Sports
Stereotypes and Unconscious Bias in Sports and Leadership
Aline Carvalho and Bruna Mahn discuss how gender assumptions and subtle biases affect female cyclists and executives.
In a conversation with Bruna Mahn on Stemma Performance, executive and endurance athlete Aline Carvalho details the cognitive roots of stereotypes and the impact of unconscious bias. The discussion explores everyday situations in cycling, reflecting the broader challenges women face in sports and the corporate world.
The human brain is wired to save energy, creating mental shortcuts to categorize objects, situations, and people. The real problem arises when these automatic filters turn into unconscious bias: the assumption that every individual belonging to a group necessarily shares the same behavioral traits. In terms of gender, society has historically associated women with communal traits—care, gentleness, and protection—and men with agentic traits, such as assertiveness, competitiveness, and action.
During an appearance on Stemma Performance, executive and endurance athlete Aline Carvalho explained to Bruna Mahn that women with predominantly agentic profiles often face immediate resistance in both business and sports. Aline recalled the beginning of her road cycling journey in Rio de Janeiro: while riding up Vista Chinesa during her first clipped-in training session, she heard comments from her own coach making assumptions about her sexual orientation based purely on her posture, alongside attempts to manufacture artificial rivalries with other women on the climb.
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Bike mechanics and the lack of everyday validation
This dynamic repeats itself frequently in athletic routines. Aline shared recurring experiences in bike shops, where staff insist on directing technical explanations and mechanical diagnostics to her husband—even though she is the one who handles all the assembly, maintenance, and tire changes for the couple. When a woman brings up a necessary adjustment to brakes or components, the default reaction is often to doubt her technical competence or assume she is only interested in the bike's aesthetics.
Bruna Mahn shared a similar experience when she came across a group of male cyclists struggling to fix a flat tire on the road. When she stepped in and resolved the problem quickly, the general reaction was astonishment and disbelief, to the point of filming the scene as if it were an exotic anomaly. The episode illustrates how female technical proficiency still elicits surprise in environments that take traditional gender roles for granted.
The toll of emotional fatigue in corporate environments
According to Aline Carvalho, this constant, subtle questioning carries an invisible emotional cost. While men tend to gain confidence and authority as they climb corporate ladders or gain athletic experience—largely because they receive continuous validation—many women see their self-confidence undermined. Being questioned or dismissed over routine matters erodes a sense of belonging, underscoring the importance of recognizing these structural barriers to dismantle deep-rooted prejudices.
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