EP 89: Navigating Gender Bias: Leadership Steps for Workplace Equality with Amy Diehl, PhD

When people talk about gender bias and sexism, what comes to mind? 

Are you clear about when gender bias happens to you and around you? Or does it feel so common it’s hard to discern?

The mixed messages about how to respond to gender bias and sexism keep us flailing, even when there are efforts to make meaningful change. 

We need to make these changes at all levels of leadership and as long the burden to make the changes continues to be on those who have been harmed, nothing will change.

When we gather collectively, we are a force. And yet, internalized misogyny gets in the way. Until we see how gender bias impacts us all, we will continue to turn on each other, whether directly or by supporting those with counter interests to our own.

Today’s guest offers us language and a framework to help address gender bias through tangible practices and language to help us understand the many nuances and complexities around identifying gender bias–in ourselves and others–and how we can make actionable change.

Amy Diehl, PhD, is an award-winning information technology leader, currently serving as Chief Information Officer at Wilson College in Pennsylvania and is a gender equity researcher and author of the new book Glass Walls: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work. She has also written numerous scholarly journal articles and book chapters. Her writing has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Ms. Magazine. She is also a sought-after speaker, consultant, and lawsuit expert witness.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Defining gender bias and the six primary barriers that impact women in the workplace, regardless of industry
• How researching gender bias in the workplace has helped Amy make sense of her own experiences
• How gender bias impacts all women, even if they don’t recognize it as such
• How the sub-barriers of acquiescence cause women to individualize systemic problems
• Why leaders need to take responsibility for the cultural norms in their work environments
• Two kinds of hostility that women enact towards each other 
• What a truly supportive and inclusive workplace could look like

Learn more about Amy Diehl, PhD:

• Website
• Twitter: @amydiehl
• Instagram: @amydiehlphd
• Connect with Amy on LinkedIn
• Glass Walls: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• Prey Tell: Why We Silence Women Who Tell the Truth and How Everyone Can Speak Up, Tiffany Bluhm
• Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man's World, Lauren Fleshman
• Choosing to Run,Des Linden and Bonnie D. Ford
• The Longest Race: Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on Nike's Elite Running Team, Kara Goucher and Mary Pilon
• Dirty Dancing