| dc.description.abstract | Cardinal (a pseudonym) is a global membership-based executive networking organization for women with over 12,000 subscribers. Cardinal wanted to take a fresh approach to curating updated content and was strongly interested in developing content to help members deal with systemic gender bias. Their teams frequently heard that systemic gender bias was a career stopper for many women as they sought higher roles and wanted to arm their members with the best content to help them avoid career stagnation. Believing that systemic gender bias may be experienced differently across industries, we partnered to pulse-check their members and guide them on how to proceed.
The following questions guided the quality improvement project:
PRQ: What perceptions of systemic gender bias exist among women in leadership roles across different industries?
Sub- Q1: How might the industry of one's employment affect how these perceptions of gender bias show up in the workplace?
Sub- Q2: How does the employee experience systemic gender bias in their organizational roles?
We leveraged a previously validated survey tool, the Gender Bias Sale for Women Leaders (GBSWL) (Diehl et al., 2020), and performed a convergent mixed methods approach to analyze the data collected. Briefly, we found:
1: Women did not experience systemic gender bias differently, regardless of their employment industry.
2: Bias was experienced greatest across higher-order factors classified as devaluation, hostility, and insufficient support. Lower-order barriers most experienced by members include unequal standards, lack of sponsorship, and salary inequity.
3: We found that respondents experienced systemic gender bias differently based on job level.
4: There is a needed focus on intersectionality in all content, as called out by many respondents.
Connecting our findings to the literature, we recommend that Cardinal create content to aid members in recognizing and combatting devaluation, insufficient support, and unequal standards and not focus on specific industries. We recommend they develop additional programming for newer female leaders and address the intersectional biases experienced by women leaders. | |
