International Women’s Day is of course a time to celebrate women and our accomplishments, but it’s also an opportunity to take a hard look at how much work still needs to be done.?The campaign theme this year is #breakthebias; focusing specifically on employers/workplaces, there is quite a lot of room for improvement (as always, this list is not exhaustive ??):
- Recruiting practises: Using gendered language in job postings and having unnecessary or stringent requirements will limit female candidates right off the bat, as research has shown women will only apply for jobs when they meet close to 100% of stated requirements (while men will apply when they meet around 60%). Studies also continue to find if a candidate changes their feminine name to something more masculine, it greatly increases the positive response rate of their job applications (there’s similar findings when this is done to assess race bias as well). Hiring managers more often ask female applicants about parental plans and responsibilities compared to male candidates; and?childfree women are more likely to get callbacks and be hired than equally qualified women with children, while men with children are more likely to be hired than those without (this contradiction will come up again).
- Glass Ceiling and Glass Elevator: Reviews of leadership, executive levels, and other positions of power across industries continue to show these metaphors are still in full effect.
- Equal Pay for Equal Work: Let’s be clear, the most referenced stats for ‘a woman makes $__ for every $__ a man makes’ typically refer to white women.?The amount continues to go down when evaluating compensation for women of colour.?Additionally, fulltime working mothers are hit with a wage penalty and earn less than childfree women;?while fulltime working fathers are rewarded with a bonus and actually make more than men without children (both stats adjusted for age, education, and occupational class).
- Office Housework (I actually want to write a standalone article on this one, just haven’t got around?to it yet ??): The onus of performing ‘domestic’ functions (picking up coffee, organizing events, taking notes, cleaning up after meetings, etc…) tends to fall on women’s shoulders. Tasks which combined take a lot of time and energy, but in no way are going to further anyone’s career.?I once had an assistant manager say to me “I have a special job to be done and need a woman’s help... can you go across the street and pick up a cake?”?This was not someone I reported to, and needless to say I refused (so he just got another woman to do it).?I've also had a customer give me a coffee order; joking or not, that didn’t go over too well with me either (shocking I know).?
- Sexual Harassment: Everyone knows this is a problem; if you have any type of power or authority, do something about it.
- Girl Interrupted: It’s still commonplace for women to be talked over in meetings, as well as to express an idea and have it met with little reaction, only to have a man say the exact same thing and receive great fanfare.?Female staffers of the Obama era adopted a strategy called amplification to combat this; when a woman made a key point, other women would repeat it and give credit to its original author – thus forcing appropriate recognition of the contribution.
What Organizations Can Do:
- Collect and analyze employee data, and then take action to address disparities in compensation and career advancement opportunities
- Implement blind applications in the recruiting process (remove identification details to limit multiple types of biases)
- Flexible work arrangements: Work from home, open work hours, job sharing, in office daycare, etc… ?(We’ve all seen 9-5, yes? And how productivity levels rose 20% when the women implemented these types of changes ??)
- Standardize mentoring so all employees are provided with equal opportunities for growth (this can also help retain employees!)
- Comprehensive maternity & parental leave programs (aim to go above and beyond what’s required by law ??.?And again: retention, retention, retention)
- Encourage employees to report when they experience harassment, have an anti-retaliation policy in place, and take swift action as needed
- Ensure the members of any type of Diversity department are actually diverse
(Sources not referenced due to the fact I lost my APA citation skills a while back ??)
We all have biases, both conscious and unconscious, and it's very challenging to firstly recognize them and then put in the work to address them - but there's no better time then the present to either get started or continue on existing journeys of self awareness and improvement.
Wishing a Happy International Women's Day to all! And especially to the, in my humble opinion, #bestteamever I have the privilege of working with day in and day out ??????.
