Why Are There So Few Female Leaders?
By: Tony Lu
Tags: Women In Politics, Women in STEM, Women In Business, Leadership, Gender Equality

Have you ever wondered why men have ruled throughout history? Think about that for a minute. I never seriously thought about this question until I read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. In the chapter, “There is No Justice in History”, Harari briefly explored the idea of why women didn’t have as much privilege and power as men throughout history [3]. Why is that the case? Harari listed out a few theories related to biology and genetics to try to explain the why. Unfortunately, his conclusion was an anticlimactic “we’re not sure why”, because those theories were unconvincing and had a lot of room for rebuttal. Looking at the world today, the gap between male and female leadership is still very real. According to the Center of American Progress, women make up 50.8% of the U.S. population. They earn more than 57% of undergraduate degrees and 59% of all master’s degrees. They account for 47% of the U.S. labor force and 52.5% of the college-educated workforce. It’s evident that women are as well-educated and as well-represented in the U.S. workforce as men. And yet, American women lag substantially behind men in Fortune 500 executives, medical school deans, college professors, members of Congress etc [5]. To uncover the underlying issue, I want to discuss two reasons why women are underrepresented in leadership and how men can ameliorate the situation. Of course, there are more than just two reasons, but here I’ll be discussing cultural stereotypes and biases in hiring and promotion. Full disclosure: I am new to this topic and I know gender inequality is a very complex problem. Writing about this subject helps me to better understand the problem and at the same time advocate for better female representation in leadership.

You might be feeling ambivalent and wondering (maybe with a raised eyebrow), why a man like myself wants to advocate for female equality? Well, I strongly believe that having equal access to opportunities and resources is a right. Gender stereotypes should not get in the way of an individual’s merit and capabilities. Not only does this feel morally right to me, but there is a ton of research showing that having a more gender equal society creates a myriad of benefits for everyone. Having more gender diversity in leadership is just one of the pillars that we need to bolster. For example, one of the benefits of having more female leaders is that it results in more gender diversity in the workplace, attracting top female talent and generating more innovative ideas [8]. Another benefit of greater diversity is that it could likely bring greater happiness, less depression, and a better well-being for people of all genders [4]. The list of pros goes on and on.

Image credit: nakedpastor

Cultural Stereotypes

How society views women plays a big role in the lack of women occupying leadership positions. Pew Research Center did a survey in 2017 asking Americans what pressures they think each gender face has to face [6].

The data shows that men face more pressure to focus on their careers and be more financially capable than women, who should prioritize their looks and parental responsibilities. It’s unsurprising given the banal gender stereotypes. In the same survey, ambition and leadership in women is valued far less by the public than that of their male counterparts, with physical attractiveness again, being the most important.

It’s not only the U.S — many countries around the world have the same stereotypes. In China for example, marriage markets show that the most desirable men are those with a lot of wealth and career success. The most desirable women would be physically attractive with at least a bachelor’s degree, with less requirements on career and salary. In fact, women who don’t marry by the age of 30 are heavily looked down upon even if they have a higher income and educational background [13].

This might already seem obvious, but there’s definitely a correlation between societal expectations and the gender imbalance in leadership. I believe having fewer expectations for women to be career driven will result in fewer women prioritizing their careers. We should put more emphasis on women’s careers and ambitions rather than their looks and parenting abilities. Everyone has a role to play to ameliorate the negative stereotypes that are associated with women in order to promote more female leaders. These types of stereotypes die slowly and we need everyone to help change the narrative if we want change faster.

Hiring and Promotion Biases

Women who are on the track to leadership can still face biases and stereotypes that impede their career progression. In another Pew Research study, when Americans were asked why they think women are underrepresented in leadership, the majority of women thought that women are held to higher standards than men [7] — I was surprised by this statistic.

Indeed, studies show that women have to work harder and achieve more to attain the same level of recognition as their male counterparts, because employers apply stricter performance standards to women than to men. “Extensive social psychological research shows that observers rate men, and the characteristics associated with them, as more competent and worthy than women and the characteristics linked to them” [2]. Simply put, there is gender bias when it comes to evaluating the quality of an individual’s performance. We associate an archetypal leader with “masculine” attributes because the majority of leaders have been male. This can cause us to subconsciously evaluate women less favourably who don’t display those qualities, but are just as competent as their male counterparts. A study shows that when a less qualified candidate was hired over a more qualified one, the less qualified candidate was male two-thirds of the time [9].

