Sexism Is Everywhere

AMY GALLO: You’re listening to Women at Work, from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Gallo. Hosting this podcast has driven home one of the frustrating but true realities of workplace cultures. Sexism is everywhere, from people’s expectations about how women look and act to companies’ inadequate or unfair parental leave policies. It also shows up in the assignments and feedback and ratings that managers give us, or the credit and promotions and raises that they don’t. But knowing that sexism is everywhere doesn’t soften the shock when it happens to you, like when somebody interrupts you over and over or takes credit for your idea in a meeting, or when you receive an end of year rating that just doesn’t align with your actual performance. A lot of sexism is insidious, not blatant, which means it can be tough to discern whether something a colleague or a client did or didn’t do is in fact because of bias. That can lead to a lot of self-doubt. So, if in some cases—maybe most, we’ll never know what drove their actions, how do we make peace with that uncertainty? When is confronting that person about the potential bias worth our energy? Two women who study gender stereotypes and unconscious bias are here to talk through these questions with me. Katie Coffman is an economist and professor at Harvard Business School, where she studies how stereotypes impact our beliefs about ourselves. Michelle Duguid is a professor at Cornell and the school’s associate dean of diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Michelle, Katie, thank you so much for joining us.

KATIE COFFMAN: Great to be here.

MICHELLE DUGUID: Thanks for having us.

AMY GALLO: This is a big topic, and I’m so excited to have both of your minds on this. I’m curious if either of you have had experiences in your career where there was something unresolved. You weren’t sure whether bias was at play. Could you share a story of an experience you’ve had?

KATIE COFFMAN: I mean, I want to say, first of all, I think I’ve been extremely fortunate in that for the most part, even operating in what is largely a male-dominated profession, that my experiences have been overwhelmingly positive. I do not feel like bias has played a huge role in my life or my career, and I feel very lucky in that way. With that said, you can certainly think back on instances. I would say one of the more common experiences I have is the case of feeling like maybe I don’t belong. So, whether it’s a conference, maybe it’s a social event before the conference, a cocktail hour or something like that, and I am there with my husband, and someone comes up to him, and says, “Oh, what are you presenting?” It’s like, “Actually, I’m the economist today.” It’s an easy mistake to make. I can’t say that I’ve never been guilty of making a similar mistake of assuming the guy is the one with the male-type job, but there are little moments like that that crop up from time to time.

MICHELLE DUGUID: Well, now, I actually can think of one, because it is actually pretty recent, but frankly happens pretty often: stolen ideas. I think women talk about this a lot. You say something doesn’t get a lot of traction, and then all of a sudden someone says something exactly the same. But this one, a colleague actually referenced my idea. Like, I had said it. People were just going on, and then he referenced it again. He was like, “Oh, as Michelle was saying,” and then the conversation carried on, and the idea was then attributed to him, and he had to say, “Oh, no, no. Remember, it was Michelle who referenced that. I just repeated it.” So, it was a stolen idea in a very interesting context, but also demonstrated some allyship from a colleague.

AMY GALLO: Well, the question in Michelle’s example is, is that happening because she’s a woman? I think everyone in the room would probably assume… Not everyone, maybe most people in the room would assume it is, but why is that helpful? Why is it helpful to recognize that might be happening? I’ll tell you, Amy B, my co-host on the podcast, she says, “What’s the difference if it’s stupidity or bias?” I think it’s a good question to ask. So, in that case, is it stupidity and short-termness of, “Oh, the most recent person who said it just happens to be this man, so it’s his idea,” or is it because Michelle’s a woman, and this guy is a guy, and we like to attribute ideas to guys?

KATIE COFFMAN: Two things come to mind for me on that. One is, I find that I search for the signal in the noise: Hey, in this piece of feedback I’m receiving, or in this thing that happened, is there something I can take from this and learn? So, understanding whether maybe the criticism I’m hearing or the pushback I’m getting, or the lack of credit I’m receiving, if I can recognize, Oh, maybe that’s being shaped a little bit by bias, that might change how I think about responding to it.

So, perhaps you hear feedback that you’re maybe too sharp elbowed with some of your colleagues, I think that’s an instance of recognizing that that might come from a place of bias might lead you to say, Hey, it’s not actually the case that I’m being a jerk to people, or I’m being much too assertive. It’s actually about them and their perception of women who behave this way. So, I’m not going to worry as much about changing my behavior. I think the second reason it can be helpful to recognize the possibility of bias is a bigger picture thought, which is even if you’re completely okay with, Hey, stupidity, bias, sometimes people are going to be jerks, it might still be a good thing to keep track of like, Hey, that person seems like maybe they have a little bit of bias going on. I’m going to talk to some of my colleagues, or maybe look after in particular some of my more junior colleagues or maybe some of my students, and make sure that to the extent that other people are experiencing similar things that they recognize they’re not alone in this. Hey, I’m dealing with something similar. Let’s talk about this. Let’s think about how we can deal with it.

