The Reality of Gender Bias in Workplaces Today with Amy Diehl

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:08  

Welcome to the executive coach for moms podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host Leanna Laskey McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic, and certified executive coach. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:29  

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thanks so much for being here with me today. And today I have a very special guest. I'm so excited to introduce her and for you all to hear from her. And her name is Amy Diehl. And Amy Diehl is an award winning information technology leader. She currently serves as the Chief Information Officer at Wilson College in Chambersburg PA. She's also a gender equity researcher and author of the new book Glass Walls: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work. Her writing has appeared in numerous scholarly journal articles and book chapters, as well as Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Miss magazine. She is also a sought after speaker, consultant and lawsuit expert witness you can visit her online at Amy-Diehl.com Welcome, Amy.

Amy Diehl  1:27  

Thank you so much for having me. Leanna. I'm so glad to be here. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  1:30  

Yeah, thanks so much for being here. I discovered your research in a Fast Company article a few months back and I was so excited to talk with you more about it. I introduced it to many of the women in my community. And they were all blown away and just mind blowing. So I can't wait to talk more about it. And I'm so glad I'm so appreciative to have you here. So can you start off just kind of by telling us a little bit more about you and how you started this research journey?

Amy Diehl  2:01  

 Yeah, I can. So as you mentioned, I work in the field of it, which is male dominated? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  2:07  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  2:08  

When I was in college, I studied computer science, which again, male dominated, I was one of only a couple, only ever two or three women in my classes. But I never felt gender barriers in college. I was a good student, I got all A's, you know, I did my work. And I found that I was rewarded, you know, for it with the with the letter grades. So I really didn't think about gender barriers. And then I went into the world of work. And when I worked in a for profit industry for had an internship, and then I worked for about a year I actually had two female bosses. And they were like role models to me. And so there again, like I thought there are no barriers, like I just did, it didn't even occur to me. Okay. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  2:50  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  2:51  

Because I and they were they were wonderful role models, both of them. And well, they're both managers, and the one of them had an Master of Business Administration. And I went seeing that I'm like, I need to keep going, I need to keep, you know, keep further my education. So I enrolled in an MBA program, and I got that, and I finished that at the age of 23, I believe. And again, I'm thinking, Okay, now I'm prepared, I've got everything I need, I can, you know, do my software engineer kind of job, or which I then later, after a year, I moved into higher education as a network specialist, but I thought I have what I need to be able to move up, you know, I knew that I wanted to learn my, like the trade, and then also become a manager. That was my goal when I was, you know, at that time, but it was as I was working, and starting to move up, you know, because I was, in my roles, people could see that I was I worked hard, and I was good at what I did. 

Amy Diehl  3:48  

But as I started to move up, it was then that I started to recognize that there were strange things happening to me that weren't happening to the men that I was working with in my department. And one of the examples is, at one point I was given, I took over a team that my male boss had led previously, we had like, switched around some of the roles. And I had spent many, many, many, many meetings with with him where he would lead the meeting, and we would talk for an hour or whatever and with the team members and we would be debating or you know, just discussing different ways, different approaches to a problem. And at the end of the meeting, there would be no when there was no consensus, my boss, my male boss would just say, Okay, we're just gonna go this way. We're gonna take this approach. And it like was not a question it was like, Okay, this is what we're gonna do. And so at one point, I have very vivid memory of shortly after I took over the team and I tried that same approach. At the end of the meeting, we didn't have consensus, and I said, Okay, I'm basically I'm choosing we're gonna go this way. And what I found was I had very quickly lost points with my staff. They were like, at least, you know, the men that I was working with, they were like, What is she doing? And you know, they were coming to me and like, you know, sort of like, you know, complete like they weren't, they weren't happy. Yeah. And I thought this outcome didn't happen whenever it was my, you know, the man leading you. And that was the first tip off to me. I mean, it's very subtle in a way, you know. 

