23 | The Woes of Women in the Workplace
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Transcript
Hello and welcome. It’s great to have you here as always. Today, I’m talking about something that has reared its ugly head a couple of times in the last few weeks. The first time was in a scene in the Barbie movie where Gloria, played by America Ferrara, talks about how it’s impossible to be a woman.
And there’ve been a couple of things happening with colleagues and friends recently that has highlighted to me the unique position that women are in in the workplace. None of this stuff is new, unfortunately. None of it is particularly groundbreaking.
But I feel like if we don’t continue to have these conversations, we are doing ourselves as women, our children, our peers, our colleagues, our mentors, and the people who have gone before us a real disservice. I’m not going to enter into the gender debate. I know it’s huge at the moment. I’m not going there.
I’m talking about conditions that have been in place for as long as I know and the frustration and destruction that it causes to so many people.
I’m going to start today by reading the monologue that America Ferrara delivers exceptionally well. If you haven’t seen the movie, this scene in particular is one that really resonated with me. And it goes like this:
“You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men's bad behaviour, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.
But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.
I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don't even know. “
I am going to let that sink in because there’s a lot in that. Not my words, obviously, but it’s a really accurate representation of how so many people feel. When you add workplace into that, I think it actually gets worse. Because, as women, we are told in the workplace not to show emotion, mot to make a fuss when we don't get paid the equivalent to what our male counterparts do, even when we work harder than they do. We’re told to be grateful for being given a seat at the table and then told not to say anything when we are there. We’re told to dress up, wear makeup, get our nails done, even invest in botox to look professional. While men sit there with shirts too tight, hairy stomach sticking out of them and they’re okay.
We’re told not to let our childcare obligations impact our work. So we bust our arses all day, every day to make sure that doesn’t happen. Even if we have incredibly capable partners that have active fathers, that is still generally the case.
And when you consider that even the temperature of most buildings is set to suit the metabolic rates of the average 40-year-old male, we’re doing all of this while we’re freezing our arses off. We’re always cold and who can work effectively if they’re uncomfortable.
I read an article recently that almost tipped me over the edge to be honest with you. According to the UN secretary-general in and article from March this year, gender equality is 300 years away. In 2021, just two years ago, we were 135 years away from gender equality. How is it possible that in two years, we’ve lost 165 years? How are we 165 years further away from equality now than we were two years ago?
I just don’t understand how that’s possible. I’m literally asking, how is it possible that we’ve slid back 165 years in the space of two years?
To put this into perspective the first women's rights convention was held in 1848. So in 70, sorry, 175 years we’ve not managed to close that gap.
I have a daughter. She’s amazing. Like many young women out there, she is motivated, incredibly talented. She’s smart. She’s funny. She’s vibrant. And this is her future. What are we doing?
Let me give you a few examples. So for anyone who’s listening and thinks, hmmm, not quite sure about this, I’m going to pick out some very vivid memories from my personal career, that I am going to list in no particular order, but some are as recent as last week. So let’s put that into perspective, some of these things have happened this year.
When speaking to a male boss about applying for a promotion, I was told "It might be different if you were a boy". By a male colleague when I spoke up at a management meeting "Is it your time of the month?". A female colleague who said to me "Oh, look at you in your pretty little dress with a bow in your hair. Maybe you should dress more like a man if you want to be taken seriously". Or a male executive (outside my reporting line), when he tried to get me to have sex with him on the desk and said "You wouldn't be lingering around the office if you didn't want someone to take advantage of you". Or a female line manager who said "If I had to do the hard yards then every other woman should have to too. I'm not about to go easy on other women". I’ve also had a female manager tell me that maybe I should consider some Botox for my f”rowny face'“.
Npw, I personally don’t want to embark on any kind of cosmetic surgery. I’m not about to judge people that make a different choice to that, but to have my line manager tell me that would be a smart career move, honestly, is really disappointing.
Again, to put this into perspective, I’m an educated white woman in Australia. I have all kinds of privilege on my side.
And those are some of the most vivid examples of inappropriateness directed toward my gender. Nearly half of them are from other women. So, we’re not helping each other out very well. here we are. I cannot imagine how much harder it would be for people that aren’t in the common demographic. People with English as a second language, people of different racial or cultural backgrounds, people who might have a disability. All those things add up to even more opportunities for things to be presented as gender related issues.
Now I’m a person that has worked hard all my life. I worked hard to pay my way through unit. I worked hard after I finished uni to pay off my uni debt. I worked hard to look after my children from holding down a full-time job, taking no maternity leave for either of them. I worked hard to write a book while I was working full-time to try to generate passive income. I work hard to try to start up a side hustle while I’m working full time to pay the bills. And I look around me and I compare myself to my male peers, people I went to university with, people that I knew at school and they are all in higher roles than me. I know for a fact that having children impacted my career. I had a number of my girlfriends point out that fact when I told them I was trying to conceive that I should hold off on having a family because my career would be jeopardised. And they were right, almost exclusively, they’re in GM or CEO roles now, and I am not.
