11. The Millennial generation is typically defined as those born between 1980 and 2000.
12. This survey of Millennial adults found that 36 percent of men, but only 25 percent of women, said that the sentence “I aspire to a leadership role in whatever field I ultimately work” applies to them “very well.” See Darshan Goux, Millennials in the Workplace, Bentley University Center for Women and Business (2012), 17–25, http://www.bentley.edu/centers/sites/www.bentley.edu.centers/files/centers/cwb/millennials-report.pdf.
Another survey, conducted in 2008 by the Girl Scouts, found no difference between girls and boys in terms of their likelihood to have leadership aspirations and to think of themselves as leaders. The survey did find that girls are more concerned about social backlash. One-third of the girls who reported not wanting to be leaders attributed their lack of desire to “fear of being laughed at, making people mad at them, coming across as bossy, or not being liked by people.” See Girl Scout Research Institute, Change It Up: What Girls Say About Redefining Leadership (2008), 19, http://www.girlscouts.org/research/pdf/change_it_up_executive_summary_english.pdf.
13. Samantha Ettus, “Does the Wage Gap Start in Kindergarten?,” Forbes, June 13, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthaettus/2012/06/13/kindergarten-wage-gap/.
14. A study of accomplished men and women with the credentials to run for political office found that 62 percent of men versus 46 percent of women had considered running. The study found that 22 percent of the men versus 14 percent of the women were interested in running for office in the future. The men also were almost 60 percent more likely than the women to think that they were “very qualified” to run. See Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox, Men Rule: The Continued Under-Representation of Women in U.S. Politics (Washington, D.C.: Women & Politics Institute, American University School of Public Affairs, January 2012), http://www.american.edu/spa/wpi/upload/2012-Men-Rule-Report-final-web.pdf.
15. A survey of more than four thousand middle and high school students found that only 22 percent of girls but 37 percent of boys said that “being in charge of other people” was “extremely important” or “very important” to them in a future job. The survey also found that 37 percent of girls compared to 51 percent of boys said that “being my own boss” was “extremely important” or “very important” to them in a future job. See Deborah Marlino and Fiona Wilson, Teen Girls on Business: Are They Being Empowered?, The Committee of 200, Simmons College School of Management (April 2003), 21, http://www.simmons.edu/som/docs/centers/TGOB_report_full.pdf.
16. Jenna Johnson, “On College Campuses, a Gender Gap in Student Government,” Washington Post, March 16, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/on-college-campuses-a-gender-gap-in-student-government/2011/03/10/ABim1Bf_story.html.
17. For research on how aggressive women violate social norms, see Madeline E. Heilman and Tyler G. Okimoto, “Why Are Women Penalized for Success at Male Tasks? The Implied Communality Deficit,” Journal of Applied Psychology 92, no. 1 (2007): 81–92; Madeline E. Heilman et al., “Penalties for Success: Reactions to Women Who Succeed at Male Gender-Typed Tasks,” Journal of Applied Psychology 89, no. 3 (2004): 416–27; Alice H. Eagly and Steven J. Karau, “Role Congruity Theory of Prejudice Toward Female Leaders,” Psychological Review 109, no. 3 (2002): 573–98; and Madeline E. Heilman, “Description and Prescription: How Gender Stereotypes Prevent Women’s Ascent up the Organizational Ladder,” Journal of Social Issues 57, no. 4 (2001): 657–74.
18. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, “We Need to Tell Girls They Can Have It All (Even If They Can’t),” The Atlantic, June 29, 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/we-need-to-tell-girls-they-can-have-it-all-even-if-they-cant/259165/.
19. For reviews of research, see May Ling Halim and Diane Ruble, “Gender Identity and Stereotyping in Early and Middle Childhood,” in Handbook of Gender Research in Psychology: Gender Research in General and Experimental Psychology, vol. 1, ed. Joan C. Chrisler and Donald R. McCreary (New York: Springer, 2010), 495–525; Michael S. Kimmel and Amy Aronson, eds., The Gendered Society Reader, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); and Campbell Leaper and Carly Kay Friedman, “The Socialization of Gender,” in Handbook of Socialization: Theory and Research, ed. Joan E. Grusec and Paul D. Hastings (New York: Guilford Press, 2007), 561–87.
