Author(s): Mary Ann Sieghart

Gender Studies

You probably, in the abstract, believe in equality between men and women, and accept that women are as intelligent and competent as men. But do you actually take women as seriously? Do you listen as attentively to what they say? Do you read the books they write? For a lot of us, the answers to these questions are surprising. The Authority Gap will examine the evidence that shows how few of us, female as well as male, bear out our beliefs about equality in our behaviour. It will take a long, hard look at the question of why women are still taken less seriously than men; why women are promoted to fewer top jobs, accorded less credit for their work, and accorded less authority than their male counterparts. Mary Ann Sieghart seeks to interrogate our unconscious biases in detail and map out the measures we can take, as individuals and society, both to counteract them, and to see them for what they are - an irrational but tenacious product of our social conditioning.