When Women in IP brought together colleagues from the UK, Australia and New Zealand for a cross-jurisdictional webinar on 4 June 2026, the conversation centred on an issue that many professionals will recognise but few have had the opportunity to examine through the lens of robust research.
Drawing on interviews with more than 100 women working across the intellectual property professions in Australia and New Zealand, Professor Jessica Lai (Victoria University of Wellington), Dr Ronelle Geldenhuys (Jones Maxwell Smith & Davis, Brisbane) and Maryam Khajeh Tabari (Chrysiliou IP, Sydney) explored how professional identity is shaped by workplace culture, gendered expectations and organisational structures. Rather than reinforcing familiar narratives about women competing against one another, the research asks a more interesting question: what is it about our professional environments that shapes these behaviours in the first place, and then places salience on them?
You can read their paper about this here: “Self-Group Distancing and the Burden on Senior Women: Intellectual Property Practice in Australia and New Zealand”.
The discussion was candid, evidence-based and ultimately hopeful. The conclusion was a need to address not individual women’s behaviours but the cultures that shape them.
Research borne from conversation
Surprisingly, this research did not begin with a formal research proposal. Instead it arose from an informal coffee break conversation between three women discussing their experiences at work.
Their stories were immediately familiar.
- Being mistaken for the person bringing the coffee rather than the person leading the meeting.
- Finding that expertise was overlooked until someone else repeated the same point.
- Feeling invisible despite being the most senior person in the room.
As they talked, they realised that these weren’t isolated incidents, yet very little research had documented them within the IP professions. So they decided to do it themselves.
The resulting project grew into a substantial qualitative study involving more than 100 lightly-structured interviews, each lasting between one and one-and-a-half hours, where participants were able to share their experiences honestly and without fear of judgement. Given the relatively small size of the Australian and New Zealand IP professions, this represents a significant body of evidence.
Turning stories into evidence
One of the strengths of this research is that it moves beyond anecdotes. Isolated stories of microaggressions, unequal expectations or subtle forms of exclusion are often easy to dismiss. By collecting and analysing more than one hundred detailed interviews, Professor Lai, Dr Geldenhuys and Ms Khajeh Tabari have created something much more powerful: evidence.
The findings demonstrate that many behaviours commonly interpreted as personal failings are, in fact, shaped and given salience by the cultures, expectations and systems within the profession.
Moving beyond the “Queen Bee” narrative
Many of us will have come across the idea as commonly referred to as the “queen bee effect” – the perception that senior women are disproportionately critical of or unsupportive towards junior women. It’s a narrative that has become surprisingly persistent, often accompanied by the assumption that women are somehow responsible for creating barriers for other women.
The webinar encouraged us to rethink that assumption.
Instead of using the language of the “queen bee”, the presenters introduced participants to the concept of self-group distancing, which offers a much more nuanced explanation. Self-group distancing describes the ways in which members of underrepresented groups may unconsciously distance themselves from others who share the same identity. Rather than being driven by hostility or personal animosity, it is often a rational adaptation to workplaces where success has historically been defined by norms associated with the dominant group.
Significantly, the research found that interviewees who displayed forms of self-group distancing were generally unaware they were doing so. As Professor Lai noted, the decision to distance oneself is rarely conscious or emotional. It reflects an assessment of what is required to be accepted, credible and successful within a particular professional environment. The distinction matters because it shifts the focus away from blaming individuals and towards examining the cultures that shape behaviour.
It also fundamentally changes how we should respond. If behaviours emerge from organisational culture rather than individual intent, then lasting change requires cultural change rather than simply asking individuals to behave differently.
More than a gender issue
Although the research focused on women’s experiences in intellectual property, the presenters were careful to point out that self-group distancing is not unique to gender. Similar dynamics can affect anyone whose identity places them outside the dominant professional norm, whether because of race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality or other characteristics.
