workplace

Work Has Changed: The Impact on Women

by

New research, reported by Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times, notes that while American women are more educated than ever, a smaller share of college-educated women in their early forties are working today than a decade ago. In fact, the most educated women face the biggest gender gap in seniority and pay. Miller points out that women aren’t only opting out of careers because of discrimination, a lack of childcare, or a dearth of paid family leave policies. While these factors all contribute, research by sociologists and economists has converged on a new understanding of the way the nature of work has changed and how this change disproportionately impacts women’s careers. Researchers Youngjoo Cha at Indiana University, Kim Weeden at Cornell, and Mauricio Bucca at the European University Institute explain that “new ways of organizing work reproduce old forms of inequality.” Their findings include multiple alarming statistics:

  • In the last two decades, salaried workers have earned more by working long hours. Four decades ago, people who worked fifty hours a week made less per hour than did those who worked forty hours per week. Today, people who overwork—working sixty hours a week or more—are paid a premium and those with round-the-clock availability earn disproportionally more.
  • Claudia Goldin, an economist at Harvard, notes that overwork is most extreme in managerial jobs and in the greedy professions, such as finance, law and consulting. These professions demand long, inflexible hours—which has canceled out the effects of women’s educational gains.
  • Goldin explains, “Being willing to work 50 percent more doesn’t mean you make 50 percent more, you make like 100 percent more.” Goldin notes that financial rewards for working extra long hours don’t’ have a gender gap, but far fewer women seek such rewards, particularly mothers. Someone has to take care of the children, and usually that person is the mother. She cuts back on her hours, diminishes her future earning potential, flatlines her career, and underutilizes her education so that her spouse can maximize his earning potential for the family by overworking.
  • Men are much more likely to have a spouse who is on call at home. Cha reports that three-quarters of men in the top 1 percent of earners have an at-home spouse. Just one-quarter of women in the top 1 percent of earners do. In dual-earner households in which a man worked sixty or more hours, women were three times as likely to quit their jobs.

Miller points out that highly educated women aren’t the only ones impacted by the changing nature of work. Unpredictable and inflexible hours pose a challenge to family life and careers for same-sex parents, middle-class families, and low-income workers. She notes that researchers have focused on college-educated women because they are most prepared to have big careers, but their careers tend to flatline. In dual-career families with children, when one career takes priority, it is generally the man’s.

Several factors have contributed to the overwork trend affecting women. Technology makes people more accessible at all hours; business has become more global and people are now expected to work across time zones; the wealth gap in society makes people feel less secure; employment is increasingly unstable; work has become more competitive; and working long hours is a status symbol and a way to stand out.

What can be done to change the nature of work? Goldin states that most solutions for how to close the gender gap are merely band-aids because the problem is systemic. She suggests that the very nature of work needs to change, which will only happen if people demand it. Younger men say they want more involvement in family life. Employers want to keep talent and may listen if young men start to quit. Employers may even begin to notice that they are losing out on women’s talents and training by requiring and rewarding only long and inflexible hours.

We need to start a discussion on a national level about the nature of work and how to make it more humane for everyone. Everyone will benefit if work is predictable and flexible and rewards reflect quality instead of quantity of hours, and employers will gain access to talent pools that are not available to them now.

 

Photo by Sai De Silva on Unsplash

Why Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Is So Difficult to Stop

by

Susan Fowler, writing for the New York Times, notes that it is now abundantly clear that sexual harassment is pervasive in every industry. While getting rid of it will not be easy, we now know some facts that will help:

