It's Time to Make Gender Inclusion at Work Intersectional

by Rakshitha Arni Ravishankar, Associate Multiplatform Editor

It'll take women over 130 years to gain equal access to the workforce, education, healthcare, and political participation.?For women at the intersections of race, class, age, and other dimensions of diversity, closing the gap will take even longer.

Research shows that just 8.2% of the top 500 companies have a female CEO. Women of color make up a small portion of that group. Across the globe, many of us lack the institutional support needed to grow in our careers, and even when we beat the odds, we still take on the vast majority of caregiving duties.

Today is International Women’s Day — an observance that began during the labor movement of the early 1900s. An entire century later, why does progress feel so slow??

According to Professor Ludmila Praslova, one reason is that our DEI efforts have historically focused on a singular identity. Over the years, we have separately prioritized gender equality, racial equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and so on. But what if you’re a Black, autistic woman or a young, immigrant, genderqueer person from a low-income background? To be truly inclusive, we need to take an intersectional approach. Without it, we will always end up leaving people behind.

The fastest way to resolve this, Praslova writes, is “creating systems that include the most marginalized and those identifying with multiple marginalized groups. This also requires the participation of those from the marginalized communities.”

In short, social and economic progress is most effective when it encompasses everyone. Only when we understand the barriers that women face across the intersections of race, sexuality, class, caste, and disability can we create strategies that ensure their full inclusion in the workplace, challenge the systemic nature of gender bias, and shift the onus away from individual women to change themselves.

What would this kind of progress look like?

At the organizational level, it would like leadership teams striving for equitable representation of women with intersecting identities at every career stage. It would look like managers onboarding and promoting women with the genuine intention of including as many diverse voices as possible. It would look like including more of those voices in the rooms where decisions are being made.

Finally, know that you don’t need positional power to make a change. Start by unlearning your own gender biases, acknowledging your privilege, and building meaningful connections with people different than you. If you see women being talked over, intervene. If you hear a sexist comment, call out the microaggression, or if you notice a woman of color taking on non-promotable tasks at work, speak up.

To get started, take some advice from our authors.

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