Women progress faster through the ranks in those law schools with a high percentage of female faculty members than they do in schools where there are few female professors. Studies have shown that when people are asked to rate a female candidate for a managerial job, they rate her more positively if she is one of several women in the candidate pool than if she is the only woman. But if there are many women besides you, people stop focusing on your gender and start judging you in terms of your ability. Being aware of one's gender schemas also helps. I want to emphasize that in almost every study I have reviewed, it's not only men who undervalue women.
Women also do it.
There are no victimizers or victims. We all have the same basic gender schemas through which we evaluate people. But each time we stop and question our schemas, we're less likely to be swayed by them. We can improve the conditions under which people evaluate others, in sometimes very simple ways. One nice experiment showed that when people are in a room with a mirror, which increases self-consciousness, they make decisions more in accord with meritocratic factors than they do if the mirror is covered over.