AMY GALLO: Michelle, what are you thinking in terms of the reasons it’s helpful to know about the bias, or to recognize it?

MICHELLE DUGUID: I would also say, so it’s stupidity, unconscious bias, jerk, which could still be biased, jerk. To me, there are three categories.

AMY GALLO: Three categories in terms of… It sounds like you’re thinking about the person’s intention. The first two are there’s not an intention. The third, there is. I think stupidity is probably not the right word to describe it, but the ignorance that comes along with, I’m not even aware. I think that’s why those first two categories are so hard to parse. That’s one of the things that I wonder about is that we actually did an episode two weeks ago where we answered questions from listeners, and one of the questions was from someone who worked in a male-dominated field and was wondering whether she wasn’t gaining traction with some of her direct reports, because she’s a younger female. And Amy B’s advice was like, “Don’t let that be the loudest voice in her head,” because focusing on the potential bias at play, there’s not much to do with that.

MICHELLE DUGUID: I completely agree when it comes to that or anything else, I think a recognition that might be the case, but not ruminating on it, not. Every time I’m about to ruminate, it’s trying to solve a math problem by chewing gum: ruminating about this bias is just going to do nothing but put you in a bad head space. I think it’s something we can recognize and then figure out or think about: Okay, what could have gone differently? Do I give feedback? That to me is better time, better spent, about solutions? Or, if there isn’t a solution in terms of that individual for you, what can I do to deal with this particular context or culture or whatever? Versus replaying this again in your mind and coming back to him, oh, I can’t believe that happened. Sometimes when things are particularly upsetting, sometimes we can get there.

I also think it’s a little cathartic also to talk to someone else about it. So, I think some of us just want to know, Oh, it isn’t me. Then I think sometimes that helps us let things go. People are like, Oh, yeah, that happens to me. I saw that. I think for many people, just someone hearing them out and knowing that, “It’s not you. You’re not being paranoid. You’re not being…” Then maybe it allows you to let it go a little bit more.

AMY GALLO: So, seeking out not confirmation necessarily, but someone helping to reflect what actually was going on so that… Again, I think about your situation, Michelle, of you can wonder like, “Did I not present my idea clearly enough? Did I not do it forcefully enough so that people actually understood, or was it because he’s a man?” I think that talking to someone else who was in the room who can say, “Well, actually no, you were really clear. You were actually clearer than he was when he restated it, processing it with someone.” So, this idea of not ruminating, not getting sort of fixated and like you said, Michelle, being cathartic to sort of move past it or recognize what’s happening. Have there been situations, though, where you have really been hung up on something that happened and the concern about gender bias where you really couldn’t let it go? I’m curious what makes something easier to let go versus harder?

MICHELLE DUGUID: I think when something really impacts your self-concept, but I am really purposeful about letting go and I literally say how is this going to solve this? What is your goal here? Is thinking about this going to fulfill any goal? It’s not going to make things better. It’s not going to give that person feedback. It’s not going to … And I talk myself through that so that I can. Although like I said, there’s things that are harder. Regardless of the intensity, I try to let it go because ruminating does not solve anything. It just makes your wellbeing worse.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I’m married to a therapist and that’s the guardian against rumination is a common thread in our family conversations. And I think that idea of self-concept like something that challenges who you think you are. I mean, I think about this. I once got this email from someone that was so rude and because I was sort of trying to set boundaries with this person, it was someone who I only knew over email. We didn’t have … We barely had any relationship at all. He sent me an email sort of accusing me of not valuing human connection because I wouldn’t have a call with him.

MICHELLE DUGUID: Wow.

AMY GALLO: And I was like, “Wait, oh my God, I completely value human connection.” So that idea that he was challenging, and I did ask myself, “would you have said that to a man who has set a boundary?” But it wasn’t – to use Amy B.’s language – it wasn’t the loudest voice in my head. The loudest voice was, “Wait, am I actually the kind of person who I thought I was?” Right? And so, I had to really work through what did that comment mean? Where was it coming from? Was it a reflection of me or a reflection of him? Was there some issue of bias in it? And it took me a while. I did ruminate about that one for a while. I mean, this was four years ago. I can probably recite the email, which shows you how much it stuck in my head.

