How Gender and Identity Create and Reinforce Inequalities
Author: Eric Goedereis, Ph.D.
Over the past few classes, we've discussed how stereotypes and stigma contribute to various inequalities. During today's class, we spent time discussing identity, first demonstrating those "top three aspects" of our respective identities, then working to unpack why those characteristics are so salient to us.
Not surprisingly, a room full of college students offered "student" and other, similar achievement-oriented descriptions of the most important parts of their own identities. This led to a discussion of why people pursue education in the first place, who has access to education, and of course, what happens when degree-seeking persons finally graduate and find jobs.
Most of the students were familiar with the concept of the "glass ceiling" and the gender wage gap. For example, worldwide, women earn roughly 23% less than men. In the European Union, this figure drops to a 16.2% difference; Greek women can expect to earn about 12.5% less than Greek men.
The circumstances for women in the United States are worse than those in Greece; American women earn approximately 20% less than American men. Importantly, states with higher levels of poverty and inequality show greater gender wage gaps. The best-case-scenario for a woman who (justifiably and reasonably!) expects to earn as much as her male counterpart would be for her to live in New York, where she would likely earn only 89% of the average man's salary. If you are curious about the gender wage gap in your own state, or if you simply want to explore how this phenomenon varies state-by-state, I encourage you to check out this interactive map.
While the data suggest that the U.S. has been nudging the gender wage gap closer towards equity over the years, recent trends are less promising. As depicted in the figure below, if these projections are accurate, American women and men should not expect to achieve pay equity until 2119.
Though they may have been frustrated by these data, most of my students seemed to find the findings to be fairly unsurprising. Several offered their own definitions and examples of how they have come to understand glass ceilings and wage gaps. However, my question as to whether they had heard of the "glass cliff" drew blank stares.
Ryan and Haslam's (2005) initial work on the "glass cliff" stimulated much subsequent research, with a recent review highlighting over a decade of studies examining "...the tendency for women to be more likely than men to be appointed to leadership positions that are risky and precarious” (Ryan et al., 2016, p. 446). To summarize, research on the glass cliff suggests that female leaders were more likely than men to be appointed to their positions (1) following corporate scandal, (2) during times of corporate turmoil and/or low performance, and (3) when facing higher risks of failure (Click here to see an abstract of the article; you can probably find the full text via most academic databases).
In 2015, lead author of the "glass cliff" research Michelle Ryan delivered a TEDTalk titled "Work-life balance: Balancing time or balancing identity?" You can view her talk below.
So, for my students (and anyone else who is interested), please respond to the following questions:
1. Drawing on information in the class reading (Ryan et al., 2016) and Dr. Ryan's TEDTalk above, why do glass ceilings (e.g., gender differences in job choice, wage gaps) and glass cliffs persist, despite the fact that women now exceed men in terms of overall educational attainment?
2. While the glass cliff phenomenon is a frustrating finding for those of us interested in equity, it is an unfortunate yet somewhat predictable outcome, given what we know about the psychology of inequality. How does this phenomenon relate to specific concepts we have covered in our course?
Despite the fact that women are now exceeding men in educational attainment, glass ceilings and glass cliffs still exist in part due to stereotypes from the past that women are less competent, men are the breadwinners, and women should be stay at home mothers. Men dominate many careers, including medical / surgical doctors, dentists, and more- not just high up CEO positions. For centuries, men have been seen as more stable (in part due to the myth that women are highly unstable and incapable during the menstrual cycle). These debunked ideas have unfortunately held true in the minds of some people throughout the generations, usually implicitly.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Dr. Ryan's TED talk, some women may feel that they have less time to dedicate their time to such time consuming jobs because they feel they need to care for their children. Ironically, this seems to be sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy that society has placed on women, the idea that they are inherently meant to be stay at home mothers. Also, womens' ambition tends to drop off shortly into their career, because they begin to notice that almost all of the people that have succeeded before them were male.
