when I was first invited to come to
Johnson & Wales and talk about women in
leadership I was ecstatic I was excited
and I thought like yes cuz that’s what I
do a lot of the research that I do
either stems from women in leadership or
is research on women and currently in
leadership positions but my next
immediate thought was mmm I’m gonna be a
guy talking about women’s issues I don’t
know how that’s gonna roll so I kind of
just want to clear the air and say that
I’m not gonna sit here in mansplain what
women’s issues are for you a lot of what
I’m gonna be presenting is basically the
research that’s out there that’s
existing statistics and just kind of
putting some putting it all together to
give us some insight as to what women
are actually experiencing and what are
ways that we can help them out so I want
to start with just to give us a general
scope of what the problem is right and
so we know that the majority of women
are are actually dominating the the
population right we have 51% or women
but when we look at what rates of women
are attaining in different leadership
positions
it doesn’t actually reflect that same
exact number and that’s where the
problem comes from women are 51% of the
population but when it comes to middle
management positions they’re about 40%
it isn’t too big of a gap right but as
we move up the hierarchy we see that at
the fortune 500 level only 4% of CEOs
are women so we see that there’s a clear
gap and the gap gets bigger as you go up
the ladder now we can also look at race
and ethnicity when we look at race and
ethnicity and break these statistics
down even further we see that women of
color are disparaged more often than
white women are and so there’s a lot of
room for us to learn about why these
things happen and we have a lot of gaps
to close but before we kind of jump into
all those causes I wanted to kind of
define some terms that I’m going to be
using quite frequently so is it more
like a scientific talk so just kind of
bear with me but the first thing that we
want to talk about is communion so
communion is basically the tendency for
people to want to establish like
interpersonal relationships establish
intimacy with other people and so an
example of this in the workplace would
be like asking your
or hey how’s your day going huh Zuri
kids things like that and another term
that I wanna introduce you to is agency
so agency is kind of like the opposite
of communion or not the opposite but
it’s the other the yang to the yang and
so agency is people’s tendency to want
to enhance their own power or enhance
their own mastery of something and so an
example of that in the workplace is
asking for a promotion right and so ask
me for a promotion is an attempt to
increase your social status your level
of power within the workplace now those
two things are important because I think
most of you probably can catch that
communion is something that’s more
strongly aligned with what we think of
as a stereotypical female gender role
right the female gender role is
dominated by women supposed having to be
nice and warm and caring and concerned
and sympathetic but that’s all
stereotypes right but stereotypes do
Drive the way we behave they drive the
way that we think about people now
agency is the other end of it right and
so agency is what we align more with the
male stereotypical gender role right and
so we perceive men as being assertive
and forceful and dominant and they go
for their goals right now how does this
all come together with leadership well
historically men have attained these
leadership roles and held them for a
long time and so for years and years
women were in the house and men were out
there making money right and so what
that ended up causing was people to
think that leadership the default leader
is a man and the actual performance of
leadership overall is masculine but this
isn’t actually the truth but at the end
of the day these things exist not even
that just at the conscious level some of
us consciously might think well when you
think of a man you just say a male
pronoun right that’s kind of a common
thing that people do but even at a
subconscious level these things impact
the way we perceive people the way we
interact with people and so when it
comes to women and leadership although
this idea of like Oh instead of
subconscious level it probably doesn’t
have as much of an impact it actually is
really insidious for women in leadership
because what ends up happening is that
when we
think of the prototype of a leader it’s
male and when a woman is promote as
aiming to try to get a promotion she
doesn’t necessarily fit that stereotype
as well as a man would and so what that
happens is that women are not promoted
at the same rates as men are even though
they may be equally qualified now that’s
just the tip of the iceberg that’s like
the beginning of the problems because
even when a woman goes through the
wringer of trying to get promoted and
she does get promoted and she attains
four leadership position the problem is
that even in leadership positions women
are often unable to perform the identic
behaviors that are required for
leadership when you’re a leader you have
to tell people what to do you have to be
dominant sometimes you have to be
forceful you have to critique your
subordinates and so all these things are
identical
but women are often unable to do so
without experiencing some form of a
backlash right now another tragic part
is that women are also expected to be
communal in their leadership roles and
so it’s not enough that a woman isn’t
forceful and dominant and therefore I
may not like her but she also has to be
nice and warm and caring and polite to
me for me to accept her leadership now
as if all of that wasn’t tragic enough
what we see is that for men when men
behave again authentically there’s no
penalty for men behaving identically