MICHELLE DUGUID: So how did you respond to that email?

AMY GALLO: That’s a good question. I’m trying to remember. Oh, I know exactly what I did, it’s funny, I wrote about this in my book. So, the first thing I did was delete it like I forgot it, and I was like, “No. Nope. I tried to set a boundary. You didn’t accept it. I’m done.” But then I went back because I did stay up many nights in a row thinking about different responses I could have had, and I did. One of the responses I thought was like, “would you have ever said this to a man?” Right? And then I was like wait, why am I trying to fix this stranger’s gender bias? Like I don’t even know this person, I have no investment, ideally will never interact again. And the truth is I ended up … So, I pulled it out of my deleted folder. I wrote a long response and then never sent it because I felt like you know what? I don’t even need to engage, but the process of sort of saying what I wish I could have said and then deleting it was really helpful.

KATIE COFFMAN: Yeah, and I mean, to Michelle’s earlier idea too, whether it’s an unsent email or you go into your best friend at work’s office and close the door and say, “And so I wanted to say …” And having them sort of look back at you and say like, “Yeah, you’re right. That is what you should have said.” So, I think that type of venting, whether in a letter or to another person can be incredibly helpful.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Well, and I even have a friend who sometimes will come to me with things. She’s a woman of color who will say, “Can I tell you this absurd thing someone said to me?” Oftentimes it’s racist or sexist or both, and I always respond, “Are we laughing or are we mad?” Right? And I think that … And sometimes she’s like, “We’re laughing.” I was like, “Okay, great.” Because it is … And I think it’s both like you can laugh at the absurdity of some of this stuff, but it’s also really underneath it incredibly angering and sometimes really dehumanizing, and I think that’s the part I’m trying to figure out, how do we … When we recognize the dehumanizing part of it, how do we process that?

MICHELLE DUGUID: Yeah, Amy, I heard you say, “Why are you trying to fix this guy’s gender bias?” I mean, clearly we studied this stuff and we talk about this stuff a lot, but is there a reason that that’s what you identified from this email?

AMY GALLO: Yeah, I mean, I think partly it was that sort of flip it to test it – like if I had been a man, would he have expected the same level of human connection from a man? That was one of the things playing in my head. And it is … I mean, I think partly it is because of what I work on and talk about in this podcast. Like, it is top of mind for me, and sometimes I don’t know if that’s helpful or not. I’m glad to have that lens I should say because I feel like it gives me a different way of viewing things, but it’s not my only lens. It’s just in that case, one of the things that came up. I mean, when you hear that story, do you hear gender bias in it? I’m curious.

MICHELLE DUGUID: I absolutely … I agree with you. I think the recognition that it could be going all the way back to Katie’s point, you’re like, “this is clearly a you issue and not a me issue,” so I do think sometimes it’s helpful.

KATIE COFFMAN: I mean, there is a flip side of that, which is if you sort of walk around hyper-aware of the possibility of bias and hear bias in everything, I think you’re going to one, be a lot less happy, and two, you may miss some stuff that actually is constructive and would be helpful for you to hear.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

KATIE COFFMAN: And so, there’s a fine line there, right? You want to recognize the possibility of bias, but I think be asking yourself, be willing, be open to the possibility that hey, not everything’s biased.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

KATIE COFFMAN: And sometimes there’s something that’s actually useful in there.

AMY GALLO : Right.

KATIE COFFMAN: And I should be open to that.

AMY GALLO: Right. Do I assume positive intent, not out of generosity to the other person, but because it makes me more open and curious and potentially collaborative, which is what I want, right? Or do I see everything as potentially harmful, which is not like we know from a psychological perspective is not a great place to be. Like you said, it’s not fun for your own brain, but it’s also not conducive to collaborating and connecting with other people.

KATIE COFFMAN: So, I teach negotiation and we always talk about looking for opportunities to grow the pie and create value, and we give them a chance to demonstrate this even through playing something like the classic prisoner’s dilemma, right? Where, in a repeated prisoner’s dilemma, if you’re always sort of out to protect yourself from the other person potentially stabbing you in the back, then there’s never any value to be created, right? You never get to that path of cooperation and working together effectively. And so, that idea of being open to the possibility of good intentions, at least initially creates the environment where actually we can collaborate successfully and we can grow and we can learn and we can create value. And then once you get to that place where we’ve had that sustained cooperation, for lack of a better word like we have a good relationship, we’ve built that rapport, that trust, then I think you’re also better positioned to withstand the comment that comes out wrong where, right? Where hey, someone says something, but it’s like, I’ve known you, I’ve sort of seen those good intentions for a long time, and so I know we can get past this, and that I think plays a role in how you respond too, which I know we’re going to get to.

