thảo luận TA THE REFLECTION OF WOMEN EMPOWERING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

HANOI UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
THE REFLECTION OF WOMEN
EMPOWERING IN THE 21
ST
CENTURY
Teacher: Dang Quoc Long
Students: Huynh Thi Oanh (13060680061)
Le Thi Phuong Thao (1306080086)
Vu Thi Trang (1306080099)
Mai Thi Thoa (1306080087)
Pham Thu Huong (1306080032)
Date: 4 May 2015
The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

Abstract
Over the last decades, it can be seen that leadership issue have
been underrepresented in women position. However, in the 21
st
century, women have played an important role, hold main
power in whole society. Female bring to the implementation of
leadership a store of strengths, which received to benefit the
entities they lead on international, national and global flatten.
Women empowering have reflected to be more participative,
effective, and inclusive than their men counterpart. Therefore,
this paper explores the problems around female to help reader
can appreciate women’s significance in careers.
.
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

TABLE OF CONTENTS
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

1. Introduction
Recently, it has been an increase in female leadership. Women have made more and
more significant achievements in their workplace, footnotes and sidebars. It seems that
the glass ceiling has been broken. Interestingly, the image of many women is depicted
as ruler of the domestic sphere and is proved entirely false by the words and actions of
women such as Abigail Adams, Charity Clarke Moore and Deborah Sampson Gannett.
This research concentrates on women leadership by the way they organize to overpower
men, to appreciate their skills. Moreover, it contributes lots of values to their
communities and expands different areas in the world. Women not only become
powerful leader in their work places but also in their families, towns, villages and cities.
Especially, thanks to both local communities and global community, women gain lots of
benefits for the purpose of stepping up their powerful influence, catch opportunities in
order to support and nature their leadership. Despite the racial discrimination, women in
various cultures can take charge of their own leadership successfully and by their
insight and wisdom. Coping with a series of transiting challenges and ambivalence
around women, they still remain their own ethics. Therefore, women leadership is
respected and honored all over the world and some policies or programs have been
shown to evolve gender sensitive.
2. Discussion of findings
2.1 The emergence of woman’s leadership and their leading ways
2.1.1 The emergence of woman’s leadership
From the past to the present, women always played an important role in the family
and society. However, in some countries and regions the role of women is not
appreciated, especially in India. Traditionally, the men are the backbone of the family.
They have the right to decide everything while women cannot raise their voice and
they have to listen to the arrangement of the family and to comply with the rules of

society. So many women who have stood up struggle for women’s right, even they
become famous women leaders in the world. For example, in the article “10 women
leadership famous in history” pointed out that Florence Nightingale, who was
nicknamed “the lady with the lamp?” were a writer and the founder of the modern
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

nursing. She also was a pioneer in modern nursing career. Wu Detain ruled China for
15 years from 690 to 705. She is one of the greatest and most famous women leaders
in the history of China. During her time power, she modernized china and established
Buddhism as the main Chinese religion. Besides, one of women made big difference is
Eva Peron. She was the Argentine first lady between 1946 and 1952. To created homes
for homeless and the poor, she established the various charitable organizations. Queen
Victoria who rules for 63 years over British empire, was one of the greatest and most
famous women leader of all times. During her reign, she strove to created peace and
increased the size of her empire. She also played an important role in funding the
British conservative and Liberal parties’. Although quite different in their respective
accomplishments, they share common characteristics that placed them in counter-
cultural leadership roles, creating innovative venues for change. In particular, after
July 19, 1848 the first women’s rights convention began, attended by Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and other pioneers in the struggle for women’s rights. They
gradually asserted the role and position in the family and society. Since the 1970s,
women have steadily emerged in leadership roles in all societal spheres: education,
health, and politics. They have achieved many accomplishments. Women’s leadership
styles have been shown to be more transformational, participative. As women’s
educational achievements have increased, so have their job opportunities. In 2013,
according to statistics from U.S. Department of Labor, women in the U.S. accounted
for 57.2% of all those employed in management and professional occupations while
men hold 69.7%. However, according to Catalyst, a U.S. organization promoting
women in business and leadership, women hold only 16.9% of executive positions in

Fortune 500 companies while women of color hold 3.2% of board seats. Regarding
executive earnings, women earn $706 compared to $860 for men. For those employed
full time 74 percent of employed women worked full time (35 hours or more) and 24
percent worked part-time, compared to 86.9 percent and 13.1 percent of employed
men, respectively. The percentage of White women employed full-time in 2013 was
72.8 percent, 78.3 percent of Asian women, and 4 percent of Black women. In
industries, women accounted for 32.6% in education and Health Services industries,
Professional and Business Services industry was 10.5 %, Transportation and Utilities
industry was 2.6%, Information industry was 1.7% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S.
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

