Diversity, inclusion, and IWD Purple-Washing

My clients literally blow my mind !!! ??

Weekly, together we don't just set goals but Home-PLAY (not work)

Alea Nasihin tells me "I've been inspired by all the International Women's Day articles I've seen and I incorporated it into the piece I was going to write about diversity and inclusion that was part of my Home-play!"

This is the result of PLAYING. I can tell you first hand it is far more productive and fulfilling than working. The proof is in the pudding!

Thank you Alea for this incredibly passionate piece and permission to share it.

Thank you for inspiring me.

Animah Kosai Please feast your eyes. I cannot wait for your insights.

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As International Women’s Day rolls around each year, once again we are besieged by the usual corporate branding exercises and marketing campaigns.?

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Look at this startup and the photo they posted on LinkedIn of their whole team wearing pink/purple and the women receiving flowers!

Are you a woman? Celebrate IWD with us with special promos on our weight loss package because we celebrate everything about being a woman!

IWD has become yet another example of corporations “purplewashing”, or co-opting a cause without making meaningful, long-term change. Of course it is much easier to host panel discussions than actually reviewing why there are so few women in senior leadership. Of course we can buy cupcakes and flowers to recognise the hard work that women put in, rather than actually allowing flexibilities for those with childcare or eldercare needs. Of course we can do an IWD marketing campaign with discounts, rather than examining whether our products are feeding into unattainable beauty or capitalistic lifestyle standards that women are expected to live up to.?

This IWD onslaught, that had already started in my email inbox and all over my social media feeds the moment the calendar turned to March, is symptomatic of a broader problem in organizational? culture. There has been increasing efforts over recent years to improve diversity in companies, particularly at board level or in senior management. While the global conversation around diversity has rightfully started to include diversity of race, age, background neurodiversity etc, in the Malaysian context it has mostly focused on gender.?

While diversity initiatives are a good and necessary step, diversity efforts cannot be taken without also taking into account equity and inclusion efforts. Contrary to popular belief, diversity, equity, and inclusion are three very distinct categories, and all three would need to be worked on in tandem for? meaningful change to happen.

Since we’re talking about IWD, In the context of women in the workforce, diversity may indeed look like having more representation of women in senior leadership. Fantastic! But here’s where so many initiatives fall short:

• Is there equity, to ensure each individual’s unique circumstances are not a hindrance to the opportunities they have access to? Can a young single mother with no childcare support feel like she has as much opportunity to break the glass ceiling as another woman with less dependants or more family support? Does a woman from a less privileged background who didn’t get the chance to study abroad, be given the same opportunities as someone who could afford to get an Ivy League degree?
• Is there inclusion, so that even after women are given a seat at the table, they feel respected, a sense of belonging, and listened to? Is a woman’s point of view only valued in certain areas, like HR, that has traditionally been deemed to be more “female-centric” because it “deals with people”? How do we know casual business discussions are not being done at Sunday golf sessions, or cigarette breaks, or post-work drinks, that not everyone may be invited to? Does a woman feel like she has to act more tough, or more demanding, or be “one of the boys” to be given respect by her senior peers (at the risk of people labelling her a bitch, because really, you can’t win).?

Diversity efforts, without taking equity and inclusion into account, would always end up being tokenistic gestures that plaster over the real, deep-seated issues. As individuals we are all a confluence of our multiple intersectionalities, and when diversity is just focused on gender it risks elevating only women of a certain background or privilege, without taking into account all the other complex factors and challenges that make up a person’s lived experiences.?

Including equity and inclusion into the conversation is much harder work, because it requires companies to have an honest stocktake rather than a box ticking exercise. This includes talking to employees of all levels on the ground who are affected, evaluating and assessing existing policies and practices, and understanding the gaps and how to close them. Perhaps most importantly, it requires a deep change in organisational culture to do away with entrenched ideas of what true diversity, equity, and inclusion looks like for everyone.?

• Credit : Alea Nasihin

#diversityandinclusion #internationalwomensday