The conversations we should be having this International Women's Day, according to experts on LinkedIn

We spoke with professionals about the tools and policy needed to drive meaningful progress towards gender equity.

From the coronavirus pandemic to widespread economic uncertainty, compounding crises have set back global progress towards closing the gender gap. Recent LinkedIn data reveals that women continue to be underrepresented in leadership positions worldwide, occupying a mere 32% of leadership roles — an increase of just 1 percentage point since 2016. This gap becomes more pronounced as women progress up the ranks, highlighting the need to address the challenges and barriers that impede women’s advancement in the early stages of their career.

A gender-responsive approach to innovation, technology and digital education has the potential to advance gender equity and empower women and girls, says UN Women . But the World Economic Forum warns that traditionally male-dominated fields, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, could lead to gender biases in emerging technologies and perpetuate existing patterns of gender inequality.

In order to regain the momentum in the drive for gender parity, organisations will need to do more than establish equal pay and workforce development initiatives, by focusing on how to support female professionals at all stages of their career journeys.

But where to begin? From closing the visibility gap to creating psychologically safe workspaces that empower women on their career journey, we spoke with several experts to get their perspective on what’s needed to drive the next wave of change. Whether as an organisation or an individual, these LinkedIn Top Voices are sharing what it will take to empower a more gender equitable future and how to make meaningful progress.

What is needed to drive equitable outcomes for women at work? Check out these Top Voices’ insights and share your thoughts in the comments below and/or in a post using #IWD2023.

Much has been reported of the disproportionate effect the coronavirus pandemic had on women. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, Mckinsey revealed women’s jobs were 1.8 times more vulnerable to this crisis than men’s jobs. And while women made up 39% of the global workforce, they accounted for 54% of overall job losses. In 2022, The Financy Women’s Index reported the pandemic was “largely to blame” for disrupting a decade of progress in narrowing the gender gap in employment and wages.

MindTribes Pty Ltd CEO Div Pillay agrees, telling LinkedIn News the negative impact will continue as the years pass. “Women will face the social and economic knocks as the cost of living rises, climate change impacts worsen, and markets are uncertain,” she says.

Co-host of podcast ‘Business In Colour’, Pillay posts about the lack of cultural diversity on Australian boards and how women feel represented — or not — during cultural events such as International Women’s Day.?

The AFR 100 Women of Influence honouree believes treating all women as a homogenous group acts to advance already privileged women, while missing the lived experience of systematic disadvantage and discrimination for women from different races and ethnicities and those at different life stages and socioeconomic pressures.?

Instead, Pillay advocates an intersectional approach to barriers such as the gender pay gap, telling her LinkedIn community, “This is where we keep women with a disability, First Nations women, women of colour severely disadvantaged, which flows through to socioeconomic choices or lack thereof — where they live, work, what they eat, how dependents are cared for.”

With economic headwinds on the horizon, “It makes it all the more critical to insulate and buffer against these negative impacts,” Pillay says. “By taking a gender intersectional approach to closing the gender pay gap in every organisation; by offering flexible working arrangements for all caring responsibilities to all genders; by increasing participation and composition for women in the workforce in all sectors and by providing psychologically and physically safe environments that proactively prevent harm to women.”

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“Women are black, women have disability and women are gay, multi-gender attracted and/or trans,” diversity and inclusion consultant Bree Gorman tells LinkedIn News.?

When asked about their advice for women in the early stages of their career, Gorman refuses to answer.?

“I get it,” they write on LinkedIn. “Women need to be able to play the game to get ahead in a system that presents barrier after barrier to their career progression.

“But they wouldn't have to if all the focus we have placed on career development for women, had of been directed towards dismantling the barriers in our workplaces,” they share.

In a post on LinkedIn, the equity practitioner points to developing a DEI strategy without consulting employees or conducting data analysis (“I don’t have anything to say about this except don’t do it”) and introducing a mentorship program without other meaningful action (“Fixing the people is never the solution”) as examples of traps organisations fall into.

An advocate of an inclusive approach to closing the gender gap, the Managing Director of Bree Gorman Consulting encourages organisations to redirect their attention to the structure of leadership roles and teams and consider whether they are attractive to women and gender diverse professionals — recommending flexible working for all leadership roles, including part-time, job share and purchased leave, in addition to creating a culture where people feel free to access this.?

