Women May Benefit From ‘Gender Blindness’ in the Workplace

Gender parity in the workplace requires organizational change.

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KEY POINTS

• Gender blindness, or downplaying gender differences, is one strategy for achieving equality in the workplace.
• It promotes self-confidence and agency in women, leading to more assertiveness, risk-taking, and negotiating.
• Gender equity in the workplace also requires promoting equal opportunities and equal treatment of women.
• Both individual characteristics and situational influences determine how men and women act in the workplace.

Research by Ashley Martin, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Katherine Phillips, formerly Professor at the Columbia University Business School, found that women who downplayed the differences between men and women, i.e., blindness, felt greater power and confidence than women who celebrated women’s distinctive qualities, i.e., gender awareness.1 The confidence that came from adopting a gender blindness strategy in male-dominated work situations led the women in the studies to:

• Think they could overcome challenges at work.