#10 THE WORKPLACE: 2075, Envisioning Workplace Equality Through an Intersectional Lens

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As I reflect on International Women's Day 2025, I find myself wondering: What will we celebrate fifty years from now? How will the workplace transform if we continue and accelerate the progress of the past five decades?

Looking back to move forward

The last fifty years have reshaped women's professional lives in ways our grandmothers could scarcely imagine. In 1974, in the UK women couldn't get bank accounts in their own names without male cosigners. Executive roles were nearly inaccessible, and sexual harassment had no legal framework for protection. Pay disparities (US data) were even more dramatic than today, with women earning just 57 cents for every dollar earned by men. Pregnancy could legally be grounds for termination (!) , and job listings were openly segregated by gender. (See Women in the Franco regime in Spain)

Today, we see women leading Fortune 500 companies, holding prominent positions in government, and reshaping industries from tech to finance. Legal protections against discrimination have been established in many countries. Parental leave, though still inadequate in many regions, has become a recognised need. Yet the journey remains incomplete, particularly for women at the intersections of multiple marginalised identities.

The progress has been neither linear nor universal. Women of colour, disabled women, LGBTQ+ women, and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds continue to face compounded barriers. Advancement has been uneven across industries, with some fields like technology and finance still showing significant gender imbalances in leadership and compensation. Cultural shifts have sometimes outpaced policy changes, creating disconnects between expectations and realities.

The Fourth Wave's unfinished revolution

The Fourth Wave of feminism, which emerged around 2012, brought digital activism, intersectionality, and systemic analysis to the forefront. It recognised that gender equality can't advance without simultaneously addressing racism, ableism, transphobia, economic inequality, and other overlapping systems of oppression.

Unlike earlier feminist movements that sometimes centered on the experiences of privileged women, Fourth Wave feminism explicitly acknowledges how different aspects of identity combine to create unique experiences of discrimination and opportunity. In the workplace context, this means understanding that a Black woman's professional challenges differ from those of a white woman, that a trans woman faces barriers a cisgender woman might not, and that a disabled woman navigates workplace structures differently than an able-bodied colleague.

Digital platforms have amplified previously marginalised voices, allowing for broader coalition-building and rapid response to injustice. Movements like #MeToo demonstrated the power of collective storytelling to drive cultural and policy change, while simultaneously highlighting how fame and privilege influenced whose stories received attention.

This intersectional approach laid crucial groundwork by insisting that progress must include all women, not just those with privilege in other dimensions of identity. It pushed organisations to move beyond superficial diversity metrics toward deeper structural change.

2075: An intersectional vision

So what might our professional landscape look like if we spend the next fifty years intentionally building on this foundation? Here are some possibilities that I think we can use to tranform various systems of power and privilege:

Redefining leadership and value

By 2075, we will have moved beyond simply inserting diverse candidates into unchanged systems. Instead, our very understanding of leadership will be transformed. The traditionally "feminine" skills that today's workplace often undervalues, emotional intelligence, collaborative decision making, and care-oriented approaches, will be recognised as essential to organisational success.

Hierarchical leadership models will evolve toward more distributed and collaborative structures that value diverse input and collective wisdom. This shift will particularly benefit women from communal cultures where collaborative approaches are already centered, creating space for leadership styles that draw on cultural traditions previously excluded from professional settings.

Performance evaluations will consider impacts beyond quantifiable metrics, recognising the invisible labor of relationship building, conflict prevention, and community care that women, often perform without recognition. Career advancement will no longer require conforming to leadership styles developed in homogeneous environments.

Organisations will measure success not just by profit margins but by comprehensive metrics including employee wellbeing, community impact, and environmental sustainability, areas where women led organisations have consistently shown strength. This broader definition of success will create more pathways for advancement based on diverse strengths rather than narrow traditional metrics.

Technology that works for everyone

The technologies reshaping our workplaces will be designed with diverse perspectives from inception. The algorithmic biases that currently disadvantage women, particularly women of color, in everything from hiring tools to performance evaluations, will be historical artifacts, replaced by systems designed with input of how power and privilege operate.

Artificial Intelligence, which today often reinforces gender and racial stereotypes, will be developed by diverse teams using training data that represents the full spectrum of human experience. Workplace automation will enhance rather than replace human capabilities, with particular attention to avoiding the disproportionate displacement of women in administrative and service roles.

Accessibility will be built into all workplace technologies from the beginning, recognising that disabilities intersect with gender in ways that can compound exclusion. Remote and hybrid work technologies will enable full participation regardless of physical location, caring responsibilities, or disability status.

Indigenous, Black, Latina, Asian, and other women of color will lead technology development, ensuring that innovation serves rather than further marginalises their communities. Technology governance will include robust ethical frameworks developed with input from diverse global stakeholders.

Economic security through structural change

The unpaid care work that disproportionately falls to women, especially those from lower income backgrounds, will be valued and supported through robust social infrastructure. Universal childcare, elder care, paid family leave, and flexible work arrangements will be standard, not exceptional.

