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Date and Location

September 16, 2024
3:00 PM - 4:15 PM ET
Online

Contact

(617) 495-8143
Countering Discrimination: Gendered Merit Construction Strategies

In this seminar, Harvard Business School professor Lakshmi Ramarajan will discuss her recent research on how women and men’s beliefs about meritocracy and gender discrimination shape their pursuit of professional skills. 


With her co-author Erin Reid, Prof. Ramarajan investigated these questions in a qualitative research study of 126 journalists, with an awareness that discrimination against women remains widespread in many male-dominated professions and meritocratic ideals focused on skill and performance are embraced in these same professional workplaces. Reid and Ramarajan investigate how both women and men’s beliefs about meritocracy and gender discrimination shape their pursuit of professional skills. They found that both women and men experience interactions as assessments of merit, while most women also experience these as sites of potential discrimination. People responded to these interactions by trying to construct merit and defend against discrimination. Based on their findings, Ramarajan and Reid developed a theory of how gender discrimination both prompts and disappears gendered skill development and merit construction.


This seminar series will give participants an opportunity to engage with cutting-edge research on women’s leadership advancement, including exploration of the importance of the intersecting identities. This virtual seminar is part of the Women and Public Policy Program's weekly fall seminar series: Women's Leadership In Context: Gender, Power, and Identity Dynamics. Attendance is open to all.

Speakers and Presenters

Lakshmi Ramarajan, Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration

Organizer