Networks, twice over

You may or may not recall that the fourth factor underpinning the Paula Principle is lack of vertical networks. Men are more likely to know people working at levels above them.  As a result they get better access to those levels, either for specific reasons such as hearing about job opportunities or for much more general ones such as understanding how organisations or systems work, the vocabulary that gets used at senior level and so on.  Nepotism may play a part, but in a way that's the least interesting aspect of this somewhat vicious circle: men are more likely to know more senior people, and so to become more senior themselves.…
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