The
Atlantic just shared on Facebook an interview it conducted with Barbara Annis,
the founder of a consultancy that helps firms create gender equitable cultures.
In the interview, Annis made two interesting points:
1) "If you look at technology companies, they’re looking to overcome what they call the “brain drain” or what they call the “talent drain.” They’re losing women: Women come in after having graduated and they last three to five years, so that’s one."
2) “Why aren’t we making progress?” We’ve made great progress in middle management: Why aren’t we making progress in senior management?"
Basically, Annis says that many technology companies hire women but are unable to keep hold of them. Second, she says that women progress to middle management but do not reach senior management levels in many firms.
The good news is that society has progressed to the point that most big firms seek to hire 50% women. In terms of the numbers, most big firms are gender equitable. The bad news is that turnover for women is high -- probably because they think that the work environment is not accommodating and supportive of women. And if women do not leave these firms, they are unable to progress to senior management -- probably because the people who decide the promotions are male. In short, there is still a long ways to go to achieving gender equity in the workplace!
This is super interesting and a topic that we recently discussed in my Corportate Governanve and Ethics class. It's shocking the lack of women we see translating from lower level to higher level. We specifically looked at women on corporate boards and the numbers are incredibly lacking. There was an article that women explained what the problems they felt they were facing and what was keeping them out and they all said that they didn't feel heard or viewed as equal by their male counterparts. We also see a lot of these spaces being heavily male dominated and have a culture that actively keeps women out of it. For example a lot of networking and "meetings" happen at golf courses. This is hard for women because many golf clubs only just allowed women members and also women are not as active in the golf world growing up. It's really interesting the usage of prerequisites that don't have anything to do with job qualifications but keep women out in other ways. Super interesting to think about for sure!
ReplyDeleteThanks Zubin for the comment and thanks Mackenzie for the response! This is super interesting. It reminds me of an article I read for my internship this summer, which looked at why black individuals leave grant-making institutions. They essentially leave for the same reasons, as there is little opportunity for upward mobility within the organization. Like Mackenzie said, there for sure needs to be a culture shift that is a) accepting and inviting of women and b) lets them move up within the company. It's sad that so many people can voice the same concern over and over and still be ignored.
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