Over the past decade, many companies have set gender diversity as a strategic priority, in the hope of creating inclusive environments, adapting to the evolving values and appealing to the new workforce. This step has had an important impact on how organisations approach and manage these topics. However, with most of today’s measures being symptomatic treatments, there is still much to be done. In this article, we explore various avenues to fight the central cause, and make our environments truly gender-diverse.
By any usual standard, my LinkedIn profile corresponds to what companies refer to as a ‘high performer’. I have degrees from Ivy League schools, won various awards, founded and worked in start-ups with 7-figure valuations, and have been promoted faster than any other person in my company. Success at its best – or so you would think. There’s just one caveat: my name isn’t Patricia, its Patrick – and I’m a white male. This isn’t to say that I’m not proud of my achievements – I am – but I would be foolish to believe my success wasn’t bolstered by opportunities inaccessible to many, and I am not talking about those born on the ‘wrong side of the planet’. From where I stand, the ‘right side of the planet’ seems to struggle with this topic at least as much – and arguably more. I am talking about the challenge of creating equal opportunities for the 49.5% of the population that so happens to have two X chromosomes.
A quick search for ‘gender diversity’ results in roughly 250 million hits, the same as googling ‘Kim Kardashian’, but it feels like more lawyers got together to solve Kim’s divorce than to tackle a global issue. This is an exaggeration of course, but you get the point. Gender diversity is still an important issue, and we should continue to fight, fight for a more just society, a society that wouldn’t find a resumé ‘even more impressive’ for the unspoken reason we are all well aware of. However, before delving into the core of the topic and exploring some alternatives, it is worth mentioning that gender is only one of many problems of equal opportunity. Others – ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation to name a few – deserve at least as much attention, but I am hopeful that readers will understand I am well-intended.
The endemic of gender diversity in the developed world
Gender diversity has been around for so long that it has become an ‘old’ topic. So old in fact, that companies these days are more focused on appealing to the unmanageable millennials – and to some extent, I can understand why. Over the past two-decade, society has made tremendous progress, from recognising the value of diversity to implementing quotas. Nonetheless, I would argue that many initiatives tend to focus on the wrong problem, namely how to increase the number of women in the workplace, including in leadership positions. The much deeper, more serious question is about creating an environment in which women feel empowered to make a conscious decision to either stay home, or pursue a legitimate career. It means going beyond the default setting of building a home and taking care of the children, simply because there are no other options. It means making the choice real. Because if women cannot exercise this choice in an open and supportive way, gender diversity will never be better than a zero-sum game. I submit that this is what the real gender diversity challenge is supposed to be about: how to support women in whichever decision they make. For those who stay at home, society has developed a number of supportive measures. For all others, there is ample room for improvement. Here are 4 avenues worth considering.
1. Recognise that gender diversity is still an open issue
The vast majority of companies recognised gender diversity as an issue many years ago, and have implemented a plethora of initiatives ever since. A common misconception, however, is that because these have been around for so long, the problem is ‘solved’. In reality, the shift is cultural – generational – and may take another 2 decades to come anywhere near to closure. In the meantime, simple things will go a long way, including keeping the conversation open, recognising our shortcomings, and starting to explore ‘beyond words’.
2. Recruiting for diversity
A common measure to abolish gender diversity issues is to ‘recruit for diversity’. While affirmative action-type measures or quota systems do in fact lead to more women in leadership positions, they fail to fix the underlying system that led to the gender gap in the first place. Similarly, popping a painkiller does not fix a broken leg. Instead, redefining your selection criteria, and making them either gender-agnostic or equal weight, may lead you to truly hire the ‘best person’ for the job, rather than forcing you to hire the ‘best women’.
3. Supporting the change
I am convinced that, in twenty years, looking back at our generation’s work environments will seem as strange for our grandchildren as slavery and women’s rights seem to us. One way to accelerate change is to turn the problem around: start with the target outcome and work our way backwards from there. In other words, what would a society that makes the most of both sexes look like? On the one hand, for those able to imagine such a world, it is easy to understand that promoting women at the expense of their significant others is ridiculous – so is training women to strive in a male environment. On the other hand, equal contribution to family and work would be a given. Converging towards this ‘ideal’ environment will require us to shift our focus from ‘what to give to women’ to ‘what to take from men’ in order for women to strive. Moving the needle could be as simple as questioning your male employees when they never take days off to care for a sick child. Similarly, challenge your female workers when they bear the full burden.
4. Our legacy – educating the next generation
While continuously striving to make a difference in the workplace is essential, educating the next generation will ensure that, when our kids enter the workforce, they will have a clear expectation of what true gender diversity looks like. By then, it might not even be a thing anymore. In the meantime, because children learn by example, the best way to shape this expectation is to apply it in our own homes. The meaning of this, of course, comes in many flavours, and one would be foolish to expect anyone else to just do it, because it’s hard. It takes effort. By way of example, on some days my mind quietly wanders off back to its default setting, the one it was brought up in. But most days, I choose to pull myself out of my white-male comfort zone to empathise with the Second Sex. While this may not seem much, I submit it is a first step – my first step – to make our workplaces more inclusive and just.
The topic of gender diversity has been around for many years now, and tremendous progress has been made. However, there is still a long way to go to reach our ‘ideal’ state. The good news is that it doesn’t require any Ivy League degree, fancy award or early promotion. It simply requires us to make a conscious decision – and this, I posit, is a generational change.
Conclusions
- Gender diversity remains an important issue in the workplace
- Society should define a target outcome and work backwards
- Generational changes require us to make conscious decisions about our principles and values
