Have you ever written a recommendation letter for a female colleague? Could it be that you inadvertently ruined her chances of getting the job she was applying for?

Sadly, yes. A group of researchers at Rice did a study of recommendation letters in academia. What they found was that people writing such letters tended to conform to gender stereotypes. So women were typically described as “affectionate, helpful, kind, sympathetic, nurturing, tactful and agreeable” whereas men were typically described as “confident, aggressive, ambitious, dominant, forceful, independent, daring, outspoken and intellectual.” There are no prizes for guessing which descriptions were more likely to help the applicant get the job, even with all gender markers filed off the application.

Further details here.