This week, as the tech giant Yahoo goes on sale, Marissa Mayer’s tenure as CEO is also under intense scrutiny. Writing for The Washington Post, Jena McGregor argues that there is a larger question at stake for women in tech:

Mayer, like other women before her in technology, was dealt a tough hand in the first place, accepting a particularly precarious leadership role often known as the “glass cliff.” Research has shown that women disproportionately receive opportunities to lead at difficult times, and the tech sector would seem to have a preponderance of examples.

Citing several examples of women who were brought into troubled companies and expected to turn the ship around, McGregor asked Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the  Yale School of Management about how women in the tech field navigate the ‘glass cliff’: “Women are often ‘given a shorter timeframe to show success,’ facing potential backlash in a field that’s predominantly male. It doesn’t help that tech turnarounds are notoriously hard, with all leaders facing the difficult task of fixing a business in an industry known for its hyper-speed rate of change.”

Read more at The Washington Post.