Woman’s place is in the wrong. (James Thurber)

The Marketing Department bulletin board of my old company was – and appears to still be – the place for things weird and wonderful. Last week, while visiting, I found this piece from Savvy & Sage prominently posted.

Savvy & Sage is a bimonthly magazine for seniors, with topics running from Alzheimers to annuities. In its September / October 2007 issue, S&S published an excerpt from a 1943 issue of Transportation magazine. A Guide to Hiring Women, it was “written for male supervisors of women in the work force during World War II”. Among the 11 tips:

- Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters and they’re less likely to be flirtatious.

- When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Older women who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy.

- Husky girls are more even-tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.

- Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination – one covering female conditions. This would reveal whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her unfit for the job.

- You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day.

- Be tactful when issuing instructions or in making criticisms. Women are often sensitive; they can’t shrug off harsh words the way men do.

In the early ‘70s, I worked for a large engineering company. My boss was loathe to hire women on the basis that they were unreliable, constantly missing work to take care of domestic problems. Worse, they would almost certainly go off on maternity leave just as soon as they started to become useful. (I can only imagine now what he considered ‘useful’.) In a case of misplaced paternalism or, perhaps, simple misogyny, the women in that firm had to ask their male supervisors for the key to the ladies’ washroom. The attitude was both a cause and an effect of the demographics of professional engineering at the time: only one percent of registered engineers were women. Of course, ignorance may have also had a little something to do with it.

Times have changed, right? Fast forward, if you will, to 2007. Only 13 FORTUNE 500 companies were run by women, only one in the top 50 (Angela Braly, President and CEO of health insurance provider WellPoint). The baker’s dozen is a record, up from just 10 in 2006.

In the past few years, there have been countless articles profiling women in power, analyzing what motivates and deters women from seeking leadership roles, trying to ferret out those particular-to-women personality traits that make them perfect or imperfect candidates for the corner office.

I have worked with many women executives over the years and those with promising careers whose climb ended just short of the top rung. Most brought high levels of integrity to their jobs. Most often, the principle driver to succeed was what often became the biggest stumbling block: respect from others. Know what? These things are hardly peculiar to women.