Changing Female Identities.
Decisions and Dilemmas in the Workplace
Alicia E. Kaufmann
Changing Female Identities explores the influence of parental figures, the role models that women adopt, the diverse feelings that arise as a result of family mandates, and the emotions that arise from cooperation or competition among siblings. It demonstrates how these educational values overlap with work attitudes. Although the influence of family messages is widely acknowledged, few authors have attempted to measure this phenomenon.

The book also explores money as a hidden cause of dependency among women, and how this impacts women's road to success. The author examines in detail the executive-gendered coaching journey and the positive results people achieve when they undergo this process. The text provides a vision of the future and reviews inclusive Scandinavian models. The work is based on an empirical study among a sample of 500 male and female managers in Spain, across generations.

Alicia E. Kaufmann is a professor at Alcala? University, Spain, and a researcher at the university’s Benjamin Franklin Institute of American Studies. She is an executive coach and a Fulbright Scholar. She is the author of 25 books, including the recent Women in Management and Life Cycle, and of more than 50 articles.

Life Cycle and Women in Management
By Alicia E. Kaufmann Tenure in Sociology of Organizations Alcalá de Henares University. Madrid /Spain.

Link: www.palgravemcmillan.com.au

Taking into account the different debates that are taking place in Spanish society right now, the main goal of this study is to explore the deeper causes that inhibit or promote, woman managers in their transition to the top.We analyze the different feelings and aspects that limit this process, beginning by the social structure, the family socialization, education at its different levels, according to the life cycle, and the prevailing stereotypes in Spanish society regarding woman in top positions. As specific objectives we want to provide answers to some of the following questions
  • If firms which work at an extreme speed create a great amount of anxiety.
  • How the age influences the social construction of identity
  • If ambition influences a lot personal promotion.
  • Determine in what way networks and MBA programmes influence the access to higher positions.
  • Explore if there is a differential socialization, between boys and girls concerning monetary aspects.
  • Watch if there is any difference between emotional intelligence and working behaviour.
  • Analyze if maternity is synonym of labour discontinuity.
  • Consider if woman’s desire is basically influenced by the wish to get to the top.

We think that one of the reasons because no other results were detected is that researchers analised mainly external factors .Other internal variables such as feelings of different ages of the life cycle , and identity are crucial to understand access to the top .We depart from the hypothesis that what personas expect from life depends on the stage of life cycle they are in.

A second question is to consider the economic independence and hereby the access to autonomy. We life in a consumer society which relates having goods and money with power and authority. The lack of wealth generates a lack of self-esteem, particularly in woman.We ask ourselves, if in woman managers, the social demands of financial autonomy collides with the attitude of generosity and altruism , which are generally expected from them, subordinating their own interests towards taking care of others. This conditioning varies according to age. Our study divides into two generational groups namely:

Adult age: 30-45: existing research tend to point out and overemphasize maternity as the key question in woman’s identity and also consider that this is intense all along the life cycle.
Mature age: 46-60 in this stage appears a frustration because of separation of the kids and difficulties to develop new horizons, once the reproductive and educational role has finished.

In this research we consider the situation of woman, departing from “now and here” tracing back to the past, and the i messages she got during her infancy. The influence of the parental models (father and mother). Further on, we consider the influences of her couple. There there is interplay of identities in both members .We try to understand the organizational and personal adjustments, which all these changes require. Another aspect is formal education, which not always contributes to feminine autonomy or understanding of her emotional world. The most considered feelings are fear and guilt sentiment. Considering the methodology we performed 12 interviews in depth, and three group discussion, one with woman of 30-45 years, another with woman from 46-60 years and another group of men from 30 to 60 years.

MAIN FINDINGS

The life cycle is an aspect which has not been very studied in social sciences. Freud has analysed the developpement of personality since infancy and its influences in adult life. Carl Jung has centered himself more in middle ages and on the social context. Eriksson adopted a position that is between both. Levinson and Sheeny studied the characteristics of man´ s life cycle. Kets de Vries analysed the satisfaction between labour and personal life Satisfaction between personal and labour satisfaction in the different stages of life cycle. From Simmel, going through Le Play, they pointed out that woman are an instrument to maintain order, who is there to take care of other’s interests and not their own. Carol Gilligan and Clara Coria, point out this woman’s tendency to life to please others instead of satisfying their selves and developing their own life projects. Departing from the content analysis of the interviews and the results of the group discussions we constructed a typology dividing the answers in two categories.
The competitive or fragmented woman: (30-45) they have in front of them an open working marked, but they seem to be more confused at a personal level. They are very competitive, but that collides with their need to obtain approval. There appears little gender solidarity. They think of working life in a dual way either work or family, but not both. They tend to give up mainly family or emotional life. They have little identification models and a strong pressure due to the “beauty myth”. They try to do all and feel quite guilty if they are not able to achieve all. Only a few can prioritize. Maternity is no longer a priority, for this age group. The crisis of life cycle is particularly strong round the thirties.
The integrated of mature age:(45-60) the main difficulty was to be in front of a hostile social context, against their wishes of change. They had no doubts about their maternity. There is a strong gender solidarity, there were many difficulties, but they could develop both aspects of their life, but they had very clear in their minds that Ander no circumstances they World give up maternity. It has been the generation that still prioritized others. Through the comparative method we detect common traits among both groups. We see a double conflict for the woman in charge, at home she has to be nurturing whereas at the firm she is to a competitor. Woman feel caught among the old stereotypes and the new ideas. These sentiments are so opposite that they create a chronic ambivalence which creates in her a great distress.

Money and hidden ways of dependency in woman.
Alicia E. Kaufmann. Chair in Sociology of Organization.
University of Alcala. Executive Coach. Board of Aecop. Spain.
The aim of this paper is to explore and answer to the question why women earn less money than men. To test this fact we shall explore social data, family upbringing messages and attitudes towards money , woman´ s priorities and work life situations. Though this is a question that happens in a lot of countries, the empirical data, which we shall use to illustrate this fact, are drawn from studies performed in Spain. This may happen in other societies , but to confirm the main hypothesis, similar studies should be carried out abroad.

Conclusions and verification of hypothesis

As we went through the different levels of analysis personal we could verify, that money has not been a priority in women´s education in Spain. As well there is a constant that remains almost all over the world, and that is those women earn aproximately 30% less, than men. As we could see there are emotional and educational aspects linked to this fact, but also a lack of interpersonal skills and habits of negotiation. Women, have been brought up, thinking first of others, instead of themselves. That makes them feel guilty. Probably revising their software of the mind and the messages heard at home, they could improve the way woman handle finantial matters. The following Chart, tries to show, in an image the alignement of these different levels and their Influence on woman and money.

www.ispso.org
The social dimension of Leprosy: training manual for health workers.
By Alicia E. Kaufmann. London, Ilep, 1982.
  1. The main goal of the manual is to provide a care quality for leprosy patients, therefore the chapeters are oriented towards Provide materials for training health workers, to acquire necessary skills and knowledge to enable them to encounter successfully the problems they have to confront.
  2. Stimulate developpement of good socio medical work within the context of leprosy programmes.
  3. To encourage to collect case studies from their own areas.
  4. Encourage to document their experience so as to improve patient management and generate data for comparative studies.