Potential Permanency
Research showed that boys and girls both associate brilliance to boys, and girls begin opting out of activities that are deemed to require intelligence or brilliance. This happens by age 6, according to Science Magazine. Lin Bian, 2017
It’s not only intelligence though. Studies of gender stereotypes in young children show that they attribute “greater power to males and helplessness to females” according to Ruble et al. 2006).
So let’s think about the potential permanency of this. We continue to hear that it’s challenging to hire women into leadership roles, or technology and science industries. Imagine now a little girl named Lauri who, by age 6, has learned to believe that boys are smarter and more powerful than girls. She read books and watched tv with strong male protagonists – she rarely saw a heroic female character. So she didn’t get to identify with being an astronaut or a scientist, but she did see lots of “perfect” looking women, so she took that on. At age 13 she did well in school, yet held back raising her hand for fear of getting the answer wrong. What made it worse, Lauri did not look perfect. At age 18 she anguished over which college to attend, and her major. Is this the right path? At age 28, she didn’t go for a dream job because her resume didn’t 100% match the job description. And at times, Lauri avoided asking for promotions and raises as she would need to negotiate – to prove her worth. She avoided certain risks that would have had her build her internal leader, because she had been raised to believe that girls played supporting characters, not leading roles.
Now, on the other hand, let’s look at little Tom who at age 6, has also learned to believe that boys are smarter and more powerful than girls, At age 13 he raises his hand in class because he just thinks he is “smart” and at 18 applies to the best schools because he thinks he will get in, even if his scores or essay aren’t competitive. At age 30, he submits his resume for any job even if he has 60% of the skills required. Tom builds his career not noticing that there are fewer and fewer women at his level, and now, in a Sr leadership role, in a place where he could use his influence for good, doesn’t realize his unconscious gender bias was formed by age 6. As was Lauri’s.
This is one of the reasons why we don’t see many women in leadership roles. And I can tell you, after working with female executives in Manhattan to women who earn less than $2/day in Africa, no amount of leadership training is going to change that mindset overnight. We’ve got to start earlier.
Our girls were not born helpless. They weren’t born with less intelligence than boys. And our boys were not born holding the power.
Between the years 1900 and 2000, 93% of English children’s books written had male protagonists. Smart, problem solving, adventurous, male protagonists. For the most part, girls were… quiet, vulnerable and … secondary. And this was true in all forms of children’s media, according to McCabe & Fairchild.
And in 2017, male characters in top family films outnumbered female characters two to one. And females are seen and speak less than their male counterparts. The good news? Those female-led films, grossed 38.1% more on average than male-led films.
We’ve got some work to do.