Why We Should Stop Trying to Fix Women: How Context Shapes and Constrains Women's Career Trajectories

Abstract

In this review we examine two classes of interventions designed to achieve workplace gender equality: ( a) those designed to boost motivations and ambition, such as those that aim to attract more women into roles where they are underrepresented; and ( b) those that try to provide women with needed abilities to achieve these positions. While such initiatives are generally well meaning, they tend to be based upon (and reinforce) stereotypes of what women lack. Such a deficit model leads to interventions that attempt to “fix” women rather than address the structural factors that are the root of gender inequalities. We provide a critical appraisal of the literature to establish an evidence base for why fixing women is unlikely to be successful. As an alternative, we focus on understanding how organizational context and culture maintain these inequalities by looking at how they shape and constrain ( a) women's motivations and ambitions, and ( b) the expression and interpretation of their skills and attributes. In doing so, we seek to shift the interventional focus from women themselves to the systems and structures in which they are embedded.