The phenomenon of the glass ceiling / glass cliff relates to some of the concepts we have discussed pertaining to the psychology of inequality because it is relative. In the same sense that "if we feel poor, we are poor," if we feel we are going to fail, we are going to fail. According to Dr. Ryan, if other people that are like you have succeeded in your field, you begin to feel that you are more likely to succeed. If you feel like there is no way you can succeed because everyone above you is male, or you get promoted to a position that is risky (glass cliff, setting you up to fail), you will feel like you are more likely to fail.
According to both Ryan's TEDTalk and article, there are several contributing factors as to why glass ceilings and cliffs persist, despite the educational achievements of women. In Dr. Ryan’s TEDTalk, she discusses why some women can place a glass ceiling on themselves due to personal feelings towards success. Ryan addresses the ideas of ambition and work-life balance, stating that women may be less ambitious than men and that they strive for greater work-life balance than males. Although these concepts have been documented in research, Dr. Ryan attempts to explain why some of these findings might be true. First, Ryan explains that although women’s ambition tends to drop over time, while male’s ambition remains high, this could be explained by the lack of representation women have in certain work forces. For example, as women work their way towards positions such as surgeons or police officers, they begin to see fewer women in positions of power, thus their perceptions of their ability to succeed within the field begin to drop, and therefore their ambition drops as well. Ryan argues that this concept also applies to the idea of work-life balance. Although many women are willing to make sacrifices for their careers, they become less willing to make sacrifices when they feel they feel their sacrifices will not be rewarded in the future and they do not see role models within the positions they are aiming for.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to personal beliefs about success in a certain field, Ryan et al, 2016, attempts to explain the glass cliff phenomenon in terms of outside forces. For example, selection bias is likely to play a key role in when women are chosen for leadership positions. Ryan et al, 2016 found that, when participants are given a hypothetical scenario in which a company is failing and given three candidates, two of which are equally qualified, expect that one is male and one is female and the third is a less qualified male, participants are more likely to choose the female candidate. Additionally, Ryan et al, 2016 argues that stereotypes and implicit bias also play a role in the glass cliff phenomenon. Due to gendered beliefs about men, women, and leadership, there is a large overlap in stereotypical masculine traits and stereotypical leadership traits. Thus, men tend to be viewed as more suitable for leadership positions, and when women do receive these positions, they are judged more harshly than men (Ryan, 2016). These biases and stereotypes are likely to effect the hiring process when it comes to women seeking leadership positions and can thus contribute to both the glass ceiling and the glass cliff.
1. Despite the recent gains in female participation in various employment opportunities the glass ceiling and glass cliff still exists due to the stereotypes that have formed because of the glass ceiling/cliff. Ryan et al. describes how women face harsh scrutiny in “glass cliff positions, because the co-occurrence of two…events – a crisis and the appointment of a female leader” (Ryan et al., 2016). These events allow observers to make a false correlation between the two circumstances: women are no good in high-level leadership positions, which is not true at all. The glass cliff creates this sort of cycle, setting women up for failure in risky positions, which then creates a false belief that women are incompetent, thus leading to less women breaking through the glass ceiling.
ReplyDelete2. The main link I found to our course material was in relation to relative status. The idea of relative status describes how you feel in relation to those around you. In class, we related this topic to wealth, so a poor individual could feel wealthy in comparison to those around them if they are doing better than the other individuals. In Michelle Ryan’s TEDTalk she states that good work-life balance is reported when individuals feel similar to those who were successful before you (this begins around 8:20 for anyone interested in hearing this particular part of the discussion). Ryan also states that individuals are more willing to make sacrifices and take chances when they have role models and similar people who have succeeded before them (i.e. men). Women are under-represented when it comes to higher-level positions, therefore they are less likely to make sacrifices for their career and feel a beneficial work-life balance, because their status in comparison to those around them is very low and quite different. Alternatively, men are highly represented in the workplace, which allows them to feel acceptable and develop a proper work-life balance within the context surrounding them.