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The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About It Hardcover – February 8, 2022

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 26 ratings

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An incisive, intersectional look at the mother of all gender biases: a resistance to women’s authority and power.

Every woman has a story of being underestimated, ignored, challenged, or patronized in the workplace. Maybe she tried to speak up in a meeting, only to be talked over by male colleagues. Or a client addressed her male subordinate instead of her. These stories remain true even for women at the top of their fields; in the U.S. Supreme Court, for example, female justices are interrupted four times more often than their male colleagues―and 96 percent of the time by men. Despite the progress we’ve made toward equality, we still fail, more often than we might realize, to take women as seriously as men.

In The Authority Gap, journalist Mary Ann Sieghart provides a startling perspective on the gender bias at work in our everyday lives and reflected in the world around us, whether in pop culture, media, school classrooms, or politics. With precision and insight, Sieghart marshals a wealth of data from a variety of disciplines―including psychology, sociology, political science, and business―and talks to pioneering women like Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo, renowned classicist Mary Beard, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, and Hillary Clinton. She speaks with women from a range of backgrounds to explore how gender bias intersects with race and class biases.

Eye-opening and galvanizing, The Authority Gap teaches us how we as individuals, partners, parents, and coworkers can together work to narrow the gap. Sieghart exposes unconscious bias in this fresh feminist take on how to address and counteract systemic sexism in ways that benefit us all: men as well as women.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Persuasive.… [P]unchy and incisive.… I would warmly recommend [this book] to men."
James McConnachie, Sunday Times

"Mary Ann Sieghart combines an absorbing review of the contemporary evidence on the systematic undervaluing of women with some powerful new insights. There is much to learn from this book, including some very practical tips on creating change that you can implement the minute after you turn the last page."
Julia Gillard, former prime minister of Australia

"Well-written and illuminating.… [
The Authority Gap] has some excellent comebacks, statistics and arguments for the rest of us to use against the office sexists, or to understand better the gap that harms even very successful women."
Isabel Berwick, Financial Times

"At last, here is a credible roadmap that is capable of taking women from the margins to the center by bridging the authority gap that holds back even the best and most talented of women."
Mary McAleese, former president of Ireland

"Sieghart draws together a remarkable wealth of research… to analyse and deconstruct this pervasive underestimation of women’s competence.… An impassioned, meticulously argued and optimistic call to arms for anyone who cares about creating a fairer society."
Stephanie Merritt, Observer

"Thorough and sometimes enraging.… [Sieghart] takes something ubiquitous, something that perhaps many have become desensitised to, and slowly exposes its far-reaching implications."
Nesrine Malik, Guardian

"Sieghart writes with empathy, clarity and passion.… The book is enormously authoritative, knitting together academic studies with interviews of leading public figures."
Frieda Klotz, Irish Independent

From the Back Cover

Every woman has a story of being underestimated, ignored, challenged, or patronized in the workplace. Maybe she tried to speak up in a meeting, only to be talked over by male colleagues. Or a client addressed her male subordinate instead of her. Despite the progress we’ve made toward equality, we still fail, more often than we might realize, to take women as seriously as men.

In The Authority Gap, journalist Mary Ann Sieghart examines the wide-ranging implications of this critical gender bias. She explores its intersections with race and class biases and the measures we can take to bridge the gap. With precision and insight, she marshals a wealth of data from a variety of disciplines―including psychology, sociology, politics, and business―and interviews pioneering women like Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo and Janet Yellen. The Authority Gap offers a “a credible roadmap that is capable of taking women from the margins to the center” (Mary McAleese, former president of Ireland).

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company (February 8, 2022)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393867757
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393867756
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.34 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.4 x 9.6 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 26 ratings

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Mary Ann Sieghart
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Mary Ann Sieghart spent 20 years as Assistant Editor and columnist at The Times and won a large following for her columns on politics, economics, feminism, parenthood and life in general. She has presented many programmes on BBC Radio 4, such as Start the Week, Profile, Analysis, Fallout and One to One. She chaired the revival of The Brains Trust on BBC2 and recently spent a year as a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. She has chaired the Social Market Foundation think tank, is a Visiting Professor at King's College London, and sits on numerous boards.

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2022
    As I was reading The Authority Gap, I was making a mental list of those to whom I will send a copy once it is published in the U.S. It is a long list. The book is validating, instructive, and infuriating. Validating to women who have experienced exactly the kind of skepticism and dismissal of their expertise described (these women include Angela Merkel, Christine Lagarde, Janet Yellen, and of course, Hillary Clinton). Instructive and infuriating because I learned of new ways and means by which gender discrimination is inculcated and enacted—the former in terms of what parents and teachers ingrain and perpetuate from childhood (in one study, parents estimate their male children’s IQ at 115 and their female children’s at 107, even when the girls are obviously smarter, in another, boys receive eight times as much classroom attention as girls), the latter mostly about losers who have nothing better to do than attack women on the internet solely because they express an opinion (as Laurie Penny observed, an opinion “is the short skirt of the internet”).

    The book hits the bullseye over and over and over again. I was amused, gratified, and exasperated by the exquisitely accurate descriptions of male overconfidence (men overestimated “how interesting they were, how intelligent they were, [and] how much people liked them”) and how overconfident men—and sadly, others—confuse that confidence with actual competence.

