Women are their own enemies
One of the things I observe with many women I work with is that they tend to be more reluctant to self-promote.
A common pattern observed among many women in the workforce is their tendency to downplay their own accomplishments. Despite achieving stellar results, they often downplay their efforts, while some less skilled men may still overestimate their abilities. This reluctance to self-promote presents significant challenges in women's career trajectories, as demonstrated by a recent study.
In a lab experiment, 350 participants were tasked with answering 20 questions on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Afterward, they were asked to self-assess their performance and estimate their scores. These self-evaluations were then forwarded to 1,750 other participants who served as 'career advisers', tasked with recommending their former colleagues to more challenging or less challenging tasks.
On average, men scored 11 out of 20 correct answers, whereas women scored 10 out of 20. However, it was noted that men consistently guessed having answered more questions correctly than women. Regardless of their individual scores, men's self-estimated scores were higher than women's. This overconfidence in their abilities led to men being perceived more favorably by the 'career advisers'.
Consequently, 44% of men were recommended for more challenging tasks, compared to 31% of women. When the actual scores were disclosed to the advisers, the gender disparity in recommendations diminished. Now, 47% of men and 37% of women were advised for more ambitious tasks. Yet, when advisers were made aware that women tend to underpromote their skills while men overpromote theirs, their recommendations flipped. Now, 47% of women were advised for more challenging tasks, but only 37% of men.
While the study suggests that women may be their own greatest obstacles by failing to promote their work effectively, the ideal solution isn't to flip the script. Both the results obtained in the objective setting and the 'nudge' setting, where advisers were encouraged to give women an advantage, were deemed unfair by the reporter.
Nevertheless, the findings highlight the importance of women becoming more assertive in showcasing their achievements. Moreover, the reporter suggests that increasing the anonymization of objective tests could foster fairer evaluations. If the evaluator can only see the results without any information hinting at the test-taker's gender, it could potentially lead to a fairer assessment.
Written by urgent.news from Klement on Investing's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
