Career advancement is a passionate challenge for most professionals. For women, however, it can also mean defiance.
Gender discrimination in the workplace is related to deeply rooted social mores. While traditional feminine attributes include caring or affection, masculine behaviors have been typically identified with leadership, assertion or goal orientation.
Some may as: do these clichés still stand? A recent academic study suggests that those perceptions still hold in many professional environments and that those female workers are twice affected by them when pursuing career progress. On the one hand, they are often driven towards adopting traditional masculine attitudes in order to emulate the classical leadership role. On the other hand, they also face social punishment when abandoning the feminine norms.
- Advocate for others: Given that social convention perceive women as caregivers and individualistic attitudes can generate adversity, women leaders can be better perceived if they advocate for their teams and not only for themselves.
- Share your success: in too many occasions women are assumed to have a lower status than their male peers. Therefore, it is advisable to state one’s achievements, especially those which imply external proofs of recognition (e.g. promotion).
- Strike when resources are plentiful: Findings suggest that women professional advancement is more likely in times or environments where resources are more plentiful. Bearing in mind this precondition can help shaping one’s development strategy.
These are hints that can be used at everyone’s discretion if considered useful. Nevertheless, their underlying reasoning can surely help us all drawing valid conclusions about the complexity of the burdens women face when pursuing their professional but also personal aspirations.
Have you experienced any of these situations? Do let us know how you confront traditional clichés at work.