Chapter Four
Gender Bias
In the United States, gender is a Title VII protected category for good reason. From the moment women were finally granted access to jobs that were historically reserved for men, they have been taken for granted. Women in the workplace have been underpaid, mistreated, exploited, humiliated, belittled, passed over, and dismissed from the very beginning. While one might expect there to be some friction during the early years of gender integration in the workplace, one would also expect time to smooth out that friction. Yes, women in the workplace have certainly fared better as the decades have rolled on, but women are still compensated less than men, they are still sexually harassed, and they are still massively underrepresented in leadership.
This book is being written by two strong-willed women, so naturally the gender bias discussion comes easily to us. That said, there are plenty of men in the workplace who feel every bit as marginalized as women in certain fields. Male nurses are the first occupation that comes to mind. I’ve known several male nurses who have to deal with shocked stares when they claim they are nurses instead of doctors. It all goes back to gender stereotypes and perceived gender roles. When society decides that doctors should be men and nurses should be women, anything outside of that is considered awkward and just plain wrong. We place labels on people and occupations and act befuddled when our expectations are not met.
The gender conversation has finally expanded to include gender and gender expression outside of the limiting binary and the gender assigned at birth. While the discussion has expanded and become more inclusive, the structures within organizations have not advanced to kept pace with the times. Organizations are still struggling with how to include all genders—if they are even having the discussion at all.
The Danger of Benevolent Sexism
It’s important to also talk about how the equitable treatment of gender minorities in the workplace goes beyond just the elimination of obvious bad behaviors. There are many ways that forms of benevolent sexism can exist and act in the workplace and while these forms of speaking appear on the surface to praise and treasure gender minorities, they are as undermining and damaging to the success and support of gender minorities as more obviously malevolent sexism.
So, what exactly is benevolent sexism? Benevolent sexism works to compliment women using stereotypes about them. Benevolent sexism can feel like a favorable attitude toward women but still depends on sexist views of women insofar as women are seen in restricted roles. These feelings are subjectively positive in feeling tone (for the perceiver) and also tend to elicit behaviors typically categorized as prosocial (such as helping) or intimacy seeking: “Women are so much better at being compassionate,” or “This office is a mess—you can tell we have too many men in one place.” (The implication is that women are neater).1 Benevolent sexism is present when gender themed events are planned, as a female attorney once described:
The women’s events at my firm center around makeup and fashion shows rather than substantive, practical training that would help advance our careers.
Benevolent sexism can go even further, seeking to compliment gender minorities based on stereotypes as well—we’ve all heard someone say, “I love gay people! They’re so well dressed and organized!”
These statements sound harmless enough, right? I mean, we all love to be complimented for things, but most women can tell you about having an experience of being complimented when it sounded nice but felt wrong at the same time. Well, these are clear examples of benevolent sexism—and while benevolent sexism is often times hard to pinpoint, it’s a significant problem both in what it suggests about women, and in the critical role it plays in keeping hostile sexism and inequality in place.
What do we mean? Benevolent sexism is often subtle. For example, take this satirical rewriting of Albert Einstein’s obituary featured in a 2013 article in Scientific American on benevolent sexism:
He made sure he shopped for groceries every night on the way home from work, took the garbage out, and hand washed the antimacassars. But to his step daughters he was just Dad. “He was always there for us,” said his step daughter and first cousin once removed, Margo.
Albert Einstein, who died on Tuesday, had another life at work, where he sometimes slipped away to peck at projects like showing that atoms really exist. His discovery of something called the photoelectric effect won him a coveted Nobel Prize.2
The authors of the article note what we all know—it sounds kind of strange, right? If you actually were reading Albert Einstein’s real obituary, it would never be written like that. But the same year that the Scientific American article was published, rocket scientist Yvonne Bell was given an obituary in the New York Times that read as follows:
She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job, and took eight years off from work to raise three children. “The world’s best mom,” her son Matthew said.