Department of Labor, and Current Population Survey in 2013). Although women have
moved into more management positions, they have yet to emerge into leadership
positions and senior and they earn salaries commensurate with those of men for the
same jobs. However, in the future women’s leadership emergence have been created
by global, social, and cultural forces such as globalization, e-business, changing
markets, technology proliferation, and the need for teamwork, alliances, and
partnerships (Valerio, A. M. (2009).
2.1.2 Ways Women Lead
2.1.2.1 Research on Women in Leadership
Women have increasingly moved toward greater gender equality at home and in the
workplace. In fact, they occupy important positions in many fields. There were
similarities and differences in the ways women and men leader. According to article
“5 ly do nen chon phu nu lam lanh dao”, Le Hoan stated that Women working groups
more effective. Women can listen and empathy than men (27 percent men, 32 percent
women-WPB Expert, 2014). They can understand the needs of others because they
know the connection at a deeper level. This can help them in harmony with the needs
of customers and communicate with customers more sincere. This will bring long-term
customer source. Besides, A study done by the Open Forum pointed out that

companies are run by women more successful companies owned by men, with the
growth rate nearly doubled in the past few years. Furthermore, in the article “Are
women better leaders than men” Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman quoted that in
7.280 leaders were evaluated in 2011, the majority of leaders are still men about 64%
and in the higher the level, the more men there are: 78% of top managers were
men. However, their survey was also reported at every level, more women were valued
by their peers, their bosses, their direct reports and their other associates as better
overall leaders than their male counterparts were. In the top managers, administrators,
board members, women accounted for 67.7%, while men were 57.7% and some other
areas as direct managers, supervisor’s middle management, middle managers,
supervisors, foremen. And according to a new Pew Research Center social and
demographic trends survey on women and leadership, most Americans find that there
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

were distinctive leadership styles, with women are more transformational, using
interpersonal skills to motivate followers, whereas men more likely to view leadership
as a sequence of transactions with others and applying positional power or authority.
Other researchers including leadership specialist Judy B. Rosenberg note that women
have diversity of leadership styles. Besides, a survey was conducted by the
International Women’s Forum found that women and men earned the same amount of
money but they describe their leadership differently such as their performance and
how they usually influence those with whom they work. The men are likely describes
themselves in ways that characterize which was called “transactional” leadership by
some management experts. The women, on the other hand, described themselves in
ways that characterize “transformational” leadership. Their power was ascribed to
personal characteristics like charisma, interpersonal skills, and hard work rather than to
organizational stature (Judy B. Rosenberg, 1990). According to most recent Randstad
engagement study, both male and female respondents identified the same top qualities
needed to be an effective leader: Communication skills, problem solving skills, ability

to foster a teamwork environment about 27 percent men, 32 percent women ( WPB
Expert,2014).According to article “Women’s Leadership Style: Boss Plus?” Audrey
Nelson PhD note that the women leadership style is interpersonal, nurturing, flexible,
and interconnected and tends to go for a win/win, have a sense of humor, want
consensus, and share the power. One example: A male colleague, Larry said that he
would prefer a woman boss because he thought that women leadership is more flexible
and understands the issues better than most men. Besides, they have a genuine concern
for their employees’ well-being inside and outside of work. However, he pointed out
that they are poor problem solvers, are not willing to move or relocate, are too family
focused, and will periodically opt out of the system due to pregnancy, child care, or
elder care.
In recent years, women assume many important positions in society: educational,
economic, social. Women made up more than 15 percent of corporate officer positions
and board seats in Fortune 500 companies (from about 9 percent of each 15 years ago)
and 3 percent of CEO spots and wwith more and more women earning business
degrees.( David A. Matsa and Amalia R. Miller,2012). They have achieved great
achievements than men. For example, Indra Nooyi who chair and chief executive of
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

PepsiCo- the world’s second biggest food and drinks business for the last seven years.
Gina Rinehart is a mining magnate and also is Australia's richest person and one of the
wealthiest women in the world. Addition, some other typical woman such as Dilma
Rousseff-president of Brazil, Christine Lagarde- managing director, IMF, Hillary
Clinton- politician and Angela Merkel- chancellor of Germany and so on.(Sean
Farrell and Jon Henley,2013). They bring different leadership styles. In the article
“Leadership Styles: Men and Women” Renuka Savant quoted that Women seem to suit
with the role of mentors, and take pleasure in giving guidance. Besides, they also are
able to convince better than men are and tend to be empathetic to those working for
them, and work well in areas of planning and organizing. Perhaps, this makes them

better project managers. On the other hand, men are often considered to be
authoritative and make excellent taskmasters. When they want to express opinions,
they also happen to be forthright and proficient at direct communication. In particular,
between leaders men and women have different qualities. While qualities generally
found in women: persuasive, good listeners, good at multitasking, socially sensitive,
flexibility during interactions, assertive, focus on details, men leaders are: aggressive,
strategic planners, commercially focused and more result-oriented in comparison.
According to survey was conducted in 14,000 UK leaders and managers show that
male leaders are more strategic but women, perhaps, make better project managers
than men because they tend to be stronger in the interpersonal aspects of leadership.
Elva Ainsworth who managing director of Talent Innovations, said that the females
make good the management and planning, besides, they respect and empathy for
others and the women leadership style is more social. The study also reveals that
Women often accept their mistakes, say “sorry”, and own the consequences of their
decisions (Jon Kennard, 2012). Furthermore, women was appreciated in achieving
results, getting work done, being transparent and clear, and building rapport with
others than men. Tricia Naddaff - president of MRG said that Women often very
much focus on getting results, so they tend to be overestimated higher than male and
there was something about the dynamic of women, sort of that nose to the grindstone,
working really hard and getting their teams to work really hard, but perhaps they were
not making enough time to stop and look up over the horizon and see what was going
on (Rob Stott, 2013). More specifically, women encourage participation. They consult
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