Amy Diehl  5:16  

And it was the first tip off to me, though, that there might be things related to gender going on. I mean, it wasn't the only tip off. You know, thinking back now I've gone on this full research journey, obviously, now I can see things that were happening to me early on in my career that I that were gender related, but I didn't even like recognize it at the time. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  5:37  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  5:37  

But I actually I thought that the things were happening that were occurring to me were my personal failings, that I just wasn't doing it right, you know, which was odd, because all I was doing was emulating the people around me who happened to be men. So eventually, that started me on a journey to want to research this. And when I was in my mid 30s, I started a doctoral program. And what I did with that program was every time we had an assignment or a paper to write, I looked at gender barriers that were impacting women, like women at work, and this was 10 plus years ago, now, there really wasn't a whole lot of research. I mean, there was certainly some, you know, out there, there wasn't a whole lot, certainly not the amount that there is today. But what I found was I could really add to that space. And so I did my dissertation on women, and how they made meaning of adversity. And as a part of the questions that I asked them, I asked them about gender barriers that they had experienced at work. And it was very enlightening. 

Amy Diehl  6:39  

And my main takeaway from the, the interviews that I did with all those women, it was, it was very interesting, because the women were presidents, they were vice presidents or provost in higher education. And they were levels a couple of levels above me, and they, you know, the higher education hierarchy, and especially the presidents, I thought these women, there's something super special about them, you know, they must be extremely confident they must have it all together. But when I found out was that a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them were extremely insecure. And they were kind and willing enough willing to share their some of their insecurities with me during my our interviews. But what I really recognized was that even though they were insecure, they still, they still took the steps to, you know, to be a leader and to move up in, you know, in leadership. And what I took my takeaway from that was that these women were no different than me. They were high achieving, but they had, but they had insecurities. And, you know, I had always thought, Well, my insecurities mean that I, you know, I'm gonna do as much as I can, but I'm insecure. And if I'm insecure, I'm not, you know, there's probably, you know, certainly the glass ceiling, right? There's, and I still say today, I'll never be a college president. I don't have that drive or desire. But I also think that if I wanted to do that, I could do that now. Whereas before, I would have said, Now, there's no way I could never do that job. So it was very, very, very, very interesting. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  8:04  

Yeah. When you say insecure, what do you mean? Or how are you defining that? 

Amy Diehl  8:08  

Well, that's a good, that's a good question. So what I found was that there was a couple of different maybe two different ways that the women in my research exhibited, or were insecure. And one was about the being in the role and like being out there in public in particular again the president's they were very public positions, right. And I remember one woman telling me how she felt the scrutiny, she was scrutinized no matter where she was, and she had to be very, very careful, you know, about what she did what she said, what she wore, you know, so there was that aspect. And then there was a couple of my interviewees, my participants who actually were dealing with medical issues. And two of them in particular, were dealing with cancer. And the one one of the two had a cancer that was like a leukemia, it was a cancer that was kind of like, it wasn't acute, acute, like, she could leave like a full, healthy life, basically a full a full life but with cancer. It wasn't it wasn't like stage four, where she was going to face her mortality very quickly. Yeah. But but the point of it is, is that even though she had this very manageable cancer, she knew that she had to keep that a secret, like her office staff knew, because she had medical appointments, and you know, they needed to know where she was, but nobody else inside of her institution knew that. And I was really felt honored that she would share that story with me, you know, being the research. I was the researcher, you know, and obviously, it was, you know, in a confidential setting, and that, while I did describe it in my dissertation none of my participants were named, 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  9:38  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  9:38  

But I was just like, you know, just having to deal with that and having to keep something so secret and she wasn't the only one that was dealing with cancer cancer treatments at the time that she was sitting president. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  9:51  

Interesting. 

Amy Diehl  9:51  

And you know, I think about not that all men disclose when they have cancer, but often you do hear about men who have prostate cancer, and it's okay they have prostate cancer. And it's not I mean, nobody wants to have cancer. But it doesn't necessarily isn't necessarily something that is kept a secret from their communities, because it's seen as treatable. And of course, he's going to continue to work.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  10:13  

There's not a fear that it will make them look weak, or that they'd be viewed differently.

Amy Diehl  10:18  

Exactly. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  10:20  

Well, so many interesting things in what you said, and also, so many things I can relate to I was a math major when I went to college and one of two girls or women, and when I was in high school, I was the only girl in all of my CS classes, and all my advanced math classes. And whenever you said, you know, like that you didn't feel barriers, I would agree with that. I was always the only one. But I almost felt like, kind of empowered by that because I was like, I, you know, I would always get the best grade in the class, because I felt like I always had to prove myself, you know that I belong there. And I was kind of like representing for the girls and the women. Right?

