Three things women and men can do to accelerate gender diversity in 2019

Some progress was made towards gender diversity in 2018 but it’s far too slow. Here are three ways you can play your part…..it even includes movie time.

In the run-up to this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8th, there will be a lot of hand-wringing - once again. Some progress was made towards gender diversity in 2018 but it’s far too slow. In fact, at the rate we’re currently going it will take another 170 years before we see economic parity between men and women*.

Even at Unilever, where diversity is a huge priority, we are not yet where we need to be. On the bright side, Unilever’s percentage of female managers increased from 38% in 2010 to 49% in 2018, putting us squarely on track to reach our 50/50 target by 2020. That said, of our very top managers, only 27% are female. And in consumer goods, where more than half of customers are women, that is most definitely a business issue.

So here’s my three-step recommendation for all men and women who want faster progress in 2019.

1) Watch the recent movie RBG – an excellent flick that profiles the life of Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

2) Are you a woman? Step up and be a role model. RBG certainly is an awesome, textbook example, but we can all be role models in our own way.

3) Are you a man? Be brave and support the female leaders around you. Like Marty Ginsberg, Jimmy Carter, and many others.

Up for it? Here’s what I mean…

Watch this movie

The movie ‘RBG’ tells the story of United States Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, affectionately known as ‘the notorious RBG’ by young fans. Thanks to RBG, we’ve come a long way when it comes to the equality of men and women before the law. In 1970, employers in most US states could legally fire women when they became pregnant. Banks could require women applying for credit to have their husband co-sign. And after RBG herself graduated first in her class from Columbia Law School in 1959, not a single law firm in New York would hire her. They simply didn’t hire women. Whoa.

In the 1970s, RBG showed her phenomenal legal brain in winning five of the six gender discrimination cases she argued before the all-male Supreme Court. Laws have since changed to the equality we now take for granted in much of the world.

In the movie, we also learn the back story to RBG’s impressive achievements, and the role men played. Like all successful people, RBG couldn’t, and didn’t, do it alone. In her professional sphere, she encountered plenty of resistance (how about being asked by the Dean of Harvard Law School ‘how she justified taking a spot from a qualified man?’) but she also caught a few breaks from men who acted out of the box for th-eir era.

Men making a difference

President Jimmy Carter recognized that ‘Federal judges all look like me, and not like America’. He proceeded to appoint more women, including RBG, and minorities to federal courts, than all the previous US presidents combined. And President Bill Clinton nominated RBG over a host of male candidates for the Supreme Court.

At home, RBG’s story may be even more remarkable. She married her college beau Martin ‘Marty’ Ginsberg. Over time, Marty became one of the most successful tax lawyers in New York and remained RBG’s biggest fan. At a time when it was highly unusual and required real guts, he openly shared home- and -child-raising responsibilities with his wife.   When RBG was appointed to the Washington District Court, he quit his job and moved to DC with her. And when RBG – never one to toot her own horn - was up for the Supreme Court nomination, Marty worked his extensive Rolodex to make sure the Clinton administration knew how strong a candidate his wife was.

Role models

“They’ll have to be smart, visionary, excel at their profession and work hard. Just like successful male leaders, really.”

So for 2019, I’d like for all of us – men and women - to take a page out of RBG’s book. To get to gender parity at the very top of organisations, we’ll need even more great female role models. They’ll have to be smart, visionary, excel at their profession and work hard. Just like successful male leaders, really.

And we will also need more brave men to act. Men who, like Jimmy Carter, recognise the need for more females and minorities at the top, and appoint them. Men who, like outgoing Unilever CEO Paul Polman, set clear targets for gender diversity, enact policies like paternity leave to help both men and women thrive, and behind the scenes, tirelessly advocate for female talent. Men who, like Martin Ginsberg and my own husband, are confident enough to delight in their partners’ careers. Men who, like my Unilever colleague Jacco van Pelt, set an example by taking paternity leave despite societal pressures to carry on working.

So here’s my call-out to all of us for this year’s International Women’s Day: Please learn, be brave and act. Act like RBG, like Carter, like Polman. Whether you are doing it because you believe gender diversity is mission-critical to your business; or because you wish for more opportunities for your daughters; or because it is just the right thing to do…it doesn’t matter. Because maybe, just maybe, we’ll see the day in our lifetime that the Notorious RBG predicted when asked what the ideal number of women on the nine-seat Supreme Court would be. Her reply? ‘Well, nine, of course’!

*source: World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap Report