Equally importantly, the presenters resisted any temptation to homogenise women’s experiences.
The 107 participants came from different backgrounds, different practice areas and different stages of their careers. Their stories reflected a wide range of perspectives and intersecting identities, reminding us that diversity exists within every group.
Generational differences
The interviews revealed fascinating generational differences. Many younger women described their experiences positively, often before major life events such as having children had impacted their careers.
Women from Generation X were noticeably more frustrated, reflecting on accumulated experiences of bias and unequal expectations.
Some of the most senior women, meanwhile, tended to acknowledge difficulties but describe them simply as “how things were”. Their accounts were often more measured, perhaps reflecting the different professional cultures in which they had built their careers.
These differing perspectives illustrate how workplace cultures evolve over time, while also reminding us that progress is rarely experienced equally across generations.
Personal reflection and changing perspectives
Dr Geldenhuys also reflected on how the research had transformed her own thinking. Early in her career, she admitted that she believed success required fitting into the existing professional culture. If someone could not fit in, perhaps they should consider a different workplace, or even a different profession. Looking back, she described that view as naïve.
Motherhood prompted a significant shift in her thinking. Like many working parents, she found herself feeling grateful simply to have been allowed parental leave and flexible working arrangements. That sense of gratitude made it hard to question decisions that, viewed objectively, were unfair, such as having no office to work in following her parental leave, or being told that her job is not “a nine-to-five job”.
Her experience highlighted how organisational cultures can encourage people to normalise inequity rather than question it.
Empathy and Challenging double standards
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the interviews revealed considerable empathy between women. Far from confirming the stereotype that women fail to support one another, participants frequently recognised the pressures facing their colleagues, even where behaviours appeared unsympathetic on the surface. That sense of mutual understanding was one of the most encouraging themes to emerge from the research.
The research also highlighted the double standards that continue to shape professional life. Characteristics such as confidence, decisiveness and ambition are often welcomed in male leaders but viewed differently when displayed by women. The result is a narrow path that many women feel expected to navigate: demonstrating authority while avoiding behaviours that risk being labelled abrasive or difficult. It also likely means that ‘Queen Bees’ are identified through behaviours that are accepted – possibly even valued – when exhibited by men.
What does this mean for the IP profession?
Although the research focused on Australia and New Zealand, many participants from the UK recognised similar themes. The pressures of commercial practice, like billable hours, business development, partnership pathways and high-performance cultures, are familiar across jurisdictions.
The webinar invited us to think about what our organisations actually reward.
- What do we mean by “professionalism”?
- Who gets recognised as leadership material?
- What behaviours are celebrated, and whose behaviours are scrutinised more closely?
These are not questions for women alone. They require leaders to examine organisational cultures, promotion criteria, informal expectations and everyday behaviours that collectively define what “professionalism” looks like.
A hopeful conversation
Despite tackling difficult issues, the overall tone of the webinar was strikingly optimistic. The research does not paint women as one another’s adversaries. Instead, it shows women navigating complex professional environments with remarkable resilience, empathy and professionalism, while highlighting how organisational structures can unintentionally shape behaviour in ways that are often misunderstood.
Perhaps the most valuable takeaway is this shift in perspective. Rather than asking why individuals behave in particular ways, we are encouraged to ask what workplace cultures make those behaviours seem necessary.
That opens up a much more constructive conversation. It shifts the focus away from assigning blame, asking individuals to work harder or adapt more effectively, towards creating environments where everyone can succeed without feeling they need to leave part of their identity behind.
Participants continued these conversations in breakout groups, sharing reflections from their own jurisdictions and workplaces. The discussion reinforced that while experiences differ across generations and countries, many of the underlying challenges are shared
The encouraging news is that shared challenges can also inspire shared solutions. By continuing conversations like these, and grounding them in evidence rather than assumptions, the IP profession has an opportunity to build workplaces where professional identity is defined not by conformity, but by inclusion.
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