Women have come a long way. After decades of diligent work, our natural talents are now being put at the forefront and getting recognized. Research that was undertaken by Columbia University and Goldman Sach showed that companies that had larger representation women in their workforce outperformed their competitors. Women have made their competence quite obvious to the business world.
But alas! despite the years of putting our head down and playing by the rules, the men continue to raise up the ladder faster. Statistics don’t lie: the number of women in the C-suite is negligible and that number is not raising significantly either.
Sexism and not biology is one of the major reasons why the trajectory of a woman’s career looks strikingly different from that of a man. And it is not always explicit. It wears several masks.
Unconscious bias such as preferring a male candidate over a female candidate with the same qualification or making an assumption about the type of role women can take on or even making a tasteless joke about women are all types of sexism that commonly occur at the workplace. As benign it may seem to the perpetrator, such discriminatory behavior has a profound impact on the women working in that organization.
Judging women who are at the helm of affairs is another form of sexism at play in many companies. Being assertive is often construed as being aggressive, a quality much admired in men. Expressing their opinion at meetings seem to be a risk that women take at the cost of being disliked by their colleagues.
Another often repeated pattern of sexism is: prove it again. Studies carried out by Catalyst and McKinsey reveal that women have to forever continue to prove their competence and their worth compared to men.
Thus, more often than not women get promoted based on results while men get promoted based on potential. This trend must change and equal burden of proof must be levied on both men and women before deciding who gets the promotion.
Office housework is another type of sexism that holds women back. These are the type of jobs that are necessary but not valued enough by the organization. Administrative duties, planning the meeting, recording the minutes, managing projects with low visibility are often the type of jobs expected to be taken on by the female workforce. Though such jobs undoubtedly help the company, they don’t often skyrocket a person’s career.
Sexism systematically puts women at a disadvantage. It not only degrades the culture of the workplace but companies also stand the risk of losing high potential female employees.
Apart from the harm, it causes to the individual, the legal and social implication of sexism to the company makes it paramount for businesses to address sexism head-on. Tackling sexism is no longer a feminist issue but is the right thing to do.