  • We have to stop the practice of forced arbitration as a condition of employment. Forced arbitration takes away our rights to sue in court and can legally bind us to keep silent about what has happened to us. A recent Supreme Court decision confirming that employers can continue this practice means that we need new federal legislation to make this change.
  • We need legislation at the state and federal levels to protect employees.
    • Some progress has been made at the state level in Washington state and California.
    • We need much more progress at the federal level, including new legislation to eliminate forced arbitration as a condition of employment.
Jodi Kantor of the New York Times notes that there exists “giant holes in the federal laws meant to protect women from harassment.” These can come in several different forms:
  • Existing law only covers workplaces with fifteen or more employees.
  • Federal statutes of limitations for filing a claim can be as short as 180 days.
  • Damages can be capped at $300,000.
Kantor goes on to explain that harassment has flourished partly because structures intended to address it or protect against it are missing or broken:
  • Weak laws fail to protect women.
  • Corporate policies and procedures protect the company but not the employees.
  • Secret settlements protect offenders and keep patterns of abuse out of the public eye.
  • Human resources departments focus on protecting organizations from legal liability rather than protecting employees.
  • No consensus exists on how to report a repeat offender who goes from job to job or to address more minor infractions with measures short of suspension or firing.
  • Low wage workers are now more willing to speak up about sexual harassment, but it’s not clear who they should tell.
Even some of the most powerful women in the United States have so far been unable to get protections for congressional staff. All twenty-two female members of the Senate—Republican and Democrat—have pushed for an overhaul of the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, which provides more protection for members of Congress who are accused of sexual harassment than it does for the victims. #MeToo and #TimesUp are important movements to keep the pressure on for change. We must support and vote for candidates in the upcoming elections, at the state and federal levels, who are committed to passing legislation to protect women. Support candidates who support women.   Photo courtesy of Phil Roeder (CC BY 2.0)]]>

The Cost of Success for Women: Perspectives from a Male Ally

by

After reading a recent article by Sendhil Mullainathan in the New York Times, I understood what my black colleagues mean when they say that having white allies gives them room to breathe. What are allies? The North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) offers these helpful definitions:

  • Allies validate and support people who are different from themselves.
  • Allies examine their own prejudices and privileges and are not afraid to look at themselves.
  • Allies act to be part of the solution.
As a white woman, I have spent much of my life thinking and talking and writing about how women need to work together to push for change to improve the lives of women. Mullainathan, a professor at Harvard, writing as a male ally about the part men play in creating challenges for successful women, gives me room to breathe. Even when women manage to buck societal barriers and become successful, Mullainathan reports on the unseen costs of success for women:
  • A recent Swedish study of gender differences found that the divorce rate increased for successful female political candidates, but not for male candidates. The authors acknowledge that this study, like most, focuses only on heterosexual partners.
  • Women who become CEOs divorce at a higher rate than men.
  • Another study found that women who received Oscars in Hollywood for best actress were more likely to divorce, which is not the case for men who won for best actor.
  • When the wife in a couple earns more than her spouse, she spends more time on household chores than her husband and is more likely to end up divorced.
Other researchers concluded that to a significant extent, “women are bringing personal glass ceilings from home to the workplace,” installed by spouses who cannot tolerate their success. The author steps forward as an ally when he notes that if sexism is so widespread among other men, he himself is probably sexist. “Fixing these problems is my responsibility—and the responsibility of other men, too.” He suggests that men need to
  • Engage in introspection and become aware of their attitudes and behaviors
  • Ask questions of the women in their lives and listen to their pain-filled answers
  • Identify behavior changes they can make and encourage other men to do the same
When I read this article, I immediately felt and thought, “I can breathe!”   Photo courtesy of Ryan McGuire (CC 1.0)]]>

When Women and Men Work Together: The Costs and Benefits

by

Many women and men are still wary of working together when their work requires them to have one-on-one meetings or to travel together for business. New research reported by Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times  reveals that almost two-thirds of the 5,282 registered voters surveyed by the New York Times say, “People should take extra caution around members of the opposite sex at work.” Miller notes that these results also partially explain “why women still don’t have the same opportunities as men. . . . They [women] are treated differently.” Like many women, my work sometimes requires that I travel with male colleagues for my business. I currently have wonderful male colleagues with whom I have respectful and trusting relationships. I also have had those other experiences, so I understand the need for caution, especially for younger women. Early in my career in two different contexts, two senior male colleagues who had the power to offer me business opportunities used their power to demand sexual favors. Both were married, older men. They may not have thought of themselves as “demanding favors” and may have thought they were offering me a compliment by propositioning me—but they probably knew they were abusing their positions. Because of their power to cut off my much-needed income, their actions put me in a very difficult position. I did rebuff them both—and they both stopped hiring me. The financial impact was devastating for me. Women and men need to be able to work together, yet Miller describes real reasons to be wary:

