Voices for inclusion
“We live in a world where talent is distributed equally but opportunity is not,” said Leah Daughtry, author of On These Things, at the Women’s Forum Global Meeting 2018 in November. With this new year upon us, the time is nigh to look back on what we have learned, on who has inspired us and why. We have summarised the abundance of wisdom that was shared at the Global Meeting, with a view to shedding some light on women’s collective future, and most importantly, on what we can all do to shape it.
One of the most pressing issues inhibiting women’s progress and stifling their talent is sexual harassment in the workplace. The Women’s Forum debate (curated with The New York Times) on whether the issue should be the responsibility of businesses, not governments, clustered around two broad themes: time and money. Sexual harassment’s devastating psychological effects — humiliation, depression, anxiety, increased absenteeism — have hindered women’s ability to thrive within the workplace; and they have become, as a result, a threat to global prosperity. Because people rely on a degree of profit motive to change behaviours, potential loss in global GDP would be a compelling reason to take the lead on the issue. It was argued, somewhat controversially, that it isn’t the good will of companies that we should be relying on: “Assuming that companies can lead the way,” said Michael Kaufman of the White Ribbon Campaign, “Is like expecting the Pope to give you good birth control advice — not going to happen”; so if we’re going to expect businesses to change their internal practices, let us be clear about their reasons for doing so.
Governments’ own failure to enforce anti-harassment policies seems to be a question of both time and timing. At the structural level, governments are still disproportionately led by men, some of whom are unaware of the debilitating effects of harassment. At the practical level, as Philippe Lévêque of CARE France pointed out, laws and policies take time to implement, and we all agree that “there is no time”. What’s worse, Heather Barnabe of G(irls)20 said, a lack of data from governments on this issue suggests that it is not a national priority; and even if it were, governments are fickle and tend to give way to the tide of elections. In that respect, businesses’ independence is a true advantage: if they chose to dismantle sexual violence, from top to bottom, they could.
For those in positions of power, a simple act can have an immeasurable impact.
The truth is, said Anne-Laure Kiechel of Rothschild, we need both governments andbusinesses. The decision to tackle sexual harassment has to be a worldwide initiative in which we assert the right as citizens to reject such bad practices. But the rub, said Alexandra Palt of L’Oréal, lies in the grey area between policy and social accountability: if the demand for the equal treatment of women in society fails at the level of government, who is to say that companies will undertake it? How can we ensure that businesses become socially conscious on their terms? Perhaps bridging the two sides of this debate, and bridging humanity at large, requires the kind of business model that invites societal progress and inclusivity into its core business strategy, binding the very notion of a company to a world that must be seen as a global community.
The private sector has the power to realise such a vision. Many companies have already set it in motion by questioning their raison d’être in society. As Halla Tómasdottir of the B-Team said in the ‘Reimagining organisations’ session: “When did we decide that GDP would be the only instrument of success?” The younger generation is increasingly keen to measure business success in terms of social impact; a direction, said Sophie Bellon of Sodexo, that a private company has the ability to control.
It starts with a question that forms the basis of inclusive workplace cultures: once you get people into the pipeline, how to make them feel supported enough to stay? Leaders at the global meeting committed, for example, to re-entry programmes for women who have been out of the workforce for two years; and to bringing more men into the conversation, outside the workplace, because shifting values happens both inside and outside the boardroom.
How, then, can we accelerate the current rate of change to render the transformation global and simultaneous– ‘across the board’? The sense of urgency generated by the #MeToo movement has provoked a huge shift in mindset, one we should continue to harness, says Halla Tómasdottir; but the fact remains, women make up only 15% of the world’s corporate boards, and that fact needs to change — fast.
Urgency was a dominant theme at the Women’s Forum Global Meeting. In the face of technology’s growing ubiquity — AI’s simulation of human behaviour and skills, the development of smart cities, the billions invested in cyber technologies — there is an urgent need to restructure, reskill and reinvent the future of work. The urgency of disruption presents tremendous opportunities for businesses, and for women, to level the playing field and filter out biases in existing career development programmes.
“AI is only as good as the data that it is fed,” said Jennifer Schenker in the ‘Total Inclusion’ session. Filtering out all forms of biases from new AI systems is a priority in the new work order; if we’re going to change the way people (and machines) replicate social behaviours, the time is now, before it’s too late. It is worth mentioning here, too, that the move towards fairness and inclusiveness is a two-way street, as Carolyn Nguyen of Microsoft said in her call to action. Let’s not just think about how women can empower AI, but how AI can empower women, to enforce the changes they’ve been waiting for.
The planet, meanwhile, cannot wait any longer either. As Mary Robinson of the Elders pointed out, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 45% by 2030 in order to keep the planet within 1.5° C temperature change. Governments do not seem to understand, Robinson continued, that if we fail to do so, our world will no longer be safe for our children. Some problems, like climate change, cannot be solved without the involvement of the state and yet, governments refuse to look beyond the single cycle of elections.
