Abstract

Research into gender differences in communication

More than three decades of research in linguistics has accumulated evidence of gender-related differences in speech behaviours. Such differences have been observed at the micro-linguistic, even sub-sentence level, for example studies of conversational silences and interruptions (Eakins and Eakins, 1978, 1979; James and Clarke, 1993; West and Zimmerman 1977, 1983), turn-taking behaviour in conversation (Fielder et al, 1993), the use of ‘hedges’ and ‘boosters’ (Holmes, 1984a, 1984b, 1988) as well as more broadly based strategies, such as paying compliments (Holmes, 2002), persuading (Andrews, 1987), gossiping (Coates, 1988; Pilkington, n.d.), story-telling (Holmes, 1997), putting and accepting proposals (Lituchy and Wiswall, 1991), and self-aggrandising speech (Miller et al., 1992). Speech differences have also been seen both to define and reflect differences in sex roles (Preisler, 1986; Zimmerman and West, 1983) and membership of different community of professional groups (McElhinney, 1995; West, 1990).

Some researchers (eg Cameron, 1997; Cameron and Bourne, 1988; Crosby and Nyquist, 1977; Spender, 1979, 1980) see the differences as sufficiently great as to define gender as a community in itself. Lakoff’s suggestion (Lakoff 1975) that such differences constitute different ‘registers’, which in turn reflect the different levels of society (O’Barr and Atkins, 1980), has provoked an ongoing stream of debate about the role of such registers in recurring miscommunication between the genders (Holmes, 1986) and even communication ‘battles’ (Fielder et al., 1993).

Communication and women’s lack of corporate seniority

The management literature, especially that linked to academic and public policy interest in equal employment opportunity legislation, has drawn attention to women’s ongoing lack of representation at senior corporate levels in Australia and many other countries. This concern has continued for at least as long as the linguistic debates about gender have raged. Nevertheless, progress is very slow and remedies appear elusive. The 2006 annual leadership census published by Equal Opportunity for Women Australia (EOWA) indicated that women’s representation in Australian corporate leadership still lags the UK and the US, with 12.0% of women holding executive management positions in the ASX200 companies, and just six ASX200 companies led by women (EOWA, 2006). Ruth Medd, Executive Director of Women on Boards, noted on ABC Radio’s The National Interest recently that the number of women directors on boards of Australia’s top 200 firms actually fell between 2006 and 2007 (Australian Broadcasting Commission, 2008). The University of Western Australia Business School (2008) quotes recent work by its researchers Izan, da Silva Rosa and Wong who found support for both demand-side and supply-side arguments for the shortage of women on corporate boards and also that women on boards are likely to be more qualified than their male colleagues on the same board. However a recent study by Singh, Terjesen and Vinnicombe (2007) of the skills of female and male board members in the UK, provide a contrary view to the supply-side argument, finding no evidence that women lacked the human capital needed for board positions. Research carried out by Women on Boards into its members’ views about the reasons for the shortage, found that members predominantly believed male attitudes to be the source of the problem, as well as women having problems getting information about board positions, work-life balance issues, and women’s belief that they lack the necessary skills and experience, as well as the necessary exposure to be invited to take a board position (Women on Boards, 2007).

The very fact that this paper is being presented at a conference dedicated to issues for and about women on boards, and the perceived need for an organisation such as Women on Boards, attests to the slowness of Australian and other societies to change in this respect. This is despite recent high-profile appointments such as the appointment of Quentin Bryce as Governor-General of Australia, Julia Gillard as Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, and the current candidature of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination for the forthcoming presidential elections in the United States. Both academic research (eg Brenner et al, 1989; Eagley et al, 1992; Mulac and Bradac, 1995) and popular management books alike (eg Bolinger, 1980; Harragan, 1976; Hennig and Jardim, 1977; O’Brien 1993, Rosener, 1993; Tannen, 1986, 1990, 1994) are seeking to investigate both women’s and men’s communication styles and how they affect perceptions of women as leaders, innovators, and problem-solvers. Many of these texts explicitly or implicitly advise women on how communication, including gender issues, to can help or hinder their chances at work.

Debates about the ‘remedies’ for women’s communication problems at work

As Barrett (2004: 392) pointed out, the results of this debate have by no means been straightforward, despite many opinion leaders and experts in Australia and elsewhere encouraging women to avoid ‘diffident’ ways of talking and to adopt the power speech habits of men. Madeleine Albright, the former Secretary of State has stated publicly that women should ‘learn to interrupt’. In 2003 Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Pru Goward, pointed to the tendency of Australian women to apologise:

The country might not have said sorry, but Australian women say sorry all the time. Sorry for speaking softly, sorry for asking, for interrupting, sorry for food gone cold and time off with a sick child. Women speakers apologise at the beginning of speeches. It is another tradition, but nervous and destructive (Pru Goward, quoted in Jennings, 2003, p 11).

