New Study Claims Women Responsible for Glass Ceiling – What?

by Kolbe Franklin, Program Associate, 
National Women’s Law Center 

A headline yesterday morning caught my eye and made me pause – it read, “Study: Women create own glass ceiling.” Instantly wary, I clicked on the link hoping that the headline was possibly misleading. Or perhaps the author meant to write that a study revealed successful strategies for combating the glass ceiling?

Unfortunately, my initial instincts were correct.

Apparently a survey of 251 female and male managers revealed that female managers are three times more likely to underestimate their bosses’ evaluation of their job performance than male managers. And men were more likely to overestimate their bosses’ opinions of their work. Based on these points the study claims that women are responsible for their own glass ceiling. Seriously.

This analysis misses the point entirely. At no point does the article report that the study questions precisely why women seem to underestimate their performance ratings, or if the poor self-evaluations could actually be a result of the glass ceiling, rather than the cause.

Instead of blaming women for their apparent lack of workplace confidence, the better approach would be to investigate why women lack self-confidence in the workplace in the first place. Perhaps it could be the absence of role models at the highest executive levels, considering only 2.6 percent of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are female. Another recent study could shed light on the reasons women underestimate their workplace performance – that study showed that employers consider fathers to be “more competent and committed” than their childless counterparts but mothers are 100 percent less likely to be hired, offered $11,000 less in pay, and ranked as “less competent and less committed” than non-mothers. Not to mention that other workplace barriers such as pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment, and pay discrimination could lead to decreased self confidence.

To be sure, the results from this study – that women under-estimate their performance – should raise some red flags for employers, but it makes no sense to blame women for the glass ceiling.

Comments

[Engel Kobres]

If I have read this correctly this study dose not measure a woman’s confidence in her own professional abilities. It measures her confidence in her supervisor’s ability to recognize her professional worth. That is not the same thing as professional confidence and it is unsurprising that the numbers are lower. Moreover, if an individual in management overestimates their value to their employer this is not necessarily a strength. Accurate self evaluation is key in management. A manager who overestimates his or her abilities grossly is a major liability to the team. Most men probably only overestimated slightly. Many women probably underestimated slightly. Humility is an important leadership skill. It is questionable as to whether this doesn’t reflect more highly on the women. The methodology of this study is ridiculous and the conclusion is erroneous.