because that’s what we expect of men we
expect men to be dominant in the
workplace and then when men act
communally they get a reward for it so
overall what I’m saying is that women
are unable to perform identically while
men can do so freely with no punishment
but women are also expected and required
to be communal in their behaviors but
men get rewarded for those things and
it’s kind of like if you want to think
of a more common everyday example it’s
like when mothers take care of their
kids every single day but what happens
when the dad changes a diaper it’s like
whoa dad of the year right so the same
exact thing happens in the workplace
just obviously not with children but
just the way that we behave and carry
ourselves it results in different
rewards in
depending on who’s actually engaging in
those behaviors so what do we do with
all this information right like what
what is there is there a way out of this
right and so there are some theories as
to how we can get how women can get out
of the scenario but really the overall
problem is that there’s a double bind
that women have to face right where on
one hand women can engage in leadership
in a very feminine stereotypical manner
but the result of that is that they’re
light people like them like I like her
she’s really nice to me but does that
mean you respect her does that mean you
think that she’s confident and a lot of
research demonstrates that when women
engage in a feminine leadership style
they don’t attain likeability and
confidence
it’s always gonna be one or the other
and in terms of femininity they get the
likability aspect but they’re not seen
as competent they’re seen as too soft
right now on the other hand if a woman
engages in a masculine leadership style
she faces backlash because she’s too
tough right why is this woman talking to
me like this I don’t expect women were
supposed to be nice and caring now she’s
telling me what to do what’s up with
that you know so that’s the double bind
of women face is do you want to be light
but not respected not seen as confident
or do you want to be confident but not
very well-liked right so what are some
solutions to this now theoretically
people have thought of transformational
leadership as a potential leadership
style that women can engage in that
allows them to engage in leadership in a
its typical manner while also kind of
spinning in some feminine
characteristics in there so if you
remember her transformational leadership
it’s basically a leadership that style
that has a couple of dimensions and some
of them include showing concern and care
for your subordinates making sure that
they feel valued which is where the
feminine part comes in right and so a
woman engaging in this leadership style
doesn’t seem like she’s abandoning her
leadership her gender role as much
because she’s being nice and warm and
caring right but this transformation
leadership style also includes aspects
like intellectually stimulating your
employees motivating them push
to perform better so it’s a nice blend
of this agency and communion right now
what what this results in is or what’s
theorized as what the result of this
would be is that women would then face
less of a double behind dilemma they
face less of a backlash because now they
get to engage in this leadership style
that doesn’t really put them in any one
particular bucket but gives them the
freedom to kind of engage in both types
of leadership both types of leadership
now research actually has found that
women do engage in transformational
leadership more often than men do which
is interesting and transformational
leadership when we look at several
studies across my entire field basically
we see the transformational leadership
has positive outcomes at the individual
group and organizational levels so it
seems like we’ve got ourselves a
solution right so how many agree the
transformational leadership didn’t seems
like a valid solution for women to raise
your hand I disagree
plot twist no it’s counting on it I was
like I hope no one I hope everyone
raises their hands so the reason why I
say transformational leadership isn’t
the solution is because what we’re
telling women effectively is this is the
leadership style that you need to
perform in order for you to for people
to accept you in a leadership position
right and that’s not really the solution
because essentially what we’re saying is
you need to walk this tightrope or
otherwise you’re gonna be punished for
it right and that’s not the position we
want to put women in we understand that
historically women have been put on
pedestals but because they put in put on
pedestals they’ve been found a lot in
terms of how they’re supposed to behave
in several situations including
leadership
so although transformational leadership
is theorized as a solution my
dissertation or at least one half of my
dissertation is to quantitatively assess
the extent to which transformational
leadership actually is a solution for
women I’m not saying that at the end of
the day it’s not helpful because I think
it’s helpful for us to understand what
are the problems that women face and
what are the ways that right
now women can help ameliorate those
issues for themselves right but it’s
still not the end game right because the
end game is for women to engage in
leadership such that they face the same
rewards and penalties that men do they
can get away with the same leaders the
same less-than-optimal leadership styles
of men engage in and they can also
benefit from the leadership styles that
other men benefit with right so that’s
that’s one of the solutions but there’s
a lot of research that looks beyond just
these causes and solutions right because
gender although it’s one of the biggest
reasons or one of the biggest issues
that we’re dealing with with leadership
one thing to also consider is that not
