Since teleworking spread at the beginning of the pandemic, more and more research has analyzed the social changes that this type of activity has brought to the world of work: from the difficulties in conciliating to its emotional effects on employees. There is also a gender approach: how has it affected the situation of women with their work environment? The World Economic Forum collects in a recently published report that almost half of American business leaders find it more difficult to speak during virtual meetings on platforms such as Zoom, while one in five felt that they are directly ignored in those calls.
The study, carried out in conjunction with the NGO Catalyst, which works to strengthen women’s leadership, also found that three out of five female employees are convinced that their prospects for promotion are worse in their new remote work environment. This fear is greater for them than for them.
Previous research supports these conclusions. Until now, several studies have pointed out that women’s views were already being overlooked during in-person meetings. Some researchers coined terms like keep breakingwhen a woman is continuously interrupted by a man; mansplainingwhen a man explains ideas to women assuming they do not know them, and bropropriating, when a man appropriates the idea of a woman. “In meetings, even when they are informal, women have more difficulty disagreeing and expressing their opinion. It is a sign of the socialization they have had throughout their lives due to their gender,” explains Concepción Fernández, professor of social psychology from the Complutense University of Madrid.
Now, with remote work being the common scenario for many employees, this dynamic has carried over into the digital world. In Fernández’s opinion, it is not technology that has caused these difficulties, nor is it helping to solve them, but rather it perpetuates them. “This situation is also being reproduced in the digital environment simply because now that is where the meetings are held,” explains Fernández.
There are some specific aspects where it can be a bit more difficult to express ideas during a video call. “It is easy to be ignored or silenced during a call or a Zoom meeting, where others cannot read your body language and sense if you have a question or want to intervene,” explains Dafne Cataluña, a psychologist and founder of the European Institute of Positive Psychology. “And it’s also easier for it to happen to people whose opinion is usually less taken into account in those environments, as is the case with women.”
Other personal skills also play a role, such as directivity, that is, the ability to set a goal and get others to join you in achieving it. “Research in psychology has shown that this strength is more developed in men,” says Catalonia. “This would partly explain why we don’t communicate with the same confidence or authority that they usually do.” Directivity has a lot to do with self-confidence and with socialization processes.
“Women are systematically seen as having less authority, their influence is less. They speak less and when they do, they are not listened to as much and are interrupted more,” explains Jessica Preece, associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University (USA). ). Her research team found last year that despite advances, social dynamics that put women down were still prevalent, “even in the best-intentioned settings.” “The problem isn’t necessarily intentional, it’s a systemic problem. We’ve been socialized for years to discount female experience and perspectives more easily than male ones,” says Preece.
Technology hasn’t fixed this problem, it’s just given it a little more attention. “Until we have had to telework, no one has wondered if women are also less listened to in video calls,” explains Catalonia.
Solutions?
In order for the opinion of women to be taken into account, both in the analog and digital worlds, the advice most pointed out by the experts is that both they and the rest of the colleagues present denounce this behavior at the moment it happens. To do this, says Catalonia, it is necessary to have an adequate level of assertiveness, “to be able to communicate expressing our opinion clearly. When we have been wanting to say something for a long time and we have not felt capable of doing so, we tend to go to the opposite extreme and ask for the angry things, but it is not recommended”.
It is also important that company leaders do their part to ensure that a culture is not perpetuated where it is commonplace to interrupt female colleagues or hijack their ideas. “Bosses must encourage the participation of women, they must not let the opinion of those who participate the most or who makes themselves heard be imposed by system,” advises Catalonia.