Calling On All People! Steps Toward Gender Parity in the Workplace
Editor’s Note: This piece is the first in a series on workplace culture. For this inaugural post, we’ve asked writer and journalist Emily Wilson to explore the notion of rethinking the workplace to achieve gender parity.
[Disclaimer: Before we dive in, we’d like to acknowledge that men can also be victims of sexual assault, and women can also be guilty of harassment and abuse. In this piece, we’re referencing the pervasive, systemic issue of women experiencing harassment in the workplace.]
I was involved in a conversation recently, a sort of “debate” about the #MeToo movement, during which a man said to me, “What’s next? Men will just have to be silent on the job and keep their hands in their pockets at all times?” I thought to myself, “Hey, that’s a pretty good plan.”
While this is clearly a sarcastic and exaggerated solution to a very serious, complex problem, it got me thinking about the ways in which workplace harassment could be improved, even if incrementally, and moreover, if some men might be uncomfortable doing their part in making necessary personal and professional changes along the way.
What’s happening in our culture right now is both shocking and…not shocking. Shocking because we’re actually seeing real consequences for men of consequence — politicians and entertainment personalities chief among them. Not shocking because of the timing, bubbling over within the first year of Trump’s presidency, which he won even while 19 sexual assault victims braved the brunt of a patriarchal, unbelieving society to speak their painful truths to power. He won despite that now infamous audio recording of him bragging about the easy-breezy, who-cares-how-it-affects-them nature of sexual assault whilst famous. And of course, it should be noted that he did all this while running against the first female candidate of a major political party, only adding another turn of the already razor-sharp knife.
We are witnessing women’s frustration, pain, catharsis, and rage in large part because of this perfect political storm, but the roots, of course, go much deeper. Many have spent decades in industries designed by men, for men — and white men at that, exacerbating the intersectional challenges faced by women of color — fighting for opportunity, upward mobility, and at times, for basic human decency and respect. And none of this even touches on the daily societal attitudes toward women outside of the structured workplace, which can manifest in harassment of different or similar kinds, many of which are internalized by the victim as the price to pay for trying, succeeding, existing.
The #MeToo movement is high profile, at times contentious, and has already led to concrete action and results beyond the firing of a still relatively small group of powerful men. The Time’s Up initiative, for example, has raised millions of dollars to subsidize legal support for individuals who’ve experienced workplace sexual harassment in all industries. Actresses involved in that initiative’s launch provided a broader platform for lesser known, yet totally deserving, feminist leaders by bringing them as plus-ones to the recent Golden Globes Awards. The masses got to see and hear from Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Co-Director of the Caring Across Generations Campaign, Mónica Ramírez, Co-Founder of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, and Tarana Burke, Senior Director at Girls for Gender Equity and founder of the #metoo movement, which she began in 2006 as a way to help survivors of sexual violence, particularly young women of color from low income communities.
But this isn’t all about what’s seen and heard on the red carpet and celebrity platforms. In the video and film production industry, professional roles are often conflated with fame and prestige, but for most involved, that’s far from reality. Most people are slugging it out, one day at a time, doing great work for no critical acclaim but hopefully, for good and fair pay. The problem is…men make up most of the industry. According to a recent study from the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film, “In 2017, women comprised 18% of directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the top 250 grossing films. This represents an increase of 1 percentage point from 17% in 2016 and is virtually even with the number achieved in 1998.”
But this movement spans industries well beyond our own, reaching out to workers far and wide, including ones who face perhaps grueling daily circumstances. It includes the waitress, the athlete, the farm worker, the hotel maid, the software engineer, the bartender, the crane operator, the factory worker, the seamstress, the firefighter, and the list goes on. It’s about women in the wide-ranging workplace and it’s about gender parity, equality, and being able to do your job free of the fear of those around and above you on the company ladder.
The women farm workers of the Alianza Nacional de Campesinas recently wrote, “We do not work under the bright stage lights or on the big screen. We work in the shadows of society in isolated fields and packinghouses that are out of sight…We share a common experience of being preyed upon by individuals who have the power to hire, fire, blacklist and otherwise threaten our economic, physical and emotional security. Like you, there are few positions available to us, and reporting any kind of harm or injustice committed against us doesn’t seem like a viable option. Complaining about anything — even sexual harassment — seems unthinkable because too much is at risk, including the ability to feed our families and preserve our reputations.”
So what do we do now? What do we do with all of this rage and momentum and fear and determination? How can we start taking measurable steps toward gender parity in the workplace, no matter the type? This topic is humongous — pretty overwhelming, really — and it goes without saying that it can’t be solved in a rambling blog post, but we wanted to look into research, analysis, and expert opinions on ways to start building toward a more equitable (hopefully immediate) future.
Hire More Women; Provide Paths to Leadership Positions
This idea is nothing new, but it’s swirling around even more now considering our current cultural moment. Hiring more women to leadership roles can reduce instances of sexual and gender harassment on the job. A recent article in The Atlantic put it this way:
“…having more women employees, particularly in leadership roles, can reduce the incidence of harassment. Why? It’s not that women are somehow themselves preventing the behavior — in fact women too can be perpetrators — but that male-dominated organizations are more likely to have cultures characterized by aggressive and competitive behaviors and so-called locker-room culture.”
It’s undoubtedly true that homogenous groups invite and encourage homogeneous thinking, and that making space for more women of all types would be a step in the right direction. As it stands now, however, a woman’s path to the top of any company or organization is narrow. The visualization below comes from the recent Women in the Workplace 2017 study from McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org, and the story it tells of diversity in corporate leadership is not a good one, especially when looking at the reprehensibly low percentages of representation for women of color.
