Harvard Business Review's research on working women

HBR BLOG

Just as we found likable leaders at every level, we also see some who are prickly, capricious, and arrogant. As you would suppose, they included leaders of both genders. There happen to be a higher percentage of likable women leaders than men leaders, but the difference in our data is not huge (among the least likable there are 3% more men than women; among the most liked 3% more women than men).
Our conclusion? Likability and success actually go together remarkably well for women. Parents can accurately and unhesitatingly tell their daughters, "Aspire for positions of power and influence, and when you get promoted, it is totally your choice whether you act in a way that will have people continue to like you or not."

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/04/leaning_in_without_hesitation.html?cm_sp=blog_flyout-_-cs-_-leaning_in_without_hesitation

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Amartya Sen discusses in his book The Idea of Justice  the concept of social choice. Every individual has a choice to choose from inspite of the rigidity of social structures, he argues.

Sen writes about a social value system that is more geared to recognizing men's deprivation than women's, especially in India. In such a situation the individual only reflects social thought and in the case of Indian women, they look at themselves from a male position, unaware of the choice that has actually arrived.

Freewill and freedom do not exist for Indian women as their souls are caught by their bodies' prison of public reasoning. Society orders them to handle their  bodies in a particular manner. The Indian woman does not have the social choice of the Indian men. Public reasoning treats the women as 'bodies' and women have taken no efforts to break away from this social and political perspective. 

The influence of society on our thinking is deep and pervasive, says Sen. Where is the Indian woman located in this social sphere?

Harvard research assumes that women are equal to men. It has not taken into account the hatred women have for aggressive and ruthless women. The hard, rugged, tall Mills & Boon man still reigns supreme in the female world. The hard, rugged woman stays out side her world.