Malika Davar, a young woman from New Delhi, spent 28 years of her life hoping that the women of India will see a better tomorrow someday. Four months back when she moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands, and started working for a bank, Malika realised that it's not just India where women needs equal opportunities and treatment.
While working within the department of building Credit Risk Models, Malika observed a lot of differences in the management and leadership styles of men and women. "I have noticed that men, on average, showcase more confidence on taking up a role than women, despite few of them being equally or sometimes lesser qualified than women for the same role," she stated, adding "It has also been observed that men and women react differently to success. In fact success and likeability are related to some extent and there appear to be different rules for men and women from a stereotypical point of view."
Malika believes that it is a common trend that the more success women tend to achieve in an organisation, the more they are perceived as being bossy, bordering towards being disliked.
Moreover, it is an established fact that professional advancement depends upon people believing that an employee is contributing to good results. Men can comfortably claim credit for what they do as long as they don't veer into arrogance. For women, taking credit comes at a real social and professional cost.
Talking about her personal experience of working in a male dominated field, Malika said, "Towards the end of my project, I was able to identify these differences in behaviours and perceptions. This kind of 'owning of success', mentioned above, was typical of the male lead consultant on our project, despite him having fewer number of years of experience than anyone on the team. However, it was interesting to note that when his counterpart, a female lead who had more years of experience than him was leaving the project with a higher contribution from her end and a lesser display of her contributions, she gave more credit to the team for contributing in her success than she gave herself."
Mallika feels that it is commonplace to notice that women are not so "out there" as men are. Part of the reason for this behavioural difference is the way boys and girls are raised. In a study conducted by Duke University, it was seen that parents usually instructed their daughters to "be careful", "not do this or that", imploring them to be safe and not be adventurous.
In contrast, from a very early age, boys are encouraged to take charge and offer their opinions. They are told to be adventurous and raised to be "go-getters". This is how young women internalise societal cues about what defines "appropriate" behaviour and in turn, silence themselves.
This is palpable in meetings and discussions and can adversely affect their careers .
Mallika knows well that nothing will change unless people like her get down to work and help things change.