These are damning numbers, but we might learn even more from this next fact: according to the same study, nearly 50% of men think women are well-represented in leadership in companies where just one in ten senior leaders is a woman. This widely held belief that inequality is equality shines a light on the depth of the issue and the many minds that need to be changed.
But the good news is this: the women in positions of power now, + the 50% of men who do not, in fact, think 1-in-10 is good enough, can take immediate steps to evaluate their company structure and make efforts to hire and promote women into roles with the promise of increased wages, responsibility, and leadership, including mentorship programs for those hired at the entry level. And this is an important place to stop and think about the ways in which white women have more access to these entry level roles than women of color due to educational opportunities, social and professional networks, and so forth. Creating internal committees to ensure the hiring of women and equal opportunities for women of color could be an important start and would help communicate the seriousness of the issue within the company from a top down perspective. As is always the case, the more varied the voices in any company, in any industry, the more inclusive (and effective) the results will be and the less likely it is that a culture of toxic masculinity can take hold.
Work to Close the VC Funding Gap
Venture capital is an important part of business in the U.S. Over the past 20 years, according to Insights by Stanford Business, VC-funded companies “have been a prime driver of both economic growth and private sector employment.” But during that two decade-period, women-led companies have scarcely been the beneficiaries.
“…female-founded companies get only 13 percent of the total angel financing available….[and] when it comes to venture capital — often the speediest route to building a fast-growth company — women simply aren’t getting funded. Female CEOs get only 2.7 percent of all venture funding, while women of color get virtually none: 0.2 percent,” explains Inc.
There’s no singular way to explain these huge gaps, but unconscious bias, very few women working at VC firms, and an overall lack of a structural pipeline guiding women into business, tech, and other industries often funded by venture capital all play factors. These gaps hold women back from rising through the ranks of U.S. business, perpetuating a cycle that leaves them on the outside looking in, with little to no control over the structure and culture of the workplace. Groups of women are chipping away at the gap bit by bit by taking matters into their own hands, funding other women themselves. Forward-thinking organizations like SheEO are leading the way, bypassing the long-held notions of what businesses are worth funding. World-renowned philanthropist Melinda Gates recently wrote an article in recode about the need to close this gap. In it, she highlights what she considers the most important part of the puzzle — the need to fund women-led VC firms and early-stage companies, which are more likely to fund women-led companies than those run by men.
“I’m putting my money where my mouth is on this one,” she wrote. “Earlier this year, I began looking to make returns-focused investments in women-led VC funds. Not because it’s a nice thing to do, but because there are smart investments to be made and big returns to be had. I hope that other investors will follow suit.”
We need more leaders like her — both men and women — who are willing to invest in breaking down the old, outdated ways of funding, realizing it’s not only good for society and workplace gender parity, but also good for business. We need existing firms and funders to be transparent and open about their diversity efforts, measuring data and keeping themselves and their competitors accountable.
Rethink Sexual Harassment Training
In 2016, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released a comprehensive study on sexual harassment in the workplace, which indicated that anywhere from 25% to 85% of women have been sexually harassed on the job (that’s a huge gap, but even on the low end, this affects one-in-four women). When these instances are reported, 75% of victims say they faced some sort of retaliation, according to the report.
What role does sexual harassment training play in all of this? “Much of the training done over the last 30 years has not worked as a prevention tool — it’s been too focused on simply avoiding legal liability [emphasis added],” the report continues. While it’s understandable to purposefully avoid legal trouble, that alone cannot be the driving force behind providing, encouraging, and/or requiring this type of training. It’s simply not enough, as the disappointing and dangerous results prove.
An article from CNN Money quoted the EEOC report, noting that rethinking sexual harassment training “…must be part of a holistic culture of non-harassment that starts at the top.” The culture must be dissected, picked apart, and analyzed honestly in order for true change to emerge. Out of that practice should come a new way to train — one that puts the victim above the harasser and above the bottom line.
In practice, companies could require in-person training (as opposed to off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all online or pre-recorded versions) that addresses specific cases, issues, and statistics related to their industries, not shying away from the fact that men are most often the perpetrators, and highlighting a need for bystanders of all genders to speak out against harassment as it happens (when safe to do so).
To discuss sexual harassment head on, diving into the role it’s historically played within a given industry could make trainings more engaging and impactful. Additionally, all trainings and written policies should clearly prioritize potential victims by ensuring all are clear on how to report instances of harassment and abuse while also communicating a zero tolerance policy for retaliation.
Keep Talking, Keep Believing (Men Certainly Included!)
In Roxeanne Gay’s stellar book of essays, Bad Feminist, she writes: “All too often, when we see injustices, both great and small, we think, That’s terrible, but we do nothing. We say nothing. We let other people fight their own battles. We remain silent because silence is easier. Qui tacet consentire videtur is Latin for ‘Silence gives consent.’ When we say nothing, when we do nothing, we are consenting to these trespasses against us.”
Silence breeds and perpetuates injustice — certainly true of the long history of sexual harassment and assault in the the workplace, which is why it’s so important to speak out (if you’re able, safe, and comfortable to do so). Or, if you’re unable or not a victim yourself, it’s important to listen, believe, and amplify. Note: this is men’s shared responsibility. The onus is not all on women and is especially not all on victims.
We’re in a moment with the potential for lasting cultural change, but in order for the #MeToo movement to solidify and take root with employers and policymakers — those who can meaningfully change our workplaces and laws — it’s essential for people of all genders to continue the work and keep the momentum going.
So sure, I’d certainly reiterate the need for the aforementioned man to keep his hands to himself at work, and I’d suggest he listen a lot more than perhaps he’s accustomed to — but I’d also encourage him to use his voice and/or platform to intervene when necessary, amplify others, speak up for change within the company, and move the movement forward, creating a more equitable workplace for all.
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