Women Are Less Likely Than Men to Self-Promote at Work

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Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Uber will pay $4.4 million to victims of harassment to end its EEOC investigation, Drybar’s product line gets a new owner, and women are not into self-promotion. Also, some end-of-year housekeeping: The Broadsheet will be on hiatus until Monday, Jan. 6–thanks for reading along this year. Happy holidays, and see you in 2020!

EVERYONE'S TALKING

- Humble/Brag. Put your hand up if you've ever had a boss tell you that you need to do more self-promotion.

I'm assuming you all have your hands in the air—I know mine is. It's actually the first piece of professional feedback I remember getting in my post-collegiate life, and one that has resurfaced periodically during my career.

If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. According to new research in HBR from professors at Harvard Business School and Wharton, women are less likely to engage in self-promotion than men—a gender disparity that holds true in a host of circumstances. The researchers gave men and women a test and then asked them to characterize their performance on a scale of 0 to 100. Even though both genders fared about the same on the test, women gave themselves lower performance ratings even when they knew how they'd done relative to their peers, when they were told a potential employer would see their test scores, and when it was made clear that no one would see the scores to offer reward or punishment for how they'd performed.

The experiment didn't reveal why women are so allergic to self-promotion. But the professors do point to previous research that's shown how women are more likely to experience backlash for seeming to seek the spotlight or play up their accomplishments at work. They write:

"If women are punished for excessive self-promotion more than men, this could lead women—more than men—to internalize the risks of describing their performance too favorably...employers relying on self-promotion to make hiring, promotion, salary, or bonus decisions should heed the lessons from this work: Women may not talk about their work as favorably as men, but that doesn’t mean their performance is any worse."

So, yes, we should all brag more. But perhaps rather than putting the self-promotion gap on the shoulders of female employees, employers should ask themselves why—rather than using concrete data like accomplishments or actual performance—they're so likely to be swayed by male employees' willingness to toot their own horns.

Kristen Bellstrom
kristen.bellstrom@fortune.com
@kayelbee

Today's Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

- CORRECTION: Yesterday, the Broadsheet summarized a Bloomberg story that reported, among other things, that Softbank managing partner Jeff Housenbold allegedly made a vulgar and inappropriate comment regarding Peloton and that he had also allegedly forced the former CEO of Brandless to resign. The Bloomberg story also reported that SoftBank had denied that Housenbold had made the comment, which we should have included in our summary but did not. We apologize for the inadvertent oversight. In a letter to Fortune, a lawyer for Housenbold reiterated that Housenbold never made the comment attributed to him in the Bloomberg report, and that the former Brandless CEO voluntarily resigned from her position. Additionally, the lawyer states that Housenbold is "a strong supporter of inclusivity and diversity in the workplace, and any statements to the contrary are false."

- Dem debate. The biggest fireworks of last night's Democratic debate came from Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who clashed over the influence of wealthy campaign donors. Warren called out a recent Buttigieg fundraiser that took place in a Napa wine cave. "Billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States," she said. Washington Post

- The Uber fund. Uber will establish a $4.4 million fund to settle the EEOC's investigation into its corporate culture and sexual harassment. The money from that fund will be distributed to women who worked at Uber between 2014 and 2019 and are found to be eligible for recompense. Uber also agreed to create a system to "identify serial offenders and managers who fail to respond to concerns about sexual harassment." Fortune

- Sales and spinoffs. Drybar, the chain of blowout bars founded by Alli Webb, also makes its own line of hair care products. Those products were sold to the consumer products conglomerate Helen of Troy for $255 million, a deal that doesn't include the salons. In other spinoff news, IAC is turning online dating service Match into its own company. The spinoff of the company led by CEO Mandy Ginsberg has been expected for a while.

- Great place to work. Fortune partner Great Place to Work picks the 100 best workplaces for diversity. Stryker, Cisco, and Progressive Insurance make the top of the list. Fortune

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: G/O Media named Marnie Shure, previously of The Infatuation, editor-in-chief of The Takeout. The All England Club, organizer of Wimbledon, promoted strategic planning and operations director Sally Bolton to CEO. Katherine Bell, formerly of Barron's, is the new editor-in-chief of Quartz.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

- Decade in review. This decade, beauty retail—like Emily Weiss's Glossier and Kylie Jenner's Kylie Cosmetics—"stepped out from behind the counter." Also in the 2010s, CEOs finally got political on issues from gun violence to abortion.

- Defending Dingell. A bipartisan group of lawmakers continued to rally around Rep. Debbie Dingell yesterday after President Trump said her late husband, Rep. John Dingell, was "looking up" from hell at the House's impeachment proceedings and her vote. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Lindsey Graham both called on Trump to apologize. NBC News

- The Affair affair. Actor Ruth Wilson starred on The Affair—but she mysteriously quit the show in 2018 over what The Hollywood Reporter now reports was a toxic work environment and being forced to appear nude much more than she expected, in ways that added nothing to the story. The Affair aired on Showtime, owned by CBS. Showrunner Sarah Treem denies pressuring performers. The Hollywood Reporter