Women Are Undervalued At Work (and It Seems Normal To Us)
Surely you will know more than one case in which a person’s meritorious actions are not properly recognized. The opinions of people with a lot to say and contribute are systematically undervalued simply by being who they are.
Possibly, too, you will think that these are exceptional cases that do not affect the vast majority of us: the victims of this discrimination are people who, despite being totally valid, are either placed in an unusual context or are themselves unusual. For example, it is not uncommon to witness paternalistic attitudes towards beggars or towards people from very different cultures that are strange to us.
However, this type of “bias according to the speaker” does not occur only in isolated cases: there is a variant of these that has filtered to the depths of our society and crosses the quality of the relationships we maintain between us like a gap. .
And it is that, Although we rationally know that the words spoken by men and women have the same value, it cannot be said that we always act accordingly At least, within the scope of organizations.
Gender bias
For some time now we have known the world of double standards that guide our way of perceiving both sexes based on different gender bias: what is expected from a man is not the same as what is expected from a woman. To this list we have to add a new unjustified (and unjustifiable) comparative grievance that is incorporated into our way of perceiving the world. It seems that loquacity It is not a trait highly appreciated in women even when the success of teamwork is at stake.
Psychologist Adam Grant realized this while researching work groups linked to the professional field. Male employees who contributed valuable ideas were evaluated significantly more positively by their superiors. Furthermore, the more the employee talked, the more useful he or she was in the eyes of the superior. However, the same did not happen when the person to be evaluated was a woman: In their case, their contributions did not imply a more positive evaluation of their performance Likewise, the fact that a woman spoke more was not reciprocated by a better consideration of her role in the company.
The results of this research lead us to believe that men and women do not receive the same recognition for what they say or propose. While the good news is that those organizations in which there is communication have an important flow of ideas, the bad news is that The perceived usefulness or uselessness of these ideas seems to depend in part on who says them
Taking that into account, men have good reasons to speak up and propose things (because their ideas will be taken into consideration while giving them a better reputation and possibilities for promotion), while in women this possibility is more blurred. Now, it is one thing for there to be a double standard of measurement in the evaluator’s view and another is for everyone, both the evaluator and the evaluated, to accept that standard of measurement. Do we take the existence of this gender bias as something natural?
It seems so, and to a large extent. In a study conducted by psychologist Victoria L. Brescoll, a series of people of both sexes had to imagine their performance as members in a hypothetical company meeting. Some of these people were asked to imagine themselves as the most powerful member of the meeting, while others were asked to think of themselves as if they were the lowest rung of the hierarchy.
Result: The men in the shoes of the “boss” stated that they would talk more (measuring the degree to which they would speak according to a scale), while women put in a position of power adjusted their speaking time to a level similar to that of their lower-ranking colleagues Furthermore, to reinforce the line of research, the first part of this same study shows how the US senators with the most power do not differ much from the senators with a profile junior regarding their speaking times, while the opposite occurs among senators. It seems that this penchant for “self-silencing” is also extended to women in high decision-making positions.
Another form of inequality
It is more or less clear that, in the case of women, the route of loquacity offers fewer possibilities to make valuable contributions. In this case we would be talking about the so-called opportunity cost: it is better not to waste time and effort talking when you can do other things that will be more beneficial for everyone.
However, Brescoll suspects that this apparent shyness of women may be due to fear of face social sanctions for talking too much Is it possible that, in fact, talking more not only does not add but also subtracts? Can a woman have more difficulties because she is more talkative? It may seem like an unjustified concern and, however, if it is justified, the consequences could be very negative. To answer this question, Brescoll carried out one more section of his study.
The price of being talkative
In this last section of the research, 156 volunteers, including men and women, read a brief biographical profile about a senior official (CEO) who was presented as a man or a woman (John Morgan or Jennifer Morgan).
In addition to this slight variation, the bio content also differed in another way: some of the profiles portrayed a relatively talkative person, while the other set of bios were about a person who was less talkative than normal. Being a study between subjects, each person read one and only one of the 4 types of biographical profiles (2 types of biographies according to the sex of the profile and 2 types of biographies according to how much or little the CEO speaks). After this, each of the 156 volunteers had to evaluate the profile that I had read based on Mr. or Ms. Morgan’s ability to hold the CEO position using rating scales of 0 to 7 points.
The results
The first fact that draws attention is that the sex of the participants did not seem to play an important role when evaluating the profile that each of them had in front of them. The second fact to comment on is that the fear of social sanction is justified: Loquacity seems to be a characteristic that is frowned upon in the female sex at least within the workplace and for the position of CEO or similar.
And, as Brescoll and his team discovered, the most talkative male CEOs were awarded 10% higher scores, while This same trait, talkativeness, was punished in female profiles Specifically, the most talkative J. Morgans received around 14% lower scores. Once again, it is worth highlighting the fact that this was done by both men and women, and that this is a totally irrational bias that acts as burden when reaching or staying in a position of more or less power and responsibility This burden affects both the living conditions of women (a difficulty when it comes to economic growth) and the social relationships we maintain between ourselves and everything that derives from them.
Furthermore, this disadvantage has a pinch effect: theoretically, to thrive in organizations you have to contribute ideas to the community as a whole, and yet this need to give ideas also involves exposure that can have its dangers. Women can be undervalued for not speaking as much as men as much as for doing so. Obviously, in addition, also the entire organization is harmed due to this dynamic of unhealthy relationships, although there is possibly a male elite that perpetuates itself more easily by having certain biological characteristics.
However, while it is true that this bias seems to be solidly established in our way of understanding the world, it is also true that it is totally unjustified. Brescoll speculates on the possibility that these results are explained by the gender roles assigned to positions of power: “powerful men should demonstrate their power, while powerful women should not.” That is, what keeps this bias alive are some totally cultural forces and that, therefore, we have the possibility of changing.
Beyond the rational
In short, talking too much is a penalty that affects both women’s chances of promotion and their evaluation by others. Whether this form of discrimination is something that is only present in formalized association systems (hierarchical companies, public positions, etc.) or transcends this area is something that these studies have not delved into. However, unfortunately, It seems unrealistic to think that this bias only acts precisely in those areas where logic and efficiency should prevail the most (in other words, where it is most problematic).
Both the fact that many potentially valuable contributions are rejected because they are proposed by women and the existence of social sanctions for women who “talk more than necessary” are examples of a sexism that has its roots in all areas of the social and of which the gender studies and many feminist theories This is, in short, an example that neither the business world is as independent of our informal relationships nor is its functioning as rational as is usually assumed.
