“…Other participants talked about being given a potential "one up" in promotion decisions from being a women, or being asked to join a certain client meeting because they "needed more women at the In these cases, participants experience advantages for their leadership, arising from more practical opportunities afforded to them, as opposed to innate stylistic differences that women hold. These expressions echo ideas from the broader literature on individuals with marginalized identities, which suggests that difference can be used to ones benefit or to gain preferential treatment (Clair, Beatty & MacLean, 2005), a phenomenon referred to as "secondary gain" by Strauss (1975). In the present study, participants reflect this potential secondary gain, such that they see being a women leader as an opportunity because of the functional advantages it affords them, even if they are largely underrepresented in this context.…”