Women Discriminate Against Women?

Following up on my recent post about the gender gap, it appears there may be some discrimination going on after all -- by women, against women:

Everyone knows that males tend to be perceived more favorably for leadership positions than females. But did you know that this perception is stronger among females? A paper by Rocio Garcia-Retamero and Esther López-Zafra in the journal Sex Roles (vol. 55, nos. 1-2, July 2006) provides evidence that women are more prejudiced against women leaders than are men.

Participants evaluated a male or a female candidate for a leadership position in an industry that was congruent or incongruent with the candidate’s gender role. Participants showed prejudice against the female candidate, especially when she worked in an industry incongruent with her gender role. Female and older participants showed more prejudice against the female leader than did male and younger participants.

The London Times, reporting on the paper, calls this “queen bee syndrome.” Says businesswoman Nicola Horlick: “I have seen women in managerial positions discriminating against other women, possibly because they like to be the only female manager or woman in the workplace.”

This evidence squares with a basic truth about stereotyping, or “statistical discrimination,” as economists call it. Under such discrimination, the strongest conflicts tend to result from within-group, rather than between-group, conflicts of interest. See Bryan Caplan’s illuminating discussion here.

This seems to correspond with what several women I used to work with have told me they had experienced.