The apology to Australia’s indigenous people has now taken place, but women are still apologising. However simply persuading women that they adopt the speaking styles of men and to train them in how to do this as, for example, much assertiveness training has traditionally done, may simply be counter-productive. Changing how women speak may merely make them women uncomfortable and self-conscious rather than more confident at work (Weiss and Fisher, 1998), or lead to them actually being penalised for not conforming to recognised norms of female behaviour (Case, 1993). It may also be undesirable from other points of view. For example, it may result in the imposition of U.S.-based, male norms of direct speech on women and, given the pervasiveness internationally of the management ‘advice’ literature, much of which comes from the U.S., tend to impose these norms on other cultures (Weiss and Fisher, 1998).

A previous study

A study by Barrett (2004) aimed to find out the extent to which a group of organisationally senior women in Australia valued masculine, feminine or mixed, adaptive approaches in their approaches to a specific set of workplace dilemmas, and to what extent their judgements about how to deal with a variety of common workplace communication dilemmas were subject to gender-related norms and expectations. These women, who had reached senior levels in their organisations, would have experienced a wide variety of similar communication problems, and could be expected to have reached a view for each type of situation to what extent a masculine (direct, clear, loud) approach seemed most ‘natural’, both in terms of effectiveness and probability, to meet the demands of the particular situation.

Barrett found that overall, senior women valued masculine approaches to communication. However, the types of strongly masculine approaches recommended in the popular advice literature were valued less than might have been expected. In addition, these senior, organisationally experienced women, virtually all of whom regarded themselves as confident or very confident communicators, still seemed to draw on gender-based expectations when they made judgements about strategies to deal with specific workplace communication problems.

The present study

Barrett’s findings above focused on organisationally senior women, who could have been expected to be aware of and perhaps even to have experienced first-hand the kinds of problems the study investigated. But this gives rise to the question: what about organisationally junior women – those with less work experience? How do they see the best way to deal with communication dilemmas at work? It has often been suggested that younger women reject overt adherence to feminist principles as unnecessary and rather boring, seeing feminism and the fight for equal rights at work as yesterday’s struggle. With the passing of equal opportunity legislation, and perhaps influenced by the high profile figures like Hillary Clinton and Quentin Bryce, many are said to regard the fight for equal opportunity at work as having largely been won (Work and Family Life, 2002). This may affect their views about what is most natural (effective and probable) approach to solving communication dilemmas at work. Accordingly, it seems useful to try to compare younger women’s approach to solving communication dilemmas at work with the approaches of their older sisters. Do young women still need to ‘learn to interrupt’ or are they, rather, ‘past interrupting’, no longer concerned to learn to deal with communication dilemmas in ways that are different from what is natural for them?

Method

The value of a scenario-based approach

As outlined in Barrett (2004), there are advantages to asking women in the group whose communication styles are of interest to respond to scenarios, rather than, for example, analysing samples of natural speech drawn from the target group’s actual conversations, which has been a typical method in linguistics research. A problem with trying to analyse natural speech is that further study of linguistic behaviours such as interruptions, tag questions, and so on, arises from the fact that these and other linguistic phenomena have been found to be more complex than was first thought. James and Clarke (1993) argue for example that not all interruptions are about seizing or losing power in conversation and may even signal agreement with, or enthusiasm for what the other speaker is saying. Tag questions, that is, utterances ending in ‘isn’t she’, ‘doesn’t it’ and so on, may not necessarily indicate uncertainty – as they have often been taken as doing at least when women use them. At least some tag question usage seems to be related to politeness behaviour or facilitating another person’s entry into the conversation. This means that the more powerful party rather than the less powerful party is likely to use them (Kollock et al. 1975). Oddly enough, or perhaps as a result of the different attribution of power to men in our society, men’s use of tag questions tends to attract a ‘politeness’ or ‘facilitation of the other speaker’ interpretation, rather than one which suggests the speaker is in a less powerful position. Either way, interpreting natural speech presents potential problems of inter-rater reliability: different raters are likely to disagree about the goal a particular strategist is trying to achieve with the particular behaviour. Designing scenarios where the goal of what the strategist says or does is clearly specified avoids this problem.

The survey instrument

The present study used a similar questionnaire instrument to the one developed for Barrett’s (2004) study. It presented three workplace scenarios where it has been argued women tend to be disadvantaged by ‘feminine’ communication styles. The scenarios included a short-term, a medium-term and a long-term goal for a communication strategist as follows:

Short-term. A speaker finds that she/he is interrupted during a workplace meeting and wants to regain the floor.