with people when having a problem before they reach their own conclusions. Of
course, they will look at the important information and the most appropriate, before
they implement them. For example, Susan S. Elliott, president and founder of Systems
Service Enterprises, a St. Louis computer consulting company. When interviewed, she
said that she could not come up with a plan and then asked those who manage the

accounts to give her their reactions. They are the ones who really know the accounts.
They have information she did not have. Without their input she’d be operating in an
ivory tower. Besides, they also share power and information. While many leaders
restrict information and power sharing, women willingly share them rather than guard.
One example, Debi Coleman, vice president of information systems and technology at
Apple Computer held the open strategy sessions. It and allows a larger group to
develop and help choose alternatives rather than closeting a small group of key
executives in her office to develop a strategy. Aside from, the female leadership
enhances other people’s self-worth and energizes others, so they get others excited
about their work (Judy B. Rosener, 1990). In short, nowadays the role of women in
society is increasingly high. They are entitled to many rights, especially gender
equality. Women can go to school, get to vote and hold many important positions in all
societal spheres: Political leaders, corporate leaders, president, managing director,
chief operating officer. Moreover, Women bring diverse strengths, perspectives, and
innovation to the exercise of leadership.
2.1.2.2 Gender Associations of Leadership
Perceptions of women’s leadership qualification and effectiveness were affected by
Socialization and culture influence. According to leadership research, women often
associated with communal qualities of compassion, affection, affection, and kindness
and men related to the qualities of the assertion, self-confidence, and domination
(Eagly, A. H., & Carli, L. L. (2007). Prejudices may result that when recruiting
employers, recruiters tend to choose men over women. They thought that Women are
too themselves pushy or too soft. Traditionally, women must always be polite in all
situations. They can be criticized due to too rigid. That is reason why women are more
difficult to become leaders and achieve success than for their male counterparts.
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

2.2 The challenges of women leaderships and ambivalence around woman’s
ambition

2.2.1 The challenges of women leaderships
It is the fact that when we look at the period history of last 100 years to present, we are
complicated to find women leader. If you look at the responsibilities on household in
North American, we would be assured to say that majority of them are done by women.
Even in some most powerful countries like Japan, Germany, Great Britain, this
phenomenon continue gradually. With this modern life, both genders working, women
still run the home. In the article “challenges of women in leadership roles”, Ericka
Outland gave that only 2% of 500 CEO’s are women. This seems to diminishing the
leadership gap between women and men has been becoming one of the most challenges
of society in the 21
st
century. Moreover, he also assumed that a society does not
establish a new policy about leadership for all its citizens, means that it is denying a
chance of superiority (Outland, 2010). In additionally, Theus also believed that women
in leaderships are more respectable than men are in leadership aspect; their patients,
endurances, skills make important factors in characteristic’s leadership and these help to
create a new culture of leaderships when women in cooperation and relation with men
(Theus, 2012). However, women who want to make a great stride to the ladder of
success the must face with a few obstacles. Here are some barriers which female deal
with in workplace.
2.2.1.1 Gender equity issues
All of difficulties are complex by inadequacies in the company and the public policies
that address them. It can be seen that gender inequalities in family roles posture
particular challenges for women in leadership positions, which require highly
commanding schedules. However, in recent years, distinguishing between femininity
and leadership has decreased, women are likely more powerful as men in their career,
occupy highly leadership position. Although these trends, traditional gender stereotypes
still make palisade with women, men still continue to be higher position than women in
most of fields relate to leadership. For instance, in South Asia, women owned
enterprises make account as little as only 3 percent and in Africa, it is 10 percent. While

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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

around the world, women occupy over 40 percent of the agriculture labor force just only
3 to 20 percent are manager, 62 million girls are not permitted go to school, in average,
1 in 3 female experience violence issues in their lifetime. In the article “Many voice of
feminism”, McAndrew quoted the opinion of Susan Sage Heinzelman, an associate
Professor, Department of English Interim Director that the all women pressured the
threat of violent in their life, that threat may be domestic abuse, rape, salve
(McAndrew,2009). Even in Uganda, women faces are attacked by acid because they are
too independent, in Afghanistan, because they wish to think themselves, their schools
are destroyed by religious fanatics. With the serious dangers are lurking, women cannot
against and solve themselves; they must persuade the international community to take
up the problems, develop the strategies to address violence to protect female through
link of legal reforms. In addition, Terri Givens, Vice Provost and Associate Professor
Department of Government, said that women in the new generation should deal with
the challenges of breaking the obstruction created by older generation and women
leaders need take the strength, enjoy the equal position, organize directly teams in order
to confidence working with men and taking the abilities, power .
2.2.1.2 Political freedom
Making about 50 percent of the world’s population, women have experience a lot of
mortification in political issue. Democracy does not deliver satisfied if a half of
population no voice in political system. In some areas, they are supposed as the second
stratum citizens in society with no own right in any decision what their husband makes
for them. In an article, Tovorov mentioned that in Saudi Arabic, women even do not
have the right to drive, own cars, they are restricted on voting, cannot pass and enforce
laws (Tovorov, 2011). Besides that, McAndrew contributed the opinion of the Robert
Jensen that in facing these social, political challenges, women leaderships as well as
feminism is coherent a substitute to illegal hierarchies that arrange our life: men over
women, rich over poor and First world to Third world. The National Democratic

