There's no denying that men are at an advantage when it comes to career development compared to women. Women are less likely to get promoted across various industries. Researchers at Stanford University delved deeper into this and came across gender biased language in most performance reviews from various companies.
In a report posted by Business Insider, a team of researchers at Stanford University's Clayman Institute for Gender Research is now reviewing hundreds of performance reviews from four technology and professional-services companies. Although the study is still in progress, this could give light to factors affecting women's halting progress in her career.
With the initial findings from the analysis of 125 performance reviews from four unnamed companies, researchers suggest that evaluators use substantially different language to describe male and female employees.
Here is the list of initial findings reported by Business Insider according to researchers:
- Women's evaluations contain nearly twice as much language about their communal or nurturing style - e.g., "helpful" or "dedicated."
- Managers are nearly seven times more likely to tell their male employees that their communication style is too soft. Women, on the other hand, receive 2.5 times as much feedback related to their aggressive communication style.
- Men are more than three times more likely to hear feedback related to a general business outcome.
- Women's evaluations contain 2.39 times the amount of references to team accomplishments, as opposed to individual ones.
- Men hear nearly twice as many references to their technical expertise and their vision.
Surprisingly, the gender of the manager or the evaluator does not affect the language used. It didn't matter whether the one who administers the evaluation was male or female because bias still exists.
Director of Research at the Clayman Institute, Caroline Simard, said that, "language is powerful at shaping perceptions" thus, the difference of language used in performance reviews could be highly problematic.
Fortunately, the findings can still be managed. She also pointed out that participating companies approached the researchers and not the other way around. Companies wanted to find out if they are unintentionally stopping women's advancement. At least, these companies are open to admit that they have biases and are willing to work on it.
Ultimately, this unconscious use of gender biased languages can be eliminated or controlled. "We can't stop it," Simard said of gender biases. "But if we diagnose how it plays out, we can come up with solutions."