Medium-term. A speaker believes that she/he is not being given sufficient credit for an idea put forward in a meeting and wants go make sure it is recognised the idea came from her/him.

Long-term. A speaker wants to ensure her/his work achievements are recognised by people influential in determining promotions.

For each scenario, between five and seven possible strategies were presented for the speaker to achieve the goals. The strategies had been graded by independent academics for their level of ‘masculinity’ or ‘femininity’, using general Western norms in English. Thus a response graded ‘MM’ indicates a highly masculine response, eg loud, clear direct talk. An ‘FF’ response indicates a feminine style, eg quiet, indistinct and indirect talk. An Mf response is one with some elements of both masculine and feminine speech but with masculine predominating. An ‘Fm’ response indicates the reverse. An MF response indicates a strategy with roughly equal levels of masculine and feminine elements. The strategist’s name indicated their gender. Two versions of the questionnaire were devised which varied only the gender of the strategists’ names. For example, in one version of the questionnaire the strategist is referred to as ‘Jane’; in the other version the strategist is referred to as ‘Jim’. No changes were made to what the strategists actually said or did, or to any other aspect of the scenario. The other party in the scenario was either the opposite gender to the strategist or a workplace group of unspecified gender. The three scenarios (in one of the two versions presented to participants) as well as the response strategies graded for masculinity/femininity are in the Appendix. The version of the questionnaire used in 2007 also yielded demographic information including whether the respondent typically worked 30 or more hours per week, the respondent’s position on their corporate ladder, and their total number of years of full-time work experience.

Rating the communication strategies

Participants were asked to rate the strategies presented for each situation using five-point Likert-type scales to indicate, first, how effective they believed each strategy would be for achieving the specified goal and, second, how probable they believed each strategy was. The questionnaire had been piloted on a group of ten women managers at varying levels of seniority, and three female academics. A further five students piloted the survey before it was administered for the current study. No-one in any group found difficulty with the instrument’s clarity or ease of use.

Administering the survey

The women for whom results were reported in Barrett (2004) had completed the survey during a businesswomen’s networking breakfast held in an upmarket location in an Australian capital city. The questionnaire was administered during 2006 and 2007 at two lecture sessions of a second-year management subject immediately following the mid-semester examination. The particular subject was chosen in order to target students who could be expected to have some knowledge of management issues and to be aspiring to management positions, but relatively little or no management experience.

Analysis

Frequencies and distributions of responses for each scenario were calculated. T-tests for differences in the mean for the perceived effectiveness and the likelihood of each strategy in each of the three scenarios were carried out. Before this, Levene’s test for equality of variances was carried out for each strategy. Where results for the test showed equal variances could not be assumed, the T-test took account of this.

Results

Number of respondents

The total number of useable responses completed by women was 255, with roughly half completed in each ‘gender version’ of the questionnaire. Approximately half of the questionnaires were completed in each of the two versions.

Respondents’ work experience

Demographic information obtained from the students who completed the survey in 2007 indicated that less than 7% typically worked 30 or more hours per week. None had more than eight years full-time work experience with the majority well under three years. None regarded herself as being at the top of the corporate ladder, with 95% indicating they were at the bottom or close to the bottom of the organisations they worked in, if any. While details of the 2006 group’s work experience were not available, the demographic characteristics of students are normally fairly consistent from year to year. Overall the samples appear appropriate for comparing the views of organisationally inexperienced or junior women managers with those of organisationally senior women managers. For convenience, the two groups are referred to here as senior women managers (or ‘the older generation’) and junior women managers (‘the younger generation).

Perceived effectiveness and likelihood of communication strategies

The results for each scenario for both senior and junior women are discussed in turn.

. Scenario 1: Regaining the floor after an interruption

Tables 1 and 2 summarise the results for junior women managers and senior women managers respectively.

Table 1 Results for scenario 1 – regaining the floor after an interruption: Junior women managers

Res-ponse	Gender of strategist	Number respond-ing	Effectiveness mean, ranking	Signifi-cance	Number responding	Likelihood mean, ranking	Signifi-cance
1 MM	M	118	3.23 2		119	3.08 3
	F	135	3.31		135	3.09
2 Mf	M	118	3.58 1		119	3.25 2
	F	137	3.50		134	3.18
3 MF	M	118	2.68 3		119	2.66 5
	F	136	2.93	*	135	2.70
4 mF	M	118	2.01 4		119	2.95 4
	F	136	1.93		135	2.89
5 FF	M	117	1.59 5		118	3.44 1
	F	134	1.56		137	3.44

* = significant at p<0.1; ** = significant at p<0.05; *** = significant at p<0.01

Table 2 Results for scenario 1 – regaining the floor after an interruption Organisationally senior women

