It’s well-documented that women in the workplace often face biases when seeking leadership roles, but new research is uncovering just how pervasive and wide-ranging those prejudices can be.
In the working world, women leaders report experiencing 30 types of identity factors that discriminate on everything from their body size to marital status, according to new research from Wilson College chief information officer Amy Diehl, Westmont College dean Leanne Dzubinski and Clarkson University professor Amber Stephenson published in the peer-reviewed Human Resource Development Quarterly.
The findings stem from the trio’s 2023 research into age discrimination. That work, published in the Harvard Business Review, found that women in the workplace face bias regardless of their age, with their superiors often viewing them as too inexperienced if they are young and too unworthy of promotion if they are older. The new study surveyed more than 900 women in leadership roles in four industries where women comprise a large share of the workforce — health care, higher education, law and faith-based nonprofits.
“Surprised and shocked”
“The way we phrased the question was, ‘Tell us about any other identity factors that are impacting your experience'” in the workforce, Diehl told CBS MoneyWatch. “We thought there would be age and race. We were surprised and shocked when we looked through the data and came up with 30.”
It’s telling that the factors focus on personal qualities like class, marital status and sexual orientation, rather than professional qualifications or skills, underscoring that these biases aren’t relevant to whether a woman can perform in the workplace, the researchers said.
“There is always an excuse masquerading as a reason given for a women about why she’s not quite right for any role,” noted Dzubinski.
The factors include:
- Accent
- Age
- Attractiveness
- Body size
- Class
- Color
- Communication style
- Marital status
- Pregnancy
- Sexual orientation
Stumbling on the broken rung
While the new research focuses on women in their 40s and 50s who have already reached leadership roles, younger women are more likely to be held back by the so-called broken rung, or when women fail to get a promotion out of entry-level jobs at the same rate as men, research from consulting firm McKinsey and LeanIn, the nonprofit started by former Meta Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, has found.
Their research found bias may play a role in stunting women’s careers, with young men often promoted on their potential while young women are judged more on their track records.
The new research on bias encountered by women in leadership roles didn’t examine how women coped with bias as they climbed the professional ladder, although Diehl noted that women who rise into senior positions tend to “have a thick skin,” and might use techniques such as diverting conversations away from identity issues when they arise.
Bias from other women
The researchers focused on four industries where workers are either split equally between men and women or are female-dominated, although the top leadership positions in all these fields are typically held by men. The goal, in short, was also to examine the impact of gender bias in industries not dominated by men.
The women leaders who responded to the survey were college presidents, vice presidents and provosts within higher education; physicians and physician administrators in health care; lawyers and partners within the legal field; and women who hold top leadership roles in faith-based nonprofits.
“If you have women well represented in the industry, we’re still seeing that women are still experiencing various types of bias,” Stephenson said. “It’s a very real and very embedded situation within any workplace” regardless of gender composition.
Dzubinski added, “It used to be the argument that as soon as you get more women in, it would fix itself — it’s not fixing itself.”
Women can internalize bias and express it against other women in their workplace, while some might believe that there’s not enough room at the top for more than a few women, the researchers noted. That can lead to the belief the only way to ascend into leadership roles is if another woman loses her spot, they said.
Can you combat workplace bias?
It’s difficult for women to fight such biases, given that others may judge women negatively regardless of their situation, such as whether they are married or unmarried, both of which can trigger prejudices, the research noted.
“Notice that they are contradictions — if you are married, that’s a problem, or if you aren’t married that’s a problem,” Dzubinski told CBS MoneyWatch. “When you put them together you see that they are made up excuses” to justify why women don’t deserve promotions.
While difficult, women should try not to take identity-based criticism personally, Diehl said.
“It feels very much, ‘It’s about me,’ but it really isn’t. It’s about larger, systematic gender bias that’s trying to force them out of the workplace or into supporting roles, and not leadership roles,” she said.
Organizations can deal with some of these issues by going over their practices and checking whether these identity factors are playing a role in whether people receive or are denied promotions, the researchers said. Another tool is to use a “flip it” strategy, applying the same statement about a woman to a man, such as “John can’t take on this role because he just had a child’,” they noted.
With an onling push against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives (DEI) from conservative lawmakers, some companies are dropping their investment in DEI. That could pick up speed under President-elect Donald Trump, who has said he’ll do more to remove these policies in his next term, while Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s handbook for the next conservative White House, proposes removing all federal rules and programs around DEI.
But rooting out bias can help organizations perform better, the researchers noted.
“When woman after woman is dealing with all this stuff day after day, it takes time away from them doing their actual job,” Diehl told CBS MoneyWatch. “It’s hurting the organization in terms of the amount of quality work they can get to.”