all women’s experiences are going to be
the same right and so when we talk about
women in leadership we also have to
consider what are other things that can
play a role in the scenario and so some
of the most current research has looked
at gender and race and the intersection
of those two see how does you know do
white women experience the same type of
backlash and double bind issues that
black women face what about black men do
they face a type of backlash that maybe
white men don’t face right interestingly
enough black men do share something in
common with white women and it’s that
they both deal with backlash issues in
terms of agency now for white women it’s
more so because it’s counter
stereotypical right white women are
expected to be nice and polite and
caring right but when they engage in
agenting leadership styles we see a lot
of punishments come from that but with
black men it’s actually stereotypical
for black men to be authentic and that
agency comes from perceptions of them as
a threat to the status quo right black
men are not but because the ones in
positions of power the ones who are in
positions of power are typically white
people and so when a black man is agente
as a leader it seems like too much of a
threat to the status quo and thus black
men face an agency backlash similar to a
women face in the workplace now what
about black women well black women
actually research has shown that black
women don’t face an agency backlash
what’s interesting is that black women
are in this nice cut of middle
between white women and black men where
they are perceived as more masculine
than white women so they don’t face the
agency backlash because it’s not as much
of a counter stereotype for black women
to be dominated and then on the flip
side in terms of comparisons to black
men we see that black women are seen as
less of a threat to the status quo than
black men and so they don’t face that
issue of well if a black woman is in
power she’s gonna take over right but if
that was 100% true then what we’d see is
that black women are actually very well
represented in leadership but as I
mentioned in the beginning women of
color experience a lot more disparaging
outcomes than white women so why is it
that black women are not experiencing
the same level of success even though
they don’t have this agency backlash
right well research has basically found
that although black women don’t have
this agency backlash there is a huge gap
between the prototypical white male
leader and a black female leader right
that doesn’t necessarily mean that
that’s automatically the problem the
problem happens when women black women
make mistakes and so when black women
make mistakes it only serves as a
reminder of what a gap there is between
what we consider is a prototype for a
leader and what this a black female
leader is like and so when that gap is
when people are reminded of that gap
black women end up being
disproportionately penalized way more so
than black men and white women right so
that all sounds very very negative but
what I want to kind of point out is that
there are some ways that we can help in
these scenarios and so one of the ways
is to always consider these
intersections right when we talk about
women in leadership it’s not just enough
for us to talk about white women we need
to be exploring at the at racial and
ethnic minority women as well now
another aspect that we should also
explore a sexuality and gender and
that’s even newer but that’s the other
half of my dissertation is exploring
what does this double Buy and look like
for sexual minority women right now what
we know so far is that gay men are
perceived as more feminine and
masculine than their heterosexual
counterparts and lesbian women are
perceived as more masculine and less
feminine than their heterosexual
counterparts but if the double bind is
all about this idea of agency and
communion those the mismatches between
gender and leadership role then how does
it operate for a gay men right do gay
man experience is sort of double bind
because they’re expected to be more
feminine
what about lesbian women since they’re
expected to be more masculine do they
face less of a double bind on the
leadership role right and so there’s a
lot of questions to answer there’s a lot
of room for us to explore these things
but what I do want to offer prior to me
finishing is just some potential
solutions for us to consider right
things that we can do on a day to day
basis and my suggestions are gonna
differ depending on whether I’m talking
to men are to women and the reason why
is because men and women have different
roles in this bowl right in this
patriarchal society men and women
operate in different social locations
and men have a lot more power and a lot
more say over situations than women do
and so the ways that we can contribute
are going to be unique now my suggestion
for men is something that kind of comes
from my experiences of being in a
fraternity and so being in a fraternity
surrounded by hyper masculine
environment you’re surrounded by guys
who say things about women that are not
appropriate and a lot of times I the
ones talking to you about women in
leadership bit my tongue and I think
it’s easy for men to be with their be
with their guys be with their buddies
and not say anything when people say
sexist things when they behave sexist
right so what I challenge men to do is
to call themselves out I do it all the
time in my classes so when I teach for
example and I talk about leadership and
I use a male pronoun I catch myself
because that’s automatically saying that
women do not exist in this
trip domain right by automatically
putting out a male gender pronoun I’m
kind of diminishing the reality that
women are also leaders as well right and
so it’s little things like that be able
to call yourself out being able to call
others out that’s gonna help but calling