AMY GALLO: Well, exactly that sustained cooperation or existing relationship will also determine whether we respond. Like in my email situation, I deleted that email twice because I had no interest in a relationship with this person. But Michelle, I’m thinking about the person in the room who stole your idea, or didn’t steal it, but accredited it to someone else is that then I’m curious, what are the filters we put a decision through when we decide to respond to something that we think is bias, and what are the filters we use to decide whether to name it as bias?

MICHELLE DUGUID: I will probably never use the word bias. I don’t want to shut someone down that I think is just being clueless or hoping that they can grow from it and learn from it and not do it to me again, but also not do it to anyone else. And by jumping on the table and saying in the middle of a meeting, “That was bias,” it’s probably not … Like I said, I try to keep it in mind what is my goal here? My goal is to shame the person, embarrass them, maybe I go that route, but since this is a colleague who I have had interactions with, in that moment being a little out to lunch or this is unconscious bias, I tend to approach it in a more humorous way. Like I said, often I’ll try to … If someone says something that I had said earlier, I’ll be like, “Oh, oh, I think that was me.” And the person who … They’ll be like, “Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It was Michelle.” And if they apologize, “Oh yeah, no worries. That’s fine.” But some recognition. So, I’ve called it out on my own, and when I’ve seen it with other women, I have also called it out. I would say, “Oh, I thought Katie actually said that earlier. I thought it was a great idea and I’m so glad that Bill built upon it because I too thought that that was definitely the way we should go.” Those are some of the ways that I’ve tried to call them out for myself or call them out for other people.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. In those cases, you’re not naming the bias, you’re just sort of trying to correct the bias. Is that right?

MICHELLE DUGUID: Yeah. These particular people that I’m saying this to, they get that there’s unconscious bias and often it turns up in ways like this.

AMY GALLO: Right, so you don’t feel a strong need to educate as much as sort of point out the mistake.

MICHELLE DUGUID: Yeah, and if it is that they need a little bit more, I will pull someone aside and say, “It’s kind of a help me, help you moment. You may not have realized you did this, or you may not have realized that, but X, Y, and Z, and maybe you may need to go apologize.” Your intention actually doesn’t matter. I’m sure they’ll be like, and I know they’re like, “I didn’t mean to do that.” But I’m like, “That doesn’t matter. Someone was upset, and what you’re apologizing for is not intention, you’re apologizing for making someone upset.”

AMY GALLO: Yeah, yeah.

KATIE COFFMAN: There can also be… and it’s going to depend a bit on the situation whether this works, right? But connecting from that place of, “Hey, I’ve stepped in it too before.” Right? Which is taking some responsibility or ownership of the times where maybe you’ve been biased or displayed a similar bias or, “Hey, I actually … I had a similar conversation and the person had shared with me that actually it came across like this and so I just wanted to come to you and just because I learned so much from it, share with you that sometimes this language comes across in a way that we really don’t intend.” Right? And to that same point putting us on the same team of like we have the same goals, which is to not be biased. We have the same obstacles in getting to those goals, right? And I think that works with the vast majority of colleagues that are not sort of ill-intentioned repeat offenders, but are instead someone who every so often just needs a little tap on the shoulder. And I need that too, right? And remembering that and framing it that way, I think can be disarming as well.

AMY GALLO: I did want to ask about a few scenarios that we’ve gotten from listeners or people in our world. In particular, there was a woman at an event I recently did who asked a question about how she’s been getting some feedback through her career, so it happened multiple times on different freelance projects that her emails were too blunt or short, and that people find them rude and therefore, find her rude. And she said that she got one of those pieces of feedback and then someone who was working with her, a man said, “If you were a man, you would’ve never gotten that feedback.” And she’s now sort of struggling with as a woman in middle management, she has to send lots of emails. Sometimes those emails aren’t news people necessarily want to hear. Sometimes they’re decisions that might not make people happy. How does she decide whether yeah, she actually does need to change the way she writes emails or just decide, you know what, this is someone else’s issue or this is the way we perceive women and I’m just going to continue to write emails the way I write emails?