Learn more via this free LinkedIn Learning course: Speaking up for yourself and underrepresented groups

“What is it that is reducing the diversity of your applicants? Of course the most common answer is the pipeline, but that's not a good enough excuse. Become an employer of choice for women in your industry and the pipeline becomes someone else's problem,” they say.

Gorman, who regularly posts about harmful gendered language and uses their experience as a genderqueer to illustrate positive approaches to diversity and inclusion, highlights the importance of allyship and points to the potential within all professionals to be a leader without being a boss.?

Key pillars of being an ally include sponsorship, speaking up, “especially when women or gender diverse folk are being spoken over, harassed, discriminated or bullied”, and advocate for inclusion, equity and belonging in all business decisions.

Taking steps to educate yourself are also front of mind for Gorman. How? "By showing up to the training on offer, by expanding your social media feeds, by reading books on feminism and intersectionality, by listening to colleagues who have stories to share about their experiences,” they say.

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Australian women are among some of the best educated in the world, reports the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index, yet women in Australia lag behind their global peers when it comes to workforce participation — slipping from 12th in 2006 to 70th in 2021. While the gap between male and female workforce participation has narrowed, it continues to peak when professionals are likely to have young children.?

This pattern is costly. Treasury analysis reveals women’s earnings fall by an average of 55% in the first five years of parenthood, while men’s earnings are “unaffected by entry into parenthood”.

“There’s not a person or organisation that doesn’t stand to benefit from getting this [improved paid parental leave and access to early education and care] right,” CEO of The Parenthood Georgie Dent writes on LinkedIn.

A former lawyer, business reporter and author of memoir Breaking Badly, Dent is a passionate advocate for women and families, and was recognised by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Question Time for her pursuit of affordable, quality early childhood education and care as a means of reducing the “motherhood penalty”, levelling the playing field between caregivers while also being “really really good for children”.

“It is much more difficult for women because we haven't invested in the policies and infrastructure that enable parents and carers to readily combine their caring responsibilities and paid work. This disproportionately impacts women because it is women who undertake a disproportionate share of the unpaid caring work,” Dent writes on LinkedIn.

The mother of three daughters says the government’s expansion of paid parental leave has made her heart “leap”. But “there’s still work to do,” shares Dent, who is now pushing for an increase of paid leave of up to 52 weeks shared equally between parents, a replacement wage rather than a minimum wage and for superannuation to be paid on parental leave.

Learn more via this free LinkedIn Learning course: Planning your family leave and return

Dent, who posts about the “grit” behind the “gloss” of navigating work and family life, encourages employers to work alongside government and community organisations to champion reform. “Even if an employer has the most generous and flexible and equitable paid parental leave settings, their employees are at the whim of our public policy settings,” she says.

“If their partner can't access any leave, chances are they will be bearing the full responsibility for caregiving. It's the same with access to affordable early education and care. Even families with high incomes make economic decisions about work and care — and we know that leads to many high-income earning women in particular reducing their work significantly because they can't ‘afford’ the learning and care they'd need to be able to work more.”

“Instead of wasting time asking if women can have it all, let's start asking how and when we are going to dismantle the barriers that make it impossible for too many women to 'have it all',” Dent tells her LinkedIn network.

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Women are underrepresented in key decision-making roles across almost all industries in the Australian workforce, reports The Workplace Gender Equality Agency . This disparity is even more obvious in traditionally male-dominated sectors (a problematic phrase in itself). In 2021, women held 21% of board seats, 19% of C-suite roles, and 5% of CEO positions in financial services institutions around the world, according to research by Deloitte. A snapshot of sectors like technology and sport produce similar results.

Representation matters in all fields. It’s what prompted former New Zealand Football Fern and founder of Team Heroine Rebecca Sowden to launch ‘Correct The Internet’. Tennis great Billie Jean King’s “new favourite campaign,” ‘Correct The Internet’ aims to tackle the gender bias that occurs against sportswomen, such as Matilda legend Sam Kerr and New Zealand Football player Ria Percival, by raising education around the inaccuracies that exist in search engines, while also working to address them by helping users send 'feedback' to search engines when they find inaccurate results showcasing sportsmen when the factually correct statistic is held by a sportswoman.

“The ultimate goal is to ensure women in sports are represented which in turn will have flow-on effects across all areas including visibility, investment, credibility, fandom and participation,” she says.

