{"id":1886,"date":"2011-04-28T11:18:38","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T11:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/?p=1886"},"modified":"2016-02-04T23:15:44","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T06:15:44","slug":"why-are-women-seen-as-less-confident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/2011\/04\/28\/why-are-women-seen-as-less-confident\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Are Women Seen As Less Confident?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Fighting a battle that women don\u2019t even know they\u2019re fighting, an article by Woman Of Green contributor, Birute Regine.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/gender-symbol-300x299.jpeg\" rel=\"wp-prettyPhoto[1886]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1887\" title=\"gender-symbol-300x299\" src=\"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/gender-symbol-300x299.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"299\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In the middle of the meeting on a controversial financial proposal, \u201cJane\u201d has a flash of insight into a problem. She looks at the men and women around the table as she enthusiastically elaborates on what she believes to be an important point that can bridge the conversation.<\/p>\n<p>After she finishes speaking, she waits to hear responses to her comments. Crickets. No one responds. No one picks up on the idea. It was as if they didn\u2019t even hear what she had said.<\/p>\n<p>Jane feels confused and frustrated. She thought she was bringing a lot to the table, but then why wasn\u2019t she getting any reinforcement? Maybe her observation wasn\u2019t really as worthwhile a contribution as she thought? Maybe she just doesn\u2019t have the leadership abilities needed?<\/p>\n<p>Fifteen minutes later a male version of what Jane said, slightly reworded, is heard loud and clear. People think his idea is \u201cbrilliant!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I bring up this vignette at many of my speaking engagements. It always receives many nods from the women in the audience: \u201cYeah, I\u2019ve been there.\u201d So what is going on?<\/p>\n<p>One way to explain it is \u201cgender schemas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In her book\u00a0<em>Why so Slow? The Advancement of Women<\/em>, Virginia Valian, professor of Psychology and Linguistics at Hunter College, New York, explored why women\u2019s advancement has crept at such a snail\u2019s pace. Along the way she uncovered the world of what she called gender schemas: culturally bound assumptions about men and women that are unconscious.<\/p>\n<p>One assumption is that women are first assumed incompetent until proven otherwise. It\u2019s the opposite for men.\u00a0 So right from the start women are not perceived as leaders. If a woman is successful it\u2019s because she\u2019s a hard worker (recent headline:<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fins.com\/Finance\/Articles\/SB130254996572803757\/How-BofA-s-Krawcheck-Outworked-Her-Peers?Type=48\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\"> \u201cHow BofA\u2019s Sallie Krawcheck Outworked Her Peers\u201d<\/a>), or was lucky; if she fails it\u2019s because she\u2019s incompetent. If a male succeeds, it\u2019s because he\u2019s competent; if he fails it\u2019s because of bad luck or a scandal (HP\u2019s Mark Hurd comes to mind).<\/p>\n<p>Consequently, cultural biases consistently\u00a0<em>overrate <\/em>men and\u00a0<em>underrate<\/em>women. Self-assessment studies show that men and women do the same to themselves. Women tend to evaluate themselves two points lower than reality, while men will evaluate themselves two points higher.<\/p>\n<p>Assumed incompetence puts women on the defensive and their struggle to prove themselves keeps them on a never-ending treadmill. So if you as a woman have felt held to a higher standard, it\u2019s not your imagination, you have been. It\u2019s the Fred Astaire\/Ginger Rogers syndrome: Ginger has to do everything Fred does, except in high heels and backwards.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not just men assuming women are incompetent; women also fall prey to assuming incompetence in women. A woman may feel that she\u2019s competent but she won\u2019t assume that of other women. In one global experiment called the \u201cGoldberg paradigm,\u201d researchers asked men and women in one group to evaluate a particular article or speech supposedly written by a man. Then they asked a similar group to judge the same material, this time supposedly authored by a woman. In countries all over the world, participants rated the very same words higher coming from a man than from a woman.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that women often assume other women are incompetent may, in part, explain why women traditionally haven\u2019t been so great at helping each other up the ladder. That\u2019s changing however, with the plethora of organizations and initiatives dedicated to women supporting women.\u00a0 A revolution is underway; a level of collaboration among women as we have never seen before.<\/p>\n<p>When I talk with younger women, some say they don\u2019t experience this assumption. And may they never! It\u2019s a pretty level playing field when entering the work force. After all, 46% of employees in Fortune 500 are women.<\/p>\n<p>But the higher you climb, the wider the gap. Women make up only 15% of board seats, 14% of executive officers and a paltry 2% of CEOs. Another way of saying it: men hold 98% of Fortune 500 CEO positions. I don\u2019t think we can say assumed incompetence is no longer a battle ground for women.<\/p>\n<p>Irven DeVore, a former professor of anthropology at Harvard University, once said to me: \u201cWe will have gender equality when half of Fortune 500 CEOs are mediocre women leaders.\u201d I guess we have a long way to go, Irv!<\/p>\n<p>Some women use the negative gender schemas against them to their advantage. These women play along as if they don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on, when in reality they are five steps ahead of the guys. As Mae West put it, \u201cBrains are an asset, if you hide them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Being under-estimated can work to women\u2019s advantage when she is covertly outsmarting him, but that\u2019s a short-term benefit. In the end, feigning ignorance only helps perpetuate a misperception. As one of my favorite leaders, Linda Rusch, former VP of nursing in Hunderton Medical, told me, \u201cWhat you permit, you promote.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So let\u2019s be conscious of this unconscious assumption. If your comments are overlooked, don\u2019t assume you have nothing to contribute or are not a leader. Rather assume an unconscious assumption has kicked in. If you agree with what a woman might be offering to the discussion, don\u2019t tell her at the water cooler. Speak up and stand beside her and giving her credit.\u00a0 If someone takes your idea and claims it as their own, do as one woman scientist who did research on cancer told me. Tell that person, \u201cThanks, I\u2019m so glad you love my idea!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Being conscious of gender schemas can give woman an advantage: heightened awareness can pull us out of the mire.<\/p>\n<p><em><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Birute Regine, Ed.D., a\u00a0developmental psychologist, works as an\u00a0executive coach, speaker and author. She previously co-authored the critically acclaimed <\/em>The Soul at Work: Embracing Complexity Science For Business Success<em>. Her new book, <\/em>Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves and the World\u00a0<em>captures a powerful time of transition in our society, led primarily by women. View her website\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ironbutterflies.com\/\">www.ironbutterflies.com<\/a> and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@ironbutterflies.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared at <a href=\"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/why-are-women-seen-as-less-confident\/\">Forbes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the middle of the meeting on a controversial financial proposal, \u201cJane\u201d has a flash of insight into a problem. She looks at the men and women around the table as she enthusiastically elaborates on what she believes to be an important point that can bridge the conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1348],"tags":[66,8,672],"class_list":["post-1886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","tag-women-in-business","tag-women-of-green","tag-workplace"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6264,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886\/revisions\/6264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}