Res-ponse	Gender of strategist	Number respond-ing	Effectiveness mean, ranking	Significance	Number respond-ing	Likelihood mean, ranking	Signifi-cance
1 MM	M	79	2.72 3		119	2.78 4
	F	65	3.05		135	2.67
2 Mf	M	75	3.42 1	*	119	2.92 1	**
	F	67	3.74		134	3.30
3 MF	M	76	3.00 2		119	3.13 2
	F	67	3.16		135	2.78
4 mF	M	76	1.74 4		119	2.93 3
	F	67	1.88		135	2.91
5 FF	M	76	1.32 5		118	2.81 2	**
	F	66	1.30		137	3.45

* = significant at p<0.1; ** = significant at p<0.05; *** = significant at p<0.01

Effectiveness of scenario 1 strategies: Junior women managers resemble their more senior sisters in some respects in terms of what they think about more or less effective strategies for regaining the floor after an interruption. Like their seniors, they believe that the second, Mf strategy (‘You may not have realised you were interrupting me…’, means 3.58 and 3.50) is the most effective. However they ranked the stronger MM strategy (‘I insist on finishing my point…’, means 3.23 and 3.31) second, followed at some distance by the Mf strategy (‘That sounds a lot like the plan I mentioned earlier’, means 2.69 and 2.93), reversing older managers’ second and third preferences. Junior women managers see the mF and FF strategies as least effective, again, a similar result to senior women managers, though organisationally junior women rate both these less effective alternatives slightly more highly than their senior sisters.

Junior women managers rate one of the strategies they see as effective (the balanced, MF ‘palm turned outwards, ‘your turn will come’ strategy) as actually more effective when they see it used by a woman than when they see it used by a man. Barrett’s earlier study found a similar result for older women’s judgement about the second, Mf strategy (‘you may not have realised you were interrupting me…’), and it was suggested there was possibly a kind of shock value in a woman using a typically male, assertive strategy. Both junior and senior women managers seem to feel that some strategies which have a high masculine element may actually work better when a woman is using them. However with more junior women managers, the shock value element has migrated to a more low-key strategy, one which they see as only moderately effective.

Likelihood of scenario 1 strategies In the area of likelihood there are fewer similarities between junior and senior women managers. Senior women managers had regarded two strategies as significantly more probable when they saw them used by a woman than when they saw them used by a man. These were the highly effective Mf strategy, and also, curiously enough, the most ineffective strategy, the FF strategy (if it can be called that), of saying nothing after being interrupted and simply sitting there fuming.

Junior women managers, by contrast, made no significantly different assessments of the probability of any strategy according to whether they believed it was being used by a woman or a man. Interestingly however, and in strong contrast to senior women who had rated the most effective strategy also as the most probable, regardless of whether it used by a man or a woman, junior women managers actually rated the strategy they rated as least effective, the FF ‘say nothing, sit fuming’ approach as the most probable strategy, regardless of the gender of the strategist. In fact, with a probability mean of 3.44 they actually rated it at virtually the same level of probability for men as the older generation had done for women! At a mean of 2.81, the older generation women had rated it as significantly less probable when they saw it being used by a man.

Discussion In short-term situations like ‘regaining the floor’ in a meeting following an interruption, neither generation of women managers chooses the most masculine strategy as the most effective. They seem to agree that this would be too strong, perhaps even rude. The second, slightly more feminine Mf strategy seems to be about the right strength for both generations. The two generations provide broadly similar rankings of particular strategies’ effectiveness (both see the first three strategies as more effective than the last two). Both seem to regard a ‘mixed, assertive’ strategy, that is one with a strong masculine element but with at least some feminine component, as more effective when it is used by a woman than when it is used by a man. However the younger generation are much less inclined to make different judgements about the probability of these short-term strategies based on the gender of the strategist. In fact, in strong contrast to the older generation, they regard men as being just as likely as women – and at a mean of 3.45 very likely, at that – to fall victim to ‘losing the floor’ in meetings.

. Scenario 2: gaining sufficient credit for an idea expressed in a meeting

Tables 3 and 4 summarise the results for junior women managers and senior women managers respectively. They follow a similar format to Tables 1 and 2, except that this scenario had seven rather than five possible responses.