Institute (NDI) confirms that every country merit to have the best resource leader this
means that women have opportunity to reach the pinnacle of success, are equal
participation of female in political system and government. It is vital to building,
maintaining the democracy and women should be committed in institution to working
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

with men as partners in every activity, in workplace. Fortunately, NDI had many
programs to training women leadership in political system in Indonesia, Malaysia, and
some special countries own strict policy with womenfolk. They supported trainers to
distribute the process instruction and activities to political necessity and interests of
political women leaders in their country
2.2.1.3 Gender role in family settings
Nowadays, with modern life, but it still appears the undeveloped, intolerant opinions
that prevent women from promoting their abilities: “men built home, women make
hearth”. The truth female have vocation to give the birth not men, including women
leaders, they do not have different choices like man, supper the bind of family
responsibilities. Therefore, many of those choose stay home to remain childless. In a
study of Center for Work-Life Policy of 3000 families in American, there are about 40
percent of women reported departure the job voluntarily in workplace, the same
proportion agreed choosing another job lesser recompense and fewer tasks than before
in order to have capacity for family responsibilities. In contrast, there are nearly 10
percent men reported leaving their work for reasons relate to family. It can be seen that
much higher credentialed women perceive serious problems in merge work and family
responsibilities. Because of this obstacles, female with demanding job and family
obligations often lack of time for training experiences, mentoring activities that vital for
practice knowledge and advancement. In addition, in the research “women and
leadership: the state of play”, Kellermen gave that there is no more an equal chance
employer for women in home than the workplace, female especially of the very young
and very old are expected to be primary caregivers. In formal, most men follow gender

equality, but in reality, they fail their mission to promote it, four of ten women felt that
their husband create more household works than they sponsor. As the consequence,
burden families continue restrain the shoulder of women (Kellermen, 2006). This
suppress male assume an identical division of household tasks, on condition family
issues are considered as initially for women, solutions are seem to insufficient attention
in leadership round still dominated by male.
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

2.2.2 Ambivalence around women’s ambition
Ambivalence is the feeling and attitude both positively and negatively towards someone
or something, is a state of concurrent conflicting beliefs, reaction, thinking respect to
some objects. Specially, ambivalence occurs regularly with women leadership. In the
interview “Why women are Ambivalent about Ambition”, Henna Inam shared that she is
afraid to be label ambitious and not confident enough in her abilities, she fears her
ambition are not unfounded, obviously, she admitted that it is very difficult for many
women conduct their ambition (Inam, 2013). These narratives are considered as a sense
of ambivalence, but ambivalence make female trapped, it exterminates their energy and
will. By contrast, in a research, Bronznick and Goldenhar affirmed that in the business
world, ambition might create more negatively special women leaders because of the
focus of community leaders to make money, profit but in this situation, women leaders
ambitious might be positive with the sensitivity that women are oriented communally
(Bronznick, n.d). Their opinion is true since the engine fuel ambition for women
leadership to make a positive world. Nevertheless, many women said that “Despite
confidence, they still need agreement from men”, they felt this approval is difficult to
achieve as women are more hesitant in careers than men are.
There are some contradictions appearing frequently around women thinking. The first
one, leadership is potential over others and they are afraid to do that. Female sense the
right power like “power to make an effect” than “power over people”, with women,
being a part of society, acceptance of community is much more significant than for men.

Secondly, becoming a women leadership will add more pressure in their life. Stress can
be caused by their both burden in family and lack of control in workplace, many
researchers showed that women leaders at higher level more stress than those at lower
level so women can create relationship building skill, experiences to adapt with the
harsh competition in careers. In additionally, lack of confident and fear of failure are
some of their most difficult barriers. They think need to improve themselves before
becoming a leader, need to lead like boss to be efficient, make a bigger difference.
These are some special confusing thinking of women, competition in women around
ambivalence. In conclusion, ambition is vital element of attain leadership that
professional accomplishment and reach results so resolving the ambivalence around
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

ambition both internal and external factors is necessary to creating more accessibility to
women’s leadership.
2.3 The impacts of cooperative inquiry
Cooperative inquiry (CI) is a project, which is designed in collaboration by the NYU
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service’s Research Center for Leadership
in Action (RCLA), the White House Project (WHP) and it is launched in 2007.
Cooperative inquiry is a research technique in which small groups of participants use
their own experience to generate insights around an issue of burning concern to all of
them. In addition, defined in the literature, Cooperative inquiry is a system of action and
reflection among participants who concern some issues of burning interest. All of
members can share or learn about the relevant histories of their communities and social
equity more broadly.
In this type of CI, participants create a question, find a course of action, individually
take part in action through their work, and collect the data from their actions. CI has
repeated several times as a cycle of reflection-action-reflection until the group feels it
has successfully addressed its concerns. The participants were women leaders in very
high-level positions, drawn from individual, nonprofit, public sectors with one-third

were women of color, others were white and their ages averaged from 40 to 67. When
participating in together groups, they shared experiences from their personal lives,
family events, plans and works in the future. The results of CI are to help them to create
new knowledge grounded in practice, promote leadership and increase relationships
among group members.
At a meeting in Seattle Robert F. Wagner mentioned that: people of color built and
strengthened to contribute in movement in both domestic and aboard. Leaders of
movement-building organizations face specific and complex obstacles, or develop
effectively organizational strategies, resolve their organization’s conflicts. However,
leaders of color, they have to resolve racial issues and silence concerning race from
other parts of society. Therefore, it is a challenge that they face groups comprising
diverse ethnic minorities. During the project, the participants found this idea’s
application to their own lives and improve their abilities leadership to others.
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

