The chapter delves into the persistent issue of women facing imbalanced authority dynamics, requiring more evidence of competence than men. It includes personal narratives and statistics highlighting disparities in treatment based on gender, calling for societal changes and self-reflection to address these biases.
Women are routinely underestimated, overlooked, interrupted, talked over or mistaken for someone more junior at the workplace. Author Mary Ann Sieghart calls this the "authority gap" — all the ways women are (still) taken less seriously than men, despite proven competence and expertise. She explains how we can close this pernicious gap and why everyone wins when we do so. After the talk, Modupe shares another tool to help close the gap.