Table 3 Results for scenario 1 – gaining sufficient credit for an idea expressed in a meeting Junior women managers

Res-ponse	Gender of strategist	Number respond-ing	Effectiveness mean, ranking	Signifi-cance	Number responding	Likelihood mean, ranking	Signifi-cance
1 MM	M	114	2.61 3		115	2.46 5
	F	135	2.62		133	2.46
2 MM	M	110	2.14 4		110	2.29 6
	F	105	2.12		105	2.09
3 MF	M	112	3.54 1		111	3.80 1
	F	105	3.34		106	3.70
4 MF	M	112	2.88 2		111	3.19 2
	F	107	2.90		107	3.13
5 Mf	M	111	2.84 2		112	3.31 2
	F	104	2.86		107	3.25
6 FF	M	113	1.91 5		111	2.97 3
	F	105	1.71		106	3.05
7 FF	M	112	1.60 6		111	2.65 4
	F	103	1.43		103	2.82

* = significant at p<0.1; ** = significant at p<0.05; *** = significant at p<0.01

Table 4 Results for scenario 2 – gaining sufficient credit for an idea expressed in a meeting Senior women managers

Res-ponse	Gender of strategist	Number respond-ing	Effectiveness mean, ranking	Signifi-cance	Number responding	Likelihood mean, ranking	Signifi-cance
1 MM	M	65	2.17 4		68	2.47 5
	F	61	2.48		63	2.35
2 MM	M	66	1.91 5		68	2.34 6	**
	F	60	2.02		60	1.92
3 MF	M	65	3.23 1		69	3.70 1
	F	62	3.29		62	3.47
4 MF	M	66	2.44 3	*	67	2.87 2
	F	64	2.84		64	2.80
5 Fm	M	64	2.92 2		75	2.84 2	*
	F	63	2.92		66	3.22
6 FF	M	66	1.36 6		67	2.73 3
	F	65	1.34		65	3.02
7 FF	M	67	1.34 6		67	2.42 4
	F	63	1.29		63	2.76

* = significant at p<0.1; ** = significant at p<0.05; *** = significant at p<0.01

Effectiveness of Scenario 2 strategies In a similar way to Scenario 1, younger generation women managers have a broadly similar view to the older generation about what is an effective communication strategy for getting sufficient credit for an idea expressed in a meeting. That is, they regard strategies with an element of masculinity but also some feminine element (strategies 3 to 5 inclusive) as much more effective than very feminine responses (strategies 6 and 7). Also like the older generation, they did not rate either of the highly masculine responses (1 and 2) among the three most effective responses, rating them lower than the mixed MF or Mf strategies. One difference appears: where the older generation had rated the fourth response, the mild: ‘That sounds a lot like the idea I suggested earlier’ as more effective when they believed it was being used by a woman than when it was being used by a man, the younger generation made no such distinction in their judgement of that strategy’s effectiveness, rating its effectiveness around 2.90 regardless of the strategist’s gender.

Likelihood of Scenario 2 strategies Again like the older generation, younger generation women’s ratings for the probability of the strategies initially followed their ratings of effectiveness. Both generations also saw the very feminine strategies 6 and 7 as rather probable, despite their low ranking for effectiveness.

As we saw with scenario 1 the older generation had again made some different judgements about probability based on perceived gender of the strategist which were not echoed in the younger generation’s ratings. The older generation had seen one highly masculine response (strategy 2) as being more probable with a male than a female strategist (the jokey, ‘I’m taking that idea back – you guys are butchering it’), and one mixed (Fm) response (5) (saying nothing at the meeting but going to the other person’s office afterwards and saying you’d appreciate at least a footnote next time they borrowed one of your ideas) as more probable with a female than a male strategist. By contrast the gender of the strategist did not influence the younger generation’s assessment of the probability of any of the strategies.

Discussion The older and the younger generation seem to agree on what is effective to ensure one gets credit for an idea expressed in a meeting: masculine strategies tempered by at least some feminine element. Both also rank the most highly effective strategies roughly the same in terms of probability. Highly feminine though ineffective strategies seem moderately probable to both generations of women managers, however, so there still appear to be some of the same strategy ‘traps’ for the younger generation as for the older generation. The difference between the generations lies in the finding that the younger generation makes no distinction between any of the strategies’ effectiveness or probability depending on the gender of the strategist. They see any individual strategy as similar in effectiveness and probability regardless of which gender is employing it. As with the results for scenario 1, and more so than the older generation did, the younger generation seems to regard men and women as being relatively similar in how effective they will be in using specific strategies, and how probable that they would adopt them.

. Scenario 3: Making sure one’s achievements get noticed by people influential for promotion

Tables 5 and 6 summarise the results for junior and senior women managers respectively for scenario 3: making sure one’s achievements get noticed by people influential for promotion. They echo the format for Tables 1 and 2.