KATIE COFFMAN: Yeah. It comes back to, what’s your objective? It may very well be – without knowing this person or ever seeing the emails – that indeed her emails are kind of short and to the point. And it’s not that, oh, are my emails actually short or not short, but instead that men can succeed without being warm. But with women… that warmth is sort of required in a way that it’s not for men. And so, you’d love to change the system. If the system is really biased and the society is biased, you’d love to change it. But for now, we’re going to think about navigating the system as best we can. And so if a pre-req for you getting ahead in your career is that these email recipients are really happy with your emails, that coming from what I myself would do, I’d say, I’m going to swallow it and I’m going to add an extra greeting and hope your day is going well at the end of the email and I’m going to get that next promotion because my emails are a little bit warmer. That does not mean that that’s how things should work. That would be I am going to do the best I can given the environment I’m in. To the extent that actually their enjoyment of your emails does not factor into your career success, then I think if you’re someone, more power to you if you are, who could just let go of that negative feedback and say, “all right, so whatever they think, I’m a little rude.” That’s a perfectly acceptable response in my mind as well.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, I mean I think back to what you were saying earlier, Katie, about one of the first steps is to ask, is there truth to this? Is there something I want to change? And I think that’s what she was really struggling with is that she was like, I don’t really feel like there’s truth to this, but I’ve gotten that feedback repeatedly. So I do have to do some self-reflection. Michelle, what do you think about her situation?

MICHELLE DUGUID: To me, if this is happening again and again, and it’s different context, it’s different people, that’s data. Then maybe some self-reflection, open-mindedness, taking a step back. I tell women all time who ask me about these things all I can do is give you the data and the facts, and you make your own choices about the strategies you want. If you want to fight the good fight, more power to you, I would not dissuade you. But I need to give you the data on what those outcomes could be. There’s so much data to show, so many studies that we can reference. Everyone doing the exact same thing, man, woman… and women may get backlash for doing exactly the same in the same way. And with that information given your goals, then you make decisions about what’s best for you. Are you going to fight the good fight or are you going to soften the emails? Like Katie said, “good morning.” And I think all leaders, we go back and forth whether we want to turn up as authoritative or we want to turn up as approachable. But going into it with that knowledge that that’s the decision making versus falling into it. But I would say to her, she should be open because if it’s across multiple contexts, multiple people, multiple workplaces… as researchers, if there are trends, maybe going back and doing some analysis of that. I’d print off a couple emails, take my email address off and say, “what would you say if you got this from a guy?” Would people say, “what a jerk, that’s rude”? Because I’ve got in some curt emails from guys and noted it. If it is that she needs to adjust, then that’ll give her information. And if it is that there’s unconscious bias, then also it gives her information.

AMY GALLO: I like the, she’s just going to conduct a short experiment. But, I do think while she may not have the time or space to do that… but I think what you’re asking is to really look at the data and really ask yourself what might be at play here? And I go back to what we were saying earlier of, it’s helpful to have that lens and to consider it, but not ruminate to the point where you are paralyzed every time you have to send an email. I like the frame of, well, what’s your goal? What are you actually trying to achieve? And I think there’s probably also another question of what is actually achievable in the change. Is pointing out to one person who gives her this feedback that this is maybe informed by bias is that going to change the fact that she’s going to not whether or not she continues to get this feedback in the future?

KATIE COFFMAN: Yeah. In situations like that too where you might really feel compelled that you want to do something to push back on the bias, but it’s an instant like this where sort of saying one thing to one person feels very unlikely to change things. You can use that energy and try and go about things in a different way. Which is like, okay, I can’t say anything about the email thing now or that’s not going to be helpful, but I’m going to start working with an employee resource group. Or, I’m going to take my female junior colleagues out to lunch once a month and spend some extra face time with them and try more to help them get ahead. I don’t know what the right example is in the different industries, but you can push back on bias without it taking the form of I call out every time I see something that someone said to me that seems potentially biased.

AMY GALLO: So, we’ve been talking about situations where you actually received the negative feedback or there’s credit stealing or there’s something active happening toward you. But I want to ask you about a situation we heard from someone who contributed to one of our newsletters where it was sort of this absence of information and she was sort of left to wonder what was going on. So, this was a contributor to our regular series, How’d You Get That Raise? She was someone who was contributing 90% of the business for her group. So an outsized amount or ratio of the business was coming from her work, and yet her male manager was still giving her meets expectations ratings. Which just sort of left her to wonder why. And when she kept asking, he was never giving her an explanation. He would just sort of ignore the requests. And then finally, when really pressed, he dismissed her contributions as sort of lucky. She got lucky with these orders that had contributed to the team’s targets. And so, when there’s sort of that vacuum of information, it is very tempting to fill it with this must be gender bias, especially if you’re only one of a few women on a team. How do we make sense when there’s not information and how do we either resist temptation or not resist temptation to make up that story that bias is really a factor here?