  • Power differences do make it difficult for the lower-power individuals to protect themselves. Their vulnerability is real. This is true for both women and men. However, men do still hold a higher proportion of the high-power positions, so women are still more likely to be vulnerable.
  • The recent examples from Uber and Fox clearly show that sexual harassment is still being perpetrated and tolerated and ignored by the highest levels of leadership. This makes women and men more afraid to report unwanted and unwelcome advances.
  • The perception of inappropriate behavior in the workplace, whether or not it has actually been experienced that way, can ruin careers.
The discomfort women and men can experience working together can clearly result in negative impacts on women’s careers:
  • People tend to hire and promote people like themselves with whom they are most comfortable. Miller, in a previous article, described this phenomenon as “homophily.”
  • Women may not be invited to join a male boss on a business trip because of his fear of a perception of inappropriate behavior by the female employee or by others. Women may, then, lose opportunities for advancement and exposure to new business networks. This can be career limiting.
  • If women have difficulty getting one-on-one meetings with male bosses, they may not be able to demonstrate their readiness for promotions.
I wrote in a previous article about the “tax” women pay due to fear of sexual assault and sexual harassment. What can organizations do? Miller suggests keeping office doors open for one-on-one meetings, utilizing conference rooms with glass walls, and going for after-work drinks or dinner with multiple coworkers. Communication is key—companies can teach women and men how to have honest conversations about how to work together. Organizations should also have multiple, clear procedures and supports available for employees to use when they feel inappropriate behavior has happened. Often, perpetrators are unaware of the impact their behavior has had, and they need some low-key feedback and counseling to change their behavior. I wish it was not still necessary for women and men to exercise thoughtful caution when working with each other, but it is. We can manage this dynamic and have enjoyable and productive work relationships without penalizing women’s careers. What has worked for you?   Image courtesy of Highways England. CC by 2.0]]>

Is Sexual Harassment Coming to an End? Good News and Bad News

by

First, the good news: dozens of women have been speaking out about sexual harassment in the workplace in recent months, bringing their upsetting experiences into the light and out of the shadows after a long period of silence about this issue in organizations. Understandably, women have been coming forward slowly either because of pressure to stay silent or justifiable fear of negative consequences to their careers. Gretchen Carlson spoke out at Fox News and brought about the firing of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly, and other women gained courage from her example to tell their stories of sexual harassment at Fox. Mike Isaac of the New York Times reports that “in February, the former Uber engineer Susan Fowler wrote a public blog post detailing what she said was a history of sexual harassment at Uber. That plunged Uber into crisis” and emboldened dozens of other women to come forward about the pervasive “bro culture” at technology firms. Shirley Leung of the Boston Globe  notes that while most women have not spoken out publicly because of fear of losing opportunities for jobs or startup funding, those who have are making an impact. Katie Benner of the New York Times  describes some of the results:

  • Dave McClure, founder of the startup incubator 500 StartUps, resigned after admitting to an accusation of sexual harassment. The company also had covered up an earlier sexual harassment charge against him when “the investigation was kept confidential.”
  • Binary Capital imploded due to sexual harassment charges lodged against Justin Caldbeck by several women.
  • Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigned.
  • The New England Venture Capital Association invited members to sign a pledge of good behavior.
Now for the bad news: the voluntary signing of a good-behavior pledge is not likely to change much. While I agree with Katie Benner that “often change happens only when there is public revelation,” I don’t think that public revelation is enough to stop sexual harassment. I agree with Farhad Manjoo that sexual harassment is systemic, pervasive, and ingrained in many organizational cultures. Sexual harassment is systemic because
  • Organizational leaders ignore complaints or sweep them under the rug
  • Lack of transparency is built into employment contracts with arbitration clauses that rarely favor complainants
  • Lack of transparency is built into nondisclosure agreements required for settlements when sexual harassment claims are found to have merit
  • Abusive organizational cultures are enabled by a failure of oversight by boards and investors
The fact that a few dozen women have spoken out and a handful of high profile CEOs and investors have been dismissed does not mean that anything has changed. Katie Benner notes that “some venture capital firms [the sites of a lot of sexual harassment] are privately grumbling about having to deal with the issue.” She quotes Aileen Lee, a founder of Cowboy Ventures, as saying, “They’re asking when people will stop being outed.” As I have written in previous articles, steps can be taken to really change organizational cultures to be more hospitable to women: In the meantime, thank you to the women who have come forward publicly to put this important issue back into the spotlight. And thank you to the trustees of Uber who forced the founder to step down for a wide range of bad behavior, including sexual harassment at his company.   Image courtesy of US Embassy, Jakarta. CC by-nd 2.0]]>

