Do Women who Succeed in Male-Dominated Domains Help Other Women? The Moderating Role of Gender Identification

Women with weak gender identification (women for whom being a woman was less central to their identity) were more likely to hinder the advancement of other women in male-dominated fields by giving preferential treatment to male subordinates.

• Study 1: Women with weak scores on measures of gender identification were most likely to give preferential treatment to male versus female subordinates. These outcomes were particularly strong in experimental contexts where women were relatively more underrepresented.
  • In contrast, in gender neutral settings (those in which women were not underrepresented), gender identification did not predict favoritism towards male or female subordinates.
• Study 2: After advancing in the experiment to “manager”, women with weak scores on measures of gender identification were most likely to give preferential treatment to male versus female subordinates.
  • Women’s gender identification did not predict preferential treatment to male versus female subordinates in contexts where the experiment did not include participants advancing to “manager”.
  • Women’s gender identification also did not predict preferential treatment to male versus female subordinates in gender neutral settings (those in which women were not underrepresented).

An important implication of this study for organizations is the recognition that it is not enough to merely bring more women into organizations. Rather, more must be done to reduce overt and covert biases that women may experience in those organizations.

In the first study, there were 42 participants, all of whom were female undergraduate students. Several weeks prior to the lab experiment, participants completed and were scored on a gender identification assessment. Participants were told they were completing a study about work groups and leadership with two other participants. After completing the study, all participants (regardless of score) were told that they scored high enough on an aptitude test to be promoted to team manager for the remainder of the experiment. Participants were made aware that 90 percent of experiment participants promoted to manager in the past were men. This was done to simulate the underrepresentation of women promoted to manager in workplaces. As managers, participants were then tasked with assigning clues—ranging from not helpful to very helpful—to female or male subordinates to help them advance to assistant manager. Additionally, participants were asked to report their preferences for working with female or male subordinates.

In the second study, there were 95 participants, all of whom were white, female undergraduate students. Fifty participants were placed in the experimental group and 45 were placed in the control group, in which no participants were advanced to manager. Additionally, in the control group, the underrepresentation of women was not signaled to participants. All other experimental conditions were similar to study 1.

In both studies, the measure used for observing kicking versus lifting behaviors was the difference in the mean score of how helpful the clues were for female versus male candidates.