The Workplace Doesn’t Take Young Women Seriously—Now They’re Pushing Back

The first time it happens, a boss may say in passing that you remind him of his daughter. Later, during a team-wide Zoom, a manager could call you “young lady” or “missy.” Then, as you gain more responsibility, a colleague might incorrectly assume that the man who reports to you is the one who is in charge.

Many assume that ageism—or unfair treatment based on a person’s age—predominantly impacts older women and men at work. In reality, it impacts younger women the most, according to Lean In and McKinsey’s latest Women in the Workplace report.

Half of women under 30 say their age has had a negative impact on their careers—the most of any group of workers. And young women are also twice as likely as young men to have their coworkers call attention to their age unnecessarily.

“I found myself always trying to hide my age and it felt uncomfortable,” says 31-year-old Nicole Gartside Jenkins, a product marketer from Austin, Texas, who feels like she experienced ageism early on in her career. “I didn’t want people to think less of my abilities just because I was younger than them.”

Interviews with more than a dozen women in their early 30s or younger prove that no matter how it starts, ageism against women early in their careers can have a big impact. Women reported missing out on promotions, pay raises, and other opportunities for advancement. And yet, connecting these setbacks to the slights that led to them can be next to impossible.

“In the workplace, referring to someone’s young age can be seen as a compliment… but it’s incredibly diminishing for women,” says Dr. Amy Diehl, a gender equity researcher and author of Glass Walls. “It is all a way of pointing out that, unlike the men, she doesn’t belong at work. And if she belongs, she really just belongs in support roles, not leadership positions.”

“The resident young person”

Even before women enter the corporate workforce, they are disadvantaged. Not only are they less likely than men to be hired into entry-level roles, they are far less likely to get the critical first promotion to manager. In 2024, for every 100 men promoted to manager, just 81 women were. As a result of this “broken rung,” men go on to significantly outnumber women at the manager level and beyond.

Outdated thinking often points to two explanations for the broken rung: Women are not asking for promotions, and they’re more likely to step away from work. Neither is true. Instead, bias against women—including ageism—is the main driver of this persistent barrier for women.

“Men are promoted based on their potential and women are not,” says Dr. Diehl, referencing research she co-authored on the topic. “Women have to prove they have the skills and experience behind them before they get the promotions, especially when they are young.”

Thirty-year-old Jasmine Khorsandi, a digital marketer working outside of Los Angeles, California, believes the combination of her age and gender led her not to get a promotion for over three years at her former company. One of the youngest workers on staff, Khorsandi was also in charge of the firm’s social media handles. She often felt like her older colleagues didn’t take her—or the nature of her work—seriously, saying things like, “Let Jasmine figure out that TikTok thing.”

At one point, she referred a friend from graduate school for an open role. Although she had the same age, education, and experience as him, she later discovered that his starting salary was significantly higher. He also started out in a more senior position.

“I was for sure pinned as the resident young person who just knows social media,” says Khorsandi. “I found it hard to be seen as an equal or to be respected.”

To avoid Khorsandi’s situation, multiple early-career women said that they were actively coached to do whatever they could to seem older. One woman working in the legal industry—who preferred to stay anonymous for fear of retribution from her former employer—said that when she was 22, other women colleagues advised her to wear glasses and heels. She was told to change how she acted at work as well.

“I am generally an enthusiastic person, but people told me that could come off as ‘girlish’ energy,” says the woman, who is now 32 and works for a major retail company as a senior manager. “I was told not to be happy and cheerful, to talk less, and to be more curt.”

“It is not going to get easier”

For the past six years, 30-year-old Caitlin Kempinski has worked in the construction industry. As a project manager for a company based in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, she often works on-site and is accompanied by a superintendent, who reports directly to her. And yet, workers often assume that the superintendent—a man—is the boss.

At her last job, she was in a particularly uncomfortable situation. Any time she asked a specific contractor a question, he would direct his answer to the superintendent—not her—even after the superintendent told the contractor to address Kempinski directly.

“It is just not going to get easier. Gender will always impact my career,” says Kempinski. “The hope is that with age, I will gain more confidence and be able to better handle myself in those situations.”

Kempinski’s experience is all too common for women, especially those early in their career. Women overall are far more likely than men to deal with comments and actions that undermine their skills and expertise. And younger women are twice as likely as younger men to both have their judgment questioned in their area of expertise and be mistaken for someone at a much lower level than they are.

“I’ve felt like I can’t voice myself because of my age,” says one woman working in her first job in the energy sector. “It’s assumed that you won’t have a good idea, or they won’t take your idea seriously. Or you’ll say something, and next week, somebody says the same idea—but they’re much older and have been with the company much longer.”

“Be bold and outspoken”

Given these demoralizing experiences, you might think that most young women feel helpless about their careers or uninspired to enact change. But the data tell a different story.

Women under 30 remain highly ambitious in the workplace and are no more likely than the younger men they work with to consider leaving their current organization. Instead, they appear deeply motivated to make the workplace more equitable for those who come after them. Younger women are the most committed to advancing gender and racial diversity out of any group of employees. And they are the most likely to take on allyship action to support women of color in their organization.

Kempinski, who started her career in the women-dominated field of public relations, was initially taken aback by the lack of gender diversity in construction. She initially attributed her experiences of being ignored or overlooked to her lack of experience. But after two years, she realized it was mostly due to being a younger woman.

That’s when she committed herself to advocate for the other women around her.

“I can be bold and outspoken, but not all of us are,” says Kempinski. “As I moved into management roles, I realized I could be an ally to other women in my field by holding space for them as well. “

As for Jenkins from Austin, Texas, she has stopped actively trying to hide her age at work. Instead, she launched the first women-focused employee resource group at her company, in part because of the negative experiences she had when she was younger.

“I was in enough conversations early in my career where male voices dominated, and on a few occasions, I experienced being spoken down to or joked about in a way I didn’t feel was totally appropriate,” says Jenkins. “Creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable to voice their opinions leads to better outcomes.”

But young women like Kempinski or Jenkins can’t influence the impact of ageism on early-career women on their own: Company leaders need to make sure that employees are trained not just in gender bias, but age bias as well. Most diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts focus on gender or race—both critical identities for workers to understand—but age is rarely brought into bias training as part of the equation. And in the absence of federal laws, the onus remains on companies to step up and protect younger women from the repercussions of ageism in the workplace.

“The change that needs to happen is at the level of the organization, not on the level of the victims,” says Diehl.

Caroline Fairchild is the editor-in-chief and VP of research and education at LeanIn.Org. She is also a co-author of Women in the Workplace, the largest study on the state of women in corporate America. Before Lean In, Caroline was one of the first journalists hired to launch LinkedIn News, where she led coverage of women in the workplace. At Fortune, she founded The Broadsheet, a popular daily newsletter on women leaders.