There have been rumblings both in networking chit-chat, on the internet, and in major newspapers and magazines: We have a male-dominated recession.  

According to Business Week, “From last November through last April, American women aged 20 and up gained nearly 300,000 jobs, according to the household survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  At the same time, American men lost nearly 700,000 jobs.”

According to USA Today, “In the year since the recession began in December 2007, the jobless rate for men rose from 4.4% to 7.2%.  At the same time, the jobless rate for women rose from 4.3% to 5.9%.

Among the reasons given as explanations are 1) men are in the hardest hit industries such as construction, manufacturing, and transportation, 2) women are in more stable industries such as health care, education, and government, which is 57% female, 3) more women than men work part-time and employers can afford to keep these workers because of less pay and fewer benefits, and 4) men, in general, are paid more and therefore, employers will lay them off faster than lower paid employees.

This isn’t necessarily good news because it points out the inequities in salary and opportunities for promotions for working women.  According to Catalyst, a nonprofit group that promotes opportunities for women in business, women made up only 6.2 percent of top earners in 2008, down from 6.7% in 2007.  

Also, as men lose their jobs, according to the Lifestyle article in this week’s Newsweek, women are working harder as they take on the role as sole support for their families, and still have to ease the bruised egos of their mates.

Yet, there looks as if there is somewhat of bright spot for women…as cited in Business Week, “women are graduating from college at higher rates than men.  Some analysts even argue that men are less suited than women to the knowledge economy, which rewards supposedly female traits such as sensitivity, intuition, and a willingness to collaborate. ‘Men have tended to do better in the hierarchies, following orders and relying on positional power,’ says Andy Hines, a futurist at the Washington (D.C.) consulting firm Social Technologies.’ ”

Now, that is interesting!  Could this rotten economic slump be a stimulus for changing the immutable, men-favored work place?  Could the skills and circumstances of working women now tip the scales of our old-boys-club way of doing business?  I realize the fact that women are reluctant to take on power and lack the confidence to demand higher or equal salaries, and that, of course, could also keep more women working now than men.  I am looking at the slim possibility that as women occupy more jobs than men and their skills start to produce better results, women may finally tip the scale to equal pay and equity in corporations and the business environment.

True, more and more women have been entering the workplace, but haven’t been especially appreciated for their efforts or acknowledged with proportionate pay increases.  In gathering research for my second book, yet untitled, about the challenges corporate women face, I hear many women lament the difficulty in being heard, being validated, having opportunities to make a difference or get promoted.  We have interviewed many women and there are those who seem relatively content because they have followed the “male way,” cloned themselves in the behavior of men at the office and gotten ahead.

I want to bite my lip or follow one of my mother’s traditions as I am about to say something.  I remember my mom often spitting out “pooh-pooh” using the voodoo like expulsion when she didn’t want to jinx something she or someone else was saying.  Being an eternal optimist and yet having a hard time keeping hope alive for my entire adult working life when it comes to full equality for women in the workplace – “I think we may be at a turning point.”

I believe new wave thinking, the Secret, laws of attraction, more women working together in companies, now more women keeping jobs than men, and other miscellaneous reasons cultural anthropologists will be explaining for many years to come may result in women having greater influence in workplace culture, designing new and more effective work styles, and the transforming non-traditional ideas into a different kind, a gentler, but still forceful power.

I really am not certain that I am not just being hopeful, but there may be something to this very new, untested theory of mine.  I hope that does not threaten men; it may, in fact, take some pressure off of them.  We just might be moving toward a more comfortable middle ground.

Yet, right now, at this crossing of global economic status, unprecedented confusion amongst government, economists, workers, business people, trail-blazing business opportunists, and whirling daily business developments, we might just be coming to a spot in history where the business habits and styles of women may make their way to solving some of our dilemmas.  If we have a larger number of women working then ever before compared to men, and some staunch and staid business practices are crumbling, perhaps collaboration, intuition, sensitivity, and a new way of solving problems may produce some different and better results!

Business women may actually make a difference, make actually take part in solutions for businesses in crises, lead in greater numbers, and women may actually get equal recognition in position, power, and money.

This business woman can only hope!