Table 5 Results for scenario 3 – making sure one’s achievements get noticed by people influential in granting promotion Junior women managers

Response	Gender of strategist	Number responding	Effectiveness means and ranking	Significance	Number responding	Likelihood means and ranking	Significance
1 FF	M	135	2.93 3		135	3.43 1
	F	117	3.01		118	3.43
2 Fm	M	135	3.09 2		136	3.30 2
	F	118	3.28		117	3.40
3 FM	M	136	3.23 1		135	3.27 4	***
	F	117	3.24		118	2.96
4 Mf	M	135	2.88 4		134	2.50 5
	F	115	2.97		116	2.62
5 MM	M	117	2.96 5	**	134	3.20 3
	F	136	2.62		118	3.08

* = significant at p<0.1; ** = significant at p<0.05; *** = significant at p<0.01

Table 6 Results for scenario 3 – making sure one’s achievements get noticed by people influential in granting promotion Senior women managers

Response	Gender of strategist	Number responding	Effectiveness means and ranking	Significance	Number responding	Likelihood means and ranking	Signifi-cance
1 FF	M	64	2.50 5		135	2.88 4	*
	F	65	2.35		118	3.42
2 Fm	M	63	2.89 4		136	3.19 3
	F	65	2.82		117	3.39
3 FM	M	65	3.58 1		135	3.51 1
	F	67	3.81		118	3.44
4 Mf	M	61	3.18 2		134	3.18 5	*
	F	65	2.85		116	2.49
5 MM	M	62	3.06 3		134	3.25 2
	F	65	2.85		118	3.52

* = significant at p<0.1; ** = significant at p<0.05; *** = significant at p<0.01

Effectiveness of Scenario 3 strategies Compared with previous strategies, there was less differentiation in both generations’ ratings of the effectiveness of all the responses in scenario 3; all strategies rated fairly close. Both generations rate strategy 3 (sending a copy of the good figures to the boss with a note drawing the boss’s attention to one’s achievement), as the most effective strategy for getting noticed so as to increase one’s chances of promotion. Beyond this, however, the generations diverge, with the younger generation rating second for effectiveness the more indirect, stereotypical female strategies including the Fm Strategy 2, (‘say nothing other than to direct the boss’s attention to the good figures and hope the boss will make the connection between the figures and one’s performance’), and the FF Strategy 1 (‘say nothing at all and just keep working harder and more cooperatively next year’). Older generation women, while putting the strongest MM strategy (‘writing about one’s achievements to the boss’s boss as well as the boss’), in second place for effectiveness, had rated the Fm strategy (‘point out the good figures and hope the boss will make the connection with good performance’, and the FF strategy (‘say nothing and just working harder’) approaches the lowest. The younger generation, by contrast, rated the MM approach, (‘tell the next five colleagues the strategist meets, one of whom is their boss, all about their accomplishments’), the lowest.

For this scenario, the older generation had not judged any of the strategies’ effectiveness differently depending on whether they believed the strategist was a man or a woman. However, the younger generation rated the MM strategy (openly talking about their achievements to the next five colleagues they meet) with a male strategist at 2.96 and with a female strategist at 2.62. This means that, while they see this strategy with a male strategist as only moderately effective, they see it as significantly more ineffective with a female strategist. Given the low overall spread of the effectiveness ratings mentioned earlier, this difference stands out all the more strongly.

Likelihood of Scenario 3 strategies As with the results for the older generation, the ratings for strategies’ probability are grouped relatively closely together. However, unlike for the older generation and unlike the pattern of both generations in previous scenarios of at least ranking highly effective strategies as highly probable, the younger generation ranks the FF strategy (‘say and do nothing, just work harder and more cooperatively next year’) as markedly the most probable for both male and female strategists (means of 3.43 and 3.43). It is noticeable too that, in the view of the younger generation, this strategy’s probability noticeably outranks its effectiveness, (though it is not seen as the least effective strategy, as the older generation had regarded it).

The older generation had ranked their least effective, highly female strategy, the FF ‘say nothing, just work harder’ strategy, as significantly more likely when they saw a woman using it than when a man did. In addition, they had ranked the probability of the strategy ranked second most effective (drawing the boss’s boss’s attention to the good figures as well as their boss) as more likely when a man used it than a woman. The younger generation, by contrast, did not make different judgements about probability for these strategies, but instead very strongly indicated that the most effective strategy (writing a note about one’s achievements to one’s boss) was very strongly more likely for a male strategist than a female strategist.

Discussion Given the broad similarities in the older and younger generations’ rankings of effectiveness in previous scenarios, it is noticeable how divergent the older and younger generations are in their approach to how best to communicate one’s achievements to influential people with a view to achieving a promotion. Along with the older generation, the younger generation see a moderately direct (MF) strategy of drawing one’s boss’s attention to one’s achievements, as the most effective (means 3.23 and 3.24). However, and notably unlike the older generation, they see it as much more likely to be used by men than by women.

