Don't believe everything they tell you

Harvard recently conducted a study trying to understand if there were specific behaviors leading men to get promoted and women to get passed over (or stepped on, squashed, ripped off, or whatever else you want to call it) on the corporate ladder. 

And what did they find? Drumroll please...

Shocker! Women behave the same as men in the workplace and the reason they are getting passed over is not from refusing to "lean in." 

The article published by HBR said this of behaviors:

"...as we analyzed our data, we found almost no perceptible differences in the behavior of men and women. Women had the same number of contacts as men, they spent as much time with senior leadership, and they allocated their time similarly to men in the same role. We couldn’t see the types of projects they were working on, but we found that men and women had indistinguishable work patterns in the amount of time they spent online, in concentrated work, and in face-to-face conversation. And in performance evaluations men and women received statistically identical scores. This held true for women at each level of seniority. Yet women weren’t advancing and men were."

UGH right? These types of findings always feel both validating but also deeply frustrating. On the one hand, I want to make this quote from the article my headline on LinkedIn:

"Our analysis suggests that the difference in promotion rates between men and women in this company was due not to their behavior but to how they were treated. This indicates that arguments about changing women’s behavior — to “lean-in,” for example — might miss the bigger picture: Gender inequality is due to bias, not differences in behavior."

BUT on the other hand, I want to throw up my hands in frustration and walk away from the problem in general. (I recognize that even the option to walk away is a reflection of my privileged.) I decided that the best way forward for women at the moment though is for us to continue to stand together. We have to not be afraid to push back when we see other women getting passed over. We have to be fervent in our pursuit of helping women advance. I try to check myself daily on any critical things I say about other women and hold myself accountable for how I am helping them progress. 

I do think that there are things we can do to get promoted. All things being equal, society might always choose a man over a woman, but let's tip the scales in our direction for awhile. Let's be the best and the boss. 

STAY BOSSY!