Is it me, or is it gender bias? Invisible barriers holding women back at work, with Dr Amy Diehl
Get EVEN Podcast | Gender Bias | Dr Amy Diehl | 6 Glass Walls
For decades, we’ve talked about the glass ceiling: the invisible barrier women encounter as they approach the most senior levels of leadership. But what if the barriers don’t just exist at the top?
What if women are navigating them throughout their careers, in meetings where they’re spoken over, opportunities they’re overlooked for, contributions that receive less recognition, or expectations that seem subtly different from those applied to their male colleagues?
In this episode of Get EVEN, Dr Nora Koslowski speaks with Dr Amy Diehl, co-author of Glass Walls: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work.
Amy’s research with co-author Dr Leanne Dzubinski identified six primary gender bias barriers through the development of a scale designed to comprehensively measure workplace gender bias against women. Their central argument is that the glass ceiling doesn’t adequately describe women’s experience. These barriers aren’t only above women as they move towards leadership. They can be all around them, and often invisible until women run directly into them.
The distinction is important, because when we can’t name what is happening, it is remarkably easy to ask: Is it me?
Three insights from the conversation:
Invisible barriers can easily become individual problems:
Amy describes experiences including women being interrupted or ignored, having their expertise questioned, seeing their contributions devalued and facing different expectations around how they should behave. When these patterns are difficult to see or name, women can internalise them as evidence that they need to change, rather than recognising the systemic barriers around them.
Stepping back from leadership can be a rational choice, not a lack of ambition:
One of Amy’s six barriers is “acquiescence”: the cumulative effect of repeatedly navigating the other barriers. Women may self-silence or limit their aspirations, sometimes not because they doubt their capability, but because they don’t want the additional hassle that comes with progressing. As Amy puts it, that can be an entirely rational choice. It also challenges organisations to look beyond explanations such as “women just don’t want the senior roles” and examine the conditions shaping those decisions.
Motherhood bias doesn’t only affect mothers:
Amy’s research highlights “maybe baby bias”: assumptions made about women of childbearing age because they might have children, including women who have explicitly said they don’t plan to. Later in women’s careers, assumptions about responsibility for ageing parents or other family members can take their place. Meanwhile, Amy points to the contrasting “fatherhood bonus” experienced by men. The bigger issue is an enduring assumption about who will carry the responsibility for care.
The conversation also turns to what organisations can do differently. Dr Amy Diehl is clear that creating gender equity cannot become another job for women to take on. Organisations need to examine the systems and conditions in which bias continues to occur.
In Glass Walls, Amy and Leanne describe a gender equity and inclusion roadmap ranging from organisations doing nothing, through compliance and ad hoc initiatives, to strategic action and ultimately full equity and inclusion.
Amy argues that many organisations remain stuck at the ad hoc stage: a workshop here, a training session there, without addressing the underlying systems that continue to produce unequal outcomes.
The alternative is to make gender equity part of how an organisation operates: conducting ongoing pay equity audits, diagnosing where bias is occurring, improving how meetings are facilitated, examining policies and practices, and measuring again to see whether interventions are actually working.
Listen to the full conversation with Dr Amy Diehl on the Get EVEN podcast.