Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist who runs the Making Caring Common project, released a report on leadership biases underlining that the teen girls, who are key to closing the gender gap, appear to face an age-old and powerful barrier: gender biases and specifically about their leadership. This biases originate from the girls environment: parents, professors, friends etc. Our society have interiorised so well the traditionnal patriarchal model that gender biases are unconsciously perpetrated. However, parents and teachers can do a great deal to stem these biases and help children manage them. Which would mean more future leaders who are women!

Weissbourd and Luba Falk Feigenberg, partnerships manager at Making Caring Common, came up with five ways for parents to prevent gender bias:

1. Check you own biases
2. Engage your kids in making your home a bias-free zone
3. Help kids kick stereotypes to the curb
4. Don’t just let “boys be boys.”
5. Build girls’ leadership skills and self-confidence