In fact, I’ve been in the same type of role for 20 years because I made the choice to have children ‘young’. And I say that in inverted commas because I wasn’t really young by traditional standards. But the truth is that being a woman has and continues to be dishonoured in the workplace. We are working in a system that is built to support men. Largely where someone is in the house to look after the domestic chores. We don’t get an opportunity to utilise our vast skills of intuition and generosity. And in America, where women represent only 14% of executive positions. We also know that we do not have a voice. We’re in a bit better position in Australia. 22% of CEOs are women and 31% of women are in management positions. But only 18% of board chairs are women in Australia. A far cry from the 50% representative that we make up in the general population. So, without women having a seat at the table, without women being in executive positions, without women having a voice and advocating for the basics and knowing then that some of the women that actually get up there have the attitude that, well, if I had to do it the hard way then others do too. It’s no wonder we’re 300 years away from equality.
Women are the doers. We notice when something is lacking and we step in to fill the gap. It’s the reality that in many offices around the world, it’s the women that are setting up for meetings, as well as running the meetings, as well as cleaning up after the meetings. It’s women that organise the lunches, the morning teas, the afternoon teas, the after work drinks, the trivia nights, on top of their day jobs. They don’t get paid extra for it. They do it because they know it’s good for the people around them. They know it’s good for mental health. they know it’s good for comradery. They know it’s good to create teamwork. They know it makes a difference to people’s enjoyment of work. So they do it unpaid.
With this extra load comes a reduced capacity for us to be able to engage in strategic thinking. We’re so busy doing as women, we don’t get the space to think. And this is where the gap wides.
Because, as women sit there on a Friday afternoon, racing to meet a deadline, putting the finishing touches on something before it goes live, dotting i’s and crossing t’s, the executives, largely all men, all white, all 40 plus, are sitting together, drinking beers and discussing strategy. And so it’s easy to see how that gap is going to remain and how it’s going to be perpetuated moving forward.
So, how can we change this? Well, I think the first point I would like to make is not mine, but Einstein’s. Nothing happens until something moves. We have 50% of the power. It’s time we bloody well used it. Seriously, women! We need jobs advertised with pay scales so that we can demand what we’re worth. the truth is most women don’t know what we’re worth because we don’t get to see payroll sheets. So, when we apply for a role we think we’re doing okay until we find out when we’re in the role that other people on our same level are earning more than us because they have a penis.
They’re not necessarily better than us. They don’t work harder than us. They’re not smarter than us. They’re not more capable than us. They have different genitalia. And they’re possibly better at negotiating because they’ve had more experience at it. And they know their worth because they’ve been able to see that data in the past.
Secondly, I think education, particularly financial literacy and business acumen, is paramount for girls and young women. We cannot get ahead unless we know our numbers. We need to teach out children basic accounting. We need to teach them how to budget. We need to teach them how to reconcile a budget. we need to teach them how to invest. We need to teach them the power of compounding interest. We need to start them small and grow them into really capable financial champions. We need to wise them up to the shit that goes on in the office. The games that get played, the politics.
We need to teach them how to deal with it and how to get in the game, because the games aren’t going anywhere, unfortunately. As much as I’d love them to just not be there, can we all just go in, do our jobs, work as a team, and get shit done? Wouldn’t that be awesome? The reality is that is not how life works.
For many women in the world, the only solution to this shithouse system that we’ve got going on is to get out of it, create a new system. It’s why women are leaving traditional roles in droves. They’re creating startups, they’re moving into consulting, they’re doing more independent types of work. they’re getting out of toxic workplaces that are designed by men, for men.
They’re recognising that women work on a 28 day cycle, not a 24 hour cycle. And that there are times when they are more creative, times when they’re more strategic, and times when they just need to get away from it all, bunker down and get shit done. And that is a cyclical process that happens over longer periods of time than our workforce is designed for currently. They’re moving into creative roles. They’re doing stuff they’re passionate about, and the world is paying them grandly for it, let me add. There’s plenty of women out there doing very, very well for themselves in this new system that they’re creating. But it is scary. And it is har work. So having systems of support around you to be able to do that is imperative.
One of the biggest concerns I have is that my daughter will be having this same conversation in her 40s that I’m having now that my my had 20 years ago. It' terrifies me to think that I can’t make a difference in this.
I’m honestly devastated by the fact that in my entire career, we’ve got nowhere. I’m earning now the same that I was 10 years ago, in the same job that I was doing 10 years ago and I know I have more to give.
This is not about me though, this is about the collective. Because my story is not mine alone. It is echoes in almost every conversation I have with friends and colleagues in Australia, in New Zealand, in the UK and in the US. And the choices that they’re making are to go it alone.
