In 2016, Leanne Dzubinski and I identified 27 barriers affecting women leaders. At the time, we knew that there must be a commonality between the barriers but we were unable to see it. Our next project, in conjunction with Amber Stephenson and David Wang, was to develop a scale to measure women leaders’s experiences and perceptions of gender bias, using the 27 barriers as our starting framework. Through a process called factor analysis used during the development and validation of the scale, we discovered six factors which make up gender bias affecting women leaders:
Six Gender Bias Factors
Male Privilege which dominates the workplace environment
Disproportionate Constraints on women leaders’ choices and behavior
Insufficient Support provided to women leaders
Devaluation of women leaders contributions
Hostility toward women leaders
Acquiescence of the women leaders to their supposed place in the male-normed culture
Read more in our journal article: “Measuring the invisible: Development and multi‐industry validation of the Gender Bias Scale for Women Leaders.”
