In a new article published in Harvard Business Review, a team of scholars from Texas A&M University examine how people’s perceptions of women in executive roles have changed over the past six decades
To better understand trends in senior executives’ attitudes toward women leaders in business, the three co-authors — Dwayne Whitten, clinical professor of business; Wendy R. Boswell, the Jerry and Kay Cox Endowed Chair in Business; and Susan Oldroyd, a Ph.D. student in business — revisited other research findings dating back to 1965, including a 2006 article that was also co-authored by Dr. Whitten. For the most recent study, the research team surveyed 193 U.S. senior executives across industries and conducted qualitative interviews with several respondents.
In 2006, both 35 percent of men and 35 percent of women agreed that women executives are judged more critically than their male counterparts. In 2026, 90 percent of women agreed with that sentiment, while men’s agreement rate stayed at 35 percent.
Similarly, there was a large increase over the past two decades in the share of women who believe they must be more exceptional than men to succeed, rising from 68 percent in 2006 to 83 percent in 2026. In contrast, the share of men who believe the same declined from 32 percent in 2006 to 28 percent in 2026.
New survey questions in the 2026 study revealed that only 37 percent of women believe promotion criteria are applied equally across genders, compared to 70 percent of men. Furthermore, only 40 percent of women believe their company is a meritocracy, compared to 76 percent of men.
“What the combined data reveal is not simply that bias persists, but rather specific and troubling new developments,” the authors write. “While attitudes improved sharply between 1965 and 2006, the years since have produced a gap in how men and women experience evaluation, standards, and opportunity. The divergence indicates progress on the surface, but deterioration underneath.”