people out when women are around is easy
and so the tough part is doing it when
it’s behind closed doors right if anyone
seen Harry Potter double Longbottom when
he stands up to Hermione and Ron and and
Harry because he thinks they’re gonna do
something wrong he gets awarded points
right and it’s the same scenario here
it’s gonna be tough but the status quo
exists behind closed doors right and so
for us to change the status quo we need
to attack it in that same exact space
now for women and this is me attempting
to not mansplain a promise so I’m gonna
take some advice from CEO of Facebook
Sheryl Sandberg she gave a TED talk on
why we don’t see a lot of women in
leadership positions and so one piece of
advice I’ve really really stuck with me
was don’t leave before you leave now
what she meant by that was don’t put
yourself in this mindset that I have to
start caring and worrying about marriage
and like when I’m gonna give birth right
and so like those things are important
and I understand that that’s important
and I understand the society puts a lot
of pressure on women to live this
certain life where you know you have to
get married and you have to have a kid
for some that’s natural and that’s
totally natural for them and they love
it and that’s incredible but what I want
to encourage women to do is to not leave
before they have to leave right what I
mean by that is don’t check out always
push and thrive and try to get as far
ahead as you can prior to having make
those decisions because really at the
end of the day you’re competing against
men right and what are men thinking
about not about family planning when
they get into positions when they go for
promotions when they apply for things
they’re hustling and they’re pushing
with no regard to worrying about what
having a kid right what about my family
I’m not saying that it’s not something
to consider but it’s not something to
consider until you have to consider it
right and one really nice thing that
Cheryl mentioned is that if you push and
if you reach a high level leadership
position you will have the flexibility
to create the family that you want to
create and so until that point comes
don’t step back don’t take your your
your foot off the pedal because it’s an
uneven race to begin with and so we need
women to push as much as they can
I need women to take their seats at this
table right and so overall what I want
to say is that the future is female it
is coming and so we need to be ready for
it but I also want to be alive for that
date when that day comes and it’s gonna
take a while but I really do hope that
each of us on an individual level really
just puts effort towards making this a
reality because it’s all the reason it’s
what my last six years have been about
and I can’t think of a better way to
basically go out is to see women in
their rightful places thank you so much
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
Johnson & Wales and talk about women in
leadership I was ecstatic I was excited
and I thought like yes cuz that’s what I
do a lot of the research that I do
either stems from women in leadership or
is research on women and currently in
leadership positions but my next
immediate thought was mmm I’m gonna be a
guy talking about women’s issues I don’t
know how that’s gonna roll so I kind of
just want to clear the air and say that
I’m not gonna sit here in mansplain what
women’s issues are for you a lot of what
I’m gonna be presenting is basically the
research that’s out there that’s
existing statistics and just kind of
putting some putting it all together to
give us some insight as to what women
are actually experiencing and what are
ways that we can help them out so I want
to start with just to give us a general
scope of what the problem is right and
so we know that the majority of women
are are actually dominating the the
population right we have 51% or women
but when we look at what rates of women
are attaining in different leadership
positions
it doesn’t actually reflect that same
exact number and that’s where the
problem comes from women are 51% of the
population but when it comes to middle
management positions they’re about 40%
it isn’t too big of a gap right but as
we move up the hierarchy we see that at
the fortune 500 level only 4% of CEOs
are women so we see that there’s a clear
gap and the gap gets bigger as you go up
the ladder now we can also look at race
and ethnicity when we look at race and
ethnicity and break these statistics
down even further we see that women of
color are disparaged more often than
white women are and so there’s a lot of
room for us to learn about why these
things happen and we have a lot of gaps
to close but before we kind of jump into
all those causes I wanted to kind of
define some terms that I’m going to be
using quite frequently so is it more
like a scientific talk so just kind of
bear with me but the first thing that we
want to talk about is communion so
communion is basically the tendency for
people to want to establish like
interpersonal relationships establish
intimacy with other people and so an
example of this in the workplace would
be like asking your
or hey how’s your day going huh Zuri
kids things like that and another term
that I wanna introduce you to is agency
so agency is kind of like the opposite
of communion or not the opposite but
it’s the other the yang to the yang and
so agency is people’s tendency to want
to enhance their own power or enhance
their own mastery of something and so an
example of that in the workplace is
asking for a promotion right and so ask
me for a promotion is an attempt to
increase your social status your level
of power within the workplace now those
two things are important because I think
most of you probably can catch that
communion is something that’s more
strongly aligned with what we think of
