Both, men and women alike are convinced they chose the most qualified person when looking for new staff, independently of its gender. In fact, both do not. The most striking example is the one of the five most renowned orchestras in the US. Most members of these orchestras where men and decision makers started wondering, if men are in fact the better musicians. In this case, there was a beautifully simple way of finding out. They started having auditions behind a curtain. The ratio of newly hired male and female musicians changed to 50/50 with immediate effect.
It was believed for quite a while that the reason for not hiring or promoting women is that men are in the positions of power and as people are inclined to choose someone who is similar to oneself, they chose men. It turns out that this is by far not the only reason.
The most famous scientific experiment on gender bias and it’s fatal consequences is the one of Heidi Roizen, an ambitious and successful entrepreneur from Silicon Valley. Her CV was given to students and they should say, according to certain criteria, whether they would like to work for this person or not. Half of the students got Heidi’s CV, the other half got the same CV, just saying it is Howard’s. It turned out – and the experiment has been repeated over and over again within the last ten years – that both, women and men, would rather work for Howard than Heidi. Researchers looked into the assessment of criteria to see why this was the case, and here is what they found: The students think that Heidi is unlikeable, while Howard is okay.
It’s the widespread idea that women are the nurturing and caring gender that is preventing women from having the same opportunities as men with fatal effect on their financial situation. Globally, women spend around 2.5 times more time on care and domestic work than men. Work that is unpaid, and time, that is not available to earn money.
Once they do work for money, social norms with its many deeply rooted practices, behaviours and beliefs lead to the fact that women earn less than men and do not get promotion. It starts with less emphasis placed on girls school education, continues with acquired modesty and ends with punishing ambitious women for breaking social norms by labelling them as unlikeable.
The result in numbers is appalling: Women earn only about 63 percent of men’s wages on average worldwide. And when it comes to earning a lot, women are certainly not involved: 95% of Fortune 500 CEOs are men.
While these facts are to a certain extent the result of unconscious behavior that conforms to social norms, in many countries, the inequality between women and men is even prescribed by law. In 18 countries, husbands can legally prevent their wives from working; in 39 countries, daughters and sons do not have equal inheritance rights (guess who’s better off); in 104 countries, women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men.
The reasons for this inequality are complex and the fact that they are often lived by both men and women are making it difficult to find the levers for improvement. The system is self-sustaining in that women learn as young girls that they are a valuable part of society when they fulfil their role as nurturer and carer. Money and power do not fit into this picture and are therefore much more likely to be viewed negatively by women than by men.
Typical beliefs of women include: People that have money have taken it from someone else; money can’t buy happiness; money corrupts my integrity; I am not worth it; it’s best for my kids if I don’t work; how can I earn a lot, when others earn so little? They lead to women being willing to work for salaries that men would never accept, or to seeing their fulfilment in helping others for free. As a result, they are dependent on others, mostly men.
I believe that women cannot wait for men, who are ruling the world until today, to change the situation. As much as we are convinced that raising children is the noblest of tasks. As much as we may feel moral superiority when we stay out of an economy that exploits people and out of politics that is run by egomaniacs. We have to get involved, because not playing the game means the game will be played without us. Unfortunately, either way, the rules of the game apply to us.
I prefer to have a say in the rules, even if that means I have to play the game first. Being independent by earning and investing money is the starting point.