But Yvonne Brill, who died on Wednesday at 88 in Princeton, N.J., was also a brilliant rocket scientist, who in the early 1970s invented a propulsion system to help keep communications satellites from slipping out of their orbits.3
The New York Times obituaries editor William McDonald received a tremendous amount of backlash for his memorializing of the brilliant and trailblazing scientist, yet was still unable to see the problem with his copy, which focused on her beef stroganoff and family life. The primary objection raised by readers, though, and the issue that makes this obituary an example of benevolent sexism is the way that Brill’s obituary manages to focus on her gender as her primary defining characteristic. Though her scientific achievements are precisely what merited her obituary in the New York Times (it’s unlikely that they would have written about her just for her beef stroganoff!), the article couched her achievements in terms of gender politics. And this kind of benevolent sexism is not just annoying or inconvenient. It threatens gender equity.
Why is this so? Well, according to Harvard Business School’s Research Symposium on Gender and Work,4 this is because benevolent sexism justifies a traditional power structure of men being dominant and women and gender minorities being secondary and weaker in this hierarchy. Through comments and actions that appear neutral or positive on the surface, but that actually reinforce inequality, women are primarily identified by their gender and constrained by constructed ideas about gender weakness, need, sexuality, and inability. How does this play out in the workplace setting? We’ll give you a story for an example.
A friend of ours in the arts shared a story of benevolent sexism mixed with overt sexual harassment. Louise Ricks is an actress, playwright, director, and producer. She said:
I was working as a receptionist when a person came in and became very interested in me. They found my professional website and started making comments about my body and what they would like to do with it. They even started calling the office so they could speak to me. They [were] so persistent that I had to call the police. I asked my boss what they were going to do to protect me in the future and they said I should “stop being so cute.”
[As a result] I don’t feel safe working in public spaces anymore. I rarely speak directly with patrons unless I know our interaction is going to be limited. I ended up having to leave my position at that company. I can think of so many examples of how being a young woman has made me feel unsafe in the workplace. This is simply the least vulgar story I can share.
Louise’s story contains a number of concerning things. There’s the obvious issue of direct harassment. The client who harassed Louise felt like he had a right to do so, likely because he was flattering her. There’s nothing wrong with saying nice things to a woman, right? Wrong. Women are not objects and if they aren’t interested in the advances, people need to back off and show some respect.
In addition to this, however, benevolent sexism is clearly happening when Louise asked her employer for help. In this case, the employer actually had a legal obligation to protect Louise. She would have been well within her rights to seek additional support and protection. But when she did, she was told to “stop being so cute.” This implies that the harassment was both somehow her fault and also not important enough to be taken seriously.
Louise’s employer’s example of benevolent sexism is just as toxic as the sexual harassment itself. A 1996 paper written by Peter Glick and Susan Fiske on this form of sexism explains that though the employer may have imagined his words to be a compliment because they drew on traditional masculine stereotyping (that is, that women are to be valued for their appearance and for their utility to men), they actually functioned to marginalize Louise, communicating to her that she was not to be taken seriously.
Glick and Fiske wrote that, “a man’s comment to a female coworker on how ‘cute’ she looks, however well-intentioned, may undermine her feelings of being taken seriously as a professional”5 For Louise, this response to her complaint not only attacked her professionalism, but her right to demanding safety in her workplace as well.
While these comments have remained hidden in plain sight for decades, the backlash begun in 2017 of toppling high-profile men in the United States from their prominent positions as a result of past harassing behavior toward women is an indication that the tide may be shifting.
When it comes to male–female gender discrimination in the workplace, benevolent sexism does particular damage by supporting environments that cater to patronizing discrimination, “which masquerades as polite help and sympathy while undermining women.”6 Additional research findings published by Glick at Harvard revealed that women overall received less criticism than their male counterparts. Obviously, this was not problematic in and of itself. What was problematic about this trend was that female workers were given less challenging developmental assignments; the study was replicated and the results were the same with thousands of managers. The combination of skewed feedback with less challenging assignments led researchers to conclude that the managers were treating their female employees with kid gloves.7 This manner of treatment continues to permeate workplaces with the notion that female workers are less capable than their male counterparts.
Sarah Miller, another friend of ours, currently works in senior management at a large international nongovernmental organization (NGO). Sarah is responsible for overall organizational development and accountability with a specific focus on gender inequality and women and girls’ empowerment. Yet even in her field, where gender equality is an institutional priority, Sarah has experienced the reality that benevolent sexism often remains, even when a workplace is “fair” on the surface.
