Western Michigan University, back in the late 1980’s featured a class for their MBA program called Women in Management which focused on women in business and the negative stereotypes associated with powerful women. These stereotypes are not only wrong; they are ridiculous, especially in the modern world where women are playing leading roles in Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 Corporations.

From another woman’s perspective, when a woman is in charge of an organization or even a project manager, many times other women tend to look upon her as bossy and brash. They treat her as an outsider even though many women are simply lonely at the top and would like nothing more than to embrace the support of other women. However, jealousy sometimes stands in the way of that support.

Negative stereotypes about women include the fact that women fall apart too easy. It is perceived by many men that women were and many times still are today thought to be too emotional; not able to handle stress in many situations. Men typically believe that women think with their heart as opposed to their minds.

It is also believed that women are thin-skinned and so it is believed that women can’t take criticism thus they would never have the ability to lead. Women can and do lead; their ability to concentrate on details and the fact that women can multi-task allows them to succeed in our very competitive marketplace today.

Other stereotypes include the fact that women are more interested in their family than their jobs and it is believed that they will eventually quit their jobs to take care of their families. It is true that some women are stay-at-home mothers, but statistics prove that approximately 60% of women work outside of the home. Even though many would rather be at home, they still perform their responsibilities better and faster than many men. Another fact is that many of the women that do stay home have a job that they perform for a paycheck in the home setting.

Many times today, women are single parents, so they no longer have the luxury of being exclusively in-home caretakers. Instead they perform what sociologists call “second-shifting.” The term means that women work their career job during the day and then come home to take care of the home and the children at night. Career women have double the responsibility – especially single mothers.

Another negative stereotype is that women are easily swayed and that their mood swings interfere with their ability to perform. Women could not be put into places of authority if these stereotypes were true. It is true that women who are mothers have double the stress levels that men do, many times because they have no help from their man in the home or with the children.

The last negative stereotype is that women get what they want by flirting or that they deserve everything that they get by the way they dress or act. Women have always been looked at as sexual creatures but this gives no one the right to approach a woman with anything less than respect. It is a sad set of occurrences when men feel that they can bully a woman into getting what the man wants simply because the woman is wearing a skirt and heels.

Women have been judged by both other women and men alike and labeled quite negatively at times. Women must believe in themselves, trust themselves and treat themselves with dignity and respect in order to ward off the negativity of stereotypes that women have been tagged with in the past and that continue to plague them in the present. The women that can do this will be the ones to lead.