With half the jobs in the U.S. filled by women, those of us who’ve been working full time for the past 30 years have something to say about opportunities for workplace advancement for women.

As business editor of The Columbian for most of the past 26 years, I’ve had the good fortune to interview and write about a lot of people, both men and women, in this business community, charismatic leaders, people who had drive and focus, bright people who knew how to solve problems. There also were dullards. Those reading from out-of-date manager manuals, who could not grasp the big picture and failed at creative problem solving.

How have women fared through all this? Have our baby boomer dreams of job fulfillment been realized?

Answer: It depends.

Women in my generation marched into the work force in the 1970s with the mandate that we could do anything as well or better than a male counterpart, that we deserved the same pay, the same recognition and the same chance to rise to the top. Based on what I’ve seen, women have done far better in certain employment sectors than in others.

In 2007, The Columbian’s B2B magazine recognized Clark County’s “Most Powerful Women.” Among the 76 women recommended to our list, only 12 held a vice president, president or other high-level position in a traditional company.

The rest, according to our research, worked for the government, for nonprofits, or were self-employed.

Now comes a study from consulting firm Bain & Co., which recently surveyed 1,834 business professionals worldwide.

According to the study, reported in the Wall Street Journal, 90 percent of men and 85 percent of women believe qualified applicants of either gender have the same shot at landing a junior-level position. But perceptions are divided after that, with 81 percent of men seeing women with an equal opportunity to move into middle management, but only 52 percent of women seeing it that way.

Sixty-six percent of men said promotions to the executive level are “equally attainable by both sexes” while only 30 percent of women saw that as true. According to the study, the reality is that only 3 percent of CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies are held by women, with just 13.5 percent getting to the executive officer level.

Who’s to blame: Men because they have a secret gender bias, or women, because we discount our own abilities?

Deborah Kolb, a professor specializing in women and leadership at Simmons School of Management in Boston, says studies have shown women still are seen by bosses and colleagues — men and women — as “less capable of serving in leadership posts than men, despite evidence to the contrary.”

Clark County has been open to women in top leadership in city and county government, at school districts and nonprofit organizations.

But private business? Not so much. Maybe that will change in the next 30 years.

Julia Anderson is The Columbian’s business editor. Reach her at 360-735-4509 or julia.anderson@columbian.com.

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