“If you’re perfect, we might accept you. But if you’re not perfect, forget it,” summarized an Asian American woman in a 2014 study of science professors by our center, with contributions from Katherine W. Phillips of Columbia University and Erika V. Hall of Emory University. We interviewed 60 women of color in the field and documented their experiences with bias. (As scholars, we are ethically bound to protect our interview subjects’ identities as a condition of our research.)

In this study, Asian American women engineers were significantly more likely than white women to report that they were held to higher standards than their colleagues. Taken more broadly, this suggests a pernicious bind: Though Asian Americans might be seen as having a specific set of technical skills, white men with identical skills may be assumed to have a broader range of skills they haven’t demonstrated. So, like women and other people of color, Asian Americans in STEM may have to be more skilled than white men to be seen as equally competent. “Not a whole lot is taken on promise,” said an Asian American astrophysicist. “You have to prove yourself all the time.”

Asian Americans also face bias stemming from assumptions not just about how they do act, but about how they should act. At work, white men generally have more leeway in their behavior: They can shout and scream when they’re angry; they can brag when they’ve accomplished something. For women and people of color, a narrower range of behavior is often accepted. Just as white women are, Asian Americans of all genders who behave in dominant ways tend to be disliked, according to a study by Jennifer Berdahl and Ji-A Min. As The Atlantic’s Olga Khazan writes:

The most notorious double standard is that women can’t break into important jobs unless they advocate for themselves and command respect. But they’re also reviled unless they act like chipper and self-deprecating team players, forever passing the credit along to others. Laurie Rudman, a social psychologist at Rutgers University, said the “poster woman” for this predicament is Hillary Clinton, who, according to surveys, was more popular when in office than when she was vying for office.

Because white Americans typically see Asian Americans as more feminine, Asian American women may well seem even more out of order when they behave in dominant ways. Our study of science professors found that Asian American women report more pressure than any other group to act feminine—and more pushback when they don’t, in the form of negative performance evaluations and assessments that they have personality problems. “[I] immediately started, I guess, having a reputation of being a dragon lady,” said one Asian American biologist. “Early on when I started working here, a faculty colleague of mine said ... ‘I can hear you way down the hall because your balls clang.’”