How Can We Close The Authority Gap?

Three successful businesswomen share insights about gender discrimination against female leaders, and how you can challenge the status quo.

- Humra Afroz Khan

Irrespective of what stage they're at in their career, many working women (every?) have, at some point, had to face the 'Authority Gap'. Simply put, these are incidents of being underrated, ignored, interrupted, or patronised by male colleagues, in varying degrees. The upsetting part? Even the most well-established and successful can have their years of expertise called into question by male counterparts, who might even be less qualified than them.

As Mary Ann Sieghart explains in her book, The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About It, the way in which the authority gap creeps up can be as insidious as a woman trying to speak in a meeting, only to be talked over by a male colleague. Or, a client blatantly addressing a male subordinate instead of her. According to a study by the US-based fact tank, Pew Research Center, women are four times more likely than men to be treated as incompetent. They are also three times more likely subjected to repeated, small slights because of their gender.

Owing to this unwarranted approach, women at the same designations as men are also often held to higher standards. And despite being armed with a robust skill-set and proven results, they are likely viewed as less desirable bosses, looked at with distrust when in positions of authority, and, generally, given a harder time. The Reykjavik Index 2021-an annual report designed to explore how comfortable society is with female authority surveyed countries with a history of long-standing female leadership, including India. It found that even in these nations, much of the public remains stubbornly resistant to the idea of women in charge. Shockingly, young men especially unlikely to endorse female leaders, it concluded.