as a stereotypical female gender role
right the female gender role is
dominated by women supposed having to be
nice and warm and caring and concerned
and sympathetic but that’s all
stereotypes right but stereotypes do
Drive the way we behave they drive the
way that we think about people now
agency is the other end of it right and
so agency is what we align more with the
male stereotypical gender role right and
so we perceive men as being assertive
and forceful and dominant and they go
for their goals right now how does this
all come together with leadership well
historically men have attained these
leadership roles and held them for a
long time and so for years and years
women were in the house and men were out
there making money right and so what
that ended up causing was people to
think that leadership the default leader
is a man and the actual performance of
leadership overall is masculine but this
isn’t actually the truth but at the end
of the day these things exist not even
that just at the conscious level some of
us consciously might think well when you
think of a man you just say a male
pronoun right that’s kind of a common
thing that people do but even at a
subconscious level these things impact
the way we perceive people the way we
interact with people and so when it
comes to women and leadership although
this idea of like Oh instead of
subconscious level it probably doesn’t
have as much of an impact it actually is
really insidious for women in leadership
because what ends up happening is that
when we
think of the prototype of a leader it’s
male and when a woman is promote as
aiming to try to get a promotion she
doesn’t necessarily fit that stereotype
as well as a man would and so what that
happens is that women are not promoted
at the same rates as men are even though
they may be equally qualified now that’s
just the tip of the iceberg that’s like
the beginning of the problems because
even when a woman goes through the
wringer of trying to get promoted and
she does get promoted and she attains
four leadership position the problem is
that even in leadership positions women
are often unable to perform the identic
behaviors that are required for
leadership when you’re a leader you have
to tell people what to do you have to be
dominant sometimes you have to be
forceful you have to critique your
subordinates and so all these things are
identical
but women are often unable to do so
without experiencing some form of a
backlash right now another tragic part
is that women are also expected to be
communal in their leadership roles and
so it’s not enough that a woman isn’t
forceful and dominant and therefore I
may not like her but she also has to be
nice and warm and caring and polite to
me for me to accept her leadership now
as if all of that wasn’t tragic enough
what we see is that for men when men
behave again authentically there’s no
penalty for men behaving identically
because that’s what we expect of men we
expect men to be dominant in the
workplace and then when men act
communally they get a reward for it so
overall what I’m saying is that women
are unable to perform identically while
men can do so freely with no punishment
but women are also expected and required
to be communal in their behaviors but
men get rewarded for those things and
it’s kind of like if you want to think
of a more common everyday example it’s
like when mothers take care of their
kids every single day but what happens
when the dad changes a diaper it’s like
whoa dad of the year right so the same
exact thing happens in the workplace
just obviously not with children but
just the way that we behave and carry
ourselves it results in different
rewards in
depending on who’s actually engaging in
those behaviors so what do we do with
all this information right like what
what is there is there a way out of this
right and so there are some theories as
to how we can get how women can get out
of the scenario but really the overall
problem is that there’s a double bind
that women have to face right where on
one hand women can engage in leadership
in a very feminine stereotypical manner
but the result of that is that they’re
light people like them like I like her
she’s really nice to me but does that
mean you respect her does that mean you
think that she’s confident and a lot of
research demonstrates that when women
engage in a feminine leadership style
they don’t attain likeability and
confidence
it’s always gonna be one or the other
and in terms of femininity they get the
likability aspect but they’re not seen
as competent they’re seen as too soft
right now on the other hand if a woman
engages in a masculine leadership style
she faces backlash because she’s too
tough right why is this woman talking to
me like this I don’t expect women were
supposed to be nice and caring now she’s
telling me what to do what’s up with
that you know so that’s the double bind
of women face is do you want to be light
but not respected not seen as confident
or do you want to be confident but not
very well-liked right so what are some
solutions to this now theoretically
people have thought of transformational
leadership as a potential leadership
style that women can engage in that
allows them to engage in leadership in a
its typical manner while also kind of
spinning in some feminine
characteristics in there so if you
remember her transformational leadership
it’s basically a leadership that style
that has a couple of dimensions and some
of them include showing concern and care
for your subordinates making sure that
they feel valued which is where the
feminine part comes in right and so a
woman engaging in this leadership style
doesn’t seem like she’s abandoning her
leadership her gender role as much
because she’s being nice and warm and
caring right but this transformation
leadership style also includes aspects
like intellectually stimulating your
