Random but: just before I got really ill I did a cool research project with my consultancy Catharsis about mid career women in tech using sudden pandemic WFH (along and despite its adversities) to advocate for being seen differently or to get chances that were denied when they were in person. Qualitative interviews with really cool stories about strategy in these moments. Then obviously I got crushed by illness so the data is just sitting on my shelf.
Some notable themes were the shared experience of others becoming less functionally fixed about roles and skills during this time, as if the chaos opened up both bad and good possibilities but some of the women I talked to were able to leverage that attitudinal shift in others to make a bid for a new role, or to break a rule that had held them back from being given a chance because of a perceived lack of qualifications. It was so interesting
@grimalkina That does sound fascinating. Does the lack of physically seeing them remove some of the effects of pre-existing biases? Or that new ways of working change expectations, allowing for shake-up of biased systems?
@Jackiemauro I recruited specifically for women who had gone through a career change or promotion that felt like a significant milestone to them, and then the majority of the interview we talked about how they felt pandemic circumstances uniquely provided the opportunity. Some really interesting motivation/awareness stories like many folks said that because of WFH changes they learned way more about the men around them and who was doing what work and that they were doing WAY MORE than others
@grimalkina I got my first job and my current role both while pregnant and I do sometimes wonder how much not being visibly pregnant walking around helped with that
@Jackiemauro wow so fascinating!! And I heard the opposite too like a lot of women said that suddenly people realized the men on the team were also parents also doing childcare and the fever stereotypes were broken a little which was so good for them not getting bias-cast as "the mom on the team"
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