I was about 26 years old, just starting out in my career after graduate school, and was noticed after about a year by the COO. He seemed to feel I had potential, and would call me in to meetings to observe along with other more senior colleagues.
As time went on, I began to take on increasing responsibility and was able to share my ideas and contribute to group projects more actively. Our COO acted “proud” of me—in a way that a parent would be proud of their child. He would exclaim over my contributions, and point out things I did well, and smile and nod when I spoke up. He always called me terms like “sweetie” or “kiddo.” I felt as though I was regularly being patted on the head, like a young girl being praised for doing well, rather than a peer exchanging valued ideas.
It was noticeably different than the way my young male colleagues were acknowledged. They were appreciated, but in a way that was asking what was expected of them and treated more directly and exactingly, as equals. And it also felt necessary for me to slide into the role of the young, inexperienced, naïve, and grateful tutee, if I wanted to continue to get into the inner fold, seen and valued as an “up and coming” bright young professional.
This went on for about two years, and when he left to become the CEO of another organization I remember feeling relieved that I didn’t have to play that part anymore.
Sarah shared her experience with other female colleagues and found that they, too, had found themselves feeling a similar vague discomfort and an unspoken demand than they play a role. Even those who weren’t his subordinates experienced this. Sarah wrote:
One of my colleagues who was a senior manager and peer of his at the time described it as feeling forced to act flighty, in need of his help and grateful for his leadership and assistance, in order to get things done through him. She actively did so, very aware of what she was doing but felt it was a necessary way of “working the system.” I usually felt slimy, which was odd looking back because there was nothing even remotely sexual or inappropriate. But it bothered me. Not actively, not in a way that disrupted my work or upset me, but in a way that was there under the surface, causing me to internally cringe and then quickly gear up for any interaction with him, sliding into this “cute, young, trying hard but a little helpless if it wasn’t for this nice big man looking out for me” character.
As we discussed in the content on stereotype threats, this kind of experience detracts from our ability to be fully present in a workplace. As Sarah says, it was “there under the surface,” causing her to expend energy working to adjust to it. Not only was Sarah’s COO operating with clearly gendered and patronizing posture toward her and other female colleagues, but he was also demanding that they make subtle psychological adjustments in order to work within his framework. They had to play the part of the grateful young tutee, or the helpless employee who was lucky to get support.
Sarah’s work has spanned more than a decade now in global poverty work and in response to this experience, she has mentored and made space for young women to move up in the field. Sarah’s intention has been to empower those young women to avoid experiences like the one that she had.
I speak [to these young women] directly about the ways in which they should be firm in negotiating pay, in the terms of their contracts, in what they should expect from the organization and the people in it. And I am able to influence policy and systems with open eyes, and be clear when I am not okay with male colleagues defaulting to roles such as expecting females to be the note takers, and actively ask them to step up. I can do these things because I am in a senior role now. But the status quo is still there, I’m just not willing to play the part.
Benevolent sexism is a tricky target but an important one in this day and age when we know what not to say and do, but we sometimes get confused about how to move forward. This manner of speaking about women and other gender minorities, however, is a wrong turn that leads to further marginalization and discrimination precisely because it assumes essential identifying facts about groups of people based on only one aspect about them. All women aren’t better at being compassionate than all men—that’s impossible! And all gay people aren’t well-dressed and organized!
Sexism in the workplace is a horrific threat to equality, but it’s important to understand that benevolent sexism can act as a false solution to hostile sexism. We have worked with countless clients who have heard “We love women!” in a job interview only to find that once in the workplace, their gender is still their primary identifier.
Maternity Bias in the Workplace
Nathalia Artus, a community development professional in the banking industry, describes her experience witnessing maternity bias:
Sometimes the motherhood bias starts even before a woman has a baby. Once the woman gets engaged, it definitely starts. In my previous office, that was a constant conversation. The conversation was followed by the act of eliminating candidates from the succession pool if they had kids or were of child-bearing age.
The type of bias Nathalia describes is an unacceptable employment practice. Organizations are not permitted to deny women professional opportunities based on their gender. The ability or decision to get pregnant is a factor limited to women and is therefore a sex-based issue.