Male CEOs with Daughters Are More Socially Responsible Leaders

by

I just came across an interesting new study, reported in the Harvard Business Review (HBR), showing that companies run by male executives with female children rated higher on measures of corporate social responsibility (CSR), defined as “measures of diversity, employee relations, and environmental stewardship,” than is true for comparable companies led by men with no daughters.  This means that male CEOs with daughters spend significantly more net income on CSR priorities than is true for other companies (unless the CEO is a woman, but more on this later). Alison Beard, writing for HBR, reports on this research by Henrik Cronqvist of the University of Miami and Frank Yu of China Europe International Business School, who examined the CSR ratings of S&P 500 companies tracked between 1992 and 2012 and compared the CSR ratings for male executives with male and female offspring.  Beard notes that other researchers have found similar results on voting records for US congressmen who have daughters and for the decisions of US Court of Appeals judges with daughters.  Here are some of the findings:

  • Male CEOs with daughters spend significantly more net income on CSR than the median. Cronqvist and Yu explain that the literature in economics, psychology, and sociology support the notion that “women tend to care more about the well-being of other people and of society than men do, and that female children can increase those sympathies in their parents.” They hypothesize that because the median age of S&P 500 CEOs in the research sample was fifty-seven, these male CEOs may have seen their daughters discriminated against in the workplace and become sensitized to issues of inequality.
  • Male CEOs with only sons did not spend more on CSR.
  • Male CEOs with female spouses and no daughters did not spend more on CSR.
  • Research from Yale University by Eboyna Washington shows that US congressmen with daughters tend to vote more liberally, especially for legislation involving reproductive rights.
  • Beard reports on research by Adam Glynn of Emory and Maya Sen of Harvard that found similar patters among US Court of Appeals judges in cases involving gender issues.
As for female CEOs, Cronqvist and Yu had only a small sample of them available in their study, so they could not draw firm conclusions.  They did make these interesting observations that are worth noting:
  • The companies in their sample with female CEOs had much stronger CSR ratings in every category—diversity, employee relations, environment, product, human rights, and community—than did those of the male-led companies.
  • The researchers calculate that a male CEO with a daughter produces “slightly less than a third of the effect of having a female CEO. Comparisons of the data on congressmen and judges yield similar numbers.”  They conclude that “any man behaves one-third more ‘female’ when he parents a girl.”
These findings add to the growing body of research showing that gender does influence the decisions of leaders, legislators, judges, and other decision makers, in one way or another.  Doesn’t it make sense to have more gender-balanced representation in all decision-making arenas? Photo courtesy of Ruben Diaz, Jr.. CC by-nd 2.0]]>

How We Can Stop Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

by

Women, for the most part, just want sexual harassment to stop when it happens. But, as Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times reports, women (and it is mostly women who are harassed) rarely report sexual harassment for good reasons: fear of retaliation that can take the form of hostility from supervisors, bad references, or loss of opportunity when labeled as a “troublemaker.”  This is not a small problem for women.  Miller reports that an analysis of fifty-five surveys shows that close to 50 percent of women have experienced sexual harassment, but only one-fourth to one-third of people who have been harassed report it to a supervisor or a union representative.  Only 2 percent to 13 percent file a formal complaint. Miller notes that official harassment policies and grievance procedures are often designed primarily to protect the organization from lawsuits—not to protect the employees.  Susan Fowler, a former Uber employee, and Ellen Pao, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, are both at the center of high profile cases where women who reported sexual harassment were not protected by their companies. Noam Scheiber of the New York Times also explains that anonymous hotlines are ineffective, another example of how grievance procedures that should protect employees do not.  Scheiber describes several instances where anonymous hotlines were actually used to suppress allegations of sexual harassment rather than dealing with them.  These hotlines often exist in obscurity to insulate the organization from legal liability, and employees never know they exist. This was found to be the case at Fox News when the O’Reilly case recently came to light. Claire Cain Miller points out that it is not policies, HR departments or training sessions that prevent sexual harassment—it is an organizational culture where, top down, sexual harassment is really not tolerated.  Miller offers some steps that organizations can take, drawn from recommendations by commissions and researchers, to ensure that employees are protected and can safely report sexual harassment:

  • Authorize dozens of employees throughout the organization to receive complaints
  • Hire an ombudsman
  • Promote more women to positions of power
  • Train people in how to be civil and how to speak up as bystanders—and be sure that senior managers attend the trainings
  • Put in proportional consequences for offenses so that low-grade instances can be handled with conversations rather than firing
Bryce Covert adds that we are all losing when sexual harassment is hidden and does not come to light.  For this reason, he adds this additional recommendation to the list of changes needed to prevent and stop sexual harassment:
  • Eliminate arbitration clauses in contracts, which almost always favor employers, and eliminate nondisclosure agreements when settlements are made
Sexual harassment will continue to be pervasive unless organizations start to really care about protecting their employees.  We must all continue to speak out in whatever forums we have available to us to insist on workplaces that are free of sexual harassment and other demeaning behavior.   Photo courtesy of Tony Webster. CC by-sa 2.0]]>

