Perspectives on women in accounting: a roundtable discussion.

Today, women have a much greater presence in the CPA profession than 15 or even 10 years ago. However, even with tremendous growth in the number of women in accounting, challenges still remain. The 2004 Management of a Practice Survey showed that of the responding firms, 98 percent of partners and owners were male. The face of the profession is changing though. The same survey showed more than half of managers were women. As more and more women enter this field, we want to examine the outlook for women in accounting.

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From your perspective, has the role of women in accounting changed in the last 10-15 years? If so, how?

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Linda: More women are moving into senior roles in the accounting profession. At the same time, more women are becoming CPAs. Accounting firms are realizing they can't manage their practices with an entirely male management stratum; there just aren't enough men to meet their needs. As a result, the profession has become more welcoming of women at the partner level. There is still a long way to go, but there has been some improvement.

Wendy: I've been involved in on campus recruiting with my firm, and I would say half of the people that we hire are women.

Sandy: When I graduated almost 25 years ago, about half of the accounting students at Miami University were women. But when I got out into the work force, it wasn't the same--at least in public accounting. When I started at Crowe Chizek, there were 36 new hires and only six were women. Most of those women were real standouts; many had master's degrees, one even had the highest CPA test score in Indiana. The hurdles to get into the workforce seemed extremely high.

Linda: If you went back 15-20 years earlier, you would have said the same thing about national firms. Maybe it's just a wave that is rolling through. As the smaller firms add women, they are starting with the best they can get.

Jan: I recall an accounting professor that said women shouldn't major in accounting because there's no way women could live the lifestyle required to succeed in public accounting. Perhaps that was true, but he was assuming that in order to join that "fraternity," you had to live by that fraternity's rules. Instead we've seen the rules change. Certainly it has taken a lot of hard work and dedication to make these changes happen. Women can succeed though; they have a lot of the skills and mental abilities required to be a CPA. There has been a tremendous amount of change, in more than just the last 15 years.

Sandy: I am amazed by the flexibility of employers. When I was first in accounting, you didn't ask for any accommodations. That has changed dramatically, and not just for women. I'm not sure which came first though, women pushing or firms needing the workers.

Linda: I think women pushed the issue. In 1989 the American Woman's Society of CPAs issued a book on flexible work arrangements. I think women most assuredly had to raise those issues in order for businesses to even start thinking about it.

When I was in graduate school I was not the typical student because I started as a social worker. I was told I would never find a job in a public accounting firm because I was a woman, because I had two kids, and because I was older. They basically said "you can forget about it; go home and take up knitting." That scared me of course, so I decided if I worked really hard, that couldn't possibly be true. I ended up with offers from all of the Big Eight firms at the time.

The women who succeeded back then were clearly special in some way. They were not your average students. They were people who had done exceptionally well in school or had some other exceptional attributes. That's no longer needed. Woman can achieve in accounting today with the same accomplishments as the men.

Sandy: I think the increased number of women in senior positions has also made a difference in organizations being more family-friendly. Now it is more a matter of getting your work done and doing a good job.

Linda: It depends again on the particular company and boss. The treatment is more uniform in larger organizations...