While Utah has one of the highest economic growth rates in the nation, many working women here are not benefitting from that growth as much as their male colleagues. In fact, an August 2022 Wallethub study ranked Utah dead last for working women in terms of workplace environment, education and health and political empowerment. Yet apparently nothing is being done to improve those numbers. 

This may be partly due to skewed perceptions of gender bias in the workplace. Utah men, even more than their counterparts across the nation, just don’t get what women here are dealing with, another study by Dr. Helen Knaggs with Utah State University’s Utah Women & Leadership Project suggests. 

Just what is gender bias anyway? According to the Knaggs study, it’s a term “used to describe various barriers embedded in workplace cultures that disadvantage women, either overtly (e.g., harassment) or covertly (e.g., policies that inadvertently benefit men more than women).”

Dr. Knaggs conducted an online survey of 119 participants between October and November 2022 where she examined women’s experiences and perceptions of gender bias in the Utah workplace and men’s perception of those experiences. More than 72 percent of the respondents were women, (mainly because they had heard about the survey through women’s groups); the remainder were men. Most of the respondents were in management.

In the survey, after answering some demographic questions participants were asked to complete either a Gender Bias Scale (female respondents) or an adapted GBS (male respondents).

An example of the questions:

 Original GBS for Women: 

• I have to work harder than my male colleagues for the same credibility. 

• I feel welcome while attending social events with my male colleagues. 

Adapted GBS for Men: 

• In my workplace, women work harder than their male colleagues for the same credibility. 

• In my workplace, women feel welcome while attending social events with their male colleagues. 

The study found that the women in the survey perceived greater gender bias than the men did, particularly in the area of male privilege.

“Male privilege was the gender bias factor with the largest differences in perception between men and women, consistent with literature reporting that male privilege may be invisible to those who benefit from it,” the study said. “Male privilege is defined as a culture controlled by men that reinforces the male hierarchy and subordinates the female voice; it can be especially evident if women make choices that do not align with what men want.”

Male privilege was followed closely by “devaluation” and “disproportionate constraints.” Devaluation included a lack of acknowledgment and salary inequality. Fifty-six percent of women agreed with statements about being interrupted by men when speaking; while 57 percent of men disagreed, for example. Seventy-two percent of women said women made less than their male counterparts while 51 percent of the men neither agreed nor disagreed.

“Disproportionate constraints” refers to unequal standards for the sexes where women felt constrained in their communication and being more scrutinized and expected to work harder for the same credibility than their male counterparts. Seventy to 86 percent of female respondents reported dealing with these issues compared to 40 to 60 percent of men who claimed this did not happen.

“This gap in perception is troubling since men make up a large proportion of Utah leadership, and thus have significant influence over workplace experiences, systems, processes and culture,” the study said.

While just over 49 percent of Utahns are female, in the Utah legislature, for example, in 2022 there were 29 male senators and five female senators. In the House there were 75 male representatives and 22 female representatives. Just one woman, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, serves in a statewide executive office. 

“If Utah men do not perceive or understand the issues that women say are impacting them, change is unlikely to be driven from the top down, and it may not be supported if it is started from the grassroots within organizations,” the study concludes.

In the end, it remains to be seen if given the tight labor market in Utah, there will be enough pain experienced by businesses to effect changes to benefit the state’s working women.