Amy Diehl  11:04  

I was gonna say that it's interesting, because I have a little quick, similar story. And I remember when I was in 12th grade, I was an AP calculus. And I wasn't the only woman a girl in a class, there was, it was probably pretty equal, actually. But there were the male students, the guys, the boys, there were a few of them. And it was kind of a competitive thing. Like, there were a few of them that were very, very gifted in mathematics and stuff. And, you know, this sort of subject. And I ended up getting an award in that cl- for that class. At the end of the school year. This is my senior year. And it was I got the AP Calculus award like I had, it made me very proud that I had like, beat out all the because the men were confident, or the men, I call them men. they were boys. Yeah, they were very confident and everything. You know what, I'm just an introvert. I'm, you know, kind of unassuming, you know, I do my work. And I of course, I feel that can competition. But that's like the most proud achievement that I have. Like, I was actually also the valedictorian of my high school class. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  12:02  

Wow. 

Amy Diehl  12:03  

But I'm even even more more, even more proud of the little, you know, this little AP mathematics achievement, because I had beat out all the boys. And that was again, the reason I didn't think there were any gender barriers, because here I had, academically where I was on top.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  12:17  

Yeah, well, I think it's interesting, too. Because if like, you weren't like out there saying, I'm so smart. And, you know, and kind of like making that a public thing. You just like, quietly, did your work and improve yourself? Yeah. Then when you were talking about kind of like your experience, in the meeting, doing the same thing that a man had done hundreds of times, and then getting a very different response, I can definitely relate to that. Because I think in my first executive role, I was the only woman and I had led people before. I, you know, had been a manager before. But in that space, I was like, Well, this is different, because that was in higher ed. And now I'm in business. And so I need to show up, show up differently. And I didn't have a business degree or an MBA, like most of them had. And so I just, same thing, like I tried to do a lot of, emulate a lot of the things that they were doing, with very different results. And it was interesting, because the team that I lead, both men, men and women responded differently to me, it was the same thing. Like I thought it must have been a personal failing, I must be doing this, right. But in the back of my mind, I was like, Could this be because I'm a woman? You know, like, could this be but I think there's always that question where we're kind of like, Well, is it, should I chalk it up to that? Or like, what can I do better? I must be doing something wrong. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  13:45  

So yeah, and definitely a lot of the women that I talked to and coach have described similar experiences, and kind of like, is this a, is this because I'm a woman? Am I? Am I crazy to think that, you know, like, is that even fair? So yeah, I think that's all really interesting. I think also, when you talked about the idea of these women leaders, being insecure and still taking steps, I think that's so important, because I think so many of us think like we have to have that confidence first, like it's a prerequisite to being a leader or to moving forward. And I think the reality is, is that for so many of us, it's just kind of like hand in hand, right? Like we can still move forward in our careers and still be promoted and we're still going to feel insecure, and hearing that presidents of universities you know, still feel that way, I think that's maybe hopefully a bit I don't know comforting for women or, to understand that it doesn't totally go away.

Amy Diehl  14:48  

One of my counselors always said feel the fear and do it anyway. Well, that quote always sticks with me whenever I think of something that is, you know, I'm thinking of doing something that is not something I've done before. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  15:03  

Right. Yeah, because I think we have this expectation that like, if we're good enough to do it, or if it's possible for us to do that, it's gonna feel comfortable or you know, like it's gonna, we're gonna feel good doing it. And that's just not usually the case usually it feels very uncomfortable. And we feel scared the whole time. And then we get there. And we are like, Yes, I'm so amazed that I did that. And also, then like, feel good about it, and then be scared about the next thing that we 

Amy Diehl  15:30  

Yeah.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  15:31  

that we have to do, yeah. And then the other thing that I thought was really interesting was when you talked about the President talking about feeling like they'd be scrutinized no matter what. And I think that that is also so important to recognize, because I think, number one, I think so many of us are like, that kind of causes us to feel stuck, right? Like, we don't want to speak out, we don't want our voices to be heard. Because we know no matter what we say, and how we say it, it's going to be scrutinized. And then the other thing is like, it's uncomfortable. So I think it kind of sometimes keeps us out of wanting more, right, like being more in a public eye being in a higher level within the organization, because it's like, Who would want that, like I don't want to be I don't, I don't want to have to spend all my time and energy, you know, worrying about what people are going to think with what I wear and how I say something and what I say and how I walk and who I'm with and everything.

