More than enough research has been done that demonstrates this is a real thing, whether you have observed it or not.


>Being real, it's been my experience that women were promoted
>faster than the men, hence the project I was on that had a
>completely female chain of command as well as others where
>women were promoted rather quickly to technical leads or, in a
>handful of cases, project management.
>

The presence of women in the leadership structure of an organization doesn't automatically guarantee equitable treatment or promotion of female subordinates, though. Like I pointed out above, there can be environments where female leaders are constantly second-guessed within the chain-of-command by their male superiors as well. There can also be environments where female leaders defer/turn a blind eye to a sexist culture as a means of protecting their own positions.