Sieghart draws together a remarkable wealth of research (the bibliography alone is 31 pages long) from academic studies and polling data to analyse and deconstruct this pervasive underestimation of women’s competence ... Sieghart’s field of inquiry is broad ... Anticipating the anguish women readers will feel, Sieghart’s final chapter is titled No Need to Despair. Here, she sets out the changes needed at individual, organisational and legislative levels to close the gap – a goal she believes is achievable in one generation if the will is there. Many of these suggestions are things feminists have long campaigned for – better representation; more transparency in the workplace – but some are corrections we can all begin to make ... an impassioned, meticulously argued and optimistic call to arms for anyone who cares about creating a fairer society. Now we just have to get men to read it.
The book is enormously authoritative, knitting together academic studies with interviews of leading public figures ... turns up a raft of disturbing findings ... Sieghart is at her best when writing about politics ... Sieghart writes with empathy, clarity and passion. She admits that when she took a test for bias, even she fell short, and her results showed up preconceptions about men’s and women’s roles. It’s a trap we are all likely to fall into, as society unconsciously shapes our views ... Why is it important to push back against these tendencies? Sieghart’s evidence builds towards a compelling argument for women and men alike.
... punchy and incisive ... Undeterred, Sieghart offers pages of solutions ... Above all, she says, we need to notice our biases 'and make sure that we correct for them in all our interactions'. If that sounds forced and exhausting, it is surely less so than putting up with a lifetime’s condescension.
... one of those books that takes something ubiquitous, something that perhaps many have become desensitised to, and slowly exposes its far-reaching implications ... The strength of the work is in its data collection ... The first few chapters of the book are the strongest: Sieghart explains not only that there is an authority gap that has serious consequences, but that closing it is good for everyone, men included ... It is harder to keep track once Sieghart starts to break down the authority gap into its parts. Chapters are divided into texts that do not seem that distinct from each other...The reader starts to lose the very specific thread of authority, and stray into the realm of general patriarchy and misogyny. Of course, the authority gap exists because of these structural gender imbalances, but the distinct contours of the gap begin to blur a little as the thesis progresses ... I also wished, as the voices of powerful women punctuated the book with their accounts of being undermined and underestimated, that the authority gap could have been demonstrated more through a less elite cohort. It makes sense to refer to those women with the most authority to show that the gap is so huge it applies even to them, but I found myself searching for more details of everyday challenges that don’t involve boardrooms or high office...That said, Sieghart is fastidious in trying to cover the experiences of all women across the spectrum.
Sieghart, a former Times columnist and senior editor, demonstrates through meticulous use of the research data that these manly sins are disproportionately likely to be directed by men against women, and that their cumulative effect can sometimes be enormous ... In general, Sieghart is good at making the case for the gap’s existence, although admittedly there is occasionally some fudging of correlation and causation in her analysis of the data. Where her argument falters is in her efforts to determine its cause ... I wondered throughout the book whether Sieghart might be attributing to sexism what could also be explained by other, less sinister factors...the pure misogynists are, thankfully, rare. What is much more common is the kind of blundering foolishness that we are all prone to, and which could very well explain some of the conflict between men and women we see in the modern workplace ... Which is not to say that Sieghart is wrong, exactly. She is right to observe the existence of an authority gap, and to want to expose it. Where she goes wrong is in favouring a simple and righteous explanation over something more fine-grained.
This is a deeply researched, comprehensive book – so comprehensive, in fact, it can at times read like an A-Z of gender studies, offering plenty of 'what' but little 'why'. It is odd, in a book about male privilege, that so little space is dedicated to examining the psychological roots of misogyny, even less to the problem of childcare and the division of unpaid labour. And, despite Sieghart’s pleas for optimism, it is hard not to leave this book feeling gloomy: girls, we’re told, internalise bias, are silenced, sapped of self-confidence and forced to battle to be heard. All of which is true, of course, but it hardly makes me feel like fighting.
Sieghart takes particular care to interview trans men and women about their experiences and how they were treated at work after transitioning. Sieghart argues that the first step in changing corporate culture is to admit that the authority gap exists ... A practical book about gender bias and how to alleviate it. Highly recommended.
Though she suggests that women lean in to likability, she acknowledges that the problem is so deeply seeded that only systemic change will close the gender authority gap. Fortunately, she ends with solutions that individuals, colleagues, teachers, and the media can implement. Thoroughly researched and compellingly written, The Authority Gap is a must-read for all genders.
To counteract this problem, [Sieghart] delivers meaningful and easily actionable suggestions for individuals and society ... An important and hopeful reminder that much work is still needed in order to bridge unjust gaps between women and men.
