Jenny S-T

I'm reading a good article at work from the Harvard Business Review, and a few bits stood out to me.

More than 25 years ago the social psychologist Faye Crosby stumbled on a surprising phenomenon: Most women are unaware of having personally been victims of gender discrimination and deny it even when it is objectively true and they see that women in general experience it.

I've seen this happen and felt horribly betrayed by women who said they'd never suffered from sexism, but the article explains how this is often because they don't want to admit to something that they feel they can't fight.

How work is valued may similarly give men an advantage: Research indicates that organizations tend to ignore or undervalue behind-the-scenes work (building a team, avoiding a crisis), which women are more likely to do, while rewarding heroic work, which is most often done by men. These practices were not designed to be discriminatory, but their cumulative effect disadvantages women.

I've definitely seen this happen - it's very hard to shout about how I've prevented a crisis when others are shouting about how they solved all the crises (that they created).

These kinds of subtle biases are something we need to talk more about with mixed groups.