we do not
normally get the CEO positions then why even go the M.B.A route. It is unique
but very saddening that women experience inequities is so many ways. However,
education should not be one of the inequalities. We all needed to be educated
to the highest degrees and I think it would be a good idea for women to start
having a stronger presence in the business world by obtaining there M.B.A.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/education/20iht-SReducWomen20.html?ref=internationaleducation