KATIE COFFMAN: In my head there’s almost more similarity across these scenarios than there are differences. And at the heart of all of these instances as this nagging ambiguity. Here the ambiguity is coming from just not knowing. Not knowing why your manager’s choosing these ratings. Not knowing what expectations are. What would it take to get the higher rating? But even in our earlier examples, what makes them hard is the ambiguity. Which is, it something I’m actually doing wrong? Was it me sort of explaining my idea less clearly than the next person? It’s that theme of you can always come up for a reason why it wasn’t bias. And that’s what leads to these, I think, challenges in interpretation.

But it also points to a solution, at least one that you can use in this environment maybe going forward. Which is, what can you do to actually reduce the amount of ambiguity? And so, I would want to have, to the extent possible, proactive conversations with my manager about, “you tell me if a quarter from now when we’re sitting down to have this meeting what would a stellar quarter look like to you? What would I have to hit?” And look, there may be reluctance there to express something, but to the extent that you can get someone to voice, here’s what I’m looking for, sort of, okay, we’re going to write this down, I’m going to have this in my head and I’m going to come back a quarter from now and say, “hey, we talked about this at our last meeting, and I want to sort of tell you where I am on each of these pieces.” That’s going to position them, even if you don’t de-bias his true assessment of you in terms of how he sees you, it’s at least going to make it a lot harder for him to say you didn’t do a great job. Because he will have that evidence in front of him and have a very hard time denying that you’ve actually exceeded the sort of goals that you’ve laid out together.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I’ve heard people talk about one of the really hard parts about microaggressions or subtle biases is that question of, wait, what’s happening here? Sort of overt bias. If someone’s saying, I didn’t give you exceeds expectations because you’re a woman. As infuriating or frustrating and truly awful that is, you know what you’re dealing with. You’re not left to do the sort of rumination and processing. So ,I like your advice, Katie, of how do we actually reduce the ambiguity so it’s clear between us what we’ve agreed success looks like, so I don’t have to wonder what’s actually playing into this.

MICHELLE DUGUID: Yeah, really figuring out exactly what would be above “meets expectations,” like surpass expectations, whatever that rating is, it may even matter for her more to get that clarity.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. And you’re referring to the research around we often reward women for proven experience or successes, whereas we often reward men for their potential to achieve those successes.

MICHELLE DUGUID: Yeah. So, it’ll be important for her, absolutely, for people for that promotion, they’re probably going to look at that past performance more potentially than her male counterparts.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. When I even think about being looked over for a promotion or being passed over for a promotion and a woman wondering, did I not get that because I’m a woman? Because men tend to get rewarded for the potential, not their… And then I think the next step, and again, reducing the ambiguity is asking, what do I have to do to get this promotion? What are the specific things? Again, it’s a lot of extra work to do, but if we’re going to try to not let that ambiguity really play such a big role and negatively impact our career, these are sort of the extra steps that we need to take. One of the other examples that comes to mind from my own experience, which is that I was once speaking at a conference where I found out a male speaker with a similar background to me was making a lot more, was getting a lot paid a lot more. And I thought about it for a long time of, do I mention this to the organizers? And what I sort of ended up deciding to do was to invoke fairness in my future negotiations. So, when the issue of payment came up in future situations, I would say, “what I care most about is being paid fairly and often that means being paid the same as male speakers with similar backgrounds.” So, rather than saying, “you’re biased, you’re probably going to pay me less than what…” but just making clear this is something where I hope we’re all thinking about. Sort of appealing to our better selves of we all care about that women get paid fairly for the work they do. And I think that, for me, it helped reduce the ambiguity because I didn’t have to wonder… I mean I still of course sometimes wondered, but at least it was out there of, “this is something I’m concerned about, this is something I want to make sure we address in this negotiation, and therefore, let’s just all have that in mind.”

