When women have to work harder to establish competence

Women often tell us that they have to work twice as hard to get half as far. What’s behind this? Studies show that, in jobs historically held by men, men are presumed to be competent, while women often have to prove their competence over and over again. Thus men but not women may be given the benefit of the doubt. In addition, women’s mistakes may be remembered forever while men's are soon forgotten.

One of the most common examples of “Prove it Again!” is the double standard that men are judged on their potential, while women are judged strictly on what they already have accomplished. Women also may get polarized evaluations from students or peers: Women who are superstars get high evaluations while women whose work is merely excellent tend to get sharply lower evaluations than similarly situated men.

These scenarios illustrate the Prove it Again! bias (or lack of it). These scenarios are based on information from surveys and focus groups of faculty women.