Amy Diehl  16:30  

Yeah, and if you think about this concept of gender bias it, it's actually the point like the point of scrutiny is to keep us out of those positions, to keep us from moving up, to keep us in the, I'll call them approved roles in the workplace, roles that are supportive of the men in power. And when I say all this, I'm not blaming any individual man, I'm talking about the societal forces that are at play. 

Amy Diehl  16:56  

But if we think about the world of politics, one example that comes to mind is representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. She is so heavily scrutinized and not, not- it'd be one thing if she was scrutinized about what her ideas and you know, the things that she's bringing into, you know, as a part of her her role of being at this being representative, but she's scrutinized for everything outside of that. I remember when she first started in the role, some reporter took a, or photographer took a picture of her that was then reported. And it was her in a it was a black suit. It was like a skirt, a black skirt, and a black black jacket. And they said, This doesn't look like someone who doesn't have basically who doesn't have money, you know, because she was coming into the role. You know, she wasn't a wealthy person. You know, she had gotten elected, which she scrutinized because she's and she's wearing, like, basically standard business attire. It's basically basically the comment was, it doesn't look like someone who's struggling. And she had made the point that when the congress people, when they start in their role, they have to get like an apartment in Washington, DC, and like, that's not cheap. And like, she was like a waitress, and I'm not sure what other role she had, but she didn't have like, a lot of money saved up. And so she has made that part of her story. And here you've got, you know, she's again scrutinized for, you know, what she's wearing, and all kinds of other things. But the point is, the whole point of it is, is to keep women from, other women from aspiring to be a politician, or aspiring to be in a public, you know, any kind of public role where they could, you know, change the status quo, you know, change the, the, the power structures at play.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  18:38  

Yeah. What do you attribute that to, like? You said, you know, you're not saying that's, that's any individual person or a man who's like, you know, that that we're blaming here, but like, why is that important to the system?

Amy Diehl  18:56  

Well, so the thing about our, we have institutions, okay, so institutions like work, like businesses, and government, and the media, all of the all of our societal institutions are the ones that at least we think of, in terms of being public were formed by men, and they were formed for men, and they were formed with male like life patterns in mind. And they were really formed to serve men with women being there. And if they are, they're there again, they're in supportive roles or they're not there, they're at home taking care of the men and the children. But the whole goal you know, of, you know of this again, it's it's a societal force, and it's not again blaming any individual men. But the goal is to recreate and to sustain the traditional power structures which favor favor men, largely favors white men, privileged class, privileged white men, and is to keep those privileges that the men as a class, have in place. And really unfortunate because what they don't see is that if they would come along and you know, allow of true diversity, right within all of our institutions, including women, including people of color, including just people with disabilities, all kinds of diversity, it would make our whole society a better place for everyone. 

Amy Diehl  20:19  

It's one of the stories, the first story that we tell in the book, that's not our own story is the story of Dr. Katalin Karikó. She was an mRNA researcher who was at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 90s, early 2000s. Again, studying mRNA, which at the time was just basic science type research, there wasn't an application for it. And she was very tenacious in her research, and she really saw potential in it. But her employer did not. And she tried to get grant funding, and she was unsuccessful. And so what happened was the University of Pennsylvania demoted her, they demoted her out of her tenure track position. What and she and in the book, I detail some some of the other barriers that she faced that were clearly related to her gender. But when people who are in higher education in a faculty role when they're in a tenure track position, but they don't make tenure, typically, what happens is that they leave the institution. And Dr. Karikó, however, decided to stay because she wanted to continue working on her on her research. And so she did. 

Amy Diehl  21:24  

And she eventually met up with a male, Drew Weissman, a male researcher, and they partnered, and they ended up basically, you know, discovering, and publishing the mRNA research that was so critical to the COVID vaccine development. And she left the University of Pennsylvania went to bio and tech, again, this was before, before the COVID pandemic. But as she was working on this, the vaccine technology at BioNtech basically was all spun up and ready to go when the COVID pandemic hit. So it led to a very fast and rapid development of the vaccines. If you remember, early in the pandemic, it was like How quickly can we get a vaccine? And some of the estimates were like, well, typical vaccine development takes many, many years, you know, probably at least you know, five plus, 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  22:09  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  22:09  

And here we are in this critical pandemic, and we had a vaccine within what was it a year, year and a half, it was very, very quick. And the point that I make about that is that, go back when Dr. Karikó was at the University of Pennsylvania, if she had just accepted her demo-, you know, she did accept the demotion. But if she had left and stopped the research, where would we be as a socie- society, right?