2.3.1 The limited of leadership
In fact, in the report among Fortune 500 companies showed that only 2% of CEOs are
women, 16% of members in Congress, and with 80% of all national leaderships were
men. According to the World Bank, in developing countries there are no a certain of
area, women have equal rights with men in legal, social, and economic. The gender gap
is difficult to control. Actually, women leaders have to face some issues to manage
members in their organization; especially women have low of level education. In the
article named “21st century women’s leadership” written by Shifra Bronznick and Didi
Goldenhar in 2008 mentioned that women have to lead from foot of the table, which are
allowed in terms of our society. Moreover, they have to gain trust and get people
together. They have to collaborate to get decisions made. Condoleezza Rice, US
Secretary of State (2010) said that respect for women is an important condition for
success of countries in the modern world. People have opportunities to develop their
talents and contribute to their economy or to play an equal part in the lives of their

nations in the dynamic 21st century.
The Cooperative Inquiry demonstrated that women leaders in the 21st century need
decision-making sure and take cover issues quickly. Moreover, women have a
comprehensive thinking, it means that they tend to think more deeply, when they
control a group or an organization. The Cooperative Inquiry method is based on
multiple cycles of action and reflection. It means that they collect some stories from
leaders of color across in countries, and then reflect stories or repeat issues around race.
For example, white volunteers did not obey the leadership of people of color. They
wanted to take over the organization and return their own leadership and thank for their
service and told to move. For one example, young women of color feel mistreated and
abused by whites in nonprofit community work and their attitudes in communication.
The most demanding leadership work is often related to the mix of developing the
strategies of an organization while simultaneously find money. Leaders of colors are
less likely to have these social networks for funding, so their programs are more likely
to be reliant on larger, more impersonal and bureaucratic sources of support.
Nevertheless, they have to face with challenges to change emerge from within an
organization and maintain the integrity of their organizations’ missions. The members
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

of groups found difficultly in order to balance representative staffing that meet
immediately the needs of their respective organizations. Therefore, they create the
relationship between organizers and providers in movement building. The leaders and
providers do not exist independence; they can build trust in a community and increase
their abilities or strengthen the social justice movement.
According to a new nationwide Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends
survey (2008), Americans mention women are equipped to be political leaders. In this
survey of 2,250 adults, the public rates women superior to men on seven of eight
leadership characteristics, both intelligence and the most highly valued features in
political leadership. During the course of the inquiry, there was lot of discussion about

whether or not young women would experience the same challenges that these more
senior women faced in their professions. However, the competition among women is
necessary to achieve leadership with another aspect of the ambivalence and ambition. It
is essential to create more receptivity to women’s leadership. The effects of Cooperative
Inquiry bring some changes both participants and organizations. Therefore, a critical
strategy for an organization led by a person of color is to develop a succession plan and
ensure the maintenance of its values.
2.3.2 The benefits of women leadership
People believe that women have to take care of the household chores instead of
engaging in social work. However, actually, this opinion has changed women are
promoting their roles in all fields such as: politic, business, and society. In a recent
speech, Shoko Ishikawa-Representative bodies of women for gender equality and
empower women (March, 2015) shared that: people need to highlight and emphasize the
portrait and positive images of women leaders, and the role of women in non-
traditional fields such as business leaders, scientists, architects to change awareness
about their work. In fact, Women's labor force is extremely active in economic
activities. Up to now, women have been an important part of a large team of social
workers. In her creative work, women have contributed to enrich society, diversify
people's lives. In the New York Law Journal(2012) reported that companies with at
least one female director have averaged higher net income growth, lower net debt-to-
equity ratio, and faster reduction in debt compared to companies with no female
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

directors. Organizations with more women in leadership roles increase their
competition.At the summit of women worldwide, the first report on the situation of
women in five Continents of the United Nations (2008) shows that the progress of
society and the economy will develop quickly than if people prioritize investment in
women. The participation of women in politics, economy, society, etc, will allow our
society to change view and have options that are more useful. According to the

Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon (2008), investing in women and
girls will contribute to economic growth and development progress in the world. He
demonstrated that: women’s investment is not only a right of action, but also a smart
job. Investing in women will help the world cope with the challenges of the Times:
poverty, illiteracy, environmental threats and diseases.
In the textbook, the author Thomas Dublin, written in chapter two “The early textile
industry and the rise of Lowell” (1979) illustrated that women were not only doing their
home, but it was carried out with a view toward home consumption for the most part.
However, work was tedious; it constituted a major element of women’s contribution to
the family economy. In the eight of Millennium Development Goals mentions in Goal 3
“promote gender equality and empower women”; therefore, the roles of women in
society enhance and increase attention that bring about them some advantages in all
aspects, specially women’s leadership. In addition, on the cover of the textbook “the
Female Advantage Women’s Ways of the leadership” written by Sally Helgesen (1990),
Tom Peters stated: “the Female Advantage becomes more and more timely with each
passing day, too new to be a classic, forget it, this book is already a classic”.
In politics, women hold many important positions in the machinery of government. For
instance, According to the investigation of the Asian Development bank (2007), in
some countries of East Asia and the Pacific, Vietnam is the ratio of women to
participate in the largest conference. In the world, Vietnam ranks 18th in the number of
parliament are women, and more 40% scientists are women. In the state agency, there is
a female vice president; females served as minister was 4.55%, equivalent to 11.43%
occupied ministers, deputy ministers was 2.75%, equivalent to deputy was 9.21%,
equivalent to growth and accounted for 9 , 87%, and vice accounted for 20.74%
equivalent. However, the proportion of women in the Party Committees 2005-2010
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

