Source: Taha Mazandarani / Unsplash
As we take stock of the year and look forward to 2025, I want to share some key points on the challenges women face that were shared in this blog over the past 12 months, as well as some questions to help you plan to act with purpose in 2025.
Second-Generation Gender Bias
Many of the barriers women face at work are a result of norms that were formed in the past when women were not as well represented in the workplace. Second-generation gender bias1-2 is likely at play when “practices that appear gender-neutral may disadvantage women in invisible and unintentional ways.”3 This includes meetings being held early in the morning or late in the evening, gendered career paths, and a lack of access to networks and sponsors.4
“This bias erects powerful but subtle and often invisible barriers for women that arise from cultural assumptions and organizational structures, practices, and patterns of interaction that inadvertently benefit men while putting women at a disadvantage.” For example, female leaders are often put in a double bind due to the mismatch between conventionally feminine qualities (e.g., being warm) and the qualities thought necessary for leadership (e.g., assertiveness). If they excel in male-dominated areas, they are perceived as less likable, but if they “enact a conventionally feminine style, (they) may be liked but are not respected.”4
- What were your experiences with second-generation gender bias in 2024?
- How did these experiences impact your career advancement?
- What will you do to act with intentionality around this in 2025?
Hermeneutic Labor
Women in heterosexual relationships tend to be responsible for a deeper type of emotional labor in which they are tasked with:
- Interpreting their own feelings
- Interpreting the feelings of others
- Combining those feelings and presenting them in a neat and tidy package5
Men may be told from a young age not to talk about or show their emotions, especially if their emotional expression would involve crying. These social norms may reverberate throughout their adult relationships.
This leaves women with the expectation that they need to act as “informal therapists for men partners and for the relationship,” which can result in them feeling disempowered and dissatisfied. This can cause women in such relationships to ruminate and become preoccupied with relationship maintenance, which can lead to mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression.6
- What was your experience with hermeneutic labor in 2024?
- How much time and thought did you put into identifying your own emotions, your partner’s emotions, and interpreting how those emotions were impacting your relationship?
- How did these experiences impact your relationships?
- What will you do to act with intentionality around this in 2025?
- What can you do so that you can have more open conversations with your partner?
Imposter Phenomenon
In 1978, Clance and Imes identified feelings of imposterism in a sample of high-achieving women: “Despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the imposter phenomenon persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.” If someone is doubting their competence or feeling undeserving of their accomplishments, the researchers encouraged those individuals to keep a record of positive feedback they receive about their competence and identify how they keep themselves from accepting this feedback.7
In examining the imposter phenomenon, Reshma Saujani, in her 2023 commencement address at Smith College,8 made an argument that it was not the fault of the individual experiencing it but the systems in which they work: “It’s normal to feel like you don’t fit in when you don’t fit it.”
The societies in which we live have been structured and restructured over time in ways that result in many women feeling like they are less than or imposters. Saujani described how the gender pay gap has moved little in two decades, and yet women are told that they need to negotiate individually for raises, the idea being that women must negotiate one-by-one to obtain fair pay, instead of fixing an inequitable system.
- What were your experiences with the imposter phenomenon in 2024?
- Which of these experiences can be explained by systemic inequity?
- What will you do to act with intentionality around this in 2025?
