Working Women Held Back By These 30 Biases : Study

A woman completes her education, works part-time to support her dreams, prepares to find a job, and when finally gets one at a desired post, the discrimination hits in. Think about it, all life she struggles just to face the discrimination and the glass ceiling at the company. What women should do, sit and wait for things to happen for them?

As women progress in their life personally and professionally, challenges get tougher. It starts from finding a job to acquiring a leadership role in the company. Atleast that is what studies and research have to say. The Oxfam report titled ‘India Discrimination Report 2022’ finds women are discriminated, despite their educational qualifications and work experience being same as men due to societal and employers' prejudices. Another study in 2018 talks of companies increasingly hiring fewer women to avoid offering them maternity leave liability. One of the studies speaks about how gender discrimination in the workplace is putting women off marriage. 

Some or the other way women are given a backseat, left behind to never progress. Women are given petty reasons for being rejected or not promoted to higher positions. They are criticised throughout their careers for no reason in the first place. These criticisms also contribute to self-doubts and make you think you are never good enough for higher positions or there is still time. 

New Study On Workplace Gender Discrimination

The new study found 30 common personality traits and identity-based characteristics that were used against women in the workplace. Amy Diehl, Leanne Dzubinski, and Amber Stephenson authored a study, in which 913 women participated and answered open-ended questions- What additional identity factors do you feel have influenced your experiences at work? Other than gender bias, what types of biases have you encountered at work? 

According to the study, there is always a reason why women are “never quite right” for leadership roles. It means some or the other aspects were used against women, for example, age. Women were told they were too young to lead, and the elderly were too old to cope with changing trends. Women were constantly criticised which eventually made women feel less worthy. To which, many women took it for improvement. Age, race, parental status, attractiveness, physical ability, and more were used as leverage against a woman in a discriminatory way. 

Source: GWL Voices, Fast Company

The research revealed 30 different characteristics and qualities of a woman that emerged as matters of criticism. To list them- colour, race, religion, dietary restrictions, parental status, residential location, sexual orientation, marital status, body size, and more. Can one imagine dietary restrictions can be a tool to discriminate? Unfortunately, it used to put down women. This is nothing but putting barricades to women’s success.

Things like Parental status, and marital status are used as a tool to criticise women. For instance, having children or no children are women's person choice but a lot is drawn out of it to be the basis of whether women are of caliber to work or not. If she is childless she is supposed to work more and accomplish more. If she has a child that means she can’t take on a bigger role because of the kids. Even pregnancy is problematic, there is always room for doubt that women won't return post-maternity leave, and if they do as per the study they are not assigned good projects. The source of such behaviour is the lack of confidence of employers in their female employees. This loss of confidence is emerged from whether a woman is pregnant or not which further serves as the unintentional cause of discrimination. If a man was pregnant (not literally, but having a child with his partner) is he treated similarly? I doubt! Post-pregnancy journey is difficult for women to survive in a company given the attitude and behaviour of people around, and hence that could be coercion to resign. Many are even denied promotion thinking of hypothetical future children and associated maternity leave with it. 

It doesn't end at marital status, race, colour, religion, and ethnicity also attract criticism. If certain women are from a particular race, the stereotypes kick in. Their ability is judged from the lens of stereotypes attached to their backgrounds. For instance- I a woman is a Filipina physician, she is assumed to be a nurse and not a doctor. Why because many Filipinos are nurses by profession. Isn't this discriminative? Usually, workplace discrimination is mostly gendered in terms of women. But no it has layers, intersectionality hit hard. Intersectionality means various social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. In the case of Filipino physicians are- gender and race. 

The outcome of identity-based criticisms is discrimination at various levels and it end ups in strengthing the glass ceiling, "never quite right” biases, creating internalize identity-based criticisms and low-self esteem in women. Men are encouraged to develop and pick leadership roles, whereas women are expected to work hard and cope with office politics. The researchers suggest women must consider feedback in an objective, constructive, and warranted manner, instead of taking it personally. It also advocates them to recognise that identity-based criticism is part of a larger pattern of bias against women.

Suggested Reading: Redesign Your Job Ads to Reduce Gender Bias