Three leading technology and fashion executives have revealed the persistent structural barriers facing women in corporate leadership, including what they describe as “seasonal” media interest that peaks around International Women’s Day before disappearing for the remainder of the year. In a recent podcast discussion, Marta Sánchez, CEO of Candee; Patricia Díaz, Director of Elogia Fashion; and Tanya Recouso, Product Director at Elogia, analyzed the challenges of female leadership, enduring glass ceilings, and the role of artificial intelligence in perpetuating gender biases.
The March Phenomenon: Media Attention as Seasonal Event
Marta Sánchez, speaking from her experience as a chief executive, identified a concerning pattern in media engagement with women leaders. “I notice a peak of contact and PR actions exclusively in March,” she explained, referring to the concentration of interviews, features, and discussions around International Women’s Day on March 8. “It’s sad because ultimately it’s as if it seems we occupy that space less at other times.”
This observation points to a broader issue in corporate communications and media representation. While conversations about gender equality, leadership diversity, and structural barriers occur privately among women professionals throughout the year, mainstream media outlets appear to allocate specific space for these topics primarily during designated awareness periods. Sánchez emphasized that this pattern inadvertently reinforces the marginalization of women’s leadership issues, treating them as seasonal topics rather than ongoing business priorities.
The Leadership Label Debate: Empowerment or Limitation?
The discussion turned to whether the term “female leadership” ultimately empowers or restricts women in executive positions. Sánchez warned against the tendency to associate femininity exclusively with “care” or soft skills, noting that this association is sometimes weaponized to limit professional credibility in positions of power. “When we talk about feminine leadership, there’s a risk of reducing it to stereotypical qualities rather than recognizing the full spectrum of leadership capabilities women bring,” she observed.
Tanya Recouso proposed moving beyond gender-specific labels toward what she called “purely feminist leadership,” defined as the genuine pursuit of equality between men and women in professional settings. “Leadership should be evaluated based on competence, vision, and results, not gender characteristics,” Recouso argued. “The feminist approach focuses on dismantling systemic barriers rather than emphasizing gender differences.”
Structural Power: The Real Gender Gap
Patricia Díaz shifted the conversation to what she identified as the fundamental issue: structural power distribution. “The true gap isn’t just in representation numbers,” she stated. “It’s in who sets the rules of the game, who decides about capital allocation, and who creates the systems within which we all operate.”
This perspective highlights that while visible representation has improved in some sectors, decision-making authority, resource control, and system design remain predominantly male domains. Díaz emphasized that until women participate equally in these foundational aspects of business and society, surface-level representation will remain insufficient for creating meaningful change.
Artificial Intelligence as Bias Amplifier
As technology professionals, the executives devoted significant attention to artificial intelligence’s role in either challenging or reinforcing gender inequalities. Recouso explained that AI systems, particularly large language models, are trained on historical data that already contains deeply embedded human biases. “AI isn’t free from bias because it learns from our history, and our history is biased,” she noted.
The panel discussed specific examples where AI systems have demonstrated concerning patterns: associating negative terms with racialized individuals, linking women predominantly with humanities fields while connecting men with STEM disciplines, and generating sexually objectifying content disproportionately targeting women. These technological manifestations, they argued, reflect and amplify existing societal prejudices rather than creating new ones.
Deepfakes and Digital Vulnerability
A particularly alarming dimension of AI’s gender impact emerged in discussions of deepfake technology. All three executives agreed that non-consensual deepfakes primarily target women for sexualization, representing a digital extension of pre-existing objectification patterns. “These technologies act as catalysts for behaviors that already exist,” Sánchez observed. “They provide new tools for old patterns of control and humiliation.”
The conversation included practical advice for individuals targeted by deepfakes: act quickly to document and report the content, protect personal information and mental wellbeing, and resist internalizing blame for others’ malicious actions. The executives emphasized that responsibility lies with perpetrators and platforms, not victims.