20. Melissa W. Clearfield and Naree M. Nelson, “Sex Differences in Mother’s Speech and Play Behavior with 6, 9, and 14-Month-Old Infants,” Sex Roles 54, nos. 1–2 (2006): 127–37. Studies have found that parents tend to talk more with daughters than with sons. Further, mothers have more emotionally complex conversations and use a more conversational and supportive style of communication with their daughters than with their sons. For reviews of research, see Clearfield and Nelson, “Sex Differences in Mother’s Speech and Play Behavior,” 127–37; and Gretchen S. Lovas, “Gender and Patterns of Language Development in Mother-Toddler and Father-Toddler Dyads,” First Language 31, no. 1 (2011): 83–108.
21. Emily R. Mondschein, Karen E. Adolph, and Catherine S. Tamis-Le Monda, “Gender Bias in Mothers’ Expectations About Infant Crawling,” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 77, no. 4 (2000): 304–16.
22. Clearfield and Nelson, “Sex Differences in Mother’s Speech and Play Behavior,” 127–37. Another study observing close to eight hundred families in four different public venues found that in three of the four locations, a larger percentage of male toddlers were allowed to walk by themselves than were female toddlers. See G. Mitchell et al., “Reproducing Gender in Public Places: Adults’ Attention to Toddlers in Three Public Places,” Sex Roles 26, nos. 7–8 (1992): 323–30.
23. Emma Gray, “Gymboree Onesies: ‘Smart Like Dad’ for Boys, ‘Pretty Like Mommy’ for Girls,” The Huffington Post, November 16, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/gymboree-onesies_n_1098435.html.
24. Andrea Chang, “JC Penney Pulls ‘I’m Too Pretty to Do Homework’ Shirt,” Los Angeles Times blog, August 31, 2011, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/08/jcpenney-pulls-im-too-pretty-to-do-homework-shirt.html.
25. Over the last forty years, gender bias and gender differences in the classroom have been studied extensively. On balance, studies find that teachers give more attention to boys than girls. Boys also tend to have a more dominant presence in the classroom. Still, depending on the methodology employed (such as the age of students, the subject area being taught, and the achievement level of the students), some studies have found few differences in teacher interactions and behavior in the classroom between boys and girls. Notably, very few studies have documented instances in which girls receive more attention from teachers than do boys. For reviews of the research, see Robyn Beaman, Kevin Wheldall, and Carol Kemp, “Differential Teacher Attention to Boys and Girls in the Classroom,” Educational Review 58, no. 3 (2006): 339–66; Susanne M. Jones and Kathryn Dindia, “A Meta-Analytic Perspective on Sex Equity in the Classroom,” Review of Educational Research 74, no. 4 (2004): 443–71; Ellen Rydell Altermatt, Jasna Javanovic, and Michelle Perry, “Bias or Responsivity? Sex and Achievement-Level Effects on Teachers’ Classroom Questioning Practices,” Journal of Educational Psychology 90, no. 3 (1998): 516–27; Myra Sadker, David Sadker, and Susan Klein, “The Issue of Gender in Elementary and Secondary Education,” Review of Research in Education 17 (1991): 269–334; and Roberta M. Hall and Bernice R. Sandler, The Classroom Climate: A Chilly One for Women? (Washington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges, 1982).
26. Riley Maida, “4 Year Old Girl Questions Marketing Strategies,” YouTube video, 1:12 minutes, posted by Neuroticy2, December 28, 2011, http://www.yout
ube.com/watch?v=P3mTTloB_oc.
27. Kelly Danaher and Christian S. Crandall, “Stereotype Threat in Applied Settings Re-Examined,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 38, no. 6 (2008): 1639–55. Based on their analysis of gender, stereotype threat, and performance on the AP calculus test, Danaher and Crandall estimate that if the demographic gender question was moved to the end of the test, 4,763 more young women would pass. For more research about how stereotype threat decreases women’s performance, see Catherine Good, Joshua Aronson, and Jayne Ann Harder, “Problems in the Pipeline: Stereotype Threat and Women’s Achievement in High-Level Math Courses,” Journal of Applied and Developmental Psychology 29, no. 1 (2008): 17–28.
Stereotypes of all kinds, ranging from “white men can’t jump” to “Asians are better at math” have been shown to influence performance as well as the evaluation of performance. See Jeff Stone, Zachary W. Perry, and John M. Darley, “ ‘White Men Can’t Jump’: Evidence for the Perceptual Confirmation of Racial Stereotypes Following a Basketball Game,” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 19, no. 3 (1997): 291–306; Jeff Stone et al., “Stereotype Threat Effects on Black and White Athletic Performance,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77, no. 6 (1999): 1213–27; and Margaret Shih, Todd L. Pittinsky, and Nalini Ambady, “Stereotype Susceptibility: Identity Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance,” Psychological Science 10, no. 1 (1999): 80–83.