Compensation systems will have evolved beyond secret, negotiation based models that disadvantage women, particularly women from cultures that discourage self promotion or those who have been historically excluded from professional networks. Salary transparency, regular equity audits, and proactive adjustment mechanisms will ensure that pay disparities don't accumulate over careers.

Retirement security systems will account for career interruptions related to caregiving and longer average lifespans for women, ensuring that older women don't face disproportionate poverty rates as they currently do. This will be particularly important for women of color, immigrant women, and others who have historically had less access to generational wealth and retirement benefits.

The wealth gap, which today sees women of color owning pennies on the dollar compared to white men, will have dramatically narrowed through structural economic reforms and reparative policies addressing historical inequality. Entrepreneurship support will recognise and address the specific barriers faced by women at various intersections of identity.

True freedom from harassment and discrimination

Workplace cultures will have transformed from merely having anti harassment policies to proactively fostering environments where all people thrive.

Reporting systems will centre on the needs of those who experience harassment rather than institutional liability concerns. Investigations will recognise how intersecting identities can amplify vulnerability and create barriers to seeking redress. There will be multiple pathways for addressing harm, including restorative approaches that focus on healing and systemic change.

Organisations where harassment or discrimination occurs will be the exception rather than the norm, with leaders held accountable regardless of their position or perceived value. Transparency about incidents and responses will be expected, with public pressure reinforcing internal accountability mechanisms.

Bystander intervention will be a widely taught skill, with all workplace community members understanding their role in maintaining respectful environments. This cultural shift will particularly benefit women who face multiple forms of marginalisation and who currently experience the highest rates of workplace harassment.

Global Interconnection and solidarity

The economic advancement of women in Western countries will no longer come at the expense of women in the Global South. Supply chains will be designed with gender justice at their core, and transnational solidarity among women workers will be a powerful force for global wellbeing.

International labor standards will account for gendered impacts, with particular attention to industries where women predominate. Migrant women workers will have robust protections against exploitation, with migration policies that recognise the intersection of gender, nationality, and economic status.

Digital connectivity will enable global collaboration while respecting cultural differences, allowing women from diverse backgrounds to exchange knowledge and build coalitions across borders. Women's leadership in international governance will ensure that trade, climate, and human rights agreements reflect diverse women's needs and perspectives.

Building the bridge to 2075

This vision may seem ambitious, perhaps even utopian. But remember how impossible today's achievements would have seemed to women in 1975. The reality is that each generation builds on the progress of those who came before.

This type of historical perspective gives me reason for both hope and urgency. The pace of change has accelerated in many areas, with some transformations occurring within years rather than decades. Simultaneously, we've seen how progress can stall or reverse without constant vigilance and advocacy. Backlash often accompanies advancement, as those accustomed to privilege resist shifting power dynamics.

The question for us is: What foundations are we laying today that will support the workplace equality of 2075?

As leaders, we can:

1. Practice intersectionality in our current talent initiatives, recognising that people's experiences vary dramatically based on race, class, disability, sexual orientation, and other aspects of identity. This means moving beyond one size fits all approaches to address specific barriers faced by different groups of women.
2. Advocate for structural policies like paid leave and childcare that support all workers with care responsibilities. These policies particularly benefit women who bear disproportionate caregiving burdens, especially those without financial resources to purchase private solutions.
3. Mentor and sponsor women from underrepresented backgrounds, creating pathways to leadership. Intentionally distribute these opportunities beyond those who remind us of ourselves, recognising that affinity bias often reinforces existing patterns of privilege.
4. Challenge ourselves to recognise and address our own biases and the ways we may unintentionally perpetuate unequal systems. This requires ongoing education and humility, particularly for those with privilege in various dimensions of identity.
5. Use our platforms to amplify diverse voices rather than speaking for others. Create space in decision-making processes for those most impacted by the outcomes, even when this requires adjusting familiar power dynamics.
6. Support workplace organising and collective action that addresses systemic inequalities. Individual advancement, while important, cannot substitute for structural change that benefits all workers.
7. Design technologies and systems with diverse input from the beginning, rather than attempting to retrofit inclusivity later. Invest in the education and advancement of women from underrepresented groups in STEM and other fields that will shape future workplaces.
8. Build transnational solidarity with women workers globally, recognising how our economic systems interconnect. Purchasing decisions, investment strategies, and policy advocacy can all support gender justice across borders.

The most powerful tribute we can offer to those who fought for women's workplace rights over the past fifty years is to extend and deepen their work, ensuring that the workplace of 2075 truly works for everyone.

This requires approaching the challenge with both patience for the long arc of change and impatience with unnecessary delays and half measures.

The workplace of 2075 isn't just about seeing more gender equality in the corner office. It's about flipping the script on what power and equity even mean in the first place, creating something that works better for everyone.

What step will you take today toward building that future?

Thank you for reading till the end! Till next week, an invite ?? and special discount!

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