AI’s Potential for Revaluing “Feminine” Attributes
Despite these concerns, the panel identified potential positive applications of AI in gender equity. Sánchez suggested that as purely technical capabilities become increasingly automated and commoditized, traditionally “feminine” attributes like emotional intelligence, contextual understanding, and relational skills might gain value. “In a landscape saturated with technological solutions, human-centered capabilities could become the differentiator,” she proposed.
This perspective reframes the conversation from women needing to adapt to technological environments to technology potentially creating space for skills historically associated with women’s socialization. However, the executives cautioned against romanticizing this possibility without simultaneously addressing systemic barriers to women’s advancement in technology fields.
Glass Ceilings, Sticky Floors, and Invisible Walls
The discussion moved to enduring structural obstacles that persist despite increased visibility of women in leadership. The executives cited Spain’s estimated 15% gender pay gap as one measurable indicator of inequality, but emphasized less quantifiable barriers like the “sticky floor” of care responsibilities that disproportionately burden women and hinder career advancement.
Recouso articulated a particularly pointed critique of perfection expectations: “I reclaim the right to mediocrity. If a woman reaches a position, she has to be excellent, super top. A man can simply be mediocre and maintain his position. We want the right to fail.” This statement highlights the different standards applied to men and women in professional settings, where women’s competence is constantly scrutinized while men benefit from presumption of capability.
The Validation Burden in Leadership
Beyond perfection expectations, the executives identified what Díaz called “the validation burden”—the additional emotional and political labor required of women leaders to secure approval for initiatives. “Many times, women in positions of authority still need to consider the opinions and validation of male colleagues of equal rank to implement any action plan,” she explained.
This dynamic creates what researchers sometimes call “the authority gap,” where women in leadership positions must continually prove their right to lead while men benefit from automatic assumption of authority. The executives noted that this extra labor consumes time, energy, and political capital that could otherwise be directed toward substantive leadership work.
Concrete Actions for Organizational Change
Moving from diagnosis to prescription, the panel proposed three specific actions for companies genuinely committed to gender equity. First, they emphasized data transparency through regular audits of parity in decision-making positions. “Companies need to review their real numbers,” Recouso insisted. “Not just overall employment figures, but specifically who holds power, controls budgets, and sets strategy.”
Second, they advocated for conscious consumption as a market force for change. “Consumers should reward and support brands that genuinely represent and care about real diversity,” Díaz recommended. This approach leverages economic pressure to complement regulatory and internal organizational efforts.
Exercising Power Without Permission
The third and most provocative recommendation centered on what Sánchez called “exercising power without asking for permission”—a direct challenge to women in leadership positions to lead assertively without fear of causing discomfort. “A man probably wouldn’t have that fear,” she observed, highlighting the different psychological and cultural permissions granted to male versus female leaders.
This call to action reframes leadership not as a privilege granted by existing power structures but as a right to be claimed through confident action. It challenges women to overcome internalized limitations and external resistance by simply acting as leaders rather than waiting for validation or permission.
The Persistent Representation Gap
Despite acknowledging progress in some areas, all three executives agreed that current representation levels remain insufficient. “Having more women in high-ranking positions is necessary but not sufficient,” Díaz stated. “We need critical mass, not just token presence.”
Research supports this perspective, suggesting that token representation often increases scrutiny and pressure on individual women while failing to change organizational cultures. True transformation, the executives argued, requires not just numerical parity but fundamental shifts in power dynamics, decision-making processes, and cultural norms.
The conversation among these technology and fashion executives reveals both the persistent challenges and evolving strategies in the pursuit of gender equity in corporate leadership. From confronting seasonal media interest to navigating AI’s biased algorithms, from challenging perfection expectations to claiming authority without apology, their insights map a complex landscape where progress requires simultaneous attention to psychological, cultural, and structural dimensions. As organizations increasingly recognize that diverse leadership correlates with better financial performance and innovation, the experiences and recommendations of women who have navigated these barriers provide essential guidance for meaningful rather than superficial change. The path forward involves not just adding women to existing structures but transforming those structures to value different forms of intelligence, leadership, and power.
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