We have much progress to celebrate as women but sad to say that in 2023, there is still so much more to do. I’ve seen many excellent pieces recently that illustrate the gender gaps that exist in the workplace.
Have you ever heard of “Tall Poppy Syndrome”? I hadn’t. I saw this post on LinkedIn from Women of Influence+ on a study they conducted of over 4,700 women around the world. From the post, their research shows that almost 90% of women worldwide are belittled and undermined because of their success at work. As they say, “The Tallest Poppy, our groundbreaking study, reveals an eye-opening story about how Tall Poppy Syndrome (TPS) negatively impacts ambitious, high-performing women, and what this means for organizations”. Here is the press release summarizing the results and a link to access their white paper.
It’s no wonder that many women get “imposter syndrome”, even women in executive level positions. As Becker’s reported in this short article, “75% of female executives get imposter syndrome”, imposter syndrome is doubting one’s abilities and feeling like a fraud. The article notes that women expect lower pay than men, are subject to condescension and have less faith they will be treated equally. This all leads to lowered confidence.
As Becker’s reported in this short article, “The gender ‘confidence gap’ is wide in the workplace”, the confidence gap and wage gap continue. And we are now seeing the promotions gap more clearly. The source article from CNBC highlights the differences in more detail including showing how women and men widely disagree on the state of gender equality and parity in the workplace. The gender wage gap sits at the average woman being paid 82 cents for every dollar paid to a man, with an even wider gap for women of color.
For more in-depth data and analysis, see Women in the Workplace 2022: The Full Report conducted by Lean In and McKinsey and Company. It’s a 62-page report with five parts:
- The state of the pipeline
- Why women leaders are switching jobs and intersectional experiences
- Flexibility and remote and hybrid work
- The importance of managers
- Recommendations for companies
If 62 pages is a TLDR for you, this McKinsey article summarizes the report. The looking ahead conclusion of the full report should be enough to compel leaders to pay attention:
“The Covid-19 crisis and racial reckoning of 2020 pushed corporate America to reimagine the way we work. Two and a half years in, employees don’t want to return to the workplace of the past. They want to move forward.
This is especially true for women. Women are ambitious and hardworking. They’re more inclusive and empathetic leaders. And they want to work for companies that are prioritizing the cultural changes that are improving work: flexibility, employee well-being, and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Companies that rise to the moment will attract and retain women leaders—and this will lead to a better workplace for everyone. They’ll win the war for talent today and into the future.”
If you are fortunate to work at an organization on this list – “60+ hospitals, health systems among Newsweek’s best workplaces for women”, you may experience less of these issues. But overall, as a country, we fall behind many others as this article highlights – “US sinks 4 spots in working women’s index”. The United States ranks 26th out of 33 countries regarding parity for working women. The index ranks countries on a number of labor market indicators: the gender pay gap, female labor force participation rate and its difference from the male participation rate, and female unemployment and full-time employment rates.
As I have said before, when we encourage and develop women, we help everyone. I hope you will find ways to celebrate women’s history month in the coming weeks with your work teams and the young girls in your life – let them know that many before them have been trailblazers but collectively, we have much more to do.
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