The Effects of Gender Stereotypes on Female Professionals

The purpose of this thesis is to critically analyse women’s understanding of gender stereotypes and their perception of their career opportunities and organizational measures for gender equality at a consultancy, with the aim of the resulting in-depth insights contributing to organizations’ approach to enhance gender equality at top management levels. We found that there is a discrepancy of explicit statements and implicit beliefs of the interviewed women regarding the effect of gender stereotypes on their career opportunities. Despite not feeling personally affected, they imply an influence of gender stereotypes in their view of having to step back in their career and being disadvantaged when having children. Moreover, organizational measures and initiatives aiming to support women in their career as well as the prevalent overwork culture at the case company are perceived as reinforcing gender stereotypes