Michelle Obama, Angela Markel, Sheryl Sandberg, Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez (AOC): these women are amongst the most influential of our time; despite the barriers they’ve faced, they’ve all achieved phenomenal things.
But why are they still the exception?
The gender pay gap is still a depressing reality. In the UK, it currently lies at 8.9%. But the issues runs deeper that disparities in pay. There is a gender confidence gap too:
– One study found that men tend to overestimate both their abilities and performance, whereas women tend to underestimate both; and this was when performance didn’t differ in quality.
– Women tend to only apply to jobs and promotions when they meet 100% of requirements, yet men apply when they meet only 50-60%.
– Men are also four times more likely to initiate a salary negotiation, and when women do, they ask for an average of 30% less than men.
These findings can be partly explained by impostor syndrome. This is where people feel like a fraud, and could be exposed as incompetent at any given moment. It’s believed that around two thirds of women experience this at some point during their working lives, and it’s particularly intense amongst the highest achieving.
“Ask most women whether they have the right to equality at work and the answer will be a resounding yes, but ask the same women whether they’d feel confident asking for a raise, a promotion, or equal pay, and some reticence creeps in.”
Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In.
This is not to say that men don’t doubt themselves – but the way things currently are, they often still have the upper hand. Successful women are viewed differently to successful men, which may contribute to the confidence gap.
In her book, Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg writes, “success and like-ability are positively correlated for men, and negatively correlated for women”, meaning that when a man is successful, he is liked more by both men and women, and when a woman is successful, she is liked less by both genders.
A Harvard University illustrates this in the Heidi-Howard study. A class at Harvard was split into two separate groups. Both groups read an identical case study about a high-achieving entrepreneur who gained their success as a venture capitalist through their outgoing personality and networking skills. The only difference between what the two groups was the name of the individual. In one, the individual was called Howard and in the other, Heidi. The groups were then asked to rate the entrepreneur for both competence and like-ability.
Considering they were rated equally in competence, you’d assume that with identical information given, the two would be rated similarly in terms of like-ability. But this wasn’t the case.
Howard was perceived as a particularly likeable colleague, but it was a different story for Heidi. She was seen as both selfish, and the kind of person you “wouldn’t want to hire or work for”.
Stanford business school repeated the experiment and added, “the more assertive a student found the female venture capitalist to be, the more they rejected her”. In her ted talk, Sheryl explained that these studies support the reality of the employee experience for most women.
The problem is, that we perceive certain traits as less desirable in women, which in turn negatively impacts confidence. When in fact, the stats show that businesses with higher levels of diversity end up with greater financial health than their less diverse counterparts.
We need to create organisations where women have the same opportunity to enjoy a great employee experience as their male counterparts. We need to intentionally design employee experiences that value, and uplift women – to ensure there are opportunities for them to thrive without negative judgement. By not valuing high-achieving women, we all lose out.