Leanna Laskey McGrath  22:31  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  22:31  

You know, we would not have had the rapid vaccine development, which helps all of us. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  22:36  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  22:36  

You men, women, children. It helps us all globally, worldwide. Right. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  22:41  

Right. 

Amy Diehl  22:41  

So so again, I think about the men who want to, again, who are conditioned from, you know, they're just getting the societal forces to want to maintain the status quo, maintain their privilege keep women from competing with them for workplace roles, and from, you know, making changes in society. When I think about that, it's so it's just so short sighted because keeping out more than, like, 50% of our population from, you know, from our workplaces and organizations, we're really, really hurting ourselves as a society.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  23:11  

Yeah. And keeping them out from real power, like, right, like the decision making within an organization. It's not that women are being kept out of workplaces. It's just that they have to be in very kind of certain roles. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's what's interesting about that story is that when she partnered with a man, then the research was published. You said that, like, the demotion and things like that were clearly related to gender. How do you determine that? Because I think again, it's kind of like we always have this is it that is, like, how does your research determine that this is the thing? This is the factor.

Amy Diehl  23:50  

Yeah, well, so Okay, so in the book, Glass Walls, again, this is the culmination of our research, but we detail the six primary gender barriers that are impacting, still impacting women at work, and we detail all the sub, the sub components of each barrier. And so when I'm looking at someone's story, and I'm reading it, or I'm listening to someone's experience, what I'm listening for is, what aspects of these barriers do I hear? In her story, there were a couple of things. One there was when she was applying for grants, it was it was pretty clear that there were, that she was just like, dismissed. Her ideas were dismissed. And that's very common. You know, this whole idea of diminishment is one of the things we talked about in the book where, you know, a woman has an idea, but it's, like just devalued. You know, disparaged. You know, it's an idea, but one of the barriers is this barrier of disproportionate constraints and muting women's voices. And then we drill down it's, there's this word called hepeat. And hepeat coined by a woman on Twitter. And she basically defined the word hepeat as when a woman says something in a meeting and it's ignored. And then a man says the same thing, and everyone loves it. So it's this idea of, you know, just ideas when they come from a woman, they're just like, Yeah, you know, like, it's not important or it's not, you know, not worth pursuing. 

Amy Diehl  25:15  

Another thing was, she had to take care of her very young daughter, while she was working on this research. And while she was in this position where she was, again, she was when she wasn't promoted. Like, she wasn't, she didn't get tenure, she was in like, a relatively lower, like, low paid position for higher, you know, for faculty in higher ed, and she talks about the, how, she had to balance, caring for her daughter and working. Again, it goes into work life conflict, how that disproportionately impacts women, in our workplaces more than men. So and there's a couple other things that I point out in the book, but it was like I had to piece together for her story, I had to go to several different sources of articles that had been written about her and pull out, you know, and just look and see what was actually going on here. You know, because like you said, there is always this question, is it because of our gender? Or is it because, you know, we could do better, we could actually do better? And I would never suggest that we don't reflect, you know, or criticize, we should certainly reflect on it and think about where is it coming from? But it's equally, as we say, it, was it something I did, we should also be like, saying, if we're a woman, is it something related to my gender? Could it be a gender barrier? You know, so that you've got at least a well thought out, you're thinking about, you know, where the criticism is coming from? Or where the the meets? Sometimes it's not a criticism, it's because you're demoted something that's happened to you. Why this has happened? Was it a personal feeling? Or was it gender? Or was it both Some times it could be both?

Leanna Laskey McGrath  26:45  

Yeah, could be multiple factors. And we shouldn't rule out the gender factor. Yeah. So I know, you've done a ton of research. And what I initially found of your research was your Fast Company article that talked about kind of how you analyzed a bunch of different factors, and found that women are viewed as basically never quite right. Can you talk more about that? I think that was like what was so interesting to me at first of just like, oh, my gosh, I want to learn all about this. 

