Unwelcome voices: The gender bias‐mitigating potential of unconventionality
Résumé
Substantial evidence indicates that leaders are perceived through a lens of gender bias, but what mitigates such bias remains underexplored. Examining men and women in creative, project-based leadership roles, we integrate insights from role congruity and gender bias literatures to predict how project unconventionality and leader gender affect external perceptions of project quality. We argue that prejudice against female leaders is strongest for conventional projects due to the established presence of male-centric prototypical projects which induce bias, but that project unconventionality weakens this bias by distancing the project from these male-centric prototypes. We find support for this using a sample of 1,414 films by 32 major film studios (1990-2014) across three measures of perceived quality: moviegoer ratings, critic ratings, and film awards.