Why can’t women self-promote?
There is a gender gap in self-promotion. I know you are not surprised to hear this and chances are you have experienced it yourself. When writing about our expertise in promotion or job applications, we simply can’t bring ourselves to fully claim our achievements and successes. No matter what career stage we’re at, or how much experience we have, when it comes to using the “I” word we baulk – it just feels like so much boasting!
This holds true even when we know our performance is equal to any male of a similar standing – and that our self-assessment is used to decide whether to hire us, promote us and how much to pay us. Sound familiar? It certainly does to me.
Back in 2014, I launched a forum for colleagues on teaching focused contracts at the University of Warwick so they could meet each other, share practice and gain a stronger collective voice within the institution. Predictably, early conversations focused on parity of esteem between research and teaching and uneven opportunities for career advancement. A few years later, I had the opportunity to contribute to the drafting of new academic promotion criteria which aimed to provide more transparency and fairer assessment of achievements across all career pathways.
Alongside this, I have mentored colleagues applying for promotion and have witnessed the very often striking disparity in how men (mostly) have no problem in talking about how exceptional they are, while women (mostly) tend to downplay themselves. Admittedly there are exceptions to this ‘rule’. But in my experience most of the women who do the heavy lifting, take on more than they should, work stupidly long hours and hold themselves to very high standards, find it really uncomfortable to play the self-promotion game (or end up being too busy and too tired to do so!) even if they know this means getting stuck on a slower career track and being paid less.
When working with colleagues through their promotion cases, I often try to boost their confidence by getting them to recognise their own achievements and claim the credit their deserve. Through the Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA) I organise annual sessions where successful applicants share their own experiences and advice. Informal feedback and success rates show that this helps many with achieving their immediate goal. But does it make a difference overall?
Exley and Kessler’s research highlights how the gender gap in self-promotion persists even when women know how they scored compared to others, indicating that confidence is not the answer here. This means that simply telling women how well they perform and showing them how others self-promote is not enough.
In part, this may be because as women we actively dislike the model of self-promotion which career progression demands of us. It does not sit comfortably with many of us to claim “I” achieved something when we know full well that the outcome was a team effort or was based on the support of colleagues who facilitated and enabled us to succeed. I know I experience this resistance to erasing the contributions of others whenever I am asked to account for my impact in my role – even when I know not doing so will count against me.
In part, it may be because we know that – as women- we are going to be judged more harshly than our male colleagues when we do self-promote. That’s a powerful incentive to hold back in case we are thought to be getting above ourselves.
There are though ways in which we can ‘self-promote’ that might fit more comfortably with our own value frame. Here, one other finding in Exley and Kessler’s study can help us take a further step in the right direction and gives me some hope. They observe that no gender differences emerge when individuals are asked to privately evaluate the performances of others, rather than themselves.
So here are a couple of ideas I got from my awesome mentor. It can help to write your promotion or job application statement as if you were another person. This can take the embarrassment out of it and can provide a good start for a succinct and compelling resume. Or we can run workshops where participants are asked to write a paragraph or two about another member of the group. Once shared, they become both a personal and a joint resource for claiming our experience and expertise.
After all, if we can see in others what we cannot see in ourselves, it is clear to me that we need each other to succeed, we need allies to stand beside us, and we need initiatives like Women-Space to bring us together.
January 2022