Surely you know of more than one case where a person’s meritorious actions are not properly recognized. The opinions of people with a lot to say and contribute are systematically undervalued simply because of who they are.

You may also think that these are exceptional cases that do not affect the vast majority of us: the victims of this discrimination are people who, although totally valid, are either placed in an unusual context or are themselves not normal. For example, it is not uncommon to witness paternalistic attitudes towards beggars or people from very different cultures who are alien to us.

In fact, we recommend that you read the article “Psychology of sexism: 5 sexist ideas that exist today”.

Women in Business: Structural Discrimination

However, this type of “speaker bias” does not only occur in isolated cases: there is a variant of this that has filtered to the depths of our society and crosses like a gap the quality of the relationships we have with each other. The fact is that, although we rationally know that the words pronounced by men and women are worth the same, we cannot say that we always act accordingly . At least, within the scope of organizations.

Gender Bias

We have long known the world of double standards that guide our way of perceiving both sexes by attending to different gender biases : what is expected from a man is not the same as what is expected from a woman. To this list we have to add a new unjustified (and unjustifiable) comparative offence that is incorporated into our way of perceiving the world. It seems that loquacity is not a very appreciated trait in women even when the success of teamwork is at stake.

Psychologist Adam Grant reported on this while researching in working groups linked to the professional field. Male employees who contributed valuable ideas were evaluated significantly more positively by their superiors. Furthermore, the more the employee spoke the more useful he was in the eyes of the superior . However, this was not the case when the person to be evaluated was a woman: in the case of women, their contributions did not result in a more positive evaluation of their performance . Similarly, the fact that a woman spoke more was not matched by a better consideration of her role in the company.

Who says what?

The results of this research lead us to believe that men and women do not receive the same recognition for what they say or propose. Although the good news is that those organizations where there is communication have an important flow of ideas, the bad news is that the perceived usefulness or uselessness of these ideas seems to depend in part on who is saying them .

With that in mind, men have good reasons to talk and propose things (because their ideas will be taken into consideration while giving them a better reputation and chances of promotion), while in women this possibility is more blurred. However, it is one thing to have a double standard in the eyes of the evaluator and another to have everyone, both the evaluator and the person being evaluated, accept this standard. Do we take the existence of this gender bias as something natural?

Apparently so, and to a great extent. In a study conducted by psychologist Victoria L. Brescoll , a series of people of both sexes had to imagine their performance as members in a hypothetical company meeting. Some of these people were asked to imagine themselves as the most powerful member of the meeting, while others were asked to think of themselves as the lowest rung of the ladder.

Result: the men under the skin of the “boss” stated that they would speak more (measuring the degree to which they would speak according to a scale), while the women in a position of power adjusted their speaking time to a level similar to that of their lower-ranking colleagues . In addition, to reinforce the line of research, in the first part of this same study you realise how the most powerful US senators do not differ much from the senators with a junior profile in terms of their speaking times, whereas the opposite is true among senators. It seems that this penchant for “self-silencing” is also extended to women in the upper echelons of decision-making.

Another form of inequality

It is more or less clear that, in the case of women, the way of loquacity offers less possibilities to make valuable contributions. We would be in this case talking about the so-called opportunity cost: better not to waste time and effort talking when other things can be done that will be more beneficial for everyone.

However, Brescoll suspects that this apparent shyness of women may be due to the fear of facing social sanctions for talking too much . Is it possible, in fact, that talking more not only does not add but also subtracts? Can a woman have more difficulties because she is more talkative? This may seem like an unjustified concern, yet if it is substantiated, the consequences could be very negative. To answer this question, Brescoll made one more section of his study.

The price of being talkative

In this last section of the research, 156 volunteers, including both men and women, read a brief biographical profile of a senior manager (CEO) who was presented as either a man or a woman (John Morgan or Jennifer Morgan).

In addition to this slight variation, the content of the biography also differed in another respect: some of the profiles portrayed a relatively talkative person, while the other set of biographies dealt with a person who spoke less than usual. As this was a study between subjects , each person read one and only one of the 4 types of biographical profiles (2 types of biographies according to the sex of the profile and 2 types of biographies according to how much or how little the CEO speaks). After this, each of the 156 volunteers had to evaluate the profile they had read according to Mr. or Ms. Morgan’s ability to hold the position of CEO using a score scale from 0 to 7 points.

The results

The first thing that stands out is that the sex of the participants did not seem to play an important role when it came to evaluating the profile that each of them had in front of them. The second fact to comment on is that the fear of social sanction is justified: loquacity seems to be a badly seen characteristic in women , at least within the work environment and for the position of CEO or similar.

As Brescoll and his team discovered, the most talkative male CEOs were rewarded with 10% more points, while this same trait, loquacity, was punished in the female profiles . Specifically, the most loquacious J. Morgans received about 14% fewer scores. Once again, it is worth underlining the fact that this was done by both men and women, and that it is a totally irrational bias that acts as a ballast when it comes to reaching or maintaining a position of more or less power and responsibility . This burden affects both women’s living conditions (a difficulty when it comes to economic growth) and the social relations we have with each other and everything that derives from them.

Moreover, this disadvantage has a pincer effect: theoretically, in order to thrive in organizations, one must bring ideas to the community as a whole, yet this need to give ideas also entails exposure that can have its dangers. Women can be handicapped as much by not speaking as much as men do. Obviously, in addition, the whole organization is also harmed by this dynamic of harmful relations, although possibly there is a male elite that perpetuates itself in an easier way due to the fact of having certain biological characteristics.

However, while it is true that this bias seems to be firmly rooted in our understanding of the world, it is also true that it is totally unjustified. Brescoll speculates about the possibility that these results can be explained by the gender roles assigned to positions of power: “powerful men should demonstrate their power, while powerful women should not”. In other words, what keeps this bias alive are some totally cultural forces , which, therefore, we have the possibility of changing.

Beyond the rational

In short, talking too much is a penalty that affects both women’s chances of promotion and their appreciation by others. Whether this form of discrimination is something that is only present in formalised systems of association (hierarchical companies, public posts, etc.) or transcends this area is something that these studies have not gone into in depth. Unfortunately, however, it seems unrealistic to think that this bias only acts in precisely those areas where logic and efficiency should be the most important (in other words, where it is most problematic).

Both the fact that many potentially valuable contributions are dismissed as being proposed by women and the existence of social sanction for women who “talk too much” are examples of a sexism that has its roots in all areas of the social sphere and which is reflected in gender studies and many feminist theories . This is, in short, a sign that neither the business world is so independent from our informal relations nor that its functioning is as rational as is usually assumed.

Bibliographic references:

  • Brescoll, V. L. (2012). Who takes the floor and why: Gender, power, and volubility in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly . 56(4), pp. 622 – 641. doi:10.1177/0001839212439994
  • Grant, A. M. (2013). Rocking the Boat but Keeping It Steady: The Role of Emotion Regulation in Employee Voice. Academy of Management . 56(6), pp. 1703 – 1723. doi:10.5465/amj.2011.0035