Despite increasing awareness, There is still sexism in the workplace: Women are still stuck trying to climb the internal hierarchy, bosses continue to behave like fathers towards their employees, and even maternity leave loses out when compared to paternity leave.
To help you improve the atmosphere at work, here are 17 possible sexist behaviors that you either reproduce or witness without realizing it. Being aware of them and acting in time is the key to ensuring that articles like this one will become obsolete within a year.
1. Deceptively affectionate nicknames
Nicknames like ‘charm’, ‘darling’ or ‘sweetheart’ They have no place at all in the workplace. Especially if they have been coined by a superior for the women in his team. Their use indicates a lack of respect and a complete absence of boundaries between the professional world and the personal world.
Since these nicknames can have a place in a sentimental or domestic environment, what is being said when using them is that Women can only have archetypal roles of mothers, sisters, daughters, girlfriends or wives.
A nickname that may seem innocuous is that of ‘girl’. “This is the girl from marketing.” “I agree with this girl’s proposal.” ‘Girl’ is a word that connotes inexperience or naivety, two conditions that no female employee wants or desires to be associated with. ‘Coworker,’ ‘partner,’ ‘manager,’ ‘boss,’ ‘supervisor’ are better alternatives; they make things clear and don’t belittle anyone unnecessarily.
2. Call by name and not by surname
“I welcome you to the office, I introduce you to Gonzalez, Godoy, Escobar, Irene and Smith”. Is there any presentation that you found odd (beyond the fact that there is only one woman in the example)? If it is customary to call workers by their last name, it is disrespectful to only call female workers by their first names.
3. “Where do you see yourself in five years? As a mother, perhaps?”
Unfortunately, there are still job interviews where candidates are asked personal questions, such as whether they plan to have children soon. Such a decision should not be a factor in choosing a future employee.to choose a promotion or to confirm a pay rise.
Temporarily putting sexism aside, there are generally a number of illegal questions that you should not tolerate in any job interview, no matter who you are. Knowing them will give you an advantage.
But the problems in the selection process go beyond these types of questions. A study by Harvard Business School found that there are unconscious biases when evaluating a potential employee. “Women are believed to be worse at math tasks and better at verbal tasks” is an example of the report.
Another study looked at the problem from a more general perspective: in a selection process, male candidates are 1.5 times more likely to be chosen than female candidates. This difference includes examples where the direct manager, or the person who makes the hiring decision, was a woman. Ironically, Two out of three cases of incorrect hiring, that is, where the worker was not qualified and was poorly chosen, are carried out by men.
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4. Recycled ideas
A sexist double act It consists of repeatedly ignoring a coworker’s suggestions and then, some time later, appropriating said idea.
This bad behavior is, unfortunately, so popular that it even has a name. Its inventor is the astronomer and professor Nicole Gugliucii. In 2017 she explained in Twitter that she and her friends had created the term hepeated to define situations where a woman’s idea was ignored but then a man said the same thing and was praised.
The word exploded on social media and from there the inevitable debate was born. “Women do this to men too”. The answer to silence that thought was a study by Sean R. Martin, who discovered, for the Academy of Management Journalthat men are more likely to steal ideas at work than women.
“We have found that those who speak louder gain the respect and admiration of their peers, and this increases their status and they often emerge as leaders in their groups.”
Part of the phenomenon is due to a vicious circleSince people in power are more likely to take credit that does not belong to them, and since many people at the top of a company are men, most thieves are men.
The theft of ideas also occurs on a large scale. In its section Make it, CNBCreview some of the most famous male thefts:
- Monopoly: Although popular history links Charles Darrow as its creator, the idea was Elizabeth Magie’s. Her idea was to ironically create a game that would highlight the problems of monopolies.
- The programming code: Ada Lovelace was the first to crack the code in 1843, but it was not until recently that she was properly recognized.
- DNARosalind Franklin’s findings were crucial to understanding DNA. Her colleagues were awarded the Nobel Prize.
- Nuclear fission:Lise Meitner discovered that her fellow researcher had published his study… omitting her name. So he was the one who took the credit.
