The Women and Gender studies program held a presentation in Stewart Hall addressing sexist barriers in the workplace featuring Dr. Amy Diehl and Dr. Leanne M. Dzubinski, authors of Glass Walls: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work. 

Diehl began by introducing herself and describing her experience as a woman pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer science. She explained that she had been doing well in her roles before noticing a few problems in a male-dominated field.

She explained how she would watch her male counterparts exert their leadership and be authoritative, and when she followed suit, she would lose points with her staff. It was then that she began to wonder if another factor was at work pertaining to her gender. “One of the first things I realized was that I wasn’t alone in my experiences,” Diehl said. 

Dr. Diehl explained that she had met Dr. Dzubinski at a conference in Utah that discussed leadership barriers for women. Dzubinski recounted working for a non-profit wherein two-thirds of employees were female, yet leadership was heavily male-dominated. She would often hear her male counterparts say, “there just aren’t any good women available to lead,” as if the capable and hard-working female employees around her were invisible.

Because of this, Dzubinski began to ask herself, “what is it that's going on in this industry that women are so gifted and so capable, and yet they seem to be invisible? And when they do try to lead, they don’t last very long, or they get demoralized?” Dzubinski and Diehl began to discover that although sex discrimination in the workplace is illegal in the U.S., there are still impediments to women’s advancement that are built into ordinary institutional functioning. This led Dzubinski and Diehl to write the book that they wished they had as they started out in the workforce. 

Dr. Diehl and Dr. Dzubinski were able to comprehensively identify this discovery by creating a scale to measure women’s experiences in the workplace. This scale was able to identify the six primary barriers, or “glass walls” of gender bias. This scale revealed that in a male-privileged environment that dominates the workplace, women may gain entry, but there are disproportionate constraints on their choices and behavior.

These constraints include insufficient support provided to women in the workplace, as well as devaluation of their contributions. Hostility may occur to keep women in line, and women may also acquiesce under the weight of such constraints.

Dr. Diehl and Dr. Dzubinski described the behaviors that these barriers encourage, such as male privilege, diminishment, “untitling and uncredentialing”, salary inequality and workplace harassment. After these barriers were explained, Dr. Diehl and Dr. Dzubinski allowed the audience to collaborate and share their experiences with these barriers in the workforce, bonding and gaining a deeper understanding of how we are all affected by such constraints. 

“Not only does this book comprehensively detail barriers that women face at work,” Diehl said, “it also provides specific strategies for overcoming these barriers, for individual women who are experiencing them, allies of any gender, and for organizational leaders.”

Amy Diehl, PhD, is an award-winning information technology leader and gender equity researcher who has authored numerous scholarly journal articles and book chapters. Diehl is also a two-time Shippensburg University alum, with bachelor’s degrees in computer science and French. Her writing has also appeared in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Ms. Magazine. 

Leanne M. Dzubinski Ph.D, a co-author of Glass Walls: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work, is also an author of numerous scholarly articles, with work appearing in Harvard Business Review.

During the reception after the presentation, Dr. Diehl and Dr. Dzubinski signed copies of Glass Walls.

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