It’s International Women’s Day, and it’s high time to #breakthebias
It’s the 8th March 2022 and, once again, it’s International Women’s Day. This year the theme is #BreakTheBias and, while it exists, it’s hard to say we’re celebrating, but we’re certainly marking IWD 2022 by taking a long, hard look at equality in the workplace and beyond.
As US historian Gerda Lerner commented a full 26 years ago, “As a system, patriarchy is as outdated as feudalism, but it is a 4,000-year-old system of ideas that won't just go away overnight”. So, where’s that change going to come from?
SPOT THE FEMALE CEO
With only eight female CEOs (none of colour) in the FTSE 100 today (single figures - that’s just 8%, right?), there are days when it feels we have an impossible mountain to climb. Having had no/zero/nada female CEOs in the Fortune 500 in 2000, 2021’s grand total of 41 has been celebrated as a radical change, almost a triumph. Yet that’s also only a shade over 8% (8.36 if you do the actual math) – a tiny number for so many reasons. 50.59% of the UK population is female – it’s 50.8% in the US. So, that’s just over half of the population with only 0.08 representation at the very highest level in business.
WOMEN GRADUATES
In the UK in 2019/20, 55.7% of graduates were female, while according to the Wall Street Journal in 2021, 59.5% of all college students in the US were women. These revelations triggered a predictable amount of handwringing in the establishment media, and Hanna Rosin wrote in her excellent 2012 book, The end of men (and the rise of women), this is “the strangest and most profound change of the century, even more so because it is unfolding in a similar way pretty much all over the world”. But before we all get too excited (and give those pale, male & stale 24-hour news commentators an actual aneurism), college stats are yet to trigger much in the way of genuine change post-graduation.
GENDER PAY GAP
In the UK, for instance, by the age of just 25 men earn 5% more on average than their female counterparts, rising by age 30 to a staggering 25%. While some of this is undoubtedly down to the fields they choose to work in - and who doesn’t find it strange that life-saving nurses (88.6% women) earn so much less those who choose a career in IT (where women earn an average of 28% less than their male counterparts), it’s also true that men routinely get paid more for the same job.
We’re focusing mainly on UK/US stats but, unsurprisingly, it’s a global issue. Across all jobs and all territories, according to the UN women earn an average of 77 cents for every dollar men earn all around the world. And, of course, the gap immediately widens for women who have children – so universal it’s got a name, the ‘motherhood penalty'.
In less diverse times, decades ago, Anita Roddick once said “if a woman can decide who should get the last piece of toffee, the 4-year-old or the 6-year-old, she can run a business”. We would love that to sound sexist, but with even working women in a heterosexual partnership much more likely to do the lion’s share of both housework and childcare, it’s almost as relevant today as it was back in the ‘80s.
Fun fact – all around the world Equal Pay Day (google your region) is marked to really bring home the gender disparity – in the UK it’s set by the Fawcett Society – it’s usually in November – and here it’s the date after which women are essentially working for free, if the rest of the year they earned the same as their male counterparts.
DIVERSITY DOES IT BETTER
While it can feel hard to imagine a planet where women earn the same as men for their labours there is every incentive to diversify. The Guardian reported that companies ‘in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams are 25% more likely to enjoy above-average profitability than companies at the bottom’. While those with over 30% female executives are more likely to outperform companies that don’t. Since we live in a society where money absolutely talks, it's pretty counterintuitive not to drive for greater diversity in business.
So how can we make that change? If you want to #BreakTheBias you need a multi-pronged approach. Globally, education is still an issue – with 129 million girls around the world out of school. The world has got to do better with this – and it’s a shift we’d expect to see as women-led Governments and Corporates grow.
One of the biggest challenges to countering gender bias in the workplace is identifying it in action. Most companies today have gender and diversity protocols firmly in place, many with targets – some legislated for – yet we still see women lagging so far behind. And women of colour are even more at a disadvantage of bias.