    The book is adroitly written and thoroughly researched, invoking studies of bias from every angle. Sieghart also undertook extensive interviews of women ranging from authorities in various academic and scientific disciplines to world leaders (who are authorities on many things, but who have nevertheless encountered breathtaking sexism from peers and underlings). Sieghart herself is an authority on politics and economics in the UK (a former columnist and assistant editor at the Times), and does not lack for examples from her own career of instances in which her expertise was seemingly incomprehensible to men.

    The end of the book, though not the strongest part, is a list of things we all can do to improve the situation. The book is unlikely to convert internet trolls or the other vast swaths of men who perpetuate discrimination solely because they know (consciously or unconsciously) that they cannot maintain their privilege if they must compete with women who are their equals, let alone the many women who are more talented, accomplished, intelligent, and expert. Those men “want to silence women so that the world hears only from men.” But Sieghart gallops right past them and will inspire others to do so as well.
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  • Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2023
    I learned a lot from reading about other women in authority. Knowing that many of us see and experience this in the workplace was comforting. You will learn how to recognize gap instances through the examples. I would have liked more ways to deal with it in daily life. Reading about other women in authority can give us the confidence to recognize and address gaps in the workplace. It can also help us recognize and address potential issues in our daily lives, such as microaggressions or unconscious bias. Having the tools to do so can help us navigate potentially tricky or uncomfortable situations and be more successful in our careers.
  • Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2022
    Most women will recognize the premise of this book. Men are taken more seriously. The author contributes some particularly shocking examples involving women at the highest levels. Meeting the President of Ireland, the pope asked her husband, “Would you rather be president or be married to the president?” The normally sensitive pope was tone-deaf to the insult he was inadvertently delivering.

    A lot of the stories in this book could have been told fifty years ago, when women were just beginning to demand and sometimes get recognition in the workplace. Title IX was passed in 1972. Women were ignored, “mansplained,” interrupted and not taken seriously.

    The major contribution of this book is that, while women have achieved high-status roles, they’re still subject to invisibility, interruption, insults, and not being taken seriously. It’s still harder for a woman to get published or promoted in many places.

    We also have more direct evidence of discrimination. Transgender women can be shocked at the way they’re treated, while transgender men are pleasantly surprised at the swifter progress of their careers.

    While the book makes a strong case for the continuing existence of discrimination at the highest levels, the author devotes most space to providing examples. They’re strong examples. But as a reader, I found myself thinking, “So what else is new?”

    For instance, we read about a female author who changes her first name to “Alex.” Suddenly her book gets accepted; she wins awards and accolades from men who assume she’s male.

    We’ve seen this over and over, at all levels. My friend Michael shared a tech help desk with a coworker Elaine. He couldn’t understand why Elaine took so much more time to handle cases. So they swapped names and emails for two weeks. He answered as Elaine; she was Michael.

    “Those were the two worst weeks of my life,” says Michael.
    “Those were the easiest two weeks of my life,” says Elaine.

    It’s also easy to find published accounts from transgender women who are baffled by responses from formerly respectful men. Telling a man on an airplane, “You’re sitting in my seat,” results in a quick apology and swap if you’re a male and an extended argument if you’re female.

    OK, we know this. But what can we do? The author’s suggestions are aimed broadly at policies and attitudes. Surprisingly she presents her ideas rather patronizingly, as, “What can we do as parents?” Or “What can we do as colleagues?”

    I’d like to see suggestions for an appropriate response if a man talks over you or gives a man credit for your ideas at a meeting. How do you create a mindset that allows you to laugh off insults and keep going?

    Interestingly, I didn’t see examples of military women (although I may have missed some - there were so many - and “military” was not in the index). The author is British, so American experiences may not translate. The first women graduated from the US service academies in 1976. Male cadets soon encountered female upperclassmen. They were required to salute females who were higher in rank and women yelled at them during training.

    The book acknowledges that seeing more women in leadership roles can have a positive effect. In the US, we might have a natural experiment as the US military academies began accepting women in fall of 1976 (the first classes with women graduated in 1980).

    When men spend their college-age years with women in senior roles, do they perceive women differently? Women are still a minority and still can have negative experiences, including sexual harassment. But it would be helpful to see if male attitudes have changed. As the entering women became upperclassmen, they’d be training the new cadets.

    I believe the US Navy, Army, and Air Force academies have placed women in the cadet commander role; the army recently appointed a Black woman as First Captain. It would be helpful to see how these changes affected the attitudes of males and females.

    One woman from the earlier classes noted (I forget where I read this) that today’s women cadets sometimes choose to wear the skirt version of their uniforms; you’ll see women in skirts at the USMA graduation. The graduate suggested women would be more comfortable in their roles if they were willing to wear skirts rather than trousers - something the early grads never did. How did this change come about?
    .
    I’d like to have seen more about the intersections of gender, age and sexual orientation. I agree that getting older can offer an advantage, as older women aren’t seen as sexual threats. But age discrimination is at least as ubiquitous and nobody even tries to hide it.

    The author makes an excellent point (p 68 in the hardback) that there are more senior men than women, but you shouldn’t assume the person in front of you is one of the other. That’s even more true of older people: Employers, doctors, salespeople and just about everyone on the planet assumes that, over a certain age, you’re retired, frail, poor, lonely, and forgetful.

    If there’s less of a sexual threat from age, why are we seeing (or not seeing) the same effect from openly gay women?

    The book focuses on professional roles, which certainly deserve attention. Yet in dealing with car dealers, repair services, real estate agents, and medical services, women aren’t taken seriously as customers. Perhaps that’s beyond this book’s scope.

    However, it’s definitely thought-provoking and will start many discussions. The fact that I was inspired to write this review says a lot.
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