employees motivating them push
to perform better so it’s a nice blend
of this agency and communion right now
what what this results in is or what’s
theorized as what the result of this
would be is that women would then face
less of a double behind dilemma they
face less of a backlash because now they
get to engage in this leadership style
that doesn’t really put them in any one
particular bucket but gives them the
freedom to kind of engage in both types
of leadership both types of leadership
now research actually has found that
women do engage in transformational
leadership more often than men do which
is interesting and transformational
leadership when we look at several
studies across my entire field basically
we see the transformational leadership
has positive outcomes at the individual
group and organizational levels so it
seems like we’ve got ourselves a
solution right so how many agree the
transformational leadership didn’t seems
like a valid solution for women to raise
your hand I disagree
plot twist no it’s counting on it I was
like I hope no one I hope everyone
raises their hands so the reason why I
say transformational leadership isn’t
the solution is because what we’re
telling women effectively is this is the
leadership style that you need to
perform in order for you to for people
to accept you in a leadership position
right and that’s not really the solution
because essentially what we’re saying is
you need to walk this tightrope or
otherwise you’re gonna be punished for
it right and that’s not the position we
want to put women in we understand that
historically women have been put on
pedestals but because they put in put on
pedestals they’ve been found a lot in
terms of how they’re supposed to behave
in several situations including
leadership
so although transformational leadership
is theorized as a solution my
dissertation or at least one half of my
dissertation is to quantitatively assess
the extent to which transformational
leadership actually is a solution for
women I’m not saying that at the end of
the day it’s not helpful because I think
it’s helpful for us to understand what
are the problems that women face and
what are the ways that right
now women can help ameliorate those
issues for themselves right but it’s
still not the end game right because the
end game is for women to engage in
leadership such that they face the same
rewards and penalties that men do they
can get away with the same leaders the
same less-than-optimal leadership styles
of men engage in and they can also
benefit from the leadership styles that
other men benefit with right so that’s
that’s one of the solutions but there’s
a lot of research that looks beyond just
these causes and solutions right because
gender although it’s one of the biggest
reasons or one of the biggest issues
that we’re dealing with with leadership
one thing to also consider is that not
all women’s experiences are going to be
the same right and so when we talk about
women in leadership we also have to
consider what are other things that can
play a role in the scenario and so some
of the most current research has looked
at gender and race and the intersection
of those two see how does you know do
white women experience the same type of
backlash and double bind issues that
black women face what about black men do
they face a type of backlash that maybe
white men don’t face right interestingly
enough black men do share something in
common with white women and it’s that
they both deal with backlash issues in
terms of agency now for white women it’s
more so because it’s counter
stereotypical right white women are
expected to be nice and polite and
caring right but when they engage in
agenting leadership styles we see a lot
of punishments come from that but with
black men it’s actually stereotypical
for black men to be authentic and that
agency comes from perceptions of them as
a threat to the status quo right black
men are not but because the ones in
positions of power the ones who are in
positions of power are typically white
people and so when a black man is agente
as a leader it seems like too much of a
threat to the status quo and thus black
men face an agency backlash similar to a
women face in the workplace now what
about black women well black women
actually research has shown that black
women don’t face an agency backlash
what’s interesting is that black women
are in this nice cut of middle
between white women and black men where
they are perceived as more masculine
than white women so they don’t face the
agency backlash because it’s not as much
of a counter stereotype for black women
to be dominated and then on the flip
side in terms of comparisons to black
men we see that black women are seen as
less of a threat to the status quo than
black men and so they don’t face that
issue of well if a black woman is in
power she’s gonna take over right but if
that was 100% true then what we’d see is
that black women are actually very well
represented in leadership but as I
mentioned in the beginning women of
color experience a lot more disparaging
outcomes than white women so why is it
that black women are not experiencing
the same level of success even though
they don’t have this agency backlash
right well research has basically found
that although black women don’t have
this agency backlash there is a huge gap
between the prototypical white male
leader and a black female leader right
that doesn’t necessarily mean that
that’s automatically the problem the
problem happens when women black women
make mistakes and so when black women
make mistakes it only serves as a
reminder of what a gap there is between
what we consider is a prototype for a
leader and what this a black female
leader is like and so when that gap is
when people are reminded of that gap
black women end up being
disproportionately penalized way more so
