International Women’s day #IWD2024 theme was #InspireInclusion.
If education, ability and aptitude are equally dispersed between women and men, we have to wonder what else gets in the way of women’s advancement.
What I see from my long career across many businesses and working with my clients is that there are four enduring myths that hinder women’s ability to succeed in their careers. Let’s take these in turn.
Myth one: 🗣 Women don’t have as much to say ..
Research going back 50 years has shown that women do not get as much airtime in meetings as men, they are more likely to be interrupted when speaking and are twice as likely to have their ideas claimed by a man (sometimes in that very same meeting). My last blog covered #manteruptions and it’s impact.
The impact of this for women is:
- Reduced confidence: Constant interruptions can make women feel hesitant to speak up in the future, hindering their participation and career advancement.
- Loss of valuable ideas: When women’s voices are silenced, their unique perspectives and insights are not considered, leading to potentially less effective solutions.
- A culture of bias: Unchallenged interruptions reinforce the unconscious bias that men’s contributions are more important.
But there are various ways to address this.
The first is observing the dynamics in your regular meetings. Are interruptions tolerated and do they occur more often when specific people are speaking (perhaps women or people from minority groups). This can be difficult to notice in the moment, so you might consider using a record and transcript tool to see what’s happening.
Also consider:
- Establish ground rules for respectful communication, including allowing someone to finish speaking before another begins.
- Ally intervention: When a woman is interrupted, a male colleague can intervene politely, reminding everyone of the established rules.
- Retaking the mic: Interrupting can feel very jarring, but using a simple phrase such as; “If I could just finish my point about.. ” will help to bring the attention back and regain your authority smoothly.
Myth two: 🔬 Women aren’t as skilled or experienced
If we look at the body of knowledge in the scientific world and counted by citations alone we would find that men’s work outnumbers women’s by 3 : 1. We also know that in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) sectors, women are less than 33% of most workforces – at any level.
What we find when we delver deeper is that women’s contribution and work is dumb-downed or ignored by the STEM community.
For example:
- A study published in the journal Nature found that papers by women in elite medical journals are half as likely to be cited as similar articles authored by men
- Research also revealed that women in research teams are significantly less likely than men to be credited as authors
- Patents in US disproportionately awarded to men even when women have made significant contributions to the inventions.
This gives the illusion that men are more dedicated to proper research or have a more natural ability in this field, yet the overall educational attainment in STEM is equally applied. We also know that women’s work has been falsely attributed to men and they are less likely to be acknowledge in research or in patent development.
Some simple myth-busting techniques are:
- Notice the media you consume who is it written by and is there a gender dimension.
- Decision-making: When choosing for a team, a project or promotion, what criteria are you applying and is it equally applied across men and women.
- Sponsoring and showcasing: What opportunities exist to showcase the work of women (& other minorities) whose voice might not be heard
Myth Three: 💪 Women take longer to prove their worth
This one is interesting, as we find that men are promoted to first line management positions quicker than women and they escalate through the management levels at a faster rate, leading to women being in a minority at senior leadership and executive levels.
We might say that women just need a longer runways to establish themselves and prove their work, but if we dig just a bit deeper, we can see another reason why this is happening.
Performance Bias is very prevalent is in the workplace. We promote men based on potential and women based on actual performance. This creates a timelag in women ‘proving’ their worth and getting to the next level of leadership.
This leads to very different outcomes in the workplace.
Creating an unconscious bias of that men make better leaders – because we see more of them holding an authority position.
Performance bias leads to different expectations according to your gender. Career paths, competency models and appraisals all support the performance bias, leading to more stringent criteria applied to women applying for the same role.
But there is lot’s that can be done to overcome performance bias.
For example:
- Challenge decisions for how you recruit, promote and support your employees. Is it equally applied?
- Sponsorship & Support: Can you be an ally for a woman who might need support in their career.
- Critically review the expectations for a role: Is there an implied gender dimension that favours a man over a woman?
Myth Four: 👩👦 Women are not into their careers as much as men
Women in the main are often double-jobbing. What that means is that along with their full time career role, they usually have a pretty much full-time caring role at home. The data from Women in the Workplace shows how this changes over time for men and women.
Source: Women in the Workplace 2023 McKinsey & LeanIn
If we work across the different levels, we see very little differences in the caring responsibilities outside of work for women as they move up the corporate ladder. Yet for men it more than halves (when they were already almost half the level of women at the start) by the time they reach senior management. The impact of this, is that women have to juggle more, have to keep more responsibilities on their ‘mental shelf’ and find a balance between meeting work commitments and home commitments. Their male peer is likely to have much less of this additional noise affecting their day job.
Hybrid working has been a huge boon for women, but poorly timed meetings, intolerance to interruptions during zoom calls (from family members) or micro-aggressions when mentioning the school run undermine women
Commitment to work and career is still measured by who you know and who knows you. The appearance of working hard can be more important than actual results.
Career paths still have an unconscious bias (& often language and framework) towards men as ideal candidates. Those with caring responsibilities (mostly women) are seen as a weaker option.
What can we do to address this imbalance.
Here’s a few suggestions:
- Don’t’ rely on a blanket policy around hybrid working, but seek to understand the needs of your employees. Some might need a light Monday, others a light Friday or a later morning start. Opening up the conversation and findings sensible boundaries that respect work/life realities
- Set guardrails around meeting / working days: What I mean by that is consider having an ‘earliest and latest hour for meetings (workload and time-zone allowing), that means that women don’t have to be seen as having to ask for dispensation to deal with their other responsibilities.
- Respect boundaries around working days and hours. Consider (time zones allowing) keeping communication within the ‘active’ hours of day that have been agreed across the team. If you are working late and have an urgent request for the next working day, send it on a scheduler to land in the recipients inbox during their working hours. This is very helpful for part time workers, who will feel compelled to log on outside of working hours, interrupting family life. If it’s not an immediate request, time it to be when the person has agreed to be available.
I hope you find these suggestions helpful. If I would say there is one key takeaway to address these myths, it is to take a commitment to start to notice if any of these are playing out at your workplace and then consider what action you can take to address it.
If you would like to know more, watch this recent livestream where I share the myths and what you can do.
