How working women are kept from positions of influence and power is by now well-documented by scientists and journalists alike. While the research has not been specifically remedy-directed, where gender-based bias has been discovered some have sought to counter it with HR policy changes, training, awareness campaigns, equal opportunity legislation, and more.
Is the Confidence Gap Between Men and Women a Myth?
It’s become commonly accepted that female workers lack the self-confidence of their male peers and this hurts their chances at success. If they were less hesitant and sold themselves better, this logic goes, success would be theirs. Yet, perhaps challenging common wisdom, recent research shows no evidence of a female modesty effect. Women rate themselves no lower than their male counterparts in leadership-related dimensions. Moreover, studies are finding no consistent gender differences in self-reported self-confidence. And one recent study suggests that the level of confidence women feel does not correlated with how confident they appear to others: in other words, women might feel really confident, but observers around them just don’t see it. The lesson, then, is to stop telling women to feel more confident, and to instead change organizational systems and processes so that they treat men and women equally, on the basis of competence.