Gloria Romero is the author of JUST NOT THAT LIKABLE: The Price All Women Pay for Gender and retired California State Senator and Democratic majority leader of the California State Senate. Rejecting the notion that women should play “nice” and go along to get along, Romero instead urges women to confront and topple gender stereotypes head on. Yet, as she stresses, JUST NOT THAT LIKABLE is not one of those “how to fix this in ten quick steps” books. As she impresses on women, changing the status quo will take courage, commitment, and a lot of hard work.
In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that employers could no longer evaluate employees based on stereotypes. Over the successive decades, unequal pay for equal work has been outlawed and anti-discrimination laws have become common. Still, women in business, politics, and nearly every profession continue to struggle to achieve power and success equal to men. Here are just a few of the sobering statistics:
● 42% of women experience gender discrimination at work;
● Men are 30% more likely to obtain managerial roles than women; ● Women represent a third of MBA graduates, but only 4% of Fortune 500 CEOs;
● Both men and women are twice as likely to hire a male candidate.
Hear Gloria Romero discuss:
● Get over the need to be liked. Being the boss means sometimes being bossy, and if the people complain, who cares?
● Stop victim shaming. A strong, smart, ambitious woman doesn’t need to fix her supposed defects to be accepted by men and succeed.
● Challenge the “likability penalty.” Start by evaluating performance fairly, judging strong, assertive women by the same standards as strong, assertive men.
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