Life’s A Bitch When You’re An (Ex-)Executive And Female

There was an interesting article in The Washington Post yesterday (free subscription) questioning what happens when a female chief executive leaves her position. More specifically, will her departure call more attention than when a male chief executive falls? The author examines the presence of corporations led by women and the stigma that comes with their (sadly) rare existence.
After all, there’s only about one percent of female chief executives in the Fortune 500. The author uses Carly Fiorina as an example — the chief executive who just resigned from her successful tenure of six years at Hewlett Packard Co. But the author questions, “Will her departure also just be another ‘aha, see?’ moment in Corporate America?”
Betty Spence, the president of the National Association of Female Executives, puts her two cents in. “’Everybody is so interested when a female executive goes under…The coverage [Fiorina] is going to get for it has everything to do with being a woman because there are so few women at the top, and they receive a great deal of scrutiny.’”
The author also mentions Harvard President Summers’ controversial comments and the resulting debates involving interests, leadership styles and abilities between the sexes. She predicts that Fiorina’s departure will question even more of what women’s “natural” abilities are.
Barbara Gault, director of research at the Institute for Women’s Policy and Research, seems to have a good take on what this bullshit is about:
“An aggressive, risk-taking style is viewed more negatively in women than among men. Women face a double standard in that if they are too accommodating and feminine, they are seen as weak. Too aggressive, it brings up negative associations for a lot of people…Given that there are already so few women in the Fortune 500 . . . it seems likely that her departure is just going to add to that perception that clearly already exists.”
Thoughts?