Perhaps they believe that women doing this may be seen as too aggressive, a surprising and rather old-fashioned view, especially in the light of the fact that in the previous two scenarios the younger generation had made far fewer different assessments about the strategies’ effectiveness or probability according to the perceived gender of the strategist. At least for short-term or medium-term communication dilemmas, younger generation women also seem likely to regard men as subject to some of the same dilemmas as themselves and likely to react in similar ways. In this scenario we see a similar phenomenon: the younger generation think both men and women are equally likely to adopt a strategy of saying nothing and just working harder next year. However for this longer term communication dilemma perspective, strong differences re-emerged in what younger women see as effective and probable for them as compared to effective and probable for me. These differences are stronger than those the older generation saw, and attached to different strategies.

With the first two dilemmas, younger generation women with limited work experience might be able to draw on their experience, for example dealing with debate in class or in the course of casual employment. However the third dilemma is one where younger generation are unlikely to have much or any experience, certainly much less experience than the older generation. The divergence in the strategies the two generations regard as effective might reflect this difference of experience, or perhaps even the well documented propensity of Generation Y employees simply to move to another employer after a short interval if they believe themselves not to be getting the rewards they expect. Nevertheless it is interesting and disturbing that for this dilemma, Generation Y women, who are otherwise relatively relaxed and inclined to find areas in common between men and women in their approach to solving communication problems, revert to the pattern of not claiming certain strategies for themselves which they regard as very probable for men to exercise.

Conclusions

The results for Generation Y women present a mixed picture compared to their older sisters. On the one hand, in the results for short and medium term dilemmas, they present a broadly similar pattern to older women in terms of which strategies they see as effective and probable. They are like their older sisters in valuing a masculine approach, but only if it is tempered with a feminine element. However they seem more likely than their older sisters to credit men with experiencing similar short and medium term communication difficulties to themselves, such as losing the floor after being interrupted, or failing to get credit for an idea in a meeting. Moreover, in terms of how they rate specific strategies’ effectiveness or probability depending on the gender of the strategist, in the first two scenarios at least they seem rather more relaxed than the older generation, perceiving fewer differences in either effectiveness or probability of a specific strategy depending on whether they think a man or a woman is using it. Like their older sisters they seem to have taken a sceptical attitude to the frequent advice to ‘do as men do’, and are committed to managing workplace communication problems in their own way. In addition, for short and medium-term dilemmas they seem to have ‘learned some moves’, being less likely to see strongly or moderately masculine strategies to deal with communication dilemmas as less effective or less available to women and, as in scenario 1, occasionally seeing strongly masculine strategies as effective. In short, more so than the older generation, they expect women to be as effective as men if they use what they see as effective strategies, and believe that men as well as women sometimes have problems being heard.

This relatively relaxed attitude may work to their advantage. Younger women’s expectations of equal success and similar difficulties to those of men may do much to ensure this state of affairs actually transpires in the workplace. Simply not expecting to be treated differently, especially not expecting to be disadvantaged, may deflect many problems, whereas self-fulfilling prophesies – expecting bad things to happen – may tend to make them happen. Even younger women’s rejection of overt feminist views may function as a kind of ‘creative forgetting’. On the other hand, the younger generation’s lesser experience of corporate life and their conviction – not justified, one might say, if women’s representation at senior organisational levels is an index of success – that the major problems feminism attempted to solve are largely issues of the past, may mean they are not alert enough at this stage of their careers to the subtle ways women can fail to make their mark in conversations, meetings and other workplace communication settings, and hence be less well recognised and rewarded at work despite their achievements.

In the third, longer term dilemma, however, the picture is different. Generation Y women for this scenario diverge from these ideas of ‘let’s relax, we can play it our own way and still win, and the guys probably do it tough sometimes too’. Securing promotions and generally getting ahead, as opposed to just retrieving one’s turn as a speaker or getting credit for an idea, are viewed as tough games to play. However younger women are still giving themselves less scope for strong action than men. This is despite their seeing both men’s and women’s promotion chances as being well served by ‘doing nothing and just working harder’. In contrast to how they seemed to regard the best and most natural course of action in scenarios 1 and 2, in scenario 3 younger women seem to be making judgements according to the old rules: the ones that say women will lose if they seem to be too aggressive, and that they have more to lose than a man since for him aggressive behaviour is to be expected or at least forgiven. Perhaps after all it is too early to relegate yesterday’s feminist struggles to the history books. Recalling the feminist battles of the past could still usefully serve interrupt the relaxed approach of younger generation women to workplace communication problems.