Amy Diehl  27:19  

Yeah, that's very interesting research. It was based on survey based research opened with open ended questions where we had asked women to identify other aspects of their identity other than gender that they felt had influenced their experiences or that they had felt caused them to experience bias. So my co author, Dr. Leanne Dzubinski, and I we are qualitative researchers. So, we I love people's stories, and I love reading through them. And so what we did was we sorted through their responses. And, you know, first we sorted them out by what identity, what identity factor, are they talking about? Are they talking about race, ethnicity, class, religion, or education, sexual orientation, etc. So we had them all group that way, and then we started looking at within each group, what are they talking about. And what became very interesting was it was almost like, no matter what the identity factor was, whatever their whatever they were inside of that factor was diminished or was criticized. And sometimes it was subtle for in particular, for the race, face criticism is very subtle, not too many people these days want to be considered an overt racist, so, so that that was very subtle, but sometimes it was very overt, in particular, the age identity factor, as well as the parental status. 

Amy Diehl  28:40  

So like, for age, for example, what we found out was no age was the right age to be a woman leader, the women who were young were told they were too young. The women who were old were told that they were in not so many words, they were told that they were too late, they were told they were too close to retirement, you know, to be considered for further, you know, for further promotion. So they said, we often felt like our ideas were discounted, and we weren't, we weren't being considered for anything further. But then what was really interesting was, it was like, the women went from two young women to being too old the next minute, and they didn't get any prime time of middle middle age. What would be considered middle age. So if you think about that career sweet spot for men being like the 40s, and the 50s, that career, middle age sweet spot, women really weren't weren't seeing that instead, the women who were perceiving that they maybe weren't too young or too old, were, what they were getting was other criticisms like, oh, you know, we, what was very telling, just give this example was there was one person who served in higher education, and she had been on multiple search committees. And she talked about the ways that the the female candidates who are again, middle age were talked about, they were talked about in ways that the male candidates weren't and it would be criticisms like, Oh, she might have too many family responsibilities for this role, or she's going to go through menopause and so she'll have menopause related issues, menopause has to do with like one's ability to do a job. I don't know. But that was the criticism. 

Amy Diehl  30:07  

The other thing was that there was a sense that the women who, once they had gotten to middle age were not afraid to speak their mind. And so what that meant was that they felt like that the people like when the search committee felt like, well, they're going to be difficult to manage. And, and, and I don't, I don't know, I mean, I've kind of noticed this, I haven't done the study any study on this, but I've noticed that, you know, when we're younger, and I felt this myself too, when we're younger, we can be very self muting, you know, where we just are very careful about what we say. And as we get older, we kind of get over it. Right. You know, we kind of get over muting ourselves, and we kind of many times women will be more more apt to, you know, really speak their mind, and, you know, men making decisions, and even some women, you know, aren't necessarily comfortable with that. And so, so again, going back to that age barrier, once the women hit middle age, they were Oh, she's going to be too difficult to manage. So you just see all these excuses. And what you what I quick, what we quickly realized was it didn't matter, it almost didn't matter what they were, in whatever identity category, it was, like, they were never quite right. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  31:11  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  31:12  

And there was always some kind of excuse. And you know, the parental status one, whether they didn't have kids, or they had kids, especially like for the young, younger women, whether they had kids or not didn't matter, because it was assumed that they would get pregnant, and then therefore need maternity leave, even if they, you know, had not indicated that or not, you know, or had indicated something else it was, you know, you're young, you're probably going to have kids and so we'll have to, you know, spend money on maternity leave for you. So we would rather not hire you.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  31:40  

Yeah. And if you already have kids, then you're going to have to have family obligations. 

Amy Diehl  31:44  

Yeah. So So So what we did was we took that and that research, and we had we came up with 30, identity based factors that were the basis of criticism, and the response to that article, in particular on my social media was just amazing. But it was very heartening in the sense of like, it just really hit home with like, a lot of women who read it were like, oh, yeah, this, this makes sense. You know, no matter what I do, or what I am, there's a potential to for to be criticized or find something, you know, even if I'm like, fitting into whatever the norm is for the position, the role the the, for the workplace, they'll find something right. You know, to, to diminish or to criticize.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  32:28  

