Women continue to face bias in the workforce, some of it unconscious. Research findings suggest that gender parity and pay equity have not been reached, even in progressive societies like North America, and have even suffered recent setbacks.
According to The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021, gender parity has recently been set back more than 30 years due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Closing the global gender gap has increased by a generation, from 99.5 years to 135.6 years, states the report, which finds preliminary evidence to suggest that the health emergency and the related economic downturn have impacted women more severely than men, partially re-opening gaps that were closing. This will surprise nobody who has been following the issue.
Fewer women are hired into leadership roles
The report also cites LinkedIn data reportedly showing a marked decline in the hiring of women into leadership roles, which is a reversal of 1 to 2 years of progress across multiple industries, though software and IT services, financial services, health and healthcare, and manufacturing are countering this trend. And Ipsos data from January 2021 shows that school closures and limited availability of care services have contributed to increased stress and anxiety around job insecurity and difficulty in maintaining work-life balance among women with children. The data also points to significant challenges for gender parity in jobs of the future, with six of the eight tracked “jobs of tomorrow” showing a severe underrepresentation of women.
The Global Gender Gap Report finds that North America places second in the world in the progression towards gender parity among the studied regions behind Western Europe, so there is still work to be done at home.
Women in the U.S. and Canada face barriers on the road to management roles
According to McKinsey & Company and Lean In’s Women in the Workplace 2021 report, 86% of women are promoted to manager for every 100 men promoted to the same level. And, in 2021, women employees in the U.S. and Canada represented just 24% of C-Suite executives, 27% of Senior Vice Presidents, and 30% of Vice Presidents.
Catalyst.org reports that women were only 52 of the 533 named executive officers among Canada’s 100 largest publicly traded corporations in 2021, and women were only 20.5% of C-suite positions in 2021 on the S&P/TSX composite index. Also, women in Canada accounted for just slightly more than a third (35.6%) of all managers and 30.9% of senior managers in 2021.
Unconscious bias at play
There are surely several factors at work here, and nobody could credibly argue that hiring and workplace bias accounts for all of them. Nor, however, could one credibly argue that it doesn’t play a role. But most people, at this time in history, would probably say that they are not biased against women, including senior managers and hiring managers. So, what’s up?
This is where an unconscious bias, also known as “implicit bias,” comes in. Merriam Webster defines implicit bias as “a bias or prejudice that is present but not consciously held or recognized.” Common examples are biased with respect to ethnicity, race, religion, social status, and gender.
We don’t think we’re biased – we’re offended at the very idea! – but we are. Regarding workplace and hiring bias specific to gender, there are many studies from which to choose. One conducted in 2020 found that men are more likely than women to be seen as ''brilliant.” The authors concluded that these views are an instance of implicit bias, revealing "automatic associations that people cannot, or at least do not report holding when asked directly."
Researchers at New York University, the University of Denver, and Harvard University set out to capture implicit stereotypes associating certain traits with certain groups. The team used the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which is designed to measure the degree of overlap between concepts without explicitly asking subjects about them. Across a series of five studies, which included U.S. women and men, U.S. girls and boys ages 9 and 10, and women and men from 78 other countries, the researchers consistently found evidence of an implicit stereotype associating brilliance more with men than with women.
"Stereotypes that portray brilliance as a male trait are likely to hold women back across a wide range of prestigious careers," Daniel Storage, an assistant professor in the University of Denver's Department of Psychology and the paper's lead author, said in a statement.
"Understanding the prevalence and magnitude of this gender-brilliance stereotype can inform future efforts to increase gender equity in career outcomes,” Andrei Cimpian, an associate professor in NYU's Department of Psychology and the paper's senior author, also said. Previous work by Cimpian has suggested that women are underrepresented in careers where success is perceived to depend on high levels of intellectual ability, including STEM careers.
"Aggressive communication styles"
And research on feedback at work conducted by a team at Stanford University reportedly found that, in performance reviews, women received more than twice as many comments regarding “aggressive communication styles,” such as “your speaking style is off-putting.”
Women were described as “supportive,” “collaborative,” and “helpful” nearly twice as frequently as men, and women’s reviews contained more than twice the number of references to team accomplishments rather than individual achievements. The language used to describe men was more related to confidence and independence, and men’s reviews contained twice as many words related to assertiveness, independence, and self-confidence, like “drive,” “transform,” “innovate,” and “tackle.” Men also received three times as much feedback linked to specific business outcomes and twice the number of references to their technical expertise.
In a famous, real-world example of alleged implicit bias, in 2018, computer scientist and mathematician Lenore Blum announced her resignation from Carnegie Mellon University. The distinguished professor who helped found the Association for Women in Mathematics and CMU’s Project Olympus, a business incubator program, said she felt that “What might have previously been considered unconscious sexism became blatant” after a change in management structure with Project Olympus.
The New York Times reported that Blum said that she was blocked from important decisions, dismissed, and ignored. She explained at the time: “Subtle biases and microaggressions pile up, few of which on their own rise to the level of ‘let’s take action,’ but are insidious nonetheless.”
Sometimes the bias is based on good intentions. For example, a manager might not give a woman with a family challenging assignments or consider them for promotion because they don't want to overburden them. But this means that women seeking more executive positions might get passed over in favour of people with fewer responsibilities.
All of this impacts a woman’s chances of success. So, what can you do about it if you’re looking for a job or to advance your career or want to help someone else?
Here are four suggestions on how to overcome the unconscious gender bias impacting women’s career growth.
Overcoming the unconscious gender bias impacting women’s career growth
Look for companies that truly care about diversity
Looking specifically for companies that value diversity will help you find a place that cares and is working to be as inclusive as possible. Some of the ways to find such an employer include looking at the company website and leadership team to see what the employees look like, how many groups of different groups are represented, and whether they have a diversity mandate. Checking out the leadership team is one of the best ways to see if there are women on it.
Know your worth
Arm yourself with information about your value on the job market and use that information to fuel your negotiations. There are websites you can use to find what a job pays on the market in a specific location, including Talent.com’s Salary in Canada page. You can also ask friends with the same job as you what they are earning. Or try researching what additional skills you can leverage and if your years of experience can add to your earnings.
Improve your self-confidence
Imposter syndrome is real and debilitating. Knowing who you are, what you’re worth, and what you can do will go a long way towards boosting your self-confidence and helping you get the job you deserve. It won’t abolish anyone’s implicit bias if they unconsciously believe strong women are “bossy” or “abrupt,” but it can help you handle rejection and put your best foot forward. It will help you raise your voice in negotiations and not take less than what you think you’re worth.
Find an ally. Be an ally
This suggestion comes from MIT Sloan. Having friends and mentors is important for people working to advance their careers. This is partly just networking, but it involves asking people to go to bat for you if you need it. In the MIT example, a woman enlisted a junior male colleague to help redirect questions to her in a meeting with a client prone to addressing only men.
If you can find people to empower you and lift you up, remember to return the favor when the time comes. If someone comes to you for help, give it to them. For more on allyship, read this blog post.
And, if you’re in a position where you witness gender bias at work and are in a position to say something, do so.
Talk about it
Normalizing talking about an issue is one of the most effective ways of facilitating change. If nobody talks about gender bias, nothing will change. Don’t expect other people to make all the difference. You need to be a part of it – be the change you want to see in the world, as they say. Share articles on your social media related to the topic, share studies and related thoughts. Inform yourself and write your own posts about it. Bring it up in conversation, join related groups, and make a difference. If you see a problem, solve the problem.