than black men and white women right so
that all sounds very very negative but
what I want to kind of point out is that
there are some ways that we can help in
these scenarios and so one of the ways
is to always consider these
intersections right when we talk about
women in leadership it’s not just enough
for us to talk about white women we need
to be exploring at the at racial and
ethnic minority women as well now
another aspect that we should also
explore a sexuality and gender and
that’s even newer but that’s the other
half of my dissertation is exploring
what does this double Buy and look like
for sexual minority women right now what
we know so far is that gay men are
perceived as more feminine and
masculine than their heterosexual
counterparts and lesbian women are
perceived as more masculine and less
feminine than their heterosexual
counterparts but if the double bind is
all about this idea of agency and
communion those the mismatches between
gender and leadership role then how does
it operate for a gay men right do gay
man experience is sort of double bind
because they’re expected to be more
feminine
what about lesbian women since they’re
expected to be more masculine do they
face less of a double bind on the
leadership role right and so there’s a
lot of questions to answer there’s a lot
of room for us to explore these things
but what I do want to offer prior to me
finishing is just some potential
solutions for us to consider right
things that we can do on a day to day
basis and my suggestions are gonna
differ depending on whether I’m talking
to men are to women and the reason why
is because men and women have different
roles in this bowl right in this
patriarchal society men and women
operate in different social locations
and men have a lot more power and a lot
more say over situations than women do
and so the ways that we can contribute
are going to be unique now my suggestion
for men is something that kind of comes
from my experiences of being in a
fraternity and so being in a fraternity
surrounded by hyper masculine
environment you’re surrounded by guys
who say things about women that are not
appropriate and a lot of times I the
ones talking to you about women in
leadership bit my tongue and I think
it’s easy for men to be with their be
with their guys be with their buddies
and not say anything when people say
sexist things when they behave sexist
right so what I challenge men to do is
to call themselves out I do it all the
time in my classes so when I teach for
example and I talk about leadership and
I use a male pronoun I catch myself
because that’s automatically saying that
women do not exist in this
trip domain right by automatically
putting out a male gender pronoun I’m
kind of diminishing the reality that
women are also leaders as well right and
so it’s little things like that be able
to call yourself out being able to call
others out that’s gonna help but calling
people out when women are around is easy
and so the tough part is doing it when
it’s behind closed doors right if anyone
seen Harry Potter double Longbottom when
he stands up to Hermione and Ron and and
Harry because he thinks they’re gonna do
something wrong he gets awarded points
right and it’s the same scenario here
it’s gonna be tough but the status quo
exists behind closed doors right and so
for us to change the status quo we need
to attack it in that same exact space
now for women and this is me attempting
to not mansplain a promise so I’m gonna
take some advice from CEO of Facebook
Sheryl Sandberg she gave a TED talk on
why we don’t see a lot of women in
leadership positions and so one piece of
advice I’ve really really stuck with me
was don’t leave before you leave now
what she meant by that was don’t put
yourself in this mindset that I have to
start caring and worrying about marriage
and like when I’m gonna give birth right
and so like those things are important
and I understand that that’s important
and I understand the society puts a lot
of pressure on women to live this
certain life where you know you have to
get married and you have to have a kid
for some that’s natural and that’s
totally natural for them and they love
it and that’s incredible but what I want
to encourage women to do is to not leave
before they have to leave right what I
mean by that is don’t check out always
push and thrive and try to get as far
ahead as you can prior to having make
those decisions because really at the
end of the day you’re competing against
men right and what are men thinking
about not about family planning when
they get into positions when they go for
promotions when they apply for things
they’re hustling and they’re pushing
with no regard to worrying about what
having a kid right what about my family
I’m not saying that it’s not something
to consider but it’s not something to
consider until you have to consider it
right and one really nice thing that
Cheryl mentioned is that if you push and
if you reach a high level leadership
position you will have the flexibility
to create the family that you want to
create and so until that point comes
don’t step back don’t take your your
your foot off the pedal because it’s an
uneven race to begin with and so we need
women to push as much as they can
I need women to take their seats at this
table right and so overall what I want
to say is that the future is female it
is coming and so we need to be ready for
it but I also want to be alive for that
date when that day comes and it’s gonna
take a while but I really do hope that
each of us on an individual level really
just puts effort towards making this a
reality because it’s all the reason it’s
what my last six years have been about
and I can’t think of a better way to
basically go out is to see women in
their rightful places thank you so much
[Applause]
[Music]
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