# Who Takes the Floor and Why: Gender, Power, and Volubility in Organizations

*Brescoll · Power & Equity, Voice & Silence · Administrative Science Quarterly · 2011 · Paywalled*

Three studies using archival data (US Senate floor time by gender and seniority) and experiments showing that while power has a strong positive effect on how much men talk in organizations, it has no such effect for women. Powerful women who talk as much as powerful men face backlash — perceived as less competent and less suitable for leadership. Women with power self-censor not because they lack voice but because they correctly anticipate the social penalty for using it. This is the empirical grounding for the structural argument that psychological safety is not equally available to all members of a team: for women, the calculus of voice operates under an additional constraint that has nothing to do with the leader's behaviour and everything to do with the status characteristics of the speaker.

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