KATIE COFFMAN: And it is a lot of extra work when you think about, oh, I have to now lay out clearer expectations and try and reduce ambiguity. I don’t think we can let the moment go by without saying everyone can do that work. I am guessing many of your listeners are in a position to actually do some of this ambiguity reduction for people that they manage and for people they mentor. And so, the reason why I think this can be so helpful is that when you are a well-intentioned person, reducing ambiguity, cutting out some of that wiggle room for yourself also makes it less likely that you fall victim to those implicit biases. So using your example you just gave us, if I have the rule that I am going to pay all my speakers equally, I don’t have to worry about being implicitly biased when I assign conference payments because I already have a clear rule that I’ve laid out and it’s one that I can communicate to you and all my speakers and even other conference organizers I bump into and I can tell them how great this works. So, we don’t have to put all of this work on the women trying to navigate this system. We can all take it on.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I will say the reception to my statement of, “I just care about being paid fairly, which often means being paid the same as male speakers,” it’s often women who I’m talking with and they’re like, “Oh, we care about that too.” And I then have to trust that that’s what’s happening, but it feels relieving to put it out there. The reception has been nothing but positive from the people on the receiving end of it, because I’m not accusing them of anything. I’m just saying, “This is something we all care about, right?”

MICHELLE DUGUID: Yep.

AMY GALLO: There is something about saying “I care about fairness” or “I feel like these decisions are informed by bias” that elevates everyone’s awareness.

KATIE COFFMAN: I love this ideal of appealing to fairness. There are lots of different paths to making an impact, and for some people being that vocal advocate for fairness and expressing those values or once you’ve gotten to that place where you do have the seniority within your group, your field, to be able to call things out without as much risk of repercussion. But there are other ways too, and I would imagine for some of us it just doesn’t feel like you’ll ever be the type of person who is super eager to call this behavior out. And I guess I just want to say that’s okay, that’s not on you, and if you can navigate and get to a place where you have more power and control, that’s going to be impactful too reaching that level in your career where you have more influence to set the culture you want to set and hire the people you want to hire.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Michelle, you look like you’re having a big thought there.

MICHELLE DUGUID: Yeah. One of the things we know about power is, when people have power, sometimes their memories are short. Sometimes they forget about the struggles. Humans, we’re perfectly imperfect. All of a sudden, it’s like, Yeah, I made it up there through all the biases, and sometimes our lens changes. And there’s so much data to show that you give people power, you give people status. Sometimes that does impact their perceptions and memory. So, I think that’s important to keep in mind. I like the idea of having structures in place to save us from ourselves.

AMY GALLO: Right, all of these cognitive biases we’re prone to. One of our listeners who actually works in engineering, she’s mid-career, she emailed us a few years ago, and this has really stuck with me this letter. She feels like she has to do much more than her male counterparts to get the promotions, to get the recognition. She tells herself it could have nothing to do with gender, but her gut is telling her it has a lot to do with gender and it’s completely exhausting. And so she’s asking, “How do I think about this in a way where I feel less like I’m imagining things and I can trust my gut and less like I am using sexism as an excuse?” Part of the reason this stuck with me so much is I worry about when we tell people to assume positive intent or when we encourage people to focus on, what’s your goal, I worry that there’s a little bit of self-gas-lighting that happens of, oh, let’s just ignore the gender bias because it’s too hard to consider or it’s too big or too ambiguous. Any thoughts about how to trust our gut about what we’re experiencing without trying to dismiss the reality of the situation?

MICHELLE DUGUID: I mean, sometimes we don’t even understand ourselves. We don’t know ourselves nearly as well as we think we do, so interpreting others’ behaviors and trying to make decisions off of what we think they’re going to do or what they really intended or what they absolutely meant, sometimes they don’t even know. So, I think we focus on goals. We test our assumptions, whether that’s with other people or we look at previous behaviors, and hopefully make informed decisions from that. But no one should think that it’s all in their head all the time. There’s so much research that shows that there is sexism, there is racism, there’s unconscious bias, of course, but what you choose to do with that, there’s some choices that you have power over at least.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Great. Thank you so much for digging into this with me. I hope our listeners take away as much as I have, so thank you.

KATIE COFFMAN: Thank you. Great meeting you.

MICHELLE DUGUID: Yeah, same.

AMY BERNSTEIN: All right, so, Amy, you came to this conversation genuinely baffled about whether it’s important to be able to recognize sexism and how to deal with it once you do. Did the conversation help you work that out?

