Hello, Comes Now readers! This is one of those weeks where there are lots of things I could talk about but not many of them could make up a full issue. So I’m temporarily returning to my old What I’m Reading & Thinking format so that we can talk about lots of different things.

Is the Nonequity Tier a Parking Lot or a Ladder?

The American Lawyer had a recent article [free trial available] on whether Big Law’s nonequity partnership tier is a parking lot or a ladder. As readers of this newsletter know, only 24% of equity partners are women, and only 12% of them are racially or ethnically diverse.

Creating multiple partnership tiers can lock women and diverse attorneys perpetually in the nonequity track. Women interviewed for the article pointed out that, when there’s a single partnership track, both men and women understand the general time period during which they’ll have to hustle to achieve their goal. This can allow them to plan their careers and broader lives around those goals. But when there are multiple tracks the track to advancement becomes much less finite and defined, which tends to hurt women and diverse attorneys. And several women in the article described how there are often moving goalposts when it comes from advancing from nonequity to equity partner.

On the other hand, other women interviewed for the article believed that multiple-tier partnership tracks gave more opportunities to diverse candidates who may not have been steeped in the business of law. And it is often easier to build business once you have the title of Partner next to your name.

Gender Equity Reduces Hostile Conduct Directed Towards Women

While women can be critical of their female supervisors, research from Catalyst showed that gender equity in the workplace—women in leadership positions—reduced hostile conduct directed towards women in frontline roles.

Women-led teams are also less likely to have a climate of silence that discourages women from reporting hostile conduct:

Women in male-led teams were far more likely to both report experiencing hostile conduct and to work in a culture of silence that tolerated that conduct.

Ways to Stop Thinking of Men When We Think of Stars

Michelle Travis, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, wrote an article [paywall] for Forbes discussing three ways we can condition ourselves to stop thinking about men when we think about star performers. One recent study showed that people tend to think that star performers are driven, relational, extraordinary, fascinating, tenacious, and brilliant. Most people think these are characteristics possessed by men rather than women.

Organizations can combat these tendencies by using objective evaluation criteria and standardized performance reviews, by celebrating star performers with diverse attributes, and by rewarding collective performance over individual star power.

Gender Bypassing

Spiritual bypassing occurs when people interested in spirituality use that spirituality to bypass doing their own emotional and psychological work. An interesting Council Post in Forbes magazine asks whether some are engaged in “gender bypassing” in the workplace. Cari Jacobs-Crovetto asked herself this question when women refused to discuss their experiences of discrimination in the workplace on the grounds that gender is just a construct. She wondered whether those women’s responses were a type of denial—using the belief that gender isn’t real to avoid acknowledging that we’re experiencing gender discrimination. I’ve never heard this type of response from young women, but perhaps some of you have?

Women Don’t Always Get the Feedback They Deserve

Research led by Leah Sheppard at Washington State University showed that reviewers who wanted to avoid looking sexist gave insincere feedback to female employees. This prompted the reviewers to observe that women were being treated with “velvet gloves.” This, of course, ends up hurting women because they don’t receive qualitative feedback that allows them to improve. By analogy, the researchers found that Rolling Stone reviewers give more positive written reviews to women artists than would be expected by the number of stars given to the album. This supported the researchers’ conclusion that, while reviewers are capable of rating low-performing women appropriately, they struggle when describing the reasons for that lack of performance.

Flat Hierarchical Structures Can Deter Women Applicants

A recent study in the Strategic Management Journal found that, when companies refer to their flat hierarchies in job postings, doing so deters women from being interested in a role. Specifically, they found that 28% fewer women applied to a position with a U.S. healthcare start-up when the job posting specifically referenced a flat hierarchy. Women were also 14% less likely to even indicate interest in the position.

After seeing these results, the researchers conducted a follow-up experiment surveying nearly 8,500 people. In response to the survey, women indicated that they thought it would be difficult to fit into flat hierarchies because they feared they would be run like a boys’ club. They also perceived that they would have heavier workloads.

The researchers therefore recommended that, rather than touting a flat hierarchy, organizations appeal to the characteristics that can make flat hierarchies desirable—like less micromanagement and more autonomy.

On Not Being the Office Workhorse

The Wall Street Journal wrote an article [paywall] on why the reliable office workhorse rarely gets ahead. It talked about how, rather than talking about how busy you are, employees should focus on describing specific positive results achieved as a result of your efforts. To avoid sounding like a braggart, it’s best to use data to support these assertions.

Unsurprisingly to women, it’s also important to avoid having time diverted with invisible work—particularly if that work is insufficiently specific for you to include during your annual review to receive credit.

Nobel Prizes Still Fail to Reflect Diversity

As a University of Chicago graduate, I love the weeks during which the Nobel Prizes are announced. But this article from the New Scientist aptly points out that, among other flaws, the prizes continue to fail to reflect diversity in the sciences. While 972 people have won Nobel prizes since their inception in 1901, only 64 were women. Physics is particularly bad: only five women have ever won. Similarly, no Black person has ever won a science Nobel, and there have only been 17 Black winners across the peace, literature, and economics prizes.

But it’s not just the Nobel Committee’s failure to identify women and people of color: it’s that often women and people of color don’t get credit when they were part of a team that made a particular discovery. The authors of the article point out that part of this is the function of Alfred Nobel’s rules—which allow no more than three individuals to share a prize—which fail to reflect the reality of modern research.

History is told by the victors. When a woman or person of color is snubbed, their contributions are effectively erased from scientific history.

A New Memoir You Absolutely Must Read

Finally, a fellow woman lawyer recommended that I read a book by new author Sarah Gormley called The Order of Things: A Memoir about Chasing Joy. Gormley was a marketing executive who spent her career achieving and accumulating “gold stars” but then goes to Ohio to care for her dying mother on their family farm. But the book touches upon so much more than that. Gormley talks about her relationship with her mom, her girlfriends from college, her anorexia, what she’s unraveled in over 10 years of therapy, a new romantic interest, and so much more. It’s beautiful writing. And particularly if you’re finding yourself in a place where you’re contemplating your next steps and answers aren’t coming to you quickly, you’ll find an absolute soulmate in Gormley. It’s a quick read. You won’t regret it. I promise!

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Have a topic you’d like me to address? Want to tell me where I got something right or wrong? Send me an email at [email protected].