28. Jenessa R. Shapiro and Amy M. Williams, “The Role of Stereotype Threats in Undermining Girls’ and Women’s Performance and Interest in STEM Fields,” Sex Roles 66, nos. 3–4 (2011): 175–83.
29. Goux, Millennials in the Workplace, 32.
30. Sarah Jane Glynn, The New Breadwinners: 2010 Update, Center for American Progress (April 2012), 2, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2012/04/16/11377/the-new-breadwinners-2010-update/. In 2009, 41.4 percent of mothers were breadwinners for their families and another 22.5 percent were co-breadwinners.
31. Heather Boushey, “The New Breadwinners,” in The Shriver Report: A Woman Nation Changes Everything, ed. Heather Boushey and Ann O’Leary, A Report by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress (October 2009), 34, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/report/2009/10/16/6789/the-shriver-report/.
32. Mark Mather, U.S. Children in Single-Mother Families, Population Reference Bureau, Data Brief (May 2012).
33. Human Rights Watch, Failing Its Families: Lack of Paid Leave and Work-Family Supports in the US (February 2011), http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us0211webwcover.pdf.
34. Ellen Bravo, “ ‘Having It All?’—The Wrong Question for Most Women,” Women’s Media Center, June 26, 2012, http://www.womensmediacenter.com/feature/entry/having-it-allthe-wrong-question-for-most-women.
35. Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober, Getting to 50/50: How Working Couples Can Have It All by Sharing It All (New York: Bantam Books, 2009).
36. Rosalind Chait Barnett, “Women and Multiple Roles: Myths and Reality,” Harvard Review of Psychology 12, no. 3 (2004): 158–64; Rosalind Chait Barnett and Janet Shibley Hyde, “Women, Men, Work, and Family: An Expansionist Theory,” American Psychologist 56, no. 10 (2001): 781–96; and Rosalind Chait Barnett and Caryl Rivers, She Works/He Works: How Two-Income Families Are Happy, Healthy, and Thriving (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).
37. Cheryl Buehler and Marion O’Brian, “Mothers’ Part-Time Employment: Associations with Mother and Family Well-Being,” Journal of Family Psychology 25, no. 6 (2011): 895–906; Rebekah Coley et al., “Maternal Functioning, Time, Money: The World of Work and Welfare,” Children and Youth Services Review 29, no. 6 (2007): 721–41; Leslie Bennetts, The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? (New York: Hyperion, 2007); Lynne P. Cook, “ ‘Doing’ Gender in Context: Household Bargaining and the Risk of Divorce in Germany and the United States,” American Journal of Sociology 112, no. 2 (2006): 442–72; and Barnett, “Women and Multiple Roles,” 158–64.
38. This phrase was first used by Spencer Johnson in his 1998 book, Who Moved My Cheese?. See Spencer Johnson, Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life (New York: Putnam, 1998), 48.
2. SIT AT THE TABLE
1. Peggy McIntosh, “Feeling Like a Fraud,” Wellesley Centers for Women working paper no. 18 (Wellesley, MA: Stone Centers Publications, 1985).
2. Early research on the impostor syndrome in the late 1970s suggested it was more prevalent among high-achieving women. Subsequent studies in the 1980s and 1990s were equivocal, with some studies agreeing and others finding that men were sometimes vulnerable to these kinds of fears too, at comparable rates. Recently, studies that focused on college students, doctoral students, and family medicine residents have again found the syndrome to be more prevalent among women than men. Most research and discussion about the impostor syndrome argues that women are more limited by it because they experience it more frequently and with more intensity than do men. For a discussion, see Gina Gibson-Beverly and Jonathan P. Schwartz, “Attachment, Entitlement, and the Impostor Phenomenon in Female Graduate Students,” Journal of College Counseling 11, no. 2 (2008): 120–21; and Shamala Kumar and Carolyn M. Jagacinski, “Imposters Have Goals Too: The Imposter Phenomenon and Its Relationship to Achievement Goal Theory,” Personality and Individual Differences 40, no. 1 (2006): 149. For other recent studies, see Gregor Jöstl et al., “When Will They Blow My Cover? The Impostor Phenomenon Among Austrian Doctoral Students,” Zeitschrift für Psychologie 220, no. 2 (2012): 109–20; Loretta Neal McGregor, Damon E. Gee, and K. Elizabeth Posey, “I Feel Like a Fraud and It Depresses Me: The Relation Between the Imposter Phenomenon and Depression,” Social Behavior and Personality 36, no. 1 (2008): 43–48; and Kathy Oriel, Mary Beth Plane, and Marlon Mundt, “Family Medicine Residents and the Impostor Phenomenon,” Family Medicine 36, no. 4 (2004): 248–52. For the original study, see Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Ament Imes, “The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention,” Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice 15, no. 3 (1978): 241–47.
