Knowing how to speak up when it DOES matter is crucial. One comment is inconsequential but a pervasive culture of slight sexism quickly becomes a situation of “death by a thousand cuts”. It eats away at confidence and can lead to feeling burned out.
Why is Self-Promotion Still So Hard?
In my own in-house survey of women in STEM, a common source of frustration they mentioned was seeing women constantly overlooked for promotion. A seasoned engineer I spoke with reported a lack of change in the number of women at conferences in her field over the last 20 years. In networking events, I hear a lot of frustration over finding ways to self-promote that doesn’t feel gross or inauthentic.