Taking to LinkedIn to share her disappointment at the lack of public support on Instagram offered by the New Zealand All Blacks to their women counterparts in the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup, and what it says about their commitment to fan conversion and changing the perception of women’s rugby, Sowden points to the allyship shown by tennis player Andy Murray who, on numerous occasions, has publicly corrected reporters on the achievements of women players.?

Learn more via this free LinkedIn Learning course: Success strategies for women in the workplace

But closing the gender gap doesn’t always equate to bold, expensive, risky or unpopular actions, when small wins can create a flywheel effect to build greater momentum, says Sowden.?

The Women of Influence finalist, who regularly offers her take on sport’s commercial dealings and policymaking in the sports world, tells her LinkedIn network suggests the following "small" actions to help amplify women:

• Ensure 50% of your panel speakers for your company or industry conference are women.
• Changes to lingo like 'guys' to 'folks' or 'team' can break down historical structures and make women feel more included.
• Consciously elevate women by tapping them on the shoulder to apply for jobs.
• Audit your organisation and holding your company accountable by publishing the gender pay data.
• Ensure that 50% of imagery your organisation uses contains women in a manner that doesn't reinforce outdated stereotypes.

?? See more of Rebecca Sowden's content

More than 2 million Australians have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from a partner, according to official data which also revealed 3.6 million Australians have experienced emotional abuse from a partner.?

Women in violent relationships face a 50% chance of living in poverty if they leave, while 60% of domestic violence survivors report experiencing cashflow problems. The cost of domestic and family violence is not only to individuals but to society, businesses and the economy. In NSW alone, domestic and family violence is expected to cost the economy $3.3 billion by 2025.

When asked how organisations can create safe and supportive spaces for employees affected by domestic violence, Allan Ball MBSW , Director of White Ribbon Australia answers, “There should be no other option — workplaces need to be spaces of respect. We need cultures that foster respect, inclusion and embrace all forms of equality.”

Paid domestic violence leave is now available for millions of employees experiencing violent or threatening behaviour at home after the federal government’s leave program came into effect — allowing full-time, part-time and casual employees experiencing violent or threatening behaviour at home or within their close family unit to take leave at full pay at the employer’s expense.

Ball, whose posts break down harmful gender stereotypes and promotes male allyship as a tool to eradicate gender inequality, describes the policy as “an additional lifeline”. “Domestic abuse leave is important because it enables victims to take time off work to address their circumstances and seek assistance without worrying about losing their jobs or facing financial hardship,” he writes on LinkedIn.

“For the first time we have a safeguard where victims in Australia will not have to choose between safety or their job.”

When faced with the unthinkable, Ball says leaders should listen to affected employees “with an open mind and open heart,” telling LinkedIn News Australia, “People who are experiencing disrespect, abuse or violence should expect nothing less than our undivided devotion and attention.

In a post to LinkedIn, Ball adds, “A workplace that prioritises safety, support, and respect can create a culture where employees feel comfortable speaking up about their experiences with domestic violence.”

“This can include policies that explicitly address domestic violence, training for managers and staff on how to recognise and respond to signs of abuse, and a workplace culture that values open communication and empathy.

“Domestic violence can often impact an employee's ability to attend work, complete tasks, or work regular hours. Offering flexibility and accommodations, such as flexible work arrangements, paid leave for domestic violence-related reasons, or access to an employee assistance program (EAP), can help employees to stay safe and maintain their employment,” Ball tells his network.

?? See more of Allan Ball's content

Join LinkedIn Senior News Editor Natalie MacDonald live in conversation with LinkedIn Top Voices Bree Gorman and Rebecca Sowden on Thursday, March 9. RSVP here to receive a notification when we go live and join the conversation.

Reported and proofread by: Natalie MacDonald

Senior Managing Editor: Capucine Yeomans

Special Projects Leads: Natalie MacDonald (APAC) Michele Pierri (International)

Regional Lead: Pooja Chhabria

International Executive Editor: Sandrine Chauvin

About this article

This article features experts from LinkedIn's Top Voices program covering the Gender Equity community. Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. You can learn more here. You can also revisit our other Top Voice articles including Greener Together, Social Impact, Mental Health, First Nations, Job Search and Careers, Tech & Innovation and LGBTQIA+ here.

Who is eligible to be a Top Voice

LinkedIn members who meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform and share valuable expertise are eligible to be a Top Voice, with the exception of LinkedIn and Microsoft employees, members who have violated LinkedIn’s User Agreement — including our Professional Community Policies — or individuals currently running in a political election for an executive, legislative or judicial position.

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