Pregnancy, engagement, and being of child-bearing age are not related to professional competency and should never be factored into how women are rated, promoted, evaluated, or advanced within an organization. Women are literally populating the planet and proliferating the human species. Punishing females of childbearing age for upholding their reproductive purpose is kind of crazy. What’s worse is referring to a woman’s return from the maternity transition as a “comeback.” This is another example of benevolent sexism. What is she coming back from? She wasn’t hit by a car, she was making another human. Pregnancy and motherhood are not disabilities, so the associated rites of passage should not be treated as liabilities or inconveniences.
We have heard the argument that women should be paid less than men because they might get pregnant and take maternity leave. Again, this is short-sighted thinking. Women work just as hard as men and tend to be more loyal to organizations that don’t penalize them for choosing to grow their families. Assuming that women cannot have children and a career robs women and their families of basic human dignity and respect.
Raising children is no longer relegated to “women’s work” and men are not the only gender deserving of thriving professional careers. Treat people as human beings with the right to grow their careers and families in equal measure. Promote and assign based on technical and interpersonal competencies. Leave people’s reproductive lives out of your professional decision matrix.
The same applies for families who adopt. The decision to adopt is their business, and unless your organization is planning to enthusiastically support adoptive families, their parental status is off-limits as a professional variable.
So, what can you do about gender bias if you care enough to act? Well, a lot, it turns out, and our six steps conform with what analysis and studies have demonstrated. The first step is raising your awareness—sexism in all its forms is significantly dangerous.
Benevolent sexism contributes to the danger and acceptance of hostile sexism in significant ways, and the presence of benevolent sexism has significant consequences in and of itself! Furthermore, the best way to deal with benevolent sexism seems to be attacking hostile sexism as well!
Researchers with Harvard Business School’s Research Symposium reported again that the correlation between hostile sexism and benevolent sexism in both workplace and domestic settings was a big one for women. When women live in nations where the threat of direct, hostile sexism is significant and they report that fear to researchers, those same women tend to endorse benevolent sexism, and are more accepting of a patronizing structure of working and living.8 But when the threat of hostile sexism is less—when women can work and live and thrive without fearing the violence of hostile sexism—then women can reject benevolent sexism and enjoy the same freedom and flexibility as men. The work of erasing institutional bias, getting data, and creating systems of accountability is actually what is called for!
Intersectionality—When Marginalized Identities Comingle and Amplify Bias
We want to take a moment to address intersectionality before we share an example of someone using the six steps to address gender bias. “Intersectionality” is the idea that systems of oppression such as sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination intersect and are not mutually exclusive.
Kimberlé Crenshaw first coined the theory of intersectionality while simultaneously, over the course of several years, finding herself, as an African American women, a talking point in the dissection of the concept. In her work, Crenshaw argues that the experiences of being a woman of color cannot be recognized in terms of being black and a woman independently. These experiences in discrimination instead need to be considered as a sum in order to fully address the bias that women of color face on a daily basis.
Lisa Crawson (name changed to protect her privacy) shared her experience as a female executive who addressed an intersectional institutional bias:
In several small businesses (40–100 employees), there were no formal yearly evaluations. In these particular businesses, all supervisors were white and majority were male. The office receptionist, accountants, legal assistants, and/or medical billers were mostly minority women while the personal assistants were white women. Then you add in what I call the “back office curse.”
Leaders never approach these staff members with good news and thanks. They were quick to point out errors. It’s like the electric company—no one says thanks for running well and keeping the lights on—they just get screamed at if there is no power.
It was perceived by the receptionist, medical billers, legal assistants, and accountants that the leaders had no understanding or appreciation of their daily contributions to the company or cared about their careers. This was due to the absence of a performance development system and appraisal system. It was easy for these staff to question whether it may have something to do with being a minority. I have seen this many times in my career and it makes me sad.
When I approach the leaders about staff feeling “invisible,” they usually say they do not know what to say or how to start a simple conversation or they do not want to go “around the chain of command.”
In all cases, I was able to help the status quo. I met with staff, learned what they liked and did not like about their current jobs, or listened to their process issues. I tried to find solutions. Then we talked about their personal goals. I then scheduled trainings and/or informal mixers with department leaders.
In one case, I invited the CEO to a bowling outing and introduced him one-by-one to each of the staff and gave him a personal detail about each. He was a naturally engaging, fun guy. All the staff had one-on-one time with him and each side felt at ease and appreciated. The difference was amazing.
