Thus Spake Zuska

Via Female Science Professor, ‘Study: Women create ‘their own glass ceiling’:

A new study shows female managers are more than three times as likely as their male counterparts to underrate their bosses’ opinions of their job performance.

The discrepancy increases with women older than 50, the study states.

“Women have imposed their own glass ceiling, and the question is why,” said Scott Taylor, an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico Anderson School of Management who conducted the study.

No, no, no, it should read this way:

A new study shows male managers are more likely than their female counterparts to overrate their bosses’ opinions of their job performance. “Men have created their own virtual career elevator, and the question is why,” said the knucklehead who conducted this study but was able to interpret the findings only in one manner due to severe gender smog until Zuska puked on his shoes and straightened him out.

The men who were studied slightly overestimated how their bosses would rate them, while the female respondents underestimated their ratings on average by about 11 percent.

On-the-ball reporters questioned the knucklehead investigator as to why he ignored the men’s overestimation but placed gave the women’s underestimation responsibility for creating “their own’ glass ceiling. The knuckehead investigator had no answer.

Comments

#1 becca
August 14, 2009

An important question is how much is “slightly overestimate” in this context. If “slightly” is like 8%, men aren’t impressively more accurate than women. If “slightly” is like 0.2%, men are much more accurate than women and it’s worth framing the story as women being inaccurate. Which still isn’t the same as “creating their own glass ceiling”- the women’s bosses may well provide radically less positive feedback to women for a given performance level.
#2 Dorine Tiller
August 14, 2009

This is an excellent expression of the way limitations no longer exist for today’s woman. Undoubtedly, she’s more than able to break free of her own glass elevator. Now it’s just a matter of finding someone willing and able to let her show off what she can do!
#3 Stella
August 14, 2009

It would help if the line between “healthy self-confidence” and “she’s an arrogant bitch” weren’t so narrow. Some women *raises hand* err on the side of underselling themselves because it’s the only sure way to mitigate hostility.
#4 daedalus2u
August 15, 2009

This shows exactly why men perceive women to be arrogant bitches. If men overvalue their own performance and perceive everyone else’s performence accurately, then they will continually feel like they are being undervalued and discriminated against.
#5 nails
August 15, 2009

“the question is why”

HAAAHAHAHA. its SOOOO mysterious! If the stats are so different between women over 50 and the rest then the answer is freaking obvious. It is a problem caused by culture.

Shit, isn’t the feminine mystique the long answer to it?
#6 SKM
August 16, 2009

Here’s a little anecdote that may sound familiar to many readers:

While working in a clinical genetics lab, there was one week where I took initiative and did something that needed to get done without being directed to do so. One of my co-workers, a very young man a few years my junior, did something similarly on his own initiative. One difference: He screwed up his task and I didn’t.

The feedback I got: “You did well, but you were too aggressive”

The feedback he got: “Well, OK, it didn’t go so great but hey–you showed initiative!”

The implications of these very different perceptions of male vs. females’ work for career advancement is left as an exercise for the reader.

And since this is how supervisors judge our work, is it any wonder that women underestimate their performance and men overestimate theirs?
#7 Zuska
August 16, 2009

Oh that’s just friggin’ perfect in a terribly evil way, SKM. Thanks for sharing that anecdote – though it makes my stomach queasy.
#8 Lab Rat
August 18, 2009

This is probably a LOT to do with cultural conditioning, especially for over generations. Boys are pushed more and have a hell of a lot more to live up to than girls. Hopefully not so much now. I just remember in PE, where all the boys were encouraged to do better, where as the girls were just praised or ignored for anything they did. It used to piss me off…I used to pretend I was a guy so that I was judging myself by a much harder standard and pushing myself to try more.

Mind you lots of girls in my school didn’t care much about PE anyway, so I doubt they minded.