The downside of that is that we take away what every organisation desperately needs. Care, compassion, consideration, thoughtfulness.
Because without women in the workplace, that is diluted. And I’m not saying that men don’t care. Please don’t misread that. There are plenty of amazing male leaders out there that genuinely care about the people that work for them. But unfortunately, they’re in the minority and they’re not speaking up enough to make a big enough change.
And they’re in a shit position too, let’s be honest, because even if they really want to change it, they would have to be the ones that would speak out. They’d have to be the ones to raise the fact that, hey, I’m sitting here and I’m looking around and I see no diversity. They need to be the ones that are courageous enough to speak out against the norms. They’re also the ones that, in quiet, are mentoring and coaching, supporting top female talent.
But we can’t close a 300-year gap by doing stuff in quiet, behind closed doors, in on-on-one sessions. This is the kind of stuff that, if we’re going to make a difference, we have to do boldly. We have to start having some really robust conversations. We need to say to our CEOs, it’s not okay that there’s not female representation. It’s not okay that there’s not ethnic representation. It’s not okay that there’s not whatever kind of diversity representation you need. And I am still and always will be a very firm believer of right person, right role. Every single time. I never want anyone to choose me because I have a vagina. I want to be chosen because I’m the right person for the role. And I can guarantee you that 90% of the women out there feel the same way. They don’t want to get a job just because they’re a woman. But they also don’t want to miss out because they’re a woman. And there are plenty of women out there that would love the opportunity to step up but they don’t know how to have that conversation with their line manager. They don’t know how to do career progression planning. They don’t even know how to set objectives for the next financial year because no one had coached them on this. These are not innate skills. They’re things that are taught and practiced, and practiced again.
We are not going to close a 300 year gender gap in a generation unless we start having really, really big awkward conversations. We need to be bold, We need to be honest. We need to be okay with emotion. For God’s sake, we’re all human.
To be human is to have emotions. So to ask women not to be emotional when they’re having a conversation about something that really matters to them is really disrespectful. It’s dishonouring the essence fo what it is to be human.
This is my protest. I will continue to advocate, as I always have, right person, right role, let’s up the education, let’s start having some hard conversations. I’ve been saying this shit since I was 20, I’m not going to stop now. But we’ve got different forums now. 20 years ago, there wasn’t a little thing called Instagram. 20 years ago, I would not have been brave enough to record a podcast that’s going to go out to the internet and be available for anyone to listen to. But we do what we can when we can and hopefully we make a difference. And hopefully little bit by little bit we spread the word.
And that monologue from Barbie, damn, I hope that takes over the world. Really, I do. Because right now, it’s impossible to be a woman. But you know what? It’s pretty impossible to be a man too. We put such unrealistic expectations on each other every day. So let’s just try and be a little bit kinder. Let’s try and be a little bit more honest. Let’s try and be a little more collaborative. Let’s try and be a bit more inclusive. Because diversity, it is the way through cultural change. It is the way to better engagement. It' is the way to make sure that people turn up into these expensive office buildings and turn up to be part of a team. We need to encourage diversity in all its forms. And women are good at that.
I’m not saying men aren’t. Let’s be really clear here. I don’t know whether I’ve been clear enough, but let’s be really clear. I’m not saying men are not nurturing. I’m not saying men don’t care. I’m not saying men are the issue here. I do not believe that at all. The system is a problem. The system has been set up to support behaviours or work that are more inclined for men. And in order to close that gender gap that we have, we have to make the system better for women as well. I don’t want to disadvantage men. Again, I want to be really clear on this. I am not anti-men. I love men. But I love women too. Being a woman and having a daughter, it’s really important to me to make her life as easy as possible. And if we can start to close some of the gaps out, pay being the biggest one. All you need to do is have a look at the different superannuation pay scales for men and women in Australia. Pretty easily available, just Google it. Pretty sure it is on the ATO website. By 18, women have already got something like $4,000 less in super than men. Right out of the bat, we’re behind and we can never catch up. By the time we’re in our childbearing years, that gap just widens. And then right when we’re having children is generally the time where many of our peers are transitioning into higher roles and we’re discrimnated against because we have children or we take some time out which slows our career path. While our male counterparts surge ahead we then have to juggle young children, child care, breastfeeding, bottle feeding, nappies, nighttime wakings, you name it. Still, traditionally largely the woman’s responsibility.
I’m an outlier, I have an amazing husband. He does washing. He does groceries, probably more than I do because I hate the supermarket. He cleans the house. He’ll do stuff in the garden. He’s handy around the home. So he’ll fix shit when it’s broken. he’s supportive. he’s kind, generous, he’s caring. He’ll take me our on date nights. I have a really easy time of it most of the time. And yet, I still can’t close this pay gap. I still can’t close the equity gap with my peers. So what about those people that don’t have that? Where are they?
This is not okay. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
And we all need to do our part to change it. Little bit by little bit. Every day in every way.