Limitations and further research

Similar limitations apply to the present study as were present for Barrett’s (2004) study. For example, the questionnaire only allowed investigation of a small number of communication dilemmas, tapping a limited set of socio-linguistic issues often felt to be important in debates about women’s workplace communication. This was necessary given the limited time that students were likely to devote to the questionnaire, particularly just following an examination. A study dealing with more issues in more detail might have produced more fine-grained results. Other demographic aspects of the student sample were not investigated which may have affected the results. For example, students like respondents in the original study were not asked about their awareness gender-focussed debates within linguistic and management research, and this may have affected the results. Again, as with the original study, given the quantitative focus of the research respondents were not invited to comment in an unstructured way on their perceptions of their own communication styles and how this might link to the results.

Research is continuing into the possible relationships between the present results and a) junior women managers’ view of their confidence as communicators, and b) junior women managers’ amount and level of work experience. With the older generation neither communication confidence nor organisational level seemed related to the results, but this group of organisationally much less experienced women could be expected to be less confident communicators.

In addition, and in response to the suggestion in Barrett (2004), further analysis is being undertaken of male respondents’ perceptions of these communication dilemmas and ways of tackling them. Given that the perceptions and judgements of younger generation women managers sometimes reflect and sometimes diverge from those of their more senior sisters, comparing both sets of views with those of younger generation male managers can only serve to widen the picture.

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Appendix

The three scenarios and their communication strategies, rated for masculinity/feminity.

SCENARIO 1: The scene is a staff meeting. The two people talking are colleagues; neither is subordinate to the other, and there is no formal chairperson. The agenda item Jane is discussing is something she knows a great deal about.

Jane: What I think we should [do is…]

Jim: (interrupting her): [We can] deal with that issue later. On the Singapore deal, though, we’ll just move ahead right away – if we don’t our competitors will grab it.

Jane: I’d just like to finish [this point…]

Jim: (interrupting again): [I want] to be sure we get the Singapore matter resolved today.

THE PROBLEM: Jane wants to “regain the floor” and continue talking about her topic. (Table A1)

Table A1

	Strategy	Masculinity/femininity
1	Jane: “Jim, you’ve just interrupted me for a second time. I insist on finishing my point, which is …” (She continues talking about her topic.)	MM
2	Jane: “Jim, you may not have realised you were interrupting me, but you were. What I was saying was…” (She continues talking about her topic.)	Mf
3	Jane: (holding her hand palm outwards in Jim’s direction): “Jim, your turn will come. Now, as I was saying…” (She continues talking about her topic.)	MF
4	Jane: “Jim, just a minute….” (She trails off and doesn’t revert to her topic.)	Fm
5	Jane says nothing but sits there fuming as Jim continues talking about the Singapore deal.	FF

SCENARIO 2: The scene is a staff meeting. Paul has just brought up an idea which Sally had thought of first and mentioned earlier in the meeting. Paul talks about the idea as if it had not been mentioned before and as if it were his own.

THE PROBLEM: Sally wants to make sure that people at the meeting realise the idea was hers. (Table A2)

Table A2

	Strategy	Masculinity/femininity
1	Sally: “Paul, get your own idea. That one was mine. When I proposed that plan I had something slightly different in mind.”	MM
2	Sally: “I’m taking that idea back. You guys are butchering it.”	MM
3	Sally: “That plan sounds a lot like the one I mentioned earlier.”	Mf
4	Sally says nothing at the meeting, but goes to Paul’s office afterwards and says to her, “We can work well together, Paul. Just remember to give credit where it’s due. By the end of the meeting, I think everyone thought my project upgrade idea was yours. You know, two can play that game.”	MF
5	Sally says nothing at the meeting, but goes to Paul’s office afterwards and says to him, “I don’t know what you were thinking in that meeting today, Paul. I’d appreciate at least a footnote next time you borrow one of my ideas.”	Fm
6	Sally says nothing, and does not go to see Paul after the meeting, but turns away from him with an injured expression when they next meet.	FF
7	Sally says nothing and gives no indication to Paul that there is any problem.	FF

SCENARIO 3: Steve has just finished a meeting in which he closed an important deal which took skill and determination to bring off.

THE PROBLEM: Steve would like to increase his chances of promotion this year. (Table A3)

Table A3

	Strategy	Masculinity/femininity
1	Steve says and does nothing but works even harder and more cooperatively over the coming year. Working hard and getting results will eventually be noticed.	FF
2	Steve says nothing straight away, but a couple of weeks later suggests to his boss that he might like to take a look at the performance figures for their profit centre before the next board meeting. Presumably his boss will make the connection between the healthy figures and Steve's hard work.	Fm
3	Steve sends a copy of the figures to his boss with a memo drawing his attention to his achievement at the meeting and its positive effect on the figures.	MF
4	Steve does the same as in response C, but also sends a copy of the figures and the memo to his boss’s boss.	Mf
5	Steve comments to the next five colleagues he meets following the meeting – one of whom is his boss – “You won’t believe what happened in that meeting today…”. He follows this with a description of the challenge and how he accomplished it.	MM