AMY GALLO: I do feel like it was a little more clarifying, and I did feel like there’s no right answer, which is part of the clarification. There’s no right answer. It is important to consider the role bias might be playing, use that as a filter, but not let that be the thing that eats away at you while you try to figure out what you want to do about the situation. I have to say, Amy, I went into the interview thinking, I want to make Amy B. proud. I know she’s a little skeptical about it, about this question. What did you think listening to? Was it at all clarified for you?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, yes. I was skeptical, and you don’t have to try to make me proud, but I came away from your conversation feeling as if I had oversimplified when I asked you, “what difference does it make if it’s bias or stupidity?” I still don’t know if we’re talking about a distinction without a difference, but I walked away with a couple of insights thanks to you that will help me in the future. One of them is that ruminating is such a dangerous, corrosive activity. You really need to stay away from it. You say you spent many nights ruminating on that situation that you described.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, the email.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And I know I can perseverate. You’ve got to guard against that because it doesn’t get you anywhere, and that ultimately was what I took away from the conversation, which is, you have to always ask what the goal is. What is the goal in investigating whether someone’s actions are shaped by bias? What is the goal in a communication if you believe you’re picking up on bias? And so I think that ultimately that conversation is really, really helpful.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Well, and I think that point about rumination came out of your comment in our Ask The Amys episode of, “don’t let that be the loudest voice in your head,” which I think what Michelle and Katie and I talked about was that, that closes you off to a solution in a way. If you’re sitting here going, This is bias, this is bias, this is bias, and it’s all you can see, which to be fair, it might be bias, but that doesn’t put you in a good position to be proactive. To come up with a solution, or to feel very good. You’re just in this constant defensive mode.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And the other thing, I think it was Katie who said you have to be able to separate the signal from the noise. And as you noted in the conversation, it’s hard to tease apart what motivates someone’s behavior. And you’re not inside their head, you don’t know, but you don’t want to miss some important feedback. If there’s a signal in there you ought to be listening to, you don’t want to miss it. Equally, you don’t want to believe every bad thing that you think people are thinking about you.

AMY GALLO: Right.

AMY BERNSTEIN: But that’s part of self-regulation. You have to know how to take in the feedback without letting it destroy you.

AMY GALLO: Right. And to accept, huh, that might be influenced by bias. What do I need to do?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Exactly.

AMY GALLO: If it’s influenced by bias, can I dismiss it? Do I need to pay attention to some of it? To be successful in this environment, do I need to actually take it to heart because this is the situation in which I’m working in? I think I wanted out of the conversation to be fair of, here’s the way to think about it. Think about it yes in this situation, no in this situation. I wanted a decision tree, which in retrospect was very idealistic of me to think that anything to do with gender bias would have a clear decision tree. But I did feel like I do have those points now where I can say, okay, am I ruminating about this? What’s my goal? Do I need to tap into someone else to say, are you seeing this the same way? I think there were a lot of good tips about how to process and deal with this in each circumstance, because it’s not going to be the same.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I wish you had phoned me when you got that ridiculous email.

AMY GALLO: Oh my gosh.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, wow.

AMY GALLO: You don’t care about human connection.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. Yeah.

AMY GALLO: But you can see why that sent me for a loop.

AMY BERNSTEIN: My God. It challenged your self-perception, your self-conception, I guess.

AMY GALLO: Exactly. And I really was like, “No, I pride myself on this.” And it’s funny because I think immediately I thought, my initial reaction when I deleted it was, “You are wrong.” And then I did a little bit of the exercise of, wait, is there some truth to that? But that’s something–

AMY BERNSTEIN: There’s no truth to it.

AMY GALLO: Thank you. Thank you. But I’m glad I did the exercise. I wish I had not lost those three nights of sleep.

AMY BERNSTEIN: If you had called me, I would’ve said, the response you should type out right now is, “I don’t care about this human connection.” Send.

AMY GALLO: That’s our show and the end of season nine. I’m Amy Gallo.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m Amy Bernstein. We’ll be back in March with The Essentials. We’ll cover four more skills, building trust, handling criticism, setting and maintaining boundaries, and having executive presence.

AMY GALLO: And then, for June, we’re planning another four episodes of our series, How to Manage, this time geared toward women in middle management.

AMY BERNSTEIN: HBR has more podcasts to help you manage yourself, your team, and your organization. Find them at hbr.org/podcasts, or search “HBR” in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

AMY GALLO: Women At Work’s editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoch, Tina Tobey Mack, Rob Eckhardt, Erica Truxler, Ian Fox, and Hannah Bates. Robin Moore composed this theme music.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Thanks for listening. Our inbox is always open, womenatwork@hbr.org.

AMY GALLO: And you can get Women at Work in your inbox every month through our free newsletter. Sign up by going to hbr.org/email-newsletters. Every month, we send you a mix of resources, practical advice, and personal stories to lift you up and move you forward.