I’ve recently been reminded of how black and white we view the world sometimes and this article from the Harvard Business Review, shows us just how much we under-complicate societal issues. Most people, including me, will think that adding more women to the workplace will all of the sudden solve our gender inequalities, just by fixing the participation rates. However, the imbalance of men to women isn’t the only thing that is holding us back, it’s our mindsets and the system that has been built to benefit men more than women.
Most gender bias research has been in male dominated industries like STEM or law enforcement where things operate in more extremes. However, in the research conducted, then collected data from women led industries like law, faith based non-profits, higher education, and health care where women all have higher participation rates than men. But even though, women were the majority in these industries, they still felt biases. For example, women had to constrain their expression of authority, downplay their accomplishments. This has resulted in women feeling a lack of acknowledgement for their accomplishments, being interrupted while speaking, lack of sponsors and mentors.
More specifically, in the higher education sector where women are seen to have the easiest working environment, women “reported facing constrained communication, unequal standards, salary inequality, and even workplace harassment. Yet they experienced more egalitarian organizational norms, were more willing to pursue promotions and other opportunities, had more sponsorship, and received more recognition for contributions compared to the other three industries.”
