5 Best Pieces of Equality Advice for 2019

I started the Girls’ Lounge quite by accident nearly six years ago, it was a moment that turned into a movement. When I went to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in 2013, there weren’t many women in tech at the time, and so I invited some girlfriends to come with me and told them to invite their friends. About 100 women ended up walking the floor together at CES. Two remarkable things happened at that moment. The first, all the men’s heads were turning like ‘What is happening?’ The second was an internal feeling of confidence. It felt so powerful to have this group of smart women surrounding me. I realized the importance of bringing my feminine side to the business world.

Today, the lounges are a place where the minority can go to feel and act like the majority, and we’ve connected more than 17,500 corporate women and entrepreneurs around the world. In 2018 we had more than 40 lounges, including going to the Cannes Film Festival and the Global Citizen Festival in South Africa for the first time. We also launched the Girls’ Lounge @ Campus in partnership with SAP Next-Gen, a global leadership program designed to cultivate the next generation of female entrepreneurs, executives and innovators in more than 122 countries.

As we’re gearing up for the Girls’ Lounge @ CES and the Equality Lounge @ Davos, I looked back at some of the best advice from our 2018 lounges and community covered on TheFemaleQuotient.com.

Create metrics for accountability.

Change won’t happen until we hold ourselves accountable. We need to create real metrics to help us meet our goals. “Measure what you treasure,” says Aline Santos, Executive Vice President of Global Marketing and Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer at Unilever. “In other words, what gets valued gets measured. And what gets measured gets done. I’m a firm believer that a deeper understanding of people’s teams and their individual needs, combined with the power of data-driven strategies and ensuring that all leaders have concrete gender balance targets that are closely tracked, are critical to success.”

Read more: How a Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer is Advancing Gender Equality

Include all perspectives.

Despite the fact that we’re far from having equal representation in government—women make up just 24% of Congress, and we haven’t had a  female Commander in Chief to date—we had a record number of women ran for and won office in 2018. Having a government that more accurately reflects the population will help push legislation forward to better reflect our wants and needs, from supporting equal pay to advocating for mandatory parental leave to greater protection against sexual harassment.

In the Girls’ Lounge @ Advertising Week, Congresswoman Cheri Bustos (Illinois) shared, “We ought to have representation in Congress that better reflects our nation. That comes from an age perspective, an occupational perspective, gender perspective, ethnic perspective, etc.”

Read more: Congresswoman Cheri Bustos on How to Get More Women in Politics

Just say yes to opportunities.

Though there’s been greater awareness about pushing for gender equality in the workplace in light of movements such as #MeToo and #TimesUp, change doesn’t happen overnight and many industries remain overwhelmingly male dominated. Female leaders in the Girls’ Lounge @ Cannes Lions 2018 shared what it’s like to rise to the top in male-dominated industries, how to challenge the status quo, and how each of us can be a role model for change.

Danielle Lee, Global Head of Partner Solutions at Spotify, shared, “After coming back from maternity leave with my second child, my boss had quit. He wanted to make me his successor. I didn’t want the job. I was like, ‘I’m still trying to figure out how to have two kids and make work work’…but I [was encouraged to raise my hand] and I got the job…You’re not always going to be completely ready and the time won’t always be perfect, but sometimes you have to just go for it and get the support and know you’re not in this alone.”

Read more: Women Rising: How to Succeed in Male-Dominated Industries

Normalize caregiving for men as well as women to help close the wage gap.

?It’s been said that 2018 is the Year of the Woman, and it’s been a long time coming. Let us not forget that when women are undergoing a cultural shift, men are as well—because we’re all in this together. The old rules need to be rewritten, and men are also trying to find their new place in the shifting power dynamics. Transformation won’t happen without everyone working together to activate change.

The Female Quotient hosted the first-ever Men of Action Summit in the Girls’ Lounge @ Advertising Week to help us all move forward in a positive direction. We invited thought leaders and male executives from top companies to have unplugged conversations around equality, masculinity, and the future of men and women in the workplace. One theme that kept coming up was the need to redefine masculinity.

Here is a great insight from Gary Barker, President and CEO, Promundo: “Women’s caregiving is the primary driver of the wage gap. Countries lose $160 trillion due to the wage gap. Half of dads said they missed something important in their child’s life because of work. Both men and women who felt supported in their caregiving responsibilities were happier and had better sex lives. Men are biologically as wired for care as women are. We want to give you back your birthright to be an empathetic human being who cares about equality.”

Read more: Why We Need to Redefine Masculinity at Work—and in the World

Become conscious of our unconscious.

Representation matters. Marketers in the Girls’ Lounge @ Advertising Week noted that they’ve talked for decades about reaching as many people as possible; it’s time we place equal emphasis on representing as many people as possible. That means prioritizing greater authenticity in characters and storylines, and doing more to accurately capture the richness and diversity of the world we live in. Thought leaders shared their insights on how to create a real shift in both advertising messages and our culture at large.

Bill Moseley, Director, Marketing Communications, AT&T, pointed out: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re probably part of the problem. I think that is the best rationale for men to be part of the conversation, because once you understand the data and aren’t blind to the problem anymore, you have an obligation to be part of the solution. I have two teenage boys at home and with all the marketing messages we’re exposed to…I want them to see how they are supposed to interact with women and with those who are not like them…take that to my professional career at AT&T, and I think we have a responsibility to improve how women and girls are represented.”

Read more: How Media & Advertising Can Drive Equality—And What You Can Do to Help

Looking forward to creating another year of impact, together. In 2019, remember that when purpose meets passion, we are unstoppable.