How to adopt the same strategy that Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey and Aaron Sorkin used to stimulate creative thinking at work
5. Secondary tasks = let her do them
If in a company the party committee is basically made up of female employees (or newcomers are constantly invited to participate), If there are only secretaries or assistants, if they are the only ones who make photocopies, They take calls, schedule appointments or go get coffee… something is going very, very wrong.
Again, this sexist attitude has empirical support. The study Gender differences in accepting and receiving requests for tasks with low promotion prospectsresearchers Linda Babcock, Maria P. Recalde, Lise Vesterlund and Laurie Weingart delved into this topic. Specifically, they analyzed those tasks that no one wants to do and that are normally delegated to someone else.
The findings are negative in many ways. They found that in the workplace, there is a belief that women are more likely to say “yes” if offered menial tasks or volunteer work. As a result, female employees spend less time on tasks or objectives that are more important and that may be decisive for a promotion or advancement. Therefore, female workers progress at a slower rate than male workers.
6. When it is always THE boss and not THE female boss
If there are a dozen bosses and all of them are men, it is rarely a coincidence.
In a report by Catalyst At the beginning of 2020, a study of the 500 companies with the highest market capitalization and listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ found that 43% of their workforces were made up of women. But only 37% become middle managers, only 27% are promoted to senior managers and only 6% are CEOs.
7. The reaction to female bosses
To find out whether female bosses are treated differently than male bosses, The Conversation He conducted an experiment. He took 2,700 volunteers (men and women) and assigned them different feedbacks with names of random superiors. The feedback was more or less the same, and what changed the most was whether it was given by a male or female boss.
The result: both male and female volunteers reacted worse if they received negative criticism from a female boss. They said they felt demotivated or that they would not work in a hypothetical company if they had this fictional boss.
The study gradually rules out the reasons behind these strange reactions until it reaches a sad reality: society expects men to be critical and demanding bosses. But women are not expected to be able to be bosses with that tone and style. Gentle or maternal behaviour is expected from them. Since the feedback did not meet their expectations, the reaction was denial or anger.
8. Exclusively male internal promotions
A direct effect of one of the sexist behaviors above. Unfortunately, it is still common for a female candidate for an internal promotion to be ranked worse than a male candidate in the mind of her superior. This is due to sexist prejudices so ingrained in the collective consciousness that bosses do not even realize that they are being used as unfair measures of comparison.
If you’ve had that feeling at work, the data reinforces it.Leaning.org The US Department of Labor annually reviews the situation of female workers in the United States. In one of its latest findings, it noted that for every 100 men who are promoted or hired as managersonly 72 women are promoted to similar positions. As a result, 62% of men hold senior positions.
The analysis also highlights a vicious circle: although 48% of a team is made up of women, Only 21% of these women are promoted, as opposed to 78% of men who do climb the ranks. As a result, women are left paralysed. It was estimated that by 2024 the situation would be even worse.
The research book What Works for Women at Work (4 Patterns Women Workers Need to Know) delves into the reasons for this situation. Unfortunately, a worker must offer more objective evidence of her abilities. Men, due to cultural prejudices, are allowed to use their future potential as a trump card to get hired or promoted. As a result, more inexperienced but promising male workers are hired than inexperienced but equally promising female workers.
9 female leaders propose 9 measures to combat sexism in the workplace
9. Customer attitude also counts
Unfortunately, sexism at work does not only occur within the team itself. A client can also discriminate against female employees. For example, by assuming that the team leader is always a man. or asking the employee who answered your call if she can pass you on to one of her colleagues.
10. The temperature is exclusively appropriate for men
A study of the Nature Climate Change 2015 highlighted that most office buildings have the ideal temperature for men’s metabolism. It explained that, despite the fact that over the last few years the percentage of women in offices has increasedtheir needs regarding temperature continue to be ignored.
11. Disrespectful maternity leave
It is a good gesture for a company to find a temporary replacement for a worker who has to take time off on maternity leave, especially if there are many important tasks pending or a client portfolio to maintain. The problem comes when the worker explicitly said that her plan was to return to work, but she returns to find that all of her responsibilities have been permanently delegated.whether to the substitute or to other workers. And in this sense…
12. Differences between new fathers and new mothers
A study by Professor Michelle J. Budig of the…