Interestingly, policy priorities change when women are put in charge. When women have the power to make a lasting difference — as we have seen in Ethiopia, where half the cabinet is female — they do. The question, now, is: while we continue to push for more women in government, what can women in other influential positions do to help other women? In the case of climate change, the challenge is to ensure that any funding given to transformational climate projects should simultaneously target the people whom the climate crisis has rendered the most vulnerable — women. Women, as water-bearers and providers, are on the front line of multiple resource and agricultural crises. Borrowing Mission 2020’s Christiana Figueres’ powerful river analogy, we should be thinking in terms of confluence, here: the voices of women fighting climate change should converge with those speaking on behalf of women who have been displaced and victimised by it. These women are themselves “instrumental” agents of change, said Laurence Pessez of BNP Paribas, because they know better than anyone what the added value of change would be.
We shouldn’t wait for states to act on behalf of geopolitical issues, said Gary White of Water.org and WaterEquity; it would be like waiting for rain in a drought. Nearly 1 billion people have no access to water and almost 2 billion have no access to approved sanitation; and women give up to 25% of their income to water vendors, equal to 200–300 billion dollars. But with mass social-impact investing, says White, this problem is solvable in our lifetime. Never has there been such a big concentration of wealth and such a willingness to deploy it. More than 1 billion dollars of private capital has already been leveraged to fund water and sanitation loans for poor women.
Moving women above the poverty line connects to a wider issue: giving them access to the financial system. Two billion people are currently unbanked, said Serpil Timuray of Vodafone. M-Peza, Vodafone’s mobile payment service first launched in Kenya in 2012, now enables 35 million people in Africa to make safe, direct money transfers and do business on their phones. Two percent of Kenya’s population has been lifted above the poverty line as a result, and women, who were previously excluded from the traditional financial system, now have access to one that directly benefits them.
The financial system is not the only ‘system’ closed to many women around the world; the health care system presents its own set of obstacles, with limited access to information, health care clinics and hospitals, accurate medical records, cost, and time off work. Women in the tech industry are working on solutions based on their unique understanding of women’s mental and physical needs — but “despite their demonstrated success,” said Karen Linehan of Sanofi, “they are unable to get pick-up”, and they are dramatically under-represented. From Denis Duverne of AXA we heard a series of commitments to tackle this problem head on: active mentorships; access to communications resources; a network of entrepreneurs willing to share their experiences; and funding to help these businesses grow. P&G has made its own commitment to providing girls in developing countries with basic access to sanitary products: “No girl should miss school because she’s a girl,” said Ranya Shamoon.
How can we involve men in all these changes? We must start, says Michael Kaufman, by understanding the paradox of male power within a male-dominated society, where power is itself the starting point. The very ways in which we have constructed masculinity comes at a great cost to men themselves. They live in fear of not being a ‘real man’; and they resort to various forms of violence and abuse as a means of proving — to women, but above all to themselves — that they are. “Feminism is the greatest gift that men have ever had”, says Kaufman: they can finally begin defining the kind of man they want to be.
The relations of power we see in our bedrooms, our kitchens, our nurseries, show the extent which the personal is political, and vice versa: they are micro versions of broader social dynamics. It follows, then, that transforming these dynamics at the policy level would eventually enable individual change in micro environments. Such is the hope of feminism: to equalise; to strengthen the individual within and without the family unit; and to remove pressure on both women and men to ‘fulfil’ their respective roles and meet gendered expectations. We know that women “deliver”, said Katja Iversen of Women Deliver, “a lot more than babies”; it’s just a case of turning that knowledge into a reality.
Such is the hope of feminism: to equalise; to strengthen the individual within and without the family unit; and to remove pressure on both women and men to ‘fulfil’ their respective roles and meet gendered expectations.
Having been inspired by a speed mentoring session earlier in the day, Thomas Buberl of AXA committed to mentoring one woman, every year. For those in positions of power, a simple act can have an immeasurable impact. So scooch over, said Star Jones, make room for another seat at the table. “Don’t weaponise your privilege”, said Luvvie Ajayi, author and activist. “Use it to help marginalised people get a little closer to you.” These two statements were directed to women as well as men. Women’s ability to take the lead on inclusion has been vastly underestimated and untapped. “Women want to be empowered, and they want to empower others,” said Linda Zukauckas of American Express. But we all know this can only happen on a global scale if companies and brands change at the structural level. One thing that is emerging, said Tea Uglow of Google, is a reimagining of the supply-demand dynamic between brands and talent. We must remember that demand creates supply: when brands decide they want women directors, suddenly, “magically”, women directors surface; and when they can’t find them, they go looking for them.
Plus, said Syl Saller of Diageo, “courage is contagious”, and it has become quite clear, to many companies, that a socially inclusive stance is worth the risk. Business advantages aside, inclusiveness invites us to listen, to embrace, and to act. “If you think you’re too small to make a change,” said Elizabeth Nyamayaro of UN Women, “Try being in a room with a mosquito.”
This article was published on January 2nd, 2019, as part of a LinkedIn series for the Women’s Forum Global Meeting 2018, demonstrating how participants and partners of the Women’s Forum for the Economy & Society are #BridgingHumanity to drive inclusive progress. Visit the Women’s Forum website and join the conversation using #WFGM18.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/voices-inclusion-sophie-lambin/
