Kanchi Uttamchandani | Assistant News Editor
Featured image courtesy of Maker.com
Garnering over a million views, a TED Talk by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, nails down the issue of gender stereotyping that holds women back from powerful positions.
Women are not making it to the top of any profession anywhere in the world. The numbers tell the story quite clearly: 190 heads of state – nine are women. Of all the people in parliament in the world, 13 per cent are women. In the corporate sector, women at the top, c-level jobs, board seats – top out at 15, 16 per cent. The numbers have not moved since 2002 and are going in the wrong direction,” said Sandberg.
Such an underrepresentation of women in positions of power and authority stems from distorted gender norms that have been internalized by society, reinforced by sexist media and social conditioning. Traditional western gender roles suggest women are supposed to be deferential, meek and fix problems while steering clear from conflict. While it is generalizing, these assumptions have a cumulative effect, instilling a sense of pacifist conditioning among women, compelling them to be nice and self-blaming, even when not at fault.
In recognition of workplace inequality and persistent gender prejudices, Sandberg launched the book and organization Lean In, which aims at creating a global community that encourages women to be active and ambitious, particularly when they decide to start their families.
Though more women than before are committed, driven, dedicated to their careers and climbing up the corporate ladder, a majority of women hinder themselves from further career progression, unlike their male counterparts who are quick to grab opportunities, even if they are not fully qualified for them.
Research has shown that many talented women are passive instead of being proactive, especially in terms of salary negotiation, promotions and getting on high visibility committees.
Even in today’s progressive society, examples of sex discrimination and gender microaggressions abound. Studies suggest that it is considered much more socially acceptable for men to exhibit anger, arrogance and headstrong opinions, which are indicative of hyper-masculinity. If the same range of behaviours is shown by women, they often get labelled as being bossy and difficult. Consequently, women prefer to mask their emotions in the workplace through censoring their ideas or dissenting opinions unless they are 100 percent sure, for fear of being perceived as aggressive and domineering.
Lean In has identified two popular biases that work against women’s leadership. The first is the “likeability penalty” where a woman can be perceived either as competent or nice, but never both at the same time. That is, success and likeability are positively correlated for men but negatively correlated for women. The second bias is the performance evaluation, which refers to how women tend to receive less acknowledgement and credit for their accomplishments.
Presence of such biased tendencies can suggest that women routinely undervalue their abilities and sell themselves short. A common observation attests to this phenomenon, wherein men frequently attribute their success to themselves alone while women attribute it to external factors such as family, a supportive boss and luck, shying away from taking complete ownership of their achievements.
Alex Dunn, co-president of the Lean In circle at the Keele campus, explains how she got started with Lean In.“The summer before my third year at York I read the book Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. I found a lot of truth in the points she was making, especially about how women underestimate their own abilities. To tackle the problem of the lack of women in leadership roles, she encouraged women to form circles to discuss some of the issues that they face and create a support system to help overcome these challenges. I think having a group of people who understand what you are facing and encourage you to take risks and reach your potential is very empowering.”
Lean In, as an organization, is centred around empowering budding female leaders and encouraging ambition as a positive quality in women.“The club promotes women’s leadership through bi-weekly circle meetings in which we explore a topic related to leadership. These meetings offer a very supportive environment and each member has an opportunity to share their thoughts and receive input from the group. I think it’s important that young women have a network of female friends who understand what they are going through and Lean In offers this support system,” adds Dunn.