Now how do we improve the situation? Well, interviewers may not even be aware of these biases when making hiring decisions. The first step in fixing this unconscious issue is to become conscious of it. The next step is for leaders, who are in positions of power, to change the existing hiring and promotion systems to eliminate any gender biases. One system to have, for example, is a group of people make hiring decisions together to reduce biases. One study found that when candidates were assessed separately by individual hiring managers, 51% of managers were influenced by the candidate’s gender and selected the under-performing candidate. However, when candidates were evaluated by a hiring team together, gender didn’t affect their decision and they simply hired the highest performing candidate [1].

Another beneficial process to have is structured performance reviews. A study by Harvard Business Review found that when performance evaluations are open minded and lack structure, it is more likely for managers to rely on stereotypes related to gender and race when making decisions [11]. Companies should instead use structured, agreed-upon processes and apply the same evaluation criteria across all employees.

If you aren’t in a leadership position, there are many things you can do to help too. For example, “if you know a woman (or anyone) who deserves a promotion and is being overlooked, or if you see that someone is not being heard in a meeting or not getting credit for her (or his) work, by all means, intervene! Talk to the person with the promotional power or make a (diplomatic) comment in the meeting.” (Richardson, 2015) [10]

Conclusion

To sum up, some of the reasons why women are underrepresented in leadership are cultural stereotypes and biases in promotion and hiring. You may find some of the things I’ve said very controversial — I’m happy to discuss and learn more. Let’s open up the dialogue because in order to achieve greater diversity, we need everyone onboard. I’ll end with a quote by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox [12]:

“Men and women are born with similar ambitions, talents and ideas. Then we teach them bias” .

References

[1] Bohnet, I., Van Geen, A. V., & Bazerman, M. H. (1970, January 01). When Performance Trumps Gender Bias: Joint Versus Separate Evaluation. Retrieved from https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/8506867

[2] Elizabeth H. Gorman, J. A. (2007, December 1). We (Have to) Try Harder: Gender and Required Work Effort in Britain and the United States — Elizabeth H. Gorman, Julie A. Kmec, 2007. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0891243207309900

[3]: Harari, Y. N. (2019). There is No Justice in History. In Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. London: Vintage.

[4] Holter, Ø G. (2014, November 17). “What’s in it for Men?”: Old Question, New Data — Øystein Gullvåg Holter, 2014. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1097184x14558237

[5] Judith Warner, N. E. (2018, November 20). The Women’s Leadership Gap. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2018/11/20/461273/womens-leadership-gap-2/

[6] Kim Parker, J. M. (2020, August 06). 2. Americans see different expectations for men and women. Retrieved from https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/12/05/americans-see-different-expectations-for-men-and-women/

[7] Obstacles to Female Leadership. (2020, August 07). Retrieved from https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/01/14/chapter-3-obstacles-to-female-leadership/

[8] Research: When Gender Diversity Makes Firms More Productive. (2019, February 12). Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2019/02/research-when-gender-diversity-makes-firms-more-productive

[9] Reuben, E., Sapienza, P., & Zingales, L. (2014, March 25). How stereotypes impair women’s careers in science. Retrieved from https://www.pnas.org/content/111/12/4403

[10] Richardson, N. (2015, May 28). The Tricky (And Necessary) Business Of Being A Male Advocate For Gender Equality. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/3046555/the-tricky-and-necessary-business-of-being-a-male-advocate-for-gender-equ

[11] Why Most Performance Evaluations Are Biased, and How to Fix Them. (2019, January 15). Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2019/01/why-most-performance-evaluations-are-biased-and-how-to-fix-them

[12] Wittenberg-Cox, A. (2014, November 02). In Search of a Less Sexist Hiring Process. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2014/03/in-search-of-a-less-sexist-hiring-process

[13] Zhuang, P. (2017, July 20). Putting a price on a perfect match in a Chinese park. Retrieved from https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2102712/beijing-marriage-market-putting-price-perfect-match-chinese-park