Why Work Is Good for Women

by

I have always had a fierce drive for financial independence. When I was a girl child in the 1950s and 1960s, I remember reflecting on my mother’s traditional suburban life as a homemaker and being horrified by her lack of independence. Although she was living a life that met society’s expectations, she often told me stories about dreams she had abandoned to be a wife and mother. I also knew that while she and my father had rough patches in their marriage from time to time, leaving him was not an option for her. She had only a middle-school education and limited work experience. She had no financial independence. She was stuck. I vowed not to be like her. Her options were limited, and, while more types of jobs are available to women today than in her time, some of our society’s assumptions and expectations about women and work have not changed. Jill Filipovic of the New York Times writes about the ambivalence still present in the United States about women and work. She notes that while work is still acknowledged as important to men’s sense of self-worth and identity as providers, “historically women weren’t supposed to need their individual identity to be formed through work . . . women’s identities have long been relational—daughter, wife, mother—rather than individual.” In fact, this difference seems to have been a strong driver in the 2016 presidential election as white working-class women and men voted for Trump, who promised to bring back the blue-collar jobs that provided self-worth for white working-class men and paid wages that reinforced their identity as providers. Even though women surged into the workforce between 1950 and 2000 and the number of hours worked by both black and white women more than doubled, Americans still remain ambivalent about women working today. Filipovic notes that there is no robust feminist argument in favor of women working outside the home. I remember when early second-wave feminists did try to make this argument in the 1970s and 1980s, and the backlash was so swift and fierce that they had to back down. Remember when Hillary Clinton had to bake cookies in the 1990s when her husband ran for president to prove that she was an acceptable woman even though she had a successful law career? Filipovic writes, “That feminists are so often unable or unwilling to make a vigorous moral argument in favor of women working . . . is perhaps one reason we have not yet seen the political groundswell necessary to pass the workplace policies we so desperately need.” Research shows, however, that it is good for everyone when women work:

  • Women are better off when we work outside of the home: our mental and physical health are better and our levels of happiness are higher.
  • Daughters of working mothers tend to be higher achievers.
  • Men raised by working mothers do more housework and child care as adults.
  • Men who have working wives tend to be more supportive of, and give more promotions to, female coworkers.
  • Women who are financially independent are less likely to get stuck in abusive or unhappy relationships.
Unfortunately, public opinion remains stuck. Filipovic reports that “just over half of Americans believe children are better off with a mother who is at home full time and does not hold a job. Only 8 percent say the same thing about fathers.” Our ambivalence about women working and achieving successful careers runs deep. A recent study reported in the Boston Globe found that “after the hiring of a female or minority CEO, white male executives identified less with the company and felt less valued by it, than when a white male CEO was hired.” No wonder we have not been able to elect a female president or pass legislation that supports women working outside of the home. We seem to have a long way to go, baby! Photo courtesy of Jo Guildl. CC by 2.0]]>

Four Reasons Why Women’s Empowerment Is a National Security Issue

by

I admit that I got nervous when the Trump transition team demanded that the State Department submit details of programs and jobs dedicated to promoting gender equity. Given Donald J. Trump’s history of demeaning and assaulting women and his sexist behavior during the presidential campaign, it seems quite possible that his administration will pursue the elimination of all funding for women’s empowerment programs in the same way they have planned to defund Planned Parenthood, which will deprive poor women of basic healthcare services. For this reason, I was glad to read the article by Valerie M. Hudson and Dara Kay Cohen, which makes the case for resisting the elimination of these empowerment programs funded by the State Department as an issue of national security for the United States. The US State Department makes small grants to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) all over the world to help make progress in women’s empowerment. The authors offer four reasons why these programs have strategic importance for us here at home and should remain intact:

