Commentary: Women managers face double standards at work
LONDON: True cat fights, mean girls, Queen Bees.
We've all heard these terms stemming from a popular belief that women don't help other women, or indeed actively undermine them.
Women leaders are often portrayed in popular culture as suffering from Queen Bee Syndrome (think Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada). The media is filled with advice about what to do if you piece of work for a Queen Bee.
But what if the Queen Bee isn't existent? Or at least she'southward sorely misunderstood?
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Gendered differences in expectations brand us run into Queen Bees when they aren't really there.
Looking beyond a wide range of studies, there is no prove that senior women are less helpful (or more harmful) to junior women than senior men are to junior men.
Studies observe piffling evidence that women are more competitive towards other women than men are towards other men.
And women and men do not differ in their employ of assailment. Indeed, having a female director is, with few exceptions, either positive or neutral on women's rates of promotions and wages.
WOMEN EXPECTED TO BE HELPFUL, WARM
And then why do people believe that Queen Bees are so prevalent?
The respond has to practice with our expectations of leaders. Because women are expected to exist helpful and warm, people perceive women who accept on leadership roles more negatively.
Then even if women leaders aren't behaving any differently than men, they volition be seen as unsupportive considering of the double standards women face.
Demanding male managers are seen equally strong leaders, while women don't get the same credit. And when conflicts arise at work, as they often do, clashes betwixt two women are seen as much more problematic by others in the system than those between men.
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It's causeless that women should marshal themselves with other women no matter what. As onetime U.s. Secretary of State Madeline Albright said: "At that place's a special identify in hell for women who don't help each other."
In corporations, we expect senior women to take on responsibilities for championing other women in management, heading up women's leadership committees and, in general, doing the system's heavy lifting when it comes to increasing diversity.
This is, however, a lot of actress (and undervalued) work that is not expected of their male peers. If a woman chooses not to take on these roles, she may exist labelled a Queen Bee, while men who don't do variety work are not.
MARGINALISATION IS THE CULPRIT
If women exercise bear similar Queen Bees sometimes, why is that?
Sometimes nosotros detect that women don't advocate for other women in their organisations. Experimental evidence shows that this is not near beingness a prima donna, but instead a production of what scholars phone call "value threat".
Value threats occur when there are negative stereotypes of women in highly masculinised workplaces. Women who do manage to "make it" must constantly fight these negative stereotypes in order to hold onto their ain positions in the organisation.
Their concern about whether they are valued at work may shape their willingness to assist other women. Women might not support other women if there is any question about these women's qualifications, because they don't want to do anything that might fuel the negative stereotypes.
In this context, there are often few opportunities open to women – "implicit quotas" that limit chances for leadership roles.
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One study of i,500 firms showed that once a company appointed a adult female to a top leadership office, the chance that a 2d woman would join the leadership ranks dropped by 50 per cent.
Another study of corporate boards showed companies seemed to be gaming the system: Appointing two – but no more than two – women to their boards, a phenomenon the researchers chosen "twokenism."
As a issue, women may not support other highly qualified women considering they know they'll be competing for the aforementioned small number of opportunities.
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Our decision: Being a Queen Bee is not an intrinsically female behaviour just instead a reaction to marginalisation. Again, information technology's the context that matters.
In studies of networks inside organisations, women were more probable than men to cite a woman as a source of difficult piece of work relationships, but this propensity was lower for women with more women in their social support network.
Similarly, an experiment with women police officers found that women who identified closely with their gender actually responded to gender bias with increased motivation to assist other women, while those who were less gender-identified were more than likely to exhibit Queen Bee responses.
Women may be seen as Queen Bees when in fact the organisational context is the origin of the behaviour. When organisations are non inclusive, women are more than probable to experience value threat and therefore more likely to avoid supporting other women.
NO Male EQUIVALENT TO THE QUEEN BEE
Beyond the evidence confronting the Queen Bee myth, the mere existence of the term is part of the problem. If men are as likely to be competitive with other men every bit women are with other women, then gendered terms such equally Queen Bee are sexist.
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In this regard, linguistic communication matters. Calling women Queen Bees is its own grade of devaluation, with its touch on the denigration and marginalisation of women in leadership.
At a time when corporations are struggling to address gender gaps at all levels, killing off stereotyped myths such every bit the Queen Bee Syndrome is essential.
Isabel Fernandez-Mateo is Adecco Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the London Business Schoolhouse. Sarah Kaplan is Director of the Establish for Gender and the Economic system, and Professor of Strategic Direction at the University of Toronto'due south Rotman School of Management. This article first appeared on The Conversation.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/women-leader-workplace-job-queen-bee-sexist-employer-company-196741
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