#BreaktheBias Means All Women

It's been a while since IWD made it onto my radar. As an excited young undergraduate studying feminist thought, I was thrilled to find there was a whole day dedicated to women, activism and equality, but no one around me seemed much to care. "Isn't feminism over?" was the general vibe of my friends. Fast forward several years, feminism is very much back in the mainstream (thanks Beyonce!) and it's not unusual to see my social media feed full of IWD photos, hashtags and articles at this time of year. Many big companies are jumping onboard and celebrating with events for employees, blog posts and articles. This should be good, right??

But despite being able to purchase a t-shirt, bag, necklace or even cross-stich kit that tells the world we're feminist from any high street store, here we are again asking why we haven't reached equality in the workplace yet. And, sorry to say guys, we're pretty far off. Let's investigate some recent figures from the Fawcett Society.?

A quick glance at their website tells me that in the UK:

- Less than 1/3 of the UK’s top jobs are filled by women.

- The last two Westminster elections have seen scant progress with the proportion of female MPs at 34%, following the 2019 election.?

- Women remain just 8% of FTSE 100 CEOs and not one of these women are of a race or ethnicity other than white.

Gender bias is still affecting women in all areas of society, and as the last statistic there shows, for many women this is compounded by other biases such as those?against race, ethnicity, disability or other protected characteristics. Often, we think of women as one unanimous unit, especially when it's WOMEN'S DAY, but digging deeper into the statistics shows us that there is no universal experience, and white, cis-gender, able-bodied women have significant privilege.?

Let's check some more statistics (all available on the Fawcett Society website).

- Controlling for age, location and occupation, Black graduate women would still have a 7-11% pay gap, and Bangladeshi and Pakistani graduate women an 8% pay gap?with white women.

-?Women make up 8% of CEOs of FTSE 100 companies, 45% of the civil service board and 38% of civil service permanent secretaries, but not one of these women are of a race or ethnicity other than white.

- Three times as many disabled mothers in the UK lost their main job than non-disabled mothers (20% of disabled mothers compared to 7% of non-disabled mothers) during the pandemic.

What does this tell us? Gender bias can't be seen in a vacuum. We must be aware of and challenge all forms of bias that affect the progess of women at work and yes, this means from other women too.?

What does bias look like? This can be as simple as hiring people who are similar to you because they seem like a 'good fit', giving projects to or choosing to mentor those who you see yourself in, or noticing only the aspects of someone's work or personality that line up with the stereotype (often negative) that you have of them in your head. The majority of the time, we do these things without even realising, so making the unconscious conscious should be a first step for all of us. Stop and think: who are you relating to in the office? Who are you lifting up and who are you leaving behind? Who in your workplace might be facing multiple?biases and what can you do to support their success? We must take time to reflect and hold ourselves accountable in our decision making if we are going to break the bias, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.?

In my opinion, speaking up is the most powerful thing we can do. This doesn't have to mean confrontation or 'telling on' others. It can be as simple as asking a colleague to explain their decision and highlighting the bias in their thought process or telling someone who's been talked over that you'd like to hear the rest of their thoughts. These actions take courage, but until we are speaking out for each other and not?just ourselves, we will never see the progress that all women deserve. And who knows, maybe in a few years IWD really can be about celebrating all of our success.

If you would like to find out more about unconscious bias and how you can #BreaktheBias in the workplace, check out the e-learning materials we make at MIX. I might be a little biased here but I highly recommend!?

NOTE: I have edited this article to remove the term 'women of colour' which was used in the Fawcett Society report I took statistics from, but which a colleague pointed out does not reflect the myriad different identities and their differences which fall within that umbrella term.