Another time, I implemented new systems, but had staff do all the manager training and run the help desk. It gave them an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and be a valued resource for leaders of the company.
What we love about Lisa’s story was that she took action when she saw a problem. Many of us see the problems, but that’s the end of it. Notice the feeling language Lisa uses, “… it makes me sad.” What we like to share with people we work with is the fact that when you feel something about a particular circumstance, that is your call to action.
When something at work or in the media or in your life makes your stomach ball up, pay attention. When something makes you uncomfortable, upset, or even angry—listen to that. That is a visceral reaction telling you that something matters and needs your attention.
Some people respond to animal issues that way, some people don’t. It takes all kinds of people to help keep the world in balance. We can’t all be animal activists and aficionados. We don’t all need to be. So if human inequity just doesn’t affect you one tiny bit, perhaps it’s not your fight. But if any part of you shudders when people are mistreated, left out, pushed aside, passed over, or worse—abused—then you are being called by humanity to offer some form of assistance.
This is what the six steps are for. Let us help you organize your effort into something actionable, impactful, and sustainable. Let’s continue and see how many of the six steps Lisa described and fill in any missing steps with recommendations for sustainability.
1. Set a clear intention.
Lisa wanted to help the back-office team feel more included and valued.
2. Lead with data.
Lisa noted that the demographics of the supervisors were all white males, the assistants were white females, and the remaining support staff was minority women. Job descriptions are no longer legally permitted to include race and gender, so some sort of bias was clearly at play to create such consistent racial and gender divisions by job classification and seniority.
3. Diagnose accurately.
Lisa did not assume she understood the behaviors and circumstances that caused the back-office staff to feel marginalized. She engaged in a qualitative research process by meeting with them and listening to their experiences.
4. Deconstruct: eliminate subjective processes.
Lisa disrupted the status quo by lowering the invisible wall between the back-office staff and the front office. In the absence of objective facts, people typically fill in the blanks with assumptions. Lisa’s story includes several descriptors that illuminate how the front office felt about the back office and/or how the back office felt they were perceived:
• Unappreciated
• Invisible
• Misunderstood
• Unintelligent
She helped lower the invisible wall by creating opportunities for the two offices to interact outside of the awkwardly segregated work environment. Social mixers and the bowling event allowed the colleagues to experience each other as humans. We have long held that the biggest reason professional relationships are so vacuous and transactional is the result of people failing to see each other as fully human at work.
It’s easier to have compassion and passion with your family and friends than with colleagues. Even when family and friends prove challenging, you maintain a vested interest in sustaining the relationship in the long term, and you often have history and context for those close relationships that cause them to be more resilient than workplace relationships.
We mustn’t forget that colleagues are people, too. Failing to see them as human and treat them as the precious people that they are is a failure of our own humanity. We look to their flaws and differences as justifications for our distance, but that is shortsighted and unkind.
The reality is that humans function in a symbiotic manner. If one person’s stress levels are high in a group, it stresses everyone else out. The inverse is also true. People love being on teams with joy-filled, kind, energetic people because that energy doesn’t drag you down. It’s contagious and uplifting. This is why the best thing for all of us is to lift up and take care of each other.
5. Reconstruct with objectivity.
Lisa instituted new objective systems to combat the old ones that allowed room for subjective assumptions. She created trainings that allowed the full staff to participate on equal footing, and implemented systems that allowed the back office to demonstrate their knowledge and institutional value. Inviting the back office to manage the new systems disrupted the marginalizing status quo by providing objective evidence that they were knowledgeable, intelligent, informed, and valuable to the organization.
6. Build in accountability and ongoing measurement.
Lisa’s organization chose to apply for a Best Places to Work award. This meant that staff had to complete a survey every year. They received a very good overall score, but they had issues with morale which was affecting hiring and recruiting, so it was a great way to address both issues. The survey is available online so it was easy for management to look at and really reflect on what they were doing right or wrong and address any issues. Lisa reviewed the survey with the partners and each of them come to their own realization about how poorly they were communicating and managing staff. Identifying a tool to use for ongoing measurement is a very good way to leverage objective metrics for ongoing accountability.