Yeah. And I think for me, we can look at that research in, of course, a variety of ways. You can look at it and be feel very disheartened. And kind of, I mean, it's obviously frustrating. And we wish it wasn't that way, that needs to change. And another option is to look at it and say, like, I'm gonna get criticized no matter what I do, right, kind of like the President said about being scrutinized no matter what. And so, for me, when I read that research is almost kind of like freeing because I thought, You know what, no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try to control everybody's opinions of me, and make sure that I'm viewed favorably, I'm going to be judged, I'm going to be scrutinized, I'm going to be diminished in some way. So I may as well show up in the way that feels authentic to me, and in a way that I feel best about because, you know, if everybody's going to scrutinize me in some way, at least one of us should feel good, right? Like, at least I'm going to feel good about how I'm showing up. 

Amy Diehl  33:32  

Right. And it also points to ways that we can like fix the problem. And in the article, we talked in the Fast Company article we talked about one of the approaches is the FlipItToTestIt approach, and that was developed by a sociologist, Kristen Pressner. And the idea with FlipItToTestIt is you say, Okay, if you're making a criticism of a woman, you say, would I make that same criticism of a man? Like, would you say, for example, that a man is too bossy? You know, it's easy example. They may say, well, she's too bossy. She's too assertive. She's too aggressive. You know, she's aggressive. Would you say that same thing about a, about a man? Right? You know, some of the also you think about the parental status, you know, he has kids, he might not be able to work, like who would say that? Right? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  34:17  

Right. 

Amy Diehl  34:17  

Like, it's assumed that he's gonna be working.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  34:19  

Yeah, he's middle aged, he might speak his mind. Yeah. Isn't that a great thing and leadership that we're speaking our mind? Yeah, as I think about this, I think like, how much of this do we take as knowledge and say, okay, like, these are the realities, these are the constraints within the system; in my achievement oriented mind, how do I achieve success within that? And how do I kind of, you know, work through the system to, so in the example of the vaccine researcher, partnering with a man, right, like, if the system were different, she might not have needed to do that in order to have her research published, but knowing what constraints exist and how to be successful within them, that's one strategy to still, you know, have the ultimate your ultimate goal of like, you know, having my research publish, to achieve that, we have that option. And then also, we have the option of saying like, this is bullshit, excuse my language, but like, how do I change this? I want to change this. And so I think there's that, you know, like, how do I get to a point as a leader where I have enough authority to, to try and change this? And so what are your thoughts about that finding that balance? Or where we should put our focus? 

Amy Diehl  35:46  

Yeah. And that's a question that I'm always asked is, as an individual woman, what can I do to fix this? What can I do to fix it for myself? And that's a hard question, because no one of us can fix the ingrained, and the pernicious gender biases that are just built in, you know, to, to society. But there are steps that we can all take to improve our situation, and to do what's best for us. So before I go into those steps, I say, first of all, that I put the we put in our book, and in all of my talk, I talked, I put the onus for change on organizational leaders. You know, that's where it belongs. In the book, we give strategies for organizational leaders, we give strategies for allies, and then we give strategies for individual women. And it really takes all of us working together to root out gender biases. But I'll talk about what an individual woman can do. And there's a few things. 

Amy Diehl  36:41  

One is, like you mentioned, calling it out when you see it when it happens, or when you see it. Now, I say this, and I say you have to be careful, though, because it depends on what the situation is that you're in. And it depends on the power structures that are around. And sometimes it may not be possible to call it out without getting back backlash. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  36:59  

Right. 

Amy Diehl  36:59  

But if you do feel comfortable, you know, you know, calling it out is a very good approach. And, and often they'll say, you know, sometimes women will be like, this happened to me in a meeting, there's all these people around, I didn't know what to do. Well, in answer there, like, first of all, don't beat yourself up about it. But secondly, maybe think about going to the person that exhibited the bias and having a private conversation with them later. And that can be much more feel much more less, less threatening to you and to the to the other person just to have this conversation and talk about, hey, this has happened, and this is how it's impacted me and my work, you know, how could we, you know, move forward. You know, so that's one approach and other approaches, if it's something that's happening continually, like my hepeating example, where a woman says something in a meeting, it's ignored, and the man says the same thing, and everyone loves it, well, if it's happening, something like that, it's happening repeatedly. Sometimes it helps if you have a buddy, you know, find a find a like minded colleague that can watch out for that stuff. And can can call it out on your behalf, not just the hepeating, but any kind of any kind of bias that's going on. Because that can can, feel less less threatening, if it's a third party, you know, calling something out on your behalf. 

