Women Don’t Self Advocate Enough. It’s Not Just A ‘Women’s Problem’ Though

Over my 15 years of working in the space of women at work in different capacities, I have come to realise the sad truth about women and self-advocacy.?

Which is: Women don’t self-advocate.?

Now, like all generalizations, this one too will have its exceptions to the rule. There are women who advocate strongly for themselves, who boldly ask for what is due to them, and who are not afraid to iron out any conflicts that may arise as a result. But they are the exceptions.?

The norm is women who put their heads down and work, expecting that their work will speak for itself - only to realise somewhere down the line that it doesn’t, or at least not enough. Promotions and accolades flow to those who showcase themselves well while those who are ‘merely’ committed and hardworking are taken for granted.?

Anyone who has worked in the space of enabling women will know that what I am saying is not novel by any means - it is fairly well-known. The reasons are many.?

Why don’t women self-advocate?

As girls, we are socialized to take up less space, to be humble, to not worry about credit. It’s not surprising that we grow into women who believe that talking about ourselves is arrogance.?

Moreover, when most women with caregiving responsibilities just about manage to squeeze in time for work, commutes, child-care, elder-care and housework, there is often a lack of mental bandwidth to really look at one’s own career in the long-term and make time for all the ‘non-work’ work that will move you ahead, whether it is networking, presenting papers at conferences, volunteering for office committees and so on which add up to visibility. (Sleep? What’s that?). So yes, women need to self-advocate, but if we really want to build inclusive workplaces, we cannot put all the onus on women alone.

So yes, women need to self-advocate, but if we really want to build inclusive workplaces, we cannot put all the onus on women alone.

Investments in helping women speak up and claim their space must be matched by investments in creating workplace cultures that make space for everyone to speak up.?

If we only ask women to speak up, but don’t address the structures that make it impossible for them, we are asking women to take up a Sisyphean battle.?

And it’s not just women who lose out. If a significant part of your workforce isn’t speaking up equally, the loss of ideas and expertise for the company is immense.?

So let’s take a deeper look at the other side of the coin.?

How can managers and leaders be allies who enable more women to speak up, and moreover, ensure that they are not speaking in vain??

Actions for inclusive advocacy

Simple actions that inclusive managers can take to enable women to speak up more easily include:

• Watch how much they speak - too often, leaders tend to occupy the most space and time in a room - effectively minimizing the time for others to participate. This means that people who tend to speak up less end up even more silenced

• Actively ask for participation - rather than letting only the loudest voices speak, actively ask for participation from all team members. A new problem being discussed in a brainstorming session could have each member receiving 3 minutes to contribute. This also has the positive effect of bringing in many more ideas?

• Push back on interruptions - Research shows that women are interrupted far more often when they try to speak. If your female colleague is being interrupted, step in with a gentle, “Let Asha finish and then we can come to you.”

• Allow contributions in different ways - sometimes, factors such as language fluency and fear of speaking in public can also inhibit people of all genders. Why not expand the ways in which people can ‘speak up’? For instance, in the brainstorming session discussed above, perhaps some people would like to talk while others would like to write them down and share them with the group.?

Processes to foster visibility

One of the factors that hampers women’s advocacy at work is their challenge in building and accessing strategic networks. Since most leadership groups tend to be heavily male, and people socialize more with ‘others like us’, women are rarely part of such networking and cannot advocate for themselves with senior leaders.

Since most leadership groups tend to be heavily male, and people socialize more with ‘others like us’, women are rarely part of such networking...

Caregiving responsibilities also mean that women travel less for conferences and are less able to participate in networking events outside standard working hours. The question of how we should organize such networking is a distinct one which I am not entering into here.?

However, given this backdrop, what processes can enable women to better advocate for themselves and build visibility outside their immediate work groups? Some suggestions:?

• Make skip level meetings a norm - Regular skip level meetings set up as a process (rather than something that individual employees need to initiate) level the field for those who hesitate.?

• Ensure diversity in cross-functional teams - Requiring more diversity in cross-functional teams or special project teams brings in a wealth of different perspectives and experiences to such projects, besides ensuring more opportunities for women?

• Rotate mundane/housekeeping tasks - Research shows that women tend to be disproportionately loaded with mundane, housekeeping tasks such as maintaining meeting minutes or organizing office events. Such tasks take up time but don’t bring women recognition since they are seen as easy or unimportant and are not part of the job role. Have a process to ensure that such tasks are taken up by rota rather than by gender.?

Most important, an open Culture

In the long run, whether more employees speak up will be determined by the company culture. A company culture is ultimately about the unsaid rules, guidelines, and expectations that govern and guide how employees should behave with each other and the external world.?

In clear and shared cultures, the ‘should’ correlates strongly with how employees actually behave, whereas for companies where the culture is nebulous, there may be many value and culture statements but these have little resemblance to what people actually do.?

For instance, the value statement emphasizes respect for all employees but leaders don’t demonstrate what respect actually means - or worse, stay silent when stereotypes about any group are peddled in a company forum.?

If we want women to be able to self-advocate, we need a culture that encourages open communication and even dissent, where people feel that speaking up will not lead to their being penalised in any way. In practical terms, this is harder said than done, especially in hierarchical societies like ours where gender, age, class and caste location all impact our ability to speak for ourselves.?

The benefits extend beyond women

Building a culture of this nature, setting up processes to create opportunities for advocacy, and training managers to take actions to encourage communication - when we do all of these from a gender lens, the benefits stretch to other under-represented groups too. As the Oxford Review describes it, “The Curb Cut Effect refers to a phenomenon where accessibility features designed to aid a specific, marginalised group end up benefiting a much broader population.”?

The curb cut effect of widening the opportunities for advocacy will extend to the neuro-divergent, those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, those with language barriers, as well as people with visible and invisible disabilities. As an example, enabling contributions in different formats may help more neuro-divergent individuals also participate meaningfully.?

Work of this nature requires leadership buy-in at the highest levels and ongoing dialogue with employees at all levels. One-time sensitization efforts will not do. Does it seem like a long journey? Perhaps. However, companies that are able to do this will also be able to demonstrate to people how such openness has tangible benefits, not just for individual employees, but for how teams innovate.?

Most of all, open cultures accessible to all, show up in the greater joy with which we can all show up at work, knowing that there is a space where we truly belong.

Hi! I'm Aparna; in my third decade at work, I continue to be a learner - one who is passionate about women at work, inclusion in a broader context, as well as the role of communities & story-telling in making that happen. These are the things I typically write about here, from an Indian context; follow me if you'd like to hear more.