term, only 13.5%, whereas, according to the National Committee for the Advancement
of Women in 2006, the goals set out in the Plan activities for the advancement of

women is 15%. According to some surveys, in the offices of the National Assembly,
women are represented in the committee focused on political issues "soft", such as the
Committee on Social Affairs, Committee Culture, education and youth association, 40%
are women. Similarly, in the Commission minority, there are about 44% are women
(sources: synthesize multiple sources). They become more and more successful when
they know how to combine some factors such as delicate, sensitive, mild, enthusiastic
and self-confident. They work under pressures, embrace usually a flatter leadership
playing field with more collaboration, teamwork, and coaching, rather than hierarchical
structures and authority.
In economy, Vu Tien Loc-a professor and chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and
Industry Vietnam (2015) mentioned in his speech: forecasts of many researchers show
that in the future, more than 50% of businesses in the world will own by women. The
role of women in the economy consists of two roles: Women business owners and
women workers. Women become better decision-making to increase financial
performance or strengthen organizational climate. Specially, they enhance innovation
and collect intelligence. Recently, research in the field of business showed that
organizations have more women in management; they achieve better financial
performance than others do. In addition, the research demonstrated that in 2012,
Bloomberg found companies with a market capitalization of more than $10 billion and
with women board members outperformed comparable businesses with all-male boards
by 26% in the world.
In family, women have an important position in their family, especially wives and
mothers. Women devote their life to take care of family, willing to sacrifice for her
husband, sometimes abandon their careers to protect happy family. They take
advantages of their abilities to contribute to family and society because they know how
to care for not only members of their family but also around others. They usually listen,
advise and share some difficulties in life. Specially, when women have high-level
education and understanding of wide society, they control and manage their family
reasonably, teach their children better.
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

To sum up, women bring diverse strengths, perspectives, and innovation to the exercise
of leadership. In aspects, they usually promote their capabilities and complete their
work quickly. They are dynamic in social activities. However, the challenges of gender
equality are still exist, family and society have to change to promote an effective role of
women and enhance their contribution in social.
2.4. Women’s leadership in the working sector, some policies and programs to
promote gender equality
2.4.1 Women’s leadership in the working sector
In the 21st century, women play an important role in social development, especially in
working. According to the New York Time, some of the highly educated and powered
women who do not participate in corporation beginning in 1990s in order to raise
children and take care of elders have come back to the work.
The number of professional women take part in the current labor force is more and more
growing, and many of them are looking for a leadership role. According to a 2001
report by the United States Bureau of Labor statistic, the female make up about 41% of
all employees and hold 51% of all bachelor’s degrees, 45% of all advanced degrees,
42% of all doctoral degrees and 43% of all professional degrees in the USA
(Carli&Eagly citied, 2001). A survey carried out by Sandeep Tatla, Director Office of
Diversity and Inclusion shows that in Canada, the percentage of women accounted for
52% of total its population and 62% of its bachelor’s degrees graduates, yet only 18%
of top positions in business are ran by women. A question is why did not we empower
women in the workplace? She also said that female are empowered which makes
organization and economies are more developed. This proved that women create a
different perspective to the working sectors than men and more cooperative leadership
style (Sandeep, 2012).Over the period of the economic storm in 2009, women’s
leadership demonstrated that they could be suffered, could not decisive and competitive
as man. Besides, the USA Today reports that the amount of stocks of the 13 Fortune
500 companies run by women for all 2009 were driven up an average of 50%.Since

1980, the number of women participates in the institutions of higher education more
than men. Today in the US, men account for only 42% of college students.
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

Additionally, women receive a greater number of the honors degrees at many
universities. In 2006, at the Harvard University, about 55% of women graduated with
honors degrees while barely half of the men did so. In 2009, the percentage of women
awarded honors degrees is 55% compared with 51% of men. At Florida Atlantic
University, women not only made up 64% of the graduating class in 2006, but also
received 75% of the professional degrees and 79% of the highest honors. Therefore,
female leaders have a big effect to the development of society but also bring to the
results that are more perfect than male.
In a research, the United Nation has shown that promoting women empowerment and
gender equality brings more profits for businesses. In addition, the University of
California provided a research and suggested that empowering women more in the
workplace permits firms to diversify decision-making, resulting in higher revenue (Erin
Crum,2010).Workers should cooperate with other businesses to advocate and promote
for gender equality and more opportunities for women. It is also necessary to recognize
women contributing and working in leadership roles within the community. The
research by the Hay Group shows that women represent a higher proficiency than their
male colleagues and more developed skill required to lead in a matrix work
environment. Some skills found to be more popular in women’s leadership. Moreover,
the United States researched that female leaders make reduce reckless risk- taking
behavior and compare to companies that have not women’s leadership, other ones with
three or four women leader better than male. According to a survey of Apollo, they said
that women’s communication is better than men, which helps women leaders grow
members in groups or teams, give the tasks based on people’ working style and create
participating aims for personal growth. Furthermore, the business mentality of women
leaders is quite good. Those are independent workers and business creators. In 2011,