3. “Tina Fey—From Spoofer to Movie Stardom,” The Independent, March 19, 2010, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/tina-fey--from-spoofer-to-movie-stardom-1923552.html.
4. S. Scott Lind et al., “Competency-Based Student Self-Assessment on a Surgery Rotation,” Journal of Surgical Research 105, no. 1 (2002): 31–34.
5. Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox, Men Rule: The Continued Under-Representation of Women in U.S. Politics (Washington, D.C.: Women & Politics Institute, American University School of Public Affairs, January 2012), http://www.american.edu/spa/wpi/upload/2012-Men-Rule-Report-final-web.pdf.
6. Working Group on Student Experiences, Study on Women’s Experiences at Harvard Law School (Cambridge, MA: Working Group on Student Experiences, February 2004), http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/experiences/FullReport.pdf. A higher percentage of male law students than female law students ranked themselves in the top quintile of their class in the following categories: legal reasoning (33% vs. 15%), quantitative reasoning (40% vs. 11%), quick on feet (28% vs. 17%), brief writing (23% vs. 18%), oral argument (24% vs. 13%), research (20% vs. 11%), building consensus (27% vs. 21%), and persuading others (20% vs. 12%). In only one skill, ethical issues, did a slightly higher percentage of female students (26%) than male students (25%) rank themselves in the top quintile of their class.
7. For studies on how women estimate their abilities in front of others, see Kimberly A. Daubman, Laurie Heatherington, and Alicia Ahn, “Gender and the Self-Presentation of Academic Achievement,” Sex Roles 27, nos. 3–4 (1992): 187–204; Laurie Heatherington et al., “Two Investigations of ‘Female Modesty�
� in Achievement Situations,” Sex Roles 29, nos. 11–12 (1993): 739–54; and Laurie Heatherington, Laura S. Townsend, and David P. Burroughs, “ ‘How’d You Do on That Test?’ The Effects of Gender on Self-Presentation of Achievement to Vulnerable Men,” Sex Roles 45, nos. 3–4 (2001): 161–77. For a review and analysis of how women judge themselves on masculine tasks, see Sylvia Beyer, “The Effects of Gender, Dysphoria, and Performance Feedback on the Accuracy of Self-Evaluations,” Sex Roles 47, nos. 9–10 (2002): 453–64.
8. Sylvia Beyer, “Gender Differences in Causal Attributions by College Students of Performance on Course Examinations,” Current Psychology 17, no. 4 (1998): 346–58. Research has documented the tendency for girls and women to underestimate their skills, abilities, and performance relative to boys and men, especially in regard to masculine tasks. Yet depending on the specific methodology used, some studies have found that women give more accurate appraisals of their performance, while men overestimate their performance. Several explanations have been advanced to explain why women tend to lower their self-assessments, including low self-confidence; “feminine modesty,” which holds that to act in accordance with gender role stereotypes and/or to avoid the negative consequences of female immodesty, girls and women present themselves in a more humble manner; and concern with protecting the self-esteem of others. From this relational perspective, women want to preserve a sense of equality and compatibility in their personal relationships, and thus they lower their self-assessments so as to avoid being perceived as bragging or to avoid making someone else, who may have performed worse, feel badly. The gender of the person to whom women make a self-assessment has sometimes been found to affect the degree to which they underestimate themselves, with some evidence finding that women lower their self-assessments in the presence of vulnerable male partners, for example by lowering estimates of their GPA in front of a male partner who is worried about his grades. However, studies on this specific topic are inconsistent. For a review of these explanations, see Heatherington, Townsend, and Burroughs, “ ‘How’d You Do on That Test?,’ ” 161–77; and Laurie Heatherington, Andrea B. Burns, and Timothy B. Gustafson, “When Another Stumbles: Gender and Self-Presentation to Vulnerable Others,” Sex Roles 38, nos. 11–12 (1998): 889–913.
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