The Goldilocks Dilemma

Women start out in virtually all high-status, high-paying careers in numbers comparable to men (with engineering and information technology the conspicuous exceptions). As they move up the career ladder, however, women are increasingly underrepresented at every rung, with the greatest gender disparity at the senior leadership level. The explanations for this typically involve some variation on “it’s women’s own fault” or “it’s the fault of workplace practices and policies.” But the root of the problem lies entirely elsewhere. Women fall...