  1. Reduce member recruitment by terrorist groups. Terrorist groups such as Boko Haram in West Africa and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan find recruits among frustrated young men. In the regions where they operate, high bride prices on young women establish the young women as chattel to be bought and sold. These high bride prices frustrate young men who cannot afford them, making it easier for terrorists to recruit them. NGOs funded by the State Department are working to abolish bride prices, thereby reducing the population vulnerable to terrorist recruitment. Young men recruited as terrorists could very well end up attacking US interests in many parts of the world.
  2. Create more durable peace agreements. A landmark study by the United Nations found that peace agreements lasted longer and were more stable when women took part in the negotiations. One example of a strategic interest for the United States is to get a stable peace accord in Afghanistan. We need Afghanistan to be stable to help stabilize the region with nuclear-armed Pakistan next door. Once stable, Afghanistan will be able to provide its own security so that it is not dependent on the US military, thereby enabling the United States to withdraw from the region. If there is to be a durable peace agreement for Afghanistan, it would be wise to have both Afghan and American women at the negotiating table.
  3. Stabilize high-conflict regions. More than a decade of research shows that women’s advancement is critical to the stability of countries with a history of ethnic conflict and civil war. When girls are educated and empowered, countries are more stable and secure.
  4. Deal with matters of life, death, and dignity. The State Department makes small grants to NGOs to help women deal with the aftermath of rape during war, to eliminate genital cutting and forced marriage, and to help girls gain access to education. To his credit, President George W. Bush identified “respect for women” as a “nonnegotiable demand of human dignity.”
The Trump administration says it cares about foreign policy with a focus on national security. The authors note, “To build such a foreign policy, women’s rights are an indispensable pillar.” What are your views about continuing to support stability in war-torn areas by empowering women?   This image provided courtesy of ResoluteSupportMedia (CC BY 2.0)  ]]>

Misogyny and Double Standards for Women in Politics and at Work

by

Misogyny is a difficult and important concept to understand if we are to grasp many of the challenges that women face in politics and in the workplace. One source of confusion is that misogyny is actually an umbrella term that encompasses multiple concepts such as sexism, patriarchy, gender-based oppression, and internalized oppression. Both women and men participate in perpetuating the misogynistic attitudes, behaviors, and practices motivated by hatred or distrust of women. Such concepts are largely unconscious in individuals and often institutionalized in the policies and practices of organizations and societal institutions. I wrote about some post-election examples of misogynistic behaviors in a recent article. Another way to understand misogyny is to consider examples of double standards that women regularly experience. In order to succeed, women are often evaluated against different and harsher standards than are men, as the following examples show.

  • Women are given more negative performance reviews with more negative personality criticisms.
  • Women get interrupted more and then are criticized for not talking more in meetings.
  • Women must walk a tightrope between being effective versus likeable and too feminine versus not feminine enough.
  • Women in academia receive less research funding and less tenure credit for publishing, even though they publish as much as men also on the tenure track.
  • The gender-wage gap persists in most professions in the United States, including for teachers and nurses, for female physicians, and in the financial sector. Maria Tadeo of Bloomberg News reports on a study by the World Economic Forum showing that it will take 170 years to achieve pay equity due to continuing deterioration in progress over the past twelve months.
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times writes that we must consider the double standards women face in politics, noting that women are subjected to greater scrutiny than men in politics. He asks us to imagine how Hillary Clinton would have fared in her presidential campaign if she had
  • been married three times with five children by three husbands and referred to her daughter as “a piece of ass”
  • boasted about the size of her vagina during an election debate
  • had less experience in government or the military than any person who had ever become president
  • been caught on tape referring in a degrading way to men’s genitals
  • been accused of sexual assault by more than fifteen people
  • been sued for racial discrimination and retweeted white supremacists
  • filed six bankruptcies and withheld payment from many people who worked for her
I have seen people and organizations change once leaders become aware and support each other. I recently advised an organization trying to be more fair and inclusive to white women and to people of color. After a series of awareness training sessions, the managers began to call each other out about applying double standards when making hiring or promotion decisions. Their decisions became more conscious and intentional, resulting in a significant increase over time in hires and promotions of white women and people of color. Here are actions we can take to effectively change double standards.
  • Join together with other women and men to call out misogynistic behaviors or practices when they occur so that such actions do not remain unconscious.
  • Do not allow misogynistic behavior to be seen as “normal” or “just the way men are” either within yourself or others.
  • Form study groups to read and discuss double standards applied to white women and to people of color.
  • Take action together to recommend changes in your community or organization.
Do you have success stories? Let us hear about them so we can learn from each other.   The image in this post is courtesy of Nguyen Hung Vu (CC BY 2.0)]]>