women earned about 1.3 trillion dollars in all revenue and worked almost 7.7 million
people. A research provides that women create distinct personality and motivational
strengths to leadership. With their intelligence, they can open, consensus-building,
collegial approach to leading. As well, Dr. Greenberg adds that women leaders are
willing to share a strong profile. They are assertive, persuasive, empathic, taking risk,
flexible, etc (Geenberg, 2010). Female leaders have the strong people skills because
they enable them to read situations accurately and take in information from all sides.
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

Women can bring to other people to their point of view or change their own opinion-
depending on the situation and information they discover. Women can do this because
they really understand and take care of from which others are coming.
2.4.2 Some policies and programs to promote gender equality
Gender equality concerns women and men, and it involves working with men and boys,
women and girls to bring about changes in attitudes, behaviors, roles and
responsibilities at home, in the workplace, and in the community. Genuine equality
means more than parity in numbers or laws on the books; it means expanding freedoms
and improving overall quality of life so that equality is achieved without sacrificing
gains for males or females. Gender equality is the opinions that between men and
women have not the discrimination, they should receive equal treatment and should not
be discriminate against based on gender. In addition, gender equality is achieved when
women and men enjoy the same rights and chances across all sectors of society,
including economic participation and decision-making, and when the different
behaviors aspiration and needs of women and men are equally valued and favored.
The situation of gender inequality takes place more and more popular in the working
sector. Since the 1970s and 1980s, although women flood the workplace, they still face
many institutional challenges to equality in the workplace. Gender inequality is obvious
in the working sector is wage discrimination. It observers that women are consistently
paid less for performing the same task as men. According to the report in 2015, the

wages of men and women still have a significant gap. In the full-time works, women
can earn less 18% wages than men, although they are more likely to have a degree do.
In the UK, women’s leadership made up less than that of men. About 43% of big
companies have no women and only 34.7% of smaller companies have female directors.
However, in 2011, the Lord Davies’s review called for 25% women’s directors by the
end of 2015, therefore, this is an encouraging step. Although, there are the huge
advances that women carried out in the educational system, they are still at a
disadvantage in the workplace.
Therefore, establishing some gender equality policies and programs is necessary to
solve gender inequality. The government seeks to promote equal rights, opportunities
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

and responsibilities for men and women. One of the chief aims of its gender equality
policy is to strengthen the economic independence of women and raise the percentage
of women in employment. This means getting more women into work and making it
possible for men and women to share work and care responsibilities more equitably.
The employer should have a clear and full understanding of laws in workplace to
prevent discrimination in the workplace. Equal pay and opportunities, equal work,
should equal pay. Setting up a policy guarantees that both men and women are given the
same chances in promotion. Training to managers is an essential thing to stop gender
inequality. By providing training to those in a management position for how best to deal
with gender equality in the workplace, they will be equipped to deal with any problems.
They should be educated how to identify and handle any form of discrimination may
take place in a work environment and how to avoid it from happening in the future.
Moreover, recognize the contributions and success of worker in company both men and
women. This will create motivation, which helps both male and female work the best.
Whether they are in any positions, the employers need to be equal in the treatment.
Apart from, Palms Australia policy is committed to promote the principles and practice
of equality and diversity for director, staff and volunteer positions in the organizations

with partners around the world. Palms Australia seeks to achieve fairness, justice in the
distribution of benefits and responsibilities between women and men, this creates a
gender balance in its organization especially in leadership positions. Besides, Palms
Australia uses gender equality as a guiding tool for nomination, selection of staff to
senior management positions. In addition, it also promotes gender equality and
empowering women. Furthermore, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency is an
Australia Government statutory agency created by the workplace Gender Equality Act
2012. WDEA advises and supports employers in promoting and improving gender
equality in the working sector. Moreover, it helps develop standard relating to gender
equality indicators with supporting of employers and contributing to understanding and
acceptance and public discussion of gender equality in the workplace.
2.5 Ethics of the 21st women leadership
Nowadays, more and more researches proves that woman can be ethical than their male
counterparts. It means that women intend to be whistleblowers. As Chandler stated in
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

his entitlement that women bring to the exercise of leadership that Women’s leadership
is an arsenal of strengths that they are received benefits from their leading on local,
national and global levels. According to Thomson 2013, women’s abilities to make up
fair decisions when competing interests are at stake and make them are better corporate
leaders. A survey of more than 600 board directors realized that women could consider
the rights of others and take a cooperative approach to decision-making.
Some styles of woman leadership become more participative, transformational and
inclusive than that of their male counterparts. The 21st women leadership is shown in
different aspects of our life such as business and finance, global world, science and
technology, development or poverty and environment. All areas are equal, none of them
is more crucial than others are. In reality, it is probably not surprising and there are
many interconnections among them. Personally, women are believed to undertake
leadership better than men based on some factors such as confidence, social risk,