Amy Diehl  38:08  

Another strategy that I recommend is building your support network. It's more of a longer term strategy. But you know, finding friends, colleagues, allies, people of all genders, inside your organization and outside your organization, who you can talk about things with, you can vent to, you can strat-, like strategize with. And of course, you know, speaking of it again, if you feel comfortable speaking to your supervisor, or speaking to human resources, you know, about this is what I'm experiencing, you know, what do you suggest and seeing if they offer support. 

Amy Diehl  38:37  

Then that brings me then to my last, my last suggestion, and that's having alternatives, what we find is that some workplaces are just not supportive, some bosses are not supportive. And so the only solution may be to find yourself another role somewhere else. And that could be somewhere else in your same organization, like in a different department, it could be in a different organization, you could start your own business, you go back to school, you know, learn different, you know, new new skill set. This was one of the takeaways that I learned from talking to those women leaders during my dissertation research, it was like, one of the women said, you know, don't let one person ruin, like, block your success or block your happiness. You know, she said, just go around, you know, it's her, it was her advice. And, you know, so I took from that, like, again, having alternatives and thinking about, don't let one person or one organization, you know, block you and what you want to do in your career. And don't feel that one organization is like the fulfillment of your aspirations. You have these organizations that will say, Oh, we're a family here. Well, an organization a workplace is not a family. And so I've posted about this one on Twitter and things and lots of people who say yes, thank you for saying that. You know, so just know that you know, that while you have friendships and you've got colleagues and you've got, of course lots of people that you enjoy working with, just know that you don't have to stay in a workplace that's toxic or that is not supporting you and your and your goals.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  40:01  

Yeah. Yeah. And I think as you were saying that the other thing that kind of came up for me was like, and the question I asked earlier is like, how do we know if this is gender related? Or if it's like, just in our heads, right. And I think that at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Right, like, it's you're showing that is backed by research. And so that's awesome that we can see that. And also, if we're in an environment where we are questioning this, or we're feeling like, maybe this is a factor, I don't know. But regardless, I'm being passed up for promotions, or I noticed that my voice is being diminished whether or not however we want to attribute that right, we get to decide what we want to do with it, and what steps we want to take forward. And if we want to stay in an environment like that.

Amy Diehl  40:52  

Yes, that's absolutely right. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  40:53  

Well, I love this topic. And I love this conversation. And I'm so grateful to you for bringing it to the world through your research and your book, and coming on to share it with the women who listen to the Executive Coach for Moms podcast. And if you haven't yet, I would recommend to everyone to check out Amy's book, Glass Walls, and learn more about how women are perceived at work and the barriers that we face. And if you've ever felt any of these things, or noticed them and you thought like is this real? Or is this in my head, you can see it kind of backed by research. And I think it brings more validation to some of those things that we might have been feeling throughout our careers, and especially like Amy said, as you get further in your career, and into those leadership roles. So thank you, Amy, anything else you want to share that we didn't get to cover about this? 

Amy Diehl  41:49  

Now, I'll just add that in the book, not only do we identify all the barriers, but I mentioned this before, I'll just mention it again, we do provide solutions and strategies. At the end of each chapter. We've got strategies, again, for women, for allies, and for and for leaders. And then there's a whole chapter, there's two chapters at the end. One is a strategy provides an overarching strategy for leaders to improve the gender equity and inclusion in their organizations. And then the last chapter is aimed at individual women. And it's basically how to achieve your own success. So in addition to being able to identify the things that are going on, we provide lots of lots of solutions and lots of ideas.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  42:29  

Awesome. Awesome. Well definitely check out Amy's book and actually, Amy will be back with us next month to share more about her personal story and her transition to motherhood because what we didn't talk about today is that Amy is also a newer mom. 

Amy Diehl  42:46  

That's right. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  42:46  

So I hope everyone will join us back for that next month. And thank you, Amy, so, so much for coming in and talking with us today. And thank you all for tuning in.

Amy Diehl  42:57  

Thank you for having me. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  42:58  

Have a great week everyone.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  43:03  

Thanks so much for tuning into the executive coach for moms podcast. Please like subscribe or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care.