On Monday 4th March 2024 PropelHer’s Book Club discussed The Authority Gap: Why women are still taken less seriously than men, and what we can do about it by Mary Ann Sieghart.

 

In this summary of The Authority Gap by Mary Ann Sieghart I’ll be briefly summarising the book to help you to make a decision about whether you should buy a copy of the book for yourself.

 

The Authority Gap consists of an introduction and 15 chapters. 

 

The introduction sets the scene for the rest of the book. Mary Ann states that ‘the authority gap is the mother of all gender gaps’ and therefore it needs addressing and reducing. She explores how the authority gap is caused by both unconscious and conscious bias. And then shares with the reader what they can expect through the book. 

 

The next 15 chapters look at different reasons why the authority gap exists and what is looks like in real life. Chapter 2: The view from the other side explores the experience of trans people and how they can see how even though mentally they are the same person the impact transitioning makes on how they are treated. 

 

Then the next few chapters look at confidence being confused for competence, how men will take up more space in conversations and how it is for women to influence others. 

 

The authority gap isn’t just about how men treat women, women, even feminist women, will have unconscious biases that negatively impact women, which is explored in chapter 9. 

 

And even if a women gets into a powerful position  it doesn’t mean it is plain sailing from there. Chapter 11 looks at why we hate women in power and then Chapter 14 shares how women in the public eye receive awful treatment. 

 

Chapter 12 looks at how it isn’t as simple as men are treated like this and women are treated like that. It looks at how race, class and other demographics can impact how a woman is treated. And then in Chapter 13 the conversation then moves onto how beauty plays a role in how seriously a woman is taken too. 

 

The final chapter, chapter 15, is called No need to despair: We can narrow the authority gap in one generation. Since it is the end of the book Mary Ann wants to leave the reader with some clear actions they can take. She has created numerous lists of actions that we can do as individuals, partners, parents, colleagues, employers, teachers, the media, government and a society. So there is no reason to finish the book and then not do something to help close the authority gap. 

 

That’s it! You now have an idea about what you can expect to find inside of The Authority Gap by Mary Ann Sieghart 

 

Like the sound of The Authority Gap by Mary Ann Sieghart.  Why not buy a copy of the book and have a read?

 

 

The Authority Gap by Mary Ann Sieghart

 

 

The Authority Gap by Mary Ann Sieghart was read as part of PropelHer’s Book Club. PropelHer’s Book Club is an online non-fiction book club for ambitious women that meet monthly. Every month PropelHer’s Book Club reads a different book to help ambitious women concentrate on their personal development and professional success. You can see what else we have read so far here. If you would like to join PropelHer’s Book Club you can find full details here.

 

 

And don’t forget to share your book pictures! Tag @Propelherorg.