Common biases that women suffer in the workplace
I was born in a remote village in North-Eastern Romania that is currently becoming home to hundreds of Ukrainians escaping war. I was born to two women if I were to say so: my grandmother, and my mom. Two women taught me everything and their teachings shaped me into the independent, self-taught, self-sufficient woman that I am today.
Any of them had heard the words: gender bias, pay-gap, childcare penalty, etc. They took whatever came their way, and did their best to take care, and provide for their families. My mother came to Spain in the early 2000s to work in one of the many fruit-packing houses in Catalonia to provide us with a better life.
And here I am, decades after writing a story about a generation of women that is able to stand up for their rights, and voice whatever is not working well for us because we want to contribute to a better generational change.
Because I believe that the first step to #breakthebias is to point them out. We owe it to our grandmothers, mothers, friends, and colleagues, and most importantly, to the future generation of girls, and boys.
Awareness is the first step to change
Some of these behaviors are so ingrained in our society that many of us, women included, didn’t even realize that we were suffering it. Only when we came together to discuss it did we realize that many were not intentional.
Either way, I wanted to point them out, raise awareness, and ensure that these behaviors do not perpetuate themselves.
Are you sure that you have your biases in check?
Read along and find out if as a male manager you’ve never done anything from the below list where we are sharing some of the biases, that as women, some of us in a very male-dominated industry, felt throughout our careers, and maybe raise your awareness about it, and help shift your behavior towards a less biased one.
Bias 1: Age really matters when it comes to women — and talent is lost on the way
“Some years ago meanwhile I was going through the recruitment process, 2 companies in my tech interviews the guys asked for my age… It was super weird because I was feeling that they asked me to see if I was the age to be a mother or not. The first time I experienced that was a surprise so I answered my age, I said that my age was not relevant information. Finally, I decided not to join those companies even though I had an offer.”
During a recruitment process, I made it to the last interviews. In this one, one of the founders of the company asked me if I had children or if I wanted to have children (by age, something important to him, I guess).
Bias 2: It’s (still) a man’s world — Men (are) assume(d) to be more capable than women at their workplace*.
One day on my first job as a developer I had to go to an important meeting with other leads (all men) because my manager was off. In that meeting I presented an idea and other lead guy said ‘It’s stupid’. After a few minutes, when another lead (guy) shared the same idea, everyone thought it was a great one. I felt like my opinions as a woman didn’t matter.
I was working on a team with around 8 developers and I was the only woman. During the meetings, everytime I had an idea they would ignore it until one of them repeated the same idea that was immediately accepted as valid.
I had been at the company for almost two years, and I had never brought the salary increase, neither the promotion topic before. It took me a long time to ask for it, and I had collected throughout the previous months feedbacks that I got from senior colleagues, and projects I had played a major role only to be told straightaway in the same meeting where I was making a case for it, that I was not going to be considered for promotion, as I was not meeting the expectations without even going through all the prepared doc I did. My manager asked me: “The next level is my level: do you think you are at my level?” Obviously, I was left without words. But this didn’t stop there, as I was also told that I was too career-driven, and I was trying to move too fast in the career ladder. Obviously, I disagreed, with tears in my eyes — I am a big time crier!- and I mentioned that I was not being assessed against a competency framework, but it was his opinion against my opinion.
At a company I was working for, I and another woman were the only women tech leads. We were working following the same rules as the others and giving great results but when we had performance reports, we could feel that our work was not as recognized, nor acknowledged. Also, if there were extra events like lunch outside or tickets for some events, we were not notified about that and we had to tell that we wanted to go too.
In one of my jobs, I had a colleague who, in many meetings, would often say to me “I don’t want to mansplain, but let me explain you…”. His default premise was that I didn’t understand it or that I was not capable of understanding it.
Study shows that women are commonly perceived to be less capable in “classically masculine” roles. They’re less likely to be given credit for good work, and they are held to higher standards of performance. There is a 58% drop-off in white women’s representation from entry-level to C-suite. If you’re a woman of color, it’s an 83% drop-off.
Bias number 3: Microagresssions are more common towards women.
In a previous workplace, I had a manager who was much older than me and he used to tell things to the team that would make them feel uncomfortable. He was causing a bad mood between the team and doubting every estimation we would give for the tasks. When I decided to politely talk about the problem, he said I was taking things personally. I heard the same several times, and I wonder if they would say that to a man or that we are simply perceived as being too sensitive.
These are some of the feedback we were able to gather after surveying several women working in Tech. The testimonials go hand in hand with the most common issues expressed in the McKinsey & Company report, and that’s why we need to act to reduce them.
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At ManoMano’s, we believe in creating a workplace where women can thrive, and we have several initiatives aimed at empowering them. For this reason, we have several initiatives such as The Ladder, and a Women Squad collaborating to support, and grow in the workplace. On #internationalwomensday, some of us came together to discuss the biases we faced throughout our career, and we decided to write an article to voice them.
Some information about ManoMano’s pledge related to Gender Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.
We are proud to say that we will be implementing several initiatives these upcoming months to empower women in the workplace such as #iamremarkable workshops, and before the end of May, 150 women within ManoMano will have had the opportunity to be trained for 40 days to develop their impact and visibility, and development.
ManoMano’s score for gender equality is 91/100 according to the French Law which enforces companies to share their index based on a survey. We are already very proud of this score (+3 pt vs last year) which is high above the French market (85) and high above many of our tech sector friends (Content square 84, Backmarket 85, Doctolib 86)
What we could do to improve?
- We already have the highest score in terms of equality of promotion, equality of annual increase distribution, and handling of salary raise for women on maternity leave. We need to keep it up!
- We still have to work on the pay gap between men and women which is something HR has already worked on last year (and is currently working on with the salary reviews) reducing the gap by 50% between 2020 & 2021.
- We’re losing points on the highest earners which are linked to a universal structural struggle: there are fewer women in leadership roles. We have that in mind (and at heart) so stay tuned!
To be able to make a change, we need to stand together, men and women to ensure that current and future generations are able to soar no matter their gender.