According to McKinsey, much of this bias may be unconscious – even female managers are so accustomed to playing the system that they can struggle to open doors for women that follow. Many men, too, see the benefits of gender-balanced leadership teams, but, in the same report, it points out that most of us tend to choose staff for their similarity to us. And in the US, with white Americans having an average of 91 times more white than black friends, you can see why diversity in both gender and race is still an ambition.
So, while there’s a huge challenge to get hired in the first place, most women will continue to experience some bias, conscious and unconscious when the job is won. Even under Obama (with his hugely successful, straight-talking wife and feminist daughters, arguably a place you’d expect to see zero bias) there were challenges in his workplace, with women and women of colour reporting a sense of being unheard. When important meetings took place, there were some staffers that routinely didn’t get the nod, and they were all women.
It's an experience that is very common in science too, with a 2014 study reporting that 100% (yep, that’s everybody) of minority ethnic women reporting some gender bias. Again, as in Obama’s office, there was no sense among them that this was conscious, but ‘implicit’ bias. Regardless, in the White House it was dealt with by the female staffers themselves, in a strategy known as ‘amplification’ – essentially repeating comments that women in particular made in meetings – causing them to seem more important and stay front of mind. It worked, with women seeing immediate improvement in being heard, remembered, being taken seriously, and seen as necessary.
Amplification is a powerful, peaceful strategy, super effective once you’re in the workplace. But as we all know when it comes to efforts to #BreakTheBias for many women the challenge is to get a seat at the table in the first place. In order to get them there, two quantum shifts need to happen. Men and women in the workplace need to open their minds to the surround sound of bias, and Governments need to support women in their journey back into the workplace with reasonable leave and easily accessible quality childcare. Aside from our vote and support for advocacy, we can do little about the latter. But we can all change the workplace for the better. Here’s a few ways.
CHOOSE BLIND
It’s a bit of a no-brainer but, when hiring, businesses should choose a Jo Doe – no name, no gender, just qualifications, experience, and personal statement. (And no mention of boys-only private schools or frat-houses by name).
WORDS MATTER
Success, ambition and decency are seen as positive traits in men but are more problematic in women. Women who assert themselves are often seen as aggressive, while a man is decisive. For a woman, kindness and understanding in the workplace can read as weakness, whereas in a man it’s a sign of decency. We’ve got to question our own unconscious bias every day to get this to change. That means talking about it in the workplace – and, ideally, ensuring we find good diversity training.
AND, AMPLIFY
Make like Barack’s staffers and support your fellow women by consciously amplifying their contribution and ensure we’re all heard, all together.
SHARE THE ADMIN
Women take on more ‘housework’ in the office than men – they’re more likely to be asked and offer to take notes, organise meetings and train hew hires – even bring in the coffee. Let’s put a stop to that and introduce the democratic rota.
NEGOTIATE
Men often step into the role of negotiator and it’s hard to challenge that without irritating. But we all have to take that on. Negotiating a salary package is also an historical challenge for women. Companies are much happier awarding more to a man that fights for it than a woman, who is much more likely to be told to earn it.
SEE SENSE
It’s not just productivity and profits that rise with diversity at executive level. We know for a fact that it’s the same ‘business as usual’ type thinking that will hold us all back in the fight to save the planet. And while we’re questioning and fixing the system that has held women back for literally Millennia, the system that has consistently prioritised making money over absolutely everything else, let’s address the imbalances that today are threatening the very existence of our future.
Cyd Connects is a sustainability consultancy founded by women to help businesses become a force for good. While our prime focus is social and environmental, we know that if the world of business doesn’t change and we don’t see a global shift to #BreakTheBias we also won’t meet the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals putting our planet in peril. As women, we’re always here for International Women’s Day and we advocate tirelessly to raise the profile of women in business. As sustainability solutionists, we’re fully committed to this year’s theme because considered change is the only way to save the human race. #BreakTheBias