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Text: Marjo-Riitta Diehl

Networking is a key building block of a successful career. It makes it easier to access different kinds of information, enables contacts with decision-makers and increases one’s own visibility. For women, however, a common challenge is that the networks relevant to them are informal and male dominated. These so-called old boys’ networks can slow down women’s career paths and reinforce existing inequalities.

In this situation, the importance of women’s mutual networks and meetings grows, and they have indeed become more common quickly. Increasingly, companies, organisations, public administration and also universities are establishing networks aimed exclusively at women. Their purpose is to promote women’s career development, enable reciprocal cooperation and accelerate equality. But when and how do such networking events actually generate impact for participants?

Associate Professor Patricia Hein (Ivey Business School, Canada), Professor Marjo-Riitta Diehl (Aalto University School of Business) and Professor Karin Kreutzer (EBS Universität, Germany) have authored a , in which they followed women’s networks for three years and examined precisely this question. The researchers observed 40 women’s networking events in Germany and the United Kingdom, interviewed 75 participants and organisers, and extensively analysed secondary material. The study focused on the meanings women themselves attach to such networking events and how they perceived the benefits and challenges of women’s networks.

Women’s networks are not inherently effective or ineffective

The idea behind women’s networking is that gender-based homophily, that is the tendency to form relationships primarily with those of the same gender, is useful. Homophily – similarity – should create trust, openness and solidarity just as in men’s networks. Our research, however, shows that women’s networks do not automatically create a sense of belonging, but nor are they necessarily ineffective. Their impact depends largely on how the meetings are structured and what significance participants attach to them. Often a woman’s career stage is also crucial.

Different career stages bring different expectations

Women in leadership roles and those further along in their careers often attach primarily status-oriented goals to networking with other women. They use the opportunities to discuss business, maintain contacts with other (female) leaders and strengthen their position in male-dominated organisations. They consciously compare themselves with men and adopt men’s networking practices. At the same time, they share advice with younger colleagues. At this stage, networks function above all as tools for positioning and influence.

Women at mid-career see women’s networks primarily as an instrumental tool. The aim is to access senior women and other decision-makers in order to advance their own careers. The motivation is pragmatic: connections with leaders, increased visibility and improved opportunities for promotion. At this stage, many also report a heavy burden at home, for example due to care responsibilities. Networking is therefore often understood as a strategic necessity amid busyness, rather than as a form of solidarity-based belonging with other women.

Women at the beginning and in the early stages of their careers use women’s networking events primarily to build social contacts, share experiences and gain emotional support – and also to have fun. Many women early in their careers have not experienced direct discrimination, but several at least expect structural barriers as their careers progress. Here, networking means mutual support among women at the same career stage, and it is often described as spontaneous and relaxed, and also enjoyable.

Women’s networks can also reproduce inequality

The different perceptions linked to career stage described above are not insignificant. They affect how intensively women participate in networks, which contacts they activate and what kinds of long-term effects arise, especially in networking that cuts across hierarchical boundaries. What is essential is that the impact of women’s networks does not arise solely from the fact that the participants are women. Rather, it depends on how homophily intertwines with hierarchical position, status and the ways in which the networks are given meaning. Particularly important is how the meetings are designed.

In terms of organisation, women’s networks can paradoxically also reproduce existing inequalities. This happens when women are primarily guided to adapt to prevailing career practices instead of questioning or changing them. In the study this phenomenon is described with the term ‘benevolent sexism’. In other words, seemingly well-intentioned events frame women as targets of support, but at the same time implicitly convey behavioural guidelines to them. A network might, for example, offer workshops where women are taught to adjust their behaviour, even their dress, to the male-dominated expectations of their superiors – instead of asking why such expectations exist in the first place. Even if the intention is good, the message is that the problem lies with women themselves and not with structural injustice.

The study also found that if senior women were placed, for example, only in the role of speakers on stage, with others remaining as listeners, genuine interaction did not materialise. Networks that provide only symbolic visibility without interaction strengthen hierarchies rather than dismantle them. Mandatory participation as part of equality programmes can also be harmful if participants’ expectations and goals differ strongly from one another.

Women’s networks can fulfil their potential

The study, however, also highlights the positive potential of women’s networks. Women’s networks are particularly effective when they are directed towards concrete goals, dismantle hierarchies and give women genuine opportunities to influence.

When women have the opportunity to ally consciously, for example to make appointment processes more transparent, to promote joint business ideas or to launch family-friendly HR practices in an organisation, gender-based similarity can truly come into its own and generate solidarity. In this case, the focus is not on symbolic community, but on doing things together. Joint projects transcend differences in career stage because they are united by a shared goal.

Practical tips

In practice, in both academia and business, women’s networks should not be seen as a relic of misunderstood efforts to support women. What is crucial is whether the networks offer women genuine participation and the opportunity to influence. Networking events have transformative power when they are not designed for women, but women themselves design and implement them. When properly structured and iteratively developed, they can become catalysts of structural change: they mobilise influence, share knowledge and encourage women to pursue even new career paths. 

Women’s networks are neither a miracle cure nor merely politics that produce only symbolic value. The potential of networks lies in their purposeful use.