emotional and facial recognition, emotions and actions or professional differences.
In terms of confidence, as Bergson stated in his entitlement Gender and overconfidence
that men can be described as more confident than women can. Especially in financial
decisions, Odeon remarked that women traded in greater volumes than men do. It leads
to greater losses. According to Robinson, women’s greater confidence about financial
matters and it is also reflected in the fact that women in business are commonly reported
to be greater levels of profitability. Furthermore, women are rarely stereotyped as being
apologetic. The key to success for women is their skills in promoting by themselves and
be self-confident in performance and ambitions (McKinsey, 2007). Some catalysts
assert that of all the strategies women can apply to improve, mostly being aggressive in
making their achievements. This helped women to get further in visible way, elevated
their career satisfaction and increased their reparation growth. An exciting research
pointed out that women almost make no apologize except for a reality that women judge
themselves more leniently and they are more willing to apologize as Schuman’s
opinion. Another characteristic about bluffing, in Alder’s view, women show a greater
willingness to bluff which is relevant to confidence undoubtedly. As a result, it brings
about lots of positive projections and judgments. An article related to competitive
deception aimed that women have more willing to bluff to competitors, distributors and
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

their own company. In addition, they know how to control their acts, treat to enemy in
the right way. A study could not find out any gender differences in bluffing but it could
prove that women thought they were better at it. Moreover, this study found that both
genders were more likely to lie to a woman (Holm, 2005). One of the most noticeable
factors is women’s respond to social risk. A convincing reason leading to the fact why
women show these behaviors that are less risky is neither do they have difficulty in a
different manner nor because risk probably creates many different emotional reactions.
In a recently research, women view probability in different ways where risk to women
is a bit binary concept. This means that women view seldom probabilities to gain

smaller than they actually are. Thus, it is less risk averse. As Schubert reported in his
newspaper “Are Women Really More Risk Averse?” that the opposite occurs in the loss
domain where women overvalue big possibilities of failure. Consequently, there is a bit
risk averse for losses. Furthermore, Genes (2009) disputed that the difference in being
aware of risk is due to the dissimilarity in emotional intensity and regarding risk as an
emotion. In addition, when confronted with ambiguity, men are depicted to fear whereas
women are reported an anger. Fear and anger have different impact on risk insight
where fear lessens the risk taking while anger grows it up (Kilter, 2001). Likewise,
Being coped with stress, women see a speed-up in making decisions and much risk
taking whereas men see the contradiction(Light hall, 2012). It can be inferred that in a
stressful situation, both men and women will have many different responses, especially
related to the earlier discovering of action against feelings. Moreover, ethical behaviors
of women are based on the impact of context and neurology. Women’s reaction to the
environment in an emotional manner and are more adapted to the environment. As a
result, women will also experience more biases (Ladenburg 2010). The finding that
women can be affected by context (Gneezy 2009) is specifically explained through the
neuroscience investigation. Men and women have had lots of differences, both
structural and functional within the brain (Cahill 2006).Interestingly, while women own
the right-brain such as logic, detail, and linear, women’s brain does not favor the left-
brain like holistic, intuitive… rather than a higher link between the two hemispheres.
As Roberts (2012) argues that in their groundbreaking book ‘Inside her pretty little
head’, it is increase in interconnectivity .That means emotional and facial recognition
grows up Moreover, the amygdale plays an energetic role in processing of emotional
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The reflection of woman empowering in the 21st century

information (Cahill 2006) and has been reported to be larger for men (Goldstein 2001).
Likewise, the amygdale is strongly relevant to risk reaction. Furthermore, higher
amygdale activities were mentioned to higher risk aversion in the gain domain and risk
seeking in the loss domain (De Martino 2006). With this evidence, that loss and gain

will bring about different risk reactions and risk can affect emotions considerably.
About emotional and facial recognition, women are considered as social risk takers due
to a greater social sensitivity, and can handle social instability. Moreover, women are
better at realizing subtle facial expressions (Hoff 2010), even when these expressions
are showed very briefly in short time (Matsumoto 2004). In this case, neurological
evidence validates that women have a higher motivation of the mirror neurons to control
and process the emotions of others. As Schulte stated in his entitlement Gender
Differences in Brain Networks Supporting Empathy that A mirror neuron is believed as
a particular type of neuron that emits when a person performs an action or when they
assess a similar action done by another one (Rizzolatti 2005). In spite of the fact that
initially mirror neurons have been namely related to motor function, there is proof that
this also operates in the regions of social recognition (Johnston2008). In addition, the
mirror neuron system makes us understand and intensify not only another’s intentions
but also their thoughts (Endicott, 2008). With this evidence, the mirror neuron system
accelerates both social interactions and empathy. Generally, women are against
situations with greater emotional intensities than men do (Hartmann 1987) especially in
the negative situation. As Cunningham reported in his provoking book inside her 15
pretty little head argues that men and women have lots of differences in their impulsive
base-reaction. While men can react through patterns of action, women can respond
through their feelings. Their investigations prove that when the brain is at rest, other
parts in the brain are intensified for both men and women. For women, the limbic
system controls their emotions (Gur2002). Therefore, women’s instant reaction is to
feel. As a result, women are generally more overconfident and optimistic and gain a
higher social sensitivity because of having more developed mirror neurons. In direct
responses, women always react by their feeling. Women are believed to be risk-averse,
great risk takers in social situations and higher social sensitivity.
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