Female Boss, Bad Review

"She's a great boss" is easy to say if she's given you a rave
review. But when a female superior gives an employee a negative
evaluation, the subordinate is likely to see her as less competent than a
similarly critical male boss, according to research by psychologist Ziva
Kunda, Ph.D., and graduate student Lisa Sinclair at Ontario's University
of Waterloo.

In the studies, male undergraduates were taped as they answered a
questionnaire on interpersonal skills. The researchers told them their
answers would be evaluated by a managerial trainee (in reality an
experimenter) as part of a training program, and added that the students
could watch the trainee's evaluation afterwards on videotape. The
students were then allowed to rate the "managers," who had given scripted
positive or negative evaluations. When female or black male trainees gave
good reviews, they were rated as highly as their white male counterparts.
But when the evaluations were harsh, ratings plummeted far more for
female and black managers than for white males.

The reason? Stereotypes rear their ugly heads when people are
challenged. Kunda fears that "as black people and women gain in power,
they'll more often find themselves having to deliver bad news, and will
be seen more through the lens of negative stereotypes." On a positive
note, however, the high ratings given to female and black trainees who
handed out good reviews indicate that when it was to their advantage,
students could suppress negative stereotypes.