...We see far too few women at the top, yes, but we also see far too many women at the bottom. The statistics are equally jarring in both directions. Women hold less than 15 per cent of executive officer positions in Fortune 500 companies and 62 per cent of minimum-wage jobs. As a result, one in three adult women is living in poverty or just on the edge of poverty. For single mothers, the picture is particularly bleak. Almost two-thirds of them are working in dead-end, poorly compensated jobs without flexibility or benefits.
In looking at the stark facts of women at the top and at the bottom, a common pattern in their seemingly disparate experiences begins to emerge. The key to that pattern lies in two complementary human drives: competition, the impulse to pursue our self-interest in a world in which others are pursuing theirs, and care, the impulse to put others first.
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Yet if they are two equally valuable and necessary human drives, it is no more justifiable to value the production of income over the provision of care than it is to value white over black, straight over gay, or men over women. Competition produces money. But care produces people.
