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This Is How Everyday Sexism Could Stop You from Getting That Promotion
Article

This Is How Everyday Sexism Could Stop You from Getting That Promotion

Jessica Nordell
The New York Times, 2021
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9

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  • Analytical
  • Eye Opening
  • Hot Topic

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Egregious violations of gender equity in the workplace garner headlines and lawsuits, but subtle, routine gender bias can be just as devastating to women’s careers. In an opinion piece for The New York Times, journalist Jessica Nordell discusses the startling findings from a University of Buffalo study of everyday gender bias in the workplace. The data, illustrated by Yaryna Serkez, corroborate all the women who’ve felt they had to work twice as hard as men to advance in their careers. Nordell reveals research-based interventions to help leaders and managers create a fairer workplace.

Summary

Everyday sexism in the workplace significantly hampers women’s careers.

In many professional fields, women experience sexism on a daily basis that doesn’t amount to obvious discrimination but impinges on their careers nonetheless. This garden-variety sexism has a cumulative effect, resulting in significant disparities: fewer opportunities for women, delays in advancement and, ultimately, inequities in representation at the highest levels of organizations. Disparities occur even in majority-female organizations and in fields such as education, where men benefit from the so-called glass escalator and rise quickly through the ranks.

Everyday bias takes myriad forms, often subtle: Women enjoy less credit for successes and suffer more penalties for failures; their potential goes underestimated; their contributions get overlooked; and they face stereotyping, unfair expectations, negative perceptions and microaggressions. Other aspects of identity – race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion...

About the Author

Jessica Nordell is a science and culture journalist and the author of The End of Bias: A Beginning.

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