The Paradox of Gender-Conscious Diversity Initiatives: How Accentuating Gender Differences May Perpetuate Workplace Gender Inequality

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In August 2017, James Damore, a Google engineer, circulated a memo arguing that women are naturally less suited to leadership positions. Indeed, women still comprise only 20% of technology positions at Google and only 7% of FTSE 100 CEOs in the UK. However, it is exactly these stereotypes and rigid ideas about gender differences endorsed by Damore - rather than a lack of natural abilities - that contributes to the underrepresentation of women in leadership and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). To combat these gender stereotypes, many organisations have implemented a range of workplace diversity initiatives. Unfortunately, these initiatives, which typically have no evidence base, could themselves reinforce stereotypes, creating a vicious circle that maintains inequality. Like many organisations, Google highlights gender differences in many of its diversity initiatives, assuming that celebrating difference will benefit women (i.e., a gender-conscious approach). In this project, I suggest that, by highlighting gender differences, gender-conscious initiatives in particular send a tacit message that women are inherently different from men and that all women are similar. By doing so, they may further justify gender stereotypes, and thus women's underrepresentation in traditionally male domains. I will test these hypotheses, as well as also explore strategies to avoid these unintended consequences. First, gender-conscious approaches that explicitly acknowledge differences in the socialisation of men and women may help reduce people's tendency to attribute gender differences to innate factors. Second, gender-conscious approaches that embrace women's contributions, while also acknowledging that individual women vary, may reduce people's tendency to make generalisations across all women. In summary, this research project has the following aims: (1) Examine whether gender-conscious diversity approaches lead to gender stereotyping.(2) Examine whether gender-conscious approaches deter people from appointing women to leadership and STEM positions.(3) Test two strategies to alleviate negative consequences of gender-conscious approaches.Indeed, empirical research on different types of diversity initiatives, including those taking a gender-conscious approach, is limited and inconclusive. I am well-suited to examine these questions because of my past and ongoing research testing when diversity initiatives can backfire, when they are beneficial, and when their efficacy is mixed. However, no research thus far has directly examined the relationship between gender-conscious initiatives and women's workplace outcomes. In collaboration with industry partners, I will conduct at least 7 studies across 3 phases of research using a range of methodologies and samples: experiments with working professionals in a range of industries and longitudinal field studies examining real-world outcomes with working professionals employed by my organisational partners. Across all phases, I will work with industry partners to develop the research questions and materials. In the final year, I will hold a workshop to disseminate the findings to partner organisations and key contacts in London. Better understanding the impact of gender-conscious approaches has clear applications because it could transform how organisations implement diversity initiatives. For example, organisations could more carefully consider the language used on their websites about gender equality and tailor diversity trainings to focus on the importance of both group and individual identity, rather than focusing primarily on women's unique contributions. Developing